My older friend, who is really a mentor of sorts, is a weekend warrior like myself, but due to work and obligations as of recently, he hasn’t been able to work out for a few months, so he has lost about 15 lbs of mass he and I are estimating.
He has cycled in the past before, but he has never started a cycle without being at his full size, which basically means that he is already at his biggest he has ever been up to that point in time when he begins the cycle.
Right now, he wants to start working out again as well as do a cycle, but he wants to cut (without a cycle) first before the cycle (it would be a bulk cycle), which would mean that he would not have gained the muscle back by the time he starts the cycle.
What will happen if he starts the cycle like that? Assuming an adequate amount of calories as well as proper nutrition, supplementation and training, will he gain the muscle back extremely rapidly due to the combined effects of steroids and muscle memory and then start gaining additional muscle? If so, how long would it take him to gain back the muscle he lost while on cycle? Will it affect his overall gains that are made OVER his all-time peak in LBM?
He plans on doing a 12 week cycle with Test Prop and Tren Ace (probably at least 700mg test and 500mg tren for reference).
Personally, I don’t see a problem with it because his body will have accustomed to at least lifting weights since he would have been lifting while cutting, so it’s not like his tendons will be too weak to handle his returning strength on top of new strength during the cycle because he will have previously conditioned them from the cut. Any thoughts?
He will get anabolism AND muscle memory - i know because i did that exact thing last year.
What i did do though was train for a month or two first to get “in the swing” and build a base first. Everytime i have used steroids from a break, i always make sure to start training again first - they work so much better in a trained body, than an untrained one.
But the mixture of muscle memory and AAS was nothing short of amazing actually.
If your friend is going to be cutting first, then i assume he will be doing heavy weights too (otherwise it is hardly cutting is it, it is ‘just’ losing weight) in which case he will make some progress during his diet, restricted or not., And that base will be better for when he decides to use.
Id also suggest a couple months of heavy lifting and eating prior to starting.
I wouldnt want a 30 lb gain and a massive gain in strength both attributed from the muscle memory and the AAS. His joints, tendons and ligaments will be screaming at him if he doenst take a bit of time to get into things.
[quote]LillGuy001 wrote:
Id also suggest a couple months of heavy lifting and eating prior to starting.
I wouldnt want a 30 lb gain and a massive gain in strength both attributed from the muscle memory and the AAS. His joints, tendons and ligaments will be screaming at him if he doenst take a bit of time to get into things.[/quote]
He will have lifted about 2 months before he will start his cycle, but he will be cutting for those two months, so he will most likely gain very little, if any of that muscle back. His tendons and ligaments, however, will be fully prepared for the cycle because of his heavy lifting from cutting.
His take was more along the lines of coming off cycle, though, and the question about overall retention of the muscle gained while on. If memory serves, he opined that although the body of course will lose some muscle mass coming off cycle, this process can actually help when gearing up again. The body will quickly regain what was lost, and actually help slingshot you past where you left off, or plateaued during the last cycle. At least that’s how I remember him describing the process.
I realize you friend’s circumstance is a little different, but I think the philosophy is the same.
