Dick and Jane's First Steroid - by Dan Duchaine
I’ve been a "steroid guru" since 1981. I’ve published several steroid handbooks, answered countless questions, and written article after article for magazines such as Modern Bodybuilding, Muscle Media, and now Ironman. After all the time and effort I’ve spent educating bodybuilders, I’d hoped that basic steroid information had passed into "common knowledge" in the bodybuilding subculture. But, alas, a guru’s work is never done.
Long-term, hard-core bodybuilders probably know all they need to know about recreational steroid use. But these die-hards are few and far between. The bodybuilding lifestyle is centered around three things: training, eating, and acquiring anabolic drugs (mostly steroids). Bodybuilders generally put everything else in life on hold. People in the "lifestyle" live in their cars, forego education and careers, abandon marriages, mortgages, and families, give up vacations and nice clothing, everything that makes life worth living for most people. After a certain amount of time in this "lifestyle", most bodybuilders wake up and smell reality, and move onto the next phase of their life. The subculture only survives because there’s always a new generation of anxious adolescent boys to take their place. The bodybuilding ranks are continually replenished by insecure little boys who want to scare their friends (and enemies) and be a sex object for desirable women.
What is common steroid knowledge to me and the "old guard" hardcore is not at all common to people new to the subculture. So for all of you newbie bodybuilders out there, here’s a crash course in basic steroid knowledge.
Let’s assume that you guys are steroid babies-in-the-woods. The first thing to do is read a book on steroids. Choose either my twelve-year old Underground Steroid Handbook (USH), or the one of the most current (but still flawed) War Anabolic Review. Physical Enhancement with an Edge deals with steroids from Mexico, but the information can be applied to these steroids under different trade names. Either of these books will give you an overview of the types of steroids, both oral and injectable, and the most common methods of acquiring these black market and illegal drugs.
Next, you should carefully orchestrate your steroid plan of attack. I say this because your first steroid experience will be your most productive. This incredible burst of anabolism will happen once and once only. Keeping this in mind, I recommend that you use the MOST EFFECTIVE AND POTENT of all steroids for your first time: injectable testosterone.
Trust me on this one. IGNORE advice from every other expert. Do not consider synthetics, including pills like Dianabol and Anadrol 50. These choices may be appropriate at a later date, but they are not potent enough for that crucial first time. Creams, patches, analogs, precursors, and boosters are all VIRTUALLY INEFFECTIVE AT ANY DOSE OR PRICE. A three cc syringe full of oily testosterone and a 21 to 23 gauge needle are required to get the most out of your first testosterone experience.
Some scientists who obviously had too much time on their hands have developed fancy alternatives to good old-fashioned testosterone. The most popular drug of this kind is a blend of various species of testosterone called Sustanon 250. Sustanon 250 is designed for crybabies who are too delicate to inject testosterone once a week. Sustanon 250 is overpriced, only comes in one cc doses, and can cause scar tissue at the injection site. Read this now, believe me later: Sustanon 250 is NO BETTER than any other kind of testosterone, and it’s much more expensive. Two pre-loads (or ampoules) cost between $30 and $40 on the US black market. An equivalent amount of veterinary grade testosterone costs less than $10. Foreign veterinary drugs are the best buys. Don’t be surprised if the label has a picture of farm animals on it, or some unintelligible Spanish words. These drugs are JUST AS CLEAN AND POTENT as their American counterparts. But, hey, it’s your cash.
There are many varieties of testosterone. Testosterone suspension is just testosterone powder in water. It is very painful to inject and causes a lot of scar tissue. Testosterone propionate also causes too much pain and scarring to be used repeatedly. Testosterone enanthate and testosterone cypionate your best bets. They come in 200 mg/cc doses, and are relatively cheap.
How much should a steroid user take of testosterone each week?
Dick and Jane's First Steroid - continued
How much should you inject each week? Nothing less than 600 mg of testosterone a week will do the job. Remember, the first few testosterone injections of your life will be your most productive ones. I hate to say this, but those great stories of how so-and-so gained 50 pounds of muscle in just a few weeks are often distorted. These dramatic weight gains are ONE SHOT DEALS. Your FIRST steroid encounter is, perhaps, the ONLY ONE that will give you significant gains. DON’T fart those gains away with chicken-shit dosages or with some girlie, weak-assed steroid. If you are a male, and you want to use testosterone to get big and strong, then jam 600 to 1000 mg of either testosterone enanthate or cypionate once a week. The USH II will give you the step-by-steps on needles, but the short version is that you want a three cc syringe, with a needle at least one inch long, either 22 or 23 gauge. Inject all the testosterone that you are going to use for the week at the same time. If you using 600 mg of testosterone enanthate or cypionate, this is the full three cc oil.
Before we discuss how many weeks to use the testosterone, you should have an idea of why you will eventually have to stop injecting testosterone and give your body a break. The whole idea of using steroids in the first place is to get more testosterone to the steroid receptors in the muscles. But your body is smarter than you are. After a while, it figures out that you are messing with the natural order of things.
Your body has many ways to try to set things back to "normal". Steroids only work when they are free to interact with the steroid receptor, so the body will try to keep the steroids inactive by keeping them bound in a passive state. Passive testosterone in the blood works just about as well as passive training in the gym.
Some steroids will also convert to dihydrotestosterone by means of 5-alpha-reductase. Dihydrotestosterone is much less anabolic and much more androgenic than testosterone. (Other steroids, fortunately, convert to dihydronandrolone, which is much less androgenic. And a few are totally unaffected by 5-alpha-reductase.)
Steroids also convert to estrogen, especially in older or fatter individuals. Estrogen elevation can do some nasty things to men, including female pattern fat deposition, fluid retention, "bitch tits", and down-regulation of natural testosterone production. By the way, certain steroids that do not convert to estrogen can cause female characteristics by binding to the estrogen receptor. Others can cause progesterone-like activity at the progesterone receptor. Checque Drops, for example, have an 80 percent progesterone-like action, while Deca Durabolin has 20 percent!
All of these steroid transformations and cross-reactions show "biochemical individuality", meaning that they vary amongst individuals. Many steroid users drive themselves crazy with schemes to foil the body’s enzyme systems. They carefully plot their usage of accessory drugs like Nolvadex, Arimadex, Propecia, Aldactone, RU 486, and so on. Usually people like this are classic NON-RESPONDERS. They just don’t respond with a great degree of anabolism to any amount of testosterone and they waste lots of time and money in the hopes of banishing testosterone’s conversion to female hormones. Let me tell you from the outset that high estrogen and/or progesterone levels have never limited anyone’s growth. I wish I could bitch slap all of the crybabies in the QFAC chat room who keep telling me that they just can’t grow because high estrogen levels are making their nipples so puffy.
Whew, I need a break. In the next installment, we’ll discuss how to set up a schedule of weekly testosterone injections, and what happens (and stops happening) when you take a break from steroids.
