Test Taper Protocol

Just starting a thread so the definitive test taper (a.k.a. stasis/taper) can be posted. Please do not debate the theory here. Keep this purely a repository of taper protocols.


  1. Prisoner’s original protocol?

  2. Prisoner later mentioned adding in AI or SERM use?

  3. Prisoner mentioned being able to taper other AAS besides just test? (Something about masteron comes to mind).

  4. Bushy mentioned adding peptides?

  5. Anything outside of the above “standard” protocols?

This is the protocol:

Following the cycle use a 4-6 week waiting period also refered to as ‘stasis period’ by somebody.

4 weeks if you are using esters such as propinate.

esters such as cypionate and enanthate are in the middle - 4-6 week waiting period - your decision as it is a tough call. I prefer more weeks then less.

6 week waiting period for esters such as decanoate -i.e. deca.

During the waiting period you should taper off any aromatase inhibitors you are using - basically get rid of all drugs in your system besides testosterone.

Once the waiting period is over, then gradually reduce the dose weekly for 6 weeks untill you are off.

I preffer injecting enanthate twice per week as my ester of choice. But you can use propinate or sustenon as well, just devide it into 3 doses per week.

Once the taper starts, that is around the time you would start using a serm if you are going to use one.

You can taper without a serm and still be successfull doing so.

the research showed no hpta suppression while using a serm and low dose testosterone - 100mg per week

It also showed no hpta suppression with no serm use while using 25mg of testosterone enanthate per week.

So as i said it is possible to taper with our without a serm successfully.

If you are using HCG during the cycle to maintain testicular size and function - you must stop HCG at the end of your cycle and by hcg free throughout the waiting period.

So to put it all together using testosterone enanthatate dose split into biweekly injections:

Cycle ends, stop hcg if using,

start Waiting peroid:

Week 1-6 or 1-4: Test E 100mg per week
Taper off Arimidex or femara fully by week 3

Taper phase:

week 1-6

mg/ week: 80mg / 60mg/ 50mg/ 40mg/ 30 mg/ 20mg.

Start your Serm (nolva or clomid) at the begining of the taper if you choose to do so.

If you decide to use Masteron,

Then you use 50mg Test E, and 50mg Masteron E per week or masteron prop, with test prop for the waiting period, and keep the ratio the same as you taper down as well (1:1, with the starting totol mg amount 100mg).

No Serm use is needed and i have found libido to be even better when using this mix.

the masteron acts as an anti E, and the DHT enhances libido. The masteron itself at that amount does not subtract from hpta function more than it adds libido enhance ment, and estrogen control.

The masteron is the only drug that i have found to fit the bill perfectly for this purpose, but you can try aromasis as well, but I don’t think it would have the same positive effects on libido.

As for using other drugs during your pct that may enhance workouts and maintain size…

there are a wide variety of supplements out there that have no negative effect on the hpta.

As for other drugs, some options would be:

IGF, MGF, HGH…

Clenbutoral,

and Insulin which I highly do not recommend.

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[quote]Prisoner wrote:
This is the protocol:

Following the cycle use a 4-6 week waiting period also refered to as ‘stasis period’ by somebody.

4 weeks if you are using esters such as propinate.

esters such as cypionate and enanthate are in the middle - 4-6 week waiting period - your decision as it is a tough call. I prefer more weeks then less.

6 week waiting period for esters such as decanoate -i.e. deca.

During the waiting period you should taper off any aromatase inhibitors you are using - basically get rid of all drugs in your system besides testosterone.

Once the waiting period is over, then gradually reduce the dose weekly for 6 weeks untill you are off.

I preffer injecting enanthate twice per week as my ester of choice. But you can use propinate or sustenon as well, just devide it into 3 doses per week.

Once the taper starts, that is around the time you would start using a serm if you are going to use one.

You can taper without a serm and still be successfull doing so.

the research showed no hpta suppression while using a serm and low dose testosterone - 100mg per week

It also showed no hpta suppression with no serm use while using 25mg of testosterone enanthate per week.

So as i said it is possible to taper with our without a serm successfully.

If you are using HCG during the cycle to maintain testicular size and function - you must stop HCG at the end of your cycle and by hcg free throughout the waiting period.

So to put it all together using testosterone enanthatate dose split into biweekly injections:

Cycle ends, stop hcg if using,

start Waiting peroid:

Week 1-6 or 1-4: Test E 100mg per week
Taper off Arimidex or femara fully by week 3

Taper phase:

week 1-6

mg/ week: 80mg / 60mg/ 50mg/ 40mg/ 30 mg/ 20mg.

Start your Serm (nolva or clomid) at the begining of the taper if you choose to do so.

If you decide to use Masteron,

Then you use 50mg Test E, and 50mg Masteron E per week or masteron prop, with test prop for the waiting period, and keep the ratio the same as you taper down as well (1:1, with the starting totol mg amount 100mg).

No Serm use is needed and i have found libido to be even better when using this mix.

the masteron acts as an anti E, and the DHT enhances libido. The masteron itself at that amount does not subtract from hpta function more than it adds libido enhance ment, and estrogen control.

The masteron is the only drug that i have found to fit the bill perfectly for this purpose, but you can try aromasis as well, but I don’t think it would have the same positive effects on libido.

As for using other drugs during your pct that may enhance workouts and maintain size…

there are a wide variety of supplements out there that have no negative effect on the hpta.

As for other drugs, some options would be:

IGF, MGF, HGH…

Clenbutoral,

and Insulin which I highly do not recommend.

[/quote]

        Very well done Prisoner. Thanks for taking the time to have continually updated this, and for putting this out there for everyone who is interested in it. It makes good sense to me, and you have explained it very well in my opinion. I look forward to trying it myself in the future. 

              Excellent information.

                  ToneBone
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Great post Pris and great idea Schwarz! Mods can we PLEEEEASE sticky this?!

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Great info I’m gonna give the taper a try when I cycle, read the original taper thread and everything sounds good to me.

Thanks schwarz and Prisoner

First off, this is a great thread for clearing up many misconceptions about the taper protocol.

I have one question for Prisoner. You say that you can use nolv during the taper period, would you use a typical 40/40/20/20 for dosage or should there be a different dosage schedule to adhere to?

I tried the test/mast taper after my last cycle (with some IGF-1 added into the mix like this)

W 1-2 IGF-1 40mcg post workout
W 1-4 Test 25mg 2x/w, Mast 25mg 2x/w
W 5 20/20 2x/w
W 6 15/15 2x/w
W 7 10/10 2x/w
W 8 5/5 2x/w

and it worked ok but not great (lost some strength, lost some weight, lost some libido as soon as the stasis started and kept dropping slightly through the taper)…this may just have been a return to normal after a very long and fairly high dose cycle (6 months of 1+gm/w) which was bound to happen.

I did end up gaining some weight back a month or two after my taper was done (I got all the way back to where I was pre-stasis although not as lean and not nearly as strong) which leads me to believe I didn’t recover all that well during the taper.

After rethinking things I maybe should have had a longer stasis period and I may not have tapered long enough either (I only did 4 and 4 not 6 and 6). Maybe I am just not someone that holds the size/strength that well because most of it is water retention and extra glycogen stores in the muscles anyway…I tend to blow up pretty quick as soon as I gear.

One thing I did notice was that where I used the IGF-1 I lost very little size (mostly arms, calves, and some in the quads)…my measurements today are pretty close to where they were on cycle in those spots. My theory for the IGF-1 was to try to cement gains that were likely mostly hypertrophy by having those fibers gain nucleii so the fiber could support more mass after the androgens were removed.

No real scientific backing, just theory…which upon reflection may be similar in terms of permenant gains if I had just used the IGF-1 when I was blasting androgens. More testing is required.

I think that Proviron would possibly be a better drug than masteron for recovery. The liturature that I have read (sorry no refs like bush here just memory) suggests that there is less suppression with prov than mast and it may be accomplishing the same thing (basically being a DHT to bind SHBG and block estro conversion of what little test is left). Pris is there a reason you chose Mast instead of Prov?

I think if I could run 100mg/w test during the stasis and then taper that over 6 weeks with about 50mg/d prov right through from stasis to taper I would be happier both in terms of strenth and libido. Something like this:

W 1-12 Prov 50mg/d
W 1-6 Test E 50mg 2x/w
W 7-12 taper Test
W 7-10 Clomid (so I can throw a gallon of throat yogurt)

FG

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On an added note, to compare how you do on the Test Taper, you have to put it against another kind of PCT you did before, not on how you felt while on cycle!

It’s impossible to feel as good, as strong and as horny as when you were on 1g+ of gear. You WILL lose some gains. On any kind of PCT. The gains are rarely - if ever - permanent at a 100% ratio.

Given that using a SERM with 100mg of test does not impact HPTA function, I would assume that using a SERM use during the waiting period would speed up the recovery process of the HPTA. Do you think a quicker 4+4 could be effective with early SERM use, compared to the 6+6 without one?

To add to the thread:

  1. What is the recommended cycle length at which point the test taper would be better than standard PCT protocol?

  2. Does this recommendation change based on the inclusion of non-test AAS?

  3. What about blast and cruise cycles?

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[quote]SwD wrote:
It’s impossible to feel as good, as strong and as horny as when you were on 1g+ of gear. You WILL lose some gains. On any kind of PCT. The gains are rarely - if ever - permanent at a 100% ratio. [/quote]

ya, i know. i think that’s why my view was skewed a bit. it did work well coinsidering the cycle length and the doses used. by all accounts i should have had a massive crash. I guess my post was just to state that it didn’t work miracles.

1 Like

[quote]FuriousGeorge wrote:
SwD wrote:
It’s impossible to feel as good, as strong and as horny as when you were on 1g+ of gear. You WILL lose some gains. On any kind of PCT. The gains are rarely - if ever - permanent at a 100% ratio.

ya, i know. i think that’s why my view was skewed a bit. it did work well coinsidering the cycle length and the doses used. by all accounts i should have had a massive crash. I guess my post was just to state that it didn’t work miracles.[/quote]

Yeah, usually you will lose muscle size and strength not to mention any extra water retention when you come off. People who say havn’t reach their genetic max limit of growth may not, but if you are over that then for sure you will. Your body just naturally cannot maintain the kind of size you can hold on to, like you said, on one gram of gear. Just ain’t going to happen.

As for libido e.t.c… you hit the nail on the head - libido won’t be like when you are on 1 gram of gear, it takes your body a while to reajust. that is also a good reason not to short change the waiting period.

[quote]Schwarzenegger wrote:

  1. What about blast and cruise cycles?[/quote]

Well that’s the $64000 question isn’t it. How does one keep the gains, keep all the things we love about being on without frying their system. I know 2 guys who blast and cruise. The first is over 40, done having kids and resigned to the fact he will probably be on for years and years to come. I believe he has been on for over 2 years straight. I think his blast is 625mg a week and his cruise is 125mg a week or something like that, basically a physiological TRT/HRT dose. Doses probably don’t matter as much as the general principle. Certainly the taper is designed to maximum test in the body whether its endogenous or exogenous.

The other guy I know blasted for 16 weeks at 750 enan a week cruised something like 6 weeks at 250 and then re blasted at 750 for another 12-14 weeks. He was basically on for like 8 months. He said that during the 6 weeks of cruising 250 he didn’t lose anything in terms of gains or strength or libido or the like. He added once he re-blasted he had another gains spurt after a few weeks. The interesting thing is once he finally went off, according to him he was just fine. Now I can see his body and from his last week to say two months later I could see he lost some mass and strength. He didn’t really taper though he did graduate down his dosage. He used hcg and nolva. He said his boys came back to life within a few weeks and all was fine.

Blasting and cruising works you just have to ask if that’s how you want to live your life.

[quote]sapasion wrote:
Schwarzenegger wrote:

  1. What about blast and cruise cycles?

Well that’s the $64000 question isn’t it. How does one keep the gains, keep all the things we love about being on without frying their system. I know 2 guys who blast and cruise. The first is over 40, done having kids and resigned to the fact he will probably be on for years and years to come. I believe he has been on for over 2 years straight. I think his blast is 625mg a week and his cruise is 125mg a week or something like that, basically a physiological TRT/HRT dose. Doses probably don’t matter as much as the general principle. Certainly the taper is designed to maximum test in the body whether its endogenous or exogenous.

The other guy I know blasted for 16 weeks at 750 enan a week cruised something like 6 weeks at 250 and then re blasted at 750 for another 12-14 weeks. He was basically on for like 8 months. He said that during the 6 weeks of cruising 250 he didn’t lose anything in terms of gains or strength or libido or the like. He added once he re-blasted he had another gains spurt after a few weeks. The interesting thing is once he finally went off, according to him he was just fine. Now I can see his body and from his last week to say two months later I could see he lost some mass and strength. He didn’t really taper though he did graduate down his dosage. He used hcg and nolva. He said his boys came back to life within a few weeks and all was fine.

Blasting and cruising works you just have to ask if that’s how you want to live your life. [/quote]

It just seems that there’s been a trend to do 2 weeks on and 2 weeks off, say two or three times, using blast/cruise dosing. It seems as though this isn’t really a full cycle, and these guys say they do only two or three two-weekers like this so they can easily recovery with almost no PCT. Obviously the test taper would defeat the purpose of a short-term blast and cruise cycle, but wondered if other people had thoughts on the short-term blast and cruise cycles, not so much the long-term. The test taper would be a great addition to a longer blast/cruise cycle, especially since the cruise after the last cycle would essentially be the waiting period.

In a Bill Roberts study on the 2 weeks on/4 weeks off aprroach, the dude actually injects 400mg of Primo on the first day of his first “off” week, and uses 5mg of Dianobol first thing in the morning IIRC.

So… maybe doing a “blast and cruise speed version” would be 2 weeks on + 2 to 4 weeks off with 100mg of Test in the off weeks, following it all by a a couple of weeks at 100mg and then a taper?

2 weeks can shut you down, especially if you use compounds like Tren. Maybe that could be a way around it.

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Sticky!

I kow this thread is a little old so sorry for bringing it back up.

But I was wondering what your training should look like during the waiting or stasis period. I know the frequency and volume shouldnt be like when you are on cycle however, since 100mg/week is close to that of a healthy male, can you train as hard as someone who is not natural?

Jazz

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