Var Update/Experience - Question too

[fergie123]

Stat Before:
24yrs-6'2 - 179lbs
Stat After:
" "- 191lbs (week and a half still to go)
80/mgs everyday... (note: on weekends when i knew i would go out I would sometimes just take like 30-40 to keep it in my system but didnt want to waste it knowing i wouldnt be lifting and drinking my face off)


Week 6 and some change and im pretty happy. I had a similar experience as someone else I read. Within 3 weeks I went from 178 - 194 and watched by diet, ate a bunch, and blew up. Strength didnt go crazy nor did vascularity, but just bigger: nothing over the top. For the record, I didnt take the best care, and by best care I mean shit on my body on the weekends. I drank every weekend heavily but whatever (not smart I know it happened, just reporting)

-Now I'm roughly 191, lean, a little more vascular (i was already very vascular to begin with) my lifestyle is better and so is my eating. I have that V shape I wanted, I am ripped and shredded and people have been coming up to me telling me you look bigger, asking what are you doing, etc... But its NOTHING TOO DRASTIC which was what I was looking for. I still am going for another week or so and I am hoping to really see something shine then. I would like to be a bit more. I dont notice it as much as others have told me (seems like thats a common thing)

- Im going to say that I have overall been disappointed in the strength gains. I thought it was going to be much more drastic but i guess thats what is expected with var. I was able to do 225 x 10 times at the beginning, I got it 15 yesterday. I dont max out often but I can tell you that i got 275 x 1 when i started now I got it x5.

-The biggest thing I can say about it is the "pump". Taking Var with superpump or No-explode is unreal. The best thing that happened to me is my arms and shoulders. They have got so big and cut, it really does look great and what I was going for (not being vain, again just reporting and giving output for those wondering). The strength in my dumbell curls has gone through the roof. I used to do reps of 50lbs x 8 each arm and now I am able to do 70 x 8. Thats a big difference. And when I work out Bi's/Tri's together, i leave and you cant grab the skin off my arm because its so tight and there is nothing but solid hard muscle there.

-Things I would have done different were eat better the entire time i was on it and obviously not drink so much. In general though, I have been pleased with the results and can say I got what I wanted out of it. Nothing drastic but got that cut V look. I will say that although I am on week 6 and some days, I would like to see how this would work for 8-9 weeks which I may do. I didnt start actually feeling a huge difference untill week 5 and finally really really feeling it at 6. So while 8 weeks is what people recommend "at most", i would def do it again to 8 weeks min maybe 9 with how I am now.

-On to questions and how I am feeling. I am not feeling "shut down" at all really. The ONLY complaint i have with it, I feel tired throughout the day. I have never done AAS before, so I dont really know what entails "shut down" but I feel fine except being tired. My sex drive is a little down maybe (could be im just thinking it) but nothing drastic. So my question to people out there, is PCT really all that necessary if your not feeling it? Hell, if I did 1/2 of what I was doing (80) i wouldnt do pct at all. Just because of dosage I am concerned.

-The whole thing with var and taking away fat I dont know if i buy. I was already pretty lean to begin with as indicated by stats, but i dont look "less fat" or have a much better "6 pack" because of it. That was the biggest disappointment. I thought I would have had a better stomach but that could be diet and training. I had a visible one to start with so I thought it would have really come to life.

-Anyway, feel free to add input or questions. Please let me know about PCT. Has anyone done that amount of Var and not do PCT? Also, if a girl does 10 mgs a day, do they do PCT and is it for the same amount of time? Last, how long do you need to wait to do another? Try to get liver back in check etc... Thanks for everyones help. Noles and T-mos, hope you respond! You guys have been a big help...

[sixey]

first off, im positive that if you had monitored your diet/lifestyle alot more and didnt drink you would have had far better results bro. but no point in scolding since the deed is done haha, and you got some decent results anyways (next time really give it your all and im sure the extra benefits will be worth it )

idk i missed it in your post but have you completely come off var yet? if you are off and dont feel shut down, no libido/boner issues, etc...then it would seem you got lucky and didnt have a full shutdown. many people report little/no shutdown on var while some have more moderate shutdown...sounds like your fine. however if it does become an issue. run some low dose nolva or clomid for a few weeks and you'll be fine.

im currently on my second week of var only at 50mg ed. my diet and training are %110 for this cycle and im seeing some great results. idk if its all placebo, but i am seeing some new vascularity in my upper chest/front delts, and also have been having some beasty workouts. def getting a bit stronger without a doubt. also have been leaning out nicely, a little early to really guage it but i would say the fat loss is slightly acclerated thus far compared to regular dieting. im going to stay at 50mg for one more week then bump it up to 75mg a day for the last 3 weeks. stoked!

[fergie123]

---100% agree. Had diet been on and lifestyle I would have got better results. No I have not stopped, I have a week still, and could go more if I wanted to pay for it. My last week will be week 7. So I was thinking to go one more. And if you read, my results were pretty serious in the beginning as well, tapered off, then picked up again. So it sounds like our experience is the same thus far (so was another I read).

---I just am wondering about PCT if I dont feel shut down to hard, could I just do a week of clomid? My friend did test and HCG , and said when he did clomid he felt horrible and really really moody. He hated it. So I was wondering if eventually would by body return to a normal stasis? Thanks...

[sixey]

---I just am wondering about PCT if I dont feel shut down to hard, could I just do a week of clomid? My friend did test and HCG, and said when he did clomid he felt horrible and really really moody. He hated it. So I was wondering if eventually would by body return to a normal stasis? Thanks...

yeah clomid is know for those kind of sides. if at the end of your cycle, you are feeling shut down you can chance it and see how the clomid treats you, or get your hands on some nolva or torem.

keep in mind your not going to need 100mg of clomid a day or a high dose. if your only feeling a bit off, do a low dose (like 2-40mg) for a few weeks and that will be your best bet at recovery with minimal/if any sides

[428scj]

Has anyone done that amount of Var and not do PCT? I did a Var/Tbol cycle and am doing a PCT of some natural stuff that I bought online and it is working great. No sides at all and no moodiness. Seems to work fine and so does my 'junk'. I will get some bloodwork after my PCT is over to see if everything is good to go.

I have also seen posts by folks who have not done a PCT after a Var cycle and they reported they were fine. Why risk it though? Without proper blood work to confirm it all, you are just guessing.

Also, if a girl does 10 mgs a day, do they do PCT and is it for the same amount of time? Not sure on this one.

Last, how long do you need to wait to do another? I have read here and other sites that it is the length of your cycle + length of PCT before you should cycle again, but I think that is all based on your body recovering properly.

[fergie123]

Thanks 428 ... Needing some more definitive answers please/more input ...Bump

[428scj]

To be perfectly honest, I am betting people are going to say it will depend on the person and how they reacted to the compund AND regardless, to be on the safe side, you should always do a PCT. Just a guess though.

Best of luck to you Fergie. I hope it all works out in your favor. Bumping this for you.

[TKO Performance]

I think proper diet would have made a bigger difference too. Also, without knowing what your training routine was that's a potential factor as to why you didn't get more fat loss. Typically guys looking to cut are doing quite a bit of cardio, but if all you were doing was lifting then you can't really expect much in terms of fat loss. I personally believe that the fat loss you get from Anavar is from the increase in muscle density, which effectively speeds your resting metabolism. You couple that with cardio 3x a week and you get explosive results in terms of fat loss. Remember that Anavar was made to stop and restore muscle in patients with muscle wasting from either being immobilized due to injury or weak due to disease. Consequently without moving around a lot it wouldn't be surprising that your gained muscle weight, but did not seem to lose much fat.

[gymfu]

6'2" and 180lbs, sounds like you were no where near your genitic limit.

Get your diet and life style in check before cycling again. You could make some good gains naturaly.

[AlphaMaleDawg]

interesting. I have anavar laying around I will eventually use at some point

[sixey]

6'2" and 180lbs, sounds like you were no where near your genitic limit.

some folks are not worried about maxing out their genetic potential. when the gains start becoming painfully slow, and they realize its going to take the better part of anywhere from 5-10 years to eventually get where they want to be, AAS is a great solution. i hate seeing people getting chastised for using AAS when they are not "big" and havent "reached their potential"...its their life and they may want to achieve their goal physique and enjoy it now, rather than in 5 years.

having a solid muscle base and knowing your training/nutrition perfectly is very important and no one should juice without that first, but if someone has successfully built their body naturally up to a certain point, steroids are perfectly fine.

granted i am relatively new here, but all the same, if someone knows what their doing and has made a choice, no point in busting their balls if they are asking for help

[sixey]

interesting. I have anavar laying around I will eventually use at some point

im on it right now and loving it. running it solo, just bumped the dosage up to 75mg today and the change was noticeable. strength is steadily increasing, insane workouts and pumps, and the strict diet coupled with the var is showing some great fat loss/vascularity.

i am VERY excited for the next couple of weeks. im sure you would be running it with test, and from what i have read, the effects are just as good and almost always better when paired with test. def give a shot man!

[ottomaddox]

Kids giving kids advice. 21 and on a Var only cycle.........You should read more and post less. You guys are the reason this Site doesn't advocate the use of steroids to people that are not phsically, emoitionally and mentally ready.

some folks are not worried about maxing out their genetic potential. when the gains start becoming painfully slow, and they realize its going to take the better part of anywhere from 5-10 years to eventually get where they want to be, AAS is a great solution. i hate seeing people getting chastised for using AAS when they are not "big" and havent "reached their potential"...its their life and they may want to achieve their goal physique and enjoy it now, rather than in 5 years.

having a solid muscle base and knowing your training/nutrition perfectly is very important and no one should juice without that first, but if someone has successfully built their body naturally up to a certain point, steroids are perfectly fine.

granted i am relatively new here, but all the same, if someone knows what their doing and has made a choice, no point in busting their balls if they are asking for help

[TKO Performance]

He's right. At that age there's no reason to be using. You're putting yourself at higher risk for a short term payoff.

BTW, if the gains are painfully slow and hard to make then you have reached or are near your genetic potential. However, steroids should only be an option once you have exhausted all other avenues (diet, routine, supplements, etc.). At 21 or even 24 there's simply no way you're done that yet.

Maturity in a lot of ways can be seen as the ability to weigh potential reward against risk. This is why teenagers engage in stupid risky behaviors (drug use, unprotected sex, ect.). In your early 20s you're hopefully more mature than a teenager, but trust me you will still make some dumb decisions where you didn't do a proper risk assessment. Maturity takes time and experience. Hopefully this experience won't come at the cost of your long term health and well being.

[sixey]

Kids giving kids advice. 21 and on a Var only cycle.........You should read more and post less. You guys are the reason this Site doesn't advocate the use of steroids to people that are not phsically, emoitionally and mentally ready.

i would love to hear your reasoning why running a short cycle, at a low dose, of one of the relatively weakest steroids is a woefully bad idea?

there have many posters on here and other boards who have done var only cycles, the search function will tell you that. the only "bad" sides any of them experienced was getting less gains than they expected from a pretty expensive steroid .

and i know, and you know for a fact, that a properly done var only cycle is going to be wayyy less suppresive (if at all) and carry minimal risk of lasting damage than a fullblown pinning cycle. if he's still a little young for AAS, at least he didnt do something that could have actually caused some harm, he barely dipped his feet in the water and got some solid results, as far as he has told us is no worse for the wear, and he realizes his errors in this cycle and im sure he'll correct using of AAS for future runs.

[TKO Performance]

Can't comment on ottomaddox's reasons, but here's mine: your HPTA is not fully established until you are at least 25 years old. I agree that Anavar is not terribly suppressive of natural test, but it is suppressive to a degree. The point is that you are taking the cake out of the oven an trying to reshape it with icing before it's even finished baking. If that sounds foolish it's because it is. You do not know the long term effects of messing with your natural test production to any extent before your body has reached its natural, life long hormone balance. At your age waiting a couple of years to take any steroid really won't matter that much in terms of how you look in five to ten years. You can still easily make good gains naturally using nothing but diet, supplements, and proper training. Then once you've reached homeostasis you can more safely consider steroids , without the unnecessary risk of the potential long term side effects. If you see steroids as a short cut to your long term goals it's doubtful you possess the discipline necessary to reach those goals at all. If you can't train and eat properly without steroids how do you think you can do it while on them? If you don't train and eat properly your results will be lackluster at best anyway, and quite frankly why waste the money?

[sixey]

yes all that is true ^^^

but im willing to accept whatever risks there may be with running one 6-8 week var cycle...once a year...to help out with my cut.

and i would appreciate it if you didnt preach to me about slacking on the training, getting your diet together, and not having the discipline or dedication my diet and training has been working perfect for me for years and i have dedicated myself completely. i have made, and continue to make slow but steady gains. my bodybuilding struggles do just fine without steroids . but i have a particular problem with cutting, despite the perfect diet/cardio regimen i still always end up never making it past 9-10% and lose some strength and muscle. i am tired of the long drawn out cuts where i end up weak and losing 5lbs of muscle that took me 3 months to gain. steroids are a tool in bodybuilding, i am taking advantage of it to help me reach my goal. im not taking the easy way out and slacking, i personally have a very difficult time getting that stubborn bodyfat off and not losing very hard earned gains.

so if all that makes me a weak minded loser who has NO buisness using some var...then so be it




EDIT: sorry if i got a little hostile and bitchy in the above post. didnt mean to hate on you bro, i know you were just looking out.

[ottomaddox]

I've been on this site for years and seen many people come and go. If you research you would know all the answers, I am not here to spoon feed every answer that is common knowledge. This site doesn't reccommend cycling to those that are not phsically ready. Good luck.

This is a article I wrote for MD online, due to all the newbies around here i feel I should post it here.



Discipline and dedication are principles that you are going to have to master if you are serious about bodybuilding, being consistent with your diet and training will help you succeed in achieving your goals. Don't have tunnel vision in thinking you will only build muscle if your taking AAS, below are some of the main principles you need to consider before taking any AAS


AGE
In humans your Endocrine system is not fully functional until an average age of 25yrs, although the main development is up to around 21yrs it still fluctuates a little bit up to its fully functional age. There is a risk of permanently damaging your HPTA if you take AAS to young and you could end up with symptoms of andropause and HRT for life. Symptoms could be Limp dick, low libido, depression, low energy, low endurance, erection problems and many more but.......are these the types of symptoms you want to have in your 20's?. Believe me its hard to cope with these in your 40's yet alone in your prime of your life.

Around this age your Testosterone levels are the highest they going to be in your life naturally, so use what you have and don't take the risk of damage, I am passionate about this because ive seen it many times with young kids wanting to looking like their heroes and they think the answer is in an injection/tablet.

Taking AAS to young can also cause problems with development, one other main problem is premature sealing of your epiphyeal bone and the consequences mean that you wont grow as big as your genetics could allow you to, there is a test which can be done to see if your growth plates have sealed yet but the average age is around 21yrs old.



TRAINING
You need a few years of hard training under your belt before even considering taking any kind of anabolic support, people who jump on a cycle to soon without having some quality years under their belt usually results in injuries, it takes time to develop your connective tissue, tendons and nervous system to heavy overload training. Slowly getting your own system use to these kinds of extreme's will only help in muscle growth later on when you do decide to start taking AAS.

Build a solid foundation for muscle tissue to grow and maintaining and development will be far greater than without it. Many younger guys will start cycling before they have reached their genetic potential which is crazy when a good solid diet and training program will be far beneficial and productive to muscle building.

Workouts should be mainly focused on basic movements with a priority of over loading the muscle each and ever time you train, increasing your strength and ability to lift in proper form will help with building the foundation for future development


DIET
A lot of younger bodybuilders don't know how to eat. Researching and understanding how your own body responds will help you get to your natural limit, the right food at the right time and a full understanding of proteins,carbs, and fats will only help you succeed in achieving your natural goals. Keeping a diet diary will also help you understand the importance of macro, nutrients, calories and should help you see in which areas you could be going wrong in adding lean muscle tissue.

No matter how much anabolic support you have it will be worthless without proper nutrition, food will help build and maintain your valued muscle weather its natural, cycling or in PCT. Adjusting your food intake and consuming muscle building foods coupled with a solid training program will help you achieve your natural limit and foundation before you start AAS use.

This area is a huge problem with the younger guys and I can't express enough how important diet/food is when first starting out, post and pre training nutrition are very important and understanding how to load and feed the body will help push growth and create a very natural anabolic environment.

i would love to hear your reasoning why running a short cycle, at a low dose, of one of the relatively weakest steroids is a woefully bad idea?

there have many posters on here and other boards who have done var only cycles, the search function will tell you that. the only "bad" sides any of them experienced was getting less gains than they expected from a pretty expensive steroid .

and i know, and you know for a fact, because I'm a pig headed 21 year old! that a properly done var only cycle is going to be wayyy less suppresive (if at all) and carry minimal risk of lasting damage than a fullblown pinning cycle. if he's still a little young for AAS, at least he didnt do something that could have actually caused some harm, he barely dipped his feet in the water and got some solid results, as far as he has told us is no worse for the wear, and he realizes his errors in this cycle and im sure he'll correct using of AAS for future runs.

[TKO Performance]

Sixey, I can appreciate what you're saying. You are a lot more mature than most of the younger guys posting on this forum. But I still think you should consider what I'm saying if for no reason other than the fact that I've been your age, but you've never been mine.

If I sounded like I doubted your dedication I apologize. You must understand that this forum is about 50% young guys who aren't willing to put the work in looking for an easy way out. The other 50% is older guys looking to maintain or regain their edge. It sounds like you fall in the later category, despite your age.

However, I still think that if you are losing gains while trying to reduce BF your diet is not dialed in properly. Your cadio may not be timed correctly, or off in other ways. I would be willing to bet that if you let me go through your diet and training routine I could get you the same results naturally, especially at your age.

[AlphaMaleDawg]

some folks are not worried about maxing out their genetic potential. when the gains start becoming painfully slow, and they realize its going to take the better part of anywhere from 5-10 years to eventually get where they want to be, AAS is a great solution. i hate seeing people getting chastised for using AAS when they are not "big" and havent "reached their potential"...its their life and they may want to achieve their goal physique and enjoy it now, rather than in 5 years.

having a solid muscle base and knowing your training/nutrition perfectly is very important and no one should juice without that first, but if someone has successfully built their body naturally up to a certain point, steroids are perfectly fine.

granted i am relatively new here, but all the same, if someone knows what their doing and has made a choice, no point in busting their balls if they are asking for help

I kind of agree with this. I wish I had started 3 years ago instead of last week, but I did attain my natural potential first so we'll see how it goes

[TKO Performance]

The logic is sound for a person over the age of 25. Trust me there isn't that much difference between being 20 and 25. 25 and 30 is a bigger leap, I assume 30 and 35 bigger still, etc., etc. Still, I am in better shape at 32 than I was at 25, and still all natural. My focus is better, as is my commitment. I'd always been a gym rat, but I hated cardio. I still don't love it, but I've made a lifelong commitment to doing it regardless. Consequently I'm leaner, more agile, and feel good. My diet is way better too. I look forward to looking and feeling better at 35 than I do now, with or without the help of steroids .