Originally Posted by manko007
I saw your post on the knee point and transitional area and your conclusion that 6kg was same as 9kg. Do you find this to be definitive in your experience since then? I saw you had a day after your posts you increased your hand grip to 9kg anyway despite your conclusion of 6kg.It is great how you broke it down. I can understand more in terms of how to apply different stress in different parts of the strain stress curve. Science man.
How is your cycle 5 coming along? I think only mm increase and 2 days only out of 5 correct?
I think the preconditioning part is quite figured out by you. More work needs to be done to understand the transition or knee point and the linear region. But according to the cyclic loading the tangent modulus decrease which is a measure of stiffness, so it must be the cyclic loading that can achieve the highest strain post knee point.
What do you think about cyclic loading with heat applied vs cyclic loading without heat. All things equal i.e. preconditioning plus preheating. Just for the manual stretch part, regardless of practicality? I think the cyclic loading with heat would be the most optimal. As if you preheat and the cyclic stretch without heat, your tissue is in cooling down period. Or perhaps this is better, as the material would be more “brittle” and this cyclic would allow more fiber recruitment, and permanent stretch post workout. I was also thinking about incorporating the manual stretch as that seems to be your main source of gains IMO, given your preconditioning setup of course.
Something like this:
Precon 20min 3kg + preheat for 10min hang at 6kg + cycle hang for 20min + heated hang constant 10min 6.5kg + manual stretch cyclic 10min = about 1 hr 10min.
I’m thinking a double heat cyclic in two periods could have an effect on the molecules like heat, cool, heat, cool. Perhaps even quick cooling can have some benefit. This could be used to deal with the post knee region perhaps.
Yes I am sure 6kg is load enough but….
I have used vac attachment for 6 kg and manual grip for more kilos, as I have no accurate control on load with the hand grip at the moment it is better to ensure the results by loading with it excessively.
More tryouts have confirmed both of them producing the 1 mm additional elongation after heated stretch.
I am convinced there is confirmation that more load you put the more the tissue stiffens, as the tangent modulus decreases.
The Problem is, that with the 6kg Vac cup load it is not stable setup. Slippages occur and even if it was doable the vac pressure inside the cup rises during during the slippage and at this point of the exercise there start to be high risk of the blisters and it is sometimes uncomfortable to bear.
So on I prefer the manual hand grip for the sake of the glans. If I could find the way controlling the load with manuals without the need for ensuring the efficiency with excessive load it would be the way to go.Anyways if I start to see any signs of the abuse of the glans I choose the manual hand grip for safety reasons.
I like to see every possibilities because I would like to prove my previous statement that the efficiency of the protocol is not dependent on any equipment.
Simplifying it to basics. Conditioning stress relaxation, heated stretch and cyclic post heat stretching is the core. Choose any exercise or equipment what you like and elongate your BPFSL and rest will follow.
I should run more test reducing the load from 6kg with vac attachment. I have documented two runs with 5 kg and the results were similar. If I can get that 1mm elongation with lower load, I will take it. I would like to do more experiments regarding the passage from transitional region, going down on loads.
4kg heated stretch didn´t bring me the additional elongation what 5 kg post heat cyclic stretching did.
Remains unknown if anything in the range of 3,5- 4,5 kg cyclic stretching brings me the result repeatedly.
Then it would be comfortable and reliable to perform with PM vac cup and luggage scale as a load indicator.
Everything happens in the window of 1mm at the transition from the transitional region to the stiffening part of the slope . So single exercise with data points is only rough model. But series of data points with varying loads around the transitional region embed in one data set should confirm a lots of things.
For the heated cyclic stretching it would be one more tools in the box if not achieving results.
But the post heat cyclic stretching as the tissues cool down would be needed anyways.
Or when performing heated cyclic stretching then cooling down after in the maximal elongation with fixed lengths on extender would do the trick, achieved now with cyclic stretching while tissues cool down.
For your proposition I would say you should try.. Every maneuver which is productive, and confirmed by measuring the productivity , and confirmed by accelerated progression are welcomed in the tool box. Brought out in to play if needed.
I am going other direction with the procedure, simplifying it to the point it is still productive. Not bringing any new numbers for additional complexity if they are not needed.
So this kind of answers you when asked how are my cycles going. They are productive enough to fit identically in the slopes of the charts from previous Periods.
I am curious to see if you can accelerate your gains comparing to previous results with these tweaks on your routines.