Test / EQ Cycle Feedback

Pharma / TRT
1

I’ve done a considerable amount of research, and have decided on Equipoise for my first stack cycle late next summer. My goal is lean mass gain – currently 42 years old, 5’11”, 215 lbs, 17% bodyfat. I’ve gained and kept 30 lbs of lean muscle over my past three cycles.

I’m open to any feedback, suggestions, or constructive criticism, thank you for reading!

Proposed Cycle:

Week 1-14: 600mg Boldenone Undecylenate EW
Week 1-14: 350mg Testosterone Cypionate EW
Week 16: 40mg Nolva ED
Week 17: 40mg Nolva ED
Week 18: 20mg Nolva ED
Week 19: 20mg Nolva ED

Previous three cycles:

  1. Test only 400mg EW
  2. Test 600mg EW
  3. Test 500 mg EW Dbol 20mg ED kickstart

Notes:

  • I’m opting to raise the EQ dosage and keep test in the lower range, as I have noticed diminishing returns and acute sides when dosing test over 500mg EW (even when properly using an AI).
  • I’ve decided to completely avoid 19 nors (deca / npp / tren), as I’m not willing to risk the possibility of long term libido shut down + ED. I’m not talking about deca dick, I’m referring to the small percentage of users who experiences nonexistent libido for years after use despite all blood levels and HTPA function returning to normal. I know that I am passing up the BEST mass gainers with this decision, but I’m 42, and having the best sex of my entire life with my attractive younger wife, so I’m not willing to take even a small risk. 9+ Months of Deca Dick - #130 by mario90

Questions:

  • Would adding a small dbol 20mg ED kickstart to the above proposed cycle be asking for trouble? Or would that generally be ok as EQ takes a long time to kick in?
  • I understand that EQ aromatizes at about half the rate of test. With this in mind, would I want to dose my AI as if I was taking 650mg of test EW? Or does it not work that way? I’ve heard several bros suggest skipping the AI entirely on test EQ cycles, but that doesn’t make sense to me?
  • Any other compounds that I should be considering as I build cycle experience? I hear that Mast and Primo are essentially contest prep, very expensive, and a waste of money at my BF%, and as previously mentioned, I wont take deca or tren. Thoughts?
2

Ok everything looks good but a couple of things I would like to share from experience.

If you can, run the test 1 week past the EQ, if not two. Then stop pinning everything and do your two weeks of pinning nothing and start PCT. The half life of EQ makes it where you are still going to have active levels two weeks after stopping injections. PCT isn’t pointless with active levels but the EQ will keep you from getting the “full potential” of the Nolvadex. My preference from experience is running the test two weeks past the EQ then wanting the two weeks for PCT. You could just stop both and wait three weeks but I myself don’t like the idea of having extremely low test levels without taking something to try and kick start the natural production.

I don’t think the dbol will hurt you in anyway. The EQ is literally going to take like 4-6 weeks to come up so using dbol for the first few will help you get going. Mind you it is three test based compounds but the EQ levels shouldn’t be high enough to require extra AI over what you would use for just test and dbol at those doses.

As far as EQ aromatizing half the rate of test meaning you need to dose AI as if your at 650mgs of test? I have wondered this myself. It makes sense but it doesn’t seem to play out like that for myself. I have found when I am on a test and EQ run that by around weeks 6 and past I respond best to a light daily dose of AI. If I am using arimidex it is 0.25 mgs every day. That is if I am getting over a gram a week of total dosage. From 750-1000mgs a week I dose 0.5 mgs of arimidex EOD. There is no difference in total arimidex for the week but the light daily dose works for me. I think you are going to have to just play with it. Also keep in mind my dose is for my brand of test, EQ and arimidex. Not all UGLs are equal or 100% accurate on dosage.

As far as not taking 19nors, I do take tren but am scared shitless of Deca so I feel you. I am currently ending my very first NPP run, so far no issues.

Other compounds to consider. Yeah primo is just to often faked so if you’re not really into AAS don’t risk waisting money. Winstrol would be something I urge you to read up on, provided you have good joints. Proviron would be a good add in especially since you have the younger wife that I assume you can’t stop wanting to bed. Seriously Proviron would help keep gains cleaner and it’s side effect is a hightened libido. If you can source it 1-test aka dihydroboldenone is a favorite of mine. It’s like week tren or real strong primo. It is actually what EQ breaks down into so even though it is technically not a DHT it is. It is also a solid gainer. Really for what your long term ideal is, EQ is great stuff. It is truly dual purpose, gain or cut. I do like mast but I started using it to help with strength gains before I leaned out. It also has a nice libido effect.

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3

Over on another very active forum (think one that isn’t exclusively about steroids or lifting; think global) there is a growing consensus that not only does EQ not aromatise at half the rate of testosterone, but in fact certain characteristics of EQ cause e2 to lower without an AI. There is blood work showing guys on high EQ/low test whose e2 is crashed within four weeks of their cycle. I have no idea if it’s true. I have no idea if it’s scientifically sound. But there are enough stories out there to make me wonder if maybe we all misunderstand this drug. It’s really only been recently (within the last decade or so) that we’ve had access to cheap and easy blood work, cheap and available AAS, AND forums with tens of thousands of users from all over the world who share their experiences. So while I will not make any assumptions about the voracity of this particular EQ-lowers-e2 claim, I will say this: make pre cycle and early cycle blood work an absolute top priority. That’s going to be the best way for you to know what’s going on. Usually “listen to your body” is my mantra, but with something like EQ you need more data. Because it takes soooooo long to start working the changes you may notice could be very subtle and could build slowly.

4

arimistane (a supposed suicidal AI) is a metabolite of boldenone. Whether it’s actually an AI or not, who knows, it’s marketed as one, however one of the chemical vendors for it catagorizes it as an anabolic-androgenic androgenic steroid. Could be why some people report lower estrogen on boldenone, just hypothesizing here.

5

Thanks very much all for the replies…

[now_i_care] - I will definitely take your advice and run the test for another week or two pas the EQ. I will see how I do without an AI, and increase very slowly if needed.

[Iron_yuppie] - This is very interesting… I noticed a significant number of message board posts over time regarding people with low or zero libido after taking EQ, which is very concerning to me. The EQ lowers E2 theory would explain this well… that certain people are particularly susceptible to this phenomenon.

At this point, I’m starting to get worried about running such a lopsided cycle (high EQ low test), but nearly universally, people claim that 600mg is the minimum to see meaningful result with Equipoise. Or am I overthinking it?

Perhaps I could start the cycle as planned, and if I start to notice low E2 symptoms or get bloodwork to that effect, I could “reverse” and lower or drop the EQ, and increase test to a baseline 500, which I know I will handle well without any serious issues.

Thoughts?

6

I personally ran 400mgs a week of EQ for my first stack ever along with 400 mgs of test for ten weeks. I had more than satisfactory results. I think this 600 a week is partly due to how long it takes the undecanoate ester to build up to “anabolic” levels. People say enanthate should be run for 10-12 weeks minimum because it is not until weeks 4-6 that it really kicks in. Enanthate has a 10.5 day half life. Undecanoate has a 16 day half life I believe. You are running a 14 week cycle, you should have plenty of time at any given dose to get good results.

Using my new favorite app the steroidcalc I ploted 300 mgs of EQ every 3.5 days or 600 per week in two equal doses. It takes over 3 weeks before your “spike” to get to 40mgs per day. It takes almost 40 days for your dip to stay over 40 mgs per day. You don’t level off between 47-56 mgs per day until like day 56. That’s 8 weeks! Using the same dose of 600 per week I ploted test enanthate, it levels off at around 3 weeks. What I am getting at I that dose of 600 per week might be the “dose” because it gets you to high enough levels quicker or the threshold dose that gets results you can see. The alternative to waiting this time is you can front load to get your levels up sooner. People say certain esters take time to kick in. All the ester really is, is a time release that keeps the hormone from being immediately available upon injection. It’s the level of free hormone in your blood that has to be high enough to have an effect or be at “anabolic levels.” Really just 1 mg has an anabolic effect you just won’t notice it. I personally feel that front loading does help me get more out of my cycles. I know there is a divide on this issue of front loading but “esters taking time to kick in” just doesn’t make sense to me. What makes sense is the amount of any given hormone available to my body’s receptors per day. Mind you that my receptors are probably more developed and ready to take the hormone vs a guy on his first cycle.

One last point or thought to consider. Even though oral administration changes how a hormone acts and NO ONE would liken dbol to EQ yet they are in fact the same hormone. Dbol just has a methelation or methyl group added to survive the digestion process. If guys can see results from 20mgs a day of dbol then you should see results from 20mgs of EQ per day. Again I have to thank my favorite new app. Because my original stack of EQ was 400 mgs per week. That levels off averaging about 35mgs per day. Once you subtract the ester weight that leaves a little over 21 mgs of raw hormone. I got good results at that dosage.

My sum up for my rant is this; it’s the amount of time at a good enough dose to see results that dictates end result. I would bet running a 14 week EQ cycle at 400mgs per week with enough of a front load to get you to stable average of 35mgs per day the first or second week, would get better or at least the same results as a 600 mgs per week cycle with no front load.

If you were to do the 400 per week with front load, the you wouldn’t have to worry about a “lop sided” cycle.
Either way at whatever dose you decide, with how long EQ takes to build up, I would front load.

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7

Half life is closer to 7 days, steroidcalc lists it as 4.5 days, wikipedia has testosterone enanthate listed as having a half life of 4.5 days, however that isn’t true. On pubchem the compound is listed as having a half life of 7-9 days, this lines up with various medical literature published on the compound, however testosterone cypionate is listed as having a half life of approximately 8 days, so it makes sense to hypothesize the half life for test E is around 7-7.5 days, from my bloods (if you want I can post them for sciences sake) the half life of test E seems to be around 6-7 days. The half life for undecanoate varies based on what oil it’s suspended in, but I forgot which type of oil equates to which half life variation. However boldenone is attached to the undecylenate ester, it’s shorter than the undecanoate ester. If you look at the chemical makeup of test U and EQ you’ll notice a slight difference between the chemical makeup of the esters attatched. That being said boldenone undecanoate is a thing … So is trenbolone undecanoate (imagine taking that, then having horrible tren sides… You’re stuck with tren aides for like 8 weeks lol). However EQ’s ester is long enough that I reckon one could actually get away with shots e2w, which is amazing as the convenience factor is there.

True, but firstly, remember the addition of a methyl group in the 17th carbon position greatly attentuated the anabolic activity of whatever agent it’s added to (think drostanolone vs (di)methyldrostanolone. Secondly 20mgs of EQ (roughly 63 percent of EQ is pure boldenone) equates to 12.6 MG’s of EQ, dbol is 100% dbol, so mg for mg based on pure hormone you’d be getting almost double the amount of an overall more anabolic hormone therefore you’d get more gains. I’ve always thought it’s best to get the most out of lower doses, therefore I’ve always wondered, what’s more risky with regard to long term health, like 15mgs of dbol or 350mgs of test? You’re only taking 105mgs hormone/wk with the dbol, add that to trt and you can make solid gains at really low doses, however obviously that theory doesn’t stand true, as something like M1T or sdrol can absolutely fuck you up even at 5-10mgs daily.

35mgz/day of hormone release (provided that’s the accurate amount of release), is a great amount to have of we factor in the average male apparently produces between 5-15 MG’s of test/day, 35mgs is only barely 2x the top end of natural production, therefore overall risks wouldnt be very high at all, that being said we’re talking about test (though I consider EQ to be on a similar scale within terms of harshness, I mean 35mg of trenbolone being released every day would be a whole different animal).

Op watch HCT and RBC count. Boldenone is known in the bodybuilding community for quickly driving up those parameters, and this can be further (sort of) proven by the medical literature available, a few reports of guys having strokes on EQ have come in, and their HCT in testing has shown to be 60-70% on the case reports, granted these were high doses, I think the one guy was on like 2-3 grams of EQ/WK though I may be getting confused… So … Intervene if it gets above 55%

8

The thing is you can’t just drop the EQ if you start having symptoms. Once you’re on it you’re on it for a while. Even if you stop pinning you’ll have four weeks of that ester unwinding and releasing the hormone. That’s the major reason why EQ is not on my radar, even though it’s absolutely perfect for what I want over the next year. It is known to cause some anxiety issues in those who are prone (me), so if I’m stuck being anxious for a month after I decide to drop it on week three then I’ll be a mess. So if you’re concerned about the side effects then be mindful that once you buy the ticket you’re on the EQ rise for a while.

9

That 4.5 days Is the surge you get after pinning test enanthate. I have only recently seen it termed this way (terminal half life), mind you I am always trying to learn more and obviously I am getting to the point where the "surge* has a technical term. What I mean about the surge is you pin anything then within hours that hormone levels comes up, the ester and amount of dosage dictates how long that surge lasts. Go read and read, countless places talk about the 3-4 day surge after pinning. I think you and I are saying the same thing we just are using different terms.
As far as traditional half life, these charts that are passed around are going to be based off of traditional “recipes” for whatever injectable. I have read stuff that shows you can slow down a half life by using castor(?) Oil as your carrier, so I assume you can speed up the half life as well.

Go plug in the different esters on the calc. They use the traditional half lives or the listed half lives like 10.5 days to get to half of the injection is still in the body, give or take. When your counting remember, day 0 is really day 1. When you get to day 1 on the graph that is day 2 of the half life. So at 9.5 days on the graph that is the traditional 10.5 day half life for enanthate.

For the 20 mgs of dbol vs 20 of EQ, I guess didn’t spell it out completely. I took 400mgs of EQ per week, that plotted about an average of 35mgs per day, and that equates to 21mgs of raw boldenone, give or take. My point was the dose of 600 being needed to see results might actually be the dose because it gets your levels to a level where your see results at a quicker time versus other doses. Then because of the long half life of EQ people don’t stay on it long enough to harness it properly. 600 is just the dose that gets you to where you have the equivalent to 20mgs of raw boldenone or more for a long enough time to see results. If 20 mgs or dbol gets results then 20 mgs of raw boldenone should get results, give or take. I got results running an EQ dose where I had a rough average of 20 mgs of raw boldenone per day and got results, I front loaded. That front load would be the difference between my 400 per week and everyone saying 600 is the base dose. Or at least that would be my thinking of the difference between why I got results at “such a low dose.”
I was just offering the OP an alternative to a lopsided cycle of 600eq to 400 test e.

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10

Wow, really appreciate all of the responses, I’m learning so much here.

So based on all the feedback I received, I think the answer to my dilemma might be the following:

  • Frontload, the EQ to bring levels up more quickly
  • Decrease EQ to 500mg EW, extend to 15 weeks (works out to exactly 3 vials)
  • Increase Test C dosage to 400mg EW extend to 16 weeks
  • Kickstart with 20mg ED Dbol for the first 3-4 weeks (worked well in past cycle)

Am I on the right track here?

11

You can get boldenone cypionate and some sources even stock boldenone acetate. However shorter estered boldenone is notorious for PIP, so if you are one of those people who get lots of pain from test prop and stuff then stay away.

Potentially look into DHB (5 a reduced boldenone) otherwise known as the non c17AA form of M1T. However due it being an exotic, little is known about the risk to reward ratio of the drug, however it appears as if it’s good for lean mass.

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The terminal half life is the amount of time it takes for 50% of a given substance to be removed from the body. I’m not sure what the surge is, however testosterone enanthate does have a peak and nadir, I’ve also heard the peak is a few days after injection, however I’m not sure about that because then my absolute highest peak from 110mg/wk is only like 450ng/DL… Which is… Depressing.

The type of oil appears to make a difference to the half life with testosterone undecanoate and I’d assume with other compounds too, another thing that causes differentiation in the half life of various anabolic steroids (testosterone, nandrolone etc) is the site of administration (shoulder vs glute etc)

The 10.5 day half life listed isn’t seen in medical literature, only on the steroid info websites. Testosterone Enanthate | C26H40O3 | CID 9416 - PubChem here it states the half life (time for 50 percent of the substance to leave the body) is 7-9 days, but since it lists test cyp as having a HL of 8 days and test cyp is a slightly longer ester one can assume the half life of test E is slightly under 8 days.

Steroidcalc plots the amount of pure hormone being released. If it plotted 35mgs then you were probs getting around 35 MG’s of raw boldenone/day. I have no idea about frontloading, in theory it seems like it’d allow you to utilise long esters for shorter periods of time, but physio said he doesn’t think it does anything.

The reason people will use more EQ than needed is because people are impatient for results, they want it then and now. Even though 20mgs of pure bold isn’t as powerful as an equal dose of dbol, with good diet and training, with a test base even 140mg of pure bold will give damn nice results if you give it time (say 30 weeks or so)! Dbol gives results (water and glycogen retention) instantly, so people are like “fuk yea I’m hyooge bro”, and this is evident even on lower doses (apparently, I’ve never used dbol … Because why would I, it can’t do anything test can’t, and it isn’t safer by any means)

Also I wouldn’t say you got results at such a low dose. I used (for my first cycle just recently) 250mg of test/wk, enough to get me up to like 1300ng/DL, I think that’s a low dose, what you used is more of an average dose right? Am I wrong? What’s the average dose, surely 1-1.5 grams per week can’t be the average can it. I thought average was like 4-600mg/wk total

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Boldenone is simply out of the question for me. Anxiety and elevated RBC and HCT are dealbreakers. DHB does t hold at higher concentrations, so you have to pin 4ml/w minimum to get results. It’s just not a feasible option for me.

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Now i care…just exactly how did you frontload your 400/400 cycle? Double dose weeks 1 and 2, just one??? I listen to you my first cycle where i ran dbol and 600mg test. I was going to run 600 mig’s a test a week with 600 eq a week for 16 to 18 weeks for my 2nd. but Im listening to you. I dont think i need all that…especially for that lenght. So it just makes more sense to follow what you did to me anyway I don’t know about everybody else but to me it makes sense. Also I got the acne sides at the end of my test run which was 12 weeks along I didn’t do anything to stop that or really deal with it while it was happening but now that I’m on my cruise I’m in the 4th week and that acnes all disappearing now. I just prefer to not try to jump up to high doses like I’m some type of Boss and have chicks scared to touch my back you know what I’m saying. LOL. But I really like that test at 600 cuz I just felt awesome all the time and I don’t want to lose that I’m wondering if that EQ and test together at 400 400 will still give me that feeling. Btw if it matters im cruising at 150 test e a week split twice. I didn’t figure I needed to run any higher than that if there’s anything that needs to be addressed about that I just thought I’d throw it in there but thanks for the help thanks for listening I know that was kind of a rant. And just as kind of an update I’m at about 175 now where I was at about 180 I’m not all bloated and I can see the lines in my body again feeling good looking good actually appreciate the weight coming off it was shity weight.