How far into fatigue is optimal?

It is said you need to “ride fatigue” to make gains. I noticed there are different levels to fatigue. Will results be better if you ride deeper I to fatigue or is that not necessary? Clock watching is a good indicator to drop weight but if you can tolerate it a bit more would it have any advantages?

From my experience this is something you learn on what you can handle.

If you ride it to aggressively then you might be done for the day. However, if you can time it correctly you can keep reducing weight and get in multiple sets in what I consider to be the sweet spot.

But this takes practice. Now if you are on your last set of the day you might just want to gut it out. This of course is your call because you have to be careful and you might injure yourself or at the very least that last “hero” set might prevent you from hanging 5 sets the next day.

I’ve been hanging at 10lbs and about 30 mins in fatigue comes in pretty fast. I try to stick with it then lower weight to 5lbs where I still felt good fatigue. If I unload the weight completely even if only for a few seconds it takes a while to reach fatigue again. I hang for a total of 1 hour in the am and pm. Just wasn’t sure if it would be more effective to ride it lightly or try to muscle through the discomfort (not pain obviously)

Are you using an LG hanger? What type of hanger are you using?

Yep using an LG

The preferred method that I have read about is to use smaller weight increments. So you drop to 9 and if it still is to much then you drop to 8. This way you are at the maximum effective weight.

Then when that weight becomes uncomfortable another slight drop in weight. You keep riding fatigue all the way down. You are trying to stay in that sweet spot.

I’ve dropped from 10 to 7.5 and I don’t notice any difference. Even to 5 I still feel the fatigue very well.

If you are feeling the fatigue at half the weight I am guessing you where in hero mode for to long. You know trying to gut it out for to long. I am not saying I don’t fatigue at half the weight it just takes several drops before I get there.

Only you know what you feel but that has been my experience when I decide to just endure. The way it works for me is I a drop and I might last at that next lower weight for a couple minutes to the end of the set.
Sometimes I have to drop quickly pound after pound and by that point I am done for the day. I think this happens when I push really hard the day before.

Now we are all different and it could be my experience is uniquely mine.

If you are in for the long run the lowest intensity needed to gain(or get positive PI ‘s) is what you want to do.

Just going as fast as possible for highest weight will probably just increase the strength of your dick.

Dikerschwanz that is your opinion based on the method that you follow. I would say at the very least you would probably have the least likelihood of hurting yourself which would definitely better your chances of being in it for the long run. However, some of the other methods probably have an entirely different picture of what they consider the long run.

For example the hardcore hangers are at the other extreme. There are people who have reported decent gains with that. Mind you that is not something that I do so I am only going off of what I have read about.

However, if you take the theory of lowest intensity to the extreme then someone could end up hanging almost extender level tension for 6 months to a year because it is producing results. Mind you these results might be 1/10 what they would have produced in that same time frame if they had been trying to reach fatigue in the first two sets.

I personally think there is 3 paths that can lead to results.

1. Lowest weight possible to achieve results. Mind you if you really think this through to the extreme you might be getting the absolutely slowest results going this route. At what time frame do you compare for results and then decide I am no longer getting results. At the lowest weight possible you might achieve 1/16th of an inch in a year and that would be an indicator to keep on plugging away. Most likely most people are going to want to be at least a tad beyond the absolute lowest weight possible. To me this route usually requires greater amounts of time under tension to make up for this low weight or you are really going to crawl towards your goal. To me this is akin to extenders.

2. Middle ground of trying to get that minimum 10 hours per week. Try to achieve fatigue within your first couple sets and then ride fatigue for the remaining sets. Usually people do not get to this within the first month or two of their hanging career. It takes time to build up to this and you need to learn to listen to your body. What it takes to achieve fatigue within the first couple sets will vary over time. Here the weight being used is not the issue. This is not a contest of achieving the highest weight possible. All that matters is what is the minimum amount of weight needed to achieve fatigue by that 2nd set. My personal preferred method.

3. Hardcore hanging - I don’t follow this method so I could be wrong on this. I believe they are looking to hit maybe 2 sets for the entire day. I don’t believe they even advocate split sessions. So they want to achieve fatigue as quickly as possible. For them fatigue by the end of the second set would be to late. I am not saying their goal is to be in a weight lifting contest but they will definitely be chasing higher weights quicker. I am pretty sure that even the people following this method are following some protocol in the amount of weight they increase per week. So their is something to reign this in.

If you take method 1 to the extreme and really try to achieve the least amount of tension possible I can’t see how it wouldn’t be the slowest method. However, I am positive even method 1 is actually going for more than the least amount of tension possible because most of them wouldn’t consider some millimeter gain for the year enough for them.

I personally practice method 2 however from my experience even when I am not riding fatigue for even months at a time I still gain. This round of hanging that I am doing now I haven’t gotten back to a level of riding fatigue within the first 2 sets yet. Heck, I think I have only needed to reduce weight maybe twice in the last month or so. Yet I still gained. So in reality I am probably right now in between method 1 and 2 since I have come back to hanging. However, my goal is to definitely get back to method 2.

Honestly I start to feel fatigue lately around 25 mins in. I stick there for maybe 5 mins which at that point fatigue increases to the point where I drop half the weight and still maintain fatigue. I don’t really push through it that hard but just to the point of discomfort. It’s like I need around 30 mins at heavy weight before I even notice fatigue. I could use more weight to hit fatigue sooner then make smaller drops but not sure if that would be more effective or not. I’d prefer to keep weight as low as I can while making progress.

That choice is completely yours. We all have our own risk vs reward.

Personally that is why I have never pursued the hardcore hanging.

The idea of managing fatigue or riding fatigue down was that it was believed that fatigue is the feeling you get when you are causing the micro-deformations (or whatever they are called). So by riding fatigue we are doing our best to keep this state of creating micro-deformations going. I call this the “sweet spot” but that is me. I am sure gains can happen without this fatigue feeling.

For me this is just about trying to be as effective with your time hanging as possible. I might gain hanging 5 pounds for the rest of the year but I am positive if I increase weight and then ride down fatigue that I will gain more in the same time frame.

The danger is when someone tries to push themselves to hard they might hurt themselves.

Riding fatigue is not a guarantee you will gain and it might not be the most effective way but I believe this methodology came from observing many hangers over the years.

There have been people that have gotten up to 20 pounds and had no gains at all. However, they also never felt fatigue. Didn’t matter how many sets they did. So I believe Bib or someone else started seeing this pattern and came up with the managing fatigue idea. Basically this was the goal to go for and these individuals just haven’t hit a weight or amount of sets that would achieve fatigue. I believe there was at least 2 people out of thousands that it required greater than 30 pounds to achieve fatigue and get gains.

If you get a chance I would recommend going to Bib’s site and in the Basic section he has a thread called “Managing Fatigue”. To me this is the gold standard of what a hanger should be trying to achieve.

You don’t have to own a Bib to be on his forum and read this.

This is just my opinion but I believe this thread and my pursuit of achieving this goal is part of the reason that my gains where so explosive.

I see. So given my situation how would you approach it? Would you decrease weight sooner? It seems like a pound wouldn’t make much of a difference in feel. I ow my girth could possibly be why I’m needing to be a bit more aggressive. In order to reach fatigue I use 10lbs over a 1 3/4” pvc fulcrum.

It is completely up to you. I would say that when you start clock watching and wondering how much you need to go before your set is over maybe try dropping a pound right then. If you are still clock watching then drop one more pound.

There is a difference between when you feel “it” and when you are thinking how much longer do I need to go. Of course we aren’t talking watching the clock out of boredom.

Are you only doing 1 set in the morning and then 1 set PM for 2 sets total or are you doing 2 AM, 2 PM for 4 sets total?

I am striving for 6 to 7 sets so my thinking about it might be different than yours