How to reach the next level (>240lbs)

As your general advice is to use less AAS, what are the supraphysiological blasting dosages of AAS (doesn't matter which AAS particulary), gh and insulin you are thinking of when it comes to break through 240lbs@5'10 in long term. What would be your suggested cycling frequency (blast and cruise)?

I am currently stagnating while staying below of 1g of AAS for blasting (crusing with 500mg per week). Having powerlifting experience for seven years without gear and bodybuilding experience for 3 years with gear. Increasing calorie intake while blasting with 1g of gear does not result anymore in more muscle gains.



I'd suggest you need to change the way you think about this. Instead of a 'drugs first' philosophy, and thinking that that's where the solution to your problem lies, take a more holistic view.

For a start you're cruising with way too much. Taper down to cruise on a medium TRT dose range at most, the less the better in terms of setting you up for future growth.

And generally speaking, if growth has stalled, and all eating more does is make you fat or hot, you should consider cutting. Get yourself into single digits %bf at a minimum, the lower the better. Figure out how you respond to different dietary schemes along the way.

Then you should gain very nicely on the rebound. The rebound is where you'll focus all future gains on.

Use as little AAS and other drugs as you possibly can (you won't need much on a rebound), tapering up the AAS amounts, food intake, other supplements, training intensity, weight used, cardio and so on over the next 2-3 months, making sure you don't regain as much fat as you started. You want to train your body to get used to holding ever more lean muscle without as much AAS, food or other drugs. Shifting the baseline like that can be done.

And then just repeat, repeat, repeat the same process year in, year out.

As with anyone who's been at it for a number of years, you'll likely gain just a few quality LBM pounds a year at most, maybe sometimes a bit more from your early rebounds. But over time less, instead just improving in condition and quality.

And forget about chasing the numbers game and your bodyweight if you're at relatively high bf percentages. Instead focus on comparing how you look between periods of similar leanish bf%, and use that as your gague.
 
Thanks for your reply. Just want to add a quote of you which complements your idea:
You're going to have this problem no matter what you do. As you get closer to your genetic limits, your gains will net less with each cycle. This is to be expected. It doesn't mean you need to raise your doses. If you raise your doses to gain more, you'll probably be unable to hold it all afterwards anyway. Thus it's better to allow the body to gain more slowly (which will allow it to adapt long-term) than attempt to short-circuit the process and lose it after.

One suggestion I might make: you could lower your TRT dose a bit. If you taper at the end of a cycle and slowly take your bloods down into the low-normal range of T, your rebound when you go back on cycle will be relatively stronger. Similarly, I would suggest tapering up when you go on cycle, rather than running (say) a constant 250mg/wk from the start. It's relative change that produces growth moreso than absolute doses.

I get your point sounds logical to follow this strategy focussing on the rebounds to steadily gain muscle over time, but maybe it takes to much time to reach heavy weight goals this way as time is short.

I still can not go through >220lbs/100kg even after a cutting when I get to a low bodyfat at 205lbs/93kg. I was just sticking at 220lbs/100kg at the end of my last three previous cycles (total duration of 12 months) with a maximum AAS usage for the last weeks of the last cycle of 1.5g with some gh and insulin).

Continuous increasing calorie intake at that level just resulted in a too fast body fat increase in absence of sufficient muscle gains as I have experienced from the way from 205lbs/93kg to 220lbs/100kg.

My goal is to reach lean 240lbs/110kg at 12-14% bodyfat as soon and as safe as possible and optionally go for a contest in heavy weight class (220lbs/100kg on contest).

What has lead me to the so called "drug-first" mentality (of course I am optimizing and periodizing training and nutrition) is the fact knowing heavy people who work with higher dosage cycles (also knowing published blood tests from pro bodybuilders) and thinking about that drug usage is some key element when it comes to heavy weight bodybuilding.

What do you thing makes the real difference between the >260lbs/120kg lean bodybuilders and the small athletes?
 
Yeah I honestly do appreciate how frustrating it is when you're aim is 'x' but you're still stuck at 'y'. But given where you are is clearly a sticking point of sorts, it implies you're probably at a genetic bottleneck right now.

Though genetic expression is not entirely fixed (and we appreciate increasingly our epigenetic capacity to adapt slowly over time), it nevertheless does determine the ballpark within which you can ultimately play. You need to be able to accept your limitations, even while working your hardest to break them, or else you'll just start abusing PEDs (and risking health), yet ultimately getting little further than had you just slowly (and more healthily) chipped away at it.

As for what I wrote above, I still say to you that the best strategy to break old LBM records is to periodise everything, everywhere, and taper from very low to (if you really must) very high. The lower you go, the higher (relatively) you can go.

Generally, cutting, setting a new baseline, and rebounding seems to work better for all the guys I've worked with than simply pushing in more food or cranking up the AAS even further, after many months of already pushing things. I'd suggest inhibitors like myostatin and surplus thyroid hormones simply overcome all when you're close to your natural 'limit'.

If standard length cuts and bulks don't appeal, you could always employ variations. One that I enjoyed myself when bulking was 'blast cutting' for a few days (using DNP, but I don't recommend as it's dangerous etc), followed up by a short calorie blast, then resuming normal bulk and repeat again 1-2 weeks later. It worked especially well at maxing out size while maintaining the kind of leanness that often only black guys seem to be able to pull off when bulking.
 
Thanks for your time and reasoned advice.

I will follow it and wont simply push AAS as it seemed to be my plan:

I take home following points:
- using as little AAS and other drugs as possible

- periodizing/tapering up the AAS amounts (from as low as possible to aa high as really necessary), food intake, other supplements, training intensity, weight used, cardio in a blast for 2-3 months

- cruising for 2-3 months with as low test only as possible + maybe some gh for beneficial effects

- trying some variations like "blast cutting" as you mentioned but want to stay away from DNP

Some questions are left after your post, I would appreciate if you could answer them.

- would you periodize also training frequency? Regularly I train every muscle two times a week, would you cycle this also and go some weeks for a frequency of 1x (higher split) or 3x (lower split)? How would you synchronize this with the blast and cruising phases?

- my opinion to t4 and t3 is only to take t4 (never t3) if thyroid levels go down out of reference. Do you think it would be beneficial while blasting or cutting to take t3 or t4? If yes which of these and why?

- do you offer private online coaching or could you imagine to support regarding AAS strategy / calorie and macro planning beside from this forum?
 
Yeah, absolutely periodize (and alter the intensity) of training frequency, the amount of weight you use, the rep ranges, and the number and type of exercises. Training is the major variable. You want to be presenting a range of increasing challenges and stimuli to your body, to give it a reason to adapt.

As said already, since there comes a point where you can't keep increasing variables, everyone should construct a plan where they periodically drop them down to almost nothing (which conveniently gives things like joints - and the mind - a recovery period), and then start to taper back up. Ideally as they rebound with everything else.

So they're synergising all these increasing stimuli to converge together and maximise growth and (hopefully) crack through plateaus. And then rinse repeat, rinse repeat.

***

You may find it helpful, in terms of visualising an appropriate strategy, to programme the range of training, cardio, supplement, dietary, AAS, other PEDs intensities into 5 (or more) categories of effort - where '1' corresponds to "extremely light/low intensity", and '5' to "maximal/extreme intensity".

This forces you to think through each discreet variable of your bodybuilding lifestyle in minute detail, to decide exactly what constitutes level 1 or 2 and to write it down in detail, and so helps prevent you from prematurely increasing the intensity of any variable before you should (which is incredibly easy to accidentally do).

***

For example: when you first ask someone who's been training for 10 years to train a muscle sub-optimally, they often have no idea how to do it. They're so used to a burn, to overload, to heavy weight, that they have absolutely no clue what constitutes 20% effort on any variable, or when they should stop training the muscle.

It's a huge learning curve for most, and will take anyone a fair time to get used to and become familiar with. You will love it, though, because sometimes you'll be in and out of the gym in 20 minutes, and yet still see a great return on your effort, in terms of growth. And all this change really does help push motivation up high.

***

Anyway, once you've thought everything through and created your tiers and written down exactly what they mean, you can then easily manipulate and plug each in as discreet phases in your preferred periodised programme(s).

You'll want to draw it up so you can visualise what you're doing in terms of your timescales. And another benefit of managing it all this way is it becomes easier to adapt for different length protocols in your upcoming training/bulking/cutting cycles.

***

Regarding T3/4, you can live without it. When bulking, levels will naturally be high as fuck, and when cutting, you should be plugging in periods where you eat more, manipulate cardio etc, to prevent fatloss stopping anyway. I rarely find a reason to use them and always consider other factors (like diet or cardio protocols) before messing around with them.

***

As for online coaching, sorry I don't have time for that and don't really like it tbh. I much prefer IRL coaching, but I don't have much time for that either anymore. Too many things, not enough time lol. Happy to chat on here in more general terms though.
 
Thank you very much for your detailed answers.

I will follow your advice and create a program with the variables and levels tapering all from low to high. Now I am believing this will be more effective than just increasing AAS constantly which will also result soon in a stop of gaining muscle as experienced before.

I appreciate then if we could stay in contact in this forum section. Maybe I could create a log and post updates, feedback and upcomin questions from time to time.

Thanks.
 
Thank you very much for your detailed answers.

I will follow your advice and create a program with the variables and levels tapering all from low to high. Now I am believing this will be more effective than just increasing AAS constantly which will also result soon in a stop of gaining muscle as experienced before.

I appreciate then if we could stay in contact in this forum section. Maybe I could create a log and post updates, feedback and upcomin questions from time to time.

Thanks.

Yeah we have tags for training logs, and a few others are open somewhere down the page. So feel free to set one up, and you can harvest input from everyone else as well.
 
When i got to 240lb, 5'8", 10" i was using a simple cycle of 1g T, 1g Bold, 1g Drost, 26iu/3wk GH taken intermittently on non consecutive days in varying doses, taken IM in muscles trained pre PWO workout nutrition for 30 mins. 12-16 week gh cycles.

I started at 126lb at 8-10% many years prior. Only mention it to describe how i was a hardgainer and not blessed in muscle growth...
 
When i got to 240lb, 5'8", 10" i was using a simple cycle of 1g T, 1g Bold, 1g Drost, 26iu/3wk GH taken intermittently on non consecutive days in varying doses, taken IM in muscles trained pre PWO workout nutrition for 30 mins. 12-16 week gh cycles.

I started at 126lb at 8-10% many years prior. Only mention it to describe how i was a hardgainer and not blessed in muscle growth...

Thanks for your input.

May I ask you some questions:
- How long did you stay on with the mentioned cycle and how long did you stay off or in cruise?
- How did your cruise dosage look like?
- How many cycles of the mentioned cycle or similar cycles did you need to gain the last 20lbs?
 
After having run lots of high-ish (still not as high as some of CFCs lol) runs, Id agree with the info presented if that gives it some extra weight. Periodization and progression from low to high is key.

I will say that, for me, T3 was invaluable in terms of pushing heavier weights while staying leaner and being able to process A LOT more food. I dont use it anymore for a variety of reasons but the times I was pushing 240-250 with significantly higher caloric intake than currently, I was using T3 and had an empty feeling stomach every couple hours no matter how much I ate. Not to say that drugs are always the answer but when it comes to heavyweight bodybuilding, its generally a lot of drugs coupled with ever more mindful training and nutrition.
 
Periodization and progression from low to high is key.

What kind of progression and periodization could you notice on professional heavy weight bodybuilders?

1) volume seems to be the key element to progress and periodize (Evidence-Based Guidelines for Resistance Training Volume to Maximize Muscle Hypertrophy, 2018; Volume for Muscle Hypertrophy and Health Outcomes: The Mos tEffective Variable in Resistance Training, 2017)
2) intensity for maximizing hypertrophy should be in a wide spectrum of repetition ranges (1 - 20+) with a merit to focusing on a medium-repetition range (6- to 12RM); a periodized approach to this variable can be carried out using either a linear or undulating model (Science and Development of Muscle Hypertrophy, 2016)
3) frequency doesn't seem to be relevant except in cases of facilitating progressive volume (Resistance training frequency and skeletal muscle hypertrophy: A review of available evidence, 2018)
4) exercise selecion is important; importance of variation of excercises over time seems not to be researched (Science and Development of Muscle Hypertrophy, 2016)

Progressively increasing from lower to higher RT volumes over a period of several months may help to promote a state of functional overreaching, which would, in turn, result in a supercompensation of muscle proteins while reducing the potential for overtraining. [...] As periods of high volume RT are not easily sustainable over longer periods, a lower volume phase might also be incorporated. It has been shown that during these periods a decrease in training volume by ~65% is sufficient for maintenance and, in some cases, even continued increases in muscle mass. (Evidence-Based Guidelines for Resistance Training Volume to Maximize Muscle Hypertrophy, 2018)
 
Id say its not really possible to answer with numbers since every person is going to be different and respond to different styles - just that a periodized increase from low to high is key to keep pushing LBM.

Some guys are going to respond best to lighter weight, higher volume (Ronnie comes to mind as he found he grew best in the 12-15 range) and some heavier weight and lower volume (Dorian comes to mind).

For me personally, it took me a while to figure out but I look much better on lower volume training because my CNS gets fried easily and cortisol gets all jacked up but even within that theres room for increases up and down in weight, volume, intensity, etc

Check out mountain dog training as thats a style that encorporates a LOT of different methods all in one program which I like.

OP - ultimately I think you are looking for direction that can only be provided individually for you from a high level coach that has had time to learn your body. Always going to be better to have an experienced eye on you than your own undivided attention
 
Thanks for your input. I agree that the specific variables to use (volume, intensity) are individual. The volume I have been performing for the last months is 20-30 sets per muscle group per week with varying intensities (8-15 range), but nothing happened in terms of pushing LBM. But I changed nothing.

My plan is to:

- lowering volume now and start a 12 week cycle with 15 sets per muscle group per week
- increase volume every three weeks: week 1-3: 15 sets, week 4-6: 26 sets, week 7-9: 36 sets, week 10-12: 50 sets, then deload and repeat in the best case with a little increase of used weight
- using daily undulating periodization for intensities (for example first chest workout reprange: 5, second chest workout reprange: 8, third chest workout rep range: 12)
- align calorie intake and AAS usage to the phases of the cycle (from low to high)
 
Last edited:
How intense would you say your training is?

Mostly ask because the is a fucking shit load of volume if you?re training hard, good mind muscle connection, etc. I used to hit probably 20-30 sets a workout but I look significantly better now only hitting 12-15 and keeping the intensity higher.

Not saying it?s you necessarily but I think a lot of guys sacrifice intensity for volume too often when, in my experience, intensity will trump volume for most people.

Didn?t realize this until I started training with different people and got my ass handed to me doing relatively low volume.

How do you respond to heavier lifting in the 5-8 rep range?
 
If you understand intense as muscle failure/high fatigue/exertion, I would say my training has been very intense for the last months (20-30 sets per muscle group per weeke, many sets to muscle failure, added dropsets).

But regarding my new plan I will of course lower this variable due to the increased volumes.

I respond well to 5-8 rep range, but for some muscle groups and/or exercises I prefer 8-15 rep range.

I guess over time we have to increase something. After so many years we can not increase weights (strength) anymore, so I will go now for tapering up the volume which also studies state that it is the key variable for hypertrophy.
 
Last edited:
Top