Designing Your First Cycle
Your first cycle of anabolic steroids is always the most exciting one. However, I see many people mess their progress (or themselves) up doing this due to their lack of knowledge on the subject. In this article, I will discuss how to do your first cycle safely and effectively.
Blood Work
Before you even start your cycle, you need to get your blood markers checked to ensure that you're in good health before starting a cycle. In a worst case scenario, you may have severely skewed blood markers. Ignoring this doing a cycle could be the nail in the coffin for your health.
Here are the blood markers I recommend you check:
CMP (comprehensive metabolic panel), CBC (complete blood count), lipid panel, testosterone (total), testosterone (free), estradiol (total)
As for sourcing, I recommend going through AlgoRX, as it's fast and inexpensive. You can check them out here, and use code "Julian" at checkout to save some money.
Compound Selection
In terms of anabolics, the only compound we want to use for our first cycle is testosterone. It is rarely faked (compared to compounds like primobolan and anavar), well-studied, and bioidentical (identical in structure to what your body naturally produces). Using testosterone only in your first cycle will give you an idea to how you respond to testosterone itself and the potential side-effects that are individual to your unique biochemistry. Adding in any other compounds would only complicate the process rather than make it more effective.
Dosage
As I stated previously, your first cycle is supposed to give you a feel of how you respond to testosterone. However, we do still want to keep side-effects at a minimum. There's nothing worse than being excited for your first cycle, only to end up wasting time trying to address side effects.
For this reason, your dose of testosterone should be kept at around 350mg weekly for the duration of the cycle (give or take ~50mg depending on your size). Most users will be able to grow on this extremely well without having to deploy ancillaries such as aromatase inhibitors or 5-alpha-reductase inhibitors to manage side effects.
This goes against the common recommendation of 500mg weekly for your first cycle, but I personally think that is much too high of a dose for a beginner. It's important to note that the average healthy male produces between 40-70mg of testosterone per week - going from these levels immediately to 500mg is asking for trouble. Many users who follow the recommendation of 500mg often get what is referred to as "test flu", where the body produces flu-like symptoms as a response to a huge influx of hormones. Obviously, we don't want this (among other things), so we're going to stick to 350mg unless otherwise advised after assessing tolerance.
Duration
Since your dose is going to be on the moderate side, you can get away with a slightly longer cycle. I think that 16-20 weeks is a perfect amount of time to pack on a satisfactory amount of tissue without wreaking havoc on your body. This may change depending on your own personal blood work results.
Ancillaries
Along with your steroids, you will need some compounds in the case that you run into some side effects. These include aromasin (exemestane) or arimidex (anastrazole) for estrogen control and ezetimibe for lipid control. It is not recommended to start a cycle without these, because in the case that you do run into side effects, you'll be empty handed and have to deal with them without ancillaries.
Of course, there are many other ancillaries that exist, such as pramipexole, finasteride, and letrozole, but the chances you will need these for your first cycle is slim.
Final Thoughts
Designing your first cycle should be a simple process - 350mg of testosterone for 16-20 weeks. The majority of individuals should not run into any side-effects, but it is advised to keep ancillaries on hand just in case. Happy roiding.