Differences of macro ratios on gains?

[weighted chinup]

Reason i ask is this. To what extent do you say gear changes your recovery capacity? I know it decreases the amount of time needed between workouts to recover. Would you also say it increases the volume capacity per workout? Where once i did 12 sets per body part on gear i would do 20 sets per body part? What is your experience in terms of how much volume per workout is optimal?

Localized muscle recovery is what the average lifter is thinking of when they use the term recovery. This process is fast occurring even without drugs. As I said before, it ain't shit really....and it shouldn't be a huge concern.

Systemic fatigue symptoms is the real bitch and personally gear doesn't allow fatigue to dissipate in a dramatic way absent of deloading or adjustments to intensity. Gear might mask fatigue symptoms or allow you to intensify a lot harder but It hasn't prevented me from accumulating fatigue. I would sell an organ for a drug that would prevent fatigue from accumulating but that's not happening anytime soon.

I am a big believer of doing more work as your capacity to do work increases but adding an extra 8 sets right away is not the way I would approach this and if you are able to do this chances are the intensity is very low anyway and probably isn't going to make a huge difference.

I wouldn't use the term 'optimal' really, but this graph kind of illustrates the diminishing returns you get past a certain point.

The amount of total tonnage that 'optimal' turns out to be in the real world would depend on intensity / percentage of 1rm being used. Higher intensity would require less total tonnage for a similar stimulus than a lower intensity for example.

 

[turcao]

I'm on gear. Usually I would run a cruise dose of test, something pretty minimal, for the off season and normal training. For peaking, meet prep, and the actual meet I'd run a blast. So gear doesn't help me much in the off season where most of the work is being done. During peaking yes it helps recovery but even wih gear, a peaking cycle will test your mental and physical limits regularly. It's not easy and if you feel good during one chances are you're not peaking hard enough.

Gear def allows you to train more frequently or get the same results as someone natty while training less frequently. You can handle more volume and intensity.

How much volume is optimal per workout depends on each lifter individually and also how they train. I'm running sheiko now which is very volume heavy and the lifts are trained very frequently. To offset this the intensity is lower.

Do you run a "cruise" year round? What would the cruise dose be like?

 

[Docd187123]

Do you run a "cruise" year round? What would the cruise dose be like?

It started off at 250mg test e 200mg deca so as to help alleviate the pain from a few nagging injuries prior to peaking for my first meet. I blasted the 3months prior to the meet then went down to 250mg test e a week for a little while before dropping that to ~175mg test e a week.

 

[turcao]

It started off at 250mg test e 200mg deca so as to help alleviate the pain from a few nagging injuries prior to peaking for my first meet. I blasted the 3months prior to the meet then went down to 250mg test e a week for a little while before dropping that to ~175mg test e a week.

I was thinking of doing some thing similar running test e at 200 till Jan 1 then adding deca. Are u on TRT or do you come off and do pct?

 

[Docd187123]

I was thinking of doing some thing similar running test e at 200 till Jan 1 then adding deca. Are u on TRT or do you come off and do pct?

I'm Not on TRT.

 

[RaveHead]

Weightedchinul, I just saw your post from monday. Nice illustration of optimal vs suboptimal and diminishing returns.