Thank You, Thunder's Place

I feel like I’ve learned a lot in my first year here. Rereading my progress log has me shaking my head too often!

Went to update my signature and noticed that I failed my initial PE goal, figured it would be a good thing to reflect on. The goal was to, in 1 year, gain approximately ~3cm/1.2in BPEL and ~1.5cm/0.6in MSEG. A bit ambitious for both considering I’ve tended to separate girth and length work. According to this thread I’m a slightly below average gainer for length, but I have a feeling I can point at more than just genetics at play this last year. Fell short by about 0.8cm and 1.3cm respectively (as of 8/5), so about a C- on the length goal, which is still passing! :D

The goal was mostly hopeful, so not reaching it isn’t a huge blow to me. My dick looks bigger, feels bigger, is bigger. This alone makes this all a huge success. I absolutely enjoy things that involve ‘making the numbers bigger’ (weight training, games, finance, PE) so having not only gains, but also a new base of knowledge and experience going into this next year is exciting.

Length
But really though, ~2cm length gain! Mostly came from the newbie routine, kegels, hot hot showers, for a moment Xeno’s IPR protocol, and finally a Kyrpa styled creep based protocol (with no US or hanger until recently). Low intensity to start with a short med-high intensity ‘top set’, <60min workouts with a BIG focus on heat seem to have been the best method for me for length. Done with manuals mostly, and vac hanger for light hanging/conditioning stretches/ADS.

Looking back, a pattern may be forming. From Feb-May, 3 mo (the first Kyrpa cycle and the beginning of my workout journal) I gained 0.6cm. From May-August, 3 mo again, gained 0.1cm BPEL. Between those two phases I dropped the light girth work for edging/kegeling, used less shower heat and just relied on an electric pad, during both tried cyclic stretching and creep stretching - about half each, and workouts got longer. I’d bet the heat was probably a big factor, but maybe this is just my natural gains cycle? I recall from one of the US related threads 3 months was about the time period that is used.

Looking further back, I notice that my newbie gains period seems to end right around December of last year (4 months into PE), then had a 2 month slowdown. Then, once I discovered Kyrpa’s threads began gaining for approximately another 3 months. I notice now that I stopped my last length campaign right around the same timeframe… I had been continuing to PE after a month rest, and was coming up on 2 months since the last time I gained. Just as I was seeing tentative gains… maybe I stopped just before some extra length gains? Regardless, it has been 3 months since length gains now and girth gains are just beginning to show, so I think this is enough to establish a rough pattern. Having all of this written down is extremely useful.

To that end, a functional cycle seems to be: 3 months gains campaign, followed by 3 months rest. For the moment, that is. After I complete this girth phase I’ll attempt a brief run for length to see how I react to girth work straight into length work, then into a 3+ mo decon if no signs of gains.

Girth
Girth went nowhere really in that year because I never focused on it until this last month or so. About +0.2cm, but this mostly came with the EQ improvements early on.

Reading again from this thread, it seems to me that girth gains take a fair bit longer so I’ll be giving myself plenty of time to reach the end of easy girth gains moving forward.

Kegels
Kegeling, and just general pelvic floor control/exercises have become a great asset very quickly. I only really began focusing on this in the last handful of months and discovered reverse kegeling, ballooning, tantric breath practices, swirling, anything more interesting than just “squeeze the taint” type of things have catapulted my penis and body awareness. This deserves a post of its own, so I will expand later.

The Future
Going forward, I still want to achieve the 8” length but in the shorter term I want to hit a bigger girth. Goals/plan will be: 5.3”/13.5cm EG by Feb ‘22, test for response to length work and if nothing 3+ month decon. Ideally also, 8”/20.32cm BPEL by Oct ‘22.

Your sojourn is inspiring! And very well explained and documented. Congrats on successes to date!

Thanks newyorktexan, I appreciate it. :)

I’m happy that I found someone with the same starting size that I have.

I’m still apprehensive about starting PE but I will keep checking you progress.

Wish you the best of luck!

Go for it! Start light, and try to stay as light as you can as long as you can. Listen closely to your body and you will do fine :)

Best of luck to you as well!

Had something interesting happen a couple weeks ago. Wouldn’t call it an injury, though definitely something was not right. Warmed up with some cockring edging, was having a great girth session with plenty of heat (no US) with a good amount of pressure. I went to adjust my hand and heard/felt a sort of deep pop. The sound of cartilage being jerked around, or a visit to a chiro maybe. A quick pain at the base of my shaft and now I suddenly I see an inch or so of new vein there! A very thick vein at that, but still totally pliable, erections are normal, no BB or grain of rice, no continuing pain - no thrombosis as far as I can tell. Though, my right nut is slightly uncomfortable some days now? A strange moment and a close call in my opinion.

Warming up with a cockring was not very helpful, if anything all I ended up doing was irritating the base (which for me sometimes gets a bit sensitive) going into a girth workout. Ballooning alone would have been much less aggravating, and more focused.

The funny thing is, I asked my partner to estimate the girthiest parts of my shaft and she went on to tell me my base was the thickest part! So I seem to have more an hourglass than a bat. Looked across the side of it and sure enough, there is a bunch of girth under the base. I had been reading the CS girth theory/Angion threads recently and it still never occurred to me because I guess I look mostly straight onto the top. I had been gripping as low down on my shaft as I could in order to balance out the ‘bat’ shape I thought I started with, and using a circular grip because it gives me the most even pressure. This might begin to explain the ‘new’ vein, regardless it seems to put my flesh in places it does not want to be in.

What have I learned? I don’t need to do much/any girth work to the base, and I probably shouldn’t in order to prevent this (or worse) from happening again. In general, I should check myself when getting ambitious with higher strain work that can put me at risk of a larger injury. I can absolutely pull off some cognitive dissonance, and have a few times in the recent past. I have to keep it lighter. Working for longevity is the goal, not only gains.

Silver linings, I didn’t even lose 0.1cm girth since my last (9/27) girth workout! So in about two months I gained about 0.1cm EG. Its a start! Ballooning seems to be scary good for vein development, though unfortunately takes a good amount of energy and focus to do.

At this point I’ve taken about 2.5 weeks off, I figure I was going too hard to get here I may as well take a long rest. Thinking I’ll pick up again in the coming week or next once I get some time again. I’ll be focusing just above the base of the shaft much more with plenty bends/jelqs/squashes and dropping any straight static pressure clamping movements - at least for the time being.

BGEG: ~13.2(Where I seem to have been measuring)
MSEG: ~12.6
BEG: ~13.4
AVG:~13.1

BPEL: ~19.4

Started back up about 20 days after the spontaneous vein with about 5 minutes of incredibly light squashes. Added ~5min a day for a few days then did some 10-25min sessions of mostly light squashes and plumped bends until December. Threw in a couple of hanger sessions, and tested out an IR self damping heating pad.

Not much progress overall. Saw some tentative girth gains, but nothing really concrete. Essentially no change for girth in four months. Frustrating. I seem to be either more sensitive to injury now, or am doing irresponsible things without realizing. Since the vein issue I caused a clogged lymph vessel doing squashes in the vac hanger, that clog seems to come back when I hang for ~20min. It is probably most prudent to take a decon now, in the face of two near injuries in short order. Not to mention, I added a day counter and a days between workout counter to my log and it seems I haven’t taken longer than 3 weeks off in the last 6 months or so! Poetically, if I wait until March 1st I will take exactly 69 days off PE, so naturally this is the plan now.

I think its best to also drop the February 13.5 EG goal, though I touched that measurement for a moment during the "do it by feel" period… then got my new vein the literal next day. I notice that leading up to that my workouts got significantly more intense, two weeks before I introduced manual ULIs and some short ROM jelqs. Then a week or so before a significant portion of my workout was very high erection/engorgement work.

What I’ve (re)learned: high pressure work gives temporary girth and low pressure work may give gains. Intensity doesn’t drive progress, it raises risk of injury. Don’t do girth work in a vac hanger.

Reading tons recently, seems to me there was a period around 2008 where everyone was focused on the science of PE. Glad to be catching up on those! Several threads that Kyrpa references in his early posts, and am glad to have stumbled upon them again to finally go through them thoroughly.

Loading, lengthening, healing.
Possible reason for PE induced growth
Focus Your PE and Gain! TGC Theory
Occam’s Razor & PE
Cool Down - YES You NEED It!

Anyone know of threads like this more focused on girth in particular? Or any good girth threads in general?

Checking in from decon, about a month in now.

First few weeks I noticed that I definitely had a hard flaccid. Cleared up rather quickly, about 10-14 days. Veins became less prominent around the same time the flaccid came back, and actually had a little bit of ‘evening out’ vein size in general. Otherwise not much going on :shrug:

Looking forward to March, but not sure if I should extend this decon a bit longer. I figure I was pretty good about taking a week to a month+ off when needed, but I want to preserve as much elasticity as I can.

> decon

Well, consider it only takes six weeks for a broken bone to fully heal… surgical incisions take six to eight weeks, depending on what was done.

Unfortunately, broken bones don’t really seem to be analogous to dicks and I really hope I don’t have similar damage to that of a surgical incision! The Long Game, Progress after a year or longer off?, BD’s log, Shiver, MX, and I’m sure a dozen others talk on the importance of collagen remodeling (as well as a few other restorative body processes) and their associated healing times, not so much bone repair or scar tissues around an incision. Coincidentally, those seem to agree with 4-8 week breaks!

My hang-up is that the healing takes a logarithmic progression, in that weeks 1->2 will be far more important than weeks 7->8, but my wondering is: at what point is the opportunity cost too great to not PE? Sadly, I haven’t seen any data to suggest a concrete answer.

Here is the post that has the graph I’m talking about.

Also, should mention that I am doing some foreskin stretches during this decon, aiming to correct a tight frenulum. I figure it wouldn’t hurt considering its just pulling the skin.

17ml had some good posts on the technique, but essentially pull the skin SO, pull it straight back, then reach under with a couple fingers and pull out for a few minutes each. As always, heat helps a lot. Couple of days and noticing some movement already, skin is much easier to stretch so I should be able to see the progress soon.

Took a much longer break than anticipated, which I don’t mind at all; 109 days total. After the first couple of weeks it came easy. One issue: I didn’t really do any kind of maintenance or kegels, so I will take a little to get totally in the swing of things again. Anyone have a good mnemonic for kegeling throughout the day…every time I check my phone, maybe? So far I just do a few every time I see the word kegel, which doesn’t work so well when you abstain from PE (and Thunder’s) entirely for 3 months!

Starting stats going in:
BPEL: 19.2cm, -0.3cm
BPFSL: 19.2cm, -0.8cm
Avg E: 13cm, -0.1cm

EL=FSL… this is a first for me AFAIK, will need to brush up on the meaning of this. I wonder what the cost of gaining up to 20cm FSL again will be…

Going totally to plan:
OTL hanging ~2kg with UltraSound for 15-25 minutes
10 minutes of cyclic SO manuals ~3kg (immediately after OTL)
Perfect jelqs until hard
Kegels

Keeping it short and simple, but totally focused. From everything I know about myself and PE, this should yield some kind of length gain. Will be aiming for 2 on/1 off, but not a very high priority for me to keep to schedule. Workouts will be under 1 hour, ideally 45 minutes. Adding Perfect Jelqs a la braindrain to the routine. High pressure or intense girth work yields only temporary gains for me, so will be light and only until it feels ‘good’ enough to get hard. I figure sticking this and kegels after the main workout as a mainstay can get me somewhere at least.

Stopping point will be gains totally halting. After that, should I have gained at all, another 100+ day rest. Not gonna bang my head against a wall for months again. If no gains, I’ll reassess my plan.

Reached >2% strain each US day so far, so very very excited for the next 40 days or so. I mentioned some of this before, the first 30 days of tracking my workouts I gained 0.45cm BPEL. After that, took a 48 day break and gained another 0.25cm over the following 20 days. Of those 25 sessions, 13 had >2% strain. 70 days and ~20 length sessions later no gains at all despite a short decon and using a variety of techniques, but strain only reached >2% three times. I am hoping that the 100+ day decon will have reset me a bit and be the beginning of a new gains campaign.

Reread my notes again, about to reread some of Gaining volume with Kyrpa. I really try to keep this whole thing accurate and clear for the sake of myself and anyone who reads this, but man I am not the most consistent even with a spreadsheet! I just hope that some answers lie in my imperfect data. Hopeful that this extended break really helps, especially considering how many times I’ve mentioned that a 90 day break should be sufficient once I plateaued. If nothing else, this long break has given me the room to check myself again. I have my best and worst workout periods written down, so I should be able to at least say something does not work for me. Hopefully, I can cut some inefficient decisions before I even start.

Here’s to breaking plateaus and sustainable gains!

Some housekeeping:
Foreskin stretches worked extremely well, literally a weeks worth and I had essentially achieved my goal of comfort. Went a bit longer to ‘lock that in’ so to speak and have had minor issues since, mostly due to me stopping completely. Works great overall.

My health since starting PE has notably improved. Not entirely due to PE, but in part. Ten minutes of sun per day. Lifting and stretching >2/week, cardio sometimes. Plenty of water, eating whole foods and avoiding sugars/dyes/plastics/etc. Settled at a probably more health 205lb, and basically just intuitively eating at this point. Good sleep, meditation, and energy exercises. Feeling well in tune with myself.

Seriously upped my supplement game and take 900mg Fish Oil, 10,000IU D3, 100mcg K2, 2-4 tablets Jarrow’s Magnesium Optimizer (B6, Mg, K, and Taurine) as my main stays for nearly a year. Have never slept or felt better. Have been taking 400mg Indonesian Tongat Ali, 600mg Fadogia Agrestis, and 250mg Ashwagandha month on/mo off. Purportedly testosterone boosters, mood balancers, and may cause testicle enlargement; especially if taken together. That last one I can’t say for certain, but I definitely want it to be true! Oh and on special occasions I take >2g L-Citrulline, 500mg low flush Niacin, and ~1g Horny Goat Weed. Make sure you have plans for your penis after taking it, as it is quite distracting.

Anyone interested in supplements through a health/sports/performance perspective, Gorilla Mind is a stellar brand. I don’t work for them or anything but man I would if they asked haha! If I didn’t already have my stack I would be taking “Sigma” by them, and I take their nootropic, sleep supplements, and preworkout regularly. Not to mention, the guy behind the whole thing was a PE’r back in the day apparently.

Hello Yam, thanks for sharing your journey. I watch Derek also, he is dry as hell but full of knowledge on anything related to human optimization.

Thanks for reading :D I’ve kept away recently since he went heavy into the sensationalism style content, only because I wish he’d go back to those dry human optimization videos!