LOG: Test E 400mg/wk 12 weeks, First cycle in long time (w/hcg)

[MODO]

Hey all. It seems no-one wants to do low dose cycles anymore. Everyone wants 500+ test with oral kickstarts... When I was researching my cycle and looking for low dose pure test logs I could hardly find any. I remember having this problem years ago as well. So... I figured I would make one! I don't expect to impress anyone, but if I can show some newbs that you don't need a truck full of androgens for a good first cycle then I will be happy.
(also hopefully keeping a public log will motivate me to work my hardest)

Goal: Clean gains, minimal side effects.
26 y/o, 6' tall, 190 lbs starting weight (today).

Cycle:
Test Enanthate 400 mg/wk for 12 weeks. pin E3D.
HCG 500 IU/wk for weeks 4-13. pin E3D
Adex 0.25 mg EOD for weeks 3-14. <-- added after feedback
(no frontload, no kickstart)
-other support: vitamin C, B12, multivitamin, fish oil, and lipid stabil.

PCT:
Nolva @40/20/20/20
Clomid @75/50/50/50

Diet:
150-200g protein per day depending on schedule
Carbs and fat... well... years ago I was a hardcore macro-counter. I hated it. And after years of training I feel I know my body and metabolism quite well, and I've learned how to instinctively eat. I have no dreams of competing, atleast for now, and so I personally think that obsessive macro-counting is an unnecessary stress for me. This is a hobby for me, not a job.

Training:
1) Chest/tris
2) Back/bis
3) Shoulders/hams
4) Quads/calves
-I insert my rest days in-between the workouts as I see fit, completing all four routines once every 6-8 days... depending on soreness and heaviness of lifts.
-abs are done once to twice a week on days that I feel particularly energetic.

Recent Lifts / Best Recent Sets:
*please remember I train for looks, and subscribe firmly to a "it's not how big it is, it's how you use it" philosophy (contracting the muscle, strict form, etc.). But these weights can serve as baselines to gauge improvement*
Chin-Ups: 13 reps body weight (190 lbs)
Bench: 225 lbs x7 reps
Leg Press: 3 plates a side x12 reps
Lying Ham Curls: 90 lbs x12 reps

(I will be lifting heavier with legs now... keep reading for more explanation on that

PHOTOGRAPHS:
These pictures were taken after not lifting for 2 days and no preworkout supps for a week. I didn't want to falsely pump up my appearance... although it was super tempting. I wanted to get an HONEST reference album that will be of actual value later on. Also, this isn't my "genetic max" (if such a thing can truly be attained), but given my demanding professional life we can consider this to be nearly as good as it gets.

IMPORTANT NOTES: I recently switched from a cross-training style workout that I had been doing for quite some time. It was all pushups, chinups, jump squats and such nonsense! So if you are wondering why my wheels are flat or other... well, that's why. I did it for sports leagues I had been previously playing in and it worked great for performance. 2 months ago I switched back to my lifting routine as above because I miss the heavy weights and size. After a few months of conditioning/adaption to adjust to the old routine, I feel my joints are ready for some serious growth again! ps- gained over 10 lbs in those last two months, so was doing something right.

Cycle History: Back in 2010, I did a 500 mg/wk cycle for like 4 months or something stupid. I was too young, I was a total idiot, and I payed for it with a terrible recovery. Luckily I regained full testicular function. Initially I kept some of my gains, but a stressful career change caused me to eventually lose everything over the following 2 years and drop down to as low as 170 lbs.... but that's a few years in the past now.
Basically, I kind of consider myself a first time cycler, since my current status is carrying over no gains from my cycle in 2010.

Anyway, hopefully some bros get some use out of this and hopefully I don't humiliate myself too badly in the process.
Also any advice on my terrible posing technique would be appreciated.

First pin was today! Here goes nothing!

[MODO]

Damn the injection site hurts this morning. I'm using 25 gauge. You don't even feel it go in, but takes a long time to push. And since I was a bit nervous, let's just say I had trouble keeping 'er steady that whole time haha. Gave myself an intramuscular oil tattoo I think... no infection signs though.

[DontTaseMeBro]

sounds like you have the background, knowledge and experience to make this log very beneficial.

With so many "more is better" posts out there, its refreshing to see someone do a true risk v. benefit analysis and go with an approach that should produce nice gains with far fewer sides.

I wish I could eat like you. I thought I could, but determined that I have to count. I don't eat near as much as I thought when left to my own guessing.

Your call on the A.I. If you aren't prone to gyno, maybe it won't be a problem at 400mg. It will be interesting to see (especially since I won't be the one dealing with it if it happens, lol).

Best wishes and keep up the log. I look forward to learning from it.

[DontTaseMeBro]

also, try warming up your gear in a bowl of hot water for 5-10 minutes before injecting. I did it and found that it reduced PIP significantly.

[kelkel]

Great thread layout Modo.
Don't agree with the lack of AI. Your E will rise and it simply makes no sense to not control it with a minimum AI dosage. At least get it tested midway....
I'd also start your hcg earlier, but it's subjective.

Subscribed.

[MODO]

Thanks guys, been looking forward to this forever and hoping to do it right this time.

I dunno about the hot water haha. I mean I understand why you do it, but I'm super paranoid about maintaining sterile instruments and vials.

kelkel I will for sure do a midway test if I can find a place around here that will do one without a physician's order!

But in the mean time I will post strength changes, side effects, and probably a monthly picture or two.

[DontTaseMeBro]

I dunno about the hot water haha. I mean I understand why you do it, but I'm super paranoid about maintaining sterile instruments and vials.

I am, too; but I figure that the outside of the vial isn't sterile to begin with -so a little hot water won't hurt.

you may have to do the private lab thing for blood work. I have found it quick, simple and convenient (unlike trying to get my doctor to order what I want).

good luck.

[MODO]

Man, I feel like my endurance is already up. Strength hasn't changed, as I would expect. But I doubled the amount of sets I did at my heaviest weight before reducing the weight. I mean, I know it's only been a day... but god damn. If this is a placebo affect then let me know where I can get me a bottle of sugar pills. I haven't had this much get-up-and-go in I don't know how long.

[MODO]

Don't agree with the lack of AI. Your E will rise and it simply makes no sense to not control it with a minimum AI dosage.

After more reading and thinking I've decided to start adex and keep on it while on cycle when I start HCG in a few weeks.

Big thanks to kelkel and everyone else who kept trying to get the message across my thick skull.

I've edited my initial post to reflect this.

[MODO]

Pin today in opposite leg was super smooth. I tried the warm water bath trick, just made sure the water didn't come higher than half way up the vial by letting it rest in a small cup. I also injected faster than last time, and I was able to support the pin better by putting my hand beneath the syringe rather than pincering it from above with my fingers. Overall all, REMARKABLY less post injection pain. My right leg from first pin still hurts, and my left leg already feels better than the right haha.

Of course it probably made a big difference that I was less nervous/shaky this time too

edit: as the day goes in, it's tightening up just like the right side did lol. Spoke too soon. But was initially better so the changes helped I think.

edit #2 (feb 24): so I tried another injection without the warm water trick and just did it at room temperature. There is no difference for me, so long as the gear is at least room temperature. I think my increased comfort from last time when I tried the warm water came from increased stability holding the needle.

[MODO]

Huge pumps the last two workouts, painful even. Don't feel stronger yet but I really believe my endurance is up. It's like I can keep repping "past failure", and get a huge but sometimes painful pump.

[MODO]

Close to two weeks in, and here are some of the things I've noticed in the last day or two:

-A small, but definite, increase in sex drive.
-Water retention / bloating. Minor, but noticeable.
-Weigh 195 lbs (from 190), haven't weighed this much in years. Likely mostly water.
-Pumps are still noticeably bigger during lifting.
-Feel like I have more endurance, and maybe a tiny bit more strength.

So things are starting to work! I think these findings imply that my estrogen may be on it's way up as well. I was supposed to start adex in a few days anyways. so I will just start it today at 0.25 mg EOD.

I'm happy I waited on the adex, if only to be able to get a feel for the test before adding another drug on top of it, but I think it's time to start.

[Megalomaniac]

I will be following your log man! I am 28 and finally thinking of testing out a 8-12 week cycle. I was curious about going lower than 500mg as well mostly due to fear and side effects. I look forward to seeing your future posts.

[jdc91gt]

Excellent log. Keep us posted. Thanks. jdc

[MODO]

Thanks guys.

a few updates:
-sex drive up way more than I thought haha.
-this week I noticed my athletic performance in casual sports increase like night and day. Particularly reflexes and endurance. Even noticing big reflex differences in actions like accidentally bumping a glass of water and reacting super fast to catch it before it falls. This is nuts! Feel like spiderman.
-notice a bit of strength. Added 20 lbs to my flat bench like it was nothing, which is a big deal to me since I have been plateaued at bench for many months now.

-My testosterone is definitely supra-physiologic at this point, but it is still working it's way up to being stable/maximum for this cycle. Looking forward to the weeks to come!

-Did notice since started adex that I kinda felt meno-pausey the first few days. Hot flashes, increased body temp, racing heart and maybe palpitations. I think these symptoms have gone away, if they don't I'll have to cut the dose a bit I think.

196.2 lbs this morning!

[MODO]

Oh, and most importantly, ZERO testosterone related side effects. Not even acne/oily skin. I know it's early, but I seem to be tolerating the 400mg well.

[MODO]

HCG started today... pretty uneventful. I'm taking the newb way out and using slin pins. My measurement technique is far too sloppy to combine it with my test pin. (I do way too much pushing and pulling to get the dose right and I would end up with my test and hcg bottles full of the wrong stuff.)

Other than that nothing new. Noticing my self confidence and self esteem has shot way up. I'm not angry on gear, but I do get noticeably more confident!

[Rellim]

I'm enjoying this thread. I'm also on my first cycle and its 400mgs of test like yourself MODO. I'm taking 80mgs of anavar with it.

I'm 3 weeks in and noticed all the same things you mentioned, like the faster reflexes and increased confidence. I'm wondering if you notice a real difference in muscle hardness? Mine seem more solid feeling than ever before in my life but that might be the var, and I wonder if just test alone would give a similar feeling. Because adding the 80mgs/day of anavar to this cycle made it much more expensive. So if MODO reports that a test only cycle is giving nearly as good results I may drop the anavar next time. I like the anavar but at 8 pills per day it added hundreds of dollars to the cost of this cycle.

Please keep the log going and best wishes MODO!

[< <Samson> >]

It's been 2 years since my 1st cycle of test only @ 450mg a week. Nothing else - I grew like a weed, I got way fat due to a shity diet. But, I still retained 15+ pounds of LBM after shedding all of my fat & water


Test alone if legit is strong as hell. But, the added var has to give you way more hardness. Some aas just does that more than test alone.


GL

[MODO]

Well I feel like I'm a bit harder already, and the adex is keeping me really dry. It's all about diet. If your diet is clean then you can pile on some hard legit mass, and the adex helps prevent a bloat from hiding that.

Will var give EXTRA hardness beyond this? Maybe... is it worth the money for a recreational user? Probably not.

[< <Samson> >]

I still have not ran var due to cost. I might this summer though

I kind of believe there are better more cost effective injectable alternatives to var.


But, yeah man - test alone is a world of difference. & diet is key - dry diet = dry gains


I wanted to get big & fast. A dry diet would have worked, but I just did not have the discipline to pound 3500+ cal of clean food

[thephoenix25]

subbed

[MODO]

did I mention the vascularity? Holy eff...

As for strength, noticing the start of an increase. Benching 275 for a couple, which I wouldn't have tried before starting the gear. (Previously was stuck at 225x7). Also started chin ups using a 25lb plate, but just getting used to that movement again so not many reps. And my endurance continues to go up. I can lift to a failure that I forgot existed haha.

My shirts are definitely tighter and I am seeing certain muscle attachment points "pop" more in the mirror when I move around.

2 months left? Holy eff... I'm on track to be very happy!

PS- have been on the HCG for a few half-lives now, no noticeable side effects. Maybe some acne/oily skin, but that could be coinciding with my peaking test level, or this unseasonably warm weather even.

Feeling invincible!

[Schmicc]

How's your ticker going? Have u noticed it pumping harder?

[MODO]

How's your ticker going? Have u noticed it pumping harder?

So I cut the adex down to 0.20 EOD and the heart symptoms went away. Recently I tried to taper it back to 0.25 and like clockwork the palpitations / forceful beats came back. But it seems to happen less often this time. I'm going to stick with the 0.25 for a week and see if it gets better.

[MODO]

*5 WEEK PROGRESS UPDATE W/ PHOTO*

Strength:
Chin-Ups: initially 13 reps body weight, now 16 reps.
Bench: initially 225 lbs x7 reps, now 275x2 for the first set and 225x5 on the second.
Leg Press: initially 3 plates a side x12 reps, now 4 plates x 10 reps.

body weight: started at 190 lbs, now 198.

Photograph: Sorry the angle is a little different, so it makes the progress look less flattering. Try to focus in on details like the bicep peak and forearm structure both in the side-chest pic. I think maybe my BF% might have gone down too? Or maybe the muscles are just poking out of the same BF% more prominently. Remember that any change you see in this 2 dimensional picture, try to imagine that proportion of change 360 degrees around the muscles!

Everywhere I go I'm getting comments on how "jacked" I'm getting, and all my friends are cracking steroid jokes. (remember I gained 10 lbs clean prior to this cycle, so it's been an impressive change to them).

7 weeks to go, just getting started! Not too shabby so far for a 400mg/wk cycle with no frontload or kickstart.

...and yeah, I tanned haha

[pumping_iron86]

Impressive gains and great log! Thanks for the updates!

[MODO]

Thanks!

Also for anyone curious, I've been back at the 0.25 EOD adex dose for a bit and the heart symptoms seem to be few and far between, or maybe even gone all together.

Next cycle I will taper up with the adex rather than start at 0.25, see if that makes a difference... and also give me a bit more proof that the adex was causing the forceful beats.

[MODO]

Also, still experiencing ZERO test side effects other than mild hypogonadism, which was easily remedied by hcg .

Other than that, nothing, not even acne. Of course I am still experiencing increased self confidence, sex drive, energy, reflexes, etc. But I don't really tend to think of those as side effects... they are more like "therapeutic" effects to me!

The vascularity at the gym is kinda getting on my nerves a bit though. I mean, I love the look of the spider web on my delts during DB raises, but it's making it really hard to keep my lying believable haha.

[Schmicc]

All look good man. I'm half way through week 3 of 500mg test a week, I've got a little bit of nut shrinkage, elevated heart rate and the odd forceful heart pumping like u said. Oh and the skin on my face is a bit oily but no pimples.

[jeapordy]

Based on your experience so far, would you start the cycle using hcg and adex from the beginning?

[MODO]

Based on your experience so far, would you start the cycle using hcg and adex from the beginning?

Good question. And no, I wouldn't.

The HCG is for stimulating your testes while endogenous testosterone is shut down. This shut down does not occur immediately... As long as you start it in the first month you should be able to stimulate your testes enough to have the desired effect of minimizing desensitization.

And double no for starting adex earlier! I'm on test E, and so my testosterone levels didn't start to get ridiculous for a few weeks, and didn't peak until about 6 weeks. Adex acts WAY faster. In my mostly theoretical opinion, if you took adex in the first week I would bet your estrogen would tank, which is bad. I kept a close eye on myself, and as soon as I saw bloating (an early sign hormones are significantly changing) I hopped on adex.

Also, by staggering my drug start dates, I was able to observe the acute effects (good or bad) of each drug. Obvious benefits, because an individual may react differently to each new batch of each drug from each new lab.

If you need target dates, my opinion would be to start adex after 2 weeks and the HCG after 3 or 4 weeks.

[MODO]

And to clarify my above response... in case you saw my note earlier about me getting a bit of hypogonadism... that happened because my HCG dose was too low. I had been on the HCG for a good while before my tests shrunk... wrong dose.

[MODO]

Put up 295 on the bench one time with good form... almost had a second rep but spotter had to give it a tiny push. Feeling pretty damn good about my side-goal of benching 3 plates again , shouldn't be much longer!

(pre-cycle: 225lbs x7 reps, as of Feb 11th)

[thephoenix25]

Been lurking for a while so I just thought I'd say I'm enjoying reading your updates and info of your cycle. Good job!

[Justme1]

Good stuff! Really enjoying reading this thread!

[MODO]

Thanks guys, it's really motivating to know people are watching.

199 lbs this morning. Total of 9 lbs gained so far! I really feel like that is mostly lean mass, because between the adex and my diet I've taken on little to no water or fat.

This week has sucked for diet and training (and by sucked I mean still better than average joe, but worse than my usual). Have been abnormally busy, but things are coming back together now.

I have noticed minor acne this week . And here I though I had totally avoided it. But it is easily controlled with topical OTC's like oxyclean, etc. Quite the difference though... my first cycle years ago I had acne in the first few weeks. But read my into cycle-history and there won't be any mystery as to why that happened.

[MODO]

315 on the bench. boom! haha

did two sets of one rep each before dropping to 275.

feels good to be back

[Lee_1978]

Cool log, I'm keeping tabs on this.

Have you noticed anymore changes in vascularity/muscle definition?

It's interesting, because I'm planning a cycle soon, but I'm hesitant on using HCG due to keeping my natural test production running, which could advertently effect estrogen levels in the body, and as I'm already prone to gyno,this is something I'd like to avoid.

[MODO]

Cool log, I'm keeping tabs on this. Have you noticed anymore changes in vascularity/muscle definition? It's interesting, because I'm planning a cycle soon, but I'm hesitant on using HCG due to keeping my natural test production running, which could advertently effect estrogen levels in the body, and as I'm already prone to gyno,this is something I'd like to avoid.

My vascularity peaked at a month. Frankly, I don't want anymore of it lol, I have plenty now.

Muscarity... well if you mean size then I believe I'm still gaining. As far as definition or body fat % I am just trying to stay where I'm at with that and eat lots to promote clean growth, so haven't gone down in bf% but that is the plan!

Honestly, I'm not going to be a monster at the end of this cycle. But that was never the plan!

As for HCG ... If you are gyno prone wouldn't you run adex anyway? And if that's the case, you have nothing to fear from HCG.

Now, based on my past experience, I would say the HCG makes pretty much zero difference regarding sides or gains when you are running test. It's entirely a preventative measure to help with a smooth recovery... well here's hoping that's what it does anyway.