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09/14/09
When you complete a steroid cycle, you have two options – and only two options. First, you can stop cold turkey. You can finish your last testosterone shot, orally administer your last oral, and then just wait to watch your performance slow down. You’ll be fine for several days to a week (depending upon the active life of the drug you chose). After that, you will soon discover a very unwanted and unwelcome decrease of several key bodybuilding factors. Your strength levels will subside. Each workout, you’ll discover you can do a rep or three fewer, or 10 or 15 pounds less. The aggression you used to display in the gym will no longer be present also. Your body won’t have that same level of hardness that you have become accustomed to after the months of being on the gear. With less appetite, your muscles will shrink, and you’ll start getting fatter too. It won’t be a very pleasant experience physically, but mentally it might be worse. You’ll go from feeling like superman – in the bedroom, in the gym, and in the supermarket and every place else – to being a shadow of your formal self. It can be crushing to the ego, and embarrassing in front of your sexual partner. Halting AAS use cold turkey is a very unpleasant experience.
Your second option, and one that most would consider to be much wiser, would be to use post-cycle therapy, or a mini-cycle of lighter hormones to help lighten the ‘crash’ and restart your own testosterone production. During your cycle, your pituitary gland asked your testes to halt all production of testosterone. Your testicles shrink, because they aren’t being used anymore. You’ll essentially be ‘shooting blanks’, severely limiting your ability to impregnate a woman. Some countries are even toying with the idea of giving men small doses of testosterone to limit their ability to reproduce. Whatever your case, your HPTA function will be partially hindered if you were on a small cycle of Anavar or Winstrol, and will be severely compromised if you were running a heavy testosterone & orals cycle. PCT drugs help you to restart these processes in your body.
If you do choose PCT, you will want to purchase your compounds when you buy your steroids, so that you have them ready to begin use immediately after the cycle ends and the active life of the drugs you chose has peaked. Your best options are going to be HCG or Clomid, both fertility drugs used for males and females to help increase likelihood of pregnancy or to regular hormones. Some people actually use these drugs because they have naturally low sperm count. Despite what you’ve read, they’re not just for bodybuilders! You will have some flexibility as to when you begin your PCT compounds, but if you begin to notice a testosterone crash, you have already waited too long! After about ten days following your PCT dosage, you should feel less great than you did on the actual cycle, but better than you would with a cold crash. After 3 weeks, your testicles should be returning to their previous size. After 4 to 5 weeks on the PCT, your system should be recovered and you should be ready for 3 to 4 months without a steroid cycle to allow your body to clean itself out and prepare for your next cycle!
