Again…Great comment. Have a reached my limit as far as muscular gains go? Should I just accept this as the best I can do? Is this what being an intermediate lifter means at damn near 50yrs old?
I tend to agree with the whole bulking thing. Sure I can gain a little more muscle/fat on a calorie surplus. But, I feel like it’s mostly fat. I do get stronger in the winter, Yes. Then when spring rolls around I lose all the winter gains while dieting down. So. this year I’m trying a different approach.
Trying to lean gain, or try to implement a few mini cuts along the way.
If it only yields a few pounds over last year? I’m cool with that.
Verses chasing a bulking goal on the scale just for the sake up making the scale go up. Then losing the gains on my cut.
As far as hormones go? You are correct in saying that If I were to try to chase some better numbers though TRT. It probably wouldn’t make a huge difference anyway. I also would not gain much of anything doing a cycle either as I probably would not have a great enough natural testosterone base to keep/maintain any noticeable gains. Not to mention the health risks along the way. I did get confirmation of my Endo visit today. It’s the first week in Nov. maybe that will hopefully shed some light on the matter.
Thanks for the response! I appreciate it.
I am just going off of your stats in your first post and your avatar picture. But, what I am seeing is someone who is very lean (especially for 49), and has pretty good muscle development. You could post some more pictures for others to evaluate, as well as how long you’ve trained, what you do in training, diet, etc… That would give a better picture, but at the same time, I don’t think you are going to gain another 20 lbs of lean tissue at this point without cycle levels of hormones for a long duration. That would basically be renting the muscle, as it will go away unless you keep using (by that I mean you will have to either perma blast, or blast frequently enough that your gains don’t go away completely before the next blast).
I’ll start my 4th yr. of training this coming Jan.
Workouts are usually pretty challenging mostly CT’s and John Meadows ( hypertrophy based) as well as my own.
Diet has been pretty damn clean on either a bulk or a cut.
49yrs old natural.
Questions and comments are welcome.
You look fantastic for any age TBH. Very lean.
Do you think any of your symptoms are due to under recovery from training? That I think is a possibility. Could also be issues with being lean, but I am not sure you’re so lean that you’d be getting stuff like brain fog from it (that usually occurs at shredded levels, and by that I mean about to step on stage levels).
If I saw you at my gym, I’d assume you were on TRT or using gear. I doubt you’d have the physique you have if you had low T. When I say low T, I don’t really mean slightly low. I mean true hypogonadal. Like 100 ng/dL total.
IMO, TRT is going to come down to a personal choice. You will likely see some benefits from it, but it will be marginal compared to someone severely hypogonadal. Maybe I am wrong. From your physique improvement would be adding a lot of lean mass, which I doubt TRT (even higher TRT) will get you. I’d think you could maybe add 3-5 lbs of lean tissue (most of that would be losing less while cutting).
You might even get a bit of symptom relief, but I think most will agree with me that it is exaggerated because of various reasons. Ever see a neugenics commercial? They make it seem like a Test booster will have 60 year old guys feeling like they are teens. That would be an exaggeration even if we were talking about taking 500 mg/wk of real testosterone.
I usually don’t recommend a trial, but if you’re on the fence about it, you could try just that. It would be more of a TRT cycle. Use a dose that would be a bit high for TRT, do that for 4 months and see if it’s worth the squeeze for you (we don’t all respond the same).
To be honest. I’d love to try out some pharma help. But also, to be honest. I think I might be chicken shit to do so.
Ya, Those neugenics commercials and stuff like that is what got me started thinking about my symptoms in the first place.
As far as under recovery goes. I’ve been hitting it hard for a few years now. You’d think I would get used to it by now. but, yes that could very well be the cause of my symptoms. Good catch!
Eventually, it’s going catch up to you if it hasn’t already.
About how many pounds of muscle do you think you’ve gained?
Probably not and never, respectively.
You look great and I wouldn’t have guessed natty considering leanness. Only critique I have is that you appear to be lacking thickness from the side, but I only have so many camera angles.
Do you train to failure? Ever ran Fortitude Training or some other HIT program?
What’s your protein intake?
Have you done any proper bulk/cut cycles or have you always been this lean?
Most importantly:
Are you okay with remaining on TRT for the rest of your life if you start? Younger dudes run the risk of being dependent for a long time, but are more likely to recover (subjective). Older dudes still have the risk of being TRT dependent for life, but for maybe 30 years vs 60; however the likelihood of natural test recovery is going to be worse.
I made the jump to TRT at 27 years old when I tested TT 329 and fT 7 while eating properly and all that. For me, I felt a good bit better on TRT and it was definitely a quality of life improvement.
So, CNC fatigue/overtraining/skinny bastard equals low T symptoms?
That could very well be.
Ive often wondered that. I wouldn’t have any idea how to figure that one out. Ideas?
Thanks for the compliment! I have to say that im truly humbled by the feedback and the level knowledge im getting from the guys here.
As far as my training goes. I lift EOD John meadows programs. So, failure training is a big yes. Fortitude training i have never tried. Mostly CT’s bodybuilding programs from Thib Army and John meadows stuff. Its been a grind for sure.
Nutrition has been obsessive getting 1.4-1.5 grams of protein daily heavy carb surplus on training days and more fats at maintenance levels on off/ cardio days.
Im always trying to think one step ahead about training and nutrition. Meal prepping as we speak.
Have i always been this lean? No.
I usually gain 20-25 pounds eating clean over the course of the fall/ winter and start a 12wk or so cut around March. Only the last 2 yrs have netted me virtually nothing in term of scale weight.
Body composition? Yes.
Scale weight? Not so much
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If you’re looking for reasons to get on TRT, I’d say there’s nothing holding you back from trying.
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- Your diet and training look great, and the only way to get bigger is to train harder - so solving your low T symptoms would require you to sacrifice that which you’ve worked too hard to give up. In my books - this is all good justification to go for it.
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If you’re looking for reasons not to get on TRT, then your T levels look pretty solid, as does your physique.
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- I would give Fortitude Training a go (whether going on TRT or not). Meadows is great, but often higher volume than what I see a lot of really big guys train like. A lot of guys with joint issues (read: older, no offense) seem to enjoy this as well so you may find some relief there, if that is an issue for you.
Anyways, if you decide to get on TRT, speak with your doc about HCG alongside it. I recommend starting solo test, likely around 125-150mg/wk to get dialed in (many guys will go 200mg and be just fine, you may or may not be one of them). Once dialed in, get HCG going so your balls are shut down for as short a time as possible - this will also take some calibration to manage symptoms of estrogen.
If you end up feeling great on just TRT and don’t want to add anything else (HCG), you certainly don’t have to. If you’re not sold on TRT, using HCG can keep things moving so you don’t have to attempt restarting your balls in your 50’s.
Well if you gained 30 or so pounds of muscle at middle age that’s impressive. You look very good for your age, but appear medium framed. So you might have achieved what you can naturally.
Your T levels show no hypogonadism. Did you get LH and FSH checked?
Great advice. I always hear you guys talk about Fortitude training but never gave it a try. As a nurotype 2B Ive always gravitated to high volume work.
It seems like the more a talk it out along side my test numbers TRT seems like it may be out of reach. I have an Endo appointment coming up in Nov. So, until then…
Brick, FSH number was 5.1
Completely unsure of what ive built so far.
I used to be about 210lbs. Not real muscular.
So, its hard for me to quantify how much muscle ive actually gained.
You actually need some body fat, being too lean for too long will have consequences! There’s this women at our gym, one look at her and you can tell she’s overtraining.
She looks almost anorexic, very low body fat, too low in my opinion. When I look at your abs and chest, you look like a guy that’s cutting.
I’m completely guessing but, I figured about 9-10% bodyfat in my pics. I’m probably 2-3 pounds heavier and climbing at the moment. By my Endo appointment in Nov. I should be 2-3 pounds heavier than I am now. Which would put me right around the 180 mark.