Early stall - ramp up, take break, or persevere?

I hear you. It’s just that I’m wondering if I shouldn’t have seen some newbie gains by now other than a bit of girth increase in month 1, or whether that was all the newbie gains I’m going to get and need to step it up.

Would you agree that the amount of stretching and jelqing as described in my post yesterday is not too low to be seeing newbie gains?

In which case ramping it up wouldn’t seem like the way to go, I guess - so it’s either just keeping at it at about the same level or taking another break.

If the 1st, as for trying new tactics, maybe add some advanced exercises? More stretches throughout the day? Or maybe it’s time to add some light pumping to the mix?

If the 2nd, take a month off and then start on the newbie routine again (attempt #3)? What new tactics could I add there?

*bump*

Adding advanced exercises will merely continue to stall you. Looking at what happened to begin with, you got damaged with the Newbie Routine at 5 minutes jelqing. Either your penis doesn’t like PE or you were gripping too hard. Advanced exercises and devices will just up your injury profile if you have no idea how your penis can react positively and have seen negative Physiologic Indicators.

Given what I’ve seen, I would keep a light routine and work at it for an extended period. Without a baseline of what will give you positive Physiological Indicators you basically are shooting in the dark hoping for no richochets if you keep ramping up and go for advanced exercises with no record of positive PIs.

I am unsure what to tell you otherwise.

Getting damaged with the Newbie Routine at 5 minutes jelqing, no, not quite. Please see the first post. The one time I had some red spots (they were small and gone the next day) was when after the very first week of 5 minutes I increased it from 5 to 10. This, after just three sessions, was clearly too early (I also may have been gripping too hard) - when I increased that more slowly to 10 minutes again over the course of the next few weeks it was fine. That was the volume which I stuck to and then did gain a bit of girth with.

Since then I’ve not seen any negative PIs at all, but also no further gains. So basically for another 4 months I stuck with that volume that gave me a first few gains, without seeing further gains which - as I think is understandable - made it seem to me like I should be ramping it up again slightly at some point after not gaining for a while.

However, you recommended against that - and I did listen. I’ve been doing exactly what you’re suggesting, twice now - kept to a (very) light routine. I may have misunderstood your suggestion to “try some new tactics”, I understood it to mean I should try something different, as in different exercises, or a different approach.

This really is all a bit counter-intuitive to me given what I’ve been doing and described here, but please don’t take this as me trying to be a bloody contrarian - *of course* I’m going to yield to your expertise here, otherwise why would I be asking in the first place? So - and please correct me if this is not what you’re suggesting - I’m going to take February off and then once again restart with a lightweight version of the Newbie Routine in March.

Honestly. Because I’m unsure what to suggest I’m hesitant to suggest drastic changes. In many cases restarting the Newbie conservative works. In yours it hasn’t.

You could try strictly stretching but this has known EQ reduction. You could try going into squeezes. Which can reduce EQ but doesn’t necessarily.

Jelqing, if you’re not getting results, is only one method. However, due to you not getting gains and not showing any propensity to an exercise type I can’t give you a starting rep count for either stretching or squeezes.

Pushing into advanced stuff like the ULI#3 or DLD Blaster exercise can backfire, especially if you don’t have sufficient mastery of the kegel and reverse kegel. These are your options.

Basic stretching and squeezes or Advanced stretching and squeezes. I can’t guide you here, as the guidelines we normally use from the Newbie Routine get fuzzy and without a gain pattern to base my judgements on I’m shooting in the dark. Jelqing may not yield you gains but I’m unsure what to tell you to do from here.

I always recommend 2 to 4 weeks rest before trying a new approach just to give your body the best chance of reacting well. Your call on the break, if you want to change tactics or stay light. I can say, if you feel your penis is conditioned and not reacting, you should try the tactics emphasis change and see which approach you like best.

Roger that.

EQ has been very good, so I guess there isn’t much harm in switching emphasis to stretches and squeezes for a few months. In that case I’m going to read through the forums and look at what I can add to the straight and fulcrum stretches I’ve been doing. Going to increase the amount of stretching slowly, as in adding 1 set of stretches every 2 weeks or so. To prevent a drop in EQ I’ll keep doing a small amount of light jelqs, but no more than 25-50.

I’ll have 4 weeks of rest, then restart using the routine above in March.

Thanks again. :) I’ll report back in April.