Am I Ready?

Pharma
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I’ve been researching steroid use for about 4 months now and I believe I have a pretty good grasp on the issue. However, there are so many conflicting opinions that it seems the more I learn, the dumber I get (releativly speaking)!

So the biggest question I have is, Am I ready? I’ve been Lifting for almost exactly 4 years consistently. My diet is in fairly good shape and I get plenty of sleep. I stick to Compound Lifts ( Squats, Presses, Deadlifts, Rows, etc.) My goals are to gain some noticeable muscle(maybe 15-20 lbs and loose bodyfat. I want to look lean and ripped and mantain a weight around 225 or so.
My stats are as follows:

Age: 32
Weight: 215lbs
Body fat: 18%
Bench Press: 275lbs
Squat: 350lbs
Deadlift: 250lbs

I plan to do an 8-12 week cycle of Test Cyp.(400mg/week) and maybe kickstart with the addition of D-Bol(20 mg/Day) for about 4 Weeks. For PCT, I plan to use clomid. I Also plan to have some Novaldex on hand in case of gyno. Is This cycle appropriate for my goals as a beginner and I ready considering my stats and goals? I ave attatched a pic for your critcisms. All feedback is welcomed!

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Many people will tell you that you are not ready which to be fair is not bad advice at all… but

If you want to do it you will end up doing it regardless i reckon.

My personal opinion is that for 4 years consitent training you have acheived very little in the way of building a muscular and well shaped body.

for this reason alone I would say that you are not ready, becuase at the end of the day you will be risking your health and wasting money on AAS if you are not training and eating properly, which I am sorry to say it looks like you are not.

Also if you wish to look lean and ripped the steriods you have mentioned will not really help with this, these are totally the wrong substances.

I would recommend upping the cardio and cutting out the pizza’s and you should find your body moving more towards the shape you desire, taking the substances you have mentioned will not be of much help at this stage.

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Thanks for the advice electric. You are absolutely right in what you are saying about me not acheiving much over the past 4 years!

I honestly have put in the hard work in the gym, and got my eating habits in perfect condition! Of course I mess up periodically and eat badly, who doesnt. But I would think that 4 years of even moderatly hard work would give the average person a more muscular body than I have! This is the very reason why im thinking of doing a cycle.

Be it bad genetics or whatever, I simply just dont gain a lot of muscle mass and I gain and retain fat very easily, although I have made some decent stregnth gains. Ive done heavy cardio workouts for months at a time. Sure, I lost some weight, but it would always come back in less than half the time it took me to loose it!

So what steroids/cycles would you suggest for cutting and getting lean muscular shape?

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i dont think hes thinkin any drugs are really going to help you achieve this, you should be more looking along the lines of diet. Cardio is generally not needed to get down to a low bf% if you diet right. check out world1187’d thread and check his pics. he doesnt really do cardio.

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[quote]Jazz_Man1898 wrote:
Thanks for the advice electric. You are absolutely right in what you are saying about me not acheiving much over the past 4 years!

I honestly have put in the hard work in the gym, and got my eating habits in perfect condition! Of course I mess up periodically and eat badly, who doesnt. But I would think that 4 years of even moderatly hard work would give the average person a more muscular body than I have! This is the very reason why im thinking of doing a cycle.

Be it bad genetics or whatever, I simply just dont gain a lot of muscle mass and I gain and retain fat very easily, although I have made some decent stregnth gains. Ive done heavy cardio workouts for months at a time. Sure, I lost some weight, but it would always come back in less than half the time it took me to loose it!

So what steroids/cycles would you suggest for cutting and getting lean muscular shape?[/quote]

The truth is, most people have no idea what they are doing in the gym. They don’t have real goals, they don’t have a program that they follow from start to finish, they don’t work nearly as hard as they think they are working, and they have no idea what they are doing when it comes to diet. I hope you will take it constructively, OP, when I say that you are probably one of those people. This is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, if you are mentally strong enough to recognize this fact, then you can drastically, dramatically change your body. You can very likely look like you belong in a fitness magazine without ever resorting to AAS.

I used to be like you, too. Seriously. My main problem was that I had not done enough research and I was working out by myself. I needed a coach. Whether that be a magazine such as Testosterone (which led me to this website and became my own coach and changed everything for me) or a real person, preferably someone who looks like what you want to look like. Since the latter is not always easy to find, take the former, it is quite literally at your fingertips. If you will spend enough time in the bodybuilding, sups and nutrition, and, yes, the beginners forum, then the next time you come back here, say in another 2 to 3 years, you won’t have to title your post ‘Am I Ready?’

Truth is, the minute I read that title, I knew exactly what was in store for me when I opened this thread. And I was not surprised.

No. You are not ready. Good luck.

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You have heard the opinions. General consensus here says you are not ready.

So what are you going to do? Are you going to run a cycle anyway or are you going listen t the good advice you have been given?

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Thanks guys so much for the helpful advice!It makes me realize how serois this whole thing can be!!

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[quote]Jazz_Man1898 wrote:

But I would think that 4 years of even moderatly hard work would give the average person a more muscular body than I have! This is the very reason why im thinking of doing a cycle.

Be it bad genetics or whatever, I simply just dont gain a lot of muscle mass and I gain and retain fat very easily, although I have made some decent stregnth gains. Ive done heavy cardio workouts for months at a time. Sure, I lost some weight, but it would always come back in less than half the time it took me to loose it!

So what steroids/cycles would you suggest for cutting and getting lean muscular shape?[/quote]

I’m not sure where to start with you bud. But the simple answer to your question regarding you are “ready” for a cycle is NO. Not in my opinion anyway.

Reading the reply you left regarding your training history (see above quote), it seems to me that you must not have a handle on either your diet or training, or potentially both. You probably do work very hard, a lot of people do and it doesn’t show. If that’s the case, I commend your effort, it’s just a matter of how you go about doing the work, i.e. heavy cardio for months at a time.

Your main enemy here is diet. I can tell that from your picture. You probably don’t eat as clean as you think you do. I’m not saying you slam sodas and eat ThickBurgers everyday, but you apparently don’t eat very clean. You might eat “healthy,” but that does not necessarily constitute “clean.” Hopefully you have checked through jake’s thread, with as much flaming as we gave him, we also gave him solid advice for changing his physique.

One thing that should stand out to you, that a lot of people forget about is the combination of fats and carbs in one meal. You need to avoid that, and you probably have not been. I’ve said it a million times before, diet is your best weapon. Keep your carbs in meals before mid afternoon and save your fats for after that. Just don’t combine them. Also, something else I am a big believer in is empty-stomach morning cardio. It doesn’t have to be hard, chances are that’d be impossible since you’re so weak from not eating for 8-10 hours, but it does need to be consistent. Start doing that every morning; it can be as simple as walking through your neighborhood for 30 minutes at a good pace right when you wake up.

A lot of people, yourself included sorry, think AAS will give them a powerhouse physique. They don’t. They put the finishing touches on what you have achieved through diet and training. I believe Bushy referred to the “superhuman nutrient partitioning” ability AAS can give you. That’s a formidable weapon for the individual who knows how to use it, but for an individual who doesn’t have a good grasp on what they’re doing, it could potentially fuck them.

Ultimately what I am trying to tell you is that you need to get your training and your diet on spot before you consider AAS. And I think you actually have a good start. You say you have worked hard for 4 years and claim your only real improvement was in strength gains. If you’re working that hard and not seeing results, then you’re probably not working how you should. If you want some help regarding your training and diet, then please PM me and I’ll be happy to help you out. Your best bet would be to check out jake’s thread and see the advice we gave him. While you don’t seem to be as out of shape as his pictures lead us to believe, you’re quite similar in that you apparently don’t have a good grasp on your training or nutrition. Check it out and you’ll definitely learn something.

But…

If you’re just hell bent on using AAS I guess I can accept that too. Assuming you feel the need that you must absolutely use AAS, please post up an exact cycle with your plans for PCT, any ancillary drugs, your compounds, and how you plan to change your diet and training to further complement AAS use…

One little tip too… since it’s your first cycle, if you absolutely must run it now, then run it with test only for 12 weeks at 500mg/wk followed by a stasis and taper…

Just my two cents, gents.

World

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Seriously guys, Thanks so much! I have not at this point made a solid determination in mind to use AAS. To be totally honest, I would much rather find a better way to to reach my fitness goals naturaly!

I dont want to paint the picture here that my diet and training are in flawless condition because they are not! I definately know that there is more that I could be doing in both! However, I do strongly believe that I have on numerous occasions put forth 100% effort in both!

Problem is, LIFE! With our ever changing society, its virtually imposible for the average person to have their training and diet in PERFECT order for extended periods of time! And, because of my genetics, I usually pay a big price when mine are not in order!

One thing I know to be true is what Cortes wrote, I really do need a gym partner! I workout 98% of the time by myself! The issue with that is my first choice for a workout partner is a person who has at least somewhat achieved what im trying to. Im sure you know that this is a task within itself, as most gyms are filled with people who have no true goals set! True story: there is a guy in the gym I workout at that has been bench pressing 185lbs for 2 years at least! He’s made no noticeable gains in strength or mass!

So am i going to do a cycle, well it all depends on wheather I can find a better way to accomplish my goals in a natural way! I will not, however, cycle until I believe I have obtained sufficient knowlege to do so in a safe and respectable manner! If i do decide to cycle in the future,near or distant, I will most likely stick to one compound for my first cycle (probably test cyp) for about 8-12 weeks and use Novaldex and Clomind for PCT.

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Hey Bro, there’s nsome great advice in here for you. World’s response just blew my mind, he must be in a good mood today!
Kidding…

Anyway, you do not unlike me have an issue with fat covering your frame. I posted awhile back in rate my physique section and was torched, badly. Everyone said I was fat.
I am 6’ 4 and weighed 228. I don’t have any overhang kind of fat and while clothed look very slim, but the body fat around my midsection just makes me smooth. So, I thought about it and decided yeah for a BB website, I probably am fat. How do I fix it so I can start bulking up like a mythical creature?

This is what I decided and exactly what I think you should do.

CUT FIRST! Drastically then think about AAS, if not sure keep cutting.

I used the Velocity Diet, this isn’t easy and won’t do much foryou unless you really stick to it.
My rendition was:

Get up in the AM, and on an empty stomach, walk/jog approx 30 minutes around the neighborhood. This helps so much and gives you new found energy all day long which will help keep you active compounding fat loss as the day goes on.

5 protein shakes per day spread out from morning to night. When I say protein shakes I prefer Pro Complex types with all the vitamins, BCAA’s, Glutamine, Peptides the whole nine yards. 55g Protein per serving.

2 Fish Oils in the morning & 2 at night.

2 Daily Vitamins in the AM

Do this with your regular workout for 30 days, if you can’t hack it for 30 days go atleast 2 weeks. I did it for 3 weeks and now am still dieting but more like
100 or less carbs per day all at breakfast, 375g protein per day, and all the salad, boar’s head, and chicken breasts and frozen broccoli I want staying within 2800-3000 calories per day.

I can’t eat fruit due to some whacked out oral allergy syndrom I have developed over the last two years it cause anaphylaxis which doesn’t rock by the way.

So no fruit actually helps cut carbs, but I sneak in a piece every now and again as citrus isn’t too bad, and just keep my Epipen handy.

But anyway… give it a shout and let me know how it works for you, I dropped from 228 to 213 in about 4 weeks now. And you can see in my profile pics I am stoked to actually start to see some abs poking their heads out.

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Thanks for the great advice randizo! That sounds like a great plan for me being that I if I do decide to cycle, I cycle for at least another month!

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Would anyone else like to comment?

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Yes, I would like to comment. You are not ready, for many reasons which I will outline for you… Firstly, for four years of training you should almost definetly be stronger. How tall are you? Secondly, I would venture to say World is spot on with regards to your diet and training. Nutrition is EASILY more than 50% of your gains/progress. Once you have your nutrition in line and know how to properly eat towards your goals, training is where your ‘natural limit’ will be reached/show.

I could be wrong, but your strength should be a lot greater. You have an ‘alright’ bench press, a ‘decent’ squat, and sadly a pitiful deadlift. Had any back injuries? I would venture to say your training needs some major research and reworking put into it. So, basically, if you do a cycle at any time in the next 3-18 months you will pretty much be wasting your time, money and health. I say this because AAS works best when you have developed a reasonable amount of muscle tissue as to better respond to the steroids. So, good luck, stick in the gym, and I look forward to seeing what direction you go :slight_smile:

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I respect all the comments that you guys are giving. Its hard however, to make a careful decision when ive gotten so many conflicting opinions!!!

I sure as no suprise to you, Ive gotten the total opposite end of the spectrum also! One conflicting opinion that sticks out is that I was told that “it really doesnt matter how much mass youve gained, as long as you can carefully put a cycle together and gear your nutrition and training around that cycle, you will make tremendous gains all while dropping bf% drastically, especially on your first cycle!”

This of course was said under the premise that I had a few years of experience under my belt in the gym. I was also shown before and after pictures of guys who were in MUCH worse shape than me before they started and 8 weeks later they looked like fitness models!!! So how do you explain that?

Now to answer muscle meathead’s questions, I am 5 11. No I have not had any back injuries, however as I mentioned earlier, I dont have a workout partner so I usually stick to 80-90% of my max on the bench, squats, and deadlifts but still make gradual increases!

Now I will say that i have gotten some great advise from all of you and I will be sure to apply it as much as possible. So my next question is, if i get my training and diet in perfect condition and make some decent progress, will I be ready for a cycle in say 6-8 weeks? And what are some things that I definately need to be doing in that time frame to prepare for my cycle?

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I am of the belief if you change your training and diet appropriately, you will be “ready” at some point in the relatively near future.

Just because you would be “ready” does not mean you should do it though…

However, if you’re hellbent on doing a cycle, it will give you a goal.

World.

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Bro,
U want to get to, and passed your full potential before thinking about this crazy shit. Its essentially messing with your hormones which is really not something you want to be doing unless ur are ready. My opinion judging from the pic and ur posts is, clean up the diet ie. no more chips with lunch, just the basic food groups… lots of chicken breast and lean protien sources…nuts are a good snack food b/c of the quality fats they contain, fish 2-3 time/wk b/c of mercury and omega 3…fruit for bfast and lunch not after lunch. veggies of all shapes and colors. whole grains noooo white bread. low fat dairy ect… and try cardio 3-4 times/wk… i reccomend swimming as its involves all parts of the body…lifts should vary in rep/set numbers…good idea sticking with cmpd movements…remember that good form is key and the decending of the weight is equally important as the lift motion itself…squats and deads are key… try and picture ur body as a tree, legs are the roots, core is the trunk, and arms are the branches…good luck buddy…

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Thanks B101 for the advice! It will not be taken lightly!!!

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Hey man, It’s been a while since I have been on here. Was wondering if you still are? Site has changed and I’m not sure how to private message you. Looking to get in touch with one of our mutual friends. Give me a shout…

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Any update on this old thread. Since its been revived. Did you cycle? Has your physique improved?

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I’d be interested to see how you look now, 12 years on…

SB

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