First Cycle at 18 (19 Soon)

Pharma
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This is a long reed I would appreciate if you guys can help me. Football always been my passion and I started working really hard at a young age to get somewhere with it. I learned about training and diet at 16 and started to put to use and made some good gains to play on game days. Unfortunately I missed my junior season due to injury but i got back up for next year and worked harder.

I got the idea of taking roids with some teammates using but i was like I can’t risk my health for rest of my life for football. I ended up training hard naturally and made great progress again but got kicked off the team for behavior issues and couldn’t move schools and ended up not playing and now another year has passed and im about to go to college.

I continued to train this year and my stats right now are 5’10 187 12% bodyfat and i bench 305 and squat 455 not sure about deadlift. I get asked if i play college ball frequently which is kinda disappointing knowing how hard i worked. I was thinking about focusing on grades and transferring to a better school my first year but I’m starting to think about also training really hard this year and end up walking on after.

I was thinking about test cycle to help me add on some lean muscle and help me get a bit faster. I know the dangers but i be running a pct and i have came across threads on here after researching about how people lie to teenagers because they are unresponsible. I agree with that fact with seeing others around me doing messed up cycles and ended up on trt while having no knowledge on nutrition or training. 

  I think I will give football another shot no matter if i do cycle or not but if this can be done with minimal risk the motivation that it would give me to reach my dream as a kid would be unexplainable.
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Coming from my 19 year old self, it’s not worth it. First off you’re probably not gonna run HCG (my first mistake). Another thing is that you’re going to need to balance your horomones on cycle ie. test aromatizes into estrogen, you’ll need an AI to combat this. It’s a complete guessing game without bloodwork. You will make considerable gains but in the end your going to lose some when you come off, and your pct needs to be well planned out. I’m currently on the first week of my pct and the sides are not worth it (low libido, ED). You also run the risk of losing your hair. My hair started falling out and although slowing down now it still does. I think its noticably thinner but it could be paranoia… Basically what im trying to say is DONT do it. It’s not worth it at this age. Don’t follow in my footsteps. Train hard, naturally and up your protein and you’ll make gains just as fast. I hope you really think this through because im telling you its not worth it.

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Focus on your grades and your relationships that you make at college. You can always train harder, eat better, and still not be happy with yourself because you didn’t get to play ball for as long as you wanted. That disappointment will fade eventually if you make your life about about your future instead of trying to relive the glory days of the past. You have the most valuable thing in the world on your side: time. Do you know what I’d do to have the years ahead of me that you have? You have decades to create the body and the strength that you want. Don’t go fucking them up because you’d rather live with your eyes on the rear view mirror.

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Just do a program like this and can make crazy gains at your age, no gear needed…

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Dont do it, concentrate on school and your “behavior issues”. Your too young and you have progressed really well. You need to think about your plan, harsh to say but are you good enough to make it to the NFL? Passionate is one thing but a 4”11 passionate chinese person isnt going to the NBA.
Edit: join the army i did it for “behaviour issues” and it straighted me right up

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People are really mistaken about how mad are the gains you can make naturally. Just train hard eat clean and rest properly . Patience and consistency will get you there. When you get at least 80% of the gains you can get naturally ( 5 years or more of proper training)then you can think about a cycle and it’s still not worth it .

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Just curious as to why it’s “still not worth it”?

Sense you dug up a 11 month old thread (which wasn’t worth it) I figured I’d ask for your reasoning for the above statement.

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I think that using gear should be for people who want to compete. Some of them have crazy genetics , use gear , dedicate their lives for this sport and still can’t reach where they want or even live of it . How can you explain cutting for 12 weeks or more for being judged for 10 minutes on stage , and if you win you’ll get 5k$ or some bs for the smaller shows . What I’ve said leads to say that i think it’s even less worth it to take gear to flex at school , ig or on the beach ( I’ve tried to do it as you may know) . Doing permanent damage to your health eventually just to look good in the mirror for a certain amount of time is irrational. Being on gear is a trend nowadays and we should probably start leaning towards natural bodybuilding and for people who still wish to take that path i wish them all the best and thats about it .

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First let me say I respect this opinion. I don’t agree with it but I respect it.

This kind of goes against what you just said. I agree with this i think its stupid and would never put my body thru that but if you think that gear should only be used to body building I’m suprised that you also think body building is dumb.

There is a major difference In how body builders use gear and how recreational gym users use gear. Steroids if used responsibly and by educated people are relatively safe and harm free. I would argue someone who drinks everybl weekend is doing more harm to thier body then they guy who runs a cycle every year responsibly. And of someone is using gear for the sole purpose to impress the next person that’s absolutely ridiculous.

I think steroids if used properly and for the right reasons can greatly improve the quality of someone’s life. I don’t use gear so I can flex at the beach. Sure that comes along with it but it’s not why I use. I use for me and only me anything else is a added benefit I guess.

Not sure I would call it a trend but let’s go with thag for now. It’s a trend because of people who don’t use constantly make these accusations that people on steroids are fake, We have fake muscles, we are lazy and don’t want to work for our muscles so we use steroids sit on our ass and grow muscles while watching dead lift videos and old rich piana shows.

This leads people to believe all they have to do is use steroids and they will look amazing. When in all honesty I work my ass off in the gym. I train more and harder then my buddies who are natural. I blame the slander from the uneducated naturals on the reason for steroids becoming a “trend”. Me and my buddies who juice would never promote the use of steroids to some kid who “wants to get big and flex at the beach” and iv never seen anyone hear on T Nation suggest the use of steroids to uneducated people or give the idea that if they use steroids they will look great. Actually it’s the complete opposite. So if they aren’t getting these false ideas from us they must be getting it from somewhere.

Its really sad I never see people who juice talk bad about naturals but for some reason they can’t seem to get over us. Maybe if they let the lies and hype die down there would be less people jumping on gear recklessly fucking themselves up at a young age.

END RANT

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I’d like to chime in here.

This is debatable, while I’m fairly sure you’re talking about consuming alcohol to the point of intoxication, someone who consumes a pint or two on the weekend but lives an otherwise healthy lifestyle is very likely less detrimental to overall health status then using supra physiologic doses of AAS. However there are important factors to consider

What is deemed a “cycle”?

Are we talking about traditional “bodybuilding” cycles (eg 250mg test, 400mg mast 50mg anavar/ 300mg test 200mg deca 20mg dbol) or “unreal24278” cycles like 250mg test/ under 300mg cumulative total hormones per wk (in esterified nature, every 10mg/day of oral is 100mg equiv esterified hormone)

In the first instance I’d argue getting drunk every week is slightly worse (presuming the individual lives an otherwise healthy lifestyle besides excess drinking on the weekends), however when comparing having a drink or two over the weekend to bodybuilding style cycles, one cannot compare, the potential long term deleterious effects of anabolic steroid use is worse, hands down.

Secondly the duration of the cycles matter

Some people stay on for 30 weeks at a time, take a short break then go right back on, others just do 1-2 cycles/yr. I use very low doses, the difference between my “on” and “off” dose is less than 100mg, therefore in my case the amount of time (besides diminishing returns) I stay on isn’t particularly important.

I personally don’t drink, used to drink when going out infrequently (even though I knew of the myriad of deleterious effects drinking would cause in the long run) as binge drinking is an EXTREMELY common and accepted practice here in Aus, however after reconsideration about two months ago I’ve cut alcohol out entirely as there I see no benefit to drinking. Not relevant but If I’m going to use an intoxicant on the pretences of livening up a night, bonding with peers or lowering inhibition I’d much rather prefer to use marijuana. While lettuce isn’t good for you either, the effects (acute) are somewhat milder than that of alcohol, and long term (generally) aren’t as severe as that of alcohol. The older generation appears to have a strained and/or inaccurate representation of the substance due to decades of prohibition and nonsense propaganda drilled in. The same can be said about the general publics current stance/opinion on anabolic steroids. Decades of prohibition, propaganda and lack of education has created a belief that anabolic steroids are among some of the most dangerous, addictive and hardcore drugs one can use (doesn’t help that needles are involved, which to the public eye would create the image of people shooting up).

Debatable, while I too don’t agree with this ideology as the sole purpose to use anabolic steroids, many will start cycling to improve sex appeal, look good at the beach/ at events etc (all relating to the increased chance of acquiring a sexual partner). I’d be lying if I said the idea of me being insanely muscular didn’t tempt me to try higher doses, looking good increases confidence, increased confidence leads to increased social interaction, potentially job opportunities, sexual partners etc, it just improves ones life as a whole.

The realistic ideology would be to say “hey, you don’t need steroids or extreme strength and muscularity to be confident, work on the root cause of what’s causing you’re insecurity and fix that without long term detriment to you’re health”. But then again you think (and this is totally you not me) “I’m 5’4, people give me a ton of shit for my height, if I can’t be normal or tall and I’m always in pain I might as well be hyooooge because I simply like the look”. #healthymentalstaterighthere.

Lets not kid ourselves, a lot of recreationally using AAS is vanity driven, if not for sexual partners (as the end goal), it’s for increased confidence or (like me) because you want to compete (but know you can’t due to chronic pain) and because you simply like the look of being very muscular (once again like me)

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