Lowest Effective Dose, Is This Actually Good Advice?

We have all most likely heard this advice. I have been recently been thinking that there are a couple of flaws with this line of thinking.

How does one know what dose will get them to their goals without a little experimentation?

Many who cycle / blast are doing so while in a caloric surplus. More gear means more of the weight gain is going to be muscle when the water drops off. Lots of guys gain 20 lbs, but 10 is water, 5 is fat, and 5 is muscle. What if using a bit more changes that to 25 lbs, 12 is water, 10 is muscle and 3 is fat. It seems like using higher dosages could lead to less fat gain, and not needing to diet and lose muscle after the cycle, and may result in less cycles being needed.

It seems the recommendations of what a first cycle should be have lowered lately. I have been seeing 250 mg/wk of Test being used a lot. I am thinking 250 mg/wk of Test in 12 weeks is not going to result in anything significant, but still will shut you down. If you eat in a consistent surplus on that cycle, you will most likely just get fat, with a pound or two of muscle. Then after PCT, you will be right where you started.

I am not advocating people go crazy, but matching the drugs with the eating and workouts make sense to me. If you want to gain 10-15 lbs of lean tissue over a longer cycle, you are going to need more than 250 mg/wk or probably more than 500 mg of Test. Maybe you could do it with the latter if you were underdeveloped and shouldn’t be using AAS anyways.

Part of what got me thinking this is the difference between my current and my last blast. I have upped things an additional 225 mg/wk of Test, and 40 mg of Tbol over the last one. In 3 weeks, I think I have progressed more than the previous blast which was 14 weeks. I am less scared of eating big, because I know I have the anabolics in there to make the food into muscle. I’ll probably be adding in DHB as well. I have also noticed all the guys I personally know who look and lift like they are on are not doing small doses (and these aren’t the bigger guys at lifetime, they are the guys putting up crazy weight raw, 800 lb squats, 600 lb benches, 800 lb+ deadlifts). One just told me to use a vial a week lol (not ready for that, and I am not advocating that type of use).

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I’m definitely guilty of pushing this idea.

Everything you are saying here about the dose response is reasonably supported by the limited literature and anecdotal data. The reason you start slow and go slow is not because you want to limit your GAINZ, it’s a safety screen and learning opportunity to see how your body processes supraphysiologic levels of testosterone. A small fraction won’t be able to handle even the low cycle amounts and this is valuable info to have instead of front-loading 500-1000 mg/week of Test with no pre-existing knowledge (safety net) for how your body (heart !) will handle it.

The first rule is do no harm and the Minimum Effective Dose (MED) heuristic is a safer approach to start with no data on yourself. It’s especially important once you get older and explains why TRT/TOT guys start bumping up the dosages over time as they build confidence (remind you of someone?).

https://journals.physiology.org/doi/pdf/10.1152/ajpendo.2001.281.6.E1172

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Also the MED will change over time as your goals evolve and how far you want to takes things. Why take on the extra risk at the beginning when it’s not necessary. The MED philosophy is not at all at odds with experimentation. You’ll get more data if you follow MED in a disciplined approach. With that data you will be able to find trends you otherwise wouldn’t be able to. See paper above.

Now what if you just had this paper instead of the one above?

https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJM199607043350101?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%20%200www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Take the time to collect the data. AND of course all of this makes more sense if you are on TRT/TOT from baseline prior to Blast/“Cycle”.

Note: Blast+TOT is nowadays Blast+Cruise cause let’s face it TOT is Cruise.

Otherwise, @hankthetank89 is right you most are just cycling through the 2 steps forward and 2.5 steps back with typical cycle+PCT(recovery).

@mnben87 All of this is a slippery slope as you are now experiencing. I agree with @blshaw the more I learn and know the better true TRT really is if you can keep your vanity in check. Let’s see how you feel in 10-15 years when you are older.

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Hey @mnben87 that’s a good question. As you know the amount of variables out there pretty much prevent a one size fits all answer. Everybody starts with a different baseline, has a different response to gear, and different genetic potentials.

Have they? I haven’t been on in awhile mostly because I see too many people on here using that have no business doing so. What’s worse is they start giving advice thereafter. I still feel the tried and true 500mg test is good starting point for risk/reward.

Exactly. Anybody who makes serious ‘gainz’ on these smaller doses is genetically gifted or underdeveloped. My money is that most fall in the latter.

Bigger doses are going to yield better results period in almost everybody. But to what degree? Again, too many variables. I know for me anything over a moderate dose has cause libido and psychological hurdles that are just not worth it.

For me I think I’m just going to stick with TRT. Unless you are permablasting, probably more common than you think, I just don’t see the point in cycling at all. The strongest I have ever been was caloric surplus, screw physique goals, and TRT only. The best I’ve ever looked was on a mild cycle, screw strength goals, and hardcore nutrition plan.

Rant over. Now that I’m re-reading this
 its barely coherent. Guess I’m done with lunch break.

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From my experience nothing could be further from the truth. That is exactly what I did for 3 decades. 8 week cycles “on” with 4 to 6 weeks “off.” 12 week cycle for a show.

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Good to see you back @blshaw. I certainly don’t plan on blasting my face off, but I think what is moderate might be higher than I once thought. I think of heavy usage as being what the pros (BBers and strength athletes use) as being very high. I just think to really get the sauced look, most people need to be on decent dosages of the sauce. Now my physique has come a long way with low dosages and TRT (cruise), but it certainly isn’t what I would think of when someone says “juicy” lol. I posted it in my training log, but I’ll post here as an update.

This is what TRT, plus a blast of 325, for 13 weeks, and a 650 blast for 14 weeks, and my current blast (3 weeks in have gotten me). Certainly not shabby, but not what I would look at and go damn, that dude is saucy. I’ve experienced a lot more growth on this higher dose cycle in 3 weeks than the previous cycles. Maybe part of it is that I am not as afraid to eat with more anabolics. Maybe I just respond well to tbol? Current blast is 875 mg of Test and 40 mg of Tbol ED.

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this is where we differ i guess

for me, in my experience, i either grow, or i dont
 doubling the dose does not speed anything up
 there is X amount of muscle in a month that i can grow
 either i do it or i dont, but adding compounds or upping the dose has never seemed to speed up this process

i do not believe that more drugs allow you to grow faster
 at least on my last blast i didnt see any difference to test+tren and when i added EQ, GH and Stanazolol. No difference.

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You look saucy to me. Thats the best I think I’ve seen you. Well done.

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Well, as you know, it is great lighting. I wish I looked like that at the beach lol.

I think that is a bit unusual. I’ll agree that there is a limit, but I don’t think that limit is at 500 mg/wk of Test. I think 1000 mg will result in more gains than 500 for almost everybody (caveat that they are eating enough). Now I think weight gain might be pretty similar between the two, it’s just that the 1000 mg will be more muscle.

Well yea, for me - nope
 I am growing now on 250mg and slin, just as fast as i was on like 3 grams of gear total. Only i eat less, so i gain less fat, so i wont have to cut half the weight off later.

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Have you considered that this might be because your off period was perhaps on average half of your on period? If you were to increase the off period, then more gains would be lost before the next blast.

Do you think with more gear, you could eat more, and not gain fat though? I would think especially Tren would allow you to do just that.

No. As i said, it seems like i have only ON or OFF mode for growth. Its either slow, or its OFF. Eating more results in fat gain. Upping the dose doesnt change anything.
I never saw that i can eat more even on high tren.
But thats me, with my shit genetics. Lately i start to think that i have wasted tons of money where i could have just been on 250mgs of test and be at this very moment at the same shape and strenght.

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“Off” started the Monday after my last oral on Friday or Saturday and 2 weeks after my last injection. The exception was on the last 10 days before a show I took 100mg of testosterone suspension every day. I counted that Saturday as the end of my cycle. In other words I considered the testosterone suspension and an oral.

There were some occasions I took 8 weeks “off”, but not very often. I was trying to compete at as high a level that my genetics would allow, and it meant to me that all “off” time was non-growing time. I just wanted to maintain as much as I could, but it always seemed like a step back by the end of the “off” period, and usually sorer joints.

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What do you think about this hypothetical. Instead of your method, running longer higher dose cycles, and then cruising for longer too. I guess I would think you would put on a lot more size, and then try to hold it on cruise. Basically, a bigger longer cycle vs multiple short ones. Which will result in a better physique. I guess my thinking is that longer higher dose cycle will allow you to get significantly past your previous muscle mass. The shorter lower dose ones will get a small bump, but then you will regress some on your off time. IDK, if we have an answer to this question.

I felt that my rate of growth (strength) had hit its peak around 6 weeks, and by 8 weeks it had nearly stopped. That is how I determined my “on-off” periods.

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I wouldn’t say you have shit genetics. You just don’t have great genetics. I am kinda in that boat too. Like even above average genetics in comparison to great BBer genetics look terrible. The level of genetics the some of the pros have just show that even good genetics are shitty if you are trying to be a pro BBer, but they aren’t shitty compared to the general population.

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I am not sure that means that the steroids were not working. I think in 6 weeks one can get the most strength because of bloating. Once that stabilizes, strength increase is coming from actually gaining muscle.

My experience for contest training is totally contrary that. My starting weight at the start of my 12 week AAS cycle was 240lbs. As weeks went by I would be getting stronger while losing fat until I got to about 222lbs, where I then pushed hard to lose the final 4 or 5lbs.