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Cycling steroids vs. TRT dosing year round. What is best?

This is a loaded question and is dependent on many different things.

TRT = Testosterone replacement therapy.

TRT is a general term used to describe taking a low, regular dose (usually weekly) of testosterone to replace your body’s own declining levels.  I want to start off by going through some of the variables/questions one should ask themselves to help determine what is best..

How old are you? Once you hit your late 20’s, your natural test levels will start to decline. If you’re 30+ years old its going to be hard to get your natural levels back to ‘normal’ in just a few months. 

Are you getting your blood work done regularly? If you’re not able to test your blood to see exactly where your testosterone levels are while on cycle and off cycle, then it will be very hard determine if you’re recovering quickly or if your testosterone levels are low. 

Do you have any health issues? If you have high cholesterol, heart issues, etc. then you will want to monitor this carefully if you use steroids. I have seen guys do much better staying on a low dose TRT (200mg/week) throughout the year, rather than cycling steroids at higher doses for 3-months, then going off for a period of time. On the same token, I have seen others with health issues do better cycling on and off. 

What are your athletic/fitness/exercise goals? If you’re competing in bodybuilding, powerlifting, or some other sport  at an extremely high level, then the low dose TRT may not be for you, as those endeavors require different demands at such a high level. If you’re using steroids to help get into shape, slow down aging, or for general increased performance in your chosen discipline, then you’re probably a better candidate. 

The endocrine system is very sensitive; if it gets thrown out of whack it can take some real time to get it back to ‘normal.’ In the bodybuilding scene, we have been taught that we should cycle on steroids then cycle off them back and forth. The reasoning behind this is to give the body’s natural test levels a chance to recover. I have heard guys say that you need to go off at least as long as you were on. Doing this protocol would put you going on cycle for 3-months then off for 3-months, in this yo-yo fashion. In theory this is sound advice, you use exogenous testosterone for a few months, doing this will suppress your natural testosterone so you take the next 3-months to get your natural test levels back up before suppressing them again. I suppose the idea behind this is that if you don’t let your natural test levels get back to normal by cycling on and off, then you will permanently suppress your natural test levels. 

If you’re a 30+ year old healthy male who is using steroids to help with performance and recovery in the gym or with any athletic performance, I would seriously consider using a TRT dose and staying on year round. This may sound scary at first, the idea of never coming off steroids can make you feel like an addict or feel like you’re putting your health in jeopardy. Let me make a few arguments about why it may be a good idea to do this. First off, if you’re going to be on all year, you don’t need to be using normal cycle doses. I think most guys doing a 3-month cycle would say 800-1,000mg/week would be considered normal. If you’re staying on year round, then a dose of 200mg/week is the max that would be needed/advised. Doing this lower dose can really mitigate the negative health effects of steroids. I know for myself, if I use 800mg/week my blood pressure raises, my cholesterol will get out of whack (especially if I am using orals), and I tend to have a much higher hematocrit/red blood cell level that can lead to the heart working even harder to pump the thicker blood through the body. Even 200mg/week is multiple times higher than what our bodies are producing naturally, so your definitely going to see benefits at this dose; especially if you’re using year round. 

This brings me to my next point: what is the sense in spending all of the time to get your test levels back to ‘normal’ via PCT and being off cycle, just to throw them into suppression again a few months later? This yo-yo effect is what causes the majority of negative side effects that guys experience when cycling their gear. If you go from having 1500+ ng/dL testosterone levels to having 0, you’re going to lose the majority of the muscle you have built while on cycle, as your body does not have the hormones running through it that can sustain that muscle mass. Chances are you will only keep a small % of it in the end. I believe many guys would do much better using the TRT dose year round as its easier to keep your blood work on track on the lower dose; additionally, you will experience far less negative health effects. Yes your gains will be slower but they will be permanent and much easier to sustain. The slower you build the muscle the easier it is to sustain. When your muscles grow quickly over a short period of time the whole body has to ‘grow’ or adapt to support the muscle- meaning tendons, ligaments, your circulatory system, etc etc.. Many guys experience this first hand after they have put on 20lbs in a short time and they try to go out hiking (or even walking, climbing stairs, etc) and they can’t seem to catch their breath. It is because their heart and lungs are trying to pump blood and oxygen to 20% more muscle tissue and simply can’t keep up. 

I remember the first time I came off cycle when I was just getting into bodybuilding. I felt like complete garbage, I was young, inexperienced and saw any hard fought muscle gains slipping away and no matter how hard I trained or how much I tried to eat, I lost the majority of what I had gained. Generally, depression can set in from having low or no testosterone, and this just complicates matters more. I found myself counting down the days until my ‘3-months off’ was over and I could start back up again. It felt like 3 steps forward and 2 steps back. I often wonder how I would have done lowering my doses and simply staying on for longer periods of time with the TRT type of dose. 

I will conclude with a few last points to keep in mind. Get familiar with your blood work. At a minimum, you should have it tested twice a year. Doing steroids and not getting your blood work done is like trying to navigate using a map without knowing what way is north? You won’t know what direction to go because you don’t know exactly where you’re at. Once you know what your testosterone levels, cholesterol, red blood cell, etc is at, you have the necessary tools to know how long it takes your body to recover from a cycle, deal with any health issues, and make an informed decision if a year round TRT dose is good for you. I don’t believe one way of using steroids is better than the other, so it is best to experiment a little and see how you react. Try doing the TRT dose for 6-9 months and see how you feel, how your blood work looks, and what kind of progress you have made. Compare this to your normal regimen and see what makes more sense to you. 

Getting your blood work done is very easy these days. There’s a lot of online testing companies that will have you get blood drawn at a Lab Corp or Quest Diagnostic type of facility and then email you the results for a $100-200. You don’t have to explain anything to your doctor, it is private, and you can see exactly what’s going on in your body. 

Thanks for reading. As always, we appreciate any feedback we can get, be it good or bad. Feel free to comment and add any info you think is beneficial to this conversation.

Thanks!

G and All of Team Gear Depot

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Kaballero Arimidex package typo.

It has come to our attention there is a printing error on the Kaballero Arimidex label. The Kaballero Arimidex has always come in 1mg tabs, and still does. We noticed on the most recent batch of Kaballero Arimidex the fine print reads “actual potency of 57mg.”, this is obviously incorrect. It should read “actual potency of 1mg”. We’re extremely sorry & embarrassed  for this error as we pride ourselves on selling top shelf products. To confirm, the Arimidex is 1mg per tab. We have addressed this issue with Kaballero guys and they’re reprinting labels for the next batch they send out to correct the typo. We apologize again for the error. If you have any concerns over the potency of the product please refer to the lab analysis we recently posted for this product here. If you have any questions regarding this issue please feel free to contact us, we’re always here to answer any questions or be of service to our customers, thank you.

 

 

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Kaballero Test 400mg / full disclosure

We wanted to take a moment and fill you guys in on this product and the feedback and results we’ve had from our customers and the testing analysis coming back from the lab. This product most recently tested at 423mg/mL. We’re extremely happy with the test results and the feedback we’ve received from our product testers and our customers. That being said I want to offer full disclosure so everyone is aware of what goes into getting 400+ mg/ into a mL of oil. Back in the late 90’s and even early 2000’s you rarely saw a 400mg testosterone product. The reason for this were many, but the main reason was its extremely hard to get anything in that concentration to hold stable and not crash. If you notice, most Test esters are dosed at 200mg or 250mg/mL max as that amount can be suspended in oil fairly easily and consistently. In the early 200’s we started to see the old Mexican brand ‘Denkall T-400’ on the market. This was a revolutionary product at the time as nothing was dosed that high. If you ever used it you know it was a pain in the ass literally! It felt like getting kicked by a mule when you injected it. The reason for this was the high amount of solvents used to suspend that amount of hormone in the oil. I recall seeing test results on this product many years ago and it was actually dosed closer to 330mg/mL if I remember correctly? In the last 10 years you’ve seen more and more of these high dose products on the market as the chemistry  has improved and the demand for the higher dosed gear is greater now. This is great for most of us as we want to get as much bang for our buck! The Kaballero Test En. 400mg product we sell has been formulated through a lot of trial and error to actually hold 400+ mg’s and NOT cause this extreme pain. We have the test results to prove this product really does have 400mg of Test En. In the research we did we tested  dozens of other brands on the market and found that the majority of the ones claiming 400+ mg’s very few actually had that amount, most were closet to 300-330mg/mL. 

That being said I want to give full disclosure so everyone can be informed on the feedback we are getting. The majority of our product testers and customers have reported no or very minimal pain from this product. We have had roughly 10% of customers feedback telling us they had some pain associated with this product after injection. The pain was described as some minor swelling and a small knot for a few days after injection. Now this was only from 10% of the feedback, but I feel we should let everyone know this before hand so they are aware it is a possibility. It’s a very delicate balance to get over 400mg into each mL and have it not cause pain. The pain some are seeing from these higher dosed products generally comes from the increased solvents used in them to get the higher concentration of hormone to suspend. If you don’t use enough solvent the product will ‘crash’ and fall out of solution. If you have ever had injectables that look thicker then they should and seem to have some crystals in them, this is a sign your product has crashed. If you use too much solvent in the mix it will cause extreme pain. So you can see its a bit of a tight rope walk to get it to hold at a higher concentration and not cause the pain. Some of the pain associated with these higher concentration formulas is caused simply from having 400mg’s releasing from such a small area of volume and has nothing to do with the solvents used. 

If you do experience pain with this product please let us know and we can give a few pointers to help alleviate the PIP (post injection pain). If you feel the pain is too great then I would recommend buying another testosterone product that is dosed lower like the Kaballero Test cyp. 200mg, or the Kaballero Test Mix 325mg. Some guys are more susceptible to PIP from the higher dosed products, and others can take as much as they want and they have no issues at all. If your a novice and have not used a higher mg/mL product I would recommend only buying one vial to test and see how you handle it? As mentioned before, the majority of guys have no issues with this product and this article will be a moot point, but a small percentage have some PIP and it will cause some discomfort. If you do experecince any issues please let us know and we’ll do whatever we can to help you out.

Thanks! G 

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Test results from Kaballero Anavar and Winstrol

New Test results!

We promised to release test results and here they are. In this batch we have the Kaballero Stanozolol and Anavar. Please see the results listed below. We send these tests to the lab blind to be analyzed so we are able to get a true unbiased result. Our acceptable testing range on these is +/- 5% .

8055: Kaballero Anavar tabs 50mg (TESTED AT 56.89) *GOOD
7055: Kaballero Winstrol tabs 50mg (TESTED AT 46.32) *GOOD

We’ll have another batch of tests coming back in the next 10-14 days, we will post those up as well for all to see. If you have any questions or need to verify these test results you can do so on the Janoshik site.

Thanks, G and all of team Gear Depot!

 

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Post Cycle Treatment (PCT) What do I use?

PCT (post cycle therapy) is administered after your steroid cycle and sometimes can begin weeks before your done with your cycle. There are several different ways to run a PCT regimen, but the most popular and effective products are HCG, Clomid, and Nolvadex ( or another anti estrogen). The goal when using a PCT is to restart the bodies own natural testosterone production and get it back to normal levels. While using steroids the body will shut down its own natural testosterone production as you’re getting exogenous testosterone from the products your using. A good PCT will last between 4-8 weeks.

Below is a typical dosing schedule for these 3 products.

HCG 5000iu / inject 2500 iu every week for 4-8 weeks.

Clomid 50mg / take one pill daily for 4-8 weeks

Nolvadex 25mg / take one 25mg pill daily (can use 2 pills if estrogen side effects are bad) for 4-8 weeks

 

If your doing a longer cycle (3 months +)  I would recommend starting your PCT 2 weeks before your last shot. I have found that using the HCG in smaller daily injections can really help the body to get production going again. I have found that these smaller 200 iu injections mimic the bodies own production better and I seem to react much better to a protocol like this.

Here is a PCT for a more advanced user.

HCG 5000iu / inject 200 iu every week for 6-8 weeks.

Clomid 50mg / take one pill daily for 6-8 weeks

Nolvadex 25mg / take one 25mg pill daily (can use 2 pills if estrogen side effects are bad) for 6-8 weeks

HMG* 150iu / take 50 iu injection every 2-3 days for 3-4 weeks

 

*HMG stands for ‘Human menopausal gonadotropin’ and acts on the follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) and luteinizing hormone (LH) to help get testosterone production and normal hormone levels back to normal. I personally think the HMG works much better then the HCG, but can be expensive to run it properly.

Once you have completed a PCT its wise to get your blood work done to check the baseline levels when your off completely, or when your on a TRT dose. If you need more information on PCT products please contact us and we’d be more then happy to help you identify the correct products to use.

G, and Team Gear Depot