Hello Coach-
I have been cycling between the Best Damn Workout for Natural Lifters 1 & 2 and I really like the programming. My main goal at my age (48) is fat loss and I may be near my genetic potential in terms of muscle mass. I recently started TRT and I was wondering if this workout was still appropriate for me since I am not necessarily natural anymore? Also, thank you for sharing these workouts. They have been great.
If it works for a natural then it certainly does when enhanced. The pitfall of some enhanced people is that they think that now they can get away with everything so they just do crazy shit
On proper TRT, your Test levels are within natural levels, as opposed to running a steroid cycle that would have you at supraphysiological Test levels. Thib has addressed this previously:
Thank you. Appreciate the feedback.
CC is correct. TRUE TRT simply brings someone with low testosterone levels to the normal range. Hence he is in the same situation as a normal natural man.
But true TRT is around 70mg per week, normally via 10mg subcutaneous (John Crisler protocol). Not the 200mg/week (or more) we often see.
I wrote an article on that topic, hopefully it will be up soon.
But essentially doctors wrongfully administer 200mg/week of testosterone. Regardless of your starting point this will take any man to around 2-3x (depending on the ester being used) the normal level.
From my upcoming article.
Some doctors erroneously prescribe doses that are high because they measure blood levels of testosterone to see if the dose they are placing the patient on brings blood testosterone to the right levels.
The problem is that depending on when you measure blood levels, the results can show low testosterone levels despite a fairly high dose.
Testosterone cypionate and enanthate, the most commonly used versions of testosterone in TRT have a release time of around 10 days. Hence the original bi-weekly injections.
It is often believed that the absorption is gradual and linear, meaning that the body will cleave off enough of the ester to free 1/10th of the bolus dose per day and that levels stay somewhat elevated for 12 days or so.
First understand that 200mg of testosterone cypionate is not 200mg of testosterone. It’s actually 140mg of testosterone and 60mg of cypionate ester. So, you only have 140mg of testosterone to release once you cleave off the ester.
In theory 200mg of test cypionate would thus release around 10-14mg of testosterone per day. Still above “normal levels”, but acceptable.
But here is the thing: testosterone cypionate is indeed released over 8-10 days. But there is a very fast absorption during the first 4 days, then it tails off.
If they measure blood testosterone from four days after the injection, they will likely get a low reading.
Even more so if they test on days 8, 9 or 10, in which case it will barely be higher than the patient’s starting number.
The doctor will then increase the dose. That’s why some doctors end up prescribing 200mg per week, or more. Even if you increase the dose quite a bit, if you measure the bloods at day 7-10 (or even later) post injection you can still get a low reading!
The problem is not in the dose, it’s with the frequency of injections for the selected type of testosterone.
Thank you for the response. So 10mg daily of test c sub q is a better protocol or would it be a bit higher due to the cypionate ester? I look forward to the article and thanks again for taking the time to respond.
I’m not an expert, but I’ve seen people use the cypionate ester sub-q. If you look at the graph there is a rapid increase in 1 day
