A PROBLEM!
Many of us here are stretchers, whether by hand or using the Lengthmaster, and all of us face one, big problem. Unlike hanging, where you know what weight you're using and you know exactly how long you're using it for, stretching leaves us kind of in the dark about exactly what we're doing. We don't know how hard we're pulling, we don't know how much force we're applying. Stretching "hard" or even "as hard as you can" for 30 seconds is like going into the gym to do 15 squats... but you don't know how much weight is on the bar. Was that a useful set of squats? How could you possibly know? In resistance training, you at least have the feedback from your muscles to guide you in hindsight. If it took everything I had to make that 15th rep, then in hindsight it was a good set. But with stretching we don't have anything like that.
So we face a serious problem when we're analyzing our own routines, and especially the routines of others. When someone writes on the forum that they've been doing their manual stretching for 16 months with no results, we don't know if they're barely pulling at all, or if they're hurting themselves because they're 5lbs of pressure away from ripping their dicks off every time they sit down for PE!
But this problem may be worse than that. The general consensus in the hanging community seems to be that progressive overload is an important element for actually seeing results. That means that the hangers seem to be getting the best results when they gradually increase the tension over time. They can only do that because they know precisely how much tension they're applying each time. They aren't doing this blindly, like we stretchers are!
This gets dicey for us because hanging and stretching are essentially the exact same mechanic: apply tension to the penis over time. The only difference is that hangers are applying (usually) less tension for much longer periods of time, while stretchers are applying (probably) much more tension for much shorter periods of time. Do we know that this difference means the principle of progressive overload applies to one method but not the other? If the exercise analogy holds, it probably applies either to both or neither!
So even a stretcher is applying enough but not too much tension, he may be getting sub optimal results simply because he hasn't been using progressive overload. Up to this point, he hasn't been able to!
A SOLUTION!
There is no reason we can't stretch with the same measured precision that hangers have. Luggage scales are cheap. This one from Home Depot costs $7. Hook that to the bundle chamber from the Lengthmaster and you can now measure exactly how much force you're applying every time you stretch. When you take your notes, you don't just know how many sets of how many reps... you know how much weight you used.
Now you're free to apply progressive overload. (Has that ever been tested in stretching?) Now when people write in saying they haven't gotten results stretching, we can actually have some idea what they really mean when they say they stretch. Now we can find out if some people who get great results with stretching happen to be applying some "proper" range of force that those who get no results are outside of.
Many of us here are stretchers, whether by hand or using the Lengthmaster, and all of us face one, big problem. Unlike hanging, where you know what weight you're using and you know exactly how long you're using it for, stretching leaves us kind of in the dark about exactly what we're doing. We don't know how hard we're pulling, we don't know how much force we're applying. Stretching "hard" or even "as hard as you can" for 30 seconds is like going into the gym to do 15 squats... but you don't know how much weight is on the bar. Was that a useful set of squats? How could you possibly know? In resistance training, you at least have the feedback from your muscles to guide you in hindsight. If it took everything I had to make that 15th rep, then in hindsight it was a good set. But with stretching we don't have anything like that.
So we face a serious problem when we're analyzing our own routines, and especially the routines of others. When someone writes on the forum that they've been doing their manual stretching for 16 months with no results, we don't know if they're barely pulling at all, or if they're hurting themselves because they're 5lbs of pressure away from ripping their dicks off every time they sit down for PE!
But this problem may be worse than that. The general consensus in the hanging community seems to be that progressive overload is an important element for actually seeing results. That means that the hangers seem to be getting the best results when they gradually increase the tension over time. They can only do that because they know precisely how much tension they're applying each time. They aren't doing this blindly, like we stretchers are!
This gets dicey for us because hanging and stretching are essentially the exact same mechanic: apply tension to the penis over time. The only difference is that hangers are applying (usually) less tension for much longer periods of time, while stretchers are applying (probably) much more tension for much shorter periods of time. Do we know that this difference means the principle of progressive overload applies to one method but not the other? If the exercise analogy holds, it probably applies either to both or neither!
So even a stretcher is applying enough but not too much tension, he may be getting sub optimal results simply because he hasn't been using progressive overload. Up to this point, he hasn't been able to!
A SOLUTION!
There is no reason we can't stretch with the same measured precision that hangers have. Luggage scales are cheap. This one from Home Depot costs $7. Hook that to the bundle chamber from the Lengthmaster and you can now measure exactly how much force you're applying every time you stretch. When you take your notes, you don't just know how many sets of how many reps... you know how much weight you used.
Now you're free to apply progressive overload. (Has that ever been tested in stretching?) Now when people write in saying they haven't gotten results stretching, we can actually have some idea what they really mean when they say they stretch. Now we can find out if some people who get great results with stretching happen to be applying some "proper" range of force that those who get no results are outside of.
