OK, I'm shooting to make this one of my last posts on masturbation. I'm even thinking about turning this into an article.
Does masturbation affect gains? Judging by the amounts of threads that are created with the masturbation in them, it would appear that's the million dollar question. It's also the question that has racked my brain for a long time.
The results of the PE Survey suggest that masturbation (or most likely ejaculation) might affect gains . . . but the data could easily be wrong. So, I've always been afraid to give my detailed opinion on the topic. But let's go for it.
What do I think?
The short version: I believe masturbation can be good for gains, bad for gains, or not really affect gains at all . . .
The longer version: (Warning, it might be easier to just stick with the shorter version
)
GOOD FOR GAINS.
I believe masturbation, if done right, can be good for gains. For instance, several men have reported that both edging and ballooning have helped with their gains.
This might make sense, especially in terms of edging right before the point of no return, as this is when the penis is at it's maximum size. The glans are enlarged. The shaft is enlarged. The tunica and smooth muscle are pushed at their limit. So if you go into a Uli, clamping, or some other erect exercise, you're already at your normal limit and ahead of the "enlargement" game.
How much could it possibly help? I'm not sure. Maybe just a little, maybe a lot. I've read some PEers go into detail of the chemicals involved and how edging helps release PGF-1, NO, and other "nutrients" that could help with gains on a large scale. This sounds a little too much like the pill endorsements to me, but it could play a possible roll.
Another reason I think masturbation can be good for gains is that I firmly believe an erection is a light form of "penile exercise". The reason I say this is that every time we get an erection several things happen, including:
- The smooth muscle in the penis relaxes.
- The tunica is stretched outwards.
Granted, an erection typically isn't enough exercise to cause enlargement (or the masturbation rates would skyrocket), but I do believe frequent erections can help us keep our gains cemented to some degree and help keep our penis "in shape." Here's an article that might offer some insight on this:
Impotence drug could offer long-term help.
According to the article, several older men took Viagra every night for a year and regained complete control of their erection strength.
What I think happened was that the men were exercising their penis (the smooth muscle, the tunica, and other vascular tissues) every night, as erections are a light form of penile exercise. Overtime, this light exercise slowly gave them back their erections.
BAD FOR GAINS.
Of course, just as we can go overboard with PE, we can go overboard with our erections by masturbating and having sex more than our penis can handle. This is where sparkyx corrected me in the book
Most guys who PE correctly can handle a lot of erections without problem. But let's say a guy is already on the verge of "overtraining." In this case, all it might take is an intense sex/masturbation session to send him over the edge into the "negative PI" zone.
Or maybe a marathon sex session for a man who doesn't PE, masturbate, or have sex a lot could cause his penis to be "overtrained" due to the abnormal amount of "penile exercise" it is getting. Perhaps this is the reason several of the men who experience a long-time priapism go impotent: They overtrained their penis. Or, if done right, perhaps a marathon sex session could provide enough "penile exercise" to give a little boost in gains, as a few men have reported.
I also believe that it's possible that ejaculating at the wrong times could affect gains negatively. I could be completely off here, but the case that ejaculating right after a workout or right before a workout could be detrimental makes logical sense (to me at least). As I say in the book on ejaculating:
Whether you ejaculate or not is up to you. A lot of penile exercisers believe that not ejaculating
two hours before or after a workout maximizes gains. The argument for this belief is that you want your penis to be relaxed, full of blood, and larger than normal after a penile exercising workout. And you’ve probably noticed that the penis often contracts, shrinks, and reduces in blood flow after ejaculation. Nevertheless, several men have gained inches regardless of when they ejaculated. In the end, if you want to ejaculate, go for it. If after a while you feel that ejaculating is hurting your gains, try holding off ejaculating for two hours before and after your routine to see if it helps.
Exercising the Penis said:
Whether you ejaculate or not is up to you. A lot of penile exercisers believe that not ejaculating two hours before or after a workout maximizes gains. The argument for this belief is that you want your penis to be relaxed, full of blood, and larger than normal after a penile exercising workout. And you’ve probably noticed that the penis often contracts, shrinks, and reduces in blood flow after ejaculation. Nevertheless, several men have gained inches regardless of when they ejaculated. In the end, if you want to ejaculate, go for it. If after a while you feel that ejaculating is hurting your gains, try holding off ejaculating for two hours before and after your routine to see if it helps.
Quite a few men follow this approach. Some men follow an even more extreme approach, like Big Girtha (if I recall correctly, he wouldn't ejaculate at all during "girth" days).
DOESN'T AFFECT GAINS AT ALL.
This point really isn't in terms of masturbating, it's in terms of ejaculating. As stated above, I feel that masturbation can be good for gains (if done properly) and possibly bad for gains (if you're on the verge of overtraining).
But in terms of ejaculating, I'm not sure really sure if holding off on ejaculating an hour or two within a workout will help
maximize gains. It might help a lot, it might not help at all. Either way, one thing is certain: It's clear that ejaculating doesn't affect gains to the point of stopping them. Many many men have reported ejaculating after nearly every workout and still gained (some report gains several inches).
So with that in mind, if the choice ever comes between having sex (and ejaculating) or waiting because I just had a PE workout, I always choose the sex route
And for any man who chooses otherwise, I suggest he reevaluates why he PEes.
Hope this helps. Welcome to The Gym, by the way