Newby with a question

[Trunewb]

I've been researching steroids for about a month or so now and have come to the conclusion that I am going to take them.

Age: 23

Height: 6'0

Weight: 170lb

Basically what I want to know is whether or not what I want to do is correct and basically if anyone has suggestions and concerns ect ect... all that good stuff. Anything basically to help would awesome. So this is what the cycle is:

Cycle: 12 weeks

Test-enthanate 500mg/week split into two shots
Novladex if signs of gyno

PCT - clomid + Novladex + possibly tribulus

This is what I am going to do. I basically have one question about Novladex. If I notice breast tenderness early or some sign of gyno do I take Novladex until I am done my cycle and then after my cycle as well? or just until the symptoms leave?

Thanks guys.

[spidartanks]

Hey man, i'm no expert here but from MY research, your research is pretty weak!

you're going to get in reponse: Post your total stats with bf, training history and your diet because weighing 170 at 6 ft working out steady, something is not quite right and will take more than aas to help.. also being 170 6ft tall you're going to be able to make a lot more gains naturally. and then there is the fact that age is an issue, and it is recommended you start at 25 taking aas.

[HawaiianPride.]

Hey man, i'm no expert here but from MY research, your research is pretty weak!

Haha, I've never heard that one before. Nice..

OP - what are your goals man?

[Trunewb]

To gain about 15-20lb of muscle mass. I have been working out for 2-3 years.

[HawaiianPride.]

To gain about 15-20lb of muscle mass. I have been working out for 2-3 years.

If your goals are strictly mass, then think you should consider other variables to reach our goals. You full of naturally high test levels, and more than capable of putting more weight on for your height naturally.

You are risking injury taking steroids on a small frame with little weight lifting experience. Marcus explains this in here AAS: Things to consider before starting a first cycle

[SlimmerMe]

I've been researching steroids for about a month or so now and have come to the conclusion that I am going to take them.

Age: 23

Height: 6'0

Weight: 170lb

Basically what I want to know is whether or not what I want to do is correct and basically if anyone has suggestions and concerns ect ect... all that good stuff. Anything basically to help would awesome. So this is what the cycle is:

Cycle: 12 weeks

Test-enthanate 500mg/week split into two shots
Novladex if signs of gyno

PCT - clomid + Novladex + possibly tribulus

This is what I am going to do. I basically have one question about Novladex. If I notice breast tenderness early or some sign of gyno do I take Novladex until I am done my cycle and then after my cycle as well? or just until the symptoms leave?

Thanks guys.

Best suggestion: EAT! At 23 you already have enough hormones. A LOT. You are loaded with them. Take your edge. The last thing you want to do is to mess with your natural testosterone . Plus you can actually build a much better foundation if you eat and train correctly for the next couple of years...just a couple.

[higgy]

At your age, weight, and height; you should be able to gain that naturally. I gained a good 10lbs in a little less than a year, naturally. This was where I wanted to be before I started AAS. At your height however, you will gain that and much more. IMO you should wait at least a year or two, get your diet down to a T. Then start AAS. Try to gain as much as possible before you start cycling. Good luck bro.

[cro]

when you do it go with 300 mg a week of test

[HawaiianPride.]

Fail^

[Trunewb]

I am a little confused. All of you guys take steroids I assume. I also assume you are above the age of 25 and your levels of Test are dropping. Now what I don't understand is why you guys are allowed to take WAY over the natural amount of test produced in your body and I am not. I believe it is like 50-75mg produced naturally and I see people on these forums taking 500mg ect ect. If you are taking it for deficiency shouldn't you just be maxing out your test levels to their natural limits rather than supplementing with even more test? I just find this a little weird. Maybe someone can help me out.

That's like telling a kid to not jump off the bridge when you have already done it 5 times yourself.

Also for my weight lifting experience, I have 2-3 years of very serious lifting. I dislocated my shoulder about a year ago and tore half of my ACL and it is hindering my progress. So when I say 2-3 years of experience, I guess I was lying because I have been working out since I was 17. I started off going heavy wanting to get big big but after my shoulder and knee buckled in sports I began to have to lift much lighter. Since I've been lifting lighter i've been getting into Intense circuit training similar to p90x and its style. I really enjoy this style of workout but I find with all the cardio I do it is very hard for me to gain. I've been on a 4000 calorie clean bulk diet for over 6 months and barely got any increase in weight. I think I gained 5lb. I am not one of these people trying to jump into roids without knowledge of working out. I know how to workout. I just don't understand the difference between me taking steroids and someone else on this forum, especailly the ones above me saying not to. Help appreciated thanks.

[MACHINE5150]

All we are saying is that at 6'0" and 170lbs, you are a very skinny guy.. i am on a 4k calorie diet, and i weigh 255lbs.. so i urge you to go to the diet section and post your diet and we will show yyou were you are going wrong.. because if you do not have your diet down right, you will gain little with AAS and lose whatever you gain afterwards.. so what is the point right? we are not trying to keep you from joining our secret club.. we are all large guys that know how to do these things correctly and are here offering our advice for free..

That being said.. nolvadex is somewhat of a weak AI.. i would recommend Aromasin or Arimidex for an AI while on cycle if you need it.. then do nolva for PCT.. you can get the ldex from ar-r .com they sell good stuff at a respectable price.

[Trunewb]

Thanks. I understand people are giving me advice but other than you no one has really helped me, only questioned me. As for my diet I blamed my high amount of cardio on my lack of weight gain. I burn about 650 calories per workout, some days higher. Is my high cardio hindering my weight gain?

So basically steroids are only for people who are Test deficient or have hit their natural weight/muscle limit and need something else to get them to the next level. Are those the only 2 circumstances where steroids should be used?

Also if I am being directed away from steroids, will I be able to obtain a 190lb frame naturally if I can't lift heavy because of my shoulder/knee even with the right diet? Remember that my cardio is quite high as well.

[HawaiianPride.]

So basically steroids are only for people who are Test deficient or have hit their natural weight/muscle limit and need something else to get them to the next level. Are those the only 2 circumstances where steroids should be used?

Not exactly. You don't have to be a monster to use. You don't have to have a Testosterone deficient to use.

In terms of performance enhancement, steroids can be used for injuries, strength purposes, increased endurance, mass, ect.

We feel you don't need steroids because your goals are to put pure mass on a frame that has plenty of room to attain this mass without the use of drugs. Given your stats, you are a very slim guy which tells us a few things. Either your diet is off, you aren't getting enough recovery time, your over training in the gym, or not training enough. These can all hinder growth. That's why I suggested in my last post to consider other variables before you think steroids are your only answer to put on weight. And Slim brought up a valid point. Use your test to your advantage.

Without a proper foundation to start from, you are risking injury during the cycle. The link I proved explains this in detail. Did you bother to read it?

What sources are you getting your 4000 calories from each day?

[Trunewb]

Okay well these 2 pictures are my framework. One is of back flexed, and one is just my front unflexed.

http://img207.imageshack.us/i/1000632v.jpg/

http://img2.imageshack.us/i/1000631f.jpg/

I thank you Hawiian for further explaining yourself because your first post was not sufficient at all but much respected. I am not some stupid kid who is just jumping into steroids and that is why I am discussing this and have been for over a month.

As for my diet, the sources of food in which I am getting my calories from are mostly eggs, potatoes, steak, chicken, brown rice, veggies, fruits(usually bananas/apples), almonds, cottage cheese, I was taking a 1250 calorie protein shake for awhile too which was giving me at the time about 4500 calories but I switched off that to get more solid foods in my diet.

As for a proper foundation. What is a proper foundation?

Looking into my workouts, I am definately not over training in the gym and I am definately training enough. The things that I feel are hindering my weight gain are my high cardio levels a long with my inability to lift heavy due to my shoulder/knee. I can't squat heavy anymore and I can't do bench/shoulder exercises heavy either because of my shoulder. How can I gain weight with high cardio and high rep exercises I guess is my question.

[HawaiianPride.]

As for my diet, the sources of food in which I am getting my calories from are mostly eggs, potatoes, steak, chicken, brown rice, veggies, fruits(usually bananas/apples), almonds, cottage cheese, I was taking a 1250 calorie protein shake for awhile too which was giving me at the time about 4500 calories but I switched off that to get more solid foods in my diet.

How many meals per day? And you've been strict with this for 6 months and only put on 5lbs? Do you know you your complete macros? P/C/F count per day

As for a proper foundation. What is a proper foundation?

Ok, I'll just copy and paste from the link which I told you to read.

"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 -Marcus"

This is why we stress you build more muscle and allow your CNS, bones/joints/ligaments, and muscles to mature. All the mass you quickly acquire from the cycle will put all these at risk from rapid growth it isn't prepared to withstand.

Looking into my workouts, I am definately not over training in the gym and I am definately training enough. The things that I feel are hindering my weight gain are my high cardio levels a long with my inability to lift heavy due to my shoulder/knee. I can't squat heavy anymore and I can't do bench/shoulder exercises heavy either because of my shoulder. How can I gain weight with high cardio and high rep exercises I guess is my question.

Is there a reason you are doing excessive amount of cardio? Low doses of certain steroids are often used for rehabilitation purposes, but I feel you would put way more risks on these injuries if you decided to do a cycle designed to build overall mass. This radical mass, in conjunction with your delicate frame could possibly be to much and re-injure yourself. If I were in your shoes, I would let the injuries heal, then worry about putting on mass when you are 100% injury free.

Bold.

[Trunewb]

Shit....I wrote something out and then my net shut down so I don't want to write it all out again.

My workout: consecutive workouts ex. standard pushups, wide-fly pullups, miltary pushups, close grip pullups. This is 4/12 exercises I do and then I repeat them all in different order. My workouts are usually 1hr - 1.5hours depending on if its ab day.

Injuries: Shoulder/knee. My shoulder and knee are both healed but I can't do bench/tricep/shoulder exercises above my head(not saying bench is above my head I can't bench PERIOD). In order for me to do tricep exercises above my head I have to decrease weight, same as for shoulder exercises above my head. As for the shoulder exercises I have to drop a lot of weight compared to tricep so it really hinders my progression. As for my knee I don't trust it enough to do heavy squatting ect.

Protein: 20%
Carbs: 60%
Fats: 20%

So I am wondering if I can gain 15-20lb with diet/high cardio/high reps lower weight?

[HawaiianPride.]

Set smaller goals man. A lb or 2 a week, steadily increase weight to your movements as time goes by. The stronger you get, more muscle will follow obviously. I notice this is a much better approach then setting a 20lbs goal and hoping to get there ASAP.

Whats the reason for excessive cardio? 20% of your daily intake is protein?

I never experience crazy gains from high rep/lower weights. The opposite actually - heavy weight/5-10 rep range focused on multi-joint movements with accessory work.

[Far from massive]

Great posts HP,

Trunewb, you seem to have a good amount of knowlege and have answered you own question with your statement about too much cardio. I am very simalar in frame and construction to you but quite a few years older, when I was 18-23 I raced road bikes professionally, my heartbeat was 36 at rest and I trained 400-600 miles per week while also lifting at the gym for strength. During this period my wieght was around 160 I could do leg extensions or calf raises with as much wieght and more reps than a lot of the 220 lb guys in the gym, however I could never get above 160 lbs you may well be in the same situation, the body is an adaptive machine and if you focus you workouts on cardio it will adapt to the correct proportions needed to excel in this discipline (low wieght, means less load on the heart, lungs etc), conversly if you do mostly resistance excercise and assuming you eat right then the body will adapt to this disipline ( increase in size muscle mass, joint connective tissue and bone density will also go up) since you are an ectomorph like me you will need to focus on wieght training and limit cardio for your body to see any logical reason to change.

Final footnote, putting your age aside, if you were 30 a cycle at this point would be very likely to cause further damage to your injuries as HP pointed out.

Good luck with your progress, I really think you will start to gain if you slow down on the cardio, limit your workout volume, and give your body a chance to recover between workouts, there are some real sharp people in the workout section of this board who have had to work around injuries such as you have, if you post your workouts there they will most likely be able to help you improve them.

[HawaiianPride.]

My workout: consecutive workouts ex. standard pushups, wide-fly pullups, miltary pushups, close grip pullups. This is 4/12 exercises I do and then I repeat them all in different order. My workouts are usually 1hr - 1.5hours depending on if its ab day.

I think this is your issue. Don't expect to put on much weight doing body weight workouts. Do you have a gym membership?

[Trunewb]

I do have a gym membership and the gym is why I have a dislocated shoulder. My spotter looked away for a couple seconds and OOH there goes my shoulder and 6 months of hard work down the drain. I was making great strides. Ever since I dislocated my shoulder I've been unable to push the weight that I feel I need to to get gains.

I thank far from massive for your post. I won't be doing steroids due to the hysteria caused when I asked if I should. I will take all of your advice far from massive and Hawaiin. You have both been very helpful. I do have one last question though.

Why take steroids? Give me 5 good reasons other than Test deficiency and medical reasons.

Sidenote: should I have more protein in my diet? I was told to increase my carb load so I can put on more weight. What do you think my ratios should be?

[HawaiianPride.]

I do have a gym membership and the gym is why I have a dislocated shoulder. My spotter looked away for a couple seconds and OOH there goes my shoulder and 6 months of hard work down the drain. I was making great strides. Ever since I dislocated my shoulder I've been unable to push the weight that I feel I need to to get gains.

One reason why the steroids will do no good. You aren't stimulating your muscles enough, and are unable to given your injuries. The steroids won't replace what the weights and sufficient exercises will provide.

Why take steroids? Give me 5 good reasons other than Test deficiency and medical reasons.

4 reasons down below I already listed

In terms of performance enhancement, steroids can be used for injury rehabilitation, strength purposes, increased endurance, mass, ect.

[Trunewb]

Okay and now heres my followup question. Say I was 25 years old, why can't I take steroids for strength/increased endurance/mass purposes? What sets me aside from everyone else?

[cbwrx]

I think the biggest problem they have is you're height and weight. If I were you I would train a couple more years and try to put on the lbs with a good diet before turning to steroids .

[Trunewb]

I figured so. I decided not to take steroids and I am following a diet that will give me around 4000 calories a day. I am going to follow my diet to a tee and if in 6 months around 20lb I will be taking steroids but if I am doing my diet and workouts, in 6 months I should gain 20lb naturally and won't need to take steroids. So basically I thank everyone who has posted on this thread because you helped me a lot