Okay, so, I’m not the only one that has noticed; Emeritus Professor Sam Shuster did too.  But no one seems to know why or if, in fact, their nether region actually shrank or just looks smaller; so, I’m going to get to the bottom of this.  Does body building cause your genitals to shrink?

Let’s consider what is going on down there.  What gives a penis its various sizing?  Well, According to a study in BJU International (BJUI), the average length of a flaccid penis in an adult male is 3.61 inches.  The average girth of a flaccid penis is 3.66 inches. The girth of a penis is a measure of the penis’s circumference at this widest section.  The same study found that the average length of an erect penis is 5.16 inches, and the average girth of an erect penis is 4.59 inches.   According to the BJUI study. Only 5 percent of men are larger than the average length and girth, and only 5 percent are smaller.

External Temperature

Temperature is one element that effects how the penis reacts; either stays flaccid, temporarily shrinks, or fills with blood and becomes erect.  When cold, it shrinks to get closer to the body where it is warmer.  When hot, it stretches a bit to fall away from the hot body.

There’s no relationship between the size of a penis when flaccid or erect. In fact, a study in the Journal of Urology found that the average erect penis size is similar for most adult men, but the sizes of flaccid penises vary.  The study also found that a better predictor of erect length was “stretched” length. That’s when a flaccid penis is pulled slightly to elongate the muscle and skin.

Now, you can’t assume anything about an erect penis size by looking at a penis while it’s flaccid.  Some men may gain a significant amount of length from the flaccid position. Other men, however, don’t gain as much length with an erection.  So they may “look” like they are different sizes when soft, but when erect, they could be the same size.

With that in mind, we see body builders in nothing more than a thong.  If it is indoors, they may feel a bit of a breeze from the AC.  We can safely assume, they may be a bit cold and that could be one factor.

Natural Shrinkage

The length of a penis can decrease by up to an inch or so for various reasons.  Usually, changes to penis size are smaller than an inch, however, and may be closer to 1/2 an inch or less.  BUT THIS is due from aging, obesity, prostate surgery, or a curving of the penis.  The aging and obesity party maybe an important factor because these greatly impact your testosterone levels.  For aging, one reason is the buildup of fatty deposits in your arteries reducing blood flow to your penis. This can cause withering of the muscle cells in the spongy tubes of erectile tissue inside your penis.  If you gain weight, particularly around your lower abdomen, your penis may start to look shorter. That’s because the thick pad of fat starts to envelop the shaft of your penis. When you look down at it, your penis may seem to have gotten smaller.  But really, fat around it is tarting to hide it under the skin.

But, given the massive size of Mr. Olympia, I don’t think he has a problem with having enough testosterone.  But the question remains, is his testosterone being overly diverted to the various muscle groups and away from this nether regions?  Does that effect size?

Steroids

When you take large amounts of synthetic testosterone, your body eventually shuts down your natural production. Since testosterone is produced in the balls, they shrink. Most bodybuilders who abuse steroids have testicles smaller than peanuts. However, the penis does not shrink.  But, for whatever reason, bodybuilders appeared to have small balls.  But, remember, this is in comparison to their total massive bodies.

THE ANSWER

Big body builders look like they have smaller dicks because of a few combined factors:  1) they are in skimpy thongs, and even if they, themselves, don’t “feel” cold, the room temperature is cooler than the desirable temperature of the testicles, so, they shrink a little. 2) Their size is like an optical illusion; causing their dicks to appear to be smaller when, in fact, they are not. This illustration helps demonstrate that:

The example on the left is the body builder, and the right is some skinny nerd.  And the orange dot is their dick.  Here’s the secret, that orange dot, is the same size.  3) another possible factor is they may have done a shit load of steroids and their balls did, in fact, shrink a little.  If that’s the case, it would look even smaller than it really is as well.

Dick Workouts

If the penis is a muscle, why not do some sort of weight lifting and make it bigger?  As much as you may love to werk your “love muscle,” the penis isn’t actually a muscle. It’s mostly made of spongy tissue that fills with blood when a person gets an erection.   But it does have muscles nearby that make movement possible.

Kegels may help improve blood flow, which could make your erection fuller.  Jelqing, which is a stretching exercise for penises, is one such exercise that may or may not work.   Jelqing is a penis stretching exercise. It involves massaging your penis tissues, stretching the skin to create “micro-tears” that look engorged when they heal.  A 2011 study found that using traction devices could increase penis length up to an inch if worn at least 9 hours a day for 3 months.  A 2011 review of penile lengthening literature found that traction devices produced comparable results to surgery, recommending traction devices as a first-line treatment.  But a 2016 report found no significant effects of traction devices on penis length or girth, noting that more, larger studies are needed.