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This is a great article I dug up from a few years back... Written by Dogg (he is known by his prior “hardcore” writings fame), his one post eventually inspired him to write over 25 pages of material, outlining his philosophies on a wide range of bodybuilding topics. He has garnered a loyal following directly because he was writing about subjects seven years ago that have became staples in bodybuilding today. What follows is a drastically pared down version, briefly touching upon some of the many issues he discussed in his various posts. It’s Dogg’s intention to use this article as an introduction to a series of articles he will write for AE, discussing in much greater details some of the points addressed here. Meuller: As Dogg and I have a lot of the same ideas, he asked me to interject some of my thoughts in these articles along with his. Dogg: Without sounding ****y I am a very advanced bodybuilder down here in San Diego–cruising at 285lbs or so and going up over 300 this year. I came from a very, very hard gaining and skinny genetic structure (140lbs about 10 years ago) so gains have never come easy and I didn’t start super supplements until I was 225 clean (took me 6 years). (I use food as my chief anabolic). What I am amazed at is the number of 180 to 220lb bodybuilders on the net who spend ungodly amounts of money and use so many different exotic compounds thinking that it is the end all super stack of all stacks. And they take huge, huge risks in trying to acquire these drugs. I have had an abundance of pro and top amateur friends to gain the knowledge that pretty much these top people in the sport are blasting high amounts of test as the base drug in the offseason to put on pro size with mostly one (sometimes two) other compounds (usually fina, or equipoise or some other non exotic drug and GH if it can be afforded). I firmly believe you will gain 2 times the amount of muscle off of 2 grams of test either alone or with another compound than having some kind of exotic stack involving 3 to 6 exotic hard to get expensive compounds. The receptor site theories have proven to be bunk. The cheapest and best stack I can think of anyone doing to put on major size is a gram or two of test with arimidex to keep water off with fina 75 to 150mg every other day for 4 weeks –then 2 to 3 weeks of cruising (test at 300-400mg and clomid at 5 (day one), 4(day two), 3(day three),then 2 every day for 2 weeks)–and then back on everything full again (maybe equipoise used instead of fina this time) for 4 weeks (then 2 to 3 weeks cruising again etc etc)—if you can’t gain gobs of muscle on that nothing exotic (masteron, etc etc etc) surely isn’t going to do it for you. Testosterone is always the base for any gaining cycle of any pro friend I’ve had or top people with whom I talked with off record. I have never even been over 1000mg of test myself (yet) but I see guys spending and using 10 times the amount I do weighing 70lbs less. I think there is a major problem when the easiest, cheapest and most potent things are right in front of people and they are off searching for substance B-737 undecylate in bulgaria. Meuller: All too often we’ve seen 180-220 lbs bodybuilders obsessed with some irrelevant minutiae of bodybuilding, arguing the merits of using anavar stacked with creatine or how dosages of primobolan should be divided up in order to maximize size. Just the other day in the gym, I heard two wannabe bodybuilders actually discussing the merits of using creatine stacked with various fruit juices. Now admittedly, I train at 24 Hour Fitness, not the most hardcore gym on the planet, but I literally had to laugh out loud listening to these two idiots taking each other incredibly seriously over an issue that has about as much relevance to the gaining of lean body mass as what kind of underwear I choose to put on prior to my foray into the gym. I know that both Dogg and myself receive countless emails from bodybuilders looking for that one special compound, you know the one I mean, the secret steroid that all the pros are using and no one else seems to be able to get their hands on. The steroid that if only I could manage to obtain, I’d be kicking Coleman’s ass all over the Olympia stage in no time. There is a major problem when the cheapest, easiest, and most potent drugs are widely available and bodybuilders are blaming their lack of success on everything but their food intake, work ethic in the gym, or cycles that wouldn’t make my girlfriend grow. Perhaps the biggest secret in bodybuilding is that there are no secrets. There are no secret stacks, there are no secret drugs, the amateurs and pros that we see in Flex and other magazines are using the same drugs that are readily available to you or I. Ask any top amateur or pro what his favorite steroid is and you’ll undoubtedly get the same answer from everyone: TESTOSTERONE!! 2 grams of test a week is going to put size on you unlike anything else, I don’t care how exotic or expensive. You show me a rare DDR steroid that supposedly is 50X as anabolic as testosterone and runs $600 per bottle and I’ll show you a GC/MS assay of cheap steroids you could pick up in Mexico for $20. Anavar? A drug I put my girlfriend on if she wants to gain a few pounds of muscle. Primobolan? A steroid I’d give to my kid if he had the flu. Ok, these drugs may have their place in a bridging cycle, but believe me, no bodybuilder attempting to gain brutal size need to concern himself with mass cycles containing impotent steroids like anavar and primobolan. Dogg: I am of the opinion that people should use the lowest dosages possible that will keep them gaining. If a newbie bodybuilder starts off with 2 grams of T every week and a high dose of fina etc, etc and eventually taps out on that where is he going to go? 4000 a week? I believe one should make their way up 750, to 1000 to 1200 to 1500 and so on slowly thru cycles. I am an advocate of the 4 week on 2 week cruising (then back on) method not because of receptor site saturation but due to 3 very important (to me) factors… 1) I lift extremely heavy and I push the limits for 4 weeks and I just need 2 weeks to kind of regroup myself and then go balls to the wall again with poundages for the next 4 weeks 2)Same with food intake-I religiously get in 500 to 600 grams of protein and I have to give myself a little break for those 2 weeks (I only go down to 400grams or so) or I’ll go crazy 3) I think it’s of utmost importance to keep yourself regulated HPTA-wise. If your endogenous test levels diminish due to constant months of high androgens when you do finally come off those size gains fly out the door…if you can keep your endo test somewhat normal you wont get the huge problems that keep most bodybuilders bouncing up and down in bodyweight like yo-yo’s..namely getting colds and flu’s/injuries/depression/lack of aggression and appetite (which usually means test to estrogen ratio out of whack)…During the cruising period the 300-400mg of test will keep you from losing any muscle at all and the clomid and arimidex will get you as close (via 2 different routes) to homeostasis as possible. Meuller: Repeat– We are not advocating that a newbie run out and start injecting himself with 2 grams of testosterone per week in an attempt to gain as much size as possible? Let me quantify what we are trying to say. At some point, 2 grams a week of testosterone may become a necessity as you reach the upper limits of size your body will grow on bodybuilding drugs. Just as we all have a natural limit to how big we can get naturally, we also have a limit to how big we can get using performance enhancing drugs. You look at bodybuilders like Ruhl, Yates, or Coleman and you’re seeing men who have virtually maxed out their ability to add more muscle. Did Dorian’s physique change noticeably from year to year during his last several Olympias? Has Coleman’s? Sure, perhaps they come in a little tighter, Coleman may fluctuate 10 lbs in bodyweight from year to year, but realistically, these guys reached their genetic limit to add muscle long ago. Now the massive amounts of drugs they take are simply to maintain the incredible amounts of LBM they have accrued over years of training, eating, and juicing. And this article isn’t being written for the Yates, Colemans, or Ruhls of the bodybuilding world, I seriously doubt they’re coming to AE for advice. This article is written for you, the aspiring bodybuilder, someone who wants to gain as much muscle as quickly as possible but doesn’t know how. Let’s say you’re an aspiring bodybuilder with good genetics and want to start your first cycle. If you start out at 2000 mg of test a week with other assorted steroids, where are you going to go from there when you eventually stop growing. You should seek to start with as low of an effective dose as possible and work your way up, always bearing in mind that your cycle is probably the last reason why you’re not growing. You show me a 180 lb bodybuilder that’s not growing on 750 mg of test a week and 50 mg of methandrostenolone per day and I’ll show you someone who isn’t eating or training correctly unless he’s 4’11”. A good starting dose for a newbie is in the range of 750-800 mg of testosterone per week, stacked with another steroid like methandrostenolone (50 mg/day in divided doses), trenbolone acetate (75 mg ED), or even an old standby like deca (600 mg/week). Use of an anti-aromatase like Arimidex is a must. As Dogg advocates, steroid cycles are times during which your body must be pushed to its limits. All too often you’ll see so-called bodybuilders (bodybuilders in their own mind really) begin a cycle and maintain the same kind of eating and training habits they adhered to pre-cycle. Will they gain muscle? Most definitely, several double-blind medical studies have proven that moderate dosages of testosterone will add small amounts of LBM and cause a slight decrease in body fat without any change in diet or exercise programs. But then again, that’s not really bodybuilding now is it? Bodybuilding is an attempt to build yourself up to what you consider to be a physical ideal, and for more AE readers than not, that means brutally huge size. Brutally huge size is the result of two primary actions 1) brutal workouts and 2) a brutal eating schedule. Steroids assist in both of these endeavors, allowing you to train harder in the gym and increasing appetite so one can consume more food. There is also a limit to how much of this the psyche and body can take, regardless of how tough you are mentally or how genetically gifted you may be. My workout partner and I have been training balls to the wall for the past 2 months with the singular goal of my reaching 310 lbs. We agreed that once I reached this weight, we would take 5 days off from the gym and do nothing but rest as much as our respective schedules will allow. In all seriousness, we both breathed a sigh of relief when I stepped on the scale Monday night and it read 312 lbs, because we were both very nearly at our breaking point. We agreed to finish out the week as planned (I didn’t expect to break 310 until Thursday or Friday) and then take all of next week off. You’re seeing more and more top bodybuilding gurus advocate training cycles in this fashion, Dogg advocates 4 week training cycles, Trevor Smith from Nuclear advocates 6 week, and I advocate 8 week cycles. Doggs 4 week training cycle involves cruising for 2 weeks after the initial four weeks (as discussed above) to get the HPTA back in check and then back on full bore again. You can either keep doing that indefinitely or stop the 4+2 regimen whenever you deem in necessary. Regardless of whether it’s 4+4, 6, or 8 weeks, at some point your body needs a break when you’re doing everything right in and out of the gym.