Do you need to be hard going into the pump?
Do you need to stay erect while pumping?
These are 2 frequently asked questions in the penis pumping community.
While there are no finite answers, and each man's body is different, we can say that the short answer is yes, you should be hard going into the pump, and yes, you should try to stay erect while pumping.
Why?
It will help you achieve greater and more measured expansion.
Entering the Pump Fully Erect
The purpose of penis pumping is to expand your penis beyond its normal size to create new cell growth in its enlarged and engorged state.
When your penis is in a fully erect state, it means that your penis is technically at its "largest size", and that is the size you're trying to exceed in the pumping session.
Therefore, if you enter the pump fully erect, and only achieve a little bit of expansion, that would still be exceeding your largest size, and a step in the right direction.
Entering the Pump Flaccid
On the other hand, if you entered the pump in a fully flaccid state, it would be more difficult to gauge whether you are exceeding your largest size.
If you started in a fully flaccid state at 0% erect, and pumped to 95% erect in the cylinder, you might feel that you are getting expansion, but it would still technically be less than your largest size.
Therefore starting from a fully erect state helps you measure your expansion beyond your largest size, which is what we're trying to accomplish in a penis pumping session.
Staying Erect Throughout the Session
You should also try to stay erect throughout the entire session for maximum internal expansion and engorgement.
It's true that just by being in the cylinder at a pumped pressure, your penis will be "erect", but that erection is produced by the pressure of the pump.
It's best if you are producing the erection as much as possible internally, and the pressure from the pump is helping to expand your natural erection beyond its largest size.
While the pump can do both (produce a normal erection, and expand the penis beyond its largest size), we believe it's more effective if the penis is being worked on by both the internal force of your own body and blood, as well as the force of the pressure in the pump.
How to Stay Erect Throughout the Session
Erections occur through arousal and stimulation, so maintaining a natural erection throughout an entire pumping session can be difficult to do.
Some men will use a sexual stimulus such as pornography to stay erect during a pumping session, but we would not recommend pornography due to its negative effects.
Some men take Viagra or Cialis daily, which allows them to produce and sustain an erection much easier, though some sort of stimulus is normally still required beyond these erectile dysfunction medications.
We would suggest simply finding some sort of sexual stimulus - photos, videos, thoughts, movies - something that is not pornography, and using it to arouse and stimulate you every once in a while throughout the pumping session to have spikes of a full erection.
For example if your session is 30 minutes long, every 10 minutes you can arouse yourself to a full erection, which will give you consistent spikes of a fully erect state throughout the session.
This is the best approach to trying to stay hard throughout the session, while not being occupied and immersed in sexual thoughts the whole time as well.
Summary
Penis pumping and penile enlargement is a marathon or a journey. Every day we spend hours pulling and pumping our penises to achieve maybe a few centimeters over the course of a year.
Therefore, we have to meet the penis pump half way and do everything in our power to help achieve the results we want.
Entering the pump in a fully erect state allows us to have a baseline for our largest size, and what we are trying to exceed and expand beyond.
And adding self-produced erections throughout the session will allow us to bolster the vacuum pump's pressure with internal engorgement as well.