What Does Fatigue Feel Like to You?

I ran this question (a similar question) by Bib just to see what he had to say. I’m paraphrasing, but basically he said that he has tried many times over the years to better define and quantify fatigue, but has been unsuccessful. I was talking about hanging BTC and mentioned the feeling of tightness and discomfort in my ligs. He responded that this is exactly the feeling he is talking about and that you know you have reached fatigue on an individual set when this feeling becomes so pronounced that you begin to struggle in your concentration. For instance, having trouble reading, writing, or posting on the forums. Also, as Elvis suggested, when clock-watching becomes intense and you become extremely anxious for the set to be over with the current weight. According to Bib, this is the time to drop the weight for the subsequent set.

A side note: Bib is an awesome dude, I wish he was still here, but having an “ask Bib” forum all its own is a really cool thing as well.

Hello Roots.
Just wanted to add a little something to this thread.

I have been building back up after taking a summer break with my kids. I was hanging 15 lbs and just starting 17 lbs when I went on this break.

Now I am working on skin conditioning and getting up to 6-7 sets a day. After this I will start adding weight as needed.

So far I have not gone beyond 10 lbs and I spent a considerable amount of time even at 8 lbs. The day after I hang I have had very little lig soreness compared to my previous hanging experience.

I think I only have needed to drop weight one time due to fatigue in this building up period. Very likely this was due to skin fatigue instead of ligs or tunica.

Now here is the big reveal. Without signs of what I would normally call fatigue and without being at what I thought was my effective hanging weight I have still gained. Not much but I definitely gained.

The point is even though we strive for fatigue it doesn’t mean we aren’t gaining if we don’t achieve fatigue. We just probably aren’t maximizing potential gains.. Quite possibly my body (and others) isn’t as sensitive to feeling smaller amount of tissue deformation.

I think the important message here is that true plastic deformation is not required to permanently elongate connective tissue. If you were actually causing plastic deformation, you would feel it as it involves the slipping and breaking of collagen fibrils (trauma). When you subject tissues to sustained low load stretching, what is happening is not plastic deformation in the engineering sense. Fibroblasts within the connective tissue react to the strain by rapidly synthesizing collagen, making more connective tissue. This is happening whenever you hang, but is generally overshadowed by the much faster (and more fatiguing/uncomfortable) process of true plastic deformation. This fibroblastic collagen synthesis is why extenders are effective - they certainly don’t generate enough force to cause the plastic deformation of a tendon-like structure as strong as the tunica. And it is also why a PE’er has to spend so much more time in an extender than in a hanger to achieve equivalent gains in length.

Here we go, bare with me I’m not real good at writing. Or composition I guess is what I’m saying

I also want to say there’s a lot of guys on here that are incredible writers, I’m impressed and wish I were.

Anyway I had poison ivy on the willy a month ago or so had stop hanging for a week or so. Got back at it for a about a week and ended up with jock itch, nasty case of it, took about 3 weeks to get rid of that got back to hanging last week. I’ve lost nearly all my conditioning and I started some manual stretching also”I have a lot a time at work for those but haven’t the balls to try and hang at work yet” I’m back down to 3.5 # sets again and fealing soreness in the ligs the next day so I guess its not all bad news but today I got up warmed wrapped put the hanger on and about 2 minutes in my dorsel vein was giving me a fit. By 5 minutes in it was intolerable. I checked several times during the time when I first noticed the discomfort to the time it became intolerable for numbness and cold glans both were fine. The 3 sets afterwards were fine.

I guess where I’m going with this is should I quit the manuals, they’re mainly v-stretches and and butt pulls, or freek hanger attachment problem?

Sorry if this isn’t thread related I probably should’ve started a thread.

Also like I said the soreness in the ligs is there just thought I might be able to work that tunica too. May be shooting myself in the foot.

I looked at your pe routine in your profile Roots and you listed you stretch along with hanging. What type of stretching are you doing if i may ask?

Syd, what hanger are you using.

Stretching: I do some manual stretching before my hangs at the same angle I am about to hang at to precondition the tissues. So usually 6 straight down stretches for 30 sec. as I hang BTC. I also use a homemade static stretcher on days where I have nothing going on as an addition to my hanging. You can take a look at it and a good discussion of the theory behind it here. Lately I haven’t had a lot of time to use that though.

An AFB hanger I made myself. I bought a bib starter but swallowed my willy and just didn’t take the time to learn it. I’ve not had any problems using the afb. And never been over 5# with it. Never had to yet I’ve always had the fatigue and soreness.

I’m going to get off my ace and buy a hardcore bib just haven’t yet. And when I wrap it’s just a thin layer of wore out Hanes underwear strip “best wrapping material I’ve found” I wrapped my afb with theraband and stapled to back side.

If you already have the starter, why are you going to buy the hardcore? The hardcore is even more difficult to learn.

I’ve found the hardcore isn’t that much difficult, it definitely really bites so you need to have your wrap and attachment technique down. I had to do allot of research and experimentation. I started off with the starter for 2 months but then switched to hardcore and like it better. I don’t think underwear wrap would work so maybe you should start of with the starter at least for a little bit

Ya, that would be my advice. And I have heard that from so many people about the hardcore - “I got experience with the starter, switched to the hardcore and I like it so much more!” Makes me want to switch.

Last night I think I reached fatigue.

I did 5 sets, 20 minutes each with a 5 lbs BTC. When I was done my whole pubic bone and around my base was sore as hell.

I could have done 4 more sets easily by dropping the weight gradually. I feel like a got a a really good stretch.

When I experience this extreme fatigue like last night, should I ride it out and get as many sets as my body allows. Or should I reach a permanent stage of fatigue where I”m constantly sore for the day before ?

I was doing it your way before, but on advice from Bib I am now trying to hit that kind of fatigue on the first set and ride it, and I like the feeling of doing it that way much more, feels more productive.

Are you hitting that kind of fatigue On a daily basis or does it take days to build up to that kinda of fatigue ?

Pretty much daily. If I fail to get there then I know my tissues have adapted and the next day I must increase weight a bit.

I did 7 sets last night, two more then the night before. But I didn’t reach fatigue on my pubic bone. Maybe because last night I did em spread out, and the night before I did em one after another with 10 min breaks in between.

I don’t want to have to move up weight now. I’m do my 5 minimum set tonight, one after an another. Hopefully I can reach that fatigue.