Originally Posted by
TKO Performance
At 22 I'd seriously consider every course of action other than steroids. The male body may stop growing height wise by 18-20, but most research indicates that it doesn't truly reach a set point until about 25. Screwing with your natural hormone balance before that could have worse long term side affects than if you wait a few years.
I'm not trying to be a dick, but it sounds like you're looking for a quick fix. IMHO, steroids should only be taken once you have reached the peak of what proper lifting routine, diet, and supplements can give you. At 22, trust me you haven't reached that yet. It is well documented that men can continue to gain strength well into their 40s without steroids. The 32 year old version of me could kick the shit out of the 22 year old version of me. At 22 I had a max bench of around 225. Before a recent battle with injury I maxed 320x2, so I'd place my one rep max in the 335-350 range. I was doing 4 sets of 10 with 245 and had bumped up to 255. All this was done 100% natural. Over that ten year span my lifting was sporadic and I was learning a lot about diet, proper routine, etc. Most of the gain was in the last year and a half. I found I could gain 10lbs. every 6-8 weeks on my sets (going from say 225 4x10 to 235 4x10), and was adding reps to each set in my heavy pyramid every 2 weeks.
Most kids get bad or misinformed advice when it comes to lifting. I wasted years of my lifting life with that. If I'd have known at 14 what I know now I'd be benching 500 or more. Keep in mind that doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. If all you've been doing is beating your head against the same routine for months without progress the problem is the routine. Something is off. It could be diet, overtraining, improper supplementation, or your actual routine. I'll give you a couple big hints. If you're training a body part more than once a week at your age you're overtraining. If you're doing the same routine every time you do a body part your routine needs to change. If you're doing more than 10 reps in anything but a warmup set your not using enough weight. If you're eating less than 1gm/lb. of body weight a day in protein and the same in complex carbs you are not eating enough. You should be in the 3,000-3,500 calories a day range at least. More if you continue to not lose weight and/or not gain strength. Cardio is not great for muscle building either. All that running at high intensity is actually causing your body to fuel off your muscles.
Need more specifics, post back, or PM me, but I strongly urge against the use of steroids at this time. You have years to make amazing gains naturally.
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