At what point is it too much?

Just like with protien how after a certain amount you are not absorbing it, how much do you think this would be mid-cyc with test, what about other commonly used aas like tren?

Depends on the person, how lOng theyve been on, how open your recptors are, etc...

I find a gram is perfect for me, anything else has yielded the same results

It's too much when the sides outweigh the gains. If training, diet and rest are all up to par, the more steroids you take, the bigger you will be.

I take a smaller amount being a female but as far as test or tren is concerned my dosage stays the same throughout the cycle with the exception of the tren precontest it goes up a bit the last 4 weeks and the frequency increases. What is a concern is that a lot of people do not go off their cycles. When your receptors are not clean you need to do more to get the same results and with that come more unneccesary side effects. I believe in doing the least amount possible. I also go off (grudgingly I might add), so when I restart it does not take such a high dose for the results. This is good for the pocketbook but more importantly for your health. In my 20s I was a nutjob and I did do way too much and had to deal with a lot of sides that were totally unneccessary. I wanted results NOW, older I get the more I realize that it takes time to get big. I still joke with my trainer about when will I get to take the anadrol again, according to her NEVER lol.

Jenn Kennedy said:

I take a smaller amount being a female but as far as test or tren is concerned my dosage stays the same throughout the cycle with the exception of the tren precontest it goes up a bit the last 4 weeks and the frequency increases. What is a concern is that a lot of people do not go off their cycles. When your receptors are not clean you need to do more to get the same results and with that come more unneccesary side effects. I believe in doing the least amount possible. I also go off (grudgingly I might add), so when I restart it does not take such a high dose for the results. This is good for the pocketbook but more importantly for your health. In my 20s I was a nutjob and I did do way too much and had to deal with a lot of sides that were totally unneccessary. I wanted results NOW, older I get the more I realize that it takes time to get big. I still joke with my trainer about when will I get to take the anadrol again, according to her NEVER lol.

Click to expand...

You have much more experience than me, but from my understanding the androgen receptor down regulation is a myth. Science actually shows us the steroids upregulate androgen receptors. And even if they didn't, androgen receptors are constantly turning over. When unattached to an adrogen, they only have a half life of a few hours. I think there are other reasons why gains slow mid-way through a cycle, perhaps your body trying to return to homeostatis, or some other combination of metabolic mechanism. I think to simplify it though, you are only as big as your dose.

Say for your first cycle you do 500mg test a week and gain 25lbs, starting at 200 and ending at 225. You come off and lose 8lbs and hold steady at 217. The next cycle you do the same dose of 500mg a week and only get back up to 225. This is because 500mg/wk does not allow you to gain 25lbs each time you run a cycle of that dose, more like 500mg/wk will allow you to maintain a lean body weight of 225lbs. Maybe to get to 240lbs you will have to do 750mg/wk, and to see 260lbs you will have to do 1g/wk.

Like I said, I don't have a ton of 'personal' experience, but I read a lot and this seems to be the case for most of the veterans I've read posts from.

I think nobody can honestly say they have an answer to this.

im gonna go with the pyramid method chris laid out the other day, this next go around. starting at 500mg then increasing by 250mg per week until you reach 1750mg per week, then back down in a three week period to 500 to allow the body to come off steady, instead have a hard crash. im gonna try it.

Mrbigz said:

im gonna go with the pyramid method chris laid out the other day, this next go around. starting at 500mg then increasing by 250mg per week until you reach 1750mg per week, then back down in a three week period to 500 to allow the body to come off steady, instead have a hard crash. im gonna try it.

Click to expand...

see I disagree with this. The one guy from worldpharm wrote the best article I have seen yet saying start crazy heavy so your reseptors pick it all up and after a point its just a trigger and with your orals to gor from most to least anabolic so they are still absorbing as much as possible

I think what Jenn is stating makes sense. I know a ton of guys that NEVER come off and they obviously have to run high doses, but if you come off and back on like Jenn states, it'd make sense that you'd be able to absorb more with a slightly lesser dosage

I always go mid, and by that I mean I jokingly not for real allegedly do, for pretend

You lost me on that

crg914 said:

You have much more experience than me, but from my understanding the androgen receptor down regulation is a myth. Science actually shows us the steroids upregulate androgen receptors. And even if they didn't, androgen receptors are constantly turning over. When unattached to an adrogen, they only have a half life of a few hours. I think there are other reasons why gains slow mid-way through a cycle, perhaps your body trying to return to homeostatis, or some other combination of metabolic mechanism. I think to simplify it though, you are only as big as your dose.

Say for your first cycle you do 500mg test a week and gain 25lbs, starting at 200 and ending at 225. You come off and lose 8lbs and hold steady at 217. The next cycle you do the same dose of 500mg a week and only get back up to 225. This is because 500mg/wk does not allow you to gain 25lbs each time you run a cycle of that dose, more like 500mg/wk will allow you to maintain a lean body weight of 225lbs. Maybe to get to 240lbs you will have to do 750mg/wk, and to see 260lbs you will have to do 1g/wk.

Like I said, I don't have a ton of 'personal' experience, but I read a lot and this seems to be the case for most of the veterans I've read posts from.

Click to expand...

Not to get too technical, so I'll keep it basic. My husband did research in college involving receptors for androgens, insulin, and gh. From his studies he found out that gh receptors and insulin receptors are on the cell membrane and do not down regulate. Therefore, you can take gh for extended periods of time without having to increase the dose or worrying about it stop working. Steroids, on the otherhand, the receptors are in the nucleus inside the cell, they do down regulate as like a negative feedback mechanism thus after periods of time the effects produced decrease. Therefore, the point in coming off anabolics is to give the body time to readjust. So as the cycle progresses, the receptability diminishes and eventually even at a mega dose the effect will be minimal.

This seems to be consistent with the findings of other top trainers who state the same premise.

Scott Abel
Dave Palumbo
and my trainer Helen Bouchard

Is there any timeline on when the receptors down regulate for androgens? I believe what your husband found to be true, but I was just curious as to whether he found any kind of timeline on this break down

Jenn Kennedy said:

Not to get too technical, so I'll keep it basic. My husband did research in college involving receptors for androgens, insulin, and gh. From his studies he found out that gh receptors and insulin receptors are on the cell membrane and do not down regulate. Therefore, you can take gh for extended periods of time without having to increase the dose or worrying about it stop working. Steroids, on the otherhand, the receptors are in the nucleus inside the cell, they do down regulate as like a negative feedback mechanism thus after periods of time the effects produced decrease. Therefore, the point in coming off anabolics is to give the body time to readjust. So as the cycle progresses, the receptability diminishes and eventually even at a mega dose the effect will be minimal.

This seems to be consistent with the findings of other top trainers who state the same premise.

Scott Abel
Dave Palumbo
and my trainer Helen Bouchard

Click to expand...

What you are talking about is androgen receptor sensitivity, not down regulation. Regulation refers to the number of receptors per cell, sensitivity refers to the degree of activity each receptor has.

Did your husband do his own study? I would be very interested in reading the method and results achieved.

Bill Roberts, whom I would consider to be like a modern day Dan Duchaine, wrote an article about androgen receptor regulation which is a very good read. You can find it here:

Androgen Receptor Regulation

I stand by my previous statement, you are only as big as your dose. It doesn't matter how many time you cycle on and off, how long you take off or anything else, 500mg/wk of test is only going to get you so big, regardless of how much you think you've sensitized your androgen receptors. Just my humble opinion though.

Read the article great read. I am still of the opinion that down regulation occurs. I agree with you when you say 500 mg of test per week will not get you as big as 1000 mgs of test per week but my husband trained with many top pros in the late 90s early 2000s who never went above 1200 mg of test per week. Yes you need to do a lot of gear to get bigger but if you can do less and still get results, why risk it? Also it depends on what your goals are.

In regards to the study, I will get the study info from him I will post it for you.

Jenn Kennedy said:

Read the article great read. I am still of the opinion that down regulation occurs. I agree with you when you say 500 mg of test per week will not get you as big as 1000 mgs of test per week but my husband trained with many top pros in the late 90s early 2000s who never went above 1200 mg of test per week. Yes you need to do a lot of gear to get bigger but if you can do less and still get results, why risk it? Also it depends on what your goals are.

In regards to the study, I will get the study info from him I will post it for you.

Click to expand...

Thanks, look forward to reading it

I can't disagree with Jenn here, but here is what I learned during my years studying biomedical science at FSU and also what seems to be a logical process (not that the bodies processes are logical).
Given a set number of receptors desensitization is the bodies natural attempt to regain homeostasis HOWEVER you have to take into account that it's obvious that people build new muscle cells when they reach certain levels. These new myocytes will obviously have new receptors.... You must also account for the fact that exogenous hormones will bind with corticoreceptors....
Now in real life I have seen the results that Jenn and via the forum Nuk gain tremendously on low doses. I myself stopped at 750mg of test along with 500mg of Deca and gained tremendously better than I did on 3g of test...
When I compete next year I'm sure Jenn's trainer will have me clear out (hopefully allowing at least my HRT) before I begin so I will be sure to document it.
VERY GOOD THREAD GOING HERE!!

great thread guys...good info on here. I have my opionin to, but I will put it up over the wekend .I want to give this some thought.

The Dude said:

I can't disagree with Jenn here, but here is what I learned during my years studying biomedical science at FSU and also what seems to be a logical process (not that the bodies processes are logical).
Given a set number of receptors desensitization is the bodies natural attempt to regain homeostasis HOWEVER you have to take into account that it's obvious that people build new muscle cells when they reach certain levels. These new myocytes will obviously have new receptors.... You must also account for the fact that exogenous hormones will bind with corticoreceptors....
Now in real life I have seen the results that Jenn and via the forum Nuk gain tremendously on low doses. I myself stopped at 750mg of test along with 500mg of Deca and gained tremendously better than I did on 3g of test...
When I compete next year I'm sure Jenn's trainer will have me clear out (hopefully allowing at least my HRT) before I begin so I will be sure to document it.
VERY GOOD THREAD GOING HERE!!

Click to expand...

You bring up some interesting points. I think Nuk obviously has great genetics for this sport enabling him to grow well on low doses. Genetics definitely play a huge part is how well your body can handle large doses and how much gear you can utilize so in my opinoin it gets kinds of murky comparing individuals against each other.

It is interesting that you gained better on 750/500 test/deca than on 3g test though. I wonder what other metabolic and hormonal factors were going on during those cycles. Good thread.

hmmm, this is awsome. this is all the things ive tried testing out my self. the pyramid method just made sence to me, because of these facts. down regulating, would you have to increase after a certain amount of time to maintain grownth? or would cycle for shorter periods of time work best? meaning 8 on 8-10 off? giving the body time to detox longer through out the year, but hitting more cycles through the year as well?