I decided to post this as I see a lot of people ask about this type of thing, and thought my experience could be helpful to many. I think a lot of people share my goals and stats, so I wanted to make my research available.
Stats: 5’11, 185lb male athlete - 26 years old - 8% bodyfat
Background: I compete in a weight class sport, and train full-time. I often deal with injuries and have always been looking for something that can help me recover and stay healthy after intense training. I have been training (sports, weights, otherwise) seriously for over 10 years. My main goal with supplementation is training recovery, injury prevention/recovery, and general athletic enhancement (secondary goal). HGH seemed like something that would be right up my alley so I had an opportunity to try it, and the following was my experience.
Cycle: I ran a 7 month cycle of HGH on it’s own about a year ago to help me recover from a few injuries. I don’t want to talk about how I acquired it very much, but it was a personal connection and was of very low-cost to me. It came straight from the source and was the highest quality you can get (Genotropin). I ran between 26-36 I.U’s per week throughout.
Pro’s: After a few weeks the first thing I noticed was the change in my bodyfat composition. I always maintain a very low bodyfat % due to a healthy diet and intense training regiment, but on HGH I noticed I was maintaining a surprisingly low bf % the entire cycle. As a side note, my abs never looked better than when I was on HGH. After a a few months I noticed that I had in fact increased my strength pretty significantly with no other changes other than the addition of the HGH.
I also gained some unwanted weight along with that strength. My BF % was as low as ever, but I added about 8-10 lbs when it was all said and done. Many of the injuries I had been dealing with for over a year subsided completely by the time my cycle was finished, although this felt more gradual than magically over-night. Looking bcak, I can say it definitely did help me with my ultimate goal of injury recovery.
Con’s: You have probably heard this a lot if you have researched HGH, but the joint pain in your fingers, feet, and toes is legitimate. When I woke up in the morning my fingers and toes felt very swollen and sore. Looking back it’s not very big deal, but I remember thinking a couple times “damn, I did this to feel more energetic and healthy, not more sore”. I also noticed that while on the actual cycle that my conditioning got worse. My body got “pumped up” easier and I had trouble maintaining the same level of cardio fitness due to my added muscle mass.
Once I cycled off my conditioning was great and this was no longer a problem. My day to day recovery was not what I had hoped for, but I didn not ever get injured while on HGH (but can’t honestly say it’s because of the GH). By the way, tapering back the dosage can improve most of the side effects. I know another guy who had the exact same HGH and used less, and did not have the same side effects.
Conclusion: I actually loved HGH. It provided a lot of the benefits I was looking for with almost no side effects worth being worried about. However, my goal was to have something that improved day to day recover along with injury recovery, and while I think HGH did help me recover from injuries and prevent some future ones, I am not so sure it helped greatly with day to day recovery.
Will I do it again?: I would love to do HGH again. The problem is the Genotropin I was using is no longer accessible to me, and I am skeptical about other ways of acquiring other products. If I can find a legit way to get another quality product I will do a second cycle, and post those results.