call me SnydAr

hi everyone,

recently, i have become infatuated with health and fitness. I work out twice and run anywhere from 3-5 miles everyday. I currently taking Advocare POS2, EAS Methoxy HP, and Amino 2222. At first, i noticed big improvments and as of late, it feels like i'm not going anywhere. I tried moving up in weight, but quickly realized i shouldn't. I am almost out of the supplements i have now so i started reading about new ones to use next.

A couple of my friends got on steroids a couple months ago and thier gains were uncanny. One friends gained 25 pounds on a month! I alredy promised myself(and my mom) that i'm not going to use any steroids, or even andro for that matter due to the DHT and estrogen problems that can arise. With that said, i started looking at other methods and found <a href="http://www.biotestedge.com/html/body_mag10.html" target="_blank">this</a>. Yes, it's a pro-steroid, but after reading a lot about it from other sources, i think it may be pretty safe. It's like Deca(steroid) in the sense that there are almost no DHT associated risks(hair loss, shrunken prostate, acne), and it also controls the estrogen levels so i don't get man-boobs. I read on one site where a guy took it and in 2 weeks gained 9 lbs and kept it on. this was a personal site that was in no way connected with Biotest. This is unlike creatine where as soon as you stop, your muscles evacuate all the water they were once holding and you loose mass.

I know many people on here are very much into this as well so i wanted to get more opinions about it. so, let's hear what you think!

-Chris
mxyzptlk@attbi.com

Toto

My opinion is that if you are into "health and fitness", you should eat natural foods and exercise a sensible amount without overtraining.

Aldehyde

As the name suggests, pro-steroids (anabolic) gets manufactured into steroids thus technically, you'll have all of the effects of using steroids when you're using a pro-steroid.

By the way, I'm glad you know the effects of altering you hormones unnaturally.

Demosthenes

It's an amusing coincidence...since it happens that I'm researching prohomones too. You really shouldn't be asking about prohomones on this forum, the people here are hardly qualified to inform you about the uses of precusors steriods.

I recommend you look through the website <a href="http://www.anabolics.com/main_home.asp" target="_blank">Anabolic Review</a> It has some valuable information.

Basically, according to what I've read, is that you really should only take the prohormones if you've reached your genetic limit and want to progress further.

[ July 23, 2002: Message edited by: Demosthenes ]</p>

Dr Rick

Yeah, when it comes to the human body and drugs and stuff, we'll all pretty clueless.

Richard H. Bochner, M.D.

scombrid

These first few quotes are from a website hocking roid-precursors:

Everybody is doing it. Why not you?

Uh, well. Since organic chemicals are named base on structure and composition, it stands to reason that compounds that are chemically similar would have similar names.

You are nothing without steroids. Steroids will get you there. Macronutrient intake and training consistency have nothing to do with massive strength gains. It’s all the roids.

Appeal to popularity doesn’t make a product safe. Also, this is a false appeal to popularity. There are a lot of strength athletes that go all natural and enter only competitions with anti-doping rules.

Right. It hasn’t been clinically tested but they promise it works.

Prohormones do appear effective. I know guys in the gym that use 4AD and various other roid cocktails with fast results. Even with the roids, a dynamic, strenuous, and consistent training regiment is the only way to grow. I know guys that bought into the “physique in a bottle” idea, went on prohormones and didn’t get big because they were slackers in the gym.
I don’t know a lot about mammalian endocrinology. However, I do know, that if it behaves in the body like a steroid, I treat it like a steroid. They all work on the principle of amping your androgens way above what’s natural. In the wake of the recent findings of hormone replacement on post-menopausal women, I’d be wary of deliberately artificially altering my serum hormone composition or concentration.

Personally, I consider doping to be cheating. You can get amazing gains on food and training alone. You will always plateau. I don’t know anybody for which growth is linear. I gained 50lbs of lean mass in two years of all natural training increasing my bodyweight by 33% over my starting weight. This spring I trained for a kayak race and dropped 15lbs in the process (fat and muscle both got sacrificed for endurance). 6 weeks ago I decided to put it back and I’ve gained 20lbs (15lbs lean and 5lbs of goo) in 6weeks just by cropping the endurance activity, increasing calories, and concentrating on mass building exercises in the gym.

If I read that correctly, you train 3X per day with no rest days? If that is the case you’re not going to get big like that. If you’re training for size you need to cut the running down to once or twice per week. Additionally you need to focus on only one or two muscle groups in a given day and work it/them to total failure (16-20 hard sets for each muscle group split between 3-5 different exercises). Rest each muscle group 4-6days before training it again. Additionally, one or two sloth days per cycle are necessary for rest and recovery.
I know nothing about the specific supplements that you listed but Methoxy sounds like a fat burner (read stimulant). Fat burners aren’t beneficial to strength and size building routines. Aminos can boost results but are only effective when combined with a hardy balanced diet. Otherwise you break them down and piss them out.
Before you mess about with your hormones, analyze your macronutrient intake. Most serious lifters eat 4000-6000kcal per day including 1-1.5g protein per pound lean-body-mass. Make sure you’re getting adequate vitamins, fats, and oils as well. Your body can’t do squat without the right building blocks. You must run a surplus of 3500kcal to gain a pound of fat and 2000+ for a pound of muscle. Shoot for a surplus of 500-1000kcal per day.

[ July 23, 2002: Message edited by: scombrid ]</p>

Dr Rick

In a US market devoid of effective regulation of the multi-billion dollar per year supplement industry and in the absence of good published clinical data, the purity of this compound and the affects it will have on your muscles, liver, skin, scalp hair, breast tissue, psyche, blood lipid levels, and gonads is uncertain.

With the above caveat in mind, it is my opinion that the hysteria associated with the potential adverse effects of anabolic steroids and their analogs by the medical establishment, government, and laypress has been unwarranted. These compounds may not be "100% safe," but they do not deserve the intense criminal penalties and stigma that comes with their use.

Rick

Jamie_L

I'm a bit of an amateur exercise buff (more amateur than buff), and here's my take:

The supplement industry is after one thing, and one thing only: your money. Most of it is overpriced for what it does, if it does anything at all. You are right to post this topic under the Skepticism forum, because you should be extremely skeptical of all supplements, of most supplement research (it is almost all funded by supplement companies), and of anything you read in a mainstream muscle mag (most funded almost completely by supplement advertizers).

Steroids are about the only thing that are as effective as claimed, but their side-effects are numerous and bad. I've heard that precursor steroids just don't behave the same way - falling again into the category of little-to-no bang for a lot of bucks.

If you want to check out the opinions of body-builders who are generally anti-supplement, check out the following sites:

<a href="http://www.naturalstrength.com/" target="_blank">http://www.naturalstrength.com/</a>
<a href="http://www.hardgainer.com/" target="_blank">http://www.hardgainer.com/</a>
<a href="http://www.cyberpump.com/" target="_blank">http://www.cyberpump.com/</a>

Jamie

JamesKrieger

</strong>

There's no evidence that training to failure is necessary or even desirable to promote optimal muscle hypertrophy. Training to failure frequently may even be counterproductive, since it dramatically increases necessary recovery time.

More recent evidence suggests that it is more optimal to train more frequently, but not train to failure so that the frequent training can be tolerated. Protein synthesis in skeletal muscle after a resistance training session ends within 48 hours after the training session. Thus, any more rest time is simply "maintenance" time, when the muscle could be trained again.

Dr. Peter Lemon, in a review of the scientific literature of protein intake and strength athletes, recommends 1.8 grams per kilogram of bodyweight. This is about 0.8 grams per pound. Anything above this, and the protein is simply oxidized for energy.

An extra 500 kcal per day will lead to about a pound of muscle gained per week. Anything over 500 kcal/day surplus will result in an abundance of fat gain along with muscle gain.

JamesKrieger

As Dr. Rick said, the side effects of anabolic steroids are not as "bad" as the media has portrayed them to be. First, the side effect profiles for different steroids will vary depending on the steroid. For example, liver problems only occur from the abuse of the oral 17-alpha-alkylated steroids such as Winstrol. Second, some of the side effects stem more from abuse rather than proper use. A short 6-8 week cycle at a reasonable dosage will result in minimal, if any, side effects. This was demonstrated in a '96 study published in NEJM where subjects were given 600 mg of testosterone cypionate a week (a moderately high dose) and almost no side effects were observed. Third, some of the side effects (like increased acne) are very temporary and reversible once the steroid use has stopped.