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.
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Proviron is basically a steroid but its main effect is of lowering aromatization and also freeing up more test so your levels of free test are higher than normal. I have no experience with this but many people love this during cycle as it increases levels of free test, but it also suppresses the HPTA. I don't know too much about this once and if you’re a newbie stick with the arimidex.
Aromisin works a little differently than the above mentioned AIs. It works not by stopping estrogen production but instead it deactivated the binding enzyme that allows estrogen to bind, therefore the level of estrogen remains mostly unaffected in your body, but it pretty much becomes ineffective, except for some functions such as keeping your lipid levels stable, unlike the other AI's that screw up your cholesterol. There is also no rebound effect. This is one powerful AI and its use by a newbie I wouldn't suggest. Stick to the tried and true I prefer arimidex.
Other AI that can be used to control estrogen are ATD and 6-oxo as mentioned earlier. These are steroidal inhibitors (ATD, 6-oxo, aromisin) which means they do not completely destroy your estrogen levels like letro or arimidex. They permanently bind to the aromisin enzyme and deactivate it permanently, the only way for the body to keep estrogen production up is to produce more aromitase. Whereas nonsteroidal AI such as letro and dex bind for a period of time then release the aromitase enzyme so the levels of aromitase are not lower and may actually increase which open the possibility of a estrogen rebound. I find 6-oxo outdated and too weak so I prefer ATD. A small dose of perhaps 25-50mg ED or even EOD due to its longer half-life may be enough to keep bloat and estrogen under control. I plan on trying this out on a test e cycle to see how it affects me, once again as I’ve pointed out several times is that YMMV. I hope it is becoming clear to you newbies out there that everyone reacts differently to these substances which is part of the reason you have to spend years researching and lifting to gain the experience and knowledge necessary to run a successful cycle with minimal sides. If gyno starts to develop I would switch from the ATD to something like dex or letro as this is more effective and reversing gyno and I wouldn't want to take any chances when it comes to gyno.
Other ancillaries that can be used on a cycle depend on the side effects that develop. The AI's will control estrogen which in turn prevents bloat and gyno. Some people find that steroids cause hair loss. This is due to the androgenic (this is the property of testosterone that causes the "male" characteristics such as deep voice, body hair, etc.. it also causes strength, aggression and horniness effects of the roid and some roids are more androgenic than others. How androgenic a steroid is measured by the androgenic: anabolic ratio. Anabolic is the muscle building property. Testosterone has a 1:1 ratio. The androgenic property is what causes hair loss, this is most prevalent in people susceptible to male pattern baldness. Testosterone is broken down into DHT (by the 5AR enzyme) which is A LOT more androgenic than testosterone and is mainly responsible for the hair loss, though the steroid itself can bind to receptors in your scalp and cause hair loss. So drugs that control DHT conversion are what’s called for here. Another thing to keep in mind if your worried about hair loss is that certain steroids are actually based on DHT therefore they can cause more hair loss, an example of a DHT structure based roid is winny.
Finasteride (propecia) is one drug that lowers the conversion of steroids into DHT. This is used at a dose of 1-2mg a day to combat hair loss.
Dutasteride is another drug that prevents the conversion into dht, it is a lot more powerful than finasteride, but it also has a very long half life of over 5 weeks so if you experience side effects from it they will be around for a long side. I do not recommend the use of this drug. Its dosage would be around .25-.5mg ED.
A safer option than those oral drugs are drugs that you apply to the scalp itself. Spironolactone works a little different by being essentially an anti-androgen. It is applied to the scalp and therefore prevents androgens (dht, test, steroids) from binding to the receptor in the scalp. If taken orally it has the same effect but its systematic (whole body) not just localized as in a topical application to the scalp. There are other hair-loss prevention drugs, but there are threads on here that go into greater detailed if your are interested. A little hair loss is to be expected during any cycle, though generally it’s not noticeable unless you are prone to MPB. I don't recommend you use any hair loss product during a cycle unless your are shedding a s**tload and it really bothers you. Keep in mind that DHT is a important androgen and is responsible for a good amount of the strength gains that we get from a test cycle, taking a dht blocker will reduce your gains in size and especially strength. Not worth it in my opinion.
If running any orals then liver protection is pretty important. Milk thistle at 1000mg ED and NAC at 1000mg ED I find to be sufficient to have at least some protective effect on the liver. The most important thing to keep in mind is to NOT DRINK. If you are willing to put drugs into your body to grow than you should not drink especially when using an oral substance. If you can't keep yourself from drinking while on a cycle then you are neither mature enough nor smart enough to be running a cycle. You will end up hurting yourself. Few things piss me off as bad as someone running an oral and getting drunk. If your on a injectable cycle only than, well, 1-2 drinks once or twice during a cycle is acceptable I guess, just keep in mind that alcohol will stop protein anabolism for up to 24 hrs. So judge for yourself if it's worth it.
Cardiovascular health can be maintained by using red rice yeast (especially if using an oral, the methylation of an oral steroid causes the liver to be very inefficient in processing lipids and your levels get very messed up), garlic, and policosanol. I think that red rice yeast is the most effective, perhaps as effective as prescription statins (RYR is also a statin). Also the most important thing you can do for your heart is cardio and a clean diet. I think a little cardio during cycle is good and won't inhibit your gains, more on that later. Blood pressure should be controlled using hawthorn berry and celery seed, hawthorn berry takes a few weeks to kick in. Different steroids have different effects on BP. The injectables are generally the safest whereas orals are the harshest on your body. I hope this is starting illustrate to you newbies that these "legal prohormones" are some dangerous s*** if used recklessly by inexperienced folk. I'm not one to really recommend any products, but Cycle support by Annabolic Innovations covers just about any side that isn't controlled by pharmaceuticals mention in this post. Buy two boxes and run it at half dose (once a day instead of twice a day) to keep yourself healthy, much cheaper than buying all the supps separately and once a day seems to have enough active ingredients to work, unless you are on an oral then I would run it twice a day.
Libido can be reduced during a cycle, this depends on the steroid used and the level of estrogen in your body. Using something like deca or trenbolone by itself will cause you some serious limp d*** because they suppress natural testosterone production greatly and the levels of estrogen in your body drops because these roids are not really aromatized. If they are run with test then this side effect is a lot rarer. By in any case some tadalafil (cialis) at 12-25mg will get your member up to the duty at hand (or mouth he he he). Tribulus has some reports of helping here as well. Cialis seems to be safer than Viagra due to it being a much more potent PDE5 enzyme inhibitor (the enzyme that will prevent an erection). AIs will also cause a drop in libido. Another thing that can cause a drop in libido is prolactin, but this will be discussed in the next section.
Gyno!!!
One of the biggest fears of steroid use is the development of gyno. This is also one thing along with roid rage and shrunken balls and even shrunken penis that most people especially newbies know about when it comes to steroids. If fact these three things are probably the first thing that pops in mind when a newbie/uneducated person thinks of roids. Gyno is caused by estrogen levels that are elevated beyond normal amounts. It can also be caused by elevated progesterone and prolactin levels, but these are usually only responsible when estrogen levels are also high. The individual sensitivity varies greatly, so whether you are prone to gyno or not you won't know till you run your first cycle, even then it might take a few cycles to see how susceptible you are. There are two ways of tackling this problem. One is in estrogen control, the other is estrogen receptor antagonism with a serm.
It appears to me that running a SERM throughout the cycle at a low dose is a good effective way of preventing gyno. Nolva, clomid, toremifene, or raloxifene are SERMs that can be run during cycle to prevent gyno. These are also better choices than running an ai because it will keep estrogen in your system which will keep exerting some beneficial effects such as glycogen synthesis, bone density, and blood lipids. Which should you run? Well I would rule out clomid because it has too many side effects especially the emotional ones, also it can desensitize the testes to LH which is bad. Toremifene is a great SERM, but I believe its purpose is best served in post cycle therapy, and it's pretty expensive to run during a cycle. So we are left with tamoxifen and raloxifene.
Tamoxifen is the preferred SERM to run during a cycle to prevent gyno. It can be run at doses starting at 10mg ED and increasing if any signs of gyno begin to appear. If gyno begins to appear increasing the dose to 60mg ed till the gyno recedes then tapering the dose back down to maybe 20mg Ed should be OK. Once again you can run the nolva the whole cycle which I recommend, this is a newbie guide so this will be your first cycle better to stay safe than sorry and run the nolva 10mg ED form day one. If on a test cycle maybe you can wait till weeks 3-4 when the test starts to kick in or when you start seeing signs of bloat which would indicated that your test and estrogen levels are rising and then begin the SERM.
Raloxifene is a relatively newcomer to the steroid scene. A medical study comparing tamoxifen and raloxifene at reducing pubertal gyno (gyno caused during puberty due to hormonal imbalances) showed that ralox was a good deal more effective at not only in the percentage of subjects it reduced the gyno in, but also in the level of gyno reduction. Ralox seems to be the better choice for a gyno prevention/treatment SERM during cycle. Ralox can also be used for PCT but the feedback is limited and I would suggest this best serves its purpose in preventing/reducing gyno. The dosage used is still up in the air. I have done some research and have a hard time finding any consistent numbers when it comes to dosage. I would recommend maybe 30mg ED and working your way up if that seems to be ineffective. If gyno symptoms begin to appear it is imperative that you increase the dosage immediately to treat the gyno. The faster you take action to treat the gyno the more likely it is to go away. Wait t long and it may become permanent.
Gyno can also be treated/prevented by using an AI such as arimidex or letro. Letro is the more powerful of the two, but it can take up to two weeks to take full effect so arimidex might be the better choice. If I was to show signs of gyno I would take a dose of perhaps 60-90mg ralox ED along with .5-1mg arimidex ed. The arimidex shouldn't affect the levels of ralox in the blood as letro would do to nolva. Once the gyno resides the arimidex would be decreased to .25mg ed (basically to the lowest dose that is still effective for you) and the ralox back but to a dose higher than was originally used for prevention, so over 30mg ed. The ai's are best used to treat gyno with SERM. If you're looking for just prevention with a AI use the lowest dose possible as to not hinder gains and prevent possible side effects.
Gyno can also be caused by increased levels of progesterone and prolactin. Prolactin will actually cause lactation. These two hormones usually will not cause gyno unless estrogen is also present so in order to treat gyno caused by progesterone and prolactin we must first treat the excess estrogen. That would be done by using the protocol found above, in addition to that we would add some progesterone/prolactin inhibitors. It is difficult to tell whether it is estrogen or progesterone/prolactin that causes the gyno. If your first cycle is test/tren or test/deca you will not know whether the estrogen form the test is causing gyno or the progesterone form the tren/deca is causing the gyno. Therefore it is best to run test alone for a first cycle, but more on that in part 2.
Cabergoline is the drug you would use to treat prolactin/progesterone caused gyno. If running a roid such as tren/deca then the ideal thing to prevent prolactin/progesterone gyno would be to keep the estrogen is check, but if gyno begins to develop you need to throw in some prolactin control in the form of Cabergoline. Start with a dose of .25mg twice a week and increase your dose from there. There are side effects from this drug. It is supposedly a good sex enhancer because it will allow to keep an erection longer and get it back up faster, but it has negative effects because it also affects dopamine. Taking too much for too long can give you hallucinations.
Few! That’s a lot of typing. The purpose of this part was to introduce you to all the things associated with steroid use. Most of you newbies believe that steroid use is as simple as taking a shot once a week and that’s it, well I hope this part has opened your eyes a bit. The pure size of this guide in itself should show you how much there is when it comes to running a cycle of "juice". As you can see this is only part one f my guide, I haven't even touched on the actually use of the steroid. Like I said in the beginning it is my experience that the biggest hole of knowledge a newbie has when it comes to steroid use is all the extras that come along with steroid use such as PCT, estrogen control, etc... The thing is that this guide only covers the surface of what one must know to run a successful side effect free cycle and maintain most of the gains. The point I’m trying to get across is that there is so much to learn and research about steroid use that one must do before running a first cycle. Well this is it for part one of my newbie guide, part two will dive into the meat and bones of steroid use, the actual steroids themselves. This part 1 of my guide is actually not complete. I've been typing for hours and have to go to work so it's a "working draft" if you will. I appreciate any input or comments or possible edits you guys can suggest to this guide. I will update it when I have a chance implementing any comments I get from you all. Please please please let me know if I’ve made any mistakes or stated something wrong in here, I’m human and not all knowing so I’m sure there are mistakes and would like to fix them so people won't be reading bad information. I'll have part 2 up in the next few days I hope.
Statistics: Posted by nextlevel — Mon Nov 11, 2013 2:39 pm