Finding xeno: a penis tale

By the way, I’m not really saying that I didn’t gain, just that I didn’t gain enough to make up for what I lost during the decon break that preceded this last round of PE. If I continue with strict IPR for one or two more iterations I could find the ruler moving in a favorable direction.

One point I wanted to make is that I based my decision to stop I-phase work on the concensus of members here that 2 weeks was adequate. Perhaps it wasn’t. I think Xeno based his 2 week determination on actual measurements. He tried to find the point where his gains started to slow and decided to stop his I-phase work there.

I never did that. I never saw any gains during I-phase (at least, I don’t think I did). Perhaps I should have kept going, or worked out more each day.

In other words, maybe the take-home message is that the same intensity and timing isn’t optimal for everybody. We’re all different and should adjust our routines accordingly.

I think IPR is a relatively sound basis for tissue generation, and I’m not ready to throw the protocol out the window yet.

I like the words ‘PE Career’

MM,

I think there are a few key missing points here that I would have loved Xeno to answer, but he felt like we all took to long to come around…

Anyway, I think the 2 weeks is about right growth before it dramatically slows, but the real question is…what is the starting point?

If you aren’t GETTING growth, then the 2 week period is really a useless cutoff point.

He had first found the amount of wt and time that was working for him, THEN found the optimum progression of time and was able to chart when it dramatically slowed down.

So, the real trick is you have to FIRST find a force/time and mode that is getting progress for you, then you can begin to experiment with the IPR thing.

The other question I had for him (which he wouldn’t answer, because I had asked too late) was, how do you determine when decon is completed?

That’s pretty critical in my opinion, and I have yet to find a satisfactory answer.

I would also like to know how he determined the length of time for the P phase, and what are the objective signs.

I doubt he is ever going to come back and answer these questions, so we are left to our own resources…which aren’t too bad.

We have had a bunch of our guys that achieved similar growth in comparable times. Monty is one of those…and his approach had many similar features. As a matter of fact most of those who had good gains had many similar features in their workouts. In distilling those common features, we can get some very good guidance.

One of the things I find interesting is most guys growth slows greatly or stops at about 2 inches length gains…some go past, but damn few. I think those that go beyond should be studied closely.

My conclusions are that the 2 week time frame is a reasonable one, and should only be extended if your growth is continuing at the same rate at the end of that period…but you should be ready to shut ‘er down when it slows or stops.

I personally think that when you combine this approach (in its general form) with the PI approach, you have a pretty good blueprint for sustained gains, its just a matter of finding that initial growth starting point. I think that can be best achieved by starting at a very low force/time baseline, and slowly ramping up until gains start.

I think hardgainers should start ridiculously low force/time levels, and of course, PIs should be watched very carefully to make sure you aren’t overtraining.

With this approach, it may take time to find the growth point, but you WILL find it.

I think a lot of guys get into way overtraining immediately, and then never “reset” their tissues with a decon break, so find it almost impossible to find the level that works for them.

I think that if you have been experimenting with high force levels, and nothing is working, its critical to take a month or two off, then start with very minimal levels and slowly ramp up while watching PIs.

If low force/time levels are what will work for you, yet you have caused major tissue toughening from high force/time…you could drop down to the optimum force/time levels and get no results because you tissues are still toughened from the high forces used previously.

To me this explains why a lot of guys can’t seem to get any success. They usually end up increasing their forces to the point of injury, not aware that they long passed by their proper force/time levels.

If they drop down to the proper levels, it won’t work either, until they take a long decon break to let their tissues reverse some of the toughening.

How many times have we heard stories of guys that end up with huge force/time levels…get hurt, then after finally recovered, start with a gentle newbie routine, start to get gains, then ramp it all up and everything comes to a shreeching halt! Or, get smarter and find they get much better results with much less.

Excellent points, Sparkyx. Success with IPR is strongly dependent on initial conditions. I figure (read, “hope”) that I’ll eventually arrive at suitable intial conditions (timing and weight) after a couple of iterations of IPR.

The other piece to all this is that Xeno issued his IPR post after expressing a desire to cut back on his participation with the forum. Nobody wanted to say anything other than “excellent job” out of fear that he would leave. Now, I think it’s fair (and responsible) to start looking at this protocol a little more critically.

What are you talking about? His first mention of IPR is here: xenolith - To ADS or not to ADS, 12th of January 2006. He announced his retirement the 23rd of May 2006.

I’m thinking of this post in which he described the nuts and bolts of his IPR protocol on March 6, 2006. He was talking about leaving at least a month earlier, here.

OK, so he talked of leaving in February, and (see my link) in January he mentioned IPR for the first time. But from February to late May is a while, and he sure stuck around and took some shit meanwhile. Not exactly the scenario you portray in post #199.

What I’m saying in post 199 is that many people around the forum already knew that Xeno was contemplating leaving the forum when he issued his March ‘06 post, which to my recollection was the first really complete disclosure of his IPR protocol.

I don’t mean to be misleading. I think that many people believed (rightly or not) that Xeno felt unappreciated (whether he did or not) and was contemplating leaving the forum.

I think there was an effort to reward him for his excellent work, but also a desire not to be critical.

Every PE theory deserves critical scrutiny. I don’t care whether the author of the theory has a PhD in PE.

I guess what I am saying is that I didn’t sense any desire not to be critical. Then again I got into arguments with him from time to time, but during the spring I felt more like “f*ck it, he is so busy thinking highly of himself that he just simply expresses himself that way”.

Okay. Let me say it this way. I sensed a desire within myself not to be critical. Now, however, that desire is going away. Maybe it has something to do with being called a “monkey” a few too many times.

I just found this post. Apparently, we owe a debt of gratitude to MX if it turns out that IPR is successful.

And before then to Shiver in 2004. Shiver seems to have invented Xenolith’s IPR Protocol (which was always my recollection).

Perhaps this is one reason we don’t see Shiver and MX hanging around this site much these days.

Xeno acknowledged Shiver’s and MX’s influence on his PE ideas in his main IPR post in this thread:

You are correct that Xeno did tip his hat to MX and Shiver, but I think more than that was required. Those guys (especially Shiver) really worked to develop an IPR training protocol back in ‘04. Yet, from reading Xeno’s main IPR post, you would think their contribution was no more than incidental.

MX pointed this out here:

Xeno heartily agreed with MX in the subsequent post, but not until after he had already been showered with accolades. Maybe he wasn’t paying attention to the accolades.

It’s certainly possible that I’m misreading or misunderstanding the situation. If so, I apologize to Xenolith. Certainly, Xeno deserves credit for presenting a certain version of IPR training in a very colorful and high profile manner. For that, I am grateful.

Only 3 more weeks until I start my first round of IPR training. :) Although, I’ll probably be straying a little off course. I plan on going for 3 weeks, maybe 4, as I believe my penis will react best this way.

We shall see.

Nonetheless, good posts MM. :up: So very true about constructive criticism.

I think this is a good time to get this off MY chest.

Thunders is a very interesting place. If you get a little off the “beaten trail” or make too confident of a statement regarding an approach that isn’t accepted, you can catch a lot of shit. This is particularly annoying when you are doing your best to give something good to others here, something you have spent time and thought developing.

There has been several times that I have felt like saying “fuck it, I’m outta here” and in fact I have taken months off and away from here for just that reason.

So, on one hand, I completely understand Xeno’s position.

However, without getting overly critical of someone not here to defend himself, I found Xeno to get into more conflicts with more of the respected old timers here than I have seen in almost anyone else. He also had the intellect to usually come out on top.