I'm just starting my 2nd cycle of Test & thought I'd share a really long post detailing my experience for beginners still doing their research for their 1st cycle. I know the vets will be able to point out the mistakes I've made, but I tried to answer all the questions I had when doing the homework for my 1st cycle. Most people wouldn't look at me & say I'm a real muscular person or even in that great of shape. I'm just a regular guy who wanted to get a little bigger & stronger.
Disclaimer: This isn't meant in any way as a guideline for a 1st cycle. I just wanted to give other guys thinking about/starting a 1st cycle a look into what this noob ran into as I got started.
My stats:
Lifting for 4 years
Age: 44
Height: 5'9"
Weight: 205
Pre-cycle Bench: 305 in pounds
Pre-cycle Dead Lift: 225 (sigh, I know)
Pre-cycle Squat: 205 (again, I know...)
A brief history, I work out with 3 other guys at 6:00 a.m. 4 times a week at a small gym for 60 to 90 minutes. 2 of the guys are 63 years old & the other guy is 54. The 1st 3.5 years I went to the gym & as our crew came together we worked muscles from the waist up. Yep, we were those guys. We worked hard, but weren't super serious about it. The 4 of us went to watch a meet over the summer & afterwards we decided to add legs. All 4 of us started to dead lift but I'm the only one who squats. I had just started squats & deads a month before my cycle, so I was very new to it & as you can see, my totals were extremely low.
I acquired a 200 mg bottle of Test E & some B12 & got to work. I'd never given myself a shot before so that was an... exciting experience (my wife was too squeamish to do it). I give all my stick in my glutes, I was told that's the best way to go by some guys at the gym. I've read differently many times on forums, but that's what I went with. Since I was new to this, I decided to start doing my sticks in the morning before anyone else got up because I didn't want my wife wandering in & snickering at my awkward attempts to give myself a shot in the ass. It was here I learned my 1st important lesson on my road to buffness. I'll also mention that I also got some 50 mg Winstrol tablets, but after doing tons of research I decided not to take them. I like to drink on the weekends & didn't want to risk pounding on my liver.
My 1st morning stick was also just my 4th stick. I got up at 4:30, relieved myself & got everything ready. In went the pin & out went the lights. As my vision returned & I clawed my way back to consciousness, I wondered why my face was against the wall & everything I looked at had grey spots on it. Let me paint the picture for you. Me, naked, passed out on my feet, the door frame holding me up, syringe hanging out of my ass & blood pouring out of my nose. Yeah, I'd 'lol' too. I stumbled from the bathroom to an empty bed, still more than half out of it. I lay there nauseous with the room spinning thinking "My God! Did I hit a vein or something? I don't understand whats happening! Am I gonna die? Will my wife find me dead & naked in this bed with a syringe in my ass (I hadn't though to take it out yet)?" About 10 minutes later, when I realized I wasn't going to die, I manned up, cleaned the blood off the wall, got a new pin & completed the transaction. Analyzing that train wreck later (I sure as hell wasn't gonna tell anyone about it) I think that, since it was just my 4th stick, the process was still messing with my head a bit... ok, maybe more than a bit, & shit happened. Plus doing it on an empty stomach didn't help. At the time, I thought the lesson learned was 'Don't stick on an empty stomach in the morning!' I never passed out on my feet again, & after I got used to the process, mornings on an empty stomach are the norm. So I guess there's no lesson there, but now you know why I had to tell my wife I had an, uh, mysterious nose bleed that morning. ; )
Diet:
I'm not going at it hard core, but I did make some changes to my diet. I had already done hours of research on sites like this & came up with a plan base on the advice of veterans cyclers. It started good, but trying to keep up with it while working 60 hours a week didn't last & it basically settled into something like this...
All protein shakes are 30 grams.
Pre-workout: Protein/creatine shake & peanut butter sandwich in the morning.
Breakfast: Protein shake & bowl of oats.
Mid-morning: Banana, almonds & oat bar.
Lunch: Chicken or fish, brown rice & broccoli.
Mid-afternoon: Peanut butter in a bowl of shredded wheat, with some protein powder added.
Dinner: Chicken or beef, vegetable & wheat bread (have to take in the wife's tastes for dinner).
Before bed: Casein protein shake.
I know this can all be picked apart but that's not what I'm looking for. I'm just listing what I ended up going with.
The Test:
I started out 200 mg a week for 2 weeks (100 on Wednesday & 100 on Sunday). Of course initially I was constantly looking for & thinking about muscle growth, but after the 1st week I just lifted & didn't stress over it anymore. Then one day during the 3rd week I was brushing my teeth, looked in the mirror & boom! "Hey, my chest & shoulders are bigger!" There were also noticeable jumps in strength in the 3rd week. My muscles started to felt tighter all the time, it's hard to explain, but noticeable. After the 4th week, I started taking 400 mg a week. I definitely noticed some size & strength gains on 400, but under my eyes got really puffy & red, I had a flushed look all the time & I sweated a lot. I work in an office & after 2 weeks of co-workers asking me if I was sick, I went back down to 200 a week. I stayed on 200 a week for the rest of the cycle until I started tapering off. I'm not normally a paranoid guy, but I found that I was really concerned about coming off the Test. I guess I had read too many horror stories. I had a PCT in place & had some Clomid & Nolva on hand. The 10th week, I dropped it to 100 a week, the 12th, 50 a week, then 25 for 3 weeks until I ran out.
2 week before I started my cycle I had my T level checked & it was normal (I don't recall the #). I was due to see my doc again 5 weeks after my last stick. A plan came to mind, if my doc saw that my T levels were (I hoped) very low he'd write me a prescription. So I ditched my PCT & let my T levels bottom out. I expected to feel like shit, but I assume because I tapered off for so long, I felt ok. I saw him earlier this week & let him know I was taking Test. I told him that the bottle I had gotten was from China (a lie) & was concerned about the safety of 'black market' Test I was using. Plus I'd like to go legit. He wrote me a script for 200 mg of Test Cyp a week on the spot & told me to be safe. He didn't even check my T levels. So now I have a legal supply of magic juice!
Results:
I gained 17 pounds during the 12 weeks I cycled. My jeans are a bit tighter, so there was some fat gain with it. With a tank top on, there was a noticeable difference in my chest, shoulders & arms. I gained 1.5" on my biceps & almost 2.5" on my chest. My extended family never commented on a change, but a woman at work told me that some of the girls are noticing my body transformation.
Bench increase: 305 to 355
Dead lift increase: 255 to 405
Squat increase: 205 to 405
The big dead & squat increases are in part because I had only been doing them for a month before my cycle & my body was still getting used to the exercises. The totals would have went up even with out the Test, but the Test definitely helped.
Recovery time was much quicker & much less painful. I didn't realize how much I loved that part until I started tapering off.
Side effects:
Physical: As mentioned above, on 400 a week my face was really swollen under my eyes, I looked flushed & increased sweating. It wasn't as bad on 200 a week, but it was still there. I shit 3 times as much on cycle, but that was probably because of the food increase. I didn't sleep nearly as well on cycle compared to off cycle. I would wake up 3 or 4 times a night & overall & I would wake up dehydrated as hell, usually with a raging boner. >=) Sleep & boners returned to normal when I was tapering off. There was something else too... what was it... oh yeah, my balls shrank!
There were mood changes. I felt really good for the most part. It's gonna sound odd, but it was kinda like being bi-polar (I'm not). The good were really good. I honestly felt like I was in my 20's again. There was an genuine increase in my happiness, & I'm sure the increased self confidence I had from being bigger & stronger had something to do with it too. As for the other side of that coin, I won't say I was more aggressive, but I was definitely... far less tolerant of things. Normal life bullshit I was used to dealing with would really piss me off while on cycle. That also went back to normal as I tapered off.
There were the standard things too. Noticeably oily skin, increased chest, back & even stomach acne, erections out of nowhere, increased sex drive, it truly is like you're 18 again. The most noticeable side effect for me is body hair. Damn! I had new hair growth on my forearms, biceps & my back just went crazy. I've always had some hair on my lower back, but now it's all the way up to my shoulders. My eyebrows are even trying to sporadically grow to my hair line. & that shit did not go away when i went off cycle! My son makes the Chewbacca sound sometimes when he see me. Lol
Pain, my old friend that I had forgotten about. But pain hadn't forgotten about me. You don't realize that growing old hurts so much. I had no idea in the past 4 years I hurt so much after working out. On cycle, there was very little soreness & any soreness I had was short lived. At the start of tapering off, pain started creeping in the day after lifting. You're aware that you're going to lose some gains going off cycle, so you work your ass off to keep what you have. 4 weeks into tapering you're still trying to lift like you were on cycle & it doesn't hurt the next day, no it hurts like hell after you rack the bar! And on the next day & maybe the day after that. It sucks. A wise man once told me "Gettin' old ain't for pussies, son." I feel a whole lot older than I did 2 months ago. Yep, I really understand now.
Updated: 2-20-14
A few things I meant to post but left out.
Even though I skipped my PCT I'll post it anyway. Opinions on this vary dramatically, some will say 'you don't need this much', others say 'use this instead', but this is what I'd settled on. I had the stuff on hand waaay before my cycle ended.
Week 1: 100mg Clomid / 20mg Nolva
Week 2: 50mg Clomid / 20mg Nolva
Week 3: 50mg Clomid / 20mg Nolva
Week 4: 20mg Nolva
Also, I was told to use 23 gauge 1" needles, so that's what I used. 25% of the time I didn't feel a thing, 50% it stung a bit, 25% it stung like a bitch. I took 100 mg twice a week so that was two sticks with 1cc each. I always tried to aspirated (pull the plunger out a bit to check for blood in case I was in a vessel). I've never hit a vessel & got the air bubble 75% of the time. The other 25% it was hard to pull the plunger out & I didn't get a bubble or blood, so I just went with it. I always have to be careful & watch the needle. If I just watch the Test going in & not the needle also, it tends to start sneaking out of my glute as I inject. There is a learning curve to doing all this by yourself when sticking in your ass. I always left 2 line marks of air in the syringe to make sure I got as much of the Test as I could. I've read lots of places that small amount of air is not going to kill you. The killer air bubble in the IV shit only happens in Law & Order. Sometimes I bled a bit, occasionally a lot. Twice when I removed the pin the Test started coming out the puncture hole. I put pressure on it & rubbed for a bit & it was good. I learned that if I pulled the pin halfway out & waited 20 seconds & then removed it I rarely bled & Test has never leaked out. I always discretely disposed of the used equipment in an empty beer or soda can. I'd hate for the neighbors dog to get in the trash & have needles scattered in front of my house.
I also took 50 mg of B12 with my Test. Some people say you can mix them in the same syringe, some say you can't. I've done both (& didn't die), but usually didn't because 150 mg of liquid in one stick would cause the injection site to knot up quite a bit. Knotting up doesn't hurt, but you're aware of it all day. Well, if you hit the treadmill an hour after sticking/knotting, it's quite irritating. I just stick twice. There was something else, but it slips my mind. Further updates as the coffee kicks in.
That's it. If any of you noobs have any question, tell it to somebody who cares! I kid, I'll answer what I can.
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Originally Posted by michael30
