[quote]its_just_me wrote:
Chi-Towns-Finest wrote:
Okay from 10/25-11/14 I cycled tribilus w. ZMA – three servings a day for a week, and one serving a day for two weeks. Like some people mentioned, it didn’t do jack shit for me. In addition, I went from having rock hard morning woods every single day to rarely, to not at all the last week.
Now, I can’t say it was the trib. that gave me this result directly. I also made some other changes in my diet – I played around with my pre/peri workout nutrition. I went from have five whole-food meals and one whey protein shake w. poptarts PWO, to having BSN’s syntha-6 w. WMS 30min. preworkout, whey protein and WMS during my workout, and more whey protein afterwards.
One thought that crossed my mind, was introducing soy (through snytha-6) into my diet on a daily basis. I haven’t had any soy products in over 9 months until now, and currently take at least two servings of S-6.
Considering that morning wood is the best indicator of T-levels, as Beradi has stated, this concerns me. I’ve used ZMA in the past and have always got morning woods, although now I’m not getting those results. I’m considering going back to more whole-food meals, although I certainly don’t want to have a half-tub of S-6 and WMS lying around.
Another note I always get plenty of sleep, 8hrs and up to ten if I can. Sorry for the long post, does anyone have an idea how I can get back on track to rock hard morning woods? Thanks!
Soy protein is often feared because of the potential oestrogen raising effects but I think that there needs to be a lot of it taken for this effect. Having said that though, I still don’t want to take soya lol.
As regards diet, the main thing that would effect T-levels is either a reduction in overall calories, or and insufficient fat intake. I don’t care how bad some people say sat.fats are, without a doubt my t-levels go up in direct proportion to how much sat-fats I take in. Things like beef and dairy should be eaten regularly. At least a third of your fat intake should be sat.fats. Also, at least 20% of macronutrient split should be fat.
Tribulus does increase sex drive, and so does ZMA. It’s obvious that if you stopped them, you wouldn’t get wood as much in the mornings. Long term, I don’t see the benefit of Tribulus…unless you take it in high dosages pre workout (for the aggressive factor). I found that ZMA has to be cycled on for 3 days, and off for 3 days…in order to still get the effects (e.g. sex drive, morning wood etc). You also shouldn’t overdo the zinc, since this leads to imbalances in other nutrients, long term high dosages (e.g. 60mg plus) will do more harm than good.
As regards training, running yourself into the ground (e.g. volume too high for intensity) will lower t-levels and sex drive. Try pulling back for a week (e.g. deloading), if this helps, you had just reached your limit.
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Interesting, I had no idea you were supposed to cycle ZMA – do you have a source/more info on this? I don’t think I’m running myself into the ground. I generally keep my sessions short and intense, I’ll focus on progression on three movements per body part – I may do a couple additional isolation movements.