First Cycle on Epi2a3a
So I, myself, did a lot of research on the Epi2a3a prior to doing my first cycle, which I completed over a week ago. I can't tell you how annoying it was for someone to answer "look at other threads" or "no serm no cycle". You can spend hours sifting through other threads and not find your answer. Also, I will explain below about the Serm. My "personal" goal of epi2a3a was to get a kick start back in the gym since I was out of it for a year due to a high demanding project. I cycled with promagnon probably 6-7 years ago for the same reason so this isn't necessarily my first rodio, however still fairly inexperienced. So as a note, my goal may be different than yours.
I started with 30mg/day and carried that through for 5 weeks. My reasoning: you take higher doses you're more prone to sides, dry joints, back pumps, etc. and may even be more of a reason to take a serm. You will find threads with guys who say to stay low and others who go to 50-60 and even 70 mg! You will also find a pattern the reports of sides are from users who did high doses. Again, I wasn't expecting to pack on 15 pounds, but more of a good kickstart and even expected the "placebo effect" which was fine for me. With my cycle I took fish oil, multivitamins and on cycle support. I also ate really well - chicken, vegetables, fruit, salads, pastas, etc. and ate ALOT since my body needed a ton of food to fuel the raging muscle repair.
I noticed at week 1 I got a couple good pumps in the gym, but nothing to really be excited about as I knew Epi doesn't kick in until about week 2. I was working out 4-5 days/week consistently and still am.
Around week 2, I really started to notice a huge incline in my strength. My anger did increase a bit which my Fiance wasn't too proud of, but did my best to keep it under control. At week 2 is when the lethargy was hitting me pretty hard - usually around 6-7pm. I did get a good night sleep though, however it was a little discouraging to fight through this lethargy. I should mention that this did not affect gym time. I was also noticing visual changes in my body and so was everyone else around me. The epi in addition to my eating plan was a great combination for this. I also had extremely quick recovery time - I would work out hard the day before and could really do the same muscle group the next day, but didn't.
At week 3, my strength continued, still had anger, but lethargy was wearing down a bit. Body was swelling and lifts kept skyrocketing. No sides.
At week 4, strength kept going. I started out benching 4-5 reps at 185 lbs week 1, and was benching 4 reps at 245lbs during this week. Now, 245 lbs. isn't new to me as I was able to do this 1 or 2 reps a year ago. So I'm not sure if I went up this fast because of this or because of the epi, however I was feeling great. Every muscle group was excelling and I was working out hard (you don't want to waste money on epi if you're not going to get the full experience of what it can do). Lethargy was pretty much depleted at this stage. I started at a weight of 206 and was about 212 in week 4. Recovery time wasn't as quick as weeks 1-3. It started to feel a little more "normal" - as in, I was sore for a couple days.
Week 5, I really thought about increasing my dosage to 40mg because I wanted that quick recovery time, however opted not to do this as my strength gains did not change. And it was not worth to possibly onset any sides. I felt that 30 mg through week 5 was a perfect amount. I gained 8 pounds, pretty much of solid muscle in 5 weeks. Everyone around me noticed how much stronger/bigger I got (this actually started to happen after week 2 but was really noticeable in week 4 and 5).
Post cycle - since I stayed with only 30 mg I decided to not do a SERM as I didn't pump a unnecessary amount of epi into my system and I felt 5 weeks was a good stopping point not stressing my body out more than what I could have if I went any longer. I'm on the post cycle 3x all-in-one, fish oil, multivitamin, and still taking the oncycle support. I increased my protein intake and still eating the same (healthy). It's been a little over a week with no sides, I feel normal and my weight lifting is still increasing. Now, it has only been a week so I'm unsure what the next month will bring, but I understand I will not see the gains over this month like I did the last month on epi.
Again, my goal was to only kick start me back in the gym. It's fairly discouraging to start back out and do 60% of the weights you're used to doing, so epi got me to the point where I'm nearly surpassing or at least equal with where I left off in a short period of time. I would like to note that my body is different than yours and handled epi2a3a differently than yours might. So if you need a serm get a serm, if this makes you feel better. I did not get one since there is harm the SERM could also do to your body, but some like to play it a little safe than a OTC PCT like I'm taking. Some people over do it with taking an AI and a SERM and otc PCT and test boosters, crazy. I'm going to get blood work done in a month or so to see where my test levels, etc. are at. I will post my results.
