Breaks between vacuum hanging sets

Are they necessary? From what I know, breaks are needed between regular hanging sets to restore circulation. Since vacuum hanging doesn’t cut circulation, are breaks needed?

For example, is it alright to do 1x60 or 2x30 minutes instead of 3x20 minutes with 10 minute breaks? Of course, with proper conditioning.

If I go that long, I’ll get a blister for sure.

As long you don’t get blisters, the longer the set the better, at least with light/medium weights.

Do you use anything to prevent it, e.g., monkeybar’s constriction sleeve or micropore tape? I plan to use micropore tape, supposedly it does miracles in preventing blisters.

Good to hear, that will spare me some time. Is there an explanation for “the longer the better” approach (I mean with sets; I know why is longer total time better)?

I no longer use it.

Personally, while I have no problems with blisters, I find that my glans still gets cold after ~30-40 minutes of straight vacuum hanging (7.5 lbs). Thus I take a 5 minute break every 30 minutes. So far there seems to be no ill effect, my EQ is actually higher than when I began my hanging routine a month ago despite only 3 days off so far.

You could try 1 hour sets with VAC hanging. If you do sets for too long with no breaks, you can get a raised whitish circle on your glans or other discoloration. As a side-note, I hear 3m micropore tape helps protect your coronal ridge, urethra & frenulum without leaving an adhesive residue. I don’t know if it will help with discoloration, but I am sure it could help a little bit with soreness, blisters & fluid buildup.

As long as your glans are not turning blueish or purplish & you’ve got circulation, then I suppose it’s ok.

5 minute break after every 30 minute set sounds reasonable. :)

Yes, that’s the one I’m talking about, 3M micropore tape. :)

So then I guess I’ll go with 30 minute sets and 5 minute breaks.

However, maybe that’s too much for someone who is just starting out. I plan to use 2.2 lbs, for how long should I hang if I’m a complete newbie to hanging? The most manual stretching I did was 35-40 minutes in a session.

I will second blink2000’s observation that you get a raised whitish circle if you go for a long time without a break. However, it is temporary (~minutes) and I haven’t had any issues the few times I’ve gotten it. Rotating the vacuum cap so that the hole is at a slightly different spot on the glans pretty much got rid of this for me when doing 30 minute sets.

I think you need to experiment (cautiously) with how you respond to vacuum hanging. For example, starting at 1 kg, hang for 15 minutes and see how you feel. Then try 20, 25, etc. until you find a good time limit for your sets. Then after a while, when you are thinking about increasing the weight, first try and increase the individual set time and see if you can handle longer sets. After that, if fatigue is still not coming in the amount of time you can spend on hanging, up the weight some. I suspect that, if you have done 40 minute manual sessions, you will find 1 kg inadequate to reach fatigue. But certainly you want to start at as low a weight as necessary for fatigue.

I agree with Innova’s advice, especially about proceeding cautiously. I assumed you had been VAC hanging a while & that you had not started out—but then again, if you were experienced, you wouldn’t have asked, so my mistake ;)

Thanks for help guys. :) One thing I’ve been wondering for a while… How does fatigue from hanging feel, exactly?

You know you have reached fatigue when you feel compelled to lower the weight. Don't allow sharp pain, reduce the weight when that time comes, especially early on while learning to hang. Pick an angle of attack & stick with it.

Reaching Fatigue
Try to reach fatigue early then reduce the weight in subsequent sets. More than anything else, go by feel. Once you increase your maximum weight, you will find that some days you wont be able to hang your maximum at all. Listen to your body—your fatigue is not determined by a set amount of weight, but by how you feel. I’ve gone for weeks at a time without being able to even hang at my maximum weight, let alone increase it.

Also, some mild sorness is ok, if it doesn’t last over 24 hours. If your soreness lasts for days, then perhaps you have pushed yourself too hard. Pushing too hard may put you too close to injury risk.

Starting Angle: BTC
I recommend BTC to start so you can maximize your suspensory ligament stretch gain potential. Even if your penis naturally exits your body at 6 O’Clock (straight down) or 7 O’clock (almost straight down), you should still start with BTC to check whether you have potential ligament stretch gains.

Westla & Bib both have stated that unless you maximized your susp lig stretch gains, it can interfere with your Tunica gains. Once you’ve maximized your lig gains, your Tunica work will theoretically be more effective. There’s a series of posts that explain the physiological reasons for this…
Maximizing Suspensory Ligament Stretch Gains Before Tunica Work

Inspect Your Unit & Warm Up
Inspect your penis between sets & after hanging… get used to how your flaccid should look (hot, cold, whenever). Make sure you do good long 10-20 minute warm-ups with a hot rice sock to increase the elasticity of your tissues & minimize the potential for injury. I personally use 20 minute warm-ups and I wont hang unless my unit feels like it was warmed to the core & almost radiates heat (before my first set). Of course don’t make it so hot that you feel any pain.. that’s no good…

Increasing the Weight
Increase the weight in 1/2lb increments, especially early on. Later 1lb increments are safe enough, generally I have never had a need to increase my weight by more than 1lb in a week. With VAC hanging, you can’t get beyond about 20lbs (that’s with a red sleeve on an AutoXleeve, the limit is much less with over devices). However, you’ve got the advantage that you can take shorter rest periods with less frequency once you adjust, so you can make up for that weight limitation with added hang time.

Wow, excellent post! Thanks very much, that’s exactly what I needed. I see you’re quite experienced with hanging so, uh, where do I start…

I see some people experience decrease of EQ when they hang, while other experience increase of EQ. What’s your stance on this? I know my EQ increased when I used 12.75 lbs ADS, but what about heavier weights?

How does hanging affect sex life, e.g., would it interfere with having sex about 4 times a week?

My erection angle is about 45° and I would like it to stay that way. I stretch left, right, SU, SO and SD, but never BTC because it supposedly lowers the erection angle. Would it hinder gains if I started SD instead of BTC? What about divide and conquer approach, as suggested by monty? He does several angles in one session (using a bungee cord).

All in all, I see it’s important to warm up thoroughly and listen to what your penis is saying to you. Makes sense. :)

Hanging & EQ
My EQ always goes up when I rest from hanging. If you hang as Bib directs (with only light days & no absolute rest days), then your EQ probably wont rise & it might drop a bit. Always take a rest day if you feel you’re near an injury. Personally, I err on the side of caution.

As far as EQ goes, I mostly do kegels with my light jelqs (when I restore circulation once I’m done hanging). At least for me personally, hanging doesn’t seem to hurt my EQ unless I go without real rest days. I think that’s going to have to be your personal choice.

I do find my skin soreness heals more quickly with Eroset’s Vein Oil (EVO for short). I did mix in 2ml of vitamin E with mine.

Sex vs Hanging
After having sex with my wife, I usually can’t do my maximum weight the next day. However, I think masturbation is far worse than sex at least for skin irritation (unless you’re using a fleshlight). You’ll have to go by feel & see how it is for you. I don’t purposely avoid sex unless I’m really sore & I feel like I am close to injury.

Erection Angle vs Ligament Stretch Gains
You may have to allow your erection angle to lower to make gains. Having a longer penis alone will lower the angle. For me, I don’t care as long as my EQ is high. And if you are long enough with good girth, eventually your penis might stand erect at a fairly low angle, even with an EQ of 10. You’ll have to decide what you want most.

Divide & Conquer
Bib says choosing a single angle of attack means “divide and conquer”, since you’re only targeting specific tissues to create creep, micro-tears, deformation & (hopefully) eventual permanent elongation of your penis. In other words, my understanding of divide & conquer is that you focus on deforming a single targeted part of your anatomy to increase your chances for success.

Bib calls many angles a “shotgun approach”. He believes this approach can’t provide enough deformation to create permanent gains.

Your body always wants to heal shorter & return to its natural equilibrium. To throw that off balance, and to heal in a permanent elongated state, it takes a lot of effort (controlled damage). This is why it may be best to target one angle at a time, and maximize gains at that angle.

However, I know there’s more than one way to grow your penis length. Monty has been around a long time & he’s got a lot of experience. You will have to decide what method makes the most sense to you (you’ll probably gain with either method, the question is only, which method will give more gains—and if you plateau, that’s a good time to consider adopting a new theory).

The Ultimate Authority
That’s the key. Our own penis tells us when it’s too much or too little. And if your penis is growing (and you’re not getting injured) then it’s likely you’re doing something right. In the end, the ultimate authority on what is best, is sitting between your legs ;)

A secondary angle of attack is good to have as a backup.

If you’re too sore to hang at your primary angle with any amount of weight, your secondary angle might at least allow you to keep hanging.

Diminishing Returns & When to Switch Angles
If you’re able to dedicate more than 4 hours of strapped in hang time per day, then you should also consider splitting your efforts between primary & secondary angles. Reports suggest more than 4 hours at a single angle is wasted time (due to diminishing returns). For traditional hanging, that would be 12x 20 minute sets—for VAC hanging, I guess it would vary by person—for some experienced VAC hangers that might only be a handful of sets, but I am not sure.

For example, if your primary angle was BTC, SD serves well as a secondary angle, or if your primary angle is SU, you could use SO as a secondary angle. At least with hanging according to Bib, you always target your primary angle, and when you can’t, you move to your secondary angle. If you can’t hang at all, you rest.

The angles you choose will impact your gains, depending on your physiology (e.g. high or low LOT, etc). To some extent, where other length increasing methods fail, hanging tends to succeed (at providing more length).

Hang-time
One key to hanging success is to eventually work up to 10 hours a week of hang-time. Most guys hanging this amount of time (or more) tend to report good gains. Hanging less still provides gains, but it doesn’t seem as effective.