Whats better?
Stay on year round and drive your HPTA into dormancy so fargone that you destroy any chances of having kids, drive your endo testosterone levels so low that you go into andropause at 32 years of age (when you TRY to maybe clean out for a little bit but panic because you feel so g'damn shitty so you go back on)......and if you do get off you disintegrate and muscle mass falls off you like its dead skin?!?!?!
or
(and ive caught more shit for this over the last decade than anything Ive ever talked about.....but ohhhhh I kind of proved my points over time and it actually DID WORK DIDN'T IT!).....Yes I will be the first to tell you I have a bug up my ass at the arguments i used to get into with this stuff with people telling me I was full of shit below
(sorry rant there) or
Is it better to send intermittent signals to the HPTA so there isnt a gigantic dormancy period?
Trust me on this......intermittent signals is the way to go. Every single one of my former trainee's can, will and/or have kids......including myself. My wife got pregnant in our 2nd month of trying when we decided to have kids and i have yet another one on the way in 2 months.
Now i had these huge huge huge arguments with people online many years back saying sending signals to the HPTA while on or having any tiny bit of outside source of testosterone in your body would do absolutely nothing.
I knew better. And I couldnt prove it until.....
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The effects of aging in normal men on bioavailable testosterone and luteinizing hormone secretion: response to clomiphene citrate.
Tenover JS, Matsumoto AM, Plymate SR, Bremner WJ.
Geriatric Research, Education, and Clinical Center, Veterans Administration Medical Center, Seattle, Washington.
Serum testosterone (T) levels in men decline with age while serum LH levels, as measured by RIA, increase. To assess if the decline in serum T levels in healthy aging men is paralleled by an age-related decline in the bioavailable non-sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG)-bound fraction of T and to determine whether there are age-related changes in LH secretion or LH control of T production, we studied 29 young (aged 22-35 yr) and 26 elderly (aged 65-84 yr) healthy men. All men had single random blood samples drawn, and 14 men in each age group underwent frequent blood sampling for 24 h, both before and after 7 days of clomiphene citrate (CC) administration. Both mean 24-h serum total T levels and non-SHBG-bound T were reduced in elderly men compared to those in young men (P less than 0.05), while estradiol and SHBG levels were similar in the 2 age groups. Serum FSH determined by RIA and LH by RIA and bioassay were higher in the elderly men compared to those in young men (P less than 0.05), but the ratios of LH bioactivity to immunoreactivity and the LH pulse frequency and amplitude were similar. After CC administration, mean serum total T and non-SHBG-bound levels in young men increased by 100% and 304%, respectively, while in older men these values increased by only 32% and 8%, respectively. However, CC-stimulated LH pulse characteristics and serum levels of estradiol, SHBG, FSH, and bioactive and immunoreactive LH were similar in the 2 groups. Thus, both at baseline and after CC stimulation, elderly men had significantly lower serum total T and non-SHBG-bound (bioavailable) T levels than did young men, despite similar or increased levels of bioactive LH and similar bioactive to immunoreactive LH ratios and LH pulse characteristics. These results suggest that major age-related changes in the hypothalamic-pituitary-testicular axis occur at the level of the testes and are manifested by decreased responsiveness to bioactive LH. Administration of CC to young and elderly men resulted in similar changes in LH pulse characteristics and LH bioactivity and immunoreactivity, suggesting preserved hypothalamic-pituitary responsiveness in the elderly.
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Look at the bold=normal healthy men with normal testosterone levels. So there isnt a need for an increase in total T and non-SHBG-bound levels but it happens anyway with the administration of clomid. That told me alot....and I knew i was on the right path with this stuff years ago. So all those people for all these years who have argued vociferously with me that PCT does absolutely nothing if testosterone is present whether endogenous or exogenous, got a big foot in the mouth with this study.
You dont need a total test level of 75 to 180 ng for clomiphene to work....it works regardless....and increased normal testosterone levels above by 100 to 304%.........signals to the HPTA Work!
So let me run thru some of my opinions here on all this and again this all comes down to choices.
1) I believe in 250-500IUS of HCG done 2x a week, done on the day before shots.....and believe this is one of the most important things any bodybuilder can do for himself to keep himself as "normalized as possible"....this is Swales recommendation and kudo's go to his work.....dont credit me in the least on this...because its 100% Swale
2)Clomid is a very hard compound for people to take, it makes alot of guys depressed, anxious and absolutely irritable....want to know what its like for your girlfriend/wife on her period? Thats clomid by 5x. It also works very well if you can hack it (alot of people cant)
3)This is just personal opinion and nothing more than that. I believe Letrozole is just too powerful. You need some estrogen for health reasons. Always remember homeostatis......if you drive your estrogen levels down to nothing, guess where your endo testosterone is going to go. And there is nothing more dangerous in my opinion than having seriously low testosterone levels, especially for endothelial/cardiac health. I would probably pick something like exemestane and use the least amount you can of it for an anti arom.
4) Nolvadex/tamoxifen i go back and forth on opinionwise as an anti est. Ive kind of soured on it again....
a) raises HDL
b) can raise LH, FSH and testosterone in some/most
c) can cause blood clots
d) can cause some retinal damage maybe in some (thats for you killerstack)
e) can potentially reduce IGF liberation
(yes Ive started to get to the opinion that steroids and testosterone are pretty safe but its all the ancillary stuff that people are using in large amounts that they think is like pez candy (but are in actuality pretty darn powerful) might be a big culprit in alot of the side effects (especially cardiovascular/lipid/clot wise) we are seeing.
so my opinions would be the following
while on, use the lowest amount of juice you can to make gains so you can always have something to go up to later. Ive seen LATS say this, Ive seen Evan C say this, and ive said this alot of the years......if you do 2 grams of test now when you are 205 pounds......what the hell are you going to have to use when you are 225 pounds and stuck? 4000-5000mg of test a week? What?!?!, till you get past your plateau or have a cardiovascular event?
while on
1) HCG 2x a week
2) if you must use an anti arom...then use exemestane at its lowest dose you can and maybe every 2nd or 3rd day.
always go 4 to 8 (maybe 12 weeks tops if you are still gaining) and then send signals to the HPTA.
Signals-
If i was someone who rarely or sporadically was on.....as I got off i would keep using HCG and exemestane (in the lowest dose possible).....along with clomid if i could hack it either cycled back and forth 2-3 weeks at a time with DAA (very excited by this compound, I think its going to be the one FINALLY EVERYONE HAS BEEN WAITING FOR) or with DAA concurrently (I dont know on that one...DAA is so new).....until the point I felt somewhat normalized....that might mean 1 month, 2 months, maybe even 3 months....depends on the individual......I would also use the lowest dose of clomid I could in that case also. Its all about getting back to normal endogenous testosterone wise. Getting back to normal solves everything....including longterm muscle mass retainment.
(If more people thought in the terms of "how can i get back to normal as quickly as possible after this cycle to keep all this muscle mass" instead of "how can i get get huge during this cycle, fuck what happens after"......there would be so many more happy and content bodybuilders around.....I digress
If I was someone who used year round, I would do everything in my power to keep my endo test levels as normalized as possible.
Every 4-12 weeks, I would try my best to either get completely off or very low dose testosterone (again depending on the individual and his own personal choices)......and use HCG, clom, exemestane and DAA to the best of my ability for 10 days to 3 weeks before getting back on again or raising the low dose testosterone back up...(but hey my opinion on low dose testosterone seems to be alot different than alot of people in this forum).....I am talking either completely off or pyramiding downward during the 10 days to 21 days or using a very low dose amount (25mg to 50mg every 4th day or so) during the 10 to 21 days......before going back up. Again my opinion of going back up means 500-750mg (maybe 1000mg for the big boys) and not the 2000mg and upwards of testosterone that it seems alot of 220 pounders use in this forum. Thats what I would do if I was using year round.
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