10 Startups That'll Change the situs cmdplay Industry for the Better
There are lots of reasons a man may find bumps on his boner. However, if that 'bump' seems to be hard, less sensitive to touch, and sizable, it may be a callus. Calluses are a thickened and hardened part of the skin or soft tissue. They are yellow or pale in color. They feel lumpy but surprisingly aren't as sensitive to the touch as one might believe. They are often bigger than bumps or skin tags and don't appear to have defined edges. They're nothing to get excited about and can be easily treated (spoiler: time is the only remedy) and prevented.
Callus on the penis? Let's Talk Causes, Treatment, and Prevention
There aren't a ton of ways to get a callus on the penis, but here are a few to watch out for:
1) Rubbing or Friction - Whether from sex or too tight trousers, rubbing and friction can harden the skin resulting in a callus. Runners are at high risk for calluses as 10-mile mornings can equal a lot of skin-on-skin or skin-on-spandex time.
Treatment & Prevention: When a callus appears on the penis, a man can't just "walk it off." Unlike calluses on the feet that can build up and still be functional, a penis callus requires a man to take a knee on all penis adjacent activities until skin sheds and it goes away. For those suffering from a prolonged sexcapade performance, use lube and use moderation in the future. For the others, carefully consider the fabrics that rub up against the penis and make appropriate adjustments. Also, make sure there isn't too much compression or constriction. Runners should also use a product like Runner's Glide anywhere on the body where friction occurs.
2) "Death Grip" - These calluses form specifically due to excessive masturbation. This affects uncircumcised men more than cut men due to the foreskin being present.
Treatment & Prevention: Take some time off from self-pleasure and the callus will eventually fade on its own. Like, some serious time off. Men who suffer from Death Grip need to give the penis time and space (like a clingy girlfriend) to chill out and come back to stasis. Only then can a man hope to regain sensitivity (but be warned that some damage can be permanent). Be sure to use a lubricant in the future (on the shelf or something natural like coconut oil if you believe the hype on Reddit). Also, practice moderation with self-pleasure.
3) Pressure - Men who put a lot of pressure on their penises (physically, not emotionally) can also be susceptible to penis calluses. Cyclists often experience an issue with this due to bicycle seats and long-distance treks. A man doesn't have to be an athlete to experience this though; men who spend long hours with a laptop on their lap can also find a callus on their penis as a result.
Treatment perhaps a padded seat or padded shorts may help. For laptoppers, limit the lap time and get thyself a laptop table.
Another Tip for Men with a Callus on their Penis
While men have a penis callus, as well as to prevent them, they may opt to use a specifically formulated penis health creme (health professionals recommend Man 1 Man Oil, which has been clinically proven safe and mild for skin) to hydrate and soften the penis. Chock full of vitamins, minerals, and effective amino acids, these crèmes protect against callus creators like peripheral nerve damage and encourage collagen production leading to healthy, new skin. The Shea butter and vitamin E base also provide a natural, nourishing environment for skin to heal and regain suppleness.
You've probably heard of the formula "220-your age" for estimating maximum heart rate. Unfortunately, this formula is not very useful because it can be easily off by more than 20 beats on the high or low side. For me at age 54 this formula says my maximum heart rate should be 166, but I happen to know from more accurate tests that it's at least 25 beats higher than that.
In books, on exercise machines, and on the walls of gyms, you'll often see charts of suggested exercise intensity that are based on 220-your age. It's also in calculators all over the web. I'd hardly break a sweat if I exercised at those levels. But more importantly, for some people the opposite is true and their maximum heart rate can be more than 20 beats lower than the formula predicts. If they were to exercise at the levels from the charts, their intensity could be too high, especially for anyone with a medical condition.
This formula is often quoted without any warning about its potential inaccuracy, and in addition to the inaccuracy, it turns out it has little scientific basis [Kolata, 2003]. Some people are aware that 220-age was never intended by its original authors to be a universal formula (it was intended to come up with a safe exercise level for patients in cardiac rehab and was based on a not very broad sample of subjects). But the problem is also in the basic assumption that max heart can be predicted on the basis of age alone. If you think about it, it seems nonsensical- regardless of family background, fitness level, whether we're tall or short, underweight or overweight, etc, we all have exactly the same heart rate at a certain age, and maximum heart rate declines with age in all of us at exactly the same rate?
More recent studies have tried to revisit this concept on a broader sample of the population. For example, in one study, based on thousands of subjects, male and female, ranging in age from 18 to 81, the authors came up with a "best fit" equation of:
Max heart rate = 208 -0.7xAge.
However, if you look at the data this is based on, it looks like a cloud with only a vague trend towards heart rate decreasing with age; there's a lot of scatter. The new formula is a little more accurate than the old one, but can still under predict or over predict max HR by 20 beats or so [Tanaka, 2001].
A recent review of many attempts to come up with a formula to predict max heart rate concluded that no sufficient accurate formula exists to predict max heart rate from age alone [Robergs, 2002]. In my opinion none is possible because of the large amount of scatter in the data. Exercise physiologist Dr. Fritz Hagerman, who has studied world-class rowers for three decades, has said that the idea of a formula to predict an individual's maximum heart rate is ludicrous: he has seen Olympic rowers in their 20's with maximum heart rates of 220, and others on the same team and with the same ability, with maximum rates of just 160 [Kolata, 2001].
Many books have charts with elaborate training schedules based on various zones of intensity, all based on maximum heart rate. It all may look very scientific, but it's not too worthwhile if it's based on an inaccurate number.
Another misconception I've come across is that the problem with the 220-age formula is fixed by using the "heart rate reserve" or Karvonen formula. In that formula, exercise intensity as expressed as a percentage of your "reserve capacity" between your resting heart rate (RHR) and max heart rate (MHR):
Target heart rate = X% of (MHR-RHR) +RHR
Where X% is the desired percentage. This is a useful formula because the intensities from it are related to a percentage of the heart rate corresponding to your maximal oxygen update VO2Max, which many exercise physiologists are fond of using. But the Karvonen formula still needs an accurate estimate of your max heart rate. If you stick in an inaccurate number based on an age related prediction like 220-age, the result will still be inaccurate.
Heart rate training can be a useful cmdplay tool, if based on a good estimate of what's a valid intensity level for you. Maximum heart rate can be measured accurately in a lab, but for most of us that's kind of an expensive option. You can estimate other useful parameters like heart rate at lactate threshold from self-administered tests (see for example, [Carmichael, 2003]) and this can be used for heart rate based training. But for those of us that are interested in mostly in fitness, I question the necessity. I'm a "perceived level of exertion" kind of guy. On easy cardio days my pace is comfortable. On hard days, it feels hard, and when doing intervals, it's very hard. This leads to good and steady progress.
References
-Carmichael, Chris, and Jim Rutberg, The Ultimate Ride: Get Fit, Get Fast, and Start Winning With the World's Top Cycling Coach, Grosset & Dunlap, 2003.
-Kolata, G, "Maximum Heart Rate Theory Is Challenged", The New York Times Health Page, April 24, 2001.
-Robergs, R, and Landwehr, R, "The Surprising History Of The 'HRmax= 220-age' Equation', Journal of Exercise Physiology Online, 5(2), 2002.
-Tanaka, H, Monahan, K, Seals, D, "Age-Predicted Maximal Heart Rate Revisited", Journal of the American College of Cardiology, 37(1), 153, 2001.
