conkertheking
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I got quite badly injured last year, to the point at which I was developing ongoing tendinitis in various different muscles pretty much every time I went to the gym, which wasn't relieved by rest etc.
There were very few times last year when I wasn't on something hormonal. At the beginning of the year I was on a doctor prescribed cycle of Raloxifene for a few months, I then did a standalone cycle of transdermal Formestane which lasted until the summer, and finally after a month's break, a cycle of BLR's Letrone and Rebirth, which I logged and which dramatically altered my hormone profile.
During this time, particularly the first half of the year when I was taking Formestane consistently, my lifts seem to increase exponentially week on week, getting to the point at which I could increase by one increment for just one workout, and my max would have increased within the three days before doing that muscle again, in other words I was practically increasing lifts by 2kg every 3 days for a time. I'm normally a very slow progressor in this regard.
It was towards the second half of the year that I developed all kinds of nastiness - forearm tendinitis, finger issues, shoulder impingement, grip problems to name just a few. Finally in early December (around one month after I ceased every hormonal supplement, with my log of Letrone and Rebirth being my last cycle) I decided to take a full month out of the gym to see if it would help.
I've resumed working out this week and my first two workouts have been incredible. I'm following a standard deloading protocol and reducing all lifts by 20%, and I'm finally getting close to top of target in each set without seemingly doing myself any injuries, which is great. I've decided for at least a few weeks to follow a strict "no increasing weights until you've done three good sets with this weight in three consecutive workouts", so even if it feels easy, I'm not increasing until I do it three workouts in a row.
What came to mind earlier is this. Muscle growth is heavily tied to activation of androgen receptors (and non-activation of estrogen receptors). However, I've never seen any research on how androgens affect joints, tendons etc. In fact, given how much joint pain people tend to complain of while taking AIs, it stands to reason that lower E2 actually impedes joints in some way.
What this brings me to essentially is this: Is it possible that essentially, while high androgen levels allow you to rapidly progress through weight targets and gain a significant amount of strength from far fewer workouts than during a natural season, your joints and tendons do not experience this accelerated growth rate? In other words, could it be that the reason I developed so many injuries was that I listened entirely to my muscles, which due to artificial hormone levels were perfectly happy to take heavier and heavier loads each workout, but that without putting in the usual amount of work time-wise on each weight, I wasn't giving my tendons and joints an opportunity to "catch up" with the spiralling muscle strength?
If this is the case, does it happen to other users of hormonal supps (from anabolics to OTC boosters, AIs etc) and if so, are there ways to mitigate that / speed up tendon and joint strengthening on cycle to match muscle growth, apart from simply increasing targets at one's usual, off-cycle pace despite the more rapid strengthening enabled by the cycle?
Anyone encountered a situation like this one before?
There were very few times last year when I wasn't on something hormonal. At the beginning of the year I was on a doctor prescribed cycle of Raloxifene for a few months, I then did a standalone cycle of transdermal Formestane which lasted until the summer, and finally after a month's break, a cycle of BLR's Letrone and Rebirth, which I logged and which dramatically altered my hormone profile.
During this time, particularly the first half of the year when I was taking Formestane consistently, my lifts seem to increase exponentially week on week, getting to the point at which I could increase by one increment for just one workout, and my max would have increased within the three days before doing that muscle again, in other words I was practically increasing lifts by 2kg every 3 days for a time. I'm normally a very slow progressor in this regard.
It was towards the second half of the year that I developed all kinds of nastiness - forearm tendinitis, finger issues, shoulder impingement, grip problems to name just a few. Finally in early December (around one month after I ceased every hormonal supplement, with my log of Letrone and Rebirth being my last cycle) I decided to take a full month out of the gym to see if it would help.
I've resumed working out this week and my first two workouts have been incredible. I'm following a standard deloading protocol and reducing all lifts by 20%, and I'm finally getting close to top of target in each set without seemingly doing myself any injuries, which is great. I've decided for at least a few weeks to follow a strict "no increasing weights until you've done three good sets with this weight in three consecutive workouts", so even if it feels easy, I'm not increasing until I do it three workouts in a row.
What came to mind earlier is this. Muscle growth is heavily tied to activation of androgen receptors (and non-activation of estrogen receptors). However, I've never seen any research on how androgens affect joints, tendons etc. In fact, given how much joint pain people tend to complain of while taking AIs, it stands to reason that lower E2 actually impedes joints in some way.
What this brings me to essentially is this: Is it possible that essentially, while high androgen levels allow you to rapidly progress through weight targets and gain a significant amount of strength from far fewer workouts than during a natural season, your joints and tendons do not experience this accelerated growth rate? In other words, could it be that the reason I developed so many injuries was that I listened entirely to my muscles, which due to artificial hormone levels were perfectly happy to take heavier and heavier loads each workout, but that without putting in the usual amount of work time-wise on each weight, I wasn't giving my tendons and joints an opportunity to "catch up" with the spiralling muscle strength?
If this is the case, does it happen to other users of hormonal supps (from anabolics to OTC boosters, AIs etc) and if so, are there ways to mitigate that / speed up tendon and joint strengthening on cycle to match muscle growth, apart from simply increasing targets at one's usual, off-cycle pace despite the more rapid strengthening enabled by the cycle?
Anyone encountered a situation like this one before?
