I will soon be coming off my cycle of about 10 weeks and am looking to ease up on the heavy weight for about a month. Reason being my joints hurt like hell and need to give my system a break. I will still be training 4-5 days a week and adding some cardio for at least (3) of those days.
I am going to take a couple months off from the gear before hitting a cutting cycle.
What do you guys think? Any suggestions to add?
What did your stack look like? Did you include anything to enhance collagen synthesis? (EQ/Primo/Anavar/Deca)
I wouldn’t take a whole month off heavy weights, unless your maximal strength isn’t a big deal to you. (Or you need that much time for your joints.)
There isn’t really much to say I guess, other than next time try and run a joint friendly stack and don’t let things get to the point where your joints are killing you. Incorporate dynamic effort days to break from the heavy days, or just rest during the cycle.
I back off when I start to hurt, and as a consequence, I don’t have any nagging injuries to work around.
My stack was(is) sus250/tren/dbol.
Was going to run some EQ with it earlier in the game but funds were limited at the time and my source got busted.
Elbows and shoulders are the main problem. I wake up in the middle of the night and my elbow joints are on fire. Shoulders hurt so bad I can’t go past 120# db’s on my incline bench. The weight isn’t maximal but the pain is too much to try to do any more poundage. Can’t go over 100# db’s for shoulder presses either. I feel like I am wasting some strength due to these bad joints.
Post cycle is when you want to be training heavier, not lighter. Removing the 2 main stimuli for large muscles (androgens and heavy load) simultaneously is a recipe for some serious shrinkage IMO. If you’ve still got some time left on your cycle, I would drop the weights down a little (not too much) and do extra reps and extra sets. Throw in something like deca, dbol or anadrol to put some water in your joints, possibly even extending the cycle if you can. Then come off, but continue lifting heavier than when you were on (even if only slightly). It will be hard. Don’t bother with the cardio - it won’t do anything much for muscle retention - and eat a slightly hypercaloric diet. Don’t stop lifting heavy until your natural test has stabilised.
I agree with debo
And start taking a joint support formula including glucosamine, chondroitin, and methonosulfomethane.
And take your flax and fish oils.
That’s all I can think of!
Your the guy who posted the pics of the bent over pulls on the photo forum right? well about the sore joints - no offence but you got what you asked for - you see in another thread before your cycle I warned you not to push the heavy weights - to give you body a chance to rest - you obviously didn’t take my advice. But heres some more advice, maybe if your smarter this time you’ll heed it:
Staying away from over doing it with the heavy weights is the best idea- this isn’t your specialty anyway - no offence but I weigh more than 50lbs less than you and all my lifts are way heavier than yours. I think your best goal now should be weight loss. If you can loose 50lbs of that excess weight your carrying it will be much healthier on your body and joints in the long run.
after you have given you body some time to recover your natural test production, I think a low carb - high protien and dietary fat diet would be inorder, along with at least 5 cardio sessions of 40 minuts or longer per day.
you can use hotrox to assist you with that. I think the last thing you need is another steroid cycle because it seems that all it makes you do is want to lift heavy and fuck up your joints. You’re too heavy and your lifts aren’t good enough to be a serious power lifter and your physique isn’t good enough to be a serious bodybuilder, so at this point I see not reason for your use of steroids, since they are not making you look any better or loose weight to be healthier, in fact all they are doing is assisting you in destroying your joints. Do you want to be crippled? - unable to do the things you now take for granted? - well keep it up. If not, I suggest you seriously reconsider your training goals and methods. By the time you loose the weight you need to loose, your joint should be healing up, and maybe then you’ll learn your lesson and over-do it again! You may not like this advise but its the best you’ll get.
furthur more, I dissagree 100 percent with what Debo has said. Post cycle you’ll have insufficient androgens in your system. These are crucial for repair of damaged muscle tissue as a result of weight training. If you continue to work out hard you’ll just be breaking down muscle that you are unable (at that pt. in time to repair) the best method is to take a couple of weeks off and go easy- untill your test levels begin to rise again. Put some thought into your posts people!
Listen to P-22, not only does he know his shit. I saw the pic of you attempting a “Bent over Row” and it was horrible. My Joints became sore looking at the pic. Form is everything, leave the ego home and listen to P-22.
Personally, I think P-22 is just cranky from his strict diet LOL. Just kidding, my friend.
I agree in regards to taking it easy once you come off your cycle. Don’t take off weeks or months at a time, but give yourself more time to rest and recuperate. As said, your hormone levels will be drastically low, and tearing-up-shit will just cause you to shrink some more. Go heavy, eat heavy, and rest even HEAVIER. Give your nervous system, joints, organs, and everything else effected by your cycle, some time to recover and catch up. Good luck.
Exactly. Bent-over rows with that kind of weight for no reps is pointless. If you wanted to max out on something, try deadlifts, squats, bench, or power cleans.
personally, i take a week off at cycles end. then i continue with the same weight i was using. it settles down on its own. once endo test is recovered, and weights have leveled off, i move on to another routine altogether. i see no point in going too far in either direction. your diet and pct(as well as ancillaries while on) are the keys to keeping gains. what you lift or how many times you lift it has little to do with what gains you keep. i am not saying training has nothing to do with it, but it should not be the main focus over diet and pct. just keep things as close as you can to what you were doing while on, and wait for strength to even out on its own.
P#22: Regarding my post- cycle recommendations, I stand by them 100%.
Its almost beyond dispute that progressive resistance is THE primary stimulus for muscle growth. Therefore training heavier post-cycle is critical to signaling the body to gain (or, realistically in this case, retain) mass. There is no worse time to use the principle of ‘regressive resistance’ (ie. using lighter weights than previously) than in the absence of androgens.
I am not advocating that you should train harder + heavier + more frequently + more volume when you come off. This would certainly amount to overtraining, and lead to the muscle loss you’ve described. But what I am saying is that a trainee should simply select the usual number of sets that he would otherwise use when training natural, but continue to increase the weight, although (inevitably) at the cost of decreasing reps.
Regarding the possibility of ‘overtraining’ the tissue to the extent that there is a net loss of muscle, this needn’t happen. ‘Overtraining’ muscle tissue is very difficult (as opposed to the neural system, which is very, very easy to overtrain), and beyond the mental endurance of your average trainee.
And whilst Test etc. is a great muscle repairing agent, it isn’t the only compound in the equation, and its absence, though sorely missed isn’t utterly critical. Intramuscular IGF-1 and prostaglandins play an important role in repairing muscle tissue. The former in particular is dependent on diet, and is well within our control. Additionally, a strong growth stimulus (ie. heavy as opposed to light weight training) will upregulate the sensitivity of the androgen receptors, so the muscles will respond better to what little T is in the system
Even if an element of neural (irrelevant) or even tissue overtraining did creep in over time, natural T levels would hopefully be restored by the time it became an issue, and the trainee could afford to take a break from training.
Coming off is a no- win situation. Managing diet, exercise and rest becomes more critical than ever, and its a delicate balancing act. But I think that there is some strong evidence to suggest that lifting heavier post- cycle will mitigate muscle loss to a much greater extent than lifting lighter.
LBM retention is better when weights stay somewhat heavy, say 80% 1RM or whatever percent you were using when the steroid cycle ended, whichever is higher. This is only necessary for two weeks, at which time the periodization plan may move to a relatively lighter weight such as 60% 1RM. Volume should also be cut in half the first one or two off weeks. This recommendation was given by Brian Batcheldor and it has worked wonders for me.
Deebo you might make a couple worthwile points IF his joints weren’t hurting. If he trys to train as hard or harder than he did while on cycle thn he will continue to destroy them and his strength. Priotrity number one needs to be healing his joints and retaining his gains should be a close second.
Now you make many good points but again if his joints are injured do you actaully think he should increase the weights?!
I should have also mentioned to take Tribex too when you come off. It will obviously help increase your hormone levels again.
I’ve tried other tribulus products/brands/formulas in the past, but Tribex is all I’ll take now post-cycle, and between cycles.
P22,
Lose, not loose…
If you read any of my posts after that pic you would have known that I LIGHTENED the weight to better my form.
Not everyone wants to look like an average bodybuilder…
Debo have you actually tried both recovery both ways to actually see which way works better? I highly doubt it! Sure everybody’s body works differently however from my own experience and the experience of other close friends we have found that rest post cycle results in better gains retetion in the long run.
Musclehead: your critizing me over a f’n typ-0? And then you’re calling me an average bodybuilder? Can’t you come up with something better? I gave you good advice if you don’t want to heed it thats fine with me, you can suffer through another cycle and wake up all you want at night with buring pains. And as far as you lowering your weight - you still had shitty form. And for calling me an average bodybuilder - know this: I just got in the game a year and a half ago and was out for 6 months of that time with an old elbow injury from when I played football that needed surgury. I’m twenty seven right now and every bone, tendon, joint and muscle is as healthy as can be. I trained natural for 11 years, during that time I was a professional model and even had the option of modeling internationally - but choose to go to school instead. To maintain my “model” look I held the same proportions and bodyweight for 3 1/2 years of training time. Now I am devoting myself to competing. you think I’m average well look the hell out because in a few yrs from now I will be far from average - mark my words! I’ll send you the picks of me holding the trophy on saturday - the only competition I could see you winning is a pie eating contest.
P22: Would you agree that high %max weights but low volume is a good idea for post cycle?
How do you train pc?
Fearmy6pak - you’re perfectly right! If the man’s joints are f*cked, then going heavier, or even continued training may be impossible.
I did suggest backing off the weights and using some serious aromatizables to cushion/ repair the joints prior to the conclusion of the cycle and I have personally had some success with this. I used 80mg/ ED of dianabol to fix my lower back mid- cycle (I had needed 10 minutes to put my socks on every morning for 8 months prior because it was so painful). Came right within 2 weeks. This was a one- off exercise, and I can only vouch for its efficacy in this one, personal instance of mine - I haven’t really read much about roids being used in this regard.
These recommendations may or may not work for Musclehed. If they don’t, he’ll just have to suck it back and learn for next time. I was more stating a normative situation, of what people generally should do post cycle.
For another matter, training heavy post- cycle is definately NOT my original invention. Its people like Batcheldor, Haycock and Lewellyn et al who advocate this approach and apologies to those men if I’ve misrepresented their ideas as my own. Prior to my own use of AAS I researched the topic thoroughly, read everything that I could find by widely acknowledged steroid gurus like the aforementioned and selected the most convincing arguements as the basis on which I would experiment with these compounds. These methods aren’t my pet theories, and I wouldn’t be so irresponsible to use them personally or recommend them to anybody on this forum unless I believed that they had a solid, scientific and empirical foundation and came from respected experts in the field. So I don’t think its a case of ‘is Debo right or is Debo wrong’, but more a case of ‘are these pharamaceutical/ physiology experts who have designed the drug regimens of literally thousands of power & physique athletes right or wrong?’. Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t, just don’t shoot the messenger.