When to Run a Cycle

Foxx13

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When should you run a cycle in your training. I’m doing 8 weeks, maybe more of volume training. I think of this as building my base. Then I’ll go into 8 weeks of strength based training followed up by a 4-week peak phase. My goal is to increase my squat, front squat, deadlift, and overhead press at the end of the peak phase.

I was going to run my cycle for 8 weeks at the end to help build my strength and peak but now wondering if it would be beneficial in my volume training instead. I seem to recover and respond well to the strength phase but take a little more time to recover in the volume phase. Thoughts?
 
Smont

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I'm confused, 8 weeks to build your base of?

Bodybuilding or muscle building takes months and years, nothing really significant happens in a few weeks. And there's really no point in your training blocks that would call for a good time to do a cycle.

The best time to run a cycle is after you have been training consistently for a couple years, when your body fat is low, visible abs and your diet and training is in check. There are androgen receptors in your muscles and in your fat, and the more body fat you have the more steroids get wasted in the fat and cause unwanted side effects and limit muscle growth.

If your purely a strength trainer then you would want to run your cycle leading up to the day you need to be your strongest so that you peaked for that meat or lift or whatever the strength event may be.
 

BBiceps

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^Yes, what above said^

if you have mind set on on that program you should obviously do you cycle in the end so you actually could peak in the peaking phase.
 
Smont

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Since strength is your goal there's something else I wanna add, how long have you been working on your strength and how far have you progressed since you started. Many guys will very easily add 100+lbs to there squat and deadlift in there first year. If your early in you strength training career then I would try to peak your strength naturally a few times and "build your base" which won't happen in 8 or 12 weeks. But it can happen without 6-12months give or take.

The point Im trying to make is if you can naturally bench say 250 and deadlift 350 or whatever arbitrary numbers. And you use steroids your going to always need steroids to make strength gains in my opinion.

You don't wanna be a strength athlete who needs steroids to hit mediocre strength numbers.

@Hyde

Any opinion on what I said above
 

Foxx13

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Been training for years, probably around 12-14% BF. Used to lift competitively and enjoy block training. I’m building a base for my strength phase, I like to run my mesocycles in 8-12 week blocks, broken down into 4-week micro cycles. So I’ll be doing a base cycle or a hypertrophy cycle, then going to a strength cycle followed up by a peaking cycle. Then on my next 20-25 week Macro cycle the goal is to increase each cycle with a goal of increasing my PR’s.

I don’t like to run extended periods of any phase. Such as a 6-month hypertrophic phase without a strength phase included. I find that the stresses of each phase has a negative on my performance after 8-12 weeks. The volume just beats me up over time and the strength/peaking fries my CNS so I run them as stated above.

It seems and was my initial plan to run the cycle, which is just a Stano Plex cycle to coincide with my Max day which is 18 weeks out right now.
 
Smont

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Been training for years, probably around 12-14% BF. Used to lift competitively and enjoy block training. I’m building a base for my strength phase, I like to run my mesocycles in 8-12 week blocks, broken down into 4-week micro cycles. So I’ll be doing a base cycle or a hypertrophy cycle, then going to a strength cycle followed up by a peaking cycle. Then on my next 20-25 week Macro cycle the goal is to increase each cycle with a goal of increasing my PR’s.

I don’t like to run extended periods of any phase. Such as a 6-month hypertrophic phase without a strength phase included. I find that the stresses of each phase has a negative on my performance after 8-12 weeks. The volume just beats me up over time and the strength/peaking fries my CNS so I run them as stated above.

It seems and was my initial plan to run the cycle, which is just a Stano Plex cycle to coincide with my Max day which is 18 weeks out right now.
Dude, if you been at it that long then get on some testosterone and run it the whole 12 weeks of your program maybe longer, add the stanoplex in towards the end
 

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