BumpassHell
New Member
Buenos dias, salud, and hello!
New member here as of a couple days ago. Stoked to find this water cooler as it seems like where the most knowledgeable and experienced folks mingle. And the forum website itself seems well-organized and not annoying to navigate. I wish I had found it sooner.
I wasn't sure if I was going to do a formal-ish introduction like this, but reading what @Survivalism had to write in his new member introduction about why he was looking into NPP and Anavar struck a chord. In short, it reminded me of how I became interested in PEDs: mainly because of the recovery potential from prior injuries. Some backstory:
My uncle got me into lifting when I was 14. He was a bodybuilder and my favorite person, and I was the smallest kid in my grade. At 14 I was recruited for the wrestling team because I was the only boy who could wrestle in the under 95 pound weight class. Lifting has never been my focus, but it's always been an adjunct to the sports I did. Soccer in college, then climbing/skiing/mountaineering things after. I've been a professional mountain guide ever since, getting on with it for about 25 years.
Moving forward to three years ago, when I was involved in a serious accident and had multiple severe injuries. The rehab was brutal. It was a major life shift, but it got me in the gym seven days a week. In addition to the rehab the PT gave me, I would just go to each machine and see what I could do for that range of motion. The lightest of weights for almost everything. But every day I would go to those machines and just do lightweight ROM stuff and try to take the pain just to the level that I felt wasn't going to cause further injury.
It worked. And after a lot of the soft tissue stuff healed I just kept going with the lifting. Despite surgeries, a couple of joints are permanently jacked and I'll have to tolerate the pain forever, I guess. In that process, a friend told me about BPC 157 and TB 500. Taking non-FDA-approved "research chemicals" purchased off the internet seemed like a stupid fucking idea. But I started a deep dive into all the pharmacology stuff. I spenthours days on Reddit...you may have been there. Within a couple of months I had purchased not just BPC/TB, but Test/NPP/Var/HGH/Caber/AIs/needles/bac water/alcohol pads, etc. Oh, and supps? Them too. Fish oil, D3/K2, mag glycinate, NAC, COQ10, telmisarten, collagen peptides, creatine, tumeric, milk thistle, citrus bergamot, ashwaganda, saw palmetto, glucosamin, MSM, etc, WTF. Locked and loaded, ready to blast off. I never thought this would be me...but there I was.
But I couldn't pull the trigger on the NPP or Var. I was too scared of the possible mental sides, the deca dick, gyno, the prolactin drama, and sides from 17-alpha methylated orals. I decided to go with TRT to help with muscle accretion, 50% for fun and 50% with the rationale that I deserved to "earn back" the muscle I had lost from the long recovery. I have had low T my entire life (by low I mean 350-450, so not that low, but somewhat low, possibly due to an undescended testicle at birth. Basically, I have one nut).
Okay, if I'm being more honest, it was 50% for fun, and 50% curiosity. Okay, even more honest...it was 100% for fun. I knew I prolly didn't need it, but my curiosity and intrigue were fired up after doing all this research into a world I previously knew nothing about. I've never really cared about being jacked. I was always muscular-ish (not really compared to you guys) and fit and lean, but I was now "addicted" to the gym and it became my #1 recreational hobby.
And that led to me starting a 12-week 500mg/week blast. Which was a ton of fun. I had to cut it short (was aiming for 16-weeks) due to accepting a guiding gig in Patagonia, and didn't want to worry about dabbling with AIs while in a tent in the middle of nowhere, so I went back to TRT at 150mg/week).
And that led me to a second cycle. Fourteen weeks of 500 test, 300 primo, 2-4iu HGH.
And here I am, thinking about where to go next. Presently I've been trying to map my E2 and hematocrit at different doses of test. I was on 175mg/week for 6 weeks. I upped it to 220mg/week, of which I'm on week four and will get bloods again at week six. Then I plan to go to 300, then 400. I would just like to know pretty specifically what I can generally expect my E2 and hematocrit to be at a given dose of test.
Training
I tinker with individual exercises a fair bit, but I follow a UL rest PPL rest. I train with 1-2 RIR on all sets, except for the last one that I take to failure. I'm generally in the 9-15 rep range. I'm old af and too much going to failure, or too many low rep sets, I've found, ends up with more days off. I track via fractional set count because I find it interesting. The count from the past week was:
Quads: 15.9
Glutes: 5.6
Hamstrings: 7.0
Chest: 21.3
Front delts: 9.2
Side delts: 12.0
Rear delts: 5.8
Lats: 15.0
Upper back: 7.5
Biceps: 14.0
Triceps: 14.3
Calves: 14.0
Forearm flexors: 13.6
Forearm extensors: 13.0
Adductors: 2.0
Almost all of those sets are done for hypertrophy, except for the majority of the lats and some of the forearms, which skew towards strength. A good portion of the lat work is either low-rep weighted pull-ups or EMOM sets of 5. I have the fractional set count for those set to .7 sets per set so it doesn't skew the total to make it seem like I do a ton of lat hypertrophy work. A good portion of the forearm training is rolling thunder grip training and no-hang crimp training (crimp is a type of climbing hold) off a pin. I have that set to .7 sets per set for the same reason.
I do 7-12 hours a week cardio, mostly zone 2-ish. A combination of cycling and skiing and climbing (climbing may not be cardio, but whatever). In the winter when I'm ski guiding a ton, the cardio increases to maybe 30-35 hours a week of zone 2-ish. And there are a couple trips a year where I'm not in the gym and doing 40+ hours a week of cardio.
Nutrition
220-240g protein; 50-75g fat; the rest in carbs which varies widely on how much cardio I'm doing; 50-60g fiber each day. 50% of fats come from avocado and flax.
My meals are mostly the same every day. Every day starts with 1 avocado and 3 eggs. If it's going to be a big cardio day, I chop up some baked potato and throw it in as well. I drink an enormous smoothie each day that consists of 600 grams frozen strawberries; 140 grams sweet potatoes; 140 grams pinto beans; 100 grams of carrots; 50 grams of kale; 35 grams of ground flax seed; 3 scoops of ON Whey vanilla protein powder; and 1300 grams of non-fat milk. This provides 1560 kcal. I drink this throughout the day, starting right after breakfast and normally finishing before dinner. My dinner meal is made up of chicken breast and white rice, usually flavored with onion/garlic/ginger/high-sodium SE Asian sauces. If it's a high cardio I eat an additional portion of white rice, serving size dependent.
I replace the calories I burn in cardio by using just straight gummies. The current mix is sour patch watermelon gummies and "fruit snacks". I eat a lot of gummies, which I tolerate well and can slam while being active.
Bloodwork/Health
I've had high-moderate BP my whole life (e.g., 133/82) that I started controlling with lisinopril/temisarten in 2017. Genetic, I guess. I up my telmisarten on cycle as needed to keep it around 120/70.
Had an echo two months ago. IVS = .9, LVPW = 10, LVMI 80g/m2). All normal.
Off-Cycle but on TRT Bloodwork: Typically off-cycle I get bloodwork every three months. Generally good. My ALT/AST values are usually in range, but occasionally I get a value in the low to mid-50s. GGT has ranged from 21-31. Fasting glucose is typically in the 70s but I popped a 97 once. Hematocrit (I live at 5,000 feet) is 49-53. 175mg test/week puts me at 997-1174mg/dl and free at 210-279pg/ml with SHGB at 23. The test feels a bit low for that 175mg/test per week and I wonder if it's underdosed. But I think I know that cardio can pull down test, so maybe there's that. The free seems pretty good compared to my total test, so okay. My LDL is a bit higher than I'd like (100-130) and my HDL almost never varies from 56. Triglycerides 72-97. Next time I'd like to get my ApoB and CRP done. My E2 is in the upper 40s/low 50s, no sides.
On-Cycle Blookwork: I get it once a month on cycle. On the primo cycle (300mg/week) my HDL plummeted to a low of 29, and my LDL rose to 156. My E2 went down to 36. All other stuff unremarkable. On the 500mg/wk test only cycle my E2 got up to 156 but no sides other than oily skin, some acne, and significant water retention in the mid-section. I did not take an AI.
I pin ED, FWIW. Stabler levels? Sure that's enough reason I guess.
Stats
--51-year-old male, 6-foot, 193 pounds at 10-12% bf. I've had about 15 dexa scans over the years and can ballpark pretty well, but I'll give a range to avoid the "You're not 10%!" reactions.
--325BP, 450DL, No squatting for me, thank you...630 on the leg press for 10 reps. 27 bodyweight pull-ups, with 100 pounds weighted for 3 reps.
--Twice the time off-cycle as on-cycle
--Goals are to gain another 15 pounds of "stage weight", look good, feel good, keep bloodwork baller, not let LVH enter the picture
--Learn a lot, have fun with this process, enjoy lifting and my life
Ok, done. That's a lot of words. I'm really grateful to learn from y'all. I'm not sure if I'll post a bunch because I've got a sense that every question a newb like me will have can be answered with the "Search" function. But if I do post, and I write something stupid, y'all can check my intro and think, "Yup, stupid checks out".
.
Take care and have a great day. Best of luck achieving your goals!
Two pics: the first one is current on 220mg test/week. The second is from July finishing up 500mg test/300mg primo lean bulk. Photos are with a pump and edited.
New member here as of a couple days ago. Stoked to find this water cooler as it seems like where the most knowledgeable and experienced folks mingle. And the forum website itself seems well-organized and not annoying to navigate. I wish I had found it sooner.
I wasn't sure if I was going to do a formal-ish introduction like this, but reading what @Survivalism had to write in his new member introduction about why he was looking into NPP and Anavar struck a chord. In short, it reminded me of how I became interested in PEDs: mainly because of the recovery potential from prior injuries. Some backstory:
My uncle got me into lifting when I was 14. He was a bodybuilder and my favorite person, and I was the smallest kid in my grade. At 14 I was recruited for the wrestling team because I was the only boy who could wrestle in the under 95 pound weight class. Lifting has never been my focus, but it's always been an adjunct to the sports I did. Soccer in college, then climbing/skiing/mountaineering things after. I've been a professional mountain guide ever since, getting on with it for about 25 years.
Moving forward to three years ago, when I was involved in a serious accident and had multiple severe injuries. The rehab was brutal. It was a major life shift, but it got me in the gym seven days a week. In addition to the rehab the PT gave me, I would just go to each machine and see what I could do for that range of motion. The lightest of weights for almost everything. But every day I would go to those machines and just do lightweight ROM stuff and try to take the pain just to the level that I felt wasn't going to cause further injury.
It worked. And after a lot of the soft tissue stuff healed I just kept going with the lifting. Despite surgeries, a couple of joints are permanently jacked and I'll have to tolerate the pain forever, I guess. In that process, a friend told me about BPC 157 and TB 500. Taking non-FDA-approved "research chemicals" purchased off the internet seemed like a stupid fucking idea. But I started a deep dive into all the pharmacology stuff. I spent
But I couldn't pull the trigger on the NPP or Var. I was too scared of the possible mental sides, the deca dick, gyno, the prolactin drama, and sides from 17-alpha methylated orals. I decided to go with TRT to help with muscle accretion, 50% for fun and 50% with the rationale that I deserved to "earn back" the muscle I had lost from the long recovery. I have had low T my entire life (by low I mean 350-450, so not that low, but somewhat low, possibly due to an undescended testicle at birth. Basically, I have one nut).
Okay, if I'm being more honest, it was 50% for fun, and 50% curiosity. Okay, even more honest...it was 100% for fun. I knew I prolly didn't need it, but my curiosity and intrigue were fired up after doing all this research into a world I previously knew nothing about. I've never really cared about being jacked. I was always muscular-ish (not really compared to you guys) and fit and lean, but I was now "addicted" to the gym and it became my #1 recreational hobby.
And that led to me starting a 12-week 500mg/week blast. Which was a ton of fun. I had to cut it short (was aiming for 16-weeks) due to accepting a guiding gig in Patagonia, and didn't want to worry about dabbling with AIs while in a tent in the middle of nowhere, so I went back to TRT at 150mg/week).
And that led me to a second cycle. Fourteen weeks of 500 test, 300 primo, 2-4iu HGH.
And here I am, thinking about where to go next. Presently I've been trying to map my E2 and hematocrit at different doses of test. I was on 175mg/week for 6 weeks. I upped it to 220mg/week, of which I'm on week four and will get bloods again at week six. Then I plan to go to 300, then 400. I would just like to know pretty specifically what I can generally expect my E2 and hematocrit to be at a given dose of test.
Training
I tinker with individual exercises a fair bit, but I follow a UL rest PPL rest. I train with 1-2 RIR on all sets, except for the last one that I take to failure. I'm generally in the 9-15 rep range. I'm old af and too much going to failure, or too many low rep sets, I've found, ends up with more days off. I track via fractional set count because I find it interesting. The count from the past week was:
Quads: 15.9
Glutes: 5.6
Hamstrings: 7.0
Chest: 21.3
Front delts: 9.2
Side delts: 12.0
Rear delts: 5.8
Lats: 15.0
Upper back: 7.5
Biceps: 14.0
Triceps: 14.3
Calves: 14.0
Forearm flexors: 13.6
Forearm extensors: 13.0
Adductors: 2.0
Almost all of those sets are done for hypertrophy, except for the majority of the lats and some of the forearms, which skew towards strength. A good portion of the lat work is either low-rep weighted pull-ups or EMOM sets of 5. I have the fractional set count for those set to .7 sets per set so it doesn't skew the total to make it seem like I do a ton of lat hypertrophy work. A good portion of the forearm training is rolling thunder grip training and no-hang crimp training (crimp is a type of climbing hold) off a pin. I have that set to .7 sets per set for the same reason.
I do 7-12 hours a week cardio, mostly zone 2-ish. A combination of cycling and skiing and climbing (climbing may not be cardio, but whatever). In the winter when I'm ski guiding a ton, the cardio increases to maybe 30-35 hours a week of zone 2-ish. And there are a couple trips a year where I'm not in the gym and doing 40+ hours a week of cardio.
Nutrition
220-240g protein; 50-75g fat; the rest in carbs which varies widely on how much cardio I'm doing; 50-60g fiber each day. 50% of fats come from avocado and flax.
My meals are mostly the same every day. Every day starts with 1 avocado and 3 eggs. If it's going to be a big cardio day, I chop up some baked potato and throw it in as well. I drink an enormous smoothie each day that consists of 600 grams frozen strawberries; 140 grams sweet potatoes; 140 grams pinto beans; 100 grams of carrots; 50 grams of kale; 35 grams of ground flax seed; 3 scoops of ON Whey vanilla protein powder; and 1300 grams of non-fat milk. This provides 1560 kcal. I drink this throughout the day, starting right after breakfast and normally finishing before dinner. My dinner meal is made up of chicken breast and white rice, usually flavored with onion/garlic/ginger/high-sodium SE Asian sauces. If it's a high cardio I eat an additional portion of white rice, serving size dependent.
I replace the calories I burn in cardio by using just straight gummies. The current mix is sour patch watermelon gummies and "fruit snacks". I eat a lot of gummies, which I tolerate well and can slam while being active.
Bloodwork/Health
I've had high-moderate BP my whole life (e.g., 133/82) that I started controlling with lisinopril/temisarten in 2017. Genetic, I guess. I up my telmisarten on cycle as needed to keep it around 120/70.
Had an echo two months ago. IVS = .9, LVPW = 10, LVMI 80g/m2). All normal.
Off-Cycle but on TRT Bloodwork: Typically off-cycle I get bloodwork every three months. Generally good. My ALT/AST values are usually in range, but occasionally I get a value in the low to mid-50s. GGT has ranged from 21-31. Fasting glucose is typically in the 70s but I popped a 97 once. Hematocrit (I live at 5,000 feet) is 49-53. 175mg test/week puts me at 997-1174mg/dl and free at 210-279pg/ml with SHGB at 23. The test feels a bit low for that 175mg/test per week and I wonder if it's underdosed. But I think I know that cardio can pull down test, so maybe there's that. The free seems pretty good compared to my total test, so okay. My LDL is a bit higher than I'd like (100-130) and my HDL almost never varies from 56. Triglycerides 72-97. Next time I'd like to get my ApoB and CRP done. My E2 is in the upper 40s/low 50s, no sides.
On-Cycle Blookwork: I get it once a month on cycle. On the primo cycle (300mg/week) my HDL plummeted to a low of 29, and my LDL rose to 156. My E2 went down to 36. All other stuff unremarkable. On the 500mg/wk test only cycle my E2 got up to 156 but no sides other than oily skin, some acne, and significant water retention in the mid-section. I did not take an AI.
I pin ED, FWIW. Stabler levels? Sure that's enough reason I guess.
Stats
--51-year-old male, 6-foot, 193 pounds at 10-12% bf. I've had about 15 dexa scans over the years and can ballpark pretty well, but I'll give a range to avoid the "You're not 10%!" reactions.
--325BP, 450DL, No squatting for me, thank you...630 on the leg press for 10 reps. 27 bodyweight pull-ups, with 100 pounds weighted for 3 reps.
--Twice the time off-cycle as on-cycle
--Goals are to gain another 15 pounds of "stage weight", look good, feel good, keep bloodwork baller, not let LVH enter the picture
--Learn a lot, have fun with this process, enjoy lifting and my life
Ok, done. That's a lot of words. I'm really grateful to learn from y'all. I'm not sure if I'll post a bunch because I've got a sense that every question a newb like me will have can be answered with the "Search" function. But if I do post, and I write something stupid, y'all can check my intro and think, "Yup, stupid checks out".
.Take care and have a great day. Best of luck achieving your goals!
Two pics: the first one is current on 220mg test/week. The second is from July finishing up 500mg test/300mg primo lean bulk. Photos are with a pump and edited.
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