How important is collagen synthesis?

[Sweekaters]

So we all know testosterone causes collagen synthesis to drop by about 50%, how significant do you think this is? I ask because I always thought it was important to include something like deca or equipoise to offset this drop if you were planning on running AAS for a longer period of time, but not I'm starting to question that. I started lifting at a PLing gym, and most of the guys there take at least 250mg of test a week year round, and then ramp up to a gram and add tren when meet time rolls around. A lot of them are squatting 700+ and benching 450+, and most of them are injury free, and say their joint feel fine even when they are running a gram of test and a half gram of tren. So how important are 'joint' drugs like deca, eq, and var in your opinion?

 

[MakaveliThaDon]

subbed, good question. Though I'm not sure I've ever heard of var being good for the joints.

 

[Sweekaters]

subbed, good question. Though I'm not sure I've ever heard of var being good for the joints.

I always phrase this a bit wrong, but I don't know how to word it otherwise. When I say 'good for joints', I mean that is ups collagen synthesis, which increases tensile strength and keeps your tendons and ligaments healthy. Var is very good at this, it's what they give to help burn victims heal and grow new skin:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1421286/
When most people say something is good for the joints, they usually mean it pulls water into the joints like deca, which really just masks any joint pain instead of fixing it. I don't really care about band-aiding the problem like that, I just want to know if I should be concerned about keeping my tendons strong over several cycles, or whether it's really a moot point.