The first six months of lifting weights are awesome. Guys gets what’s known in the field as “newbie gains.” You get leaner and more muscular simultaneously. If you take smart supplements, train hard, and eat right, it’s possible to gain 10-20 pounds of muscle while losing fat.
Your shoulders get wider and your waist gets smaller. The feeling of power and strength is intoxicating.
After newbie gains comes the grind. You won’t notice a difference in your body from day-to-day, or even month-to-month. You have to train harder, smarter, and dial in your nutrition.
For a natural trainee, you’ll be lucky to gain 10 pounds of muscle in an entire year. Some years you’ll gain 5.
Unless you are black or have great genetics, it will take you around 3-5 years of consistent effort to build a body good enough where people stop asking, “Do you work out?” People don’t have to ask; they know.
Guys thus turn to anabolic steroids, with predictable results.
Now I’m not going to tell you steroids are dangerous. The dangers of steroids have been overblown. The dangers of steroids are so overblown that if you believe steroids are dangerous, you are no different to me than a mindless feminist.
But.
When you take anabolic steroids, you will relive your newbie gains. You’ll get stronger and leaner. You’ll throw more 45s on the bar. You’ll be aggressive. You’ll know how Genghis Khan must’ve felt when he slayed men, raped women, and enslaved children.
You will gain 20-40 pounds on your cycle.
You will not keep most of those gains.
Once you go off cycle, you’ll begin getting weaker. Without the benefit of synthetic testosterone and other anabolics, your body will no longer be able to sustain your current training volume.
You’ll have to work harder to lift less weight.
Most guys become completely demoralized. “I just did this same weight for 10 reps. Now I can only do it for 6. Fuck this.”
Instead of keeping some of those unnatural gains, the guy quits lifting altogether.
I’ve seen that happen repeatedly.
That said, steroids are not always a no-go. Guys who have already paid their dues in the gym don’t share the same problems as young guys.
If you’ve lifted consistently for 5 years, you’ve had nearly 1,000 workouts. You’ve been “up” for weeks at a time. You’ve added more weight to the bar every workout. You know what it’s like to be in the zone.
You’ve also been “down.” You’ve lifted through sickness. You’ve lifted through break-ups, divorces, the deaths of friends and families. You’ve lifted while wondering if you were going to lose your job, and when stressing about paying rent.
When you have had dozens of shitty workouts, you have the emotional maturity to deal with anabolic steroids. You’ll have the maturity to realize that maintaining 100% of the gains is unrealistic, and that the weeks following a cycle are going to be rough.
Until you’ve had at least 500 hard workouts in the weight room, you should not even consider taking steroids.
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So why not just stay on the cycle permanently?
They do! Anyone you see on TV, movies or in a magazine is using. Pro bodybuilders stay on year round, just tapering dosage a bit. It takes more than one cycle to look good. Arnold started at 14 and didn’t win the olympia until 22.
You are completely talking out of your ass. Pro bodybuilders inject straight up synthol (aka Jay Cutler and his left bicep ‘bruise’). Magazine guys don’t need gear – they just do a water bloat/cut and look strong while just being really lean. You can tell, they rarely have obliques even with their abs showing.
Plus like Eric said – you have to cycle that. You can look pretty fucking good and be strong without gear. It just takes consistent effort.
Because then the drugs own you.
Do you think that’s so bad?
Isn’t it similar to being “owned” by the other portions of a comitted lifting lifestyle? Aren’t you just as “owned” by having to lift multiple times a week? By having to eat/drink multiple meals of protein per day? By having to commit to rest and take suppliements?
At a certain point, when you commit to something, anything, people will say that the lifestyle “owns you”.
I think its more accurate to say that the success of a given lifestyle is determined by how much it “owns” you.
Roids are just part of the lifestyle, no better, no worse. Injecting steroids daily is far less time consuming then lifting and eating every day. If you cut out either of those, you’ll shrink just as surely as if you cut out roids.
Are you down with HRT yeah you know me!
for the mature gentleman of course
“You’ve lifted through sickness. You’ve lifted through break-ups, divorces, the deaths of friends and families. You’ve lifted while wondering if you were going to lose your job, and when stressing about paying rent.”
Realest shit I never wrote.
PCT is part of the key to keeping the gains inbetween cycles.
Ryu is wrong, they do not, DO NOT, stay on cycle forever. That causes permanent endocrine damage, along with other things, the longer your system shuts down the harder it is to get it back up and running. You can take some stuff to keep your balls producing semen, but everyone cycles off.
Blood tests are useful to make sure all of your numbers are within the normal ranges, particularly if you are using an oral steroid as it will play hell with your liver. Omega-3 is a good starting liver support supplement.
What is PCT?
Post-Cycle Therapy. Usually done with a ratio of 1:1, or 1:3 if you are conservative. So 1 month on, 1 month off or so. It varies with the drug.
Some people buy custom stacks or get Rx’s, others use simpler sets of stuff like Magnesium oil, Zinc, D Aspartic Acid, Tribulus Terrestris.
http://store.bodybuildingfactory.com/article-pct-post-cycle-therapy.html
http://www.postcycletherapy.com/
I guess Ryu agrees with me? Both of those articles mentions what happens from the Estrogenic and fertility effects from excessive use without PCT. The endocrine system is interconnected, when you jack up one level the other’s will go up to create equilibrium, while stalling natural production of T.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothalamic%E2%80%93pituitary%E2%80%93adrenal_axis
http://prohormonedb.com/content.asp?t=What+is+Post+Cycle+Therapy+(PCT)%3F&c=8
IFBB pros never get off gear. They blast and cruise. They are addicted to hormones.
One day I am going on gear but not yet.
Blast and cruise. Dave Tate language. Then you know of Louie Simmons, the powerlifter who claims to have never gone off in 40 years.
My knowledge comes from being in the sport and watching others. If others want to believe doctors, fine. This is my sport, my area of excellence. If you want to believe babies who have never been over 200, fine. If you want the real scoop, you will listen to people who have been under and around the iron.
There are a thousand more articles from men like this.
http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/sex_news_sports_funny_grok/steroids_forever
http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/sex_news_sports_funny_grok/the_steroid_interviews_1
Interesting articles. I read gh-15 the self proclaimed “god of hormones.” An IFBB pro, although nobody is quite sure of his identity. He posted for several years on the getbig forums and wrote the GH-15 Bible. Interesting stuff. Really blew the lid of hormone use in bodybuilding and fitness.
I’ve found the best benefit of weight lifting built around squats and dead lifts as far as being attractive to women isn’t how big or ripped I get – though I’m not complaining about that part.
It’s my posture.
You default to stand straight, shoulders back, head up posture that is supposed to convey confidence. You don’t even have to think about, you just do it.
Getting a bit bigger is probably going to be very marginal for attracting women in comparison. It just doesn’t strike me as worth the risk of steroids.
YES! You are 100% correct Sir. To get it, and keep it, you gotta go through it…ALL.
The guys who start out “on the shit” are not…
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Believing that injecting HGH into your body will bring youthful gains is similar to the thinking of Keynesians who believe that the way to create jobs is to print more more money and inject it into the banking system, no effort required. The body produces HGH naturally and can be stimulated using high intensity anaerobic activity through sprinting, Usain Bolt is no weakling unlike his long distance counterparts. It works well for me and I’m 59, first comes the effort then comes the HGH. Instead of getting slower, weaker and less flexible, you become faster, stronger and more flexible.
http://www.readysetgofitness.com/newsletter/10_New%20Research%20shows%20how%20to%20increace%20HGH%20530%25.htm
Or search for Sprint 8
Statistical significance is not clinical significance.
The spikes in hormones caused by workouts are irrelevant against what direct doping does.