Category: Dr. G Articles

I see a lot of novice bodybuilders doing some pretty extreme things to gain an edge. I want to take some time in this article to address some of these and try to sort out what is worth your time and money.

The majority of us over complicate bodybuilding (myself included). It’s amazing how many advances in science and health have pushed the envelope in bodybuilding in just the last 20-30 years. It’s a very exciting time, as we have more science behind this sport than ever before. I would venture to say that bodybuilders and cyclists are at the forefront of technology, nutrition, drugs and physiology. I can speak to the crazy things some guys will do to gain even a fraction of a percentage in bodybuilding. Everything from the plethora of peptides on the market today, to drugs like EPO & DNP, to waking in the middle of the night to have a huge calorie packed shake. I have tried them all and I want to reflect on the value/return of these efforts, in the grand scheme of things, to try and separate what is really worth your time, money and effort.

Workouts and Training – obviously this will be the first thing on the list; we know this works and we know it’s needed to create a stimulus for the body to adapt to. Some guys like the low volume HIIT stuff, others like higher German style volume training, but the majority of us probably fall in the middle here. There are a thousand different training programs so we won’t get granular here, but I want to express the importance of regularly changing your training style and trying some different types of training. if you notice your training getting stagnant, then don’t be afraid to try some HIIT training for a few months. On the other side, if you’re doing some really hard core training and busting your ass, don’t be afraid to give yourself a break and let the body heal up 100%. I feel like I spent so many years training hard, but never allowed my body the time it needed to fully heal so while I was breaking the muscle down on a regular basis, I never got all of the growth out of each workout because I dove right back in and trained those muscle groups again because it was ‘chest day’ or ‘leg day’ again and I needed to stay on a schedule. Rotate your exercises, workouts and rest days.

Recovery – this is something I wish I had put more effort into earlier in my career. You can call it active recovery, or whatever you want, but doing any combo of extreme stretching (read the DC guide on this), yoga, sauna and cryotherapy will help your body recover and stay injury free. Watching a 270 pound inflexible bodybuilder doing yoga is quite comical! The first several times I did it, I hated it! I didn’t like how weak and inflexible I was in so many of these poses, but the more I did, the better I got and I saw a huge difference in my posing and especially in my range of motion for many of my lifts. Hot yoga is also great to crank up the intensity one more notch, or doing some basic stretches in the sauna can help achieve the same effect. Cryotherapy is a new fad but is becoming a solid part of many top athletes recovery regime. On your days off or after your workouts be sure to incorporate some form of this as it will help with recovery, flexibility, and generally make you feel and perform better.

Nutrition – in order to build muscle your body needs high quality nutrition. If you asked me 10 years ago, I would have told you that you have to eat every 2-3 hrs to build muscle on a regular basis. That is 6+ meals per day! That’s a lot for the average guy and there are some things that need to be taken into account.

• How big are your meals? Some guys like to feed on small meals throughout the day; however, others, because of lifestyle and schedule will do better on 3-4 larger meals per day.
• What is the quality of food you are eating? This will dictate how fast your food can process and how soon you can put more down the hatch. There is a big difference between eating a burger at a fast food joint or having the fajitas at Chili’s, as opposed to cooking a burger or fajitas at home with organic quality ingredients. If you don’t believe me, try it and see which one makes you ‘feel’ better.
• What type of food are you eating? Everyone has certain foods that their body “agrees with,” and seems to digest better and provide more satiety than others. You will find those foods through trial and error, but when you do, that is what you will want to incorporate into your diet.

Post Workout Nutrition – this is something that can be done for cheap and pays major dividends in building muscle. You have an increased anabolic window for about 90 minutes after you train. This anabolic window is caused by the body deleting its glycogen and other nutritional reserves during your workout, thus creating the ability for the body to super compensate and reload those lost nutrients + some extra. A good analogy is squeezing a damp sponge in your hand and wringing out all of the water in it (this is your workout). If you eat nothing after your workout, then your sponge remains dry, but if you immediately take that sponge in your hand and dip it into a bowl of water it will soak up ever ounce of water it can hold. Your body does the same in this 90 minute window. The body is depleted and is begging for nutrition to help start the repair process. During this time,your body will shuttle amino acids and sugars much faster than normal. I recommend between 30-60 grams of whey protein and some simple sugars (30-60 grams of sugars) as soon after you get done working out. It takes minimal planning to do this and it is not expensive if you bring a shake with you to the gym to have a quick refuel right after you train. It is wise to plan your next meal about 45-90 minutes after you have this shake.

Steroids and HGH – there is no contesting that Steroids and HGH do work. I am not going to go into too much detail here, except to say that when looking at what steroids to take, it is always a safe bet to stick with the basics. A testosterone ester should make up the base of your cycle, then depending on your experience, you can add another inject like Equipoise, Deca, or Tren to supplement the testosterone. The only other thing I would recommend is an oral steroid like Dbol, Winstrol, or Anavar. Keep the doses low to moderate and understand that you’re not going to consistently get the gains you got on your first cycle or 2– they will taper off the more you use steroids. Before you up the dose on steroids, try incorporating a different workout program, some active recovery, more rest, or tweak your nutrition.

Supplements – anyone who has been in this game long enough probably knows that the majority of supplement claims are BS, or highly exaggerated. That being said, I want to briefly touch on the supplements I think we can all agree on that should be a staple in any program. Whey protein in some form should be supplemented for your post workout shake, and/or for meal replacement throughout the day. Find a real whey protein isolate! If you look on your tub of protein and see that it has whey protein concentrate listed on the bottle the chances are it is mostly concentrate and very little isolate. In my opinion the isolate is far superior. You can research the reasons why and see for yourseld. The next supplement I would spend my hard earned money on is creatine. I think creatine has more clinical studies done on it than almost any other supplement. Simply put, creatine works. It helps to push more water into the muscle, allowing it to perform better. If you can afford some powerful anti oxidants and a good multi vitamin then I would definitely advise that as well. There are thousands of different supplements on the market, and while many of them have shown to increase this level or that, leading to increased performance I don’t believe the return is worth the investment on most of them if you are a novice or recreational athlete on a budget.

I remember being a young aspiring bodybuilder about 20 years ago, chatting with the current Mr. Olympia. I was a die hard, if he told me eating 2 pounds of dirt each day would help me build bigger muscles, then I would have done it! I wanted every edge I could get. In speaking with Mr. O, he really surprised me with his simplistic approach to the drugs and a few other things. I was expecting him to give me the secrete pro bodybuilder stack of steroids I would use to get huge. What he told me kinda left me confused..? He didn’t know about half of the new peptides coming out, had never used igf, and said he relied on some Test, Eq, Tren and Anavar to prep for shows and the doses were not nearly what I expected (very low). Part of me did not believe him, as I know many guys say they take far less then they really do, but over the years and seeing how his body, mind, and enjoyment of life has held up over the years I have realized he was telling the truth.

If I had to give myself a few points of advice 20 years ago here is what I would say:

• Building muscle takes time: there are some things you can’t cheat and time is one of those. Stay on your routine but get some hobbies so you’re not totally engulfed in this game trying to chase every little rumor promising gains.
• Take more time to recover. Your body is not a calendar. If you don’t sleep well for a night or 2 in a row, you don’t need to be blasting a crazy leg workout the next day as your recovery ability is already compromised. Train hard, but rest smart. I would rather take an extra day or two off and ensure I have left ample time for recovery and rebuild, then train a day or two early and stay stagnant.
• Pick 3 steroids to use (2 if you’re in the off season). Take some breaks from the gear if you are younger, if you are in your later 30’s then make sure to get some time on just a TRT dose.
• Find the foods your body agrees with and incorporate those in your nutrition program.

If you take the points in this article and incorporate them in to your routine, I think you’ll see a strong foundation for muscle gain. Yes, there are thousands of things you could do to give yourself an edge, and all of those small advantages can add up to real gains, but the financial cost, time spent, and injury that can come from trying untested methods are not worth it for 95% us. Years of doing this will maximize your potential and still leave you with some money in the bank and some sanity in your head!

Thanks for reading. Any questions, please feel free to comment or email us, we love hearing feedback from you guys!

Thanks,

G

If you ask any new user to AAS what the hardest part of using the drugs is, most will say the hardest part is the process of injecting themselves with a needle. I remember the first time I used an injectable steroid and had to take the dose on my own. I had a close friend help me with the first few injections until I gathered up enough confidence to try it myself. I remember standing in the bathroom with my shorts pulled below my glutes with needle in hand facing the mirror for about 20 minutes trying to muster up the gusto to drive this little 1.5” needle in my ass! I counted 1…2…3… and for some reason my hand would not do what my brain was telling it to do lol. Eventually, I completed the injection and all went as planned, but it sure took me a lot longer than I had expected it to. I want to take a moment for this month’s article to go over injections and explain some of the tricks and basic information that I have gathered over the years. Please note, I am going to write about intramuscular injections in this article, not sub-Q injections with an insulin needle. I will cover that in another article in the near future.

Needles / Syringes
Let’s start here, with the syringes. Most syringes you buy will be a syringe + needle combo. When you are buying these, please make sure you have the ‘syringe + needle’ combo, as they are sold separately at times, and I have seen many people purchase either the needles or the syringes, and having one or the other does us no good.

If you are injecting an oil based steroid I would recommend getting a 3cc ( or 3mL) syringe with a 23g to 25g needle that is 1.5” long. The 23g needle will be larger in diameter than the 25g needle. The higher the number, the smaller the needle diameter and less trauma it will cause to the flesh it is injected in. Using this logic, one would think its best to get the highest gauge needle you can get your hands on, to have the smaller diameter needle and thus cause less trauma while injecting; however, you need to account for the substance you are injecting and the thickness and viscosity of the oil or water solution. When injecting with a 25g needle it will take slightly longer to push through the needle and into your flesh, while using a 23g which is larger will flow slightly quicker. The difference here is negligible, but it’s something to consider.

Preparing the Injection Syringe
When you’re preparing for injection you will first need to pull out the oil from the bottle. Most people will be using a 10cc multi dose vial, other steroids come in a 1-2mL glass amp. You will notice it takes significantly longer to pull 1mL of oil from a vial, then it does to push that 1mL of oil through the needle and into your flesh when doing the injection. It takes me about 1-2 min to draw out 1mL of oil with a 25g needle, and about 5 sec to push that same volume into my flesh. A trick to make the process of pulling the drug into the syringe/needle faster is to buy a few 20g needles (needle only) and attach them to the syringe to pull the oil out into the syringe, then remove the 20g needle and attach the 25g needle to do the injection. Doing this allows you to pull out the desired amount of oil much, much faster. Another benefit of this is your not dulling your needle on the rubber stopper when pulling out from the 10mL vial. I will buy a handful of 20g needles to use for this purpose exclusively. You can reuse the 20g ‘drawing needle’ several times if you are careful and you make sure to sterilize it after each pull. Get a plastic bag or a small Tupperware container to store the 20g drawing needle in and make sure to wipe it down with an alcohol swab after each use to ensure it is sterile.

The Injection Site
Once you have the oil pulled into the syringe and you have the 23g or 25g needle attached, you are ready to inject. For most people, the best place to inject is the glutes. The reason for this is the top half of your glute is a much softer tissue and has less nerves than other parts of your body; thus, decreasing the pain associated with injection. I am going to describe the process of injecting into the glute below.

The best area to inject in the glute is the top 1/2 of your ass cheek (closer to the hip and away from the tail bone). If you look in the image below you can see the area I am describing.

I like to swab the injection site with an alcohol pad first. Thoroughly clean the area with the wipe first. I prefer to have my side/rear facing a mirror so I can clearly see the injection site. If you’re not very flexible it can be a bit of a chore to twist around to give yourself the injection. I will hold the syringe like I would hold a pencil, with my fingers about and inch away from the needles base, so I am holding the area on the syringe where the oil can been seen inside. Identify the area you want to inject and keep your eye on it. If your injecting in the glutes make sure your weight is planted on the opposite leg/glute from the one you are injecting in, as this will keep the target glute from tensing up and flexing when you do the injection, ultimately allowing the needle to enter the flesh with less restrictions. When you push the needle into the flesh, it is much less painful if you do it in one motion, similar to a stabbing motion. You can do it slowly and ease the needle into the flesh but you will feel more pain doing it this way. I will try to drive 2/3 of the syringe into my flesh with one motion, then push the last 1/3 into it a little slower if needed. Once the syringe is buried into the flesh, you have to walk your hands up to the top of the syringe where the plunger is at. This can be a little awkward the first few times, but with practice, you will get better.

Aspirate
This next step is very important, you need to aspirate the needle first by slightly pulling back on the plunger in the same motion you used to pull oil into the syringe. The reason for this is to ensure that the tip of the needle is not sitting directly in a vein or artery. The muscle and flesh is where you want the oil to be absorbed. You only need to pull back a tiny bit (like a millimeter or just one tick on the syringe). If you see some air bubbles enter the plunger/oil then you are good to begin pushing the oil in using the plunger. If you see blood (any amount of blood) enter the syringe you are in a vein and you need to pull the needle out of your flesh and start over by selecting a slightly different place to inject. I have done thousands of injections in my day, and very rarely hit a vein like this. It happens maybe 1 in every 100 or 200 injections. It is not often, but you MUST aspirate the needle as injecting into a vein can cause some serious issues.

The Push
Once you have confirmed you are not in a vein, then you can push the back of the plunger in and administer the dose. After all of the oil has left the plunger you want to pull the needle out with a quick motion. Sometimes you will see a small amount of blood come out of the injection site, but the majority of times you will not see anything. If you see some blood simply wipe it away with a tissue or alcohol pad. Sometimes you will pull the needle out and a stream of blood will squirt out of the injection site. This is kind of freaky and surprising to see as you are not expecting it, but it is nothing to be concerned about. It simply means the needle has passed through a vein or has nicked a vein. You just need to get a tissue and apply some pressure for 10-20 seconds and it will stop. Nicking a vein or passing through a vein is not anything to be concerned with, as long as you have aspirated and there was no blood in the vial. Again, this squirting action will happen maybe 1-5% of the time, it is not often at all but I wanted to go over it here incase it happens to anyone so you are prepared and informed. Once you are done with the injection, you can dispose of the needle/syringe and go about your day.

Next, I would like to go over a few questions that I get asked often about injections:

“What about injecting in other body parts?”
I have injected in the glutes, shoulders, triceps, biceps, lats, and quads. Technically, you could inject into any muscle in the body, but you need to be aware of the size of the muscle and the density of it. If you tried to inject in your calves on a regular basis you’re going to have some pain and a lot of scar tissue as the calves are a very dense muscle that is not voluminous. Personally, I like the glutes, shoulders and lats for my injections. Quad injections have always caused me pain, as I have very tight IT bands and I get much more discomfort; however, the majority of guys I know hit the quads with ease and don’t have any issues. It’s wise to mix up injection sites if you are doing multiple injections per week as this will prevent too much scar tissue from building up in one muscle group.

“My injection site is really sore, what should I do?”
First thing you need to sort out is how ‘sore’ the injection site is? You will feel some discomfort in the muscle after injection, but it should not be so bad that it hurts to touch or is swollen. If the injection site is discolored, sore to the touch, or is swollen, then you may have an infection and need to visit the doc to get some antibiotics. If you feel a fever come on or feel sick then this is a telltale sign of an infection and it would be wise to have a professional help you. I have seen many guys get an abscess at the injection site due to gear that is not sterile or a needle that is not sterile. If you notice the injection site is mildly sore a day or 2 after this is normal, but there is a few things you can do to help the discomfort. I like to foam roll or massage my injection sites. Doing this keeps the build up of scar tissue to a minimum and allows for increased blood flow to the area, thus moving the oil into the blood stream much faster and allowing it to disperse over a larger area of the muscle. If you’re always injecting into the same muscle you will get scar tissue build up, so make sure you’re rotating the injection sites and doing some kind of massage or foam rolling to break down the scar tissue that may be building up. Doing this will allow the muscle to look more natural as well. If you notice, many bodybuilders have these huge shoulders, but lack the detail? Ninety percent of the time this is from doing too many injections in the shoulder, it has built up a lot of scar tissue that has distorted the muscle fiber to have a smooth look to it. Below is a good example of what I am talking about. Both of these bodybuilders are most likely injecting in the shoulders but if you look at Dexter Jackson’s (on the left) shoulder, it is full but you can still see the striations in the muscle. Looking at Marcus Ruhl’s (on the right) shoulder, you see he has massive shoulders but they lack the detail. Most guys will not need to worry about this but it’s something to consider if you’re planning to compete or just want to do things the right way. I believe doing the foam rolling and massage work on those injection sites will help the muscle to keep the natural look.

 

Please note, some of these different ‘looks’ in the muscle are genetic. Some guys will never have delts like Dexter, but I am confident if you do some massage and foam rolling you will greatly decrease the scar tissue and increase the chance of the muscle looking natural, being more flexible, and being able to take ongoing injections for many years in to the future.

“How often can I inject in each muscle?”
This is highly dependent on your individual situation. Some of the factors are:
– How much volume are you injecting? Meaning how much oil? The more oil you inject the more trauma/scar tissue that will occur at the injection site.
– How big is the muscle you are injecting in to? Some guys naturally have larger muscle bellies that can take more volume per injection.
– What kind of drugs are you injecting? As a rule of thumb, drugs with a very high mg/mL ratio will cause more discomfort at the injection site. For example, if you are taking a 400mg Testosterone Enanthate product, it will take a little longer for the muscle to absorb all 400mg’s in that injection, as opposed to if you are injecting a 200mg Testosterone Enanthate product, it will absorb with more ease. Something else that can factor into this is the type of ester attached to the drug. Faster acting esters like Propionate or Acetate will release much faster and have been known to cause more discomfort. I have heard many guys who just cannot handle Test Prop in any form, as they get a ton of pain with it. It is best to start low and work your way up.

“Can I mix multiple drugs in the syringe?”
Yes you can, and I recommend doing this to cut down on the amount of injections you are using. For example, if your cycle includes weekly injections of Testosterone 250mg and Deca 300mg you can load both drugs into one syringe to get away with doing only one injection, rather then loading 1cc of Test into one syringe and loading the 1cc of Deca into the other and injecting both. Please note, if you are going to mix drugs in one syringe like this you need to take precautions to prevent bacteria from getting on the needle or in the vials you are pulling from. Clean the drawing needle after every time you pull from a multi dose vial and wipe their tops of the rubber stoppers on the vials to ensure there is no bacteria there as well.

“Can I pre load syringes?”
Yes of course, and I tend to recommend this as it makes things much easier and tends to decrease the chance of things going wrong. Preloading syringes refers to loading up a few syringes with the proper does and storing them for a week or 2 for future injections. I have not seen anything that leads me to believe that if you are mixing multiple drugs in one syringe and preloading them for the next week that it will hurt any of the individual compounds or render them less effective. Doing the pre loads seems to make the injection process much faster as you can grab the weekly dose from your kit that is already loaded into the syringe and take the injection quickly. The only issue I have seen some from this is if you are using a steroid that has a tendency to ‘crash’ or come out of solution. Some higher mg/mL drugs will be made using the incorrect solvent ratio and this will cause the oil and the raw hormone to separate. You will easily see this happen as the oil will look like there are little crystals in it, or it will look really gummy or thick. Many unprofessional labs producing gear these days will try and pack way too much hormone in a vial, and this is one of the results that can happen. Ninety-five percent of guys who take gear will not have to worry about this, especially if your supplier is reputable. If your bottle begins to look a little ‘off’ then I would definitely not pre load any syringes.

“What is the best place to store the gear between injections?”
For some guys this is tricky as they need to be discrete and their storage options are limited. I have a small box that I keep my products in with a few weeks worth of syringes and alcohol pads. It is about the size of a lunch box. This makes it easier as I have everything in one place and do not have to worry about leaving things in different places of the house. Make sure to store them at room temperature. If you leave your injectable in cold weather they will thicken or crash and will have to be reheated in order to get their viscosity to a level that can be drawn through the needle. Another tip here I recommend getting a designated bag or syringe disposal container to dispose of your used syringes in. This is good to do for a few reasons: first it decreases the chance someone else will come in contact with the needle, but the main reason I like to do this is so you have one bag with all of your ‘evidence’ you can dispose of in a manner that is discrete. The last thing you want is someone snooping through your trash to find a bunch of used syringes and used bottle of steroids. Keep all of the discarded syringes and bottles in one bag/box and dispose of them in a neutral dumpster or in a manner that you feel is safe.

In closing, I want to advise anyone who is doing injections to take their time and do some research. I have seen some nasty abscesses come from guys being lax while doing injections that could have easily been prevented. Make sure you have the correct ‘kit’ for doing the injections. Get some alcohol swabs, the correct syringe/needle combos, some larger drawing needles, and a good box or case to store these things in. We are not crack heads here, and I think this goes without saying but I am going to just incase- sharing needles is a no no! If you do not have a fresh syringe you have opened/unwrapped yourself then DO NOT do the injection. I hope this article helps some of you. It is by no means a be all end all to injections, but I think it can act as a guide to help some of you who may not be as familiar or comfortable with this process. I welcome any feedback or questions from you guys, so please feel free to leave a review or question and we’ll be happy to help.

If your looking for another site with more extensive information on How to administer injections I recommend looking at How To Do Injections, its a wealth of knowledge if you click the links you can find a lot of information there as well.

Thanks, G