Coming back after 5-6 years
Hi all,
So I was a member here years ago and was pretty hardcore into the juice game. I was a personal trainer didn’t have a family and was young and dumb but the gym and my fitness had always been my life. I ended up getting married and having kids with my first being born with serious medical issues to make a long storey short I ended my fitness life completely. Since then I’ve become a single father of two beautiful little angels and my focus switched from myself to them.
I’ve come to a place in my life where I’ve started to take care of myself again. I’m back in the gym hitting it hard, dialing in my diet and thinking about jumping on cycle again.
I’m currently in research mode before deciding if now is the right time to cycle or if I should give it more time. If I do cycle it will be a very basic cycle and my goals would be just to speed up getting back to a high fitness lvl (feels weird not being a head turner at the gym).
Seeing that I’ve been away from everything for so long should I follow the rule of getting to a Plato before cycle or can/should I run a cycle to help speed up my come back?
I’m 35yrs old
6 ft
185lbs
Around 12%-16% bf (this is my best guess)
Before leaving the gym I was around 205-215 lbs regular with under 10% bf
Thanks in advance for any advice given.
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Dude I wanna say how proud I am of you for realizing important shit was going down in your life, I know too many people who fuck around when they have kids. Now to answer your question, were you 205 on gear or off cycle? If off cycle then get back to 205, but if that was only on gear I would see what you're capable of for like 2-3 months then jump on, aka the plateau you mentioned.
Thank you, my kids are my world first time I looked at my son everything changed can’t explain it.
My body weight well lifting always hovered between 190 and 205 normally but I was always ripped and lean but solid. 215 was the heaviest I got cycling but I normally maintain around a 205 when cycling but you could literally see all my definition every muscle and every vein if that makes sense when not cycling and at 205 i was lean and defined but not anything like when cycling. Sorry that’s probably a bad description.
Getting big big has always been really hard for me. My last cycle I was on a 6500 calorie diet. Literally was forcing myself to eat to the point that I would gag through meals. One of my biggest problems back then is I lived in the gym basically and was a personal trainer so I worked out my self 2 hrs a day then ide work out with my clients too, over trained hard then would play basketball on my off time. Won’t have that issue now.
Also I’m not lean now like I was back then. I have a athletic build still but no abbs or anything. You can tell I’m not working out.
Muscle memory is a thing! Bust your ass, dial in your diet, & you'll get back to your old self soon enough!
I’m also going to do some research on hgh. I’ve never really looked into it have no idea how it works or if it’s even worth looking at right now but time to read listen and learn. If anyone has any advice or good reads on hgh with prior experience point me in a direction for good info.
Thanks bro’s
RustyhookerWaste of money til its really needed. Get your protein up 250g every day. Work the complex carbs up.
I’m 100% going to wait a little wile before jumping back on cycle. As far as diet and motivation/routine it’s like I never left. My form, routines and intensity are great and my diet is going great also but I’m still working out a semi solid meal regiment. I’ve been extremely hungry even with a good calorie intake but assuming that’s from the shock of beating my body up after so long.
The biggest reason I’ve decided to wait is that the single reason I want to cycle is because my strength is non existent right now and it sucks and to be honest is embarrassing but I did deadlifts for the first time since being back yesterday and thought I pulled something juice is just going to make that worse if I get strong before my body can handle it. I’m not as young as I use to be so I’m going to build a base first. I can barely function today I’m so sore lol can’t even remember the last time my body felt like this. Did heavy cardio today to work on endurance and skipped the weights to recover.
Thank you all for the love and advice!! Will take this time to research, learn, plan and get back into the community here and will reevaluate my status in June.
It can be hard to get back in bro.. take your time! We all get eager to get to our goals. Don’t rush.. take one day at a time. Start with a great diet, get life organized. I am a father too and you lose a lot of sleep, it’s hard to meal prep, and money can be tight (those little ones drain the bank).
Jumping back into AAS is something you definitely can do when you get everything in order. You’ll do what ever you want, but that is my advice.
Good luck bro and welcome back
Thanks bro, true talk lol. Deff a hole different game with the kiddos being around. I’m a lot more nervous about aspects of getting back into it also. I use to just do anything and everything I just didn’t care if I was gaining but now it’s a lot different. I can’t make stupid choices and run multiple cycles back to back and not listen to any advice. Can’t pin twice a day and run 10 different things half incorrectly lol. I’ve done some stupid shit in the past really stupid but now got lil ones counting on me.
I’m also going to take this time to get bloods done and get a better look at where my system is at. Will budget money every week specifically for if I decide to jump on cycle in a few months kinda a little savings just for gains lol.
I took 7 years off juice.... 5 off lifting I took 2 years to shape up naturally again until I went in again... and I am getting the best results using everyone’s advice
I think it would depend how long you’ve been back at it and if when you take an honest look at your diet and training if you’ve been consistent enough that you could maximize a cycle.
Take what I say with a grain of salt because I’ve never had to regain lost ground from previous cycle size since I’ve never cycled. The reason for that is because every time I came back from time off due to injury or life happening I was always able to push past my old plateau and I always look back and think “thank god I didn’t cycle because I would’ve sold myself short”. I don’t think going from 185 to 200 and trimming down a little is unreasonable without cycling. I think you can get back to your previous size or at least close before jumping back on.
Im pretty freshly back into it. I’ll keep posting on my progress hopefully I can have similar results coming back as you have experienced. A good gym buddy of mine mentioned to me yesterday that because I’m a bit older now growth will be different. He said in his experience endurance and such is harder to make gains now that he’s a bit older but size and strength comes easier, not sure how true that will be for me. I’ve always been slim and mean never really had size weight has alaways been harder to gain then loose for me but I also use to run circles around everyone lol.
Definitely can’t jump right into testing out your maximum abilities at first. That’s a good way to get too sore and miss workouts or worst case get injured. Every time I come back from a hiatus I start my diet with this.
https://www.eroids.com/forum/general/general-talk/i-know-my-tdee…-now-what-do-i-do-with-it-to-get-big-not-fat
It really helps me ensure I’m feeding myself enough to grow and not over feeding which is particularly important if you’re looking to cycle in the future and are already at 15% BF. There’s also mention of recomp strategy to the diet for reference. I usually follow this until my workouts get me too sore or I’m not progressing and then I’ll up my intake. If I stall out weight wise but aren’t getting stronger or I’m failing the mirror test I back off the calories. Hasn’t failed me yet since I learned about it. Good luck
josipgatesFirst brother i would get used to training,diet, supps everything,push as hard as you can for at least month...when u got everything perfect, feeling great motivated and u are 100% dedicated again to your training and diet,you can start cycle...cause u have been long time off, something very basic can do great things...maybe some test+EQ or test+deca.
Test Eq is exactly what I’m thinking when I do run again. I was never a fan of Deca for some reason it fucks with me hard dbol also always been like that.
I’ll probably do a long ester cycle in the 500 range. Going to wait until min June before taking another look.
josipgatesgreat idea! best cycle with minimum sides...u can start with 500 test and 600 eq and later increase to 750 test and 800 eq so your progress don't stall
If it were me. I would wait till I plateaued. That way my mind would be more at ease with the fact, that my tendons and ligaments could handle the quick increase in strength. You've been out for a long time.
Great point. I've seen people on their 1st cycle, after not lifting for a long time, or even some natty PL.
Their strength increase much faster than their joints and tendons can adapt to.
They end up getting injured and usually never want to train heavy anymore.
My rule for myself is get my gym schedule down
Then start my diet counting macros atleast 4 weeks before starting cycles.. one it make me accountable, meaning if i can bust my butt and have everything in order before i start CYCLE i will have that mind set of IM GONA DO THIS SHIT!!! right this time Hope everything works out for ya keep us posted on what you decide