Putting it all together - HGH + IGF-1 + Insulin – A basic peptide cycle guide
There are volumes of studies available regarding the use of HGH, IGF-1 (and all its variants), and Insulin, but for the most part coming up with a good cycle incorporating all of these is a tedious process and requires more of an investment in time pouring over studies and other reading than most people wish to invest. The following is put forth as a basic guide. It is meant to be a quick and simple reference as to what a cycle including all three of these components might look like and a brief description of the action of each of the components. This is in no wise intended to be a comprehensive guide, a technical document, nor is it presented as the ONLY way to run a cycle such as this. This is merely as an example of one method that will definitely yield results. Myself and several athletes and all levels of competition have used the basic cycle principles below with good success over the last few years. You will certainly want to tweak this for your particular application, but this should at least get you headed in the right direction.
THE CYCLE
Weeks 1- (20-30) – HGH – On 5/ off 2
Weeks 1-5, 11-15, (21-25)
• 2 – 3 IU’s - first thing in the morning on workout days – early afternoon on non-workout days
Weeks 6-10, 16-20, (26-30)
• 2 – 3 IU’s first thing in the morning
• 2 – 3 IU’s 1-2 p.m. or pre-workout (or IM post-workout with your insulin if preferred)
All HGH injected subQ into abdomen, obliques, fronts of the thighs, and upper triceps
Weeks 1-5, 11-15, (21-25) – Long R3 IGF-1 – Every day
80 – 100 mcg’s intramuscular
• post work out on workout days
• first thing in the morning on non-workout days
Weeks 6-10, 16-20, (26-30) – Humalog – Workout days only
• 8 – 12 IU’s immediately post workout, intramuscular
IMPORTANT / CRITICAL - Post Insulin Nutrient Routine
Immediately after Humalog injection – do the following in exacting fashion -
• Injection + 5 minutes – drink shake with 10g glutamine / 10g creatine / 7 grams of dextrose per IU of Insulin. (If you don’t wish to split the shakes, add the whey isolate described as well here for a single shake).
• Injection + 15 minutes – drink shake with 65g of whey isolate protein in water (skip if taken with above)
• Injection + 75 minutes – eat a protein / carb meal with 40-50g of protein, 40-50g of carbs, NO FATS (you may wish to add another 30g or so whey isolate protein drink with this meal if you have tore down sufficient muscle groups to utilize this without it being stored as fat)
(i.e. – two boneless, skinless chicken breasts baked or grilled, a serving of brown rice, sweet potatoes, or pasta, with green beans)
Avoid fats for 2-3 hours for Humalog IM, 3-4 hours for Humalog subQ, 4-5 hours for Humulin-R.
keep some glucose tablets or other simple carbs on hand (Orange Juice, Full sugar Coke, etc.) for the active window of your insulin. Hypo symptoms can and will hit hard and fast and you will have little time to react. This is the main danger of insulin use. . Lack of attention to detail in this area can end in a nice ambulance ride, a visit to the hospital or even a one-way trip to the morgue. Be ready and act smart. The price of stupidity is really, really high.
OPTIONAL Addition to above cycle
Weeks 1- (20-30) T3 or T4 - Every Day
one of the following –
• 12.5 mcgs - 25 mcgs T3 taken once each day
-or –
• 100 mcgs T4 taken once each day
[alternative method if additional fat loss is necessary - Only use if sufficient AAS cycle is present to protect and support lean tissue and use only during the weeks of LR3 injections to avoid any potential negative impact to our IGF levels by increased IGF binding proteins. The 13 amino acid side chain of LR3 IGF-1 has specifically been engineered to resist being impressed by or bound to IGFBP’s, so any increase in the below ramp up/down will not kill your IGF levels. A reasonable dose AAS component of the cycle will further protect lean tissue from being used for fuel. In absence of these above-mentioned components, you won’t want to run your T3 above 50mcgs per day. It will begin to elevate IGFBP’s and will dismantle and burn through hard-earned muscle proteins quicker than you could imagine.]
Weeks 1-5, 11-15, (21-25) T3 Every Day
For each of the 5 week runs of T3:
Days 1-3 25 mcgs
Days 4-6 50 mcgs
Days 7-9 75 mcgs
Days 10 - 20 100 mcgs
Days 21 - 24 75 mcgs
Days 25 - 27 50 mcgs
Days 28 - 30 25 mcgs
Days 31 - 35 12.5 mcgs
DESCRIPTION OF THE ELEMENTS OF THIS CYCLE
HGH
HGH should ideally be used for 20-30 week cycles (or longer). The dosage should be between 2-3IU per day if you are using GH primarily for fat loss, 4-8 IU’s a day for both fat loss and muscle growth, and approximately 1.0 – 2.0 IU’s a day for females. It is best to split your injections 1/2 first thing in the morning, 1/2 early afternoon if your dose is above 3.0 IU’s per day. Your pituitary will naturally produce an average of 6 or so pulses of GH per day, the mega pulse being 2 hours after we fall asleep. Each injection you take will create a negative feedback loop that as suggested by a couple of studies will suppress these pulses for an approximate 4 hours. By taking your injections first thing in the morning and early afternoon you will still allow your body to release its biggest pulse, which normally occurs shortly after going to sleep at night, as well as blunting the effects of cortisol, the two biggest peaks of which are occurring at these same times (early morning, early afternoon).
When starting out with your HGH cycle, for most people it is wise to begin you dose at 1.5 – 2.0IU per day for the first couple of weeks, and then begin increasing your dose by 0.5 unit every week or two until you reach your desired level. While it isn't an absolute necessity to do this, if you are sensitive to the type of sides HGH present you will often times avoid these sides of joint pain/swelling, CTS, and bloating/water retention by slowly acclimating to your ultimate 4-5 IU/day goal.
You should use an U100 insulin syringe for injecting HGH, and inject it subQ into your abdomen, obliques, top of thighs, triceps. Rotate injection sites. HGH can have a small-localized fat loss benefit, so keep this in mind when choosing your injection sites.
IGF-1
When HGH makes it pass through the liver, a release of IGF-1 is a result. IGF-1 appears to be a key player in muscle growth. It stimulates both the differentiation and proliferation of myoblasts. It also stimulates amino acid uptake and protein synthesis in muscle and other tissues. While HGH will cause an increase in your IGF-1 level over the course of a few months, HGH has a cumulative effect, so our addition of IGF-1 will greatly speed up the time to results.
There are two types of IGF-1 that will typically be used by bodybuilders. One is bio-identical huIGF-1, a 70 amino acid string. The other is Long R3 IGF-1, which is an 83 amino acid analog of human IGF-I comprising the complete human IGF-I sequence with the substitution of an Arg for the Glu at position 3 (hence R3), and a 13 amino acid extension peptide at the N-terminus (hence the long). This 13 amino acid "side chain" helps prevent the IGF-1 from being so easily bound by binding proteins, and thus increases its active window exponentially. Which of these you use depends on your goal.
HuIGF-1 is very short lived in the body (probable half life of approximately 10 minutes). This type of IGF-1 is very useful if you are seeking local site growth. Since it is so short lived, little if any of the IGF-1 makes it to other tissues and IGF-1 receptors in other parts of the body. The way to inject this is immediately post work out into the muscle that you wish to have local site growth. Use a U100 insulin syringe, and inject 100 - 300 mcg’s (in some cases more) bilaterally into the desired muscle immediately post workout. For this type of IGF-1, I would use it workout days only.
For Long R3 IGF-1, it isn’t as critical that you inject into a local site as long R3 has a active window of many hours (if not days), and is designed specifically to resist being bound by IGF binding proteins.
Since it is common to reconstitute this type of IGF-1 with Benzyl Alcohol, Acetic Acid, or Hydrochloric Acid, I would still recommend that you inject intra-muscular. While for some purposes of nerve regrowth and other medical recovery purposes subQ is a somewhat superior injection method, it can and probably will leave a nice red irritated spot for a couple of weeks if you inject subQ, and it is not superior for our purposes of muscle growth anyway.
