BLR Letrone & Rebirth - let's get those hormones flowing :D (+Bloods)

[conkertheking]

Howdy folks! Finally get to start my log today after numerous delays, incredibly excited to get going.

You can find a lot of background information on my situation, including several previous blood tests, in this thread (clicky), but here follows a summary:

I'm a 25 year old guy, I've never run anything anabolic or hormonal at all (apart from Erase Pro, my disastrous experience with which is detailed in the afore-linked post) and just seem to have been dealt a naturally unfortunate hormonal hand.

Essentially what I'm dealing with is frustratingly borderline hypogonadotropic hypogonadism, combined with high (though within range) estradiol and prolactin. Once I got these results, they explained a whole bunch of ongoing issues - intermittent libido (sometimes jacked up like a teenager's, sometimes near dead for several days), mood swings, lack of motivation, abdominal weight being impossible to shift (can lose enough weight to have my rib-cage looking like a xylophone, and I'll still have a Santa Claus belly), lethargy, and a general sense of drifting through life with neither purpose nor a desire to seek purpose. </end philosophical rant> Due to what I now understand to be a high prolactin level, I have a near constant feeling of "contentment" even if I've actually achieved almost nothing and have just sat around playing Angry Birds all day, or spent all night getting drunk with friends. I'm motivated to go to the gym, but in order to have a good workout I take Animal Pump beforehand - and as I understand it, the caffeine in this product temporarily causes a dopamine surge which neutralises the prolactin somewhat.

In short, my hormones are messed up and it's messing my life up.

The fact that my testosterone is well within the lab range (although sub-optimal, it's safely away from the minimum) is a testament to the fact that my balls are perfectly capable of doing a fine job if they're instructed to. The problem is that my brain, whether due to a lack of GnRH from the hypothalamus, or a lack of response to GnRH from the pituitary gland, is telling them not to bother making much. I have no doubt that if my LH and FSH were to increase, so would my test production - this is in fact evidenced by the fact that during my disastrous Erase Pro run (see my linked bloods, and after reading my E2 and Prolactin values ritually burn any products you still own that contain Arimistane), my testosterone increased by 3 nmol simply from increasing LH by around 1.5. This, to me, indicates enormous potential from my endocrine system if only I could give the HPTA feedback loop a breath of life. And that's where Black Lion Research come in.

Earlier this year, BLR released two products, Rebirth and Letrone. Both had been hotly anticipated by BLR fans like myself, particularly after the demise of Formestane left the OTC supplement market almost entirely devoid of reliable AIs. I have quoted the product descriptions of both below, for anybody who is unfamiliar with either, but essentially, Rebirth contains two compounds, one of which has been definitively proven to have SERM-like effects, and the other of which can be presumed to have SERM-like effects due to its effectiveness in fighting estrogen related breast cancer - on a par, according to research, with Tamoxifen, a common choice for those in PCT. Letrone, on the other hand, contains extracts from a herb which appears to be an extremely powerful aromatase inhibitor.

Together, I am hoping that these products can starve my brain's estrogen receptors of action, with the effect of kicking the hypothalamus in the proverbial balls (sorry >_>) and forcing it to get its feedback loop off the ground once and for all. To that end, I will be getting bloods done near the end of the run, to compare with the following blood test which is a baseline obtained one week ago. I will be testing for Testosterone, Free testosterone, Estradiol, LH, FSH, Prolactin, SHGB, thyroid hormones TSH, T3, T4, and the standard Liver and Renal tests. As well as this, I will be discussing any changes in mood, libido, outlook, energy, strength, and anything else of note. The one thing I will not be able to do as fully as others is discuss workout changes, as my workouts are currently severely limited due to an ongoing meniscus tear. The only exercises I can safely do during this log are those which place little to no stress on my knees, so essentially only sitting down exercises and supported (feet on rest / bench) lying exercises. While I will discuss these when I do them, others have suggested that it'll be interesting to have a log which doesn't focus entirely on the bodybuilding aspect, so maybe this is a blessing in disguise.

With that, here are my baseline bloods, and here we go!

Hormones

Testosterone: 11.1 nmol/L (range: 8.6-29.0)
Estradiol*: 80 pmol/L (range: 95 - 223)
LH: 3.1 (range: 2 - 9)
FSH: 2.0 (range: 2 - 12)
SHGB: 24.4 (range: 16.5 - 55.9)
Prolactin: 224 (range: 86-324)

Thyroid

TSH: 2.74 (range: 0.27 - 4.2)
Free T4: 14.6 (range: 12.0 - 22.0)
Total T3: 1.86 (range: 1.3 - 3.1)

* I should point out that this range does not seem to be correct - up until very recently, the lab used a range of 28 - 158, which seems to be the consensus among users here as well. Regardless, it does show that estradiol has remained somewhat under control even after stopping Formestane - possibly due to fat loss which occurred during the Formestane run.

As you can see from these results, I'm not shut down, but I'm about as close to shut down as you can get without actually being shut down. Both thyroid values are near the bottom of the range, testosterone is near the bottom of the range, LH and FSH are literally on the border line of hypogonadotropism. I suspect that part of the reason my estradiol didn't recover back to baseline after formestane is simply because not enough testosterone was being made to convert!

With all this in mind, let's go for a month of trying to get this whole system back into shape. My follow up blood test is on Tuesday the 10th of November, exactly one month from today. I will begin the log during the subsequent posts. I will wait until the end of the log to post and compare liver and renal values, as this post is already far too long

 

[conkertheking]

RESULTS ARE IN!!!

Well ladies and gentlemen, got my results this morning. Epic in some ways, not so great in others, but certainly gives me a clear route forward with my hormones and a clear recommendation of Letrone as an incredible AI product

Result			Baseline		Post cycle		Range

Hormones

Testosterone: 		11.1 nmol/L	 	10.2			8.6-29.0
Estradiol: 		80 pmol/L 		<50			95 - 223
LH: 			3.1 			3.0			2 - 9
FSH: 			2.0		 	2.0			2 - 12
SHGB: 			24.4 			29.6			16.5 - 55.9
Prolactin: 		224 			237			86-324

Thyroid

TSH: 			2.74 			3.01			0.27 - 4.2
Free T4: 		14.6 			17.7			12.0 - 22.0
Total T3: 		1.86 			2.35			1.3 - 3.1

None of my liver or renal values were abnormal. I will post these as soon as I find the print-out of the previous test, so I can post baseline with post cycle - I just can't remember which drawer I put it in

As you can see, all three Thyroid values are higher than pre-cycle. This is pretty epic - I wonder how much this can be corroborated with improved mood etc?

Regarding hormones: in my unexpert opinion, these results are telling me that Letrone is an absolutely stellar product. My Estradiol was so low that the lab didn't actually give me an exact figure - 95 pmol is the bottom of their range, after half a year of Formestane it had dropped from 112 to 80, but on Letrone they've given me a result which says "<50", implying that anything below 50 is too low for them to bother testing. Their range used to go down as low as 30, but apparently last year they started using a different enzyme to test the blood which produces a more accurate result, but results in the range needing to be raised.

Testosterone is almost the same as it was in the baseline, slightly lower, and LH and FSH are broadly unaffected. Now this doesn't suggest that Rebirth doesn't work, it just suggests that my particular problem with regard to gonadotropins is not related to estrogen feedback. And in fact, this is corroborated by the low E2 result - even if Rebirth didn't work at all, an E2 result that low should have the same effect by up-regulating LH production, and it didn't.

This suggests to me that my real hormone issue is Prolactin, which has repeatedly stubbornly refused to budge even with a Prolactrone cycle. As you can see here, my prolactin is actually slightly higher than it was going into the test, and I've certainly heard others say that prolactin being high can pretty much kill any hope of a proper HPTA restart, regardless of how much one alters E2 or ER levels.

So I think my next cycle, perhaps not until the new year, will be a stack of Letrone, Viron, and Prolactrone with ZMA every night. As I said previously, Prolactrone didn't reduce my PRL by much, but I had wondered if cutting ZMA from my stack might have caused a B6 deficiency, which would limit the brain's ability to convert L-DOPA to Dopamine. This is therefore the obvious next port of call. I'll drop Rebirth for two reasons, firstly to see if perhaps one of its effects was to lessen the boost from lower E2, but also because clearly with Letrone dropping E2 so low, there's really no need to run a SERM at the same time.

I do one to add one caveat regarding Rebirth though. In the course of my research, I discovered that one of the SERMs in Rebirth has an anti-estrogenic effect at ER beta, but a small estrogenic effect at ER alpha. So it could be that it's this estrogenic effect on ER alpha which prevented the drop in E2 from causing negative feedback. Documentation is incredibly sparse on which estrogen receptor is involved in HPTA regulation, so it's difficult to comment on this either way - however, as this effect is noted as "significant but small" in the write-ups, it seems preposterous to suggest that it could counteract the effect of E2 dropping so low. So for the time being, my conclusion here is that Letrone is a fantastic product and that Rebirth may be - the prolactin issue makes it very difficult to judge exactly why this stack didn't boost my HPTA.

As I say, next stack will be Viron (Test booster), Letrone (AI) and Prolactrone (Dopamine booster) - but with the addition of ZMA.

Don't expect that one too soon as I say - this is probably unnecessary and more "feels" than science, but I'd like to give my body a break from messing around with this stuff, if that makes sense. I know it's not a PH cycle or anything like that, but on the other hand I've been on Formestane since January and then Letrone just a month or two after that, and I'm just not sure what kind of uncharted waters I'd be heading into if I basically went a full year without letting my body do its thing without supplement support. Laugh at this if you will.

Thanks to everyone who gave me encouragement in this log, and thanks to Brundel for creating this absolutely stellar product. A 30pmol drop in estradio (AT LEAST - remember it could be a lot lower than 50, that's just as low as my lab will report!) is just incredible, and is actually far, more than Formestane achieved. I will have absolutely no hesitation in recommending Letrone to anyone who is looking for estradiol reductions, and the gigantic libido boost I experienced is of course icing on the cake

Until next time!

 

[conkertheking]

Here are the two products I will be using. I will be dosing both at a maximum dose of two caps per day, for thirty days:

Rebirth - Black Lion Research

Rebirth is an OTC SERM which contains two ingredients.

Ellagic Acid:

Ellagic Acid is a plant-derived polyphenol, possessing antioxidant, antiproliferative, and antiatherogenic properties. Whether this compound has estrogenic/antiestrogenic activity, however, remains largely unknown.
To answer this question, we first investigated the ability of ellagic acid to influence the activity of the estrogen receptor subtypes ERalpha and ERbeta in HeLa cells. Cells co-transfected with an estrogen response element (ERE)-driven luciferase (Luc) reporter gene and an ERalpha- or ERbeta-expression vector were exposed to graded concentrations of ellagic acid.

At low concentrations (10(-7) to 10(-9) M), this compound displayed a small but significant estrogenic activity via ERalpha, whereas it was a complete estrogen antagonist via ERbeta. Further evaluation revealed that ellagic acid was a potent antiestrogen in MCF-7 breast cancer-derived cells, increasing, like the pure estrogen antagonist ICI182780, IGFBP-3 levels. Moreover, ellagic acid induced nodule mineralization in an osteoblastic cell line (KS483), an effect that was abolished by the estrogen antagonist. Endometrium-derived epithelial cells (Ishikawa) showed no response to the natural compound by using a cell viability assay (MTT). These findings suggest that ellagic acid may be a natural selective estrogen receptor modulator (SERM).

E.Cottoni:

The edible red seaweed Eucheuma cottonii is abundantly cultivated for carrageenan production. This study investigated the effects of dietary E. cottonii polyphenol-rich extract (ECME) on breast cancer. In vitro assays showed that ECME was antiproliferative against oestrogen-dependent MCF-7 and oestrogen-independent MB-MDA-231 human breast-cancer cells (IC50 values of 20 and 42 μg/ml, respectively) but was non-toxic to normal cell lines. The ECME (150 and 300 mg/kg BW) was fed to female rats and, after 4 weeks, rat mammary tumour was induced using LA7 cells (inoculated subcutaneously). The ECME inhibited tumour development and erythrocyte lipid peroxidation in the cancer-induced rats, dose-dependently. It showed anti-oestrogenic effects on the rat estrous cycle and serum hormone levels. Electron microscopy and histopathology observations confirmed apoptosis in the rat mammary tumours. The polyphenol-rich ECME was tumour-suppressive via apoptosis induction, downregulating the endogenous oestrogen biosynthesis, and improving antioxidative status in the rats.

-- Apoptotic effects in oestrogen dependent and independent human breast cancer cells. The anti-estrogenic properties in female mammals. Breast tumour prevention and suppression using sustainable cultivated seaweeds

Letrone - Black Lion Research

Letrone is an OTC AI (aromatase inhibitor) which contains one ingredient:

Atractylodes Macrocephala

Atractylodes macrocephala Koidz (A. macrocephala), a Chinese medicinal herb, has been extensively used to treat digestive diseases in China and most other Asian countries (PPRC, 2005; Lee et al, 2007). Dry rhizomes of A. macrocephala are rich in sesquiterpenes and acetylenic compounds (Endo et al, 1979; Chen 1987; Huang et al, 1992; Lin et al, 1997). Typical polysaccharides atractan A, B, and C, present in A. macrocephala, have been reported to exhibit hypoglycaemic activities (Wang et al, 2000; Jia et al, 2003). Although atractylenolide I, atractylenolide II and atractylenolide III are all bioactive substances present in Atractylodes macrocephalae, the majority of research studies carried out in the recent years have focused on atractylenolide II and atractylenolide III (Kang et al., 2011b). Atractylenolide II is a marker substance present in Atractylodes macrocephalae which exhibits well-documented gastrointestinal inhibitory effects and anticancer activity (Zhang et al., 1999; Liu et al., 2005). Atractylenolide II is one of the main constituents present in the effective volatile oil fraction (Li et al., 2001), potentially effective in treating senile dementia. Atractylenolide III is a possible candidate for the treatment of human lung carcinoma (Kang et al., 2011a).

Aromatase inhibition
Primary targets for aromatase inhibition are atractylenolide 1 2 and 3 with atractylenolide 1 being exceptionally strong with 94.5% inhibition.

Very much looking forward to this!

 

[Jebrook]

Subbed

 

[pfresh]

Going to follow your journey

 

[GreekTheBrick]

Good luck, hope to get the best out of them products. Hows your diet?

 

[abformulations]

Whoa amazing start buddy. I'm most definitely in.

 

[kboxer7]

I'm in. Hope things take a turn for the better for you.

 

[vujade]

looking forward to this bro..!

 

[CJNator]

Definitely subd!

 

[kisaj]

All in

 

[Volvo140G]

been looking forward to this one!

 

[fistrj]

Definitely in! Good luck!

 

[BlackTiger22]

subbed

 

[conkertheking]

Day One

Not too much to report, today being the first day. I've been sick over the last week so today was another (hopefully final!) day of being housebound. Took Letrone first, and then Rebirth around half an hour later, on an empty stomach to avoid any potential absorption issues (although Brundel has said he believes both products to be incredibly easily absorbed and that strict timing is probably unnecessary, I still like to play it safe). Took it again just now, at 3AM my time (been partying and gigging far too much lately so my sleep clock is a bit bollocksed!) and feel great. Given that it's only the first day, I'm pretty sure any feeling is probably placebo and anticipation rather than anything tangible. On a more tangible level, no direct side effects from actually taking the pills to note, no nausea, drowsiness, stomach issues or anything else that sometimes accompanies oral supps. Brundel mentioned increased hunger as one of Letrone's effects, haven't noticed that myself but my body fat is a bit on the high side after an admittedly dirty bulk during the summer, so any purported appetite enhancement is going to have a very difficult time getting through to me

I have to be honest, having to plan these things time-wise (half hour apart, no eating before and after etc) is something I've always found to be a bit of a pain, so I'll have a look back through Brundel's previous writings on these products and if he seems confident in his assertion that timing with regard to food isn't that relevant, I might not be so strict with myself

On to day two tomorrow then! First workout on this will be on Wednesday afternoon. Playing a gig on Thursday night so we'll see if my mood before, during and after performing is any different to the usual.
Writing this up has reminded me that I've once again forgotten to take my creatine today (why I find it so hard to remember to take creatine when I literally never have trouble with any other supps is completely beyond me, it's just bizarre) so I'll head off and do that now before bed!

Goodnight folks, more tomorrow and hopefully some tangible effects within 1-2 weeks

 

[Volvo140G]

I make life easy as far as supps are concerned. I'd take 1 each AM and 1 each PM. boom - done!

what sorta music u play?

 

[Jebrook]

Good update. I have the same problem too and only with creatine. I just cannot remember to be consistent with it. Probably why I call myself a non-responder. Lol. Actually, I did good the first few times years and years ago. Now I just take because all the positive studies but truthfully can't tell a difference between on or off it even for long periods of time.

 

[conkertheking]

I make life easy as far as supps are concerned. I'd take 1 each AM and 1 each PM. boom - done!

what sorta music u play?

Anything that sounds good My favourite kind is the massive, stadium filling anthem style. Killers and U2 are tied for my favourite band. Thursday is a solo gig though, just me and an acoustic guitar, so won't be able to play anything quite that loud

 

[Volvo140G]

Jebrook every sentence of that post completely mirrors my reality with creatine - to a T. kinda creepy really.....

 

[ELROCK]

I am in! Letrone + Rebirth treated me pretty well.

 

[Chiefsnation23]

Good luck man. I look forward to following your post as you obviously have spent time researching.
I hope all works out for you.

 

[GreekTheBrick]

Good update. I have the same problem too and only with creatine. I just cannot remember to be consistent with it. Probably why I call myself a non-responder. Lol. Actually, I did good the first few times years and years ago. Now I just take because all the positive studies but truthfully can't tell a difference between on or off it even for long periods of time.

Get out of my mind!

 

[conkertheking]

Day Two

Nothing to report today, really. Need to get out of the habit of taking these caps at 3PM and then 3AM, I actually need to stop sleeping like a vampire Still taking Letrone first and then Rebirth ~half an hour later, still no issues. Probably still too early to notice any effects, but I'm hitting the gym tomorrow so will report if anything changes. As I stated previously, I'm seriously limited in my available range of exercises at the moment with my knee being rekt, but tomorrow I'll hope to hit chest, shoulders, triceps, back, and biceps. Given the inability to do standing or compound exercises my split has basically gone out the window, so I basically do a long, 2-3 hour long weights session once every three days (sometimes once every two days if I recover quickly) as I'd normally only train each muscle group max twice per week, gymming every second day but alternating between upper and lower body each day. Reeeeally can't wait until my knee is back to normal!

Having said that it's not all bad - the isolation exercises I've been doing seem to be seriously paying off. Strength particularly in my back and arms made huge gains while I was on Formestane and has since stalled (the bloods posted above kinda explain why) so Letrone might get me over this plateau which creatine has so far only slightly helped me with. We'll see.

On a side note, how's the format of these? Should I do these daily updates even on days when there's not that much to report? Some people I've seen do logs and just post workout results and eventual bloods, thought I'd try and be a little more original with this one

 

[Chiefsnation23]

As long as your posting I'll read bro. Im interested in blr and would like to hear more user reviews.
What are your hours like sleep wise? That can really mess with hormones.
Also, I feel you should space out some of those workouts? Maybe I missed the reasoning behind it? If not I would atleast extend them to three days with chest, back and shoulders on different days. These will be your compound lift days which will naturally free more test and balance out those negative hormones. Just my opinion.

 

[Jebrook]

Day Two

Nothing to report today, really. Need to get out of the habit of taking these caps at 3PM and then 3AM, I actually need to stop sleeping like a vampire Still taking Letrone first and then Rebirth ~half an hour later, still no issues. Probably still too early to notice any effects, but I'm hitting the gym tomorrow so will report if anything changes. As I stated previously, I'm seriously limited in my available range of exercises at the moment with my knee being rekt, but tomorrow I'll hope to hit chest, shoulders, triceps, back, and biceps. Given the inability to do standing or compound exercises my split has basically gone out the window, so I basically do a long, 2-3 hour long weights session once every three days (sometimes once every two days if I recover quickly) as I'd normally only train each muscle group max twice per week, gymming every second day but alternating between upper and lower body each day. Reeeeally can't wait until my knee is back to normal!

Having said that it's not all bad - the isolation exercises I've been doing seem to be seriously paying off. Strength particularly in my back and arms made huge gains while I was on Formestane and has since stalled (the bloods posted above kinda explain why) so Letrone might get me over this plateau which creatine has so far only slightly helped me with. We'll see.

On a side note, how's the format of these? Should I do these daily updates even on days when there's not that much to report? Some people I've seen do logs and just post workout results and eventual bloods, thought I'd try and be a little more original with this one

I personally like logs with lots of variety and plenty of anecdotes. It encourage participation and feedback from viewers. Just posting workout numbers on workout days would be monotonous. Share anything you feel like sharing IMO

 

[pfresh]

I personally like logs with lots of variety and plenty of anecdotes. It encourage participation and feedback from viewers. Just posting workout numbers on workout days would be monotonous. Share anything you feel like sharing IMO

Word

 

[conkertheking]

As long as your posting I'll read bro. Im interested in blr and would like to hear more user reviews.
What are your hours like sleep wise? That can really mess with hormones.

It's almost impossible to wake me on less than 7/8 hours, even setting six alarms won't do it It's just that for pretty much the whole summer (finished my degree in May) I've been staying up until all hours and counting the morning as part of the night I studied modern music and everyone in my class is either a musician or into music so gigging and going to gigs are fundamental parts of hour lives, hence the concept of "night" and "day" is a bit skewed
I realise that this can mess with hormones, but several of my blood tests were done during heavy college exam seasons during which I was on a pretty rigid 9-5 schedule and therefore had a normal enough night-time sleep pattern, and if you have a look at the thread linked in the OP, the results were just as mediocre on those tests as they were on this one. So I doubt it's related.

Also, I feel you should space out some of those workouts? Maybe I missed the reasoning behind it? If not I would atleast extend them to three days with chest, back and shoulders on different days. These will be your compound lift days which will naturally free more test and balance out those negative hormones. Just my opinion.

Perhaps. Maybe because of my low hormones I find that recovery takes longer than for most guys and DOMs lasts longer, so whereas when I was younger I would work out every second day and do full body workouts, now I'm finding that each muscle group takes at least two full days off to recover. With that in mind, I'd normally do upper body one day, skip a day, and then do lower body the next day and skip another day, such that each set of exercises would have three days off before being done again. I had been advancing very well with this until I ruined my knee during a silly house party incident (trying to impress a girl, wedding-carrying her around, over-extended my leg out to the side when putting her down and therefore tore my meniscus literally the whole way down >_< ) and as I'm still recovering, I can now only do upper body, sitting down exercises. So it seems to make more sense to do a full set of these and take two full days off from the gym, that way I still get two nice long workouts each week.

Is there a reason you recommend shorter, more frequent workouts? Just that when I take Animal Pump and really get into it, I find I really don't want to stop after just half an hour or so, and if I go home after that I'm just restless and end up going for long runs through the neighbourhood just for something to do with all the energy

Why do you suggest that spacing them out would effect free test (which I'm pretty irritated my lab won't test, big knowledge gap in my bloodwork without it) - always thought this had more to do with SHGB levels?

 

[conkertheking]

I personally like logs with lots of variety and plenty of anecdotes. It encourage participation and feedback from viewers. Just posting workout numbers on workout days would be monotonous. Share anything you feel like sharing IMO

Well I'll endeavour to do daily posts even if there seems like little to report, in that case. I'll avoid going into the details of any nights out, I fear the amount of sheer obscene debauchery which accompanies an average night out in Ireland would horrify people beyond belief

 

[Jebrook]

Well I'll endeavour to do daily posts even if there seems like little to report, in that case. I'll avoid going into the details of any nights out, I fear the amount of sheer obscene debauchery which accompanies an average night out in Ireland would horrify people beyond belief

Debauchery?! I'm in!

 

[kboxer7]

Well I'll endeavour to do daily posts even if there seems like little to report, in that case. I'll avoid going into the details of any nights out, I fear the amount of sheer obscene debauchery which accompanies an average night out in Ireland would horrify people beyond belief

lol, oh the shenanigans....

 

[Volvo140G]

Well I'll endeavour to do daily posts even if there seems like little to report, in that case. I'll avoid going into the details of any nights out, I fear the amount of sheer obscene debauchery which accompanies an average night out in Ireland would horrify people beyond belief

yeah man you'd do well to include those deets... most of us have been around the block

 

[kisaj]

Some of us are still going around it.

 

[highlander31]

Late sub. Interested in how these treat you.

 

[conkertheking]

Day Three

Right folks, first gym day!

Being honest, today was a bit of a joke. However, I partially put this down to having been sick for a whole week.

What I do for bench presses at the moment is do one set on each incline, so it goes from being almost flat to an almost 45 degree angle. This is using dumbbells.
I seem to have hit a rather pathetic plateau at 28kg(2), as in one 28kg db in each hand for pressing - I have intermittently been able to do 30kg, but then after a few days of that I tend to slip back. However, I have no trouble doing this with a spot, or lifting an equivalent weight on a BB incline press where I can start in the "up" position after rolling the bar off the rack. What I gather from this is that my specific weakness is in whichever supporting muscle is used to press just the initial few inches from having the bar touching your chest to being an inch or two up already. Gym instructors tell me that this is likely either shoulder or tricep related based on watching me try to start from the lowered position, so I'm concentrating heavily on those as well at the moment, seeing as how the bench is the only real compound movement I'm able to do right now.

With that in mind, today's workout involved the following four:

Range: 8-12

Incline DB press: 30kg*(N/A) - couldn't start the feckin' thing, even though I managed it last time.
Incline BB press: 60kg (20kg bar + 2*20kg plates), 8/8/7.

Kinda ok with this. 8 is within my mass range and 7 is still within my strength range (6-8) so hopefully this is still helping me progress and hopefully get back to the DBs soon enough.
I haven't done a flat bench press in a few weeks because I find this puts more pressure on the knee as you drive your legs into the ground for it - while the incline bench in my gym has a foot-rest to make this easier. Could that be why I'm experiencing a weakness in the beginning part of the lift? Just a thought.

Seated row (machine): 170lbs*12. - Decided not to do more on this as I've had tendonitis in my forearms for a few days and it felt like I was going to aggravate it. For the same reason, skipped curling today as well. Interestingly, it's been suggested to me several times that my lowish T could be a factor in why my tendons seem to be a particular weak spot. Will have to look into that.

Arnold shoulder press: 20kg(2), 8/7/6 - not too bad. Only really expecting this to be in the strength range for at least a few workouts, given how I've only recently switched to it from a standard up and down shoulder press.

Triceps extension, V-bar cable: 38.75kg, 12/12. 41.25kg, 6. -- upped the weight for the last set since the first two seemed very doable. Never would have thought that a 2.5kg increase between sets could make a weight seem so much heavier

Went home after this because my aching tendons were frustrating me a bit. Will try to do more on Saturday.

As I've said before, this log really won't be workout focused because as you can see, my workouts truly are all over the place at the moment. I'm coming to realise how much I relied on the compound powerlifting exercises before damaging my knee, and how, truthfully, I'm actually just not very good at the isolation ones yet. Even on the bench press, just switching from barbells to dumbbells has as you can see stumped me somewhat. 28/30kg is a very definite plateau on that because I can literally do three incredible comfortable sets of 12 with a pair of 28s, but with 30s, while I can regularly do 12 once I get them up, getting them up is genuinely a struggle. If anyone has any insights into any exercises one can do to improve that one initial push to get the exercise going (raising the DBs into the air from mid-chest height) without needing someone to spot, that'd be great - my gym is empty enough in the evenings right now and I never really like asking for a spot unless there's someone who's obviously waiting for a station that's being used.

Regardless, this workout was pretty lousy by my usual standard. I'd normally do a full shoulder workout (front, lateral and rear delt raise on top of the press), and these were skipped not because of injury but purely because for some reason I was just exhausted. Definitely think being sick and house-bound for so long was a contributing factor. Just want to emphasise as much as possible that if I have bad workouts, nobody should infer anything about Letrone and Rebirth from that - there really is only so much you can do when you have to avoid using one of your legs at all times and it could even be that the sheer monotony of having to sit for most of the workout is boring me enough that I'm not putting my heart into it.

On the plus side, I'm going to make a physio appointment shortly just to see where I'm at with the knee recovery. It could be that I'm ready to get back into action already and am just being overly cautious - one can dream

 

[Chiefsnation23]

We all have those days. Keep it up man.

 

[GreekTheBrick]

Day Three

Right folks, first gym day!

Being honest, today was a bit of a joke. However, I partially put this down to having been sick for a whole week.

What I do for bench presses at the moment is do one set on each incline, so it goes from being almost flat to an almost 45 degree angle. This is using dumbbells.
I seem to have hit a rather pathetic plateau at 28kg(2), as in one 28kg db in each hand for pressing - I have intermittently been able to do 30kg, but then after a few days of that I tend to slip back. However, I have no trouble doing this with a spot, or lifting an equivalent weight on a BB incline press where I can start in the "up" position after rolling the bar off the rack. What I gather from this is that my specific weakness is in whichever supporting muscle is used to press just the initial few inches from having the bar touching your chest to being an inch or two up already. Gym instructors tell me that this is likely either shoulder or tricep related based on watching me try to start from the lowered position, so I'm concentrating heavily on those as well at the moment, seeing as how the bench is the only real compound movement I'm able to do right now.

With that in mind, today's workout involved the following four:

Range: 8-12

Incline DB press: 30kg*(N/A) - couldn't start the feckin' thing, even though I managed it last time.
Incline BB press: 60kg (20kg bar + 2*20kg plates), 8/8/7.

Kinda ok with this. 8 is within my mass range and 7 is still within my strength range (6-8) so hopefully this is still helping me progress and hopefully get back to the DBs soon enough.
I haven't done a flat bench press in a few weeks because I find this puts more pressure on the knee as you drive your legs into the ground for it - while the incline bench in my gym has a foot-rest to make this easier. Could that be why I'm experiencing a weakness in the beginning part of the lift? Just a thought.

Seated row (machine): 170lbs*12. - Decided not to do more on this as I've had tendonitis in my forearms for a few days and it felt like I was going to aggravate it. For the same reason, skipped curling today as well. Interestingly, it's been suggested to me several times that my lowish T could be a factor in why my tendons seem to be a particular weak spot. Will have to look into that.

Arnold shoulder press: 20kg(2), 8/7/6 - not too bad. Only really expecting this to be in the strength range for at least a few workouts, given how I've only recently switched to it from a standard up and down shoulder press.

Triceps extension, V-bar cable: 38.75kg, 12/12. 41.25kg, 6. -- upped the weight for the last set since the first two seemed very doable. Never would have thought that a 2.5kg increase between sets could make a weight seem so much heavier

Went home after this because my aching tendons were frustrating me a bit. Will try to do more on Saturday.

As I've said before, this log really won't be workout focused because as you can see, my workouts truly are all over the place at the moment. I'm coming to realise how much I relied on the compound powerlifting exercises before damaging my knee, and how, truthfully, I'm actually just not very good at the isolation ones yet. Even on the bench press, just switching from barbells to dumbbells has as you can see stumped me somewhat. 28/30kg is a very definite plateau on that because I can literally do three incredible comfortable sets of 12 with a pair of 28s, but with 30s, while I can regularly do 12 once I get them up, getting them up is genuinely a struggle. If anyone has any insights into any exercises one can do to improve that one initial push to get the exercise going (raising the DBs into the air from mid-chest height) without needing someone to spot, that'd be great - my gym is empty enough in the evenings right now and I never really like asking for a spot unless there's someone who's obviously waiting for a station that's being used.

Regardless, this workout was pretty lousy by my usual standard. I'd normally do a full shoulder workout (front, lateral and rear delt raise on top of the press), and these were skipped not because of injury but purely because for some reason I was just exhausted. Definitely think being sick and house-bound for so long was a contributing factor. Just want to emphasise as much as possible that if I have bad workouts, nobody should infer anything about Letrone and Rebirth from that - there really is only so much you can do when you have to avoid using one of your legs at all times and it could even be that the sheer monotony of having to sit for most of the workout is boring me enough that I'm not putting my heart into it.

On the plus side, I'm going to make a physio appointment shortly just to see where I'm at with the knee recovery. It could be that I'm ready to get back into action already and am just being overly cautious - one can dream

What about dips? Can you do them in relation to your knee? Chest dips will stimulate your chest better than the flat bench press IMO

 

[GreekTheBrick]

Day Three

Right folks, first gym day!

Being honest, today was a bit of a joke. However, I partially put this down to having been sick for a whole week.

What I do for bench presses at the moment is do one set on each incline, so it goes from being almost flat to an almost 45 degree angle. This is using dumbbells.
I seem to have hit a rather pathetic plateau at 28kg(2), as in one 28kg db in each hand for pressing - I have intermittently been able to do 30kg, but then after a few days of that I tend to slip back. However, I have no trouble doing this with a spot, or lifting an equivalent weight on a BB incline press where I can start in the "up" position after rolling the bar off the rack. What I gather from this is that my specific weakness is in whichever supporting muscle is used to press just the initial few inches from having the bar touching your chest to being an inch or two up already. Gym instructors tell me that this is likely either shoulder or tricep related based on watching me try to start from the lowered position, so I'm concentrating heavily on those as well at the moment, seeing as how the bench is the only real compound movement I'm able to do right now.

With that in mind, today's workout involved the following four:

Range: 8-12

Incline DB press: 30kg*(N/A) - couldn't start the feckin' thing, even though I managed it last time.
Incline BB press: 60kg (20kg bar + 2*20kg plates), 8/8/7.

Kinda ok with this. 8 is within my mass range and 7 is still within my strength range (6-8) so hopefully this is still helping me progress and hopefully get back to the DBs soon enough.
I haven't done a flat bench press in a few weeks because I find this puts more pressure on the knee as you drive your legs into the ground for it - while the incline bench in my gym has a foot-rest to make this easier. Could that be why I'm experiencing a weakness in the beginning part of the lift? Just a thought.

Seated row (machine): 170lbs*12. - Decided not to do more on this as I've had tendonitis in my forearms for a few days and it felt like I was going to aggravate it. For the same reason, skipped curling today as well. Interestingly, it's been suggested to me several times that my lowish T could be a factor in why my tendons seem to be a particular weak spot. Will have to look into that.

Arnold shoulder press: 20kg(2), 8/7/6 - not too bad. Only really expecting this to be in the strength range for at least a few workouts, given how I've only recently switched to it from a standard up and down shoulder press.

Triceps extension, V-bar cable: 38.75kg, 12/12. 41.25kg, 6. -- upped the weight for the last set since the first two seemed very doable. Never would have thought that a 2.5kg increase between sets could make a weight seem so much heavier

Went home after this because my aching tendons were frustrating me a bit. Will try to do more on Saturday.

As I've said before, this log really won't be workout focused because as you can see, my workouts truly are all over the place at the moment. I'm coming to realise how much I relied on the compound powerlifting exercises before damaging my knee, and how, truthfully, I'm actually just not very good at the isolation ones yet. Even on the bench press, just switching from barbells to dumbbells has as you can see stumped me somewhat. 28/30kg is a very definite plateau on that because I can literally do three incredible comfortable sets of 12 with a pair of 28s, but with 30s, while I can regularly do 12 once I get them up, getting them up is genuinely a struggle. If anyone has any insights into any exercises one can do to improve that one initial push to get the exercise going (raising the DBs into the air from mid-chest height) without needing someone to spot, that'd be great - my gym is empty enough in the evenings right now and I never really like asking for a spot unless there's someone who's obviously waiting for a station that's being used.

Regardless, this workout was pretty lousy by my usual standard. I'd normally do a full shoulder workout (front, lateral and rear delt raise on top of the press), and these were skipped not because of injury but purely because for some reason I was just exhausted. Definitely think being sick and house-bound for so long was a contributing factor. Just want to emphasise as much as possible that if I have bad workouts, nobody should infer anything about Letrone and Rebirth from that - there really is only so much you can do when you have to avoid using one of your legs at all times and it could even be that the sheer monotony of having to sit for most of the workout is boring me enough that I'm not putting my heart into it.

On the plus side, I'm going to make a physio appointment shortly just to see where I'm at with the knee recovery. It could be that I'm ready to get back into action already and am just being overly cautious - one can dream

What about dips? Can you do them in relation to your knee? Chest dips will stimulate your chest better than the flat bench press IMO

 

[conkertheking]

What about dips? Can you do them in relation to your knee? Chest dips will stimulate your chest better than the flat bench press IMO

Yeah can do dips, will probably do those and chin ups next time instead of extensions and rows! DB shrugs are cool as well but my gym's DBs only go up to 40kg and I can do those now so can't progress - don't really see how I could do a BB shrug sitting down

 

[NewbieGainz]

Subbed!

 

[conkertheking]

Days Four & Five

Sorry about the lack of updates yesterday, far too much free beer was provided as part of the gig which made posting on any website unadvisable. I've often thought I could make some serious cash designing an app which would stop you from texting your ex if you couldn't do something like dragging a finger across the screen in a straight line to prove sobriety

Gig went pretty well, made one or two silly mistakes (talked to everyone far too much in the club beforehand and therefore my voice couldn't quite hit the high notes by the last couple of songs, a mistake I will have to remember to avoid in future performances) but my confidence and mood were up for sure. Ended up being asked for a bunch of encores (I was headlining the club so there was no one due on after me) and normally I'd shy away from doing something unrehearsed and impromptu, but added a bunch of songs I hadn't played in a while and it seemed to go really well.

Obviously I can't definitively ascribe this confidence boost to the supplements when there were a variety of Irish beers involved, so make of this what you will.

Did absolutely nothing today except nurse my hangover and walk the dog. Was meant to go out tonight but everyone in the original 10 person crew bailed at the last minute except me and one other person so we decided to just screw it and go out tomorrow night instead when we've all sobered up from the gig last night

Gym again tomorrow, will probably do more or less the same workout as last time but hopefully better Will look into changing up the workout a bit over the next few gym days in accordance with some of the advice here. May split my workouts into two alternating routines based on grouping exercises which primarily involve the triceps and those which primarily involve the biceps as supporting muscles - considering almost all of the minor injuries I tend to get from workouts (as opposed to serious sprains / tears) seem to involve tendons in and around my elbows and wrists, perhaps I'm just using my arms too much in one day. If I split the routine up like this, I'd end up with one day for chest / shoulder / tricep exercises and another for back / trap / bicep exercises. Not 100% sure whether the rear delt raise or fly involves the bicep or tricep more, will have to look into that if I indeed end up splitting the workout. Obviously when my knees are back in order I'll probably return to my old routine of gymming every 2 days instead of 3, and doing three separate days of back / bis, chest / shoulders / tris, and legs each week.

I'm interested in those who've said that doing less long / intense workouts would free more test, any particular reason for this? And does anyone reckon doing long, intense workouts like I do could be a contributing factor to hypogonadotropism, despite the fact that I get two full days of rest in between them? I've heard of exercise induced LH deficiency before but I've always assumed that this was more for endurance / heavy cardio trainers as opposed to mass-building weightlifting. Thoughts?

 

[Chiefsnation23]

BLR Letrone &amp; Rebirth - let's get those hormones flowing (+Bloods)

That was me. It was a quick analysis based on what you were giving.
I figure working out only upper body for a couple straight days then taking an off day is counter productive. Your not giving those muscle groups enough rest imo. You would provide more room for growth by spacing out your compound lifts for major upper body parts since you can't do legs. Something like chest and tris (dips and pressing movements being your heavy lift), back/bi's (bent over rows and pullups being your heavy lifts), and then shoulders and traps (shoulders and chest apart as sometimes rotator cuff can get sensitive if you do them back to back or have bad form).
There's other variations but I think this would be more suitable for growth then what your currently doing. I'm sure others can chime in and help as well.

 

[conkertheking]

Day Six

I'm posting this half way through day seven because I couldn't post last night and don't want to wait, and I'm not doing anything today except watching rugby on TV (RIP Ireland ) If anything interesting happens today I'll include it in tomorrow's day eight log.

I want to throw this in at the start, and obviously this early I can't tell whether it's the supps or not but my libido seems to have found a couple of rocket boosters over the last few days. A fairly stereotypical result of higher testosterone is to think with one's wang, or in other words sometimes put sex before common sense, and yesterday I got a couple of snapchats from a woman who I would ordinarily not give a second thought to due to disastrous past history (won't get into it, but she likes messing with people's heads) and instead I found myself thinking "f*ck, she really is super hot. Wonder if she's coming out tonight, mayb... No! Shut up dude and don't even think about it!"

Been horny as hell all day as well, far more so than usual, and getting back into the mood much faster than usual after refractory.
Again, I have no idea whether this is placebo, coincidence, or hormonal changes. Will have to wait for bloods to be sure. All I can say is, whatever the reason, me likey

On a slightly less joyous note, the gym yesterday was another off-day. It wasn't actually because I wasn't strong enough but because I forgot about Saturday's earlier closing time and arrived with only half an hour to work out including warming up, so only did three exercises. I did do one useful thing, which was get an instructor to watch my arnold press and he explained that I've been accidentally cheating on it for the last while - I've assumed that you're supposed to swing the arms from the sides to the front as you lower the weight, but he says that in fact you lower the DBs to shoulder height and then without any up or downward motion, swing your arms around. Having tried this, it's much harder, but I'm feeling it a lot more in my shoulders so hopefully this might help to blast my shoulder plateau a bit.

Regardless:

Incline DB press: 30kg(2) - again, couldn't get into the starting position. Damn. Switching to BBs.
Incline BB press: 60kg / 8 / 8 / 9 (20kg bar + 20kg plates * 2) - not bad, range is 8-12 and I think I've finally figured out my BB form for these so that I feel it mainly in the pecs. We'll see if I get any stronger over the next few workouts with this new form.

Arnold press: 20kg(x2) 8 / 8 / 7

Preacher curls (one arm DB): 22kg / 8R, 7L

Stopped working out at this stage as the gym was closing. Bit annoyed that I only got one set on each arm for the peachers, since it seemed to be going pretty well, but there you go.

I'll probably try another full upper body workout on Tuesday and then look into splitting it up after that, as advised.

That was me. It was a quick analysis based on what you were giving.
I figure working out only upper body for a couple straight days then taking an off day is counter productive. Your not giving those muscle groups enough rest imo. You would provide more room for growth by spacing out your compound lifts for major upper body parts since you can't do legs. Something like chest and tris (dips and pressing movements being your heavy lift), back/bi's (bent over rows and pullups being your heavy lifts), and then shoulders and traps (shoulders and chest apart as sometimes rotator cuff can get sensitive if you do them back to back or have bad form).
There's other variations but I think this would be more suitable for growth then what your currently doing. I'm sure others can chime in and help as well.

It's worth a shot, sure I'm at a few plateaus so the way I see it I can't exactly make things worse by taking risks

Just to clarify, I wasn't doing any straight days with no off days, I've actually been doing one lifting session every three days and trying to pack a full upper body workout in to each, so in other words two per week. Looking over my logs, in practise this just hasn't worked out as I've ended up either getting fatigued half way through and throwing the last couple of exercises or else staying too late into the evening when the gym gets super busy and it's just impossible to go from one exercise to the next without a massive gap. So will bear this in mind over the next couple of weeks and see what I can change up.

I'm actually thinking that if I do split it up I can probably go more often, maybe every second day instead of every third day. The only reason for the two day gap between workouts currently is that with a full body workout, I'm finding the DOMS is just still horrendous after one day off and there's never seemed much point in working out whilst still crippled from the previous one.

To anyone else who's used either of these products, did you notice a libido blast and how soon into the cycle did you notice it? Am I likely seeing effects here or is it just a coincidence?

 

[abformulations]

Can't complain about the libido boost.

I always have Viron in the mix. I got a boost in libido in week 2 and week 3 is when I felt recovered.

 

[conkertheking]

Can't complain about the libido boost.

I always have Viron in the mix. I got a boost in libido in week 2 and week 3 is when I felt recovered.

Seriously considering Viron for a future BLR stack with these two products given the number of people who've been singing its praises lately. As I said, only excluded it from this log because I want people to be able to look at the bloodwork and know that Letrone and Rebirth did it without having to factor in a third product's effects. I actually wanted to do Letrone at one cap per day so I'd have one month's bloods with no Rebirth before combining them, but Brundel is far too clever a salesman and successfully enticed me with tales of Letrone's epicness at a full dose. If the libido effects I've been getting are indeed supp related, he certainly wasn't wrong.

 

[conkertheking]

Days Eight & Nine

Hey, was out and busy all day yesterday hence the lack of updates.

No real change in mood. Aggression maybe up a little, I'm a bit less passive if people piss me off but then I'm not usually passive at all so this may not be indicative of anything except some people being more annoying than usual Libido still seems higher than average, which is pretty cool.

Better workout today, but still very short. Only managed one set of curls though due to forearm pain, will be hitting my powerball extra hard for the next two days to see if that makes a difference - some people with forearm tendon issues swear that this helped them completely, so we'll see.

Once again couldn't do my 30kg DB press which is a pain. Managed 3 reps but I had an annoying and slightly painful shoulder impingement ("clicking") which annoyed me on each set so I switched to the BB again.
I'm not sure what's going on with my DB press to be honest. It was going fantastically until early August when I got up to 30kg for the first time, was able to do that for about a week and then somehow slipped back down, and I've never really been able to get back up to it since. It's like my pec strength peaked in early August and then began to slide backwards ever so slightly. Very weird. Interestingly enough, the end of July coincided with the end of my Formestane run, so I wonder if it could have been related to that - my already low test combined with the loss of whatever leg-up I was getting from 4-hydroxytestosterone. Who knows.

Regardless:

Incline 6 DB press: 30kg / 3.

Incline BB press: 62.25kg / 7 / 8 / 5 (when the damn shoulder thing kicked in.)

Pulldown: 200lbs / 12. 210 lbs / 12. 220 lbs / 12. (Kept surprising myself on this one and being able to increase, will have to try some 1RMs next time to figure out exactly what I should be lifting here)

Arnold Press: 20kg / 6 / 6 / 6 (Strength range, ok with this especially given that I'm now doing them with better form)

Preacher curls: 22kg / 8R , 7L - I do preachers with a steep incline bench as I find our preacher bench is far too low an angle and takes the work out of the entire top half of the lift. I use the same incline as what I would use for arnold presses. R and L are right and left arm respectively. Again abandoned this after one set due to the forearm burn - will really hammer the powerball for the next few days and see if it helps.

Triceps extension (machine): 120lbs / 12. The rope station was being used pretty much the whole time I was in the gym and I didn't feel like hanging around since these last two exercises really killed my forearms and I decided to quit before I properly injured them. Getting really sick of this issue, but will persevere nonetheless.

On a side note, I'm wondering if I should stop bothering to report my workouts for the moment since I'm sure they're abysmally boring to read about, but feel I should document them in case either of the supplements causes any exercises to substantially improve, as that would be one indication of a better hormonal environment. Thoughts?

 

[GreekTheBrick]

Days Eight & Nine

Hey, was out and busy all day yesterday hence the lack of updates.

No real change in mood. Aggression maybe up a little, I'm a bit less passive if people piss me off but then I'm not usually passive at all so this may not be indicative of anything except some people being more annoying than usual Libido still seems higher than average, which is pretty cool.

Better workout today, but still very short. Only managed one set of curls though due to forearm pain, will be hitting my powerball extra hard for the next two days to see if that makes a difference - some people with forearm tendon issues swear that this helped them completely, so we'll see.

Once again couldn't do my 30kg DB press which is a pain. Managed 3 reps but I had an annoying and slightly painful shoulder impingement ("clicking") which annoyed me on each set so I switched to the BB again.
I'm not sure what's going on with my DB press to be honest. It was going fantastically until early August when I got up to 30kg for the first time, was able to do that for about a week and then somehow slipped back down, and I've never really been able to get back up to it since. It's like my pec strength peaked in early August and then began to slide backwards ever so slightly. Very weird. Interestingly enough, the end of July coincided with the end of my Formestane run, so I wonder if it could have been related to that - my already low test combined with the loss of whatever leg-up I was getting from 4-hydroxytestosterone. Who knows.

Regardless:

Incline 6 DB press: 30kg / 3.

Incline BB press: 62.25kg / 7 / 8 / 5 (when the damn shoulder thing kicked in.)

Pulldown: 200lbs / 12. 210 lbs / 12. 220 lbs / 12. (Kept surprising myself on this one and being able to increase, will have to try some 1RMs next time to figure out exactly what I should be lifting here)

Arnold Press: 20kg / 6 / 6 / 6 (Strength range, ok with this especially given that I'm now doing them with better form)

Preacher curls: 22kg / 8R , 7L - I do preachers with a steep incline bench as I find our preacher bench is far too low an angle and takes the work out of the entire top half of the lift. I use the same incline as what I would use for arnold presses. R and L are right and left arm respectively. Again abandoned this after one set due to the forearm burn - will really hammer the powerball for the next few days and see if it helps.

Triceps extension (machine): 120lbs / 12. The rope station was being used pretty much the whole time I was in the gym and I didn't feel like hanging around since these last two exercises really killed my forearms and I decided to quit before I properly injured them. Getting really sick of this issue, but will persevere nonetheless.

On a side note, I'm wondering if I should stop bothering to report my workouts for the moment since I'm sure they're abysmally boring to read about, but feel I should document them in case either of the supplements causes any exercises to substantially improve, as that would be one indication of a better hormonal environment. Thoughts?

If you feel your chest press has stalled you can change completely routine, for example do some deep chest dips as a press movement and then high rep flies and pullovers. Or even take a break for chest for a week. It will help a lot

 

[conkertheking]

If you feel your chest press has stalled you can change completely routine, for example do some deep chest dips as a press movement and then high rep flies and pullovers. Or even take a break for chest for a week. It will help a lot

I don't think it's my actual pec muscle which has stalled though, that's the annoying part... As evidenced by my being able to do a barbell press. The difficulty I'm having with the DBs is actually swinging the weights up for the first rep. Lie back, kick the weights up as I go, but nine times out of ten they end up being too low (lower than my chest) and then either my triceps or my shoulders, not sure which, aren't strong enough to push them into the starting position. I'm sticking with BBs for the moment I think but it's troubling because I honestly don't think chest strength is the problem here - either my triceps or shoulders need serious work.

 

[conkertheking]

Day Ten

Aaaaaand we're a third of the way in already!

Not much to report today, was out all day again, felt very sociable but I usually do and there was beer involved, so

I think I'm starting to notice a bulkier look to the muscles I've been able to work. One caveat would be to reiterate that I've only recently begun consuming daily creatine so that could potentially be related. I will say that drive for life seems to be up as well - if someone texts me looking to go out or do something I'm far less like to think "**** it I'm wrecked", more like "bit tired but what the hell, sounds fun". Again no idea if this is related, placebo, or just general mood.

My appetite seems to be up big time which I need to watch. Not only am I less inhibited about eating junk if it's offered, I'm also less inhibited about eating more of it Is increased appetite a known side effect of higher test / lower e2? Or perhaps the suggested IGF-1 increase? Brundel mentioned increased hunger as an effect of Letrone's compound, but this is quite incredible Regardless, I need to remind myself to stay healthy - for instance, eating a higher quantity of decently constructed sandwiches rather than just exponentially increasing the volume of peanut butter in each one

Anyone else who's used Letrone or Rebirth noticed any effects on hunger, or dis-inhibition of self-control?

One potential negative side effect is that I've been a bit more irritable / easy to piss off lately, but I'm internally justifying it by re-wording it as "I'm less likely to put up with bull**** I shouldn't have been putting up with in the first place"

As always, until I get bloods back this is all anecdotal. Would be pretty cool in its own way if this all turned out to be placebo, I'd have to seriously reconsider what I believe my brain to be capable of without help

 

[Jebrook]

My appetite seems to be up big time which I need to watch. Not only am I less inhibited about eating junk if it's offered, I'm also less inhibited about eating more of it Is increased appetite a known side effect of higher test / lower e2? Or perhaps the suggested IGF-1 increase? Brundel mentioned increased hunger as an effect of Letrone's compound, but this is quite incredible Regardless, I need to remind myself to stay healthy - for instance, eating a higher quantity of decently constructed sandwiches rather than just exponentially increasing the volume of peanut butter in each one

Anyone else who's used Letrone or Rebirth noticed any effects on hunger, or dis-inhibition of self-control?

I would definitely attribute the increase in hunger to the increased Ghrelin release caused by Letrone. This is a common effect noted by many other users. Part of which attributes to the anabolic properties of Letrone.

 

[vujade]

I've also noticed increased hunger the two times I've used Letrone.

Definitely got to watch yourself especially if your cutting or recomping