Posted this in Robert James log. Want it here too and I want to add to it.
“When you back out the dial, there’s only so many times you can do that before it literally will screw out of the base. But well before that, on my device for instance when it’s at the right length, it takes ~ 70-72 half turns to get to full tension, it actually bottoms out before the last line as the device I’m using is not that well made. So I go by how many turns I back it out to get the approximate level of tension.
Some of the advice that I got here when I started regarding the appropriate level of tension was to set the tension so that it allowed for sessions in that 45-60 minute time frame. Some were going a bit longer if they were using a low tension- long duration approach. I was using high tension from the get go and was using shorter closer to 30 minute sessions.
But based on that advice and what I was seeing in the log, even though I was only putting in ~ 10 hours a week on average, if the tension was so high that I wasn’t getting session duration approaching an hour I wasn’t getting the best results. Basically if the tension is too high in the case of high tension extending the weak link becomes the attachment points and the condition of the glans and those will shorten the session before the tissues you are working get to the point of fatigue.
Regardless of whether you use a low tension approach or high tension approach with the extender after you wear the device for a few minutes there is accommodation, what is referred to here as stress relaxation and so you back out the dial and you wait some more and back out the dial until you get as much accommodation as you’re going to get and still get the desired session duration that will fatigue the tissues. This way slowly over time the tissues will accommodate a new length or reduce the shortening if that was the clinical case.
The complexity lies in the execution. Everyone’s tissues are different and there are all kinds of approaches. For my device and my tissues using a high tension extending approach, using a tension that would let me work towards hour long sessions seemed to be the key. But also in my case, if I were to do a second session on the day often times would have to use a lower tension, but that was illusory as the accommodation from the first session found me starting out further forward in the cradle, so the preload tension was higher. Position of the glans in the cradle - matters, both in terms of tension and in terms of glans comfort, so the length of the extender matters in this regard as it affects it.
As you get into it you start seeing these things/making correlations, distinctions - condition of the glans, attachment point discomforts, versus riding actual fatigue, post session fatigue, post session flaccid hang, subsequent day tug back as an indication of overwork. To some degree you have to carefully dive in and make distinctions. Because while there is a plethora of information and you can know what you’re trying to do, it’s a whole another deal to actually implement it successfully.”
So we know that the tissues will accommodate, but I think considering the aforementioned, it is not surprising at all to me that this view is not widely held. Because excepting for those instances where one would find such a venue with valid parameters and one would find success through serendipity, it would be far more likely that one would run out of endurance before getting it right deliberately.
I want to mark this here because it strikes me that there is a distinction to be made, not just for here but in terms of character. Nietzsche is known for the “that which does not kill us makes us stronger.” There is something about having been wounded and a specific character response to it, that seems patently correlated.
I don’t want to go beyond that now I want to keep it open.