Thread: How much lean mass can you gain from a first test cycle?

5 pounds is bullshit, but it depends on many factors. I put 65 pounds on my bench my first cycle, and I tell you it took more than 5 pounds of LBM to get that.

thank you mudge!

I know I gained at least .75" on my arms, and as a tall guy it took some good weight to get that. I'd have to look through my logs to know for sure though.

5 pounds would not even be noticeable over 8-10 weeks tome, one guy (who later got fired) actually said out loud that I was probably on steroids. Thats how noticeable the change was.

First cycle was sustanon btw.

highly untrained resistance trainers will see the highest gains off of the 1st steroid cycle. that being said gains of 15-20 lbs of LBM could be obtained. a more advanced trainer will surely see less gains than a newbie on the same cycle

First cycle ever???
Weight gain varies....but for those who dont blow up with water or fat it seems that 20-29lbs is the average, about 75-85% of that pure muscle.
So I would say 15-22 LBS lean muscle gain is average

However much you eat?

Its depends if you test is real or not

20-25lbs of LBM...I was also not at my body's natural max either. I started prematurely. I reached my bodies natural max real quick, even though it wasn't a natural method to reach it.

My first cycle last year I figured I put on about 10lbm and 15-20 lbs of water and fat. Back in the 70's I probably put on around 30 lbs of LBM. AGE, AGE, AGE seems to make a difference.

I'm not sure at what age if any that you may not be able to put on much LBM. Hope I'm not there now.

i have only done 1 c7ycle 500mg of test cyp a week and i went from 94kgs to 110,,,,no shit now im 102/3 about 3 months after the cycle

Some of those figures are suspect.

If you really want to know how much LBM you have gained, you should:

1) On day zero of your cycle, take your weight and %BF

2) On day zero of your next cycle, do the same.

If your bodyfat is about the same then the difference will be LBM. Yeah sure you may have put some of this on post-cycle but let's be realistic.

People do all sorts of calculations to knock off water retained and fat gained when bulking, but there's a lot of psychology at play here and we don't like admitting to ourselves how much of our "gains" we have lost.

You need to see know much fat you have gained; let your body lose any retained water; and let your HPT axis get back to normal. Guesstimating LBM gained at the end of your cycle or even at end of PCT may be over-optimistic.

The most honest way of judging your gains is to compare yourself at a known point in one cycle with the same point in your next. That way you've taken out most of the variables.

If you take this approach, and you add up your gains from your last few cycles that should be how much more you weigh now than when you started your first cycle. Some of the people who say they gained say 30 pounds on their first cycle, 20 on their second, 15 on their third: are they now 65 pounds heavier? Not often....

I think if you do this then you're more likely to be in the 5-15 pounds bracket than the 15-30 one on your first cycle.

Hope this helps,

Flash

Originally Posted by redflash

Some of those figures are suspect.

If you really want to know how much LBM you have gained, you should:

1) On day zero of your cycle, take your weight and %BF

2) On day zero of your next cycle, do the same.

If your bodyfat is about the same then the difference will be LBM. Yeah sure you may have put some of this on post-cycle but let's be realistic.

People do all sorts of calculations to knock off water retained and fat gained when bulking, but there's a lot of psychology at play here and we don't like admitting to ourselves how much of our "gains" we have lost.

You need to see know much fat you have gained; let your body lose any retained water; and let your HPT axis get back to normal. Guesstimating LBM gained at the end of your cycle or even at end of PCT may be over-optimistic.

The most honest way of judging your gains is to compare yourself at a known point in one cycle with the same point in your next. That way you've taken out most of the variables.

If you take this approach, and you add up your gains from your last few cycles that should be how much more you weigh now than when you started your first cycle. Some of the people who say they gained say 30 pounds on their first cycle, 20 on their second, 15 on their third: are they now 65 pounds heavier? Not often....

I think if you do this then you're more likely to be in the 5-15 pounds bracket than the 15-30 one on your first cycle.

Hope this helps,

Flash

I'LL AGREE WITH THIS AND IS THE ONLY WAY TO KNOW FOR SURE. GOOD POST RF

Redfalsh, how did your test/eq cycle go?

Originally Posted by pengers84

Redfalsh, how did your test/eq cycle go?

Hi Pengers,

Good for me but
(a) I'm a small guy (ectomorph)
(b) I'm 46 years old
(c) I do low doses vs the recommendations on this site.

(Almost penned an outraged email on another thread a few minutes ago but decided it wasn't worth it... guys who could bench 300lb after five years of training will never understand why other guys who've been training/eating/sleeping just the same (if not better) are pleased when they bench 200lb).

So at the risk of being flamed by all those whose advice I took into account but did not do as I was told...

Gained around 5lb lean body mass, so you can stop reading now if you think that's for girls....!

I could have told you that I "gained" ten pounds in two weeks (true) but that is not real, lean keepable gains....

I did only a six week cycle of 250mg test e (first time with test) and 400mg EQ (second cycle so I trusted it).
I did 40mg Anavar per day for first two weeks to kick it off.
I did 0.25mg Arimidex from day 10, planned as day 14 but started to bloat up so brought it in early.
Am finishing PCT now.

I was not happy with the acne I started to get on my shoulders even though it was only a spot or two, or the occasional zit on my nose!

I will run a similar cycle again in a couple of months time, might risk 500mg test despite the sides.

Would I recommend the cycle?

Well I'm sure some people can get away with more test but I wasn't happy to do so. I work in a senior management position where I can't walk around with spots on my nose or having put on ten pounds (mainly water) in a week.

I felt exhausted for most of the six weeks; I know this is to be expected on many cycles but it was stronger than I expected or have previously experienced.

The Arim kept the water down nicely (even if some would have it that it limits your gains). I loved the hardness the test gave and the energy for training (at my age, like HRT, I guess!).

Hope this helps, Pengers. You have to try test/EQ, it's excellent, and if you have the body/age to do proper doses then I'm sure it will be good. Oh how I wish I'd done this 20 years ago...

Flash

Originally Posted by redflash

Hi Pengers,

Good for me but
(a) I'm a small guy (ectomorph)
(b) I'm 46 years old
(c) I do low doses vs the recommendations on this site.

(Almost penned an outraged email on another thread a few minutes ago but decided it wasn't worth it... guys who could bench 300lb after five years of training will never understand why other guys who've been training/eating/sleeping just the same (if not better) are pleased when they bench 200lb).

So at the risk of being flamed by all those whose advice I took into account but did not do as I was told...

Gained around 5lb lean body mass, so you can stop reading now if you think that's for girls....!

I could have told you that I "gained" ten pounds in two weeks (true) but that is not real, lean keepable gains....

I did only a six week cycle of 250mg test e (first time with test) and 400mg EQ (second cycle so I trusted it).
I did 40mg Anavar per day for first two weeks to kick it off.
I did 0.25mg Arimidex from day 10, planned as day 14 but started to bloat up so brought it in early.
Am finishing PCT now.

I was not happy with the acne I started to get on my shoulders even though it was only a spot or two, or the occasional zit on my nose!

I will run a similar cycle again in a couple of months time, might risk 500mg test despite the sides.

Would I recommend the cycle?

Well I'm sure some people can get away with more test but I wasn't happy to do so. I work in a senior management position where I can't walk around with spots on my nose or having put on ten pounds (mainly water) in a week.

I felt exhausted for most of the six weeks; I know this is to be expected on many cycles but it was stronger than I expected or have previously experienced.

The Arim kept the water down nicely (even if some would have it that it limits your gains). I loved the hardness the test gave and the energy for training (at my age, like HRT, I guess!).

Hope this helps, Pengers. You have to try test/EQ, it's excellent, and if you have the body/age to do proper doses then I'm sure it will be good. Oh how I wish I'd done this 20 years ago...

Flash

That's a decent amount of juice, and for only 5 pounds...

"That's a decent amount of juice, and for only 5 pounds..."

Musclepump, how much lean body mass did you gain AND KEEP on your first cycle? Not total weight, not at your heaviest point on cycle. I guess even if we compare like with like it was more, right?

Two main arguments here:

1) "retained lean body mass" vs "total temporary body mass" - as bodybuilders, we want the first but tend to measure the second.
2) Body type and age: a 46-year old ectomorph is never going to gain as much as a 25-year old mesomorph on the same cycle+routine+diet.

As I said, I "gained" 10 pounds in the first two weeks which was when I kicked off the arimidex (at 46, I need to keep an eye on my blood pressure so water retention has to be controlled). I guess if I hadn't done this, and hadn't applied my own measurement rules as above, I could have written

"I gained 15 pounds in six weeks".

And then you would have been happier, right?

Or I could have upped my calories by 500 a day more than I did. Which would have gained me a pound of fat ("bulk") a week ie. six pounds of fat over my short cycle. Then maybe I could have written:

"I gained 21 pounds in six weeks".

Wow, that would have been a great cycle... no, it wouldn't because the water would evaporate post-cycle and I'd have to diet to lose the six pounds of fat. But the headline figure would be more respectable, right?

I guess that's my point about people kidding themselves.

Is five pounds OF LEAN BODY MASS enough. Hell, no. I know that I have always struggled to gain mass of any sort. I'm an ectomorph and 20 years ago ate huge amounts but stiill never had to cut up before a competition; ectopmorphs just don't put on fat (which is great) or muscle (not so great) like genetically gifted mesomorphs (like Formanrules) or naturally fatter endomorphs. So if Formanrules did exactly this cycle he would gain more than me - that's life.

You're right to point out that five pounds isn't much, and I wish it wasn't true, believe me! But I hope the arguments here help a few folk to separate the hype from the reality when designing their cycles/routines/diets.

All the best,

Flash

i have ssen first hand the differences between a nwebie under 1 year of training vs msyelf 10 plus years.. We go to the same gyma nd did identical cycles.. He put on 22 pounds in 10 weeks and myslef only 10 if that.. Althogh i did notice he wa smuc much more blated than mysefl by the end of it.. So there is afactor also in saying untrained guys will put on more mass than trained guys

Im in my 8th week of a test cyp 500mg a week cycle and ive put on 20lbs.

Originally Posted by skaterdude

Im in my 8th week of a test cyp 500mg a week cycle and ive put on 20lbs.

Which tells us nothing.....