Iron Game
Veteran
Stacking Steroids
I always tell people that there is a method to the madness of stacking steroids. Too many people listen to gurus on social media who display crazy cycles where they have 5-8 different steroids. I've called this the 'witches brew' in reference to how on Halloween a witch will put a bunch of things in her cauldron (large metal pot) and then hope for the best. This type of gambling in the real world, with very potent anabolic hormones, can result in severe side effects and is totally unnecessary. You can get fantastic results from steroids without crazy cycles. Not to mention being a waste of gear. If you take a smarter approach to steroid stacking you will realize that you will have much more effective cycles, greater results, fewer side effects, and more money in your wallet. This articles purpose is to try and best group steroids together so that we can actually stack logically.Certain steroids stack better together, while other steroids stack horribly together. An example is stacking 2 steroids together that cause severe hair loss will cause you to lose a lot of hair. Or stacking 2 steroids together that aromatize heavily into estrogen, will increase your chances of developing gyno and having water retention. It makes more sense to stack based on a yin and yang approach, to get the most out of stacking. An example would be stacking a nandrolone with a DHT derivative which will offset what is referred to as deca dick. Smart stacking not only reduces side effects, but it will also enhance a cycle and your results. What good is it to stack 2 androgens and send your cholesterol and blood pressure sky high? In the end, you will ruin your heart health anyway. Poor stacking choices will increase side effects and become counter productive.
[h=2]Understanding half life[/h]Before we get into categorizing steroids we must first understand steroid half-lives.
Most people are under the impression that an esters half life is actually how long it is in their system. An example is if a steroid has a half life of 10 days the person will say on day 11 nothing will be left over. Obviously, this makes zero sense and that falsehood is derived from their experiences with simple over the counter medications like Advil or Tylenol which only work for a few hours to relieve your particular ailment.Injectable anabolic steroids were designed to last much longer in your system, so you wouldn't have to inject every few hours, and even oral anabolic steroids have longer half-lives than an Advil which is only 2 hours. Using the same example, something with a 10 day half-life will be in your system 5X that length of time. So if you run a steroid for 10 weeks and then stop injecting, it will be in your system for another 5 weeks working its magic. This is why many guys say they continue to gain weeks after they 'stop' using steroids. The steroid esters are designed to slowly leave your system.
It isn't just how long it is in your system, though, on the flip side steroids must reach peak levels too. When you take steroids they start working right away, but it doesn't reach peak blood levels until approximately 5X the half life as well. Using the same 10 day half life example, if you started injecting consistently the esters would pick up after one another as you are injecting along. So, it continues to increase in your system until it reaches peak concentrations, in this example, it would be about 50 days. If you were trying to see if your steroids were properly dosed this would be when you wanted to get blood work.Now you might ask what does half life have to do with stacking steroids? And you may also want to know do you need to stack a short ester with another short ester? Or a long ester with a long ester? The answer is absolutely not. In fact, stacking a long ester with a short ester can be beneficial too, as you will see in the next example.[h=2]Kickstarting a cycle[/h]Kickstarting cycles has been around for many years. Since we now understand half-life, we can understand why kickstarting would be the impatient man's strategy. If you are using a long ester injectable and want to still enjoy results early in a cycle the user will use a shorter ester (usually an oral) to kickstart things. A simple example would be using Dianabol or another short acting oral the first 4 weeks along with testosterone enanthate (which needs about 50 days to reach peak levels). This strategy has been around a long time and pharma and underground labs have put together their own blends as evidence. The most well-known blend is the Sustanon 250 blend of testosterone propionate, phenylpropionate, isocaproate, and decanoate. This blend features esters that have half-lives of 3 days up to 15 days, so essentially it kickstarts itself.[h=2]Frontloading[/h]Frontloading simply means running a higher dose to start. Some steroid users are so impatient that they will dose a larger amount of steroids the first few injections to get more of it in their system faster. I am personally not an advocate of this strategy, and would rather a person kickstart their cycle instead.
I always tell people that there is a method to the madness of stacking steroids. Too many people listen to gurus on social media who display crazy cycles where they have 5-8 different steroids. I've called this the 'witches brew' in reference to how on Halloween a witch will put a bunch of things in her cauldron (large metal pot) and then hope for the best. This type of gambling in the real world, with very potent anabolic hormones, can result in severe side effects and is totally unnecessary. You can get fantastic results from steroids without crazy cycles. Not to mention being a waste of gear. If you take a smarter approach to steroid stacking you will realize that you will have much more effective cycles, greater results, fewer side effects, and more money in your wallet. This articles purpose is to try and best group steroids together so that we can actually stack logically.Certain steroids stack better together, while other steroids stack horribly together. An example is stacking 2 steroids together that cause severe hair loss will cause you to lose a lot of hair. Or stacking 2 steroids together that aromatize heavily into estrogen, will increase your chances of developing gyno and having water retention. It makes more sense to stack based on a yin and yang approach, to get the most out of stacking. An example would be stacking a nandrolone with a DHT derivative which will offset what is referred to as deca dick. Smart stacking not only reduces side effects, but it will also enhance a cycle and your results. What good is it to stack 2 androgens and send your cholesterol and blood pressure sky high? In the end, you will ruin your heart health anyway. Poor stacking choices will increase side effects and become counter productive.
[h=2]Understanding half life[/h]Before we get into categorizing steroids we must first understand steroid half-lives.
Most people are under the impression that an esters half life is actually how long it is in their system. An example is if a steroid has a half life of 10 days the person will say on day 11 nothing will be left over. Obviously, this makes zero sense and that falsehood is derived from their experiences with simple over the counter medications like Advil or Tylenol which only work for a few hours to relieve your particular ailment.Injectable anabolic steroids were designed to last much longer in your system, so you wouldn't have to inject every few hours, and even oral anabolic steroids have longer half-lives than an Advil which is only 2 hours. Using the same example, something with a 10 day half-life will be in your system 5X that length of time. So if you run a steroid for 10 weeks and then stop injecting, it will be in your system for another 5 weeks working its magic. This is why many guys say they continue to gain weeks after they 'stop' using steroids. The steroid esters are designed to slowly leave your system.
It isn't just how long it is in your system, though, on the flip side steroids must reach peak levels too. When you take steroids they start working right away, but it doesn't reach peak blood levels until approximately 5X the half life as well. Using the same 10 day half life example, if you started injecting consistently the esters would pick up after one another as you are injecting along. So, it continues to increase in your system until it reaches peak concentrations, in this example, it would be about 50 days. If you were trying to see if your steroids were properly dosed this would be when you wanted to get blood work.Now you might ask what does half life have to do with stacking steroids? And you may also want to know do you need to stack a short ester with another short ester? Or a long ester with a long ester? The answer is absolutely not. In fact, stacking a long ester with a short ester can be beneficial too, as you will see in the next example.[h=2]Kickstarting a cycle[/h]Kickstarting cycles has been around for many years. Since we now understand half-life, we can understand why kickstarting would be the impatient man's strategy. If you are using a long ester injectable and want to still enjoy results early in a cycle the user will use a shorter ester (usually an oral) to kickstart things. A simple example would be using Dianabol or another short acting oral the first 4 weeks along with testosterone enanthate (which needs about 50 days to reach peak levels). This strategy has been around a long time and pharma and underground labs have put together their own blends as evidence. The most well-known blend is the Sustanon 250 blend of testosterone propionate, phenylpropionate, isocaproate, and decanoate. This blend features esters that have half-lives of 3 days up to 15 days, so essentially it kickstarts itself.[h=2]Frontloading[/h]Frontloading simply means running a higher dose to start. Some steroid users are so impatient that they will dose a larger amount of steroids the first few injections to get more of it in their system faster. I am personally not an advocate of this strategy, and would rather a person kickstart their cycle instead.
