I’m currently taking 200 milligrams weekly of testosterone cypionate for my testosterone replacement therapy. I’ve been on this for 16 weeks. I’ve been going to the gym and noticing some nice strength gains. I even signed up for my first powerlifting competition I’m 2 weeks away and I’m thinking about doubling my dose for the next two weeks.
would there be any complications when I go back to my regular dose in 3 weeks?
You won’t notice much difference in essentially a two week cycle of 400mg. Since you are on TRT, the PCT recommended on normal steroid cycles is not relevant. If you still want to give it a try, and nothing to lose by trying it, I do recommend using an aromatase inhibitor. The worst thing you want to do is pump your estrogen high before a meet.
Perhaps surprisingly, unless making weight is a factor, being “wet” (allowing aromatization) is often better for powerlifting competition.
By no means would it be desirable to allow gyno to develop, but from the standpoint of lifting the most weight, the estrogen from natural aromatization of 400 mg/week testosterone wouldn’t be a problem and could actually help.
I don’t have any access to any A.I’s. unless my doctor would prescribe them to me. Which I doubt. What’s the drawback of having estrogen elevated for these two weeks?
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
Perhaps surprisingly, unless making weight is a factor, being “wet” (allowing aromatization) is often better for powerlifting competition.
By no means would it be desirable to allow gyno to develop, but from the standpoint of lifting the most weight, the estrogen from natural aromatization of 400 mg/week testosterone wouldn’t be a problem and could actually help.[/quote]
Yes, that is surprising and thanks for saying something! Fascinating. Glad to learn something new.
googling ‘research chemicals’ plus the name of your preferred AI might be interesting.
[quote]diesel32 wrote:
I’m currently taking 200 milligrams weekly of testosterone cypionate for my testosterone replacement therapy. I’ve been on this for 16 weeks. I’ve been going to the gym and noticing some nice strength gains. I even signed up for my first powerlifting competition I’m 2 weeks away and I’m thinking about doubling my dose for the next two weeks.
would there be any complications when I go back to my regular dose in 3 weeks?[/quote]
Your doc prescribed 200 mg per week? That’s twice a usual starting dose.
Yea but he wants me to reduce to 150 a week starting next week. My last t levels was 1200.
Diesel32: You may find the ‘advice for new guys’ an interesting read.
E2 opposes the actions of T on your nervous system and muscles.
Do you say that on the basis of working with powerlifters, or doing steroid cycles with heavy training yourself? Have you, in such context, found estrogen resulting from 400 (or 500) mg/week testosterone without aromatase inhibitor to interfere with powerlifting training or competition results? I have seen the opposite, as have many, indeed it’s rather widely accepted in PL’ing. Extrapolations don’t always pan out.
So yes or no. When it comes to lifting the most weight would you double the dose for next 2 weeks. I have no access to AI’s. Also my doc wants to see my t levels in about a month. To make sure they arent so high should I take a week off before injecting again?
I do have concern about doubling dose when having no access to AI’s. Now, they are easily purchased on the Web as “research chemicals” from various suppliers and are successfully used as such by many. That said, it might not be possible for whatever reason.
While most do not need an AI to avoid gyno at 400 mg/week, some will develop gyno at that dosage without an AI, though ordinarily taking more than 2 weeks. So I would be reluctant to recommend without having one on hand to use at the first development of actual sensitivity (pain, irritation, tingling) problem, which typically develops before any actual problem.
There will not be much gain in muscle mass resulting from 2 weeks at 400 mg/week with no frontload. By not much I mean perhaps a pound of extra muscle. Benefit would be more from nervous system activation.
All that being said, if not having an AI available, and there being too little time for real muscle mass gain anyway, perhaps I’d just double up on the injection 3 days before the event to have a little higher levels for better neural activation at the time of event. If doing it at all.
Thanks for your assistance. For future reference which AI would you recommend?
AI choices are mostly letrozole, anastrozole/Arimidex and aromasin.
Anastrozole has a good predicable dose/response for most guys.
Letrozole is harsh and dose/response is not very predicable, stay away.
Aromasin is more expensive to use than anastrozole and a higher chemical load on the body.
A few are anastrozole over-responders who need to use 1/4th the expected dose. So very cost effective once that is figured out.
Anastrozole is a competitive drug and needs to match ones serum T levels. This makes dose adjustment calculations very easy as explained in the stickies. You can calculate a E2 level change and a T dose change at the same time and be on target. Until you get labs while on anastrozole, you simply start using the suggested dose of 1mg per week in divided doses for a 100mg/week T cyp/eth dose. When using transdermals, your T levels are not dose predicable, so anastrozole dose is a crap shoot.
A very few don’t need an AI.
Lab work and AI dose corrections will take guys there if needed.
If your E2 was not low before TRT, it will be higher than optimal after TRT without an AI.
Without an AI, on TRT, many feel great for 4-6 weeks then crash on E2 with many of their TRT symptoms returning.
You need to work these things out yourself because of individual variations in TRT and AI response. Your doc may not be useful; if he cares about E2 at all. Docs mostly do not understand more that lab numbers and are confused by symptoms. Many docs will think that high-normal E2 is just normal!
So as a result, I gave myself an extra 200mg 2 days before the meet and set PRs in all 3 lifts. The negative was I believed it spiked my strength to the point where I wad unsure of what poundages to use as I felt like I could have did 10 lbs more on each lift. Being my first meet it was a good experience.
Another question. My doctor lowered my weekly dose from 200 to 150. Ive been on this for 3 weeks. Ive noticed my strength gains have stopped almost plateued. Is it possible to get stronger with a lower dose?