Q: “I’m a powerlifter planning my first cycle, aiming for both size and strength increases. If doing a cycle of testosterone enanthate at 500 mg/week, a Dianabol kickstart at 25 mg/day for four weeks, HCG at 250 IU 3x/week, and Aromasin as an anti-estrogen what would be the best idea for recovery? I’m thinking of doing 12 weeks. I keep hearing to make testosterone enanthate cycles long as they don’t tend to kick in until week 6 or later. Would I be better off keeping it to 8-10 weeks and increasing the dosage slightly and frontloading? Or should I just do the 12 weeks of my original plan. I wanted to do 3 cycles of 8 weeks a year as per your recommendations but it seems that would not work well with a long ester, is this true?”
A: Testosterone enanthate absolutely can be used effectively in cycle lengths such as 8 weeks. When results are poor before the 6 week point, it’s the result of one or more of these: inadequate dosing, failure to frontload, training problems, and/or nutritional problems.
When having a planned usage level of, for example 500 mg/week, if you frontload you’d inject for example 600 mg on the first day. This would bring you promptly the same levels you’ll sustain during the cycle.
Those who from the start only inject 250 mg at a time begin with levels that are no higher than what’s obtained with time with ongoing 200 mg/week usage. It’s no wonder that their results don’t kick in for a long time.
So, frontload.
With testosterone enanthate, on Day 1 take your regular dosage amount plus about 5/7ths, or about 70%, of your weekly dose. The milligram amount does not have to be exact.
I’d suggest increasing the Dianabol duration to 6 weeks, and make it the last 6 weeks of the cycle rather than the first.
I’d consider increasing the testosterone to 750 mg/week during the non-Dianabol weeks.
So under that plan, your first injection would be 250 mg plus about 535 mg, which is close enough to the convenient value of 750 mg. After that, inject 3x/weekly. On starting the Dianabol, you could reduce the testosterone to twice weekly, or could maintain 750 mg/week, according to preference. On the last week, do only the first testosterone injection; the duration of action will carry you through the rest of the week.
I’d discontinue the HCG in the week before last.
I’d prefer for the cycle to be 8 weeks, as recovery will be better.
Aromasin can do a perfectly good job of controlling estrogen in a cycle like this, but I don’t find it possible to predict the needed dose accurately. If you have to use Aromasin, my starting guess would be 25 mg once per 3 days. I’d prefer letrozole at 1 mg/day as it’s more predictable. As to why this is, Aromasin is a suicide inhibitor which destroys the aromatase enzyme and the amount needed for correct amount of destruction is somewhat unpredictable. In contrast, letrozole or anastrozole are competitive inhibitors with effect directly related to blood level. This tends to be more predictable.
It’s possible to do PCT with only an aromatase inhibitor, but I’d prefer instead using Clomid or Nolvadex according to the usual protocols.
