I've been lifting my entire adult life, (I'm 40) but have only used gear for the past few years. Until recently, I only ran (legal) oral and transdermal pro-hormone and designer steroids. I kept these cycles short -- no more than 6 weeks -- because of liver toxicity caused by methylated orals, but also because the longer your cycle, the harder it is to get your HTPA back up and running.
I finally pinned test over the summer, and I'll never go back to running anything without a test base. Lesson learned. However, I still kept it short because I don't want to end up needing TRT any time soon. I even ran HCG during the cycle to keep the boys in fighting form.
Now obviously, if you run a longer cycle you'll generally get better results, and I often see people posting about running 12-16 week cycles. However, the leydig cells in the testes can become desensitized and atrophy during long cycles (which HCG helps combat), and it just seems like being shut down for up to 3 months is a ticket to a lifetime of TRT. My question is for those of you who run long cycles and are NOT on TRT, do you still recover OK?
I finally pinned test over the summer, and I'll never go back to running anything without a test base. Lesson learned. However, I still kept it short because I don't want to end up needing TRT any time soon. I even ran HCG during the cycle to keep the boys in fighting form.
Now obviously, if you run a longer cycle you'll generally get better results, and I often see people posting about running 12-16 week cycles. However, the leydig cells in the testes can become desensitized and atrophy during long cycles (which HCG helps combat), and it just seems like being shut down for up to 3 months is a ticket to a lifetime of TRT. My question is for those of you who run long cycles and are NOT on TRT, do you still recover OK?