Is The Penis A Muscle?
The answer to this question is mostly no, the penis is not a muscle. It is more of a high-pressure blood vessel with inflow valves that are controlled by smooth muscle that can relax or constrict to facilitate an erection. When a man gets fully erect, assuming he does not have ED, the pressure in his penis is roughly 110 PSI, which is the pressure of a fully inflated road bike tire. The connective tissue that contains the blood chambers in the penis that create this pressure is the second strongest connective tissue in the body, after the tissue that creates the covering of the spinal cord and brain, the dura.
To achieve these remarkably high pressures that are necessary for a fully rigid erection, nerves act on very small smooth muscle cells to relax and facilitate blood getting into the penis, or opening the inlet valves. Once these valves are fully open, blood rushes into the penis creating an erection.
Although the penis does not get erect like a muscle, it must “work out” in order to not atrophy. If a man does not have erections for a very long time, it can lead to shrinkage of the tissue as it will not regularly be inflated to its max pressure as it was designed to do. The Tech Ring is a good option to track the frequency and rigidity of erections as we typically cannot improve what we do not measure. The ring's use gives men and their partners objective feedback on the rigidity and duration of their erections.
