+ 4 How to structure your cycle
I’ve been going back and forth with a member about setting up cycles for success and the benefits of titrating up doses as the cycle goes along. This has 4 primary benefits:
1) Your cycle will continue to be produce results well past the dreaded 8-10 week “stall” we so often see. This stall is essentially your body getting used to the anabolic dose it’s been on for 2 months and slowing your progress. What can we do? Up the dose, but if we start our cycle at peak dose there isn’t much room to go up from there.
2) Your cycle will be healthier. By gradually increasing dose we are lessening overall time spent at peak dosages and peak toxicity. If you’re gonna run 2 grams isn’t it much better to start at 500 and slowly ramp up until you hit your peak dose around the halfway point in the cycle? Food will be ramping and gym performance should be increasing with it so all the factors contributing to progress come up together.
3) You can navigate side effects easier and dial in exact dosing for your body rather than guessing. By making small incremental increases each week you can find exactly what test dose starts to produce estrogenic sides. Like to the milligram. You can also back doses down more accurately since the build up in your system has been progressing at the pace you dictate.
4) Starting slower allows you to get into the groove of your training, eating, and sleeping patterns better before your peak doses and peak effectiveness is in your system, which means you’re maximizing your peak anabolic load potential.
This ramp is generally 6-10 weeks of consecutively increasing dosage every week, then 6-10 weeks at peak dosing. Good for 12, 16, 20 and up week cycles.
Who is this a bad idea for?
If your cycle is relatively low dose, it probably isn’t necessary to titrate up slowly. I’d say 500mg and below of total anabolics there really isn’t any need.
If your cycle is short, 8 weeks or less, also no need. You’ll be done with the cycle before you’d finished ramping your dose anyway.
Pair the increase in dose with increase in food, increase in gym performance and you are guaranteed success.
Thoughts?
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I was actually going to try this way my next cycle. Not only does it make sense from a physiologic stance but also could save on gear costs... So potential win win.
The dreaded 8-10 week stall is not a stall, it is when you start actually growing. Most drugs would need like 4-6 weeks to really kick in, and i mean - working, not just getting up the concentration in blood, because its not the drug that does the work. Its the drug that at its full concentration stimulates processes. For example, when i take var and stanazolol, my strength is great. The strength remains up to 4 weeks after i stop these orals. Why? Because the processes started by them, dont just die off in 1 day. They take time to stop. They also take time to START.
That is why many people "kickstart" cycles with dbol or something. Which is retarded in my opinion, because you dont kickstart nothing but bloat.
That 8 week stall is when test and dbol and deca has finally built up all the water and glycogen. Its the end of the BLOAT. Its just that people take these watery drugs and eat salt, sugar and pizza, they bloat the fuck up, think its muscle, and when bloat is loaded up, they thing that they stopped gaining. They bloat 10lbs in 8 weeks and then it stops. No one builds 10lbs of muscle in 8 weeks unless they are very undertrained before. For advanced person, it would take a year of blasting to bulk and cut and keep 10lbs of extra muscle. Whatever weight they gain is just water and fat. The "stall" is a stall of bloat, and only then the actual building might start. That 1lb per 2 weeks, after the "initial stall" is the actual gain of SOME muscle.
The ramping up for advanced people is similar. You just titrate up the bloat and you feel like your gains are linear. If you have blasted a gram before, it probably means that you need at least a gram to continue to grow. Going from 250 to 500 to 750 does NOTHING for growth. You slowly bloat because of the dosages and get the illusion that you gain all this time, when in fact, you actually re-gain glycogen and bloat a bit, and you start growing only 5-6 weeks after you reach the dose that allows you to grow.
I dont believe that someone who stopped a blast on 1 gram, because he couldnt gain more, will gain on 250 to 500 after 4 months because he now titrates it up.
I hear you and agree, if someone is blasting a gram and comes down there’s not usually any benefit (sometimes we’re stronger a couple weeks post cycle because the toxicity levels are coming down but that’s an anomaly).
Where this gets tricky is the off periods.
Let’s say you blast a gram for 16 weeks and then you come down to 150-200 a week for a health phase. If this phase is sufficient (8-16 weeks) then I think once you titrate up to 300 from 150, there is still a benefit.
Then when you go from 300 to 600 there is still a benefit.
Then 600 to 1100 to top your previous peak dose that’s where that final magic of the cycle will take place.
In this scenario - maybe but its not a realistic scenario. No one who really blasts and cruises and really gains past intermediate level, i mean - someone who is at least 240lbs somewhat lean and bigger, never will blast 16 weeks and cruise 16 weeks. Most people who are actually big and gain something, usually blast 9-12 months and cruise 2-3 months. If you are way past intermediate level, as soon as you drop the doses, you also lose the gains. Blasting and cruising 1:1 means you maintain. There is no way you can maintain on cruise doses something that has been gained on 1-2 grams. It takes 2 out of these 3 months to start all the gaining processes, and then you only have like 4-6 weeks left of actually gaining, followed by 3 months of losing muscle. It just doesnt work like that for people who are actually bigger than average gym goer.
What you say could be ok and work for people who "bulk" on 200lbs but then again, im not sure people like that need to blast that heavy anyway, or blast at all. Id say cruise doses and some periods or spiked cruise doses are enough for men who barelly reach 230lbs in a bulk.
The Beard knows what’s up..long term health.. yes..
Yep. Health is the key and not gains. For some those gains are a priority over health.
+1 I honestly agree with this method but others would argue that it's pointless, which you've clearly given examples why it wouldn't be. I had this same debate with a buddy of mine a few weeks ago.
Yeah I mean if you don’t care about your long term health then sure blast away peak dose day one.
I know that sounds harsh but it’s sort of what those guys are saying, that it’s pointless to run anything less than your absolute max dose at any time.
Brother I've listened to this debate over and over and hey if that's how they feel then cool, like you said.. blast off to the moon. But I just can't agree with them on this issue. The human body is smarter than what folks think and they don't give it enough credit. I think it's more of certain guys just being too impatient that's all. That more is better from the start mentally is good for everyone lol...Nah.
But if folks feel a different way please feel free to comment. Everyone has an opinion.
This is the same all or nothing, give it to me now attitude that's going on today. Nobody wants to put in work naturally. Nobody wants to build that foundation, learn their body, nutrition, house to train correctly before jumping on gear, none of it. The same steroids are a miracle pill movement that's going on. Like, how do you know what you are about to run is going to agree with your body? As we know too well, we are not all the same and not everything works the same for everybody. So let's just jump in with both feet and when something goes wrong, we got no idea what it is or at what point things went wrong? There's no win in this argument. Only those that been around a while will get it.
Which is the same reason that they can't comprehend the less is more concept because they don't even give themselves a chance to see what a mediocre dose can produce. It's is what it is brother! You can only lead the horse to water, ya know?
BTW @Bearded_muscle great topic brother!
Buddy a lot of the guys coming on here nowadays asking about steroid cycles (mainly the younger ones) have no real interest at all in lifting weights, putting 2 years of committed lifting in the gym week in week out, hitting minimum strength standards to prove their ability, appropriate diet and solid sleep every night. Those days are long gone. Todays average young guy joining the gym is purely doing it because everyone else is, not because they want to lift. They want to look like all the other kids on social media with their tops off doing the Sultry stare. Within 2 weeks of starting to work out most of them think they need to be on steroids and are actively seeking them.
I know bro and it's sad cause they have no idea what they are doing to themselves. Screwing up their whole system to achieve minimal gains, if any. Social media had distorted this thing we love so much. Giving it a bad name and steering this younger generation into years of hard times with their bodies. What can ya do? Ya know?
Wow I think you make a good point by saying that some folks don't even give themselves a chance to see what a mediocre dose can do for them, that pretty much sums it all up. And that's a true statement. Lol it's kind of robotic where you have folks suggesting other folks follow their exact routine for gear dosing and exercise amongst other things. I see that at gyms, social media and everywhere. Nothing wrong with good advice but sometimes it's a bit unrealistic lol but good point overall.
I always make it a point to over emphasize that when anyone asks for advice. I tell them, ya gotta find what works for you. What dose works for you. It's the same with movements in the gym. What throws slabs of tissue on me, may not work for you the same. I mean, you'll get results no matter what you do, but ultimately whether it's gear, nutrition, workouts, everybody needs to find where they are and structure their own workouts, diet, all that. Wish ppl would stop for a moment and put that in perspective. And yeah, social media is definitely sending wrong messages out there. But then you'd think by now that ppl would realize that just cause it's on the Internet don't mean it's true. Lol
We think the exact same when it comes to this stuff seriously. This is the thing...I've said this in the past, said this yesterday and I'll keep saying this until at least one person benefits from it. When I was younger I worked out with a buddy of mine who looked up to a few guys in the gym and for some odd reason I was one of them he looked up to, I'm just an ordinary guy so I don't know why. Anyways I would give the guy advice about being safe with gear over and over. Ok to make a long story short the guy started using reckless amounts of gear and eventually messed himself up bad, I mean he paid the price. No need to go in detail because I won't drag him through the mud but it was bad. My point is even though I tried to teach that guy the right way he didn't listen and that bothers me to this very day. I've heard it wasn't my fault but still I think about that situation. Guess I would of been better off not even giving the guy advice at all but my point is this is the exact same mentality of alot of young guys nowadays. Just gotta be careful or consequences that you aren't ready for will be paid. And yeah they will be paid guaranteed