hello all, I’m so curious to know how u guys train when your on anabolics. Train to failure? more sets? more reps? or maybe you train more often? lets here what you have to say!!!
You would train the same as always right, just much more intense and more weight obviously.
What I have found (for me) is when I’m on anabolics, I feel definitely stronger and more energetic. I’ve gone the path of adding more weight and increasing volume and frequency and this works pretty good as long as your food intake equates with your increase in training intensity and volume…and you’re relatively “young” in age.
What I have found works even better for me, especially as I am getting alot older, is to always train exceptionally heavy year round when either on or off anabolics. When on, I merely increase the number of repetitions that I do at a weight I found pretty heavy when off. For example, my last bench workout (I’m OFF anabolics and been off for about 9 months now):
warmups (135, 225, 315)
working sets (3 x 405 x 5…that’s 3 sets at 405 lbs for 5 reps)
Now this is pretty damn heavy for me; especially when off anabolics. Many of you on this board are WAY stronger than me, but that’s not my point. When I’m ON anabolics, the bench workout shown above would have looked more like:
warmups (135, 225, 315)
working sets (3 x 405 x 8-10)
Obviously I would “work up” to getting 8 or 10 reps per set here; i.e. it would take me a few workouts to get to the 10 reps.
By not increasing the weights when ON, I really preserve my joints (which admittantly are getting a little “creaky” these days!).
[quote]buffd_samurai wrote:
What I have found (for me) is when I’m on anabolics, I feel definitely stronger and more energetic. I’ve gone the path of adding more weight and increasing volume and frequency and this works pretty good as long as your food intake equates with your increase in training intensity and volume…and you’re relatively “young” in age.
What I have found works even better for me, especially as I am getting alot older, is to always train exceptionally heavy year round when either on or off anabolics. When on, I merely increase the number of repetitions that I do at a weight I found pretty heavy when off. For example, my last bench workout (I’m OFF anabolics and been off for about 9 months now):
warmups (135, 225, 315)
working sets (3 x 405 x 5…that’s 3 sets at 405 lbs for 5 reps)
Now this is pretty damn heavy for me; especially when off anabolics. Many of you on this board are WAY stronger than me, but that’s not my point. When I’m ON anabolics, the bench workout shown above would have looked more like:
warmups (135, 225, 315)
working sets (3 x 405 x 8-10)
Obviously I would “work up” to getting 8 or 10 reps per set here; i.e. it would take me a few workouts to get to the 10 reps.
By not increasing the weights when ON, I really preserve my joints (which admittantly are getting a little “creaky” these days!). [/quote]
great input there i have a couple of things to clear up, while you are off u lift 3 x 405 x 5 , from your experience what joint issues have occurred while increasing the weight to say 430 instead of the higher reps. When you mention you increase reps, are those 8-10 reps to failure on every set or 1 reps shy of failure. Also what rep Tempo would you be using for your sets while on and off?
buffd_samurai, good to see you back in this neck of the woods again.
[quote]oscarhs wrote:
buffd_samurai wrote:
What I have found (for me) is when I’m on anabolics, I feel definitely stronger and more energetic. I’ve gone the path of adding more weight and increasing volume and frequency and this works pretty good as long as your food intake equates with your increase in training intensity and volume…and you’re relatively “young” in age.
What I have found works even better for me, especially as I am getting alot older, is to always train exceptionally heavy year round when either on or off anabolics. When on, I merely increase the number of repetitions that I do at a weight I found pretty heavy when off. For example, my last bench workout (I’m OFF anabolics and been off for about 9 months now):
warmups (135, 225, 315)
working sets (3 x 405 x 5…that’s 3 sets at 405 lbs for 5 reps)
Now this is pretty damn heavy for me; especially when off anabolics. Many of you on this board are WAY stronger than me, but that’s not my point. When I’m ON anabolics, the bench workout shown above would have looked more like:
warmups (135, 225, 315)
working sets (3 x 405 x 8-10)
Obviously I would “work up” to getting 8 or 10 reps per set here; i.e. it would take me a few workouts to get to the 10 reps.
By not increasing the weights when ON, I really preserve my joints (which admittantly are getting a little “creaky” these days!).
great input there i have a couple of things to clear up, while you are off u lift 3 x 405 x 5 , from your experience what joint issues have occurred while increasing the weight to say 430 instead of the higher reps. When you mention you increase reps, are those 8-10 reps to failure on every set or 1 reps shy of failure. Also what rep Tempo would you be using for your sets while on and off?
[/quote]
When I’m OFF anabolics, 405 x 5 is 1 rep short of positive failure. Oftentimes I am not able to reach 5 reps each set depending on how good I feel on that particular training day; sometimes I can only get 4 or even just 3 on a really bad day (they happen alot more than any of us would like!)
I never subscribed to training to failure. Even before Chad Waterbury pointed out quite correctly that nervous system fatigue is our real enemy here, I knew I just couldn’t recuperate from that style of training. All you HIT’ers out there go right ahead and call me a wimp.
So when I’m on anabolics, it usually takes me roughly 8 weeks to build up my reps to 10 from 5 if we are using my bench example. I know this is slow for some, but for me this is pretty much the fastest I can gain in strength.
Also, for me I never payed too much attention to tempo as that is still uncharted territory for me (see, even after training for so many years, even old farts like me have something new to try and experiment with in the future!). I’m more the slow lowering, explosive lift type of trainer where the slow lowering can actually be as slow as 3 seconds, then explode and lift the weight as fast as I can from the bottom.
Joint issues I would get if I increased the weights past, say in this case, the 405 mentioned would be elbow and shoulder issues. For me, it never fails to creep up and therefore I’m sort of forced to train this way. You might be different, and therefore you should really see how increasing the weights work for you.
[quote]Contrl wrote:
buffd_samurai, good to see you back in this neck of the woods again.[/quote]
My good man, I never really leave! I’m probably the ultimate lurker on this site. : )
Since I’m staying pretty “clean” right now (i.e. off anabolics), I don’t have alot to offer more than the loud mouthed things I’ve written in the past.
I’ll stay off for another 3 months, then I’m going to be trying the much higher dosage route next year. So many veterans on this site has preached this protocol that there must be something to it! And of course, I will be doing the bloodwork.
like a beast…
buffd_samurai, ok thanks for the useful info man… and good luck with your training in the near future.
…footnote
Your strength will increase and you’ll be tempted to up the weight…but the AAS won’t do much for the joints. Practice some self restraint.
Get injured and your screwed.
yeah thx for the tip Cyllo a couple of friends have been mentioning that, I might just go and do Waterbury Method just with a slight change of 10x3 squats with Deadlifts instead, and also might train on off days if im up to it. I wanna also jog on days i don’t train , maybe 5-10km sprint\jog runs should do it. Ill update you all on how it goes with it.
[quote]Cyllo wrote:
…footnote
Your strength will increase and you’ll be tempted to up the weight…but the AAS won’t do much for the joints. Practice some self restraint.
Get injured and your screwed.[/quote]
would hgh fix that problem?
Just be in tune with your body. Everybody is different and certain AAS will kick in at different times. When you feel stronger go with it. Increase your volume and intensity as your body allows you to. I’ve been training for 27 yrs. Mostly competitive powerlifting, with and without AAS. I’ve never been a big fan of training to failure; has never been a good thing for me personally.
Vary your routines even week to week. Different movements, different rep schemes always seems to keep the body guessing and aviods adapting to a redundant week in and week out set program. The body strives to adapt to the stresses you put on it. I’ve made better gains by staying with the core exercises, Squat, bench , deadlift and varying reps and movements. Good point by buffd to keep in touch with joint issues.
Hope this helps.
Nice maximus a good friend adviced me on that aswell so i might just do 5x5 of the following workouts (All on seperate days).
Bench
Deadlift
Row
Squat
followed by as much as i can do using that same 5x5 on as many exercises i feel i can do, that could be 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 i will just have listen to my body. I hope i see great results, If anyone else has a 5x5 workout dialog id love to see it.