You’ll never feel good on weekly dosing, you will need a lot of T to hold you over the entire week, the problem with this is you will need a large dosage that will drive estrogen high.
If you want to feel good on TRT inject 14mg daily or 25mg EOD.
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If you have been at 320, and liked 300 better, 280 is not an unreasonable suggestion. I think 250 would be a happier place, and depending on how that feels maybe try twice a week dosing or 3 times a week dosing. It’s hard to say, you are a bit of an outlier. I did 250 mg when I first started and it shot my total test to 2100, so I don’t know where I would be at 320 mg. (But I did feel invincible with that total test, just bloated as hell)
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That’s a mild cycle dose. In the Anabolics book, the author recommends 300 mg /week T cycles as a great starter dose.
An average 25 year old healthy male makes ~7 mg/day, 49/week or about 70 mg Test C /week. 100 mg is already a high dose and 120 mg/week would be at around the 90-95th percentile of young male production. It’s a healthy compound though, so no judgment.
It’s interesting, I was reading about drug testing for olympic athletes and it was comparing urine T/E and T/LH ratios to test for doping. 100 mg/week was enough for 5 of 7 to fail the natural T/E test and the authors noted that “it’s debatable whether 100 mg/week is physiological.” Interesting.
mg of natural versus mg of injectable are nowhere near 1:1. Most guys will not get anywhere near 2100 test on that dose, and in my slanted opinion (I competed in Strongman - I know what the guys were taking) 300 mg/week is worse than pointless as a cycle and terrible advice. And I really don’t care who gave it, I repeat, 300 mg/week as a cycle is terrible advice. It calls into question anything else contained in the book.
Why is 300 mg a pointless cycle?
I’ll give 250mg a try. Maybe even 230-240. I just don’t understand how my protocol was working then just abruptly stopped! My SHBG has always been on the low side and I was injecting once a week for about 5 months before falling off a cliff! Its so frustrating to feel low T symptoms ON TRT
The high dose is unfortunately just driving the SHBG down I think. We have it for a reason, so too little of it is probably bad for you.
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Risk versus reward. There is no point in effecting complete shutdown and possible side effects of that and any AI’s or other things that may be involved to be just high normal. The difference to your lifting or physiques progress would be somewhere between negligible and non-existent, so it’s pointless.
I am at the very bottom of the scale for shbg. Absolute bottom. 19.9 last labs with 19.3-77.? Range. 40mg eod and 200iu hcg eod was only getting me to like 650 on a 250-800 range.
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No, you’re right about the 1:1. That’s why I said 49/wk or about 70 mg Test C/week. That’s for the ester weight of 30% for Test C. So just divide the 49/.7 free fraction = 70 mg. Did you mean something else?
Here’s 1 study comparing the effects of 125, 300, or 600 mg of testosterone weekly and the gain in fat free mass was +3.4, 5.2, and 7.9 kg, respectively. There was greater gain from 600 mg/wk than from 300, and that was 20 wks, which is a long time. I don’t think the Anabolics guy’s recommendation was solely to maximize gains - it was also a risk/reward calculation, and it was more of a beginners cycle if I recall right.
I have a regression formula taken out of a study on larger samples but I can’t seem to find it. The estimate is very close to 8 x’s the dose to get from mg/wk to average ng/dl over the week. Some people test their troughs which don’t vary as much by day 7 from weekly dosing.
A “Beginner’s” cycle is test only. A cycle that doesn’t take advantage of the fact that you are trying to be supraphysiological is a waste of time and money.
I personally don’t agree with that. Your free T would be well above range and with a good diet and training programme, you could get great gains on 300 mg/week.
You would get the great gains anyway with a good diet and training program and normal naturally produced levels of T.
@hardartery Been feeling depressed for the last few weeks. Got labs done yesterday (trough day) and my numbers are:
TT: 1035
E2: 70.3
I know my e2 level is high but so is my T level, isn’t there a ratio of T to E? Also, is there a way I can quickly lower my e2? Zinc? DIM? I crash too hard on the smallest dose of Arimidex and there’s the rebound effect after stopping it
DIM, maybe. Hot lemon water also works for at least some guys, I don’t really understand that one though. How small a dose have you tried? Some guys micro dose by dissolved a pill in alcohol and using a dropper to administer. I am a hyper-responder myself, when my wife tells me that I’m too bloated I knock a little off of 1/4 pill with a razor blade and stick it under my tongue. I’m talking a 1/4 of that 1/4, maybe a little less.
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I should point out, the pills do not cut cleanly that small. It’s powder at that point.
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Right. But how exactly does Armidex lower e2 if it only blocks aromatization from future injections? I need to get my current e2 level down ASAP. I just took about .25mg out of desperation. I’m getting my injection today
You are currently aromatising. That will be greatly reduced and the E2 will fall fast. E2 has a short shelf life, if you stop making it you will use it up pretty quick. Aromatisation occurs as a continuous process, not en masse when you take your shot.
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If I am reading correctly, you have a pretty low SHBG but you are injecting over 200MG at a time?
What’s your protocol right now. Whatever it is, it should be lowered, especially in light of symptoms and your low SHBG.
Warm lemon water, broccoli, vitamin D. Don’t fuck with the AI. Especially if you over respond.
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By now his SHBG has got to be <8 on this protocol, personally I would want SHBG out of the basement and want it higher which can be done on a daily protocol. This protocol he’s on is great if your SHBG is in the 100’s which would be like taking a sledgehammer to the SHBG.
It has zero chance for success.
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