Breaks and progress?

I’m curious what gains others have made after taking a break from PE, whether planned or unplanned. Did a break help or hurt? How long did you rest? What excercises were you doing before the break? How fatigued were you from your routine? How long had you been PEing? If you gained after time off, did you measure an increase in size after the rest alone, or only after resuming PE?

I haven’t taken more than a week or 10 days off continuously since beginning PE. In the “early days” when I had easy gains, I noticed that I’d measure bigger after taking a few days off before taking my “official” monthly measurements. The rest seemingly gave my dick some time to grow and cement the size that had previously teased me. Now that I’m in the long, hard grind to eek out more fractions of an inch, short rest periods don’t produce such results.

What are your experiences with breaks and gains?

Hi there hobby!

Good question. I’ve had many breaks during my 2 1/2 years of PE. Some due to lack of time / privacy, others from minor injuries, others from lack of results. This breaks lasted from 2 weeks to 2-3 months. Almost everytime that I resumed PE, I redid it with a different routine, focusing on different exercises and / or more intensity. Almost everytime, the measurements before the break, and right when I stopped the break, didn’t show any increase whatsoever (or a very small one, in the thousands of an inch). Though after the first month of post break workouts, I’d noticed a bigger increase than normally, sometimes even double of the normal increase. This is why I now have decided that I won’t do PE for more than 4 weeks straight. When this 4 weeks are reached I always rest one week. I’ve gotten the best results this way. There’s a point, for me, that the cummulative effects of the workouts are too much for the body to recover without a bigger break than the normal 1-2 days each week. That’s when the week of total rest begins.

This is what has happened with me. Some guys are probably different, but I’d sure am interested to know what others have experienced in this.

Hey UIShrike,

Interesting. Your experience indicates recovery from slight overtraining is what primes you for new gains. You don’t experience catch-up growth during the rest period itself.

I’m wondering if “detraining” - tissues weakening from lack of exercise - plays a role in gains after a break. When exercise is resumed the weakened, unconditioned tissues are stressed more from the previous level, or even less, of exercise. Though I suppose this wouldn’t happen in only a week.

Maybe there are a couple of things going on when gains come after a rest: 1) Recovery from overtraining, which would require a relatively shorter break, and 2) weaking of the tissues, which could take many weeks or months to occur. If this is the case, guys who are stalled may need varying amounts of time off to get primed for more growth. Perhaps a combination is best - something like a week off every month or two and a month off every 6 months or year.

Hi there hobby,

Exactly. Though now I’m experiencing growth like I’ve never had before. I’ve modified my routines, so that I only hang now, with the Bib Hanger. In the last 5-6 months, adding up, I have done about 10-15h of total hanging time. Though I’ve started to incorporate more “on fatigue” sessions, that is, reaching fatigue with let’s say with 15 lbs after 3 sets of 20 minutes, then doing another set with 13 lbs, and sometimes another set with 11 lbs (if I have the time). The layoffs in between are huge, weeks pass without me touching the BH.

This is what I’ve experienced. Of course when I just rested one week after 4 weeks of training, I didn’t have the spectacular gains I’m having now. Which proves, at least to me, that I need big breaks in between intense sessions (and might also prove that I’m an easy gainer, though not that easy has some here). And these big breaks provide that weakening of the tissues, since they sort of “atrophy” a little, as they’re not exercised much. Then suddenly I do a stressfull and intense session, and the body has to recuperate, and has some time to do it, since I normally don’t do 2 sessions with few days in between.

This is a great schedule, and I agree with you completely. I know that when I was in my plateau, I was training using a normal 5 on 2 off schedule. Then I had some lay offs in between, and resumed training very sporadically, without a consistent routine. Now that I’ve adopted a consistent and intense routine (in the days that I do it), and with the weeks in between sessions, I’m getting good results. I’ll keep with this for now, but I’ll do a more normal routine, as soon as my privacy issues are delt with (probably in a few months).

It would be good also to have other guys input here.

how about that theory about the tunica and plateaus, discussed in this thread:

Interesting theory about the tunica and plateaus

Hi Braker,

I don’t know what factors may reset a penis for growth after an extended break. I was hoping to get some ideas from responses to this thread. Maybe most here are as addicted to PE as I am and haven’t been able to take time off. My idea for an extremely nasty, grueling experiment is to stop PE for a whole month.

As suggested in the recent PE Forums thread, thickening of the tunica so it can stretch again is one possibility, but I don’t personally accept it as “the explanation.” I theorize extended rest weakens the tissues that have toughened and adapted from PE routines. When we take a long break the tissues weaken, but they don’t atrophy.

When a guy starts back after a long break the 5 lb. weight that was light as a feather before is heavy again and stresses the tissues accordingly. Same for jelqing, squeezes, etc. A light one-handed squeeze is more stressful to the untrained tissues than the Super-Mega Squeezes were before the break.

Or not. Some day we’ll figure all this out. :)

That’s exactly the problem with trying this experiment, it’s almost like trying to stop smoking (though I just did this some time ago).

First I am addicted, and second - I have this irrational fear that I will loose my gains, even though I know from other people’s posts that I won’t (or at least not a lot), it stills scares me..

BTW - do you think during this time of break (say a month), you need to do some light maintenance at all? like maybe 5 minutes of jelquing per week, or 1 pumping session per week or just hotwraps or something like that, in order to minimize the risk of loosing anything already gained..

Braker

“”BTW - do you think during this time of break (say a month), you need to do some light maintenance at all? like maybe 5 minutes of jelquing per week, or 1 pumping session per week or just hotwraps or something like that, in order to minimize the risk of loosing anything already gained..”“

When I´m in a “rest period” I still stretch and squeeze some when I feel for it, like when having a morning wood, in the bathtub and so on.

I would say a couple of minutes here and there with about 50% of the normal force is good.

This way the small loss of gain keeps even less during the rest. However its important not to use the same maxforce as when in a real gain period, cause then the tissue never go back to “normal” state.

Of course we have no prof that this is the way it works, but I feel it´s very close to reality.

For example; I can squeeze like a maniac when in a good period of hard workouts, and still get no discouloration. A rest of 3 days and then some hard squeezing makes my dick look like a slice of salami, very “dotted”. So therefore I always go slow after a rest (for a couple of days/weeks depending on how long the rest was).

BTW the dick exercises itself when having a woody, nothing wrong with expanding it a little more, even when in a rest period.
If you for some reason wouldn´t have a hard on for a week, your dick would be smaller than ever. Daily hard ons is necessary for keeping the size and health. Since the hard ons often are many during a 24 hours period (normal/nocturnal ones), I feel it is good to have several workouts a day as well.

/Pan

How about pumping? Do you think you can take a few weeks off from PE but keep pumping every day and still get the benefit of the break?

I would think so….

..as long as it´s not overdone.

Say that your normal dick size (L and G) is 1,
and when in the pump during a “gain period” the size is 1.2,
then only pump to 1.1 during the “rest”.

Hmmm.. what a lousy example, but I hope you get my point.

Pump dick bigger then it actually is but not as much “pump-preesure” as you use to have.

A last example.. lol… say you pump the dick to 7” in the tube, go only to 6.5” or so (maybe less) during the rest.

Oh what the hell…. what do I know :-)

/Pan

I agree with you about pumping. I just got one and my plan is to use it for the rest period I take after hanging for 1 month without a break. I think at low pressure it will keep the blood flowing and the tissues slightly expanded while still allowing for healing due to the increased blood flow. It’s just a theory, but I am gonna try it :)

I think if my dick was 1 inch and I could pump it so it will be 1.2, I would not waste my time with it anyway!!! :)

I know you are joking around but it made me think about something else. Have you read the posts about Boxcar23? If not you should check them out- unbelievable and inspiring :)

UIshike,

I was wondering if you are still incorporating long breaks in your routine and if so what kind of gains are you experiencing?

Thanks

Regarding breaks & gains, I’ve been PEing for about 2.5 years now, but have only been “on” for probably about 1.5 years of that time. I’ll PE rigorously & religiously for 3-6 months at a time, then take a few weeks or months off for various reasons. My gains up to this point have been almost 2.5” in erect length, and .375” in erect girth (I’ve focused mostly on length during my PE “career”).

The last hiatus I took from PE was about 5 months, and ended about 4 weeks ago. During that hiatus, I lost about .375” in erect length, and just under .25” in erect girth. In my 4 weeks back on, I’ve already gained both measurements back, plus an additional 1/8” in length (I think I’m bit bigger in girth as well, but don’t trust any measurements I’ve taken yet).

I can’t say that the time off helps… hell, I wonder how much bigger I might be if I hadn’t taken any time off! But I have noticed that every time I go off, the gains seem to occur more rapidly when I go back on.