akn
Musclechemistry Member
Q: “Most of the anabolic steroid cycles you describe are either in the 8-12 week range, or are exactly 2 weeks long. Why is it that when cycle length exceeds 2 weeks, you usually have it go to 8 weeks or sometimes more? Are there situations where intermediate lengths make sense for the individual situation?”
A: Absolutely there are such situations.
The reason for some steroid cycles being exactly 2 weeks rather than a little more or less is that recovery is remarkably fast when the duration of suppression is 14 days or less, but becomes slower once this is exceeded. So if exceeding it, in most cases one “might as well” go considerably longer. And there would only rarely if ever be a reason to go shorter than 14 days.
One reason for the relative rarity of 3-7 week cycles is that I write cycles to accommodate goals and preferences of each lifter, rather than impose everything about them them. For example, 8 and 10 week cycles are highly common requests, but no one I think has ever asked for a seven week cycle, or a nine week cycle. It’s just one of those things: most prefer their cycles to be an exact, even number of weeks. But an odd number of weeks can work just as well.
An area where an intermediate number of weeks, such as 3-7 weeks, can be especially appropriate is with training cycles which vary loads and/or volumes week-to-week. Either in the case of doing a single such training cycle, or doing several back-to-back, it may make much more sense to cycle anabolic steroid use correspondingly.
Duration of steroid use often doesn’t have to be for the entire length of the training program, but instead can be focused on weeks where demand is higher or where gains are more likely.
Where training cycles are done back-to-back, or repeatedly with different training inbetween, another consideration will be how the “off” weeks are timed. This tends to vary greatly according to the individual case, but applying proper principles will enable timing things to good success.
A: Absolutely there are such situations.
The reason for some steroid cycles being exactly 2 weeks rather than a little more or less is that recovery is remarkably fast when the duration of suppression is 14 days or less, but becomes slower once this is exceeded. So if exceeding it, in most cases one “might as well” go considerably longer. And there would only rarely if ever be a reason to go shorter than 14 days.
One reason for the relative rarity of 3-7 week cycles is that I write cycles to accommodate goals and preferences of each lifter, rather than impose everything about them them. For example, 8 and 10 week cycles are highly common requests, but no one I think has ever asked for a seven week cycle, or a nine week cycle. It’s just one of those things: most prefer their cycles to be an exact, even number of weeks. But an odd number of weeks can work just as well.
An area where an intermediate number of weeks, such as 3-7 weeks, can be especially appropriate is with training cycles which vary loads and/or volumes week-to-week. Either in the case of doing a single such training cycle, or doing several back-to-back, it may make much more sense to cycle anabolic steroid use correspondingly.
Duration of steroid use often doesn’t have to be for the entire length of the training program, but instead can be focused on weeks where demand is higher or where gains are more likely.
Where training cycles are done back-to-back, or repeatedly with different training inbetween, another consideration will be how the “off” weeks are timed. This tends to vary greatly according to the individual case, but applying proper principles will enable timing things to good success.
