Ask Bill Roberts #18

 

Questions regarding 2 on / 4 off

Hi there Bill, I hope this e-mail finds you well. I’ve a couple of questions I’d like to ask you re. the short cycle.

I’m 30 years of age, 6’3″ and currently 260 lb. at around 13% bodyfat and haven’t used steroids before. My goals are to reach 280lbs or so at around 8-9% bodyfat and feel that 5 or 6 short cycles should get me there.

Now, my questions:

1) Are the dosages used in Jim’s experiment okay for me as a first time user? Might they even be too low given my extra bodyweight?

Yes, the doses are fine for a first-time user of Jim’s size, and being about half again Jim’s size, it stands to reason that using 50% more would be appropriate for you.

2) If I’m going to do 5 or 6 cycles back to back I will be taking Cytadren for 5 of 6 weeks for over 6 months. Should I maybe alternate between Cytadren and Proviron on alternate cycles?

The Cytadren is useful for partially inhibiting aromatization of Dianabol to methylestradiol. When taking Dianabol only in the morning, a half tab of Cytadren is all that’s needed, and this is very mild and nothing to be concerned about long term.

I don’t have blood tests to indicate whether Proviron is effective in that application.

Contrary to what some say, at substantial doses (over I think 50 mg) Proviron is somewhat inhibitory to LH production, so personally I don’t think it is the best thing to use off-cycle, though it does stand to reason that if used morning-only and with moderate doses (under 50 or perhaps even 100 mg), there would be no inhibition problems.

3) I don’t have access to trenbolone acetate and hence intend to use test propionate. However I do have access to Parabolan and was wondering what half-life you would attribute to this drug?

Half-life of anabolic steroid esters is mostly a function of the number of carbons in the ester chain, and based on that, I suppose somewhere around 5-7 days. It would be suitable for a short cycle only if injected at the beginning only, and then, probably not more than 3 or 4 amps. Given the price, I would not bother.

4) Oxandrolone is very expensive and I have access to very reasonably priced stanozolol tabs. Can these be substituted (I’ve read that stanozolol tabs can screw up ones HDL/LDL ratio moreso than other orals).

Definitely one can substitute the stanozolol, or use only Dianabol. The oxandrolone worked nicely, but later “experiments” have worked well without it too. Nonetheless, I have the impression that the Dianabol/oxandrolone stack was the best one tried yet for the “clean” weeks.

5) And involving training – I love to squat and deadlift. How would you go about fitting these into the training routine you gave Jim.

Sincerely,

KG.

The most direct solution would be simply to have him add them in on Saturday. (Chest, calves, lats/midback on Monday; legs on Tuesday; shoulders on Wednesday; lats/midback again and more concentrated on Thursday; chest, calves, and arms on Friday; and only abs on Saturday.)

Other things would be possible if we wished to train bodyparts only once per week, for example:

1) Shoulders, Arms
2) Deadlift, Hamstrings, Calves
3) Rest
4) Rest
5) Back and Chest
6) Squat, Calves
7) Rest

However I think twice per week works very well in this sort of sudden-growth situation. The fad for once a week training for each bodypart, heavily popularized in the magazines over the last few years, is a valid way to train, but not the only good way, and I think not as good in this situation.

PS. Has Jim performed further cycles and if so what sort of results did he achieve?

Well, with Jim, unfortunately his medical studies (he is currently a 3^rd year medical student) have interfered greatly with his efforts at physique enhancement. For most people, it’s necessary to keep stress under control, to obtain adequate sleep, and to train regularly to have success in improving their physiques. That just hasn’t been the case for Jim lately. So the answer is no, he wasn’t able to keep up with his plans of doing several cycles. That apparently will have to wait until he is an MD, a year and a half from now.

Suppression of natural testosterone production

I am a very cautious steroid user and am concerned about the suppression of a male’s natural testosterone during a cycle. Is it possible to avoid this by using low doses of a very mild steroid like Primobolan or oxandrolone. Or does the body always begin to suppress natural testosterone any time any amount of androgen is artificially introduced into the system?

Charles

At any given moment, LH production is limited according to the amounts of androgen, estrogen, and progestins in the blood. (As well as other factors.) This means that, yes, androgens, even Primobolan or oxandrolone, do inhibit natural testosterone production.

However, it turns out that if you don’t have this suppression by androgen going on around the clock, but only during the day (for example, by taking the steroid only in the morning) then you don’t have very much overall suppression of natural LH production. And this means not much suppression of natural T production.

It also seems that injectable Primobolan, if it is the only steroid used, doesn’t cause much inhibition of natural testosterone production if the dosage used is moderate: 400 mg/week or less.

So overall, the answer is yes, the body does begin to suppress natural testosterone production any time any amount of androgen is artificially introduced into the system, but it does work out to where we can add some amounts that are useful in ways that keep this suppression down to the “beginning to suppress” level.

However if we want really serious gains from anabolic steroids, or want to maintain levels far above the natural limit that have been achieved with high-dose use, then we must use enough androgens to go far past this “beginning to suppress” point and near-total inhibition can be expected.

Zinc supplementation

What are your thoughts, or do you have any data to support increased supplementation of both; Zinc and Magnesium as helpful for bodybuilders. I am looking at taking: zinc aspartate – 30mg and magnesium aspartate – 450mg every day before bed. What do you think?? Do you have any data to support this form of natural supplementation ?

Your help is greatly appreciated.

F.P.

If a man is deficient in zinc, then it has been known for quite some time that zinc supplementation will help correct lowered testosterone levels that tend to be associated with that condition.

Now, excessive zinc results in worsening of blood cholesterol levels, and generally has been warned against.

If your diet is poor then this supplementation may be a good idea.

All the organic chelate forms (gluconate, aspartate, methionate or monomethionine, etc.) seem to have about the same bioavailability according to animal studies. No one has shown that in man one is much better than the others. So quite a variety of products out there will work for you if you have a zinc or magnesium deficiency.

Whether you do or not is something I cannot say. If it were me, I’d assume not, unless my diet were bad. Since I make a point of eating a half to a full pound of red meat per day, and I consume several MRPs, personally I have no worries about zinc deficiency.

Usnic acid

Bill,

What is the story on HPDx and usnic acid? Testosterone had an article really slamming it, but it also seemed to a lot of its time slamming Dan Duchaine, which made me think it was biased. I have heard that you are against HPDx also, but also that you are biased! What’s the story?

The article really was a disaster of timing. I corresponded with the author quite a bit in the research stages of the article, and neither of us had any idea Dan’s health had taken a turn for the worse. Obviously, both the author and I now feel bad about jokes that seemed funny at the time, and seemed a way to drive home the point of the dangers of this supplement, but which now are not what we would have said had we known it was Dan’s last few weeks with us. I really suggest reading Bruce Kneller’s eulogy for Dan: that will give you the real picture I think. Just because people have disagreements and may argue doesn’t mean that there isn’t also a lot positive there as well. Dan will be missed.

Though the timing of the articles is regretted, as is the “witty” style that now isn’t humorous, usnic acid really and genuinely is something that absolutely should not be on the supplement market. The “herbal” use of it is at only 1/10 the dose recommended for HPDx, and even so, the herbal use is supposed to be limited to a few days at a time to treat specific problems such as infections. It is no “health tonic.”

The burden is not for critics to absolutely prove that a supplement will kill users dead in a few days, but for the seller to have reasons why it should be considered safe, with there being no good evidence that it may be dangerous at the doses people will use. People have a right to expect supplements to be safe. That is why they are available without prescription.

All the references in the Testosterone article are valid, and indeed usnic acid is something that may cause chromosome damage (with mice showing signs of this after just 48 hours), may cause severe allergic response, and should be expected at best to be just as toxic as DNP. You are not going to find a safe way to poison mitochondrial respiration and greatly raise your body temperature, in my opinion. It’s inherent to this type of drug. It’s inherently dangerous.

This should be considered a “kamikaze drug” every bit as much as DNP is and even more, and should not be considered a “safe, herbal supplement that contains no drugs or chemicals” as has been claimed for it.

All this has nothing to do with bias: only with the realities of the matter.

I’m aware that the publicity outlining the dangers of HPDx has acted to increase its sales. Apparently, there are people out there who are so pathetically stupid as to, after reading a thoroughly referenced article on how dangerous it is, wind up yelling, “Mabel!! Lend me $40! I gotta order some of dis stuff!! It’s POWERFUL!!!!”

But, know what? I don’t care so much if that idiot hurts himself with it. Anyone who can read an article telling him the evidence that the product can damage his chromosomes who then runs out and buys it, deserves what he gets.

What concerns me is people who would have bought the product innocently trusting that it is another typical, safe supplement, as they have a right to expect. It says right on the website that it is “herbal” and “safe” and “contains no chemicals or drugs.” It’s even formulated by a doctor (OK, an anonymous doctor, but still a doctor.)

If one such person who would never have wanted to use anything dangerous learned the truth that this product has evidence of being very dangerous, and was steered from a potentially disastrous mistake by the information Bruce Kneller and I have publicized, then as far as I am concerned, this was to the good.

Even if it did also increase sales to kamikaze nut cases with more “courage” then sense. Risking chromosome damage for the sake of losing fat a few days quicker than one can do without it? Now that is TRULY stupid. Is anyone out there that stupid? Yes, unfortunately.

Enough said.

DHT derivatives

I have read numerous articles which stated that Primobolan Depot and Winstrol were derivatives of DHT and are particularly bad for hair loss. Is this true? Are they derived from DHT?

In medicinal chemistry, one starts with a “lead compound” that has some activity you are interested in: for example, it acts as an androgen. Compounds which you make from that compound, but which now are different because of what you have done to it, are called derivatives of that compound. A derivative will generally differ from the parent compound in its properties.

In other words, what I am saying is that whether a steroid is a “derivative” of DHT is purely a question of historical interest: it has nothing to do with how the compound acts in the body.

Incidentally, Primobolan and Winstrol could also be called a testosterone derivatives, or androstenedione derivatives, or DHEA derivatives even. So you can see the whole thing is a moot point and anyone who bases arguments on it is just playing tricks with words.

In fact Primobolan and Winstrol act differently from DHT in that, unlike DHT, they are not converted to androstanediol. They are comparable in effect on the hair to anabolically-equivalent doses of any other synthetic except nandrolone.

Would 200mg of Primobolan Depot be harsher on scalp hair than 200mg of testosterone enanthate?

Nope. Easier.

Selective gains on legs?

Bill,

I love your columns. My problem is that, despite being fairly strong, my legs are not proportional in size to my upper body. Because I focus much time to leg training, I feel that this is due to poor genetics. Would taking an oral only on leg training days be of any benefit? Or should I try a 6 week cycle and only work legs twice a week. What would be the minimal work to not lose but not gain upper body mass in this situation?

Sincerely,

Chicken Legs

I think that taking orals only on the training day would make relatively little difference. Who knows, it might do more to help the body part trained the day previously, or two days previously, than it will do to help the legs.

I would try doing a cycle but I’m not sure that training legs twice a week will be the way to go. I would do that if I had been training them once per week all along. But since you’ve been training them twice a week for some time, the answer might be to hit them harder but only once a week. Perhaps even with two workouts on that one day per week: the first one being heavy with moderate reps, e.g. 6 to 8, and the second workout being higher reps.

If you’re talking about just maintaining in the upper body while on steroids what you achieved naturally, probably one set per bodypart per week will do it. I am serious! Two will do it for sure.

I’d also prefer an 8 week cycle to 6 weeks, since gains will probably be a little more, and losses afterwards will probably not be any more.