I am into my 5th day of my first ever two-week MAG-10 cycle. I started at a weight of 187 at about 13% bodyfat. After the first day my weight was 190. I am pretty sure all of this is becasue of the loads of chicken, hamburger, and oatmeal in my belly. The following 3 days I was steady at a weight of 189. So it seems I have not gained any muscle weight (or fat) in this period. I realize I am only in the 5th day but I have seen estimates from others of a gain of 1 pound per day. Is this literally 1 pound per day every day or does it take a while to notice the effect? I am averaging 4,400 calories per day and 350 grams of protein. I am lifting EDT style. Should I up the calories even more? If I am doing something wrong I want to change now and salvage the rest of the two week period. Thanks in advance for any advice.
In my experience, when a person says they eating that much, training hard and taking an androgen, yet nothing is happening, there’re screwing up somewhere. That said, did you frontload? Are you keeping a food log? Are you sleeping enough? What methods of measurments are you using? (You used the word “seems” which is a bad sign.) Did you come into the program overtrained? What’s your previous experience like? Are you a newbie or do you have 20 years of experience? How much MAG-10 are you taking? Finally, if you are doing everything right, just keep it up. You’re surely get 5-7 pounds out of it by the end.
To answer TEK’s questions:
I did not frontload. I am taking 1 dose (9 ml) of MAG-10 per day first thing in the morning. I do keep a food log and I am positive that my calories and protein numbers are correct. I have been sleeping about 7 hours per night. This is the most I can get right now. I measure my weight on the same scale every day and use calipers for bodyfat measurements. I used the word “seems” because I did have a weight increase but it occurred the first day and I think it was just from having such a full stomach. I changed from about a 2200 calore per day diet before starting MAG-10. I do not think I am overtrained. I just got back from a 2 week vacation where I trained the best I could with dumbells only for short workouts. I am not new to lifting but did have a long layoff that ended about 8 months ago which was due to some injuries resulting in two hernia operations (not related to training as far as I know). Am I doing anything wrong?
Ordinarily, whether with MAG-10 or a good androgen cycle, there’s an immediate weight gain of about three pounds (give or take) such as you had. It’s not unusual for the first two or three days after that to seem to be doing nothing further, but by about the fifth day further result ought to be clear. So I would certainly look to see if everything is as it should be.
I have no knowledge of whether EDT is a particularly good way to go for a brief androgen cycle. I don’t see why not though. Overtraining probably shouldn’t be an issue unless you aren’t getting enough sleep (how many sets are you doing? Less than 120 a week?)
It may be that you’d do better with more total protein (400 or a little more), less chicken and beef, and more of a quality protein powder. It could be that you’re not assimilating as much protein as you would from a good supplement product. Also, in how many meals are you taking this? It’s far better to get for example 400 grams of protein in 7-8 meals (including shakes) of 50-60 grams each than three meals of 130-140
grams protein each!
Also, did you frontload with two doses on the first day? If this isn’t done then the first few days tend to be disappointing as levels will take time to build up, instead of immediately being brought up with the frontload.
Thanks for the response! A feel a bit better after reading your reply about the initial gain. I have further information in a response to TEK above. Also, since I am training EDT II style, I am doing a fairly high number of sets. About 7 sets per exercise in each of 3 15 minute time periods. I do eat 6 - 8 meals per day and the protein spread out among these meals. 2 of them have been from protein shakes with the others being mostly beef, chicken, and cottage cheese. I did not frontload which I see was a mistake. Would it help to take an extra dose today or just make sure to do this in my next two-week cycle?
Ok, I don’t want to be the one to bust anyone’s bubble but we need to look at some numbers. Folks are expecting to gain POUNDS of muscle in just a few days. Guys, this just isn’t going to happen. The first couple of pounds you make on many anabolics is just a combination of water retention and stuffing your bowls with more food (and water) then they normally are carrying. Next, if you make a 60/40 ratio of muscle for fat on your weight gain you aren’t doing too badly. Do the math… The ‘average person’ is about 2/5ths muscle weight. Certainly, it is a lot higher for those who play the iron game, but lets keep perspective, if we could gain 10 pounds of actual muscle mass a week that a person would be 170 pounds heavier in just 4 months ‘ON’. Then you would have to add the blood, support structures etc etc, so in a quick 16 week program you would be a national competitor. My honest opinion is… if you can manage a pound (maybe a bit more depending on size and training level) a week on a reasonable diet (ie not putting on lots of fat) you are doing pretty damn well. The anabolics help, they aren’t some magic instant fix.
I would only use EDT if you’re using a good slow negative - which I think is important when “on”. Most who use EDT do not. Also, follow the directions next time and frontload if you want the fast gains.
Durllwyd, I have to disagree: on a good androgen cycle LBM gains of a pound per day can occur for relatively brief periods. There is nothing unreasonable about gaining 10 lb LBM in a single 2 week MAG-10 cycle. I’m not referring to water or fat weight. Also the idea of ratio of fat to muscle gain has to be thrown out when on a good androgen cycle. This 10 lb can be gained while gaining no more than one or two pounds of fat or even in some cases not any at all.
Steve, at this point levels have had time to build up to very close to the steady state, so either you don’t need an extra dose to compensate for having skipped the frontloading, or to be very precise you would need a small amount like about 1/3 dose. Now that levels have built up you should start getting some nice results 
Hey Bill,
I have to say I am more then leery about taking issue with you on any training subject. But, just to keep the discussion honest… you said that expectations weren’t that far out of reasonable. But you did put in two caveats. The first being you mentioned 10 pounds for a two week (14 day) cycle, which is still a good bit less then a pound a day, but more importantly you gave the caveat of “relatively brief periods”. Perhaps it would be fair to elaborate on that and say it depends on where the person is in their training cycle. If you are near a personal peak, I find it much harder to build. However, if you are on a rebound I have to agree the pound a day figure becomes closer to practical. I also have to concede that the muscle to fat gain ratio was off for a good anabolic. But even considering a good anabolic an 80/20 ratio seems pretty close to the limit. Do you really think someone can gain 10 pounds (LBM) in 14 days while eating a diet that doesn’t put on less than 2 pounds of adipose? That would be a pretty tight energy balance. I will take you at your word that it is doable, it is just outside of my experience is all.
Respectfully
I would not worry about your gains right now. If by the 7th day you are not seeing anything than I would start to worry. Some people see great results the first week and none the second, and the other way around. I slapped on five pounds the first week, but nothing really the second week. Like a pound or two. Although the second week I had the greatest workouts of my life. Results vary.
I have a question regarding calorie intake when on mag-10. Just to let you know i have already read the mag-10 support groups that are on the forum and didn’t find what i wanted so bear with me. I am starting my first ever cycle on monday and i know that you are supposed to take 400 protein and 500 carbs which by themselves adds to about 3600 kcal. I weigh about 140 at about 11.5% bf and based on my numbers (using the formula in the origianl growth surge phase II article) my kcal intake would be around 4400. Should i just get the remaining 700 kcal from fats (around 85 g) or get more fat and knock down the carbs and protein a bit. Any advice from others would be great, i really want to make the most out of this cycle as i will be starting back to school in about 6 weeks and might not get another chance to do this for a while.
That amount can often be gained by someone already at his best as a non-androgen-using trainer on using androgens; or someone who has used androgens and has dropped from his peak but may still be somewhat (e.g. 10 lb) above what he could have attained naturally. Clearly one doesn’t gain 1 lb per day LBM for sixty days straight or anything remotely like that, nor if one has already gained say 30 lb LBM from androgen use is there usually a great deal more to be had from androgens alone – exception being is that if androgens were started while there were still considerable natural gains to be had or perhaps unusual individual circumstances.
I think it’s accurate what I said that fat gain need not be more than one pound per week and preferably 1/2 pound per week when gaining muscle at a maximal rate. Faster fat gain than this I think doesn’t come along with commensurately faster muscle gain once the necessity to lose the fat later is taken into account.
Just an update… When I weighed myself today I was up to 193. So Bill was right on with all his comments. I had an initial immediate gain. Then a few days of nothing I noticed, and now a big gain. Next time I will make sure to frontload with 2 doses on day 1.
Glad to hear it, Steve!
Pschlick, no, there’s no need to take in
more fat to get calories up. Fat is preferably
fairly minimal (it’s good but not vital over short periods to get good amounts of EFA’s and DHA/EPA though) and for any given amount of calories, the best results are with enough protein and then the great majority of the rest in carbs. However, this doesn’t mean one has to be anal: having an isocaloric meal (equal calories protein, fat, and carbs) here and there is OK. For example some protein shake with some Hungry Howie’s (but NOT Pizza Hut and absolutely not Pizza Inn) pizza.
Different authors are going to have different opinions and that’s fine. Depending on your individual metabolism, at your bodyweight 4400 calories could be more than necessary. If you know your maintenance calories quite accurately and this is no more than 1000 above your maintenance, it could be fine, or if you know you’re someone who can eat like a pig and not get fat then it’s fine or could even be short for you, but on average at your size I’d think 3500 calories, 350 g protein, and 400 g carbs would be about right. Assuming you think your metabolism is pretty average and you don’t have the maintenance calories figure to help figure things, I’d start with that and only go up if gains seem inadequate at the 5 day point.
I think it is very important to differentiate muscle from lean body mass. Although we use the terms interchangeably, this can lead to serious misunderstandings.
The 3 main components of LBM are water, mineral, and protein. It is assumed that everybody's LBM is 73.8% water, 19.4% protein, and 6.8% mineral.
Ok, the assumption will vary a little bit, but the water is easy to gain, you'll pull the minerals from food and the only thing you actually have to synthesize is protein. So, if we assume that protein accounts for about 20% of the increased lean body mass, a 10lb gain in lean body mass will actually only require a synthesis of 2lb of new protein. During an androgen cycle where above adequate protein intake and a serious training stimulus is provided, 2 lbs of protein should be fairly easy to synthesize.
Jason, at first that had me going “hmmm,” as it sounded kind of low, but on further thought it does seem to square with what I’d figured before, just put in a different way.
I’d figured that each pound of muscle gained probably has about 90 grams of new protein (basing this estimate on protein content of
muscle from cattle, namely beef, as that’s what I had handy.) So 10 pounds of muscle on that estimation would be 900 g of new protein,
which is 1.98 lb, basically identical to your figure.
I’m glad your calcs jive with mine. Suprisingly, the proportions of lean body mass are fairly similar among many animals, so using beef was a very reasonable thing to do.
So should i just throw the massive eating calculations out the window and go with about 3500 calories a day? Also i was wondering about the GSP training. I think i can do 2 a day workouts everyday but saturdays, whould it be a bad idea to do 2 a days on all the other days and then just combine the 2 workouts into one on saturday?
Start with the 3500-4000 calories. Make sure you always get in 3500 and then go from there. If you are gaining about or slightly less than a lb of LBM a day, you won’t need to raise cals, but if you are not gaining enough weight (especially if you are using 2 a days a la GSP which really uses a lot of energy), then increase your total cals from carbs and protein. Make sure to get in a little good fat. Some mixed nuts and a Tablespoon of flax oil should suffice. Some fish oil would also be optimal. Shoot for 6-10g combined EPA/DHA.