Thread: Cutting cycle,and what is PCT?

PCT is post cycle therapy. Check out the stickies. There's a bunch of info there. I've never used the compounds you mentioned but I know users use Var as low as 30-50 mg every day and upwards of 100 mg ed. Clen and t3 I have no idea. Good luck. I probably wasn't much help but i'm sure someone will chime in amd help you further.

Thanks, all input is welcome and useful

On a clen and T3 cycle PCT is not needed since it doesn't shut down your test production. PCT is in reference to real steroid cycles. When I do clen I do 2 weeks on 2 weeks off. I've never ran T3 though.

Thanks, I've heard Anavar is one of the mildest with least sides. At 50mg a day, would this shut me down.

Originally Posted by realitybites

Thanks, I've heard Anavar is one of the mildest with least sides. At 50mg a day, would this shut me down.

All external forms of testosterone can shut you down! I wouldnt run any AAS without a test base and proper PCT!

Originally Posted by cavtrooper96

All external forms of testosterone can shut you down! I wouldnt run any AAS without a test base and proper PCT!

This is the norm. I've never understood running anything to "preserve" muscle mass with clen since it's already anti-catabolic. Besides, you're cutting anyway.

Stick with the Clen/T3 or even a simple ECA stack. Make sure you're eating a lot of protein and keep the cal's low.

Thanks
Was thinking to do a cut with Clen and T3 and eat clean and then a cycle of Anavar at 50mg with clomid at 50mg for a month after, how does this sound?

Depends on your stats and goals man. But for me, if i'm going to do a cycle. It's going to be a good one.

Originally Posted by SloppyJ

This is the norm. I've never understood running anything to "preserve" muscle mass with clen since it's already anti-catabolic. Besides, you're cutting anyway.

Stick with the Clen/T3 or even a simple ECA stack. Make sure you're eating a lot of protein and keep the cal's low.

"Cutting" drugs preserve muscle tissue when you diet. You've never heard of this?

Clen is not anti-catabolic, that's a myth.

Originally Posted by CT

"Cutting" drugs preserve muscle tissue when you diet. You've never heard of this?

Clen is not anti-catabolic, that's a myth.

Yes but you mis-quoted me. I said I've never understood taking anything with CLEN. Since I was under the impression it's anti-catabolic. Everything I've seen confirms this. I guess I will have to look into it further.

Originally Posted by SloppyJ

Yes but you mis-quoted me. I said I've never understood taking anything with CLEN. Since I was under the impression it's anti-catabolic. Everything I've seen confirms this. I guess I will have to look into it further.

I guess when someone is dieting down there is a reason they use AAS......to preserve muscle tissue. Seeing that clen is not used for this, it's not going to help preserve anything but heart palpatations, sweating and lethargic mood swings.

I don't think I misquoted you, I took what you said and stated that it wasn't true.

Originally Posted by CT

I guess when someone is dieting down there is a reason they use AAS......to preserve muscle tissue. Seeing that clen is not used for this, it's not going to help preserve anything but heart palpatations, sweating and lethargic mood swings.

I don't think I misquoted you, I took what you said and stated that it wasn't true.

To each his own. When I used it I didn't lose any muscle. Clen isn't used for weight loss? Yeah right. If you have an article on how clen isn't anticatabolic please post it up. I'm curious.


You misquoted me because you highlighted the part "I've never understood why people run anything to preserve muscle" and left out "On Clen." Yes I understand why people run AAS during a cutting stage. Like stated previously, I thought clen was anti-catabolic. I haven't found any legit articles stating either way. I'm going on experience.

There's different opionions on this but I've read a lot that anavar won't shut you down if you keep it under 40mg/day and less than 8 weeks. However everybody's different. You'll know if you're shut down so PCT might not be necessary for you at all.

Question, why no test?

Originally Posted by SloppyJ

To each his own. When I used it I didn't lose any muscle. Clen isn't used for weight loss? Yeah right. If you have an article on how clen isn't anticatabolic please post it up. I'm curious.


You misquoted me because you highlighted the part "I've never understood why people run anything to preserve muscle" and left out "On Clen." Yes I understand why people run AAS during a cutting stage. Like stated previously, I thought clen was anti-catabolic. I haven't found any legit articles stating either way. I'm going on experience.

Whatever Bro, we'll agree to disagree.

Originally Posted by CanadaGear

There's different opionions on this but I've read a lot that anavar won't shut you down if you keep it under 40mg/day and less than 8 weeks. However everybody's different. You'll know if you're shut down so PCT might not be necessary for you at all.

Question, why no test?

Anavar will shut you down period.

Originally Posted by CT

Whatever Bro, we'll agree to disagree.

That's cool man. Funny, I was going to say that in a previous post.

Originally Posted by CT

"Cutting" drugs preserve muscle tissue when you diet. You've never heard of this?

Clen is not anti-catabolic, that's a myth.

It does however suppress cortisone

This is an old post I typed up for PCT to help guys understand what is going on.
Me personally I like to use an AI during aromitizable steroids, and also HCG throughout @ 500iu twice a week.

Understanding PCT

PCT, what does it mean?
Post Cycle Therapy.

What does it do?
It returns your Hypothalamus, Pituitary, Testicular, Axis (HPTA) back to producing its own endogenous testosterone production.

How long does it last?
Good question but in my opinion the normal 21 to 30 days protocol is too short unless suppression of the HPTA is minor.

Ok, you produce about 7 mg of testosterone a day or around 49 mg a week on average, some more, some less (usually older guys).
So, you go on a cycle of lets say 500mg of testosterone a week or about 10 times your natural production. The body sees this as too much testosterone and will lower production of testosterone to try to maintain homeostasis (balance). The body loves homeostasis.
Testosterone in a man gets converted into two other hormones; one of those hormones is DHT (dihydrotestosterone) this is done by an enzyme called 5-alpha-reductace. DHT is actually about 3-5 times more androgenic than testosterone.
The other hormone it gets converted to is estradiol (E2), this is a strong estrogen but from now on we will just refer to it as estrogen, even though there are 3 different kinds of estrogen. Testosterone gets converted into estrogen by another enzyme called aromatase. The conversion is called aromatization.

Ok, the body will convert more testosterone into estrogen probably to try and maintain homeostasis, so the more test, the more estrogen. For most this estrogen is not a problem. But for some it will be a problem and this extra estrogen can give side effects like gynecomastia (gyno) or water retention, but one big problem is estrogens suppressive effects on Luteinizing Hormone or (LH) LH is what the pituitary gland sends as a chemical hormone to the Leydig cells in the testicles where the testicles will product testosterone. Estrogen is probably 100-200 times as suppressive as testosterone.
So when LH production stops (exogenous testosterone will do this too) the testicles will stop producing and like anything not being used will atrophy.
What does this mean?
You will get some small balls, no kidding mine have been the size of almonds without the shell.

OK, so you come off a cycle, the exogenous testosterone is tapering down and after about a couple of weeks (this is the clearance time for testosterone cypionate and enanthate) you end up with low levels of testosterone as your endogenous production has long been stopped. Now here where the problem starts. You potentially have the testosterone of a woman, and high estrogen from all that aromatization.
This can be a recipe for disaster, why? Because men need test to feel normal and not only that hard earned muscle will be eaten up by being in a catabolic environment, not to mention there is still going to be some suppression because of elevated estrogen.
I have seen big strong men carry on like crying women in this state; it is very bad, sex drive is zero, no energy, emotional, insecure, the list is long.

So, what can you do?
First of all in my opinion bringing the nuts back online is very important, the most important. This is done with the use of Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG)
It basically is pregnant woman’s urine. HCG mimics LH and as we learned above that LH is the chemical hormone that stimulates the Leydig cells to produce testosterone. HCG is very strong and many times stronger than the amount of LH that the pituitary puts out.
The typical dose is anywhere around 350iu to as much as 2500iu and even in some cases more but I don’t recommend this. Best advice is to use as little as possible to achieve success at bringing the nuts back to life from their nice little vacation.
The half life of HCG is around 3 days or so, so Subcutaneous (Sub-Q) shots or Intramuscular Shots (IM) are done about Every Other Day (EOD or Every 3 Days (E3D).
If you use too much for too long desentization of the Leydig cells can happen and this is not good.
One other thing is HCG aromatizes pretty heavily. So an anti estrogen is always recommended if you shoot more than 500iu and even that if you are gyno prone would be a good idea to add an anti E.
HCG comes in tow bottles or vials and one is powder and the other is a solvent or bacteriostatic water, the water gets added to the powder and this is called reconstitution. Once HCG is mixed it must be refrigerated. In bacteriostatic water it will last around a month.

Now next we want to block the hypothalamus and pituitary gland from that excess estrogen as that in itself is suppressive.
How is this done? With a drug called Clomiphene citrate (clomid). This is really a drug to help women ovulate but it acts as a Selective Estrogen Receptor Modulator (SERM).
It occupy’s the estrogen receptors in the hypothalamus and pituitary and blocks estrogens exertion on those glands. It’s like putting a key in a lock but not turning the key. It is just occupying that space without really doing anything.
Clomid in my opinion works better than another SERM that many people use called Nolvadex. Both pretty much do the same thing but together I have found to be far superior than using any of them by themselves.
Clomid is used to test the pituitary for secondary hypogonadism, clomid @ 100mg a day after 5 to 7 days will double LH responce and increase FSH by 20% to 50%, that is huge.
Both clomid and nolva are in pill form as well as liquid form.
What these do is block estrogen. The body sees this as it is low in testosterone and estrogens suppressive effects are not there as the receptors are blocked. So it see’s this as low testosterone and low estrogen so the body turns on the hypothalamus to produce Gonadotropin Releasing Hormone (GnRH) which in turn tells the pituitary gland to produce LH and FSH (follicle stimulating hormone). FSH is another hormone that stimulates the Sertoli cells in the testicles to produce sperm.

Ok, so lets put this all together.
There are a couple of ways you can do this.
First you can take HCG in small amounts during the cycle to maintain testicular function or you can take it after the cycle is finished to start your PCT.
Either way is fine but if the cycle is very long then long use of HCG can be a problem due to the possibility of desentization of the Leydig cells.
That’s pretty much the last thing you want to do as you want your own LH production to keep the testicles producing test.

So, what you can do is wait about 2 weeks for the testosterone to clear your system or be around base levels of normal producing test and start your HCG, clomid and nolvadex all at the same time.
You don’t have to worry about the aromatization issue because both clomid and nolvadex are anti-estrogens or act as anti-estrogens in the body.
By the way nolvadex is used in estrogen sensitive cancer tissues like in treating breast cancer.

I take clomid at 50mg twice a day (12hrs apart) for 30 days.
I take nolvadex at 20 mg a day for 45 days.
I take anywhere from 1000iu EOD to 2500 EOD for 8 shots (16 days).

So the HCG is taking care of the nuts and taking them off vacation and putting them back to work and the nolvadex and clomid will help the hypothalamus produce GnRH which will tell the pituitary to produce LH and FSH.
Once the testicles are producing test on their own you stop the administration of HCG and let the body take over, kind of like handing a baton when doing a relay race.

Depending on the type of gear, length of time on, amount of gear, all play in this factor of recovery, not to mention the genetic factors involved in shutdown.
I shutdown very hard and I notice atrophy in as little as 3 weeks.

If anyone has any questions or wants to fill in some spaces just let me know.
Cheers.

Originally Posted by hackskii

this is an old post i typed up for pct to help guys understand what is going on.
Me personally i like to use an ai during aromitizable steroids, and also hcg throughout @ 500iu twice a week.

Understanding pct

pct, what does it mean?
Post cycle therapy.

What does it do?
It returns your hypothalamus, pituitary, testicular, axis (hpta) back to producing its own endogenous testosterone production.

How long does it last?
Good question but in my opinion the normal 21 to 30 days protocol is too short unless suppression of the hpta is minor.

Ok, you produce about 7 mg of testosterone a day or around 49 mg a week on average, some more, some less (usually older guys).
So, you go on a cycle of lets say 500mg of testosterone a week or about 10 times your natural production. The body sees this as too much testosterone and will lower production of testosterone to try to maintain homeostasis (balance). The body loves homeostasis.
Testosterone in a man gets converted into two other hormones; one of those hormones is dht (dihydrotestosterone) this is done by an enzyme called 5-alpha-reductace. Dht is actually about 3-5 times more androgenic than testosterone.
The other hormone it gets converted to is estradiol (e2), this is a strong estrogen but from now on we will just refer to it as estrogen, even though there are 3 different kinds of estrogen. Testosterone gets converted into estrogen by another enzyme called aromatase. The conversion is called aromatization.

Ok, the body will convert more testosterone into estrogen probably to try and maintain homeostasis, so the more test, the more estrogen. For most this estrogen is not a problem. But for some it will be a problem and this extra estrogen can give side effects like gynecomastia (gyno) or water retention, but one big problem is estrogens suppressive effects on luteinizing hormone or (lh) lh is what the pituitary gland sends as a chemical hormone to the leydig cells in the testicles where the testicles will product testosterone. Estrogen is probably 100-200 times as suppressive as testosterone.
So when lh production stops (exogenous testosterone will do this too) the testicles will stop producing and like anything not being used will atrophy.
What does this mean?
You will get some small balls, no kidding mine have been the size of almonds without the shell.

Ok, so you come off a cycle, the exogenous testosterone is tapering down and after about a couple of weeks (this is the clearance time for testosterone cypionate and enanthate) you end up with low levels of testosterone as your endogenous production has long been stopped. Now here where the problem starts. You potentially have the testosterone of a woman, and high estrogen from all that aromatization.
This can be a recipe for disaster, why? Because men need test to feel normal and not only that hard earned muscle will be eaten up by being in a catabolic environment, not to mention there is still going to be some suppression because of elevated estrogen.
I have seen big strong men carry on like crying women in this state; it is very bad, sex drive is zero, no energy, emotional, insecure, the list is long.

So, what can you do?
First of all in my opinion bringing the nuts back online is very important, the most important. This is done with the use of human chorionic gonadotropin (hcg)
it basically is pregnant woman’s urine. Hcg mimics lh and as we learned above that lh is the chemical hormone that stimulates the leydig cells to produce testosterone. Hcg is very strong and many times stronger than the amount of lh that the pituitary puts out.
The typical dose is anywhere around 350iu to as much as 2500iu and even in some cases more but i don’t recommend this. Best advice is to use as little as possible to achieve success at bringing the nuts back to life from their nice little vacation.
The half life of hcg is around 3 days or so, so subcutaneous (sub-q) shots or intramuscular shots (im) are done about every other day (eod or every 3 days (e3d).
If you use too much for too long desentization of the leydig cells can happen and this is not good.
One other thing is hcg aromatizes pretty heavily. So an anti estrogen is always recommended if you shoot more than 500iu and even that if you are gyno prone would be a good idea to add an anti e.
Hcg comes in tow bottles or vials and one is powder and the other is a solvent or bacteriostatic water, the water gets added to the powder and this is called reconstitution. Once hcg is mixed it must be refrigerated. In bacteriostatic water it will last around a month.

Now next we want to block the hypothalamus and pituitary gland from that excess estrogen as that in itself is suppressive.
How is this done? With a drug called clomiphene citrate (clomid). This is really a drug to help women ovulate but it acts as a selective estrogen receptor modulator (serm).
It occupy’s the estrogen receptors in the hypothalamus and pituitary and blocks estrogens exertion on those glands. It’s like putting a key in a lock but not turning the key. It is just occupying that space without really doing anything.
Clomid in my opinion works better than another serm that many people use called nolvadex. Both pretty much do the same thing but together i have found to be far superior than using any of them by themselves.
Clomid is used to test the pituitary for secondary hypogonadism, clomid @ 100mg a day after 5 to 7 days will double lh responce and increase fsh by 20% to 50%, that is huge.
Both clomid and nolva are in pill form as well as liquid form.
What these do is block estrogen. The body sees this as it is low in testosterone and estrogens suppressive effects are not there as the receptors are blocked. So it see’s this as low testosterone and low estrogen so the body turns on the hypothalamus to produce gonadotropin releasing hormone (gnrh) which in turn tells the pituitary gland to produce lh and fsh (follicle stimulating hormone). Fsh is another hormone that stimulates the sertoli cells in the testicles to produce sperm.

Ok, so lets put this all together.
There are a couple of ways you can do this.
First you can take hcg in small amounts during the cycle to maintain testicular function or you can take it after the cycle is finished to start your pct.
Either way is fine but if the cycle is very long then long use of hcg can be a problem due to the possibility of desentization of the leydig cells.
That’s pretty much the last thing you want to do as you want your own lh production to keep the testicles producing test.

So, what you can do is wait about 2 weeks for the testosterone to clear your system or be around base levels of normal producing test and start your hcg, clomid and nolvadex all at the same time.
You don’t have to worry about the aromatization issue because both clomid and nolvadex are anti-estrogens or act as anti-estrogens in the body.
By the way nolvadex is used in estrogen sensitive cancer tissues like in treating breast cancer.

I take clomid at 50mg twice a day (12hrs apart) for 30 days.
I take nolvadex at 20 mg a day for 45 days.
I take anywhere from 1000iu eod to 2500 eod for 8 shots (16 days).

So the hcg is taking care of the nuts and taking them off vacation and putting them back to work and the nolvadex and clomid will help the hypothalamus produce gnrh which will tell the pituitary to produce lh and fsh.
Once the testicles are producing test on their own you stop the administration of hcg and let the body take over, kind of like handing a baton when doing a relay race.

Depending on the type of gear, length of time on, amount of gear, all play in this factor of recovery, not to mention the genetic factors involved in shutdown.
I shutdown very hard and i notice atrophy in as little as 3 weeks.

If anyone has any questions or wants to fill in some spaces just let me know.
Cheers.

excellent write up.

Originally Posted by CT

Anavar will shut you down period.

I don't think that's the case all the time. Most guys will never do var without test or something stronger. This guy since he's cycling t3 and clen might not need PCT. Here's a quote:

'Serum testosterone, SHBG (Sex Hormone Binding Globulin), and LH (Leutinizing Hormone) will be slightly suppressed with low doses of Anavar, but less than with other compounds. FSH (Follicle Stimulating Hormone) , IGF1 (Insulin Like Growth Factor 1) and GH (Growth Hormone) will not be suppressed with a low dose of Anavar, but will actually be raised significantly (12)(13)(14) as you may have guessed, and LH will even experience a "rebound" effect when you stop using anavar. If your endocrine system and HPTA are functioning normally, you should be able to use anavar with minimal insult to it, and can even keep most of your values within the normal range."

Problem is nobody uses low dose anavar.
It comes pharma in 2.5mg per pill, yet typical dose is around 75mg ED, so that is not low dose at all.

With most gear LH will spike due to the fact the testicles are not responding to LH, so the body compinsates with higher levels of LH to try and maintain homeostasis.
Older men tend to have higher LH output yet lower testosterone levels due to leydig cell sensitivity issues.

Originally Posted by CanadaGear

I don't think that's the case all the time. Most guys will never do var without test or something stronger.

20mg of var will shut you down, that has been shown. Anything less than that would depend on the individual.

Problem lies in the fact that if one uses enough var to make gains then shutdown can and probably will occur to some degree.
Var is mild on supression yet mild on gains depending on the dose.

Length of time on cycle, amount of gear, type of gear, age, all play a factor on supression, including genetic disposition.

The idea of using gear to cut just does not cut it......lol
Actually when one diets using gear he will maintain an environment to not lose as much muscle during the cut.

If one is overweight and by a large margin being over weight he can be more aggressive without losing alot of muscle.
If one is lean and is aggressive in diet without the use of gear he will lose more muscle than the guy that is fat and does aggressive dieting.
Steroids preserve muscle when dieting using a defecit in calories.

Originally Posted by SloppyJ

To each his own. When I used it I didn't lose any muscle. Clen isn't used for weight loss? Yeah right. If you have an article on how clen isn't anticatabolic please post it up. I'm curious.


You misquoted me because you highlighted the part "I've never understood why people run anything to preserve muscle" and left out "On Clen." Yes I understand why people run AAS during a cutting stage. Like stated previously, I thought clen was anti-catabolic. I haven't found any legit articles stating either way. I'm going on experience.

Do you have anything showing that Clen IS anti-catabolic?

That's true. Clen has anti-catabolic properties.

Originally Posted by CanadaGear

I don't think that's the case all the time. Most guys will never do var without test or something stronger. This guy since he's cycling t3 and clen might not need PCT. Here's a quote:

'Serum testosterone, SHBG (Sex Hormone Binding Globulin), and LH (Leutinizing Hormone) will be slightly suppressed with low doses of Anavar, but less than with other compounds. FSH (Follicle Stimulating Hormone) , IGF1 (Insulin Like Growth Factor 1) and GH (Growth Hormone) will not be suppressed with a low dose of Anavar, but will actually be raised significantly (12)(13)(14) as you may have guessed, and LH will even experience a "rebound" effect when you stop using anavar. If your endocrine system and HPTA are functioning normally, you should be able to use anavar with minimal insult to it, and can even keep most of your values within the normal range."

That's BS. The half life is too long. They don't even state what the dose is. Even at 2.5mg ED do you really think that's going to make a difference?

AM Dbol is the the best option for a bridge or a failed PCT, IF you're trying to recover.

Originally Posted by CanadaGear

That's true. Clen has anti-catabolic properties.

Where does this information keep coming from? Please post the study showing this, thanks.

Originally Posted by njc

Do you have anything showing that Clen IS anti-catabolic?

No, read my post. I said I don't have any information on the catabolic properties of clen. I have yet to see anyone produce anything stating either way.