Flexibility Questions

When I used to be married, my wife would do the tying up. She was always the dominant one. One time, I modified a ratcheting tie down strap to use for my elbows. My wife cranked on the ratchet until my elbows were touching each other behind my back. The first ten minutes or so, it felt so erotic and wonderful that I went straight into sub space. I had never felt so helpless and immovable in my life.

But then, at around the 10-15 minute mark, the pain started settling in. At 20 minutes, I safe-worded out. That last minute or so was absolutely excruciating. So, my question is, would it be possible to train my elbows to touch behind my back like this if we did it for like 10 minutes a day, every day? ...or a couple of times a day?

I have also always been fascinated with being tied in a very high strappado. It is, to me, the perfect position for being flogged or whipped. My wife could stripe my entire backside from my shoulder blades all the way down to the backs of my knees. But, just like the elbow bondage, my time limit is about 30 minutes in a high strappado. So, I'm wondering if anyone here might know if I could train my arms to be tied in this position for hours on end if we tried to stretch things just a little at a time each day?

The photo shows torture posts at one of the concentration camps in Nazi Germany during War 2. Ever since I was a little kid, I've wanted to be strappadoed on one of these at least long enough to get a really good photo.

I also love being tied in those positions, and 10 - 15 minutes sound just about right. I wouldn't recommend crossing the 20 minute either, even if you train your endurance, because of three reasons:

1. It isn't about flexibility, it's about low blood flow and nerve pressure. When you tie your elbows behind your back (an unnatural body posture), you put a lot of pressure on your axillary nerve and brachial artery which can cause circulatory problems and damage your nerves. (I have injured my nerves and the recovery isn't pretty).
   
2. The numbness. Depending on the tightness, you can lose all sensation in your arms and hands pretty quick, making it really difficult to coordinate your hand movements and therefore making it impossible to escape your tie. (I had a near miss on one occasion because I couldn't untie myself, and I twisted my wrists without noticing another time).
   
3. Every time you reach your limit you're also damaging your body. Unlike muscles, nerves don't heal as well after an injury and that will eventually lead to cardiovascular diseases, nerve damage and chronic pain. (Fortunately, I haven't experienced any of these long lasting pains but even professional contortionists have to deal with health issues later in life.)
   

Of course I'm just a rando on the internet trying to give a warning. In my opinion, there is no point in continuing a session after you have lost all sensation, which for me happens at the 25 - 30 minute mark. Nowadays I tend to keep it safe and play for around 10 - 15 minutes on each session.

My only real advice is to be careful, play safe, and listen to your body to stay healthy.

@PurpleVibes, thank you for that input. I think you're right. Your description of the axillary nerve and brachial artery matches up with exactly what I experienced. I didn't know any of that.

I think some more experimenting would be in order except that, these days, I don't have a play partner. And I haven't figured how to get my elbows tied together all by myself and really, I'm like you. This is not really something I would want to do alone anyway.