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- Jul 28, 2009
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I don't want to devolve this conversation into a TRT dose debate because we have all seen that a thousand times and it doesn't go well. But I do feel like one of the most important parts of using AAS is allowing the body to "normalize" at least occasionally, and unfortunately, I don't think this can happen at 1000+ testosterone levels. Bodybuilders are generally great at rationalization and justification so it's really easy to do things like take 200mg/week and get tested 4-5 days after your last shot and think you are doing TRT doses, when in fact you are probably close to twice TRT doses (my first cycle was 200mg/week and I responded very well).Do you think it varies person to person though, in regards to say a guy being on year around at 300mg/wk for "trt?"
The reason I ask is because didn't Meadows state his trt dose is 300mg/wk all year round, and he is usually regarded as being super safe and super healthy.
Just throwing it out there for discussion. Of course, bloodwork is everybody's friend to help guide them on what to take and what to do.
Here is some borderline broscience that I think maybe accurate: your muscles can 'learn' to utilize very large amounts of testosterone, but your organs can not and they also have androgen receptors, when you supersaturate these receptors, negative effects can occur, I'm thinking LVH, arterial stiffening, liver stress, high RBC production, and so on (beyond my knowledge). The idea is that it only takes a supraphysiological dose to completely saturate these receptors on organs, it does matter if it's 200mg/week or 1000mg/week, organ AR receptors are going to be over-saturated. This is probably a gross oversimplification but you get the idea. Also, testosterone has an affinity for other receptors besides the AR, which may factor in heavily as well.
You can throw out all the broscience and go by anecdotal evidence also. Being "on" all the time, even if you are bridging or cruising between cycles seems to be more unhealthy than the older method of going off completely between cycles. The body never gets to normalize, it's always under the stress of supraphysiological amounts of testosterone. My experience is that "cruising" between cycles CAN be healthy, maybe even more so than going off completely, but only if you let the body return to true physiological testosterone levels.
There are several factors in MY body that start to go out of balance when I start to push even slightly above physiological levels, RBC goes up, BP goes up, E2 goes up, DHT goes up. The second I do true physiological doses, all these markers return to normal very quickly.