The Penis (smooth) Muscle Theory

[slanker]

I am also under emotional stress right now and have been for 6 months. Personal issues. So that could coincide with what you are saying above.

[remek]

Originally Posted by Iguana

rem, here is a point you had mentioned earlier about the relaxation of smooth muscle affecting EQ. I remember questioning the wording in this post,
thinking it may be misleading and suggested rewording it to imply SM volume was lacking and not relaxation.

In reference to the post, your wording was dead-on with what I was thinking - that "the smooth muscle volume isn't sufficent to press firmly against the tunica." I changed the wording around and added a little bit more. It's still a rough draft at this point, but I wanted to make sure that we were accounting for all the things that could be causing weaker erections. Let me know what you think.

Originally Posted by Iguana

sparkyx posted a really interesting article over at TPs. He initally put it in our data collection thread and I asked him to make it it's own thread. Partly because I didn't want to distract from the data collection but also because I thought it was interesting enough to warrant a thourough discussion. He did, and you can find it here: Smooth Muscle and PE - Thunder's Place Free Penis Enlargement Forums

What is really interesting is his suggestion that stress can affect smooth muscle relaxation. I wasn't able to deduce if he thought both physical AND emotional stress were triggers or just physical. The article is very clear that emotional stress affects smooth muscle relaxation. The article focused mostly on emotional stress but I can see how they could go hand in hand. Thinking about it now this should have been very apparent to me. I have high blood pressure. I'm by nature a "high strung" individual. So, it's clear that emotional stress can constrict blood vessels (smooth muscle) raising blood pressure. What I find intriguing and want to further explore is the physical aspect. When overtraining, could we (as he is suggesting) somehow be physically "stressing" our smooth muscle to the point of hindering the relaxation? And if so, could it be that our BPEL could be affected but our BPFSL not?

I noticed that thread and haven't had a chance to check it out. I just finished PMing sparky, and we're thinking similarly in that we're all wondering: How can we focus our routines more? There have to be clues the penis is giving off!

He does, however, have a few differences in opinion. Chiefly, he thinks that the tunica is the MAIN limiting factor and that once we expand that, the smooth muscle will just come automatically.

In any regard, I absolutely think that when we overtrain we're stressing our smooth muscle. It makes the most sense. The smooth muscle becomes "fatigued," like regular muscle, and thus it can't work as effectively - and in a sense creating a "gap," as it can't relax enough to press against the tunica. Skeletal muscle acts similar when it is overtrained; the muscle becomes sore and nearly unusable in some cases.

I'm not sure how much this would affect our BPEL, though. I think it would affect it to some degree, as weaker erections lead to a smaller penis. What do you think?

[remek]

Originally Posted by slanker

I am also under emotional stress right now and have been for 6 months. Personal issues. So that could coincide with what you are saying above.

Yea, I think this has a lot to do with your slightly weaker and inconsistent erections. Stress can play a tremendous roll on erection strength - especially if something has been stressing you for that long.

[Iguana]

Interesting article in Circulation research about Smooth Muscle growth.

Changes in blood pressure or flow induce arterial remodeling that normalizes mechanical loads that are imposed on arterial tissue. Arteries are also under substantial longitudinal stretch (axial strain) that may be altered by growth or atrophy of tissues to which they are attached. We therefore tested whether axial strain is also regulated in a negative feedback manner through arterial remodeling. Axial strain in rabbit carotid arteries was increased from 62±2% to 97±2% without altering other mechanical loads on wall tissues. Strain was reduced within 3 days and completely normalized by 7 days. Remodeling involved tissue elaboration, endothelial cell replication rates were increased by >50-fold and smooth muscle cell replication rates were increased by >15-fold, and substantially elevated DNA, elastin, and collagen contents were recorded.

Wall Tissue Remodeling Regulates Longitudinal Tension in Arteries -- Jackson et al. 90 (8): 918 -- Circulation Research

[Iguana]

Another one:

Mechanical Stretching Stimulates Smooth Muscle Cell Growth, Nuclear Protein Import, and Nuclear Pore Expression through Mitogen-activated Protein Kinase Activation*


Vascular smooth muscle cells that were mechanically stretched exhibited an increase in proliferating cell nuclear antigen expression, cell number, and cell size within 24–48 h.

Vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs)3 within the vessel wall are continuously exposed to mechanical cyclic strain due to changes in blood flow and pressure. Under normal conditions, the vessel wall is subjected to hemodynamic forces that can stretch the large arteries up to 10% (1–3). During conditions of hypertension, physical stress on the arterial vessel walls can increase to 30% (2, 4–6). This stretch directly leads to the growth of VSMCs (2, 7–10). Cell growth in the form of hyperplasia and/or cell hypertrophy is an active process that requires cells to enter the cell cycle through the induction of cell cycle regulatory proteins (11–14).

Mechanical Stretch of VSMCs Stimulates Cell Growth—VSMCs were mechanically stretched to stimulate cell growth. After 48 h of stretch, the cells exhibited a significant 5-fold increase in proliferating cell nuclear antigen expression when compared with non-stretched control cells (Fig. 1A). This would suggest that the stretched cells were actively entering the cell cycle. Cell counts confirmed that the cells were completing the cell cycle. There was a significant increase in cell number in a time-dependent manner as a function of the stretch stimulus (Fig. 1B)

Cell hypertrophy is another type of cell growth that may be stimulated by cell stretching. Cell hypertrophy was determined using the cytoplasmic probe calcein AM to measure total cell volume. Cells stimulated by stretching exhibited a significant increase in cell size compared with the non-stretched control group (Fig. 1C). This too was blocked in the presence of 1 µM PD98059. These results demonstrate that mechanical stretching is capable of inducing both hyperplasia and hypertrophy in the SMCs and that this appears to occur in an MAPK-dependent manner.

Mechanical Stretching Stimulates Smooth Muscle Cell Growth, Nuclear Protein Import, and Nuclear Pore Expression through Mitogen-activated Protein Kinase Activation -- Richard et al. 282 (32): 23081 -- Journal of Biological Chemistry

[slanker]

Does the above article about stretching and smooth muscle indicate that sparkyx is correct in his theory that the tunica is the main limiting factor and when stretched the SM will follow? Therefore stretching indeed helps a lot..By the way just ignore me if you feel the need just find this interesting, always good to know whats happening to my penis when I pe.

[remek]

Originally Posted by Iguana

Cell hypertrophy is another type of cell growth that may be stimulated by cell stretching.

Interesting. Perhaps stretching/hanging causes SM hypertrophy (to some degree, as the tunica will take the blunt of the stress) and uli, clamping, etc causes SM hyperplasia. Or perhaps girth exercises also causes SM hypertrophy, as they are stretching the tunica outward. What do you think about all this, Iguana?

[remek]

Originally Posted by Iguana

Interesting article in Circulation research about Smooth Muscle growth.

Changes in blood pressure or flow induce arterial remodeling that normalizes mechanical loads that are imposed on arterial tissue. Arteries are also under substantial longitudinal stretch (axial strain) that may be altered by growth or atrophy of tissues to which they are attached. We therefore tested whether axial strain is also regulated in a negative feedback manner through arterial remodeling. Axial strain in rabbit carotid arteries was increased from 62±2% to 97±2% without altering other mechanical loads on wall tissues. Strain was reduced within 3 days and completely normalized by 7 days. Remodeling involved tissue elaboration, endothelial cell replication rates were increased by >50-fold and smooth muscle cell replication rates were increased by >15-fold, and substantially elevated DNA, elastin, and collagen contents were recorded.

Wall Tissue Remodeling Regulates Longitudinal Tension in Arteries -- Jackson et al. 90 (8): 918 -- Circulation Research

I quickly glanced over this, so tell me if I missed something. . . But from what I gather, an increase in blood flow actually increased cell devision of smooth muscle cells.

I imagine that this has many applications to PE. Here's one:

1. What does the Kegel do?!?! It increased blood flow/blood pressure to the penis. What does increased blood pressure do (or according to this study)? It increases smooth muscle cells. What does increased smooth muscle cells do? It increases 1) Hardness 2) Size (if the smooth muscle is the limiting factor). This could possible explain why Kegels increases both of these and why more men should Kegel - especially if they want hardness or if their smooth muscle is their limiting factor.

[Iguana]

Originally Posted by slanker

Does the above article about stretching and smooth muscle indicate that sparkyx is correct in his theory that the tunica is the main limiting factor and when stretched the SM will follow? Therefore stretching indeed helps a lot..By the way just ignore me if you feel the need just find this interesting, always good to know whats happening to my penis when I pe.

Slanker, it's really hard to say. The study involved stretching arterial smooth muscles (arteries) which are very very similar to the CC and CS chambers in the penis. Unfortunate for us, but fortunate for them, they were not hindered by the tuncia and could freely stretch the smooth muscle. I think there's no doubt the tunica is the main limiting factor. But this doesn't not always mean that the tunica is what is preventing gains (according to our theory.) As remek correctly pointed out, when manual stretching or hanging the tunica probably absorbs most of the stress and therefore the smooth muscle is not worked as efficiently as with other exercises that generate internal pressure such as jelqing and clamping. I have a feeling that when you effectively stretch out the tunica it doesn't just spill over to fill up the added space. Smooth probably needs to grow and expand to catch up with it.

[Iguana]

Originally Posted by remek

Interesting. Perhaps stretching/hanging causes SM hypertrophy (to some degree, as the tunica will take the blunt of the stress) and uli, clamping, etc causes SM hyperplasia. Or perhaps girth exercises also causes SM hypertrophy, as they are stretching the tunica outward. What do you think about all this, Iguana?

Very possible! Note that both hyperplasia and hypertrophy were included as a growth response to stretching. It looks like mechanical stretch induces the cells to grow and increase in number. This could explain why hangers report an increase in base girth? It would be interesting to know if both happen simultaneously, or one precedes the other.