I posted this separately in my journal last week when I had overindulged in caffeine and went on a typing rampage. @TURBS had a read through and sent me a message suggesting posting it here in it's own thread as there might be some useful information for newbies. I'm not an expert and wouldn't claim to be, but I've been using PEDs for a while and have picked up some information along the way which I'll share below which might be useful for somebody who's considering their first cycle and beyond.
Are You Ready?
Don't take the decision too lightly. I see so many people starting a cycle these days with very little training under their belt, little knowledge of training/nutrition in general and having done very little research on PEDs. You need to have a good understanding of the drugs you're going to be using and the potential side effects before you start or you're asking for trouble. You're also going to want to know the fundamentals of effective training/nutrition or you're going to be wasting your time, money and shutting down your HPTA for no bloody reason.
Preparations and Dosing
If you do decide to go ahead, get a full blood panel done before starting your cycle. I use MediChecks and have always found them to be reliable, but there are plenty of other options. This will act as a reference point later down the line. You can compare your mid and post-cycle blood work to your pre-cycle blood work and see which markers have changed. A low to moderate dose of Testosterone should be more than enough for your first cycle. Anywhere between 250mg-500mg per week is fine. For duration, I'd go with 12-15 weeks. I'd prefer to use either Enanthate or Cypionate as you can get away with injecting it less frequently than Prop. Prop must be injected daily or every other day and comes in concentrations of 100-150mg/ml, meaning more oil would be required to reach your chosen dose. Enanthate is usually dosed at 250-300mg/ml. Cypionate is usually dosed at 200-250mg/ml. Some labs will offer them at a slightly higher concentration. You can get away with injecting Enanthate or Cypionate every 3.5-7 days. Some people prefer every 3.5 days as it will create more stable blood levels and less fluctuations in hormone levels. Some people are more sensitive to the fluctuations and can suffer from more side effects as a result so prefer every 3.5 days. Others have tested both frequencies and opt for every 7 days to avoid injecting as often.
Which Lab?
Do some research on the UGL you intend to use. Search the name of the lab on popular bodybuilding forums and look for recent feedback and reviews. Emphasis on the word recent as the quality of a lab can dip quite quickly. If the lab has a number of positive reviews from the last few months, the chances are that it's good to go. Don't waste your money buying products from a lab that is barely known or reviewed because you're more likely to be disappointed with the gear you receive. I've not bought bunk gear before, perhaps I've been lucky. But if you do, you're potentially wasting 12-15 weeks of your time and a couple of hundred pounds/dollars on the products. Other users will sometimes send a sample of their gear in to labs such as Janoshik or Chemtox who will provide a HPLC analysis of the gear to identify what it contains and how it's dosed. This can be useful, but only to a certain extent as the sample could be from somebody directly associated with the UGL in question sending a sample in they know is well-dosed.
AI/E2
Have an AI on hand, but avoid using it pre-emptively. Use it sparingly if you experience high E2 sides or if your mid-cycle blood work shows E2 as being out of range. It's better to start with a lower dose of AI and have to adjust/increase the dose than it is to use too much unnecessarily and crash your E2. Crashed E2 feels bad and wil likely hinder your gains, impact your mental health and will take a while to bounce back. For AI meds, always use pharmaceutical grade products if they are available to you. A lot of UGLs produce AI/PCT meds, but they are notoriously inconsistent and for the cost of pharmaceutical grade medication, it isn't worth taking the gamble. Different people have different requirements when it comes to AI dosing, there is not a one size fits all dosage to bring your E2 in to range, even if you're running the same brand, ester and dosage of Testosterone as somebody else with the same stats. It's something specific to you and you will usually find your sweet spot through trial and error. Some people don't need to use an AI at all on a low to moderate dose of Test. If you don't, great. If you do, start off small and adjust over time. Blood work will help you dial this in much easier than trial and error but can become costly if you get multiple bloods taken over the course of a cycle. Commonly used AI drugs are Arimidex and Aromasin, Arimidex is typically dosed at 1mg/tablet and Aromasin at 25mg/tablet. The tablets can be split in to smaller doses such as halves/quarters if a full tablet is not required depending on how high your E2 is.
Pinning
Choose a site for your injections. It's possible to pin most muscles, but some are more accessible and generally less painful than others. I personally tend to use the glutes and the ventroglutes most often as they're easy to access and generally PIP-free. I tend to avoid pinning areas where any significant PIP count interfere with my training such as delts and quads. It's common to get post-injection pain (PIP) the day(s) following your injection. It's completely normal and usually subsides after a couple of days. Most people tend to use 1 and a quarter inch blue needles to pin with. 5/8"-1" orange needles are common too. Microfine insulin needles can be used in some cases but will be more suitable for gear in a thin carrier oil - it will be time consuming and quite difficult to put thicker oil through an insulin needle.
Expectations
Don't expect too much too soon. I've mentioned this before, a successful Testosterone-only cycle will have you looking like a thicker version of your natural self with perhaps a little more roundness in the shoulders, fullness in the traps and slightly more vascular. You're only running it over a 12-15 week period and there's only a certain amount of muscle tissue you can gain in that space of time, regardless of how well optimised your training and nutrition is. It's very unlikely that it will completely transform your physique, that is done over a longer period of time after you have multiple cycles under your belt. With that being said, you can still make excellent gains and improve your strength and size significantly. But as with natural training, it requires patience and consistency.
'Feeling It'
You won't necessarily feel completely different while on cycle and you might not suffer from any side effects, that doesn't mean you're using fake Testosterone. Consider yourself lucky that you're experiencing no side effects. Not everybody will experience a mental boost either. Some might feel a great sense of energy, wellbeing and honed aggression in the gym, others (myself included) feel exactly the same. You're more likely to feel noticeable mental changes if your E2 is very high or very low, but some of the mental symptoms can be similar on either end of the spectrum so I wouldn't use this as a direct cue to increase/decrease your AI dose as you could end up making the issue worse.
Starting Lean
It's better to begin the cycle while you're somewhat lean and spend the duration of it focusing on gaining muscle and strength. If you go in to the cycle out of shape and spend all or a majority of it at maintenance or in a deficit, you're sacrificing valuable time that you could be spending building muscle tissue and making excellent strength gains. You only get one first cycle and if it's done properly, it will yield the most muscle tissue gain of any cycle you ever do. Use the time wisely and spend it in a calorie surplus with a progression-based routine. But don't get the impression that because you're using PEDs, you're incapable of gaining fat. The surplus still needs to be sensible. Plenty of guys will think they can get away with shovelling in as many calories as humanly possible and it will all convert in to lean muscle tissue, it's not the case. You still need to approach your surplus sensibly on PEDs.
Routine
There is no best routine. Different people can handle different levels of volume and frequency. Pick a routine that works for you with an adequate amount of rest days and consistent exercise choice and focus on progressive overload throughout the cycle. If you're adding PEDs and in a surplus, you should be able to consistently add weight, reps or time under tension week on week for the 12-15 weeks. Eliminate unnecessary junk volume and aim to train with intensity where you're reaching a point not far off failure for a majority of the sets of your compound lifts. I gain best when I'm hitting each muscle group twice a week, you might be different. Pick a routine and try to stick with it rather than going to the gym with no plan and trying to train instinctively. Adequate sleep will play a big part in your recovery in between sessions. Get yourself in to a good routine and aim for ~8 hours every night if possible, although I appreciate this won't be possible for everybody due to work, schedule, commitments etc.
Keep It Simple
More isn't necessarily better. There comes a point of a diminishing returns where increasing the dosage will yield more side effects than it will additional gains. Just because you're gaining well on say 400mg of Test E a week and not experiencing side effects, it doesn't mean you can double the dose and hope for an increased return without side effects. The increase in dosage could push your E2 too high and make it difficult to manage or evoke any of the other common side effects that you managed to avoid experiencing while on the lower dose. The same goes with adding additional compounds. A lot of people want to add an oral to kick-start or finish the cycle or a second compound to gain additional mass/strength. At this stage, you're brand new and you still don't really know how you're going to respond to Test alone. If you add multiple compounds at once, it will be difficult to identify where the side effects are coming from. Building up your cycle and dosages over time is the more sensible option. Even for your second cycle, you don't necessarily have to add anything weird or wonderful - you'll still be able to make fantastic gains on a low to moderate dose of Test as you're still pretty much brand new to using PEDs.
Preserving Health
Look after your general health and wellbeing. Don't eat like an ass hole. Do cardio. Regular cardio is one of the most important things you can do if you're taking a longevity based approach while using PEDs. It's easy to neglect it and focus solely on weight training in an attempt to gain all out mass but it will pay off to be consistent with in terms of heart health, regulating blood pressure and even mental health. Buy a blood pressure cuff and take regular readings. High blood pressure is a silent killer. If it gets slightly out of range, more often than not it can be brought back in to range with simple tweaks to your diet and increasing cardio. If that isn't enough, there are tons of over the counter supplements which can help. If that isn't enough, drop your PED dosage. If you're a stubborn bastard and won't drop your dosage, look at BP meds, a lot of people are raving over Telmisartan at the moment, I've not used it personally as my blood pressure has never been a huge issue. My body weight is on the lower side and I'm quite regular with my cardio. If you're big and heavy and do little cardio, it's more likely to be an issue for you and needs to be monitored.
Cycle or Blast
Decide if you want to cycle and PCT or blast and cruise. More people are blasting and cruising nowadays and the concept is being taken very lightly. I jumped in to blasting and cruising right away, and if I could go back and change it, I would. Before you know it, you've been using PEDs for several years without any break and if you ever do decide to come off completely, it's going to be difficult to recover fully. When I first started using the gear, I had that insane early-20's attitude of 'I'd rather live 30 years as a lion than 70 years as a sheep' - trust me, that attitude doesn't last. You're best off approaching this with longevity in mind from the offset and thinking long and hard about whether you want to cycle, blast or even start using steroids to begin with.
Post-Cycle
Get your post-cycle blood work done and drill down in to any health markers which are out of range or have changed significantly since your pre-cycle blood work. Work on getting everything back in to range before thinking about cycling or blasting again. A lot of people will get impatient and start another blast while their blood work is still in the gutter, you're just asking for trouble and health issues if you do this. A cruise dose will typically be around ~120-150mg of Test per week, give or take a little. The idea of the cruise is to put you on the upper end (a lot go above though) of 'normal' Test levels to give your body/bloods a chance to recover. PCT is intended to get you producing Test naturally again with the help of some choice drugs. Two different approaches with different risks and benefits.
Stacking In Future Cycles
Later down the line, in future cycles or blasts, you might consider stacking more than one compound. While this can definitely yield more gains, it can also result in more side effects which can be more difficult to manage as there are more variables in the mix. People will usually look at an oral alongside the Test (Anavar, Anadrol) or another injectable (Nandrolone, Eq) when they first start to stack compounds. Research whichever compound you intend to add, start with a conservative dose and be aware of the potential side effects and the tools used to prevent or mitigate them (TUDCA/NAC for liver-toxic orals, Caber/Prami for compounds which can increase Prolactin and so on). As mentioned earlier, you can milk a lot of gains out of Test alone for one or multiple cycles and it will be very mild in terms of side effects, but additional compounds used correctly can create fullness, strength or an aesthetic which Test alone would struggle to replicate.
Are You Ready?
Don't take the decision too lightly. I see so many people starting a cycle these days with very little training under their belt, little knowledge of training/nutrition in general and having done very little research on PEDs. You need to have a good understanding of the drugs you're going to be using and the potential side effects before you start or you're asking for trouble. You're also going to want to know the fundamentals of effective training/nutrition or you're going to be wasting your time, money and shutting down your HPTA for no bloody reason.
Preparations and Dosing
If you do decide to go ahead, get a full blood panel done before starting your cycle. I use MediChecks and have always found them to be reliable, but there are plenty of other options. This will act as a reference point later down the line. You can compare your mid and post-cycle blood work to your pre-cycle blood work and see which markers have changed. A low to moderate dose of Testosterone should be more than enough for your first cycle. Anywhere between 250mg-500mg per week is fine. For duration, I'd go with 12-15 weeks. I'd prefer to use either Enanthate or Cypionate as you can get away with injecting it less frequently than Prop. Prop must be injected daily or every other day and comes in concentrations of 100-150mg/ml, meaning more oil would be required to reach your chosen dose. Enanthate is usually dosed at 250-300mg/ml. Cypionate is usually dosed at 200-250mg/ml. Some labs will offer them at a slightly higher concentration. You can get away with injecting Enanthate or Cypionate every 3.5-7 days. Some people prefer every 3.5 days as it will create more stable blood levels and less fluctuations in hormone levels. Some people are more sensitive to the fluctuations and can suffer from more side effects as a result so prefer every 3.5 days. Others have tested both frequencies and opt for every 7 days to avoid injecting as often.
Which Lab?
Do some research on the UGL you intend to use. Search the name of the lab on popular bodybuilding forums and look for recent feedback and reviews. Emphasis on the word recent as the quality of a lab can dip quite quickly. If the lab has a number of positive reviews from the last few months, the chances are that it's good to go. Don't waste your money buying products from a lab that is barely known or reviewed because you're more likely to be disappointed with the gear you receive. I've not bought bunk gear before, perhaps I've been lucky. But if you do, you're potentially wasting 12-15 weeks of your time and a couple of hundred pounds/dollars on the products. Other users will sometimes send a sample of their gear in to labs such as Janoshik or Chemtox who will provide a HPLC analysis of the gear to identify what it contains and how it's dosed. This can be useful, but only to a certain extent as the sample could be from somebody directly associated with the UGL in question sending a sample in they know is well-dosed.
AI/E2
Have an AI on hand, but avoid using it pre-emptively. Use it sparingly if you experience high E2 sides or if your mid-cycle blood work shows E2 as being out of range. It's better to start with a lower dose of AI and have to adjust/increase the dose than it is to use too much unnecessarily and crash your E2. Crashed E2 feels bad and wil likely hinder your gains, impact your mental health and will take a while to bounce back. For AI meds, always use pharmaceutical grade products if they are available to you. A lot of UGLs produce AI/PCT meds, but they are notoriously inconsistent and for the cost of pharmaceutical grade medication, it isn't worth taking the gamble. Different people have different requirements when it comes to AI dosing, there is not a one size fits all dosage to bring your E2 in to range, even if you're running the same brand, ester and dosage of Testosterone as somebody else with the same stats. It's something specific to you and you will usually find your sweet spot through trial and error. Some people don't need to use an AI at all on a low to moderate dose of Test. If you don't, great. If you do, start off small and adjust over time. Blood work will help you dial this in much easier than trial and error but can become costly if you get multiple bloods taken over the course of a cycle. Commonly used AI drugs are Arimidex and Aromasin, Arimidex is typically dosed at 1mg/tablet and Aromasin at 25mg/tablet. The tablets can be split in to smaller doses such as halves/quarters if a full tablet is not required depending on how high your E2 is.
Pinning
Choose a site for your injections. It's possible to pin most muscles, but some are more accessible and generally less painful than others. I personally tend to use the glutes and the ventroglutes most often as they're easy to access and generally PIP-free. I tend to avoid pinning areas where any significant PIP count interfere with my training such as delts and quads. It's common to get post-injection pain (PIP) the day(s) following your injection. It's completely normal and usually subsides after a couple of days. Most people tend to use 1 and a quarter inch blue needles to pin with. 5/8"-1" orange needles are common too. Microfine insulin needles can be used in some cases but will be more suitable for gear in a thin carrier oil - it will be time consuming and quite difficult to put thicker oil through an insulin needle.
Expectations
Don't expect too much too soon. I've mentioned this before, a successful Testosterone-only cycle will have you looking like a thicker version of your natural self with perhaps a little more roundness in the shoulders, fullness in the traps and slightly more vascular. You're only running it over a 12-15 week period and there's only a certain amount of muscle tissue you can gain in that space of time, regardless of how well optimised your training and nutrition is. It's very unlikely that it will completely transform your physique, that is done over a longer period of time after you have multiple cycles under your belt. With that being said, you can still make excellent gains and improve your strength and size significantly. But as with natural training, it requires patience and consistency.
'Feeling It'
You won't necessarily feel completely different while on cycle and you might not suffer from any side effects, that doesn't mean you're using fake Testosterone. Consider yourself lucky that you're experiencing no side effects. Not everybody will experience a mental boost either. Some might feel a great sense of energy, wellbeing and honed aggression in the gym, others (myself included) feel exactly the same. You're more likely to feel noticeable mental changes if your E2 is very high or very low, but some of the mental symptoms can be similar on either end of the spectrum so I wouldn't use this as a direct cue to increase/decrease your AI dose as you could end up making the issue worse.
Starting Lean
It's better to begin the cycle while you're somewhat lean and spend the duration of it focusing on gaining muscle and strength. If you go in to the cycle out of shape and spend all or a majority of it at maintenance or in a deficit, you're sacrificing valuable time that you could be spending building muscle tissue and making excellent strength gains. You only get one first cycle and if it's done properly, it will yield the most muscle tissue gain of any cycle you ever do. Use the time wisely and spend it in a calorie surplus with a progression-based routine. But don't get the impression that because you're using PEDs, you're incapable of gaining fat. The surplus still needs to be sensible. Plenty of guys will think they can get away with shovelling in as many calories as humanly possible and it will all convert in to lean muscle tissue, it's not the case. You still need to approach your surplus sensibly on PEDs.
Routine
There is no best routine. Different people can handle different levels of volume and frequency. Pick a routine that works for you with an adequate amount of rest days and consistent exercise choice and focus on progressive overload throughout the cycle. If you're adding PEDs and in a surplus, you should be able to consistently add weight, reps or time under tension week on week for the 12-15 weeks. Eliminate unnecessary junk volume and aim to train with intensity where you're reaching a point not far off failure for a majority of the sets of your compound lifts. I gain best when I'm hitting each muscle group twice a week, you might be different. Pick a routine and try to stick with it rather than going to the gym with no plan and trying to train instinctively. Adequate sleep will play a big part in your recovery in between sessions. Get yourself in to a good routine and aim for ~8 hours every night if possible, although I appreciate this won't be possible for everybody due to work, schedule, commitments etc.
Keep It Simple
More isn't necessarily better. There comes a point of a diminishing returns where increasing the dosage will yield more side effects than it will additional gains. Just because you're gaining well on say 400mg of Test E a week and not experiencing side effects, it doesn't mean you can double the dose and hope for an increased return without side effects. The increase in dosage could push your E2 too high and make it difficult to manage or evoke any of the other common side effects that you managed to avoid experiencing while on the lower dose. The same goes with adding additional compounds. A lot of people want to add an oral to kick-start or finish the cycle or a second compound to gain additional mass/strength. At this stage, you're brand new and you still don't really know how you're going to respond to Test alone. If you add multiple compounds at once, it will be difficult to identify where the side effects are coming from. Building up your cycle and dosages over time is the more sensible option. Even for your second cycle, you don't necessarily have to add anything weird or wonderful - you'll still be able to make fantastic gains on a low to moderate dose of Test as you're still pretty much brand new to using PEDs.
Preserving Health
Look after your general health and wellbeing. Don't eat like an ass hole. Do cardio. Regular cardio is one of the most important things you can do if you're taking a longevity based approach while using PEDs. It's easy to neglect it and focus solely on weight training in an attempt to gain all out mass but it will pay off to be consistent with in terms of heart health, regulating blood pressure and even mental health. Buy a blood pressure cuff and take regular readings. High blood pressure is a silent killer. If it gets slightly out of range, more often than not it can be brought back in to range with simple tweaks to your diet and increasing cardio. If that isn't enough, there are tons of over the counter supplements which can help. If that isn't enough, drop your PED dosage. If you're a stubborn bastard and won't drop your dosage, look at BP meds, a lot of people are raving over Telmisartan at the moment, I've not used it personally as my blood pressure has never been a huge issue. My body weight is on the lower side and I'm quite regular with my cardio. If you're big and heavy and do little cardio, it's more likely to be an issue for you and needs to be monitored.
Cycle or Blast
Decide if you want to cycle and PCT or blast and cruise. More people are blasting and cruising nowadays and the concept is being taken very lightly. I jumped in to blasting and cruising right away, and if I could go back and change it, I would. Before you know it, you've been using PEDs for several years without any break and if you ever do decide to come off completely, it's going to be difficult to recover fully. When I first started using the gear, I had that insane early-20's attitude of 'I'd rather live 30 years as a lion than 70 years as a sheep' - trust me, that attitude doesn't last. You're best off approaching this with longevity in mind from the offset and thinking long and hard about whether you want to cycle, blast or even start using steroids to begin with.
Post-Cycle
Get your post-cycle blood work done and drill down in to any health markers which are out of range or have changed significantly since your pre-cycle blood work. Work on getting everything back in to range before thinking about cycling or blasting again. A lot of people will get impatient and start another blast while their blood work is still in the gutter, you're just asking for trouble and health issues if you do this. A cruise dose will typically be around ~120-150mg of Test per week, give or take a little. The idea of the cruise is to put you on the upper end (a lot go above though) of 'normal' Test levels to give your body/bloods a chance to recover. PCT is intended to get you producing Test naturally again with the help of some choice drugs. Two different approaches with different risks and benefits.
Stacking In Future Cycles
Later down the line, in future cycles or blasts, you might consider stacking more than one compound. While this can definitely yield more gains, it can also result in more side effects which can be more difficult to manage as there are more variables in the mix. People will usually look at an oral alongside the Test (Anavar, Anadrol) or another injectable (Nandrolone, Eq) when they first start to stack compounds. Research whichever compound you intend to add, start with a conservative dose and be aware of the potential side effects and the tools used to prevent or mitigate them (TUDCA/NAC for liver-toxic orals, Caber/Prami for compounds which can increase Prolactin and so on). As mentioned earlier, you can milk a lot of gains out of Test alone for one or multiple cycles and it will be very mild in terms of side effects, but additional compounds used correctly can create fullness, strength or an aesthetic which Test alone would struggle to replicate.
