This is here to share my experiences of my first three cycles and is best suited for someone thinking about diving in. As these were my first experiences I ran things conservatively to figure out how my body would react. these are personal notes straight from my logbooks.
First cycle
I went with test E @ 500mg/wk split twice weekly, 250mg amps to get my feet wet. No frontload. 6 weeks. blood test showed 630 total test and 10 free. 27 years old. I’ve combined tidbits of information from my second cycle as I won’t fully detail both.
week one:
Started with quad injections. was shaky and nervous the whole time. went through the motions twice before actualy injection. surprised at how little pain there was inserting the needle. Virgin muscle, felt like a constant Charlie horse. Became sore within hours and lasted two days. made walking painful. 25 gauge, 1 1/2 pin. no noticeable effects yet. adex started @ .25 mg eod. forgot to aspirate, freaked out like a little girl.
week two:
first glute injection. standing against a wall, supporting weight on non injected leg, twisting torso to stabilize with one hand and inject with the other. little to no pain. end of second week, confidence and good feelings in general. couple pounds of weight gain. possible shrinkage in the nethers. HCG started @ 250 IU twice weekly. gym feels great.
week three:
added pec injections into the cycle. started using 1/2 29 gauge slin pins. light pain/stiffness, nothing like quads. noticeable shrinkage. adex at .25mg seems to be working well, no noticeable bloat and joints still feel great. confidence and happy go lucky calmness through the roof. increase in assertiveness. either hormones or mentality shift, noticeable increase of reactions from women.
moderate gain of weight added to the bar. nuts still shrinking, upped hcg to 500 IU twice weekly. recovery from especially intense workouts is definitely noticeable now. Still gaining weight, though not as fast as initial 5 lb gain. bodyfat is slowly going down, though food intake is way up. constantly hungry and eating.
week four:
Noticeable increase in nut size. By end of week three to beginning of four, I feel I’ve finally started to see everything kick into high gear. 5 days/week in the gym, increased total sets from 12-14 to 15-18. recovery is still great. adex seems to be doing great at .25 mg. no gyno symptoms.
Week five:
still adding weight to the bar. everything physiologically feels stable. nuts are good. up 16 lbs bodyweight. elbow tendons/joints starting to hurt on skullcrushers and weighted dips. everything else constant.
Week six:
considering extending cycle but decided against it until I know how well I recover. everything same as before. last injection end of week 6. in hindsight, it is definitely true 6 weeks is shortchanging results on test E, though you still get pretty good gains
week seven:
no injections. adex dropped to .2 mg eod.
Week eight:
adex dropped to .15 mg eod. middle of week eight noticeable mood drop. although increases in weight on the bar have ramped down, strangely still adding minor amounts.
Week nine, beginning of pct:
began clomid and nolva pct. 100 mg clomid 20mg nolva. research chems taste like shit. mixing chems with small doses of OJ to mask some of the flavor. feel like a bitch. moody, irritable and just plain feeling down. research chems taste like shit.
week ten, second week of pct:
clomid dropped to 50 mg, nolva still at 20 mg ed. still feeling down, but seems slightly better. not sure if I’ve gotten used to the mood shift and am handling it better or if it truly is getting better. still a bitchy ****. have lost strength in the gym and am seeing slight weight loss. eating more to try to fight muscle catabolism and have dropped sets to 10/workout and kept the weight same as during cycles for fewer reps. loss of libido and everything to do with life. inclination to watch soap operas and paint my nails as I cry into my cock shaped pillow. nut shrinkage. gaining bodyfat rather rapidly.
week eleven, 3rd week pct:
dropped clomid entirely. instantly feeling less of a moody high school cheerleader. nolva still at 20mg ed. injecting grapes with research chems, swallowing whole. voila! no bad flavor.
feeling much better overall. weights still at what week ten was, no matter how hard I push I am not gaining anything and am struggling to maintain weight numbers from cycle at lower reps.
week twelve, last week of PCT:
continuing to feel better. no increases on the bar.
End result, week twenty:
libido is back. nuts are back. weights are starting to increase again, though still roughly 10 lbs less than during cycle. reps are back up to normal ranges. have kept all but 5 lbs of 18ish lb weight gain. bodyfat higher than when I started until I readjusted my diet to not being anabolic. Estimated lean mass gained around 10-12 lbs. have kept noticeable strength gains. test is up from baseline to 680, free to 11 ish. could be lifestyle changes for the better are responsible. overall happy with the end result, though the low in between sucked ass. 6 weeks is the low range of what I would do for test E again.
Footnotes:
As long as you’re not chubby, slin pins rock.
never wipe the pin needle with alcohol or let it touch a surface other than injection site once out of sterile wrapper.
research chems taste like shit. grapes help.
isopropyl alcohol at 70% is better at disinfecting preparing for a clean pin than 90%
control must be used to prevent assertiveness from becoming assholishness, though not
nearly as much as some people claim. easily doable.
virgin muscle injection pain subsided after site has had 3-5 pins
After a bit it is easy to tell when you hit a nerve in the initial portion of inserting the needle. pull out, choose another spot. use the same pin keeping sterility and disinfection of sites in mind. easy. same with aspirating and finding blood.
clomid turns me into a fourteen year old girl on the rag
HCG is fragile and must be refrigerated and handled gently after mixing
research chems taste like shit.
avoid anything under 3 reps on heavy sets to not abuse tendons/connective tissue
Don’t be afraid to satisfy your cravings to eat on cycle within moderation. You don’t have to eat as clean as I thought.
expect some size loss in PCT and the weeks after. focus on maintaining muscle mass and strength gains as best you can without overeating. Don’t worship the scale. You simply won’t look as filled out as you were on cycle, accept that.