NEEDSIZE'S HCG protocol

[uglyass]

thats not necessarily true, lots of people have benefitted from short cycles if done properly

Yup, but more people on this board have seen other post that it doesnt work so they jump on the bandwagon and rubbish the theory.

I've run prop/dbol for 4 weeks and got great results, I was going on vacation and a short cycle was needed as I was leaving pretty much on the day of the last shot. I took PCT with me before anyone asks

Cryptkeeper didnt even mention his reason for such a short cycle yet you all seem so quick to flame away. PAH!

UglyASS

 

[concordsize]

IMO short cycles are more a way of life with an end result in mind. While doing a long cycle your gains and sex drive usually turn around week 6. To keep the gains one must either up the dose or eat an amount of food and protein that would by un human. Now dont get me wrong ultimatly the best way to get big and stay big is to be on all year long. IMO the risks out weight the bennifits to this. IMO the best way to mimmic a year long cycles is to keep your cycles short with little time off. Fast action gear along with pct all year.

 

[berlin-ef]

I have no idea why the kid would run a 4 week cycle......

DIV

Agreed.

After two weeks, your natural test levels shut down quickly. Recovery doesn't become more "difficult" until, say 10-12 weeks and beyond. So, if you're shut down at 4 weeks the same as at 6 or 8 weeks, what's the point of stopping? Now, if you're using gear that has some crappy sides that you don't want to deal with and they become too much of a pain in the ass at 4 weeks, then I guess a that length of a cycle isn't so arbitrary after all. In that case, I'd control the sides or do different gear for 6-8 weeks.

If it's testicular atrophy you're worried about and hate needles to the point of not even wanting to shoot HCG, then I guess that's another logical reason. That being said, stopping at 4 weeks w/o any hcg usage may help with recovery due to higher testicular volume, but you're talking about a relatively high cost in terms of forgone gains in exchange for a marginal benefit. With liberal use of Clomid during the cycle, you could still probably do 6 and possibly even 8 weeks without a lot of "deflation" and your gains would be considerably better, resulting in a much higher net return for your efforts.

If you do 4 week cycles, generally you need to do high dosages and get your PCT dialed in to keep your gains because there's not a lot of room for error when you only give yourself that short of a time to make gains. But, if you don't mind relatively slow gains and want to spend a vast majority of on PCT rather than gear, go for it. Just be sure to get your blood work anyway and use the information to design other protocols that may be more effective without increasing your risk profile. Strictly speaking, however, stopping at 4 weeks only limits gains without any kind of HPTA recovery advantage.

Gotta run, it's 4:20. . .

Berlin

 

[concordsize]

berlin i see your point and many follow as you suggest. The problem though is.... And I think everyone can agree that around week 4-6 you start to loose a little appetite, sex drive declines, as does gains. IMO this is a good time to stop regroup and start again in 2-3 weeks. I can accomplist 2 growth spurts while your just starting your pct and engaging in a crash that you will have to deal with for 6-8 weeks. By the time you are ready for another cycle i have done 3-4 cycles and brought my muscular growth to a new level durring each cycle. You on the other hand have droped 5-10 lbs and feeling like a ninth grade school girl.

 

[berlin-ef]

berlin i see your point and many follow as you suggest. The problem though is.... And I think everyone can agree that around week 4-6 you start to loose a little appetite, sex drive declines, as does gains. IMO this is a good time to stop regroup and start again in 2-3 weeks. I can accomplist 2 growth spurts while your just starting your pct and engaging in a crash that you will have to deal with for 6-8 weeks. By the time you are ready for another cycle i have done 3-4 cycles and brought my muscular growth to a new level durring each cycle. You on the other hand have droped 5-10 lbs and feeling like a ninth grade school girl.

"You, on the other hand:"
* Personally, I think that much of this has to do with individual physiology, training age, genetics, training protocol, the type of gear used, dosages, diet, and a multitude of other variables. But, feel free to tell me how my body will react to an 8-week cycle of Tren/Dbol/Slin/GH since you seem to know.
* Show me where I advocated a 16 week cycle?

"I think everyone can agree:"
* If your sex drive nosedives when you're on test, you're a eunuch.
* If you lose your appetite, add in some equipoise or develop some discipline.
* Gains actually PICK UP at week 3-4 and run like hell until week 8-10.
* If I'm on 8 and off 6 and you're on twice at 4 weeks and off twice at 3 weeks, then you'd be on 8 and off 6 also. So, what the hell is this 3 to 4 cycles before I start my PCT line of shit all about?
* An 8-week or even 10-week cycle doesn't automatically relegate someone to 6 to 8 weeks of hell. . . unless you do a lot of things wrong.

Whatever dude. . . if you actually read my post, you'll see that I only disagreed with a 4 week cycle if the only reason given for it is HPTA recovery issues. I never flamed the idea unconditionally. On the contrary, I also stated that you should try different protocols to see how you react after getting a good baseline, that includes 4 week cycles or whatever else - duh.

You don't advocate being on year-round, but your protocol is just that. If you're on 4-5 weeks and off for 2 weeks, then you're not completely recovered and don't come off long enough to know the difference anyway. So, since you're never clean enough to do any meaningful bloodwork, you choose to judge your recovery by your sex drive - brilliant. With all that HCG you take, you'll start killing off Leydig cells sooner or later. Then, for the rest of your life, YOU will definitely have something in common with a ninth grade girl, your endogenous testosterone levels. . .

 

[concordsize]

Bro i wasnt trying to get personal. I believe stongly in my approach and you believe strongly in yours that is cool and imo respectable. I could argue all day about why my approach allows a user to stay bigger most of the year and yours doesnt bla bla bla.

 

[The Terminator]

I agree. There isn't a need for HCG that early on. No atrophy.

The HCG protocol laid out by Swale though is about the PREVENTION OF ATROPHY...And I think it IS effective imo.

 

[berlin-ef]

Bro i wasnt trying to get personal. I believe stongly in my approach and you believe strongly in yours that is cool and imo respectable. I could argue all day about why my approach allows a user to stay bigger most of the year and yours doesnt bla bla bla.

Chief, no problems on my end - we're fine.

Yeah, your size stays more consistent, but I don't know whether or not that means that you're actually "bigger" all year than you would be if you used slightly longer cycles - I would pass you, then lag, then pass, etc. (Assuming we both started at the same place, etc). That's not the clearest way to explain what the hell I'm thinking, but hopefully you get my point.

Personally, I like shorter cycles, but not as short as the ones you advocate, for the above-stated reasons. If I was going to do much shorter cycles, I'd probably go all the way down to the 2 week jobs that a lot of guys advocate.

Honestly, don't you think that you should stay off longer (at least a couple times a year) to get some bloodwork to see if you're actually recovering or just bridging constantly? Also, be careful with HCG. I'm not trying to be alarmist, but with long-term use there is a risk that you will become desensitized and/or start killing off Leydig cells. I tend to worry about the downside more than others because none of this shit is worth my life or my nuts - both are precious ;o)

As far as HCG early-on for prevention, I think that is makes a lot of sense. I've never used it that way, though. My only concern would be desensitization over the long-term - I actually read somewhere that it may be mitigated and/or eliminated with concurrent use of nolva. Other than that, I think you could wait 2 or 3 weeks before your first shot because LH levels don't begin to nosedive for 2 weeks. Cool kids, I gotta jet. Work beckons. . .

B

 

[concordsize]

Let me be more clear on several things:
1) My cycles actually reflect my training! Since i log and aim for weight increases it is very hard for me to do this much longer than 4-6 weeks. If i start failing on my lifts then imo there is no reason for me to continue on this path. Basically after 4-6 weeks my joints are killing me diet takes a huge dump and my estrogen starts to raise. This is why i stop cycling for 3 weeks, my training lightens, I do 3 weeks nolvadex, and then i start my heavy training and cycle again.
2) I do use hcg often but the doses are low and for a short durration because basically after the nolvadex my nuts are back to normal. I basically use HCG as a priming tool around week 3 in my cycle @500iu ed for 1 week. Thats it!
3) As far as me not taking months off from short cycles i see no reason. From the studys i have seen and done on myself and the blood work i have had i realized that as long as i continually send signals to my hpta and take a "short break" along with nolvadex that i have little to no chance of shutting myself "off" so to speak. Actually once a year and that is usually after a contest i take a good 2 months off. Durring that time i literally recover within 2 weeks of comming "off".

 

[calico2580]

4-5 week cycles with 2 weeks off time are the way to go. Nice gains all year, no crash, steady sex drive.

Ditto.. 4-5 week cycles ARE effective for all of the reasons you said. My last cycle was a 4 weekers and I posted it on here and got flamed like a motherfucker by uninformed steroid "gangsta" wannabes. I got very solid results using prop/fina/var for 4 weeks. It's refreshing to see guys like you, and needsize who actually have common steroid knowledge and know that 4-5 week cycles are in fact beneficial and not a "complete waste of money" karma to ya