First cycle - anavar

[yuppyguitar]

Day 5 of Week 3

This was a preload workout, preparing me for the heavier weight I will experience on Monday. Hit most of my numbers easily. Squats were especially easy this time. Bench was still difficult, but I'm confident I can get the weight 5 times on Monday. Hard to say if the jack3d and carbs helped, definitely didn't hurt. And it also gave me a huge bicep pump when I did BB curls. Its the first time I could feel my pulse in my upper inner bicep after a set. Crazy veins too, despite being closer to 20% bf than 10%. I made it a point to do them slowly, using the same weight I normally do. Saw a youtube video recently of a pro bb'er describing his curl technique, and his description was excellent. Imagine your hand and forearm as a scoop, and your bicep propelling the scoop up. Which has the effect that instead of relying on your forearms to do some of the work, your bicep has to do everything. This helped a lot too, but I was surprised to get 125x8 so easily using almost zero momentum. Maybe will try for 135 next time. Good workout. The change in my body so far is subtle, but I can definitely tell I'm getting thicker and having more a more dramatic shape.

This being the end of week 3 and forma + full hcgen dose on the way I'm hoping the best of the gains are to come, but even without any uptick in strength growth, I'm quite happy adding 5lbs to my bench every week. Forma by the way takes 1 week to reach peak levels. I will run the forma and hcgen through the cycle and drop only the forma before starting PCT.

 

[zedhed]

Doing gr8 bro.
Yep thats exactly where Im at. 5 Lbs to my bench every workout and very happy with it.

 

[yuppyguitar]

Day 1 of Week 4

Today was awesome. I decided to increase by 10lbs instead of the prescribed 5lbs to my squat and row. Got all my reps without sacrificing form. I left my bench alone and followed the schedule by adding 5lbs since it is weak. Last week I got the 5 reps with a little strength to spare. Instead of going all out and doing 6 instead of 5 reps, I left some in the tank for this week. I was worried I might not get the 5 reps today. I was in for a surprise, because I easily got the 5 reps, and with a spotter I'd guess I could get 7 or 8 reps. So today I left A LOT in the tank. My schedule suggests I add another 5lbs to my bench next week, so I'm going to add 10lbs instead.

As of this writing, I've been on anavar a full 3 weeks, forma-stanzol 2.5 days @ 10 pumps/day. Going to increase the forma to 7 pumps tomorrow, then 10 pumps from Wednesday through beginning of PCT, then I taper it off to 0 by end of PCT. Finally I will taper the hcgen up to 5 caps / day after I've been on the forma for a full week.

Increases so far:
Squat: +20lbs
DL: +30lbs
Bench: +25lbs

This coming off a keto diet, so I was already pretty weak compared to my normal strength, still though, my bench is back to full strength, DL and squat are all time high.

Eating Sunday was crap. I had 1 small meal in the AM to afternoon, then 3 meals from 5pm thru midnight, instead of the normal 6 meals spread out. Obviously I'm getting awesome gains, but if I get my diet perfect I could probably do even better, so I will try to stay more focused. In fact after today's results I'm even more motivated to keep my diet strict.

Added topical spiro, and foam rogaine and the hairloss has stopped immediately. Pain in the ass but worth it.

 

[yuppyguitar]

Day 3 of Week 4

Nips puffiness seems to have gone down after adding 10 pumps / day of forma-stanzol, although I'll reserve ultimate judgement until after PCT. Today added 5lbs to my incline bench, 10lbs to my DL from last week. Then after I finished my last DL set, started to feel some tenderness in my lower right back, to the point that walking heavy or jogging caused me to feel some pressure in that area. Hope this goes away by next week, otherwise I may have to cut back on my DL and even squat weight, which would really suck considering the momentum I seem to have now. If I continue to grow at this rate, I'll achieve my goal of 405x5 DL by the end of cycle, and it would be a shame to miss that. Someone in the gym commented on how heavy my DL's were. Keep in mind however, that this is a mostly cosmetic gym, where rich yuppies go to tone their muscles and the most you'll see in a rare while is a 225lb DL, but unfortunately its also the most convenient one for me by location.

On DL, I don't have much experience with dramatic strength increase, but I know from research that it can lead to injury due to slower strength increases in tendons, ligaments, and stabilizing muscles. Would it help to add a belt? I don't normally use one for sets < 90% 1RM because I see it as a crutch that ultimately leads to greater injury because the stabilizing muscles never develop, but in this instance would it help? If yes, then the next question would be, when is it safe to remove the belt again? I guess I've sort of answered my question already (don't use the belt).

 

[zedhed]

Hey bro, looking real good on here. Your increases are excellent. Yeah man I know exactly what you are saying about diet, that takes so much dicipline...
I would nix the belt. You could consider dropping weight and adding reps for a couple rounds. Get that lower back and all of your connective tissues a bit more used to the load and then increase weight again.
Keep up the gr8 work and the gr8 log bro!

 

[yuppyguitar]

Day 1 of Week 5

Today was good AND bad. First the bad: my lower right back was sore from DL's the week before. Today I did full squats. The first 4 sets were easy, after the first rep on my last set however, the back soreness came back, so I called it quits on that set. I wouldn't call it pain, but its definitely sore, and heavy weight exacerbates it. To be safe I'm going to take the week off everything except bench, which really sucks, because I won't be able to hit 405x5 on DL's by end of the cycle. I can't even do cardio because the bouncing motion causes the soreness in my back.

The good: bench today was awesome. I've added 10lbs since last week, and IT WAS EASY. I could've gotten 1 or 2 more reps. Also, my shoulder wasn't sore, which I expected because it normally is after heavy sets, today being the heaviest set I've attempt at 5 reps. Perhaps the increased recovery from anavar is making it happen? I'm really shocked. I'm going to go for another 10lbs next week, which would put me at my cycle end goal of 225x5 2 weeks ahead of schedule. If I can keep this rate, I'll be benching 245x5 by end of cycle.

Diet was on par last week, with the exception of Saturday. 6/7 days not bad. Weight increases have stopped, and the forma-stanzol has definitely had a thinning effect. No complaints here, but I'm thinking of upping the calories slightly, maybe 300-500 per day.

 

[zedhed]

Hey bro is your back tightness or sorness? Anyway good call on stopping when you did. There is plenty of time to get to where you wanna be bro. Nice on the bench too, congrats on the new PR!

 

[yuppyguitar]

Definitely soreness. I've tried a few yoga poses and exercises from youtube and they seem to be helping and my gf helped with a deep tissue massage to which I'm adding a hot bath. The real answer will be tomorrow morning when I get out of bed. That's when I'll know if I really fucked something up or if my back is just telling me to take it easy for a few days.

I read that a sciatic nerve pinch from a herniated disc can cause pain in the buttocks and hamstring. I felt that for a bit but it subsided after some lower back exercises. The soreness from DL last week went away and turned into stiffness. Today's squats took the stiffness back to a higher level of soreness.

 

[zedhed]

Epsom Salts in that hot bath bro.

 

[yuppyguitar]

Day 5 of Week 5. Still too sore to do anything but bench. I really hope I'm 100% by Monday but realistically this is probably going to take 1 or 2 more weeks if I'm lucky.

Today I added another 10lbs from Day 1 and did 3 reps instead of 5. Will attempt it for 5 reps on Monday. I expect this to be more difficult than my previous record attempts. If I get this, it will break my previous PR from about 7 years ago, which at the time I was a college student sleeping 9 hours a day with zero stress and endless amounts of food and spotters available. Also curled 135x8 slowly like it was nothing. Powered through sets of 20 bodyweight dips like nothing, and lat pulled the whole stack on the machine plus all of the extra stackable rubber weights, around 220lbs. Normally I'd do rows but saving my lower back from stress.

I must be really sensitive to test, because even with 10pumps forma-stan twice a day, adding 3-4 hcgen caps / day caused some gyno to come back slightly. So just as my balls were growing full size, I've dropped the hcgen completely.