+ 1 Breaking through plateau on the last few weeks of testosterone cycle. Orals ok?
I’m on week 11 of test E 600mg. This is a bulking cycle and my second cycle. The gains have been great. Went 185lbs lean 12% body fat to 215lbs around 18-20% body fat is my estimate. 5’10” height.
These last 2 weeks I’ve seen plateaus on the scale and in the gym after breaking some PRs by a lot. Squat specifically went from 380 to 430lbs.
I started this bulk eating 4500 calories, increased to 5000 halfway, and eating 6000 calories right now. Gaining mostly fat at this point.
I’m training to attempt another squat PR in 3 weeks and I’m hoping to extend the cycle until then.
At this point is it okay to add an oral?
I do anavar on heavy weeks (6 times total this cycle) but I was thinking to do 3-4weeks of dbol or anadrol.
Or should I just stay at 600mg alone and end the cycle at week 15 after the squat PR attempt without adding the oral?
The primary goal was bulking but now my secondary goal is adding as much to my squat as possible in the next 3 weeks
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Its probably your body saying enough is enough
Also drop those mass gainer shakes
What age are you bud?
30 boss
I’m not sure what you’ve been eating, but this isn’t good at all. That is a lot of body fat you gained. Are you eating a lot of junk food? I would almost suggest the 20lbs you’ve gained is mostly fat. I would drop everything besides a TRT dose of test.
3000calories clean first part of the cycle now 3800 clean cals. The junk calories are from weight gainer shakes, first part of cycle one shake, now 2x 1300 calorie shakes during the day.
I retain a lot of water even though my e2 is dialed in. For the weight gain,I’m thinking 15lbs of water, 8-10lbs fat, and 5-8lbs of lean muscle.
We’ll find out post cycle and after I cut. I’ll be cutting all the way into the summer.
Throw that weight gain shit in the garbage. If you’re doing everything your saying, that shit is to blame
What brand mass gainer are you using? Be careful with those, I basically gave myself diabetes from them. It’s like 300-400 grams of fast carbs in just a few minutes. Really not good for your pancreas or whatever
Regardless of whether you want to focus on bodybuilding or powerlifting, it is not beneficial or healthy to gain 30lbs in 11 weeks. For powerlifting, you need to be a little fatter, but again you need to look at the ratio of the gained mass to the gained strength. In the ideal case, gain a little mass (fat)》and a lot of strength, and for that you need time, patience and a lot of cycles.
True. It's strange because there is a post of another guy who is preparing for a powerlifting competition trying to lose 30 pounds in a few months (2) I believe.
Yeah, I thought Tren was playing with my brain LOL
LOL yall better leave that tren alone!
Are you competing in a powerlifting competition? Or just a personal goal to set PR?
Personal goal. My deadlift is 585 and my squat was lagging behind at 385. This cycle I dedicated it as a bulk and hypertrophy training for upper body primarily. The secondary goal was for my squat to catch up. I’m pleased with upper body gains but now I’m just focused on the squat. I did get to 430 but I believe in 3 weeks lll be ready for 450ish based on training so far. If I can get to the 450 range I’ll be pleased with this cycle. I left a lot of lower body hypertrophy gains on the table due to strength training for the squat but I’m fine with that since legs were already unproportionately bigger than upper body prior to cycle. Now I’m more balanced.
Good to hear that you have a plan. You sound like me in your below comment about not being interested in bodybuilding. I never was interested myself but I looked up to the golden era guys. Honestly wish that I was from that era. But anyways this is your post...Yes sometimes size is sacrificed for strength, no doubt. Nice sized legs with a good squat number is impressive. I see guys all the time with huge legs yet they can't squat very much. Their leg size doesn't correlate with their leg strength in otherwords. But hey to each their own. I love pure strength with a good look...bottom line. Good luck man!
Bulking is not just eating whatever. It's an increase in calories. More of an increase in protein, keep carbs somewhat moderate and fats too. Just don't go ham slamming down cakes and ice cream trying to pack in the calories. Eat healthier calories. Drink more protein shakes. Try to keep sugar to a minimum if not zero.
It sounds to me like you get more enjoyment out of hitting new PR's and getting bigger overall than just concentrating on your physique, plus you have the added bonus of being able to eat a lot of extra calories if you need to! I would go the powerlifting route if I were you mate or at least just concentrate on getting big and strong for a few years. Get your squat 500lb's plus and then start cutting down if you still want to
Appreciate that. Definitely want to be bigger but couldn’t care less about bodybuilding. I have no problem cutting and getting to single digit body fat and I also have no problem walking around in 18% body fat. I think I will be heading into the powerlifting route and then just bodybuild when I get big enough
If gaining mostly fat, then time to bail on cycle. All you are going to do is just get fatter and what is the point in doing that. Your body composition is actually worse than when you started the cycle. If body comp estimates are accurate all you did was gain 30lbs of fat.
Good advice. The problem I see is everyone always says “just eat more” whenever you ask a question about gains. I wanted to increase my dose to 700mg and people said to just eat more so I increased my calories to 6,000. Ever since I did that I’ve been putting on weight but my body fat went up drastically.
You don’t think there’s much gains left if I stay on cycle for another 4 weeks? I’m only at week 11
No way you're eating 6k clean calories a day.. it's gotta be bread, and pasta and fried foods and pizza type foods.
I have all I can do to eat 3300 clean calories a day and I gain weight from that.
6000 clean calories would have you eating every hour or two
You’re right. 3000 clean calories and 3000 dirty calories essentially just 2 big mass gainer shakes (1300 cal each ) no cakes and sweets and shit
Ok cool, I was gonna say eating all that bad food would be terrible on your cholesterol. I could see how you could hit it with a few mass gainer shakes with whole milk
You are fighting an uphill battle now. Get out while you still can.
https://www.eroids.com/forums/general/general-talk/dirty-bulk-bad-idea
I appreciate the advice chief. One last question is if I should just eat at a maintenance but remain at my current dose just to make sure I really hit this squat PR exactly 3 weeks from now? That would make my cycle 14 weeks total. I’m just scared I lose strength by coming off right before the PR attempt
Hey man just going to throw this in others may not agree but Its something I have done and worked but its like a quick thing for achieving a PR-well in my case i was just competing in a local bench and squat competition and did this:
1) Use Test Suspension ed for the week of your PR attempt-if you can hack the pain of the injection then you will be fine
this will boost your strength massively
2) Using hardners like winstrol and var near to strength competitions 3/4 weeks away is common and adds strength to the muscle .
Neither of these are long term things, its just a thing that some people do near strength competitions and it defo boosts strength.
Bare in mind this is not long term plan, its just a one off thing you can do and i know many will disagree with this but for short term strength things it has benefits esp if you are looking to PR once in lifetime thing
Stay your current dose and drop your cals to slightly above maintenance. Drop the cals by mostly dropping fats and keep your carbs and protein about where it’s at now.
You’re likely hitting a plateau because you’ve reached a level of systemic fatigue that you can’t quite recover from session to session. Hitting squat PRs frequently is much more taxing than you realize. Your muscles may feel fine but that’s not the only thing accumulating fatigue especially with maximal axial loads over and over
I hadn’t thought of this. Thank you for the insight. Where can I find more information on this topic?
Sorry I don’t have anything specific to link to you. I’ve just been around the lifting world a while and in that time had the good fortune to train around some serious coaches…such as the women’s USA olympic weightlifting coach. You pick up some things here and there of how to manage fatigue and peaking strength for a meet.
I guess it depends on what your goal here is. Gaining any more muscle is basically a pipe dream at this point. I wouldn't be eating in a surplus now because it is just going to be fat gain from this point on and that does you no good. PR's aren't really important to me, I am more concerned about body comp and overall quality mass gains. If trying to hit that PR though without getting to much further out of shape then I would cut back cals closer to maintenance and see how your strength is. If it just isn't there, try bumping cals 500 or so above maintenance and that should provide plenty of glucose saturation for your muscles to maintain strength while only putting a little more extra fat on. 6000 cals is way overboard at this point.
I will do exactly this. Thank you for the advice.
Also took anavar on a bulk.. what a waste
Only took it on heavy squat days since anavar pwo gives me strength boost which was a total of 6 times out of the entire 11 weeks. I wouldn’t call it a waste. It did what I needed it to do those 6 days that I needed it.
Why not just take dbol which gives you way more strength. Anavar really doesn't add a ton of strength.
If you felt it helped that's all that matters I guess
Strongest I’ve ever been in my life prior to my current bulk was during a cut running 50mg var a day. Was in a roughly 5000 cal a week deficit and was gaining strength each week. Was incredible.
Sucks var doesn’t give you this boost
You were in a 5000k deficit? That's a typo yeah?
And it does give me a strength boost but nothing like drol or dbol
5000 per week. 3500 is a lb. So I was trying to lose a little over 1lb a week.
Sorry bro, I completely missed the week part I apologize on that.
All good. Easy miss since most people say what their daily deficit is. I track mine weekly, because some days I’ll eat more depending on expected energy expenditure. But I aim for a total weekly negative. Very fluid dieting vs the linear “I’m going to eat 500 cals less per day every day” type dieting
I've heard that alot about anavar but man for some powerlifters and bodybuilders it does give strength. Maybe some anavar is underdosed or maybe some just don't react well to it.
Whats up D, you doing well today?
Yeah I mean I get strength from it but after awhile not as a pre-workout. Would definitely prefer superdrol or a-bombs over var if I'm going for a pr.
Everyone's different that's why I said as long as it worked/helped him is all that mattered.
You watching the fight this weekend?
For sure..hey man different strokes for different folks. Glad those compounds work for you. Lol I just wish they weren't so damn toxic, but anyways just the way it is.
So I've been busy, remind me who is fighting? Ya know anytime boxing is around you'll be one of the first I go looking for lol
UFC 298: Volkanovski vs. Topuria
It's gonna be a good card.
Yeah boxing is my favorite sport, we got Anthony Joshua vs big Frank next month that's gonna be a banger!!
Parker vs Zhang is also on the card.
@JakeKO gonna be on the lookout!
Yea I was thinking that Joshua fight isn't until next month so you had to be talking about UFC. And I forgot Parker is on that card.
So you know they're setting up the winners to fight each other, while Usyk and Fury have a second fight. Remember I said that. And I'm loving what the Saudis are doing for boxing.
Yeah the Saudis are killing it with the fights they are putting together.
Jake has to be a part of this, we gotta get all the boys together for that one.
Nah you are 100% right they are setting it up so the winners fight this summer. Then next year fury-usyk winner fight the winner out of these 4
Yea JakeKO claims I got him into looking at boxing more but he actually got me looking at bare knuckle fighting and that silly ass slap competition lolol. I love the bareknucke fights though. And yes boxing is back. The hell with boxing politics.
I’ve never ran dbol but Anavar gives me great strength gains. Maybe just how I respond to it. I only need 12.5mg (half a pill) and Im throwing around RPE 9 weight like it’s RPE7-8
I've heard that before and I also heard it does nothing for some lifters. Kind of makes me wonder if there is underdosing, but then sometimes certain people will react differently to a specific compound. I'm still trying to figure it out.
OOooooffff You didn't just say that bro!!??!!!
I'm all for the Dbol fan club, but more Pro Powerlifters run Anavar 50mg tabs than Anadrols and Superdrol tablets these days. Its a great compound for strength in all honesty.