My Insane 1 Year Muscle Building Journey With Steroids

Intro:

Growing up in an Asian family, it was almost looked down upon to be good at sports or be physically fit. My parents always told me, don’t compete with kids for sports or athletics, it’s not as important as getting good grades.

And since I didn’t know any better, of course I took the far easier route of eating junk food all day all through middle school, building a nice skinnyfat physique in the process.

And then I got to High School…

I remember watching Fight Club and thinking it was the coolest movie ever and wanting to look like Brad Pitt.

I remember girls flirting with the muscular guys in PhysEd class and thinking, “Damn if only I were jacked like him!”

I remember arm wrestling people during school lunch and getting my ass kicked and thinking, “fuck, I need to get stronger!”

So I decided to take the leap and head to the school gym.

Keep in mind I had absolutely ZERO idea what I was doing at the time and there wasn’t really access to good information like there is now so I didn’t even know what a Push Pull Legs split was or even how to properly do a bench, squat, or deadlift!

My first routine consisted of simply benching every single day! And doing as many sit ups as I could!

Because that’s what I wanted to get – pecs and abs!

I progressed in the beginning and managed to get up to 115 bench but I had absolutely no idea about getting enough protein or eating at a caloric surplus…

So eventually I plateaued…

And my solution was to increase all my reps and raise the intensity even higher! Benching 2X a day every single day!

This resulted in my first major injury. Right elbow. It’s not the worst injury but trust me, every single time I took a shit and had to wipe my ass it was the most painful thing in the world

Back then, I didn’t really have any willpower or overwhelming drive to win at all costs so I just gave up on lifting altogether. My parents were right!! This is fucking stupid!!!

Second Attempt:

It wasn’t until my third job out of College that I finally got into lifting again.

Physically, I was a mess. I was at least 50 lbs overweight and it was exhausting just to walk up a flight of steps…

This time, I actually did my research and used an actual program (Stronglifts 5X5 – which is outdated now)

My lifts steadily progressed from 95 lbs bench to 135 lbs and by doing negative pullups every day, it wasn’t long before I did my first half pullup from a stool and used that to progress into my first dead hang position pullup!

These were all newbie gains so I was able to get stronger while losing a ton of fat at the same time.

Losing fat honestly wasn’t that difficult for me. Simply maintain a caloric deficit – You can track what you eat on MyFitnessPal if you still absolutely have to have that doughnut every day no matter what, or you can simply go with something simpler like Keto which naturally fills you up more and makes it difficult for you to eat too much.

Towards the end, when I started hitting a plateau, I used Fat Burning Diet Pills (just caffeine and garcinia cambogia) to get past the final hump and start seeing the rough outline of abs for the first time.

Building Muscle:

And that’s when I realized that even though I lost all this weight, I still didn’t look good because now I just looked like a skinny guy with no muscle…

Don’t get me wrong, things in other areas of my life were going well.

I was making good money from my business deals and I was able to compensate for the lack of muscle by wearing Blazers to create raw attraction through fashion.

Therefore, it was a pretty easy decision to hire a bodybuilding coach to help me get that lean muscular body I always wanted.

He had me doing the following program:

Upper Power	Lower Power	Upper Hypertrophy	Lower Hypertrophy
Bench press 5x5	Squats 5x5	DB Bench press 4x10	Squats 4x10
Bent over row 5x5	Deadlifts 5x5	Bent over row 4x10	Stiff Leg Deadlifts 3x10
Overhead press 5x5	Leg press 4x10	Overhead Press 3x10	Leg press 3x20 (10 regular, and 10 with high foot placement)
Body weight, weighted, or assisted pull ups 4x8	Hamstring curl machine 4x10	Lat pulldown machine 3x12	DB walking lunges 4x20 steps (10 each leg)
Tricep push downs 4x8	Leg extensions 4x10	Dumbbell bicep curls 4x12	Leg extensions 3x20
Bicep curls 4x8	Standing calf raise 4x10	Tricep push downs 4x12	Standing calf raise 3x12

​

I followed this program for months and months and for the life of me I just could NOT get past 155 bench or 225 squat. Deadlift was the only lift that was going well and steadily progressing.

This was with strict calorie tracking on MyFitnessPal to make sure I got enough protein…

This is even after raising my protein to 1.5g per pound of body weight instead of the standard 0.8 to 1…

Keep in mind this was with dropping money every week on my coach to check my form on all the lifts.

I tried just about everything you can think of to break past these plateaus…

I did a lab test to check my testosterone levels and found out that they fell within normal ranges (600 ng/dl)…

I went through more programs than you can imagine, including some truly weird ones like Tim Ferris’s 4 Hour Body Workout, in which you only work out 4 hours a week but in those 4 hours, you focus purely on form and doing slow reps with controlled tension. The theory is that this prevents overtraining but I tried it and didn’t get good results lol

The only thing that really worked was to dirty bulk like crazy. I’m talking 4000+ calories a day. Yes, I got way fatter than before but my lifts also started going up again…

Needless to say, I was stuck because I realized that I didn’t want to get to 225 bench only to have to cut for 2 years to burn off all the extra fat…

I was confronted with the harsh reality that my genetics just aren’t very good for bodybuilding or muscle building in general… I mean this was a solid year of 6X a week working out with no days off and all I could do was 165-170 bench while bulking???

The smart thing to do would be to prioritize other areas of my life more like finances, but I was determined to make this work no matter what…

So that’s when I decided to hop on gear for the first time…

My First Cycle

I still remember how I made the decision to do my first cycle. I asked a person who was on gear about my situation with stalling in the gym, told him about my lifts, and he told me not to do steroids because it wouldn’t be worth it.

That’s when I made the decision to hop on gear, because, well, fuck him, that’s why LOL

Some of the most useful resources I found while doing my research are the Steroids subreddit (really chill group of people there), Spotinjectiononline (good for learning how to do your first injection without freaking out), and the best routine I found for on cycle lifting was Push Pull Legs 6X a week

My first cycle was the one everyone recommended – 500mg test a week with an AI (Aromasin) handy in case of high estrogen side effects, and 250 mcg HcG every other day during the full cycle along with Nolvadex for Post Cycle Therapy.

Things went way better than expected… but that’s because I really did my research ahead of time and didn’t try to bulk at 20%+ body fat. I cut down to 12-13% body fat before doing my first cycle and even then I felt like I could have cut down to single digits since I did start getting high estrogen sides in the 4th month of my cycle.

Estrogen sides are DIRECTLY related to how high your body fat percentage is. So if you’re super fat and decide to hop on gear to get your lifts up, you’re probably doing it wrong bro, unless you have amazing genetics for not converting extra test into estrogen.

My lifts went up to 225 bench, 415 deadlift, 350 squat and this is with just 3.5 months of lifting with a very standard Push Pull Legs routine and a very mild caloric surplus of 3300-3500 calories a day with 0.8g of protein/lb of body weight.

I eventually stalled on bench at the end of the 3rd month (yes, even while blasting steroids it’s possible to stall) but by then I didn’t care cuz I felt and looked like a lifter for the first time in my life.

Post Cycle Therapy:

And that’s when my test vials ran out (I had ordered a 4 month supply but somehow my supplies only lasted 3.5 months… bummer)

I had been doing HcG every other day the entire length of the cycle so my balls were still normal size. So I followed the standard protocol of 10mg nolvadex every day

And……. That’s when the crazy sides started…

Like I said, I had a remarkably smooth first cycle with only moderate hair loss as a side effect and only the beginnings of high estrogen side effects at the end of the 3rd month…

But during PCT, somehow all the worst side effects imaginable hit me all at once.

Horrible acne all over my face appeared virtually overnight

I woke up with no energy or motivation to do anything but watch cartoons and stupid youtube videos all day.

Even if I tried jacking off, my dick just wouldn’t get hard enough and I’d have to manage to rub one out with a semi softy.

I somehow maintained enough discipline to still hit the gym 6X a week but that’s when I noticed my lifts steadily going down every week despite keeping intensity high.

Trust me when I say, stalling sucks but steadily going DOWN every week while NOT cutting is just the worst feeling in the world…

I tried ordering nolvadex from another source cuz I had a feeling mine might be bunk but even when I got pharma grade nolvadex instead of generic tamoxifen, I still just couldn’t get back to normal.

By the time I actually recovered, I was down to 185 bench again… Great… a full 3.5 months of injecting steroids in my ass only to gain a measly 15 lbs on bench when all’s said and done…

Second Cycle:

That’s when I decided enough is enough and just decided fuck it, blast and cruise for life.

I painfully came to the conclusion that my body just genetically doesn’t snap back very easily from artificial testosterone in my system so the only thing to do is be on a TRT dose for life with occasional blasts to build muscle.

So for my second cycle, I decided to keep test at 500mg while adding 400mg of primobolan.

My lifts only went up slightly more than last time after 3 months of cycling but this time I felt like it went 10X better than last time because I used RU-58841 to prevent any hair loss, and instead of trying to cycle off, I cruised on a 125mg dose and experienced ZERO sides.

My lifts did go down a bit when I lowered my blast to a cruise level but nothing like last time.

Overall, this was one of the best decisions I ever made instead of hopping on something like Tren my second cycle. Primo and test gave me a general feeling of well being and insane confidence no matter what I was doing with no side effects during the cycle except moderate hair loss (which was fixed with RU 58841)

And the primo acted as a pseudo aromatase inhibitor so it controlled my estrogen levels and kept them in check the entire cycle without having to use aromasin.

Now, I’ve gained enough muscle mass and just want to maintain my physique for the rest of my life on a 125mg test dose, which is dirt cheap to do.

And the end of the day, I’m just a guy with shitty Asian genetics doing the best he can with what I was born with. I know there’s guys out there who played football in college who can lift more than me even though they’re completely natural and I’m OK with that. I only wanted to look the best I could and I feel satisfied knowing I managed to build something I can be proud of after several years of struggling.

Insights:

1. A V Taper is the most important thing of all for aesthetics. Girls don’t give a shit about your squat. As a matter of fact, from what I could tell, they don’t even really care about if you’re bald if you have a good V Taper. Just like guys like girls with narrow waists and big asses, women are just primordially drawn to guys with broad shoulders and narrow waists.
2. If you want to bench heavy, make sure to keep both CARBS and PROTEIN high. Bench isn’t like squat and deadlift. The moment that glycogen from your muscles goes down, it’ll be the first lift to stall. If you want to move heavier weight, make sure your core is braced and you have a proper back arch. You can gain at least 2 more reps every time simply by keeping a tight core while lifting (to brace core, cough, and hold your abs like that throughout the lift)
3. Steroids alone will do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING if you don’t have your diet down (mild caloric surplus while bulking)
4. It’s a waste of money to use high “Blast” doses of steroids on a cut. All you need is a small, TRT dose to prevent Testosterone levels decreasing at lower body fat levels.
5. 99% of the time, if something feels Off in your cycle, it’s related to Estrogen. Felt like a God while blasting for 2 months but all of a sudden become a lazy, unmotivated beta again? Estrogen is probably too high… Joints cracking like crazy while doing compounds lifts and finding it difficult to maintain an erection during sex or even get hard in the morning? Estrogen is probably too low…
6. Even on steroids, you can’t keep raising intensity at the gym and keep increasing the weights forever. Your muscles can and will recover in time when you’re on a blast dose, but your joints and tendons won’t be able to keep up. If that happens to you, you need to decrease the frequency AND intensity in order to properly deload for a couple weeks. Even on steroids, it is necessary sometimes to take one step backward to take two steps forward.
   1. I tried Human Growth Hormone in the past for joint pain relief but found it ineffective. The only things that actually worked for me in terms of tendon and joint recovery were BPC-157 and TB-500.
7. It’s fucking unhealthy to be too big. BMI isn’t perfect but if you’re morbidly obese, it’s NOT good for your heart, even if you’re 8% body fat and pure muscle. You WILL feel the effects of being too heavy, even if it’s all muscle. You will feel almost equally winded going up and down stairs regardless if the extra weight is muscle or fat.
8. RU-58841 is the best hair loss prevention tool I’ve ever used and I never had any side effects while using it
9. Accutane works in treating acne but it’s NOT instant and severely fucks up your liver in the long term.
10. Blast and Cruise is way better and healthier long term than Cycling on and Off, at least based on my personal experience. All of my worst side effect – horrible acne breakouts, horrible suicidal thoughts, nights I couldn’t fall asleep no matter what – happened while trying to cycle off steroids. That’s because there’s a certain period of time where you have close to ZERO testosterone levels as your balls try to ramp up production again. Keep in mind this is even with a proper PCT protocol of HcG and Nolvadex so I can totally imagine someone being in WORSE shape before lifts wise and looks wise after steroids than before if they fuck up the Post Cycle Therapy Process or don’t do it at all.
11. A very realistic risk of even one cycle is that your test levels will NEVER recover to where they were before, leaving you worse off than when you started. Most likely this comes down to genetics, but it’s a very real possibility. If you aren’t absolutely committed to TRT for the rest of your life if things go wrong, then don’t go on steroids in the first place.
12. Get any lingering health issues resolved with your body before deciding to do heavy lifting - especially those related to digestion. I had friends with Chron's disease in the past that just weren't able to build significant muscle mass, no matter how many roids they took or how hard they worked out. Solve underlying medical issues first, or you'll just be spinning your wheels.

Should You Take Steroids?

Honestly, I'm not going to sit there and say, "oh, you have to have 225.102341234 BENCH BEFORE you can even consider hopping on your first cycle!"

Every time someone said that to me, it just made me want to do gear even more just as an act of defiance.

It's your decision to do your research intelligently and weigh the pros and cons.

Keep in mind that if you do heavy cycles of steroids in your teens, it has a chance of decreasing your natural testosterone production for the rest of your life, regardless of how well you plan out your post cycle therapy.

Keep in mind, the worst case outcome can be VERY BAD. I've heard horror stories of people getting gear from shitty sources and getting severe infections at the injection site, though it's never happened to me personally.

However, that being said, the realistic bad outcome is having to remain on TRT doses of artificial test for life.

If you aren't okay with jamming a needle into your butt 2X a week for the rest of your life, then you're not comfortable doing steroids, plain and simple.