I have read conflicting evidence about what the equivalent physiological levels of testosterone are.
For an athlete looking to diet and lose weight (between 10-20) who wants to minimize muscle loss and especially strength loss what would be the bare minimum of testosterone necessary. Understand I am designing a cycle not to gain ANY weight (in fact lose fat) that will be coupled with a calorie reduced diet. Any increased strength is great but the main goal of this cycle is to not lose strength or recovery despite the restricted calories…
Some ideas I have are 50mg-75mg test prop EOD - between 150-225mg weekly.
Other ideas include lower test prop added to non-aromatizing drugs to keep or even build strength without adding weight.
For example three drugs all short esters:
100-200mg Tren Ace weekly
100-200mg Test Prop Weekly
100-200mg Masteron Prop Weekly
50 mg proviron daily
10 mg nolva daily
This cycle could be for 8-12 weeks with 40 mg anavar during the last 6 weeks. It would be coupled with restricted calories.
Any advice would be very appreciated. I don’t know if the lower end is
enough to spare some strength. Understand this is for an athlete who is not huge but strong - 6 feet tall 200 pounds 8-12% BF looking to get into a weight class of about 175-185 pounds with as little loss to strength as possible. Thank you!
This is not, so far as I know, a much-explored area, probably because few have the desire to find what the absolute minimum is for some, yet less than easily possible, results.
For the trenbolone acetate, I hope you mean summing to that amount weekly. In other words, about 15-30 mg per day.
This alone is enough to be suppressive, so if being suppressive anyway, why not use more?
On the testosterone propionate: Ditto with regard to the weekly aspect. 100 mg/week ALONE is enough for 50% suppression; 200 mg/week yields about 2/3 or 3/4 suppression.
Masteron: I don’t have anything on its suppressive properties. I like to hope that perhaps it is not more than say twice as suppressive as Primobolan. In that case 100 mg/week is doable without much suppression and maybe 200 with partial but not major suppression. As guesses. That is with reference to using it with no other anabolic steroid.
Proviron: WHY. It is suppressive and will do nothing for your gains.
Nolvadex: If at 100 mg/week testosterone propionate and using all the rest of this other stuff, you hardly need Nolvadex. You’d be shutting down your natural T completely and the 100 mg/week would be mere replacement, thus not increasing estrogen.
“With 40 mg/day Anavar the last 6 weeks”: How in the world does this proposed stack fit in with what you’re asking, namely, what is the minimum that could be used?
This alone is enough to be suppressive, so if being suppressive anyway, why not use more?
I know suppression will happen. The reason not to use more is that the cycle is designed to lose weight while maintaining strength. If using more results in a weight gain of 5-10 pounds then the cycle has not performed it’s job.
Also, yes the dosages are summed. Injections are not daily though, so 200mg Tren/week is actually 60mg of tren ace EOD.
Basically, the point the question is that while dieting strength levels are almost sure to go down for anyone. I would almost make the claim that dieting itself is suppressive! Thus, I am looking for the amount of compounds that will allow for a diet which maintains or even allows some strength gains. If the test/tren/mast ratio of 200/200/200 weekly is enough to allow a little strength gain but not weight gain then that is great. If it’s 250/250/250 then perhaps thats whats necessary…
But maybe it’s only 150/150/150…
The question is not just what’s the minimum, the goal is to design a cycle which allows an athlete to go from 200 pounds at 10-12% bf to approximately 185 pounds at 6-8% bf and sacrifice as little strength loss as possible (or possibly gain some!).
The answer is to stop fearing using “too much” in believing that you will while losing the fat, put on too much muscle despite the dieting down. The fundamental premise is flawed.
And if there were an issue, all that would need be done is adjust the cycle on seeing you were going to overshoot in terms of your goals with regard to muscle. If.
It also seems to me you are coming up with your dosages by taking what, for each one, is conservative based on things you’ve read. However one has to consider the total.
Using just the midrange of your proposal (150 mg per week of each of three injectables, not counting the Proviron as it is useless, plus 280 mg/week of oxandrolone) works out to 730 mg/week.
Not an unreasonable value at all, but hardly fitting in with your question of looking for a low dose cycle.