This is a reply I wrote several months ago in answer to a similar question on another board:
Well in all fairness, dbol-only cycles are not totally worthless. In the late 1950s and early 1960s US Olympic lifters (when US Olympic lifters were still on par with Russian lifters and before powerlifting began it's spreading) were relying on dianabol given to them by Dr. John Ziegler (who was receiving it from CIBA pharmaceuticals to *test* on human subjects).
At first only the lifters directly in contact with Dr. Ziegler would use dianabol, but soon, these lifters started to distribute the drug to other lifters in the country.
Well, during that period several lifters reported huge strength gains, significant size gains and a general feeling of euphoria. They also observed that a lot of the size was lost when they stopped taking the pill (but a majority of the strength gains remained) ... of course they did not really understood how AAS worked back then.
Well, enough rambling, the point is that dianabol-only cycles have been used a lot in the past (before other substances were known or used) and guys whould still report good gains.
That having been said, most direct size gains from dianabol are due to water retention (which may help explain why it's such a good substance to increase strength) and as a result a lot of the gains are "lost" after the cycle ... well the gains are not really lost since they were not real gains in the first place.
AS I mentionned in an earlier post, dianabol's main purpose (beside helping a cycle get started quickly) is strength increases. If you gain a lot of strength you can lift bigger weights, which increase growth stimulation. But to best take advantage of that stimulation one should use a substance which increase at which the rate of adaptation occurs. Other AAS such as testosterone and deca (although I don't like deca myself) are good examples of this.
Let me tell you this... It is impossible to keep all "gains" from a dianabol cycle. Well, to be exact you cannot keep all the weight that you put on during the cycle because a boatload of it will be water.
The muscle you gain is maintainable but from a dianabol-only cycle the actual quality muscle gains will not be that extensive. It might be possible to gain 20lbs or more on a 8 weeks dianabol-only cycle BUT I would estimate that 50-70% of the weight gain will be due to water retention.
Weight gain due to water retention cannot be maintained (nor is it healthy to do so ... plus, holding water makes you look fatter than you are) so regardless of your post-cycle therapy plan you WILL loose about half of the weight you gained on dianabol (well, it really depends on each individual).
Using liquidex throughout the cycle will diminish the water gains by as much as 80-90%. In that case you will loose less weight after the cycle, but you will not necessarily retain more muscle ... you will just not loose as much water post-cycle, but then again that's because you did not retain water in the first place.
Furthermore I do believe that water retention actually helps to increase strength (may not be the main reason, but it may play a significant role). So trying to prevent water retention as much as possible during a dianabol cycle might actually render the cycle much less effective. That's not to say that anti-e should not be used, but you should keep all of that in mind to better judge of the efficacy of the cycle.
I seriously doubt that an individual can gain 20lbs of muscle in 6 weeks of only using dianabol at 25mg/day (five 5mg tabs/day)
Well, it *IS* possible to gain 20lbs by using that much, BUT a lot of it will be water (as I mentionned in an earlier post).
At 25mg/day for 6 weeks I would say that a total AAS newbie who trains perfectly and ingest a ton of *quality* food could gain 1 pound per week *more than he would while training natural*.
For example if the guy can naturally gain 2lbs of *muscle* (not fat, water or increased glycogen storage) in 6 weeks he would be able to gain around 8lbs of muscle in 6 weeks using the dianabol (note that the actual weight gain might go up to 15-20lbs due to water retention).
Your capacity to gain muscle is limited by your body's capacity to synthesize new muscle tissue. The average non-chemically enhanced body cannot biosynthesize (or build) muscle any faster than a rate of 0.5 to 1 pound per week (bigger individuals will be closer to 1 lb./week while smaller individuals will be closer to 0.5 lb. /week). That is 0.5 to 1 pound per week if the ideal training, nutrition and recuperation conditions are present. Of course there will be some exceptions depending on individual differences and training experiences. Note that it's 0.5 - 1.0 pound of *muscle* per week NOT weight.
So at best, if everything is done right (under the best possible circumstances), using 25mg of dianabol per day for 6 weeks could lead to gains in muscle mass ranging from 9 to 12lbs.
If training and nutritional conditions are less than optimal the range goes down to around 2 - 5lbs for 6 weeks. And to include all possibilities I'll say that gaining up to 15lbs of muscle is *possible* but unlikely. So that really leaves us with a gain in the range of 2 to 15lbs for 25mg of dianabol per day for 6 weeks.
HOWEVER, realistically I would say that one should expect actual muscle gains of 4-8lbs on such a regimen.
As I stated a thousand times, these numbers refer to MUSCLE gains. Dianabol promote important water retention. And if you eat a lot you might gain some fat and store more glycogen in your muscles. Both of which can make you gain some more pounds, but these are not actual muscle gains.