boti420
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I decided to make this post to share and compact some of the info I’ve learned here over the years and maybe add to the general knowledge of this board. Most of this can be found on here using the search function which I recommend everyone to use. I've been a member since 2003 and just recently made my firsts posts because the search function has answered all my questions to this point. Anywho I’ve talked to some friends who are relatively new to lifting and they have absolutely NO knowledge of how to use steroids, so I though there must be many out there like this and in my attempt to explain the proper use of steroids I found some of the newbie guides on here insufficient so I thought I would write my own. I hope you guys learn something, please let me know if i made any mistakes, this is a working draft. This is part 1, part two will cover the actual steroid use, i will poast that in a few days.
When should I use steroids?
Well you should have several years of lifting experience before you make the jump to juice. If you are still growing naturally then steroids will be counterproductive to you. You will not realize your full potential until you have grown naturally, more importantly it takes years of experience to learn how your body responds to lifting and to get your technique and nutrition in order. I suggest AT LEAST 3 years lifting before you even decide to think about steroids. It is ok to start researching steroids when you first start lifting because I’ve been researching for three years and still have a lot to learn. Secondly you have to be over 21yrs and preferable at least 25 before you begin a cycle. This is so your body has finished growing to the point it is ready to accept steroids. If you use before your 21 your bone growth plates will fuse prematurely and you will not grow to your full skeletal body structure, also using before your 21 has the risk of damaging your HPTA and your hormonal balance which might be very difficult to bring back.
What about "prohormones" and "legal steroid"?
Supplements such as ergomax, pheraplex, superdrol, halodrol, etc... are in fact designer steroids. They come will all the risks and side effects as the illegal roids, but due to their legal status are usually viewed as safe by people. They are not safe and I will argue they are more dangerous than illegal steroids. The illegal steroids have decades of medical research behind them so we have a good idea of what they do to the human body, but these new designer steroids in most cases have no medical research behind them. Therefore we have little idea of what damage they may cause to the body and all we really know about them is from user feedback which really doesn't reveal much about their pharmacological properties. Also people try to infer their properties by comparing them to the illegal steroids that they are based off, but this is only good to a certain extent. Even the addition of one atom to a steroid can completely change its effects so this isn't reliable to learning about its effects on the body. The exact chemical in compounds such as Methoxy-TST are not even know and are kept secret so we have no idea what it even is. For all we know this can be an illegal steroid, or a modified steroid that is pretty dangerous, we just don't know. Personally I don't suggest being a guinea pig for these new compounds. Also these legal roids are all oral and therefore carry the risk of a damaged lipid profile and liver toxicity. The liver and heart is not something you want to mess with.
I believe it's ok to use a "prohormone" as a first cycle. I would suggest a mild one like halodrol to get your feet wet before moving on to the illegal roids, but in the end it's better to just stick with the real deal if you will.
Biggest newbie mistake
The biggest mistake people make when starting roids is not knowing anything about the HPTA and the use of anti-estrogens. There are many people I’ve met that used prohormones or even real juice without any post cycle therapy and then are stunned as to why they lose all their gains or even worse suffer gyno or HPTA shutdown for extended periods of time. If there is one thing a beginner must know is the proper use of post cycle therapy. I think your education in this area is even more important than your education on the use of the roid. I have a friend who insists on using testosterone without any PCT, he has even run some prohormones without PCT, that’s a real stupid and dangerous way to treat your body. In fact I consider the misunderstand and little knowledge of PCT in newbies such a problem I will spend most of this post talking about the facets of a cycle other than the actual steroid use.
PCT
After a cycle one must run a SERM to restart the HPTA. The HPTA is the hypothalamus-pituitary-testicular axis. A simple explanation of what this is your body's system of producing testosterone (and estrogen). The hypothalamus releases hormones which trigger the pituitary to release hormones such as LH which signal the testicles to produce testosterone (and sperm). When you use a steroid the higher levels of testosterone/estrogen in your body cause a feedback to the HPTA. The main hormone responsible for suppressing the HPTA is estrogen, but testosterone also has an effect. The HPTA tries to balance the hormone levels in your body because the body likes to maintain a homeostasis and stops production of FSH and LH which cause the testicles to slow and even stop producing testosterone. ALL steroids cause a slowdown of your testosterone production and ALL steroids will cause a complete shutdown if used for a long enough period of time. Some are more likely to shut you down than other. M1T is reported to cause almost complete shutdown in a matter of days. Tren and deca are also pretty notorious at shutting you down hard. So when you finish your cycle you must use a SERM to restart your natural production as fast as possible and to keep as much of your gains as possible, because that is what we all want isn't it? To keep our gains.
SERMs are drugs that attach to the estrogen receptors in our body in places as our breasts and more importantly our HPTA. By blocking the estrogen from binding to the HPTA our body is fooled into thinking that our hormone levels are real low so it begins to ramp up it's production of testosterone. The HPTA takes high levels of estrogen as a sign that there is too much testosterone in the body and lowers the production of testosterone; therefore by blocking the binding of estrogen to the hypothalamus the HPTA takes this as a signal that testosterone levels are too low. This happens because most of the estrogen in the man's body is produced from the aromatization of testosterone. For most cycles I recommend a four week PCT. Even for substances such as halodrol or short cycles such as 3 weeks of superdrol should have a 4 week PCT. Longer PCT can be used for long cycles lasting 12 weeks or more.
There are 4 SERMs which are currently used in PCT. They are: Tamoxifen (nolva), Clomid, and toremifene. They are all related to each other and basically do the same thing but to different degrees. The classic PCT consists of Clomid for four weeks run at
300mg day 1 as a frontload
150mg days 2-7
100mg days 8-21
50mg days 22-28
These are just suggested doses and you might have to adjust. Clomid does have side effects such as moodiness so people started using tamoxifen as the serm of choice due to less side effects, the debate to which is better still continues and some of the old school users still prefer clomid just because that's what they have used and been taught to use in their life. Nolva is run as followed:
60mg days 1-7
40mg days 8-14
30mg days 15-21
20mg days 22-18
Once again just a personal suggestion, your mileage may vary. Remember that nolva is also a little liver toxic. Nolva dose have a benefit as acting as an estrogen in the liver so it will help bring your cholesterol back to normal during PCT.
Some individuals like to run clomid and nolva together. I don't see much need to run more than 1 SERM at a time unless there is severe shutdown. In either case the clomid should be used together with the nolva for the first week due to clomids ability to increase LH quite rapidly then for weeks 2-4 just run the nolva. That's my personal opinion.
Finally there is the newest comer to the PCT regiment and that is toremifene. This is my personal favorite and in comparing it to nolva which I also have experience with I will only use toremifene from now on. There is a study showing that toremifene actually lowers LH production, but my experience and the experience o pretty much everyone that has used toremifene as a PCT and posted on here will agree that toremifene is amazing for PCT. It tends to bring your HPTA up almost overnight. It'll get your balls swinging in no time and there are many reports of a greatly reduced "crash" when used as the PCT SERM. It should be dosed like this
120mg days 1-3/4
90mg days 4-14
60mg days 15-21
30mg days 22-28
I prefer to run it at 120mg for days 1-7, but for lighter cycles and things such as halodrol days 1-4 is fine.
AI such as ATD, 6-oxo, or ones such as arimidex, letro, should not be used for PCT. ATD is sometimes run inversely to the serm during PCT to prevent any estrogen rebound from the serm. Remember SERMs do not halt estrogen production; they just keep the estrogen from activating the receptors so when you come of the SERM there is an elevated estrogen level in your body so a weaker AI such as ATD can be used to keep estrogen at a normal level. AI run as the sole agent in a PCT is foolish, there was a little while when ATD came out that people were running it as the only PCT agent and reported that it worked well, but since then this is no longer really the case, a serm must always be used as the main PCT drug. Also the steroid you use determines is you should use an AI during PCT. Steroids that aromatize (aromatize means that enzymes in the body convert a percentage of testosterone into estrogen) such as test will see a benefit from using an AI during PCT. Steroids with little aromatization such as superdrol will not benefit from an AI. I believe that the delayed onset gyno caused by superdrol in some users may be linked to using an AI such as ATD for the PCT. Since there will be little estrogen during the start of post cycle therapy the AI will drive the levels to almost 0 and when your PCT ends there is a rebound effect. Of course this is only my opinion, there are no studies showing this. I mention ATD here a lot because this is the best AI to be run during PCT if one is to be run. It doesn’t fully block the production of estrogen which is good because some estrogen is needed, secondly AI such as arimidex and letro are too powerful and cause a rebound effect after their use is halted whereas it is believed that ATD has no rebound effect. My personal use of ATD is as follows during PCT
120mg toremifene days 1-7 0mg ATD
90mg T days 8-14 0mg ATD
60mg T days 15-21 25mg ATD
30mg T days 22-28 50mg ATD
weeks 5-6 50mg ATD
I like to run it like that to prevent estrogen rebound from lowering the SERM and to continue boosting testosterone after the SERM is ended, yet I don’t start the ATD till day 15 to allow my body to have some level of estrogen and I run it two weeks past PCT for the test boosting effects of the ATD.
HCG
I think no cycle lasting 8+ weeks is complete without the use of HCG. HCG is a hormone produced by pregnant women, but it has the effect of mimicking LH in the male's body and this signals the testes to produce testosterone. During PCT the natural production of LH resumes quite quickly, but if the testes have atrophied which happens on cycles lasting as long as 8+ weeks then even if proper amounts of LH is being produced the testes are simple to small and unable to produced a good amount of testosterone. HCG used to be used in the last weeks of a cycle at doses upwards of 1000-5000IU every few days. This is now no longer seen as the proper way to run HCG. Such use will desensitize the testes to LH and be counter productive. Also it will cause a large spike in estrogen which can further suppress the HPTA and possible cause gyno. The new line of thought is to run HCG throughout the cycle at a dose of 250-500IU twice a week leading up to one week before beginning the SERM PCT. This prevents the testes form atrophying and once the PCT is begun they are at almost fully size and ready to produce the testosterone needed by your body. This is a cheap addition to any cycle lasting 8+ weeks and user feedback has been pretty great with claims that there is very little crash during PCT and that the PCT is the least difficult ever. I think the use of HCG during cycle is gaining popularity and will become as standard as the use of a SERM for PCT in the future. A new compound also beginning to see some use is HMG or human menopausal gonadtropin (SP?), this acts like HCG with the added benefit of mimicking FSH which increases the production of sperm In the testes. So far though there hasn't been much feedback on this though what I’ve seen claims it is quite effective, I would stick to just HCG for now.
Ancillaries during cycle
There are side effects that will be encountered during a cycle, and to minimize these side effects there are certain drugs that can be used to make the cycle more user friendly and safer. The main worry usually associated with a cycle is gyno. Gyno is the growth of breast tissue in men due to a high level of estrogen. Certain steroids such as testosterone are aromatized(converted to estrogen) in the body at a pretty high rate, dianabol also causes a great increase in estrogen. We don't want to completely reduce estrogen because it is necessary to keep our cholesterol in check as well as being somewhat anabolic by up-regulation androgen receptors (making more receptors for the steroid to bind to in the muscle to make it more effective) as well as glycogen storage(the carb fuel stored in muscle). The Ai used for this purpose are arimidex, letro, aromasin, and proviron.
Letro in my opinion is too strong of an AI and will kill your libido, though if you start to get signs of gyno you might want to deal with the lowered libido and use letro is lower your estrogen. There is one benefit of letro and that is that it doesn’t lower IGF (insulin growth factor, basically the hormone that signals your body to repair damaged muscle and cause it to grow) levels like arimidex dose. Letro can be used at low doses EOD to keep estrogen under control which will lower the chance of developing gyno and preventing bloat to a degree. The doses are very dependent on the user, steroid used, level of estrogen, bloat, proneness to gyno, etc... so I will leave dosages out cause you will have to research and experiment yourself to see what works. Personally I would save this for only instances where gyno starts to develop. Letro also causes a marked rebound of estrogen after its use is stopped. The use of letro with a SERM particularly tamoxifen causes a lowering of the levels of the tamoxifen by up to 40%, so using them both together is counterproductive.
Arimidex is my AI of choice, though I haven't tried aromisin or proviron so there will be disagreement here. Used at doses of .25 ED throughout the cycle(for me, YMMV) it controls bloat and prevents gyno. I would run it starting in week 3-4 of a test e cycle if I start to see some excessive water bloat, once again this is what I DO, so what you do might be completely different. Most users suggest to not run an AI until it's necessary as it will hinder your gains somewhat. The price of arimidex is also to my liking and doesn't lower estrogen as much as letro. Arimidex causes little estrogen rebound, especially when compared to letro.
When should I use steroids?
Well you should have several years of lifting experience before you make the jump to juice. If you are still growing naturally then steroids will be counterproductive to you. You will not realize your full potential until you have grown naturally, more importantly it takes years of experience to learn how your body responds to lifting and to get your technique and nutrition in order. I suggest AT LEAST 3 years lifting before you even decide to think about steroids. It is ok to start researching steroids when you first start lifting because I’ve been researching for three years and still have a lot to learn. Secondly you have to be over 21yrs and preferable at least 25 before you begin a cycle. This is so your body has finished growing to the point it is ready to accept steroids. If you use before your 21 your bone growth plates will fuse prematurely and you will not grow to your full skeletal body structure, also using before your 21 has the risk of damaging your HPTA and your hormonal balance which might be very difficult to bring back.
What about "prohormones" and "legal steroid"?
Supplements such as ergomax, pheraplex, superdrol, halodrol, etc... are in fact designer steroids. They come will all the risks and side effects as the illegal roids, but due to their legal status are usually viewed as safe by people. They are not safe and I will argue they are more dangerous than illegal steroids. The illegal steroids have decades of medical research behind them so we have a good idea of what they do to the human body, but these new designer steroids in most cases have no medical research behind them. Therefore we have little idea of what damage they may cause to the body and all we really know about them is from user feedback which really doesn't reveal much about their pharmacological properties. Also people try to infer their properties by comparing them to the illegal steroids that they are based off, but this is only good to a certain extent. Even the addition of one atom to a steroid can completely change its effects so this isn't reliable to learning about its effects on the body. The exact chemical in compounds such as Methoxy-TST are not even know and are kept secret so we have no idea what it even is. For all we know this can be an illegal steroid, or a modified steroid that is pretty dangerous, we just don't know. Personally I don't suggest being a guinea pig for these new compounds. Also these legal roids are all oral and therefore carry the risk of a damaged lipid profile and liver toxicity. The liver and heart is not something you want to mess with.
I believe it's ok to use a "prohormone" as a first cycle. I would suggest a mild one like halodrol to get your feet wet before moving on to the illegal roids, but in the end it's better to just stick with the real deal if you will.
Biggest newbie mistake
The biggest mistake people make when starting roids is not knowing anything about the HPTA and the use of anti-estrogens. There are many people I’ve met that used prohormones or even real juice without any post cycle therapy and then are stunned as to why they lose all their gains or even worse suffer gyno or HPTA shutdown for extended periods of time. If there is one thing a beginner must know is the proper use of post cycle therapy. I think your education in this area is even more important than your education on the use of the roid. I have a friend who insists on using testosterone without any PCT, he has even run some prohormones without PCT, that’s a real stupid and dangerous way to treat your body. In fact I consider the misunderstand and little knowledge of PCT in newbies such a problem I will spend most of this post talking about the facets of a cycle other than the actual steroid use.
PCT
After a cycle one must run a SERM to restart the HPTA. The HPTA is the hypothalamus-pituitary-testicular axis. A simple explanation of what this is your body's system of producing testosterone (and estrogen). The hypothalamus releases hormones which trigger the pituitary to release hormones such as LH which signal the testicles to produce testosterone (and sperm). When you use a steroid the higher levels of testosterone/estrogen in your body cause a feedback to the HPTA. The main hormone responsible for suppressing the HPTA is estrogen, but testosterone also has an effect. The HPTA tries to balance the hormone levels in your body because the body likes to maintain a homeostasis and stops production of FSH and LH which cause the testicles to slow and even stop producing testosterone. ALL steroids cause a slowdown of your testosterone production and ALL steroids will cause a complete shutdown if used for a long enough period of time. Some are more likely to shut you down than other. M1T is reported to cause almost complete shutdown in a matter of days. Tren and deca are also pretty notorious at shutting you down hard. So when you finish your cycle you must use a SERM to restart your natural production as fast as possible and to keep as much of your gains as possible, because that is what we all want isn't it? To keep our gains.
SERMs are drugs that attach to the estrogen receptors in our body in places as our breasts and more importantly our HPTA. By blocking the estrogen from binding to the HPTA our body is fooled into thinking that our hormone levels are real low so it begins to ramp up it's production of testosterone. The HPTA takes high levels of estrogen as a sign that there is too much testosterone in the body and lowers the production of testosterone; therefore by blocking the binding of estrogen to the hypothalamus the HPTA takes this as a signal that testosterone levels are too low. This happens because most of the estrogen in the man's body is produced from the aromatization of testosterone. For most cycles I recommend a four week PCT. Even for substances such as halodrol or short cycles such as 3 weeks of superdrol should have a 4 week PCT. Longer PCT can be used for long cycles lasting 12 weeks or more.
There are 4 SERMs which are currently used in PCT. They are: Tamoxifen (nolva), Clomid, and toremifene. They are all related to each other and basically do the same thing but to different degrees. The classic PCT consists of Clomid for four weeks run at
300mg day 1 as a frontload
150mg days 2-7
100mg days 8-21
50mg days 22-28
These are just suggested doses and you might have to adjust. Clomid does have side effects such as moodiness so people started using tamoxifen as the serm of choice due to less side effects, the debate to which is better still continues and some of the old school users still prefer clomid just because that's what they have used and been taught to use in their life. Nolva is run as followed:
60mg days 1-7
40mg days 8-14
30mg days 15-21
20mg days 22-18
Once again just a personal suggestion, your mileage may vary. Remember that nolva is also a little liver toxic. Nolva dose have a benefit as acting as an estrogen in the liver so it will help bring your cholesterol back to normal during PCT.
Some individuals like to run clomid and nolva together. I don't see much need to run more than 1 SERM at a time unless there is severe shutdown. In either case the clomid should be used together with the nolva for the first week due to clomids ability to increase LH quite rapidly then for weeks 2-4 just run the nolva. That's my personal opinion.
Finally there is the newest comer to the PCT regiment and that is toremifene. This is my personal favorite and in comparing it to nolva which I also have experience with I will only use toremifene from now on. There is a study showing that toremifene actually lowers LH production, but my experience and the experience o pretty much everyone that has used toremifene as a PCT and posted on here will agree that toremifene is amazing for PCT. It tends to bring your HPTA up almost overnight. It'll get your balls swinging in no time and there are many reports of a greatly reduced "crash" when used as the PCT SERM. It should be dosed like this
120mg days 1-3/4
90mg days 4-14
60mg days 15-21
30mg days 22-28
I prefer to run it at 120mg for days 1-7, but for lighter cycles and things such as halodrol days 1-4 is fine.
AI such as ATD, 6-oxo, or ones such as arimidex, letro, should not be used for PCT. ATD is sometimes run inversely to the serm during PCT to prevent any estrogen rebound from the serm. Remember SERMs do not halt estrogen production; they just keep the estrogen from activating the receptors so when you come of the SERM there is an elevated estrogen level in your body so a weaker AI such as ATD can be used to keep estrogen at a normal level. AI run as the sole agent in a PCT is foolish, there was a little while when ATD came out that people were running it as the only PCT agent and reported that it worked well, but since then this is no longer really the case, a serm must always be used as the main PCT drug. Also the steroid you use determines is you should use an AI during PCT. Steroids that aromatize (aromatize means that enzymes in the body convert a percentage of testosterone into estrogen) such as test will see a benefit from using an AI during PCT. Steroids with little aromatization such as superdrol will not benefit from an AI. I believe that the delayed onset gyno caused by superdrol in some users may be linked to using an AI such as ATD for the PCT. Since there will be little estrogen during the start of post cycle therapy the AI will drive the levels to almost 0 and when your PCT ends there is a rebound effect. Of course this is only my opinion, there are no studies showing this. I mention ATD here a lot because this is the best AI to be run during PCT if one is to be run. It doesn’t fully block the production of estrogen which is good because some estrogen is needed, secondly AI such as arimidex and letro are too powerful and cause a rebound effect after their use is halted whereas it is believed that ATD has no rebound effect. My personal use of ATD is as follows during PCT
120mg toremifene days 1-7 0mg ATD
90mg T days 8-14 0mg ATD
60mg T days 15-21 25mg ATD
30mg T days 22-28 50mg ATD
weeks 5-6 50mg ATD
I like to run it like that to prevent estrogen rebound from lowering the SERM and to continue boosting testosterone after the SERM is ended, yet I don’t start the ATD till day 15 to allow my body to have some level of estrogen and I run it two weeks past PCT for the test boosting effects of the ATD.
HCG
I think no cycle lasting 8+ weeks is complete without the use of HCG. HCG is a hormone produced by pregnant women, but it has the effect of mimicking LH in the male's body and this signals the testes to produce testosterone. During PCT the natural production of LH resumes quite quickly, but if the testes have atrophied which happens on cycles lasting as long as 8+ weeks then even if proper amounts of LH is being produced the testes are simple to small and unable to produced a good amount of testosterone. HCG used to be used in the last weeks of a cycle at doses upwards of 1000-5000IU every few days. This is now no longer seen as the proper way to run HCG. Such use will desensitize the testes to LH and be counter productive. Also it will cause a large spike in estrogen which can further suppress the HPTA and possible cause gyno. The new line of thought is to run HCG throughout the cycle at a dose of 250-500IU twice a week leading up to one week before beginning the SERM PCT. This prevents the testes form atrophying and once the PCT is begun they are at almost fully size and ready to produce the testosterone needed by your body. This is a cheap addition to any cycle lasting 8+ weeks and user feedback has been pretty great with claims that there is very little crash during PCT and that the PCT is the least difficult ever. I think the use of HCG during cycle is gaining popularity and will become as standard as the use of a SERM for PCT in the future. A new compound also beginning to see some use is HMG or human menopausal gonadtropin (SP?), this acts like HCG with the added benefit of mimicking FSH which increases the production of sperm In the testes. So far though there hasn't been much feedback on this though what I’ve seen claims it is quite effective, I would stick to just HCG for now.
Ancillaries during cycle
There are side effects that will be encountered during a cycle, and to minimize these side effects there are certain drugs that can be used to make the cycle more user friendly and safer. The main worry usually associated with a cycle is gyno. Gyno is the growth of breast tissue in men due to a high level of estrogen. Certain steroids such as testosterone are aromatized(converted to estrogen) in the body at a pretty high rate, dianabol also causes a great increase in estrogen. We don't want to completely reduce estrogen because it is necessary to keep our cholesterol in check as well as being somewhat anabolic by up-regulation androgen receptors (making more receptors for the steroid to bind to in the muscle to make it more effective) as well as glycogen storage(the carb fuel stored in muscle). The Ai used for this purpose are arimidex, letro, aromasin, and proviron.
Letro in my opinion is too strong of an AI and will kill your libido, though if you start to get signs of gyno you might want to deal with the lowered libido and use letro is lower your estrogen. There is one benefit of letro and that is that it doesn’t lower IGF (insulin growth factor, basically the hormone that signals your body to repair damaged muscle and cause it to grow) levels like arimidex dose. Letro can be used at low doses EOD to keep estrogen under control which will lower the chance of developing gyno and preventing bloat to a degree. The doses are very dependent on the user, steroid used, level of estrogen, bloat, proneness to gyno, etc... so I will leave dosages out cause you will have to research and experiment yourself to see what works. Personally I would save this for only instances where gyno starts to develop. Letro also causes a marked rebound of estrogen after its use is stopped. The use of letro with a SERM particularly tamoxifen causes a lowering of the levels of the tamoxifen by up to 40%, so using them both together is counterproductive.
Arimidex is my AI of choice, though I haven't tried aromisin or proviron so there will be disagreement here. Used at doses of .25 ED throughout the cycle(for me, YMMV) it controls bloat and prevents gyno. I would run it starting in week 3-4 of a test e cycle if I start to see some excessive water bloat, once again this is what I DO, so what you do might be completely different. Most users suggest to not run an AI until it's necessary as it will hinder your gains somewhat. The price of arimidex is also to my liking and doesn't lower estrogen as much as letro. Arimidex causes little estrogen rebound, especially when compared to letro.