Overall strategy for anabolic cycling….

In 500 words or less? Difficult to do. I could give to you a laundry list of meds but it wouldn’t mean much without considering feedback, strategy and lifestyle changes.

But let me do what I can within the limited confines of this forum.

In general, you want to lesson the amount of side effects of the medications. There are medications to help liver function, and there are medications to block excessive estrogen and corticosteroid production.

As you well know, estrogens will promote ball shrinkage and inhibit the natural production of testosterone after a cycle. The liver needs to be functioning well to allow the production of “workable” free testosterone in the system after the cycle.

The other major concern is the normal production of testosterone after a cycle. [Remember – what goes up must come down. Cycling anabolic steroids allows the body to “reset” its latent hormonal reference point].

To accomplish this its important to understand some of the mechanisms that shut down the natural production of testosterone.

Exogenous testosterone shuts down natural testosterone production – the hypothalamus in the brain figures, “..hey, got plenty testosterone, don’t need to make anymore…”. Thus it sends a signal to the pituitary gland turning it off. Normally the hypothalamus sends luteinizing-hormone-releasing-hormone to the pituitary gland; the pituitary gland would then be turned “on”, sending some LH (leuteinizing-hormone) down to the balls; thereby telling the balls to make some natural testosterone.

Another part of the body that governs testosterone is the liver and the muscle cells themselves. When there is too much testosterone around, the testosterone receptors in the cells kinda turn off – It will just take time off for that to come back. The liver can inactivate heavy doses of exogenous testosterone by binding it to proteins. This makes the testosterone floating around in the blood less active.

Estrogens turn the hypothalamus and pituitary gland off where it comes to natural testosterone production. Progesterone’s will do the same thing. Furthermore, they can directly block certain actions of androgens such as testosterone in target tissues.

To have natural testosterone production you have to sponsor an active hypothalamus, pituitary gland, testes, and a clean liver. Although some medications such as clomid stimulate testosterone production at the balls, they delay the recovery of the hypothalamus. Why? Because as long as clomid is sponsoring testosterone production at the balls, the hypothalamus figures, “..Hey… theirs plenty of testosterone around, so I don’t need to send anything down to the pituitary gland….”

In short, the hypothalamus, (and other parts of the brain), remain essentially inactive.

To stimulate the hypothalamus requires stimulation at suprahypothalamic levels. What does that? Other parts of the brain…. So the question arises, “How can we get the brain functioning at peak levels? How can we boost the production of neurotransmitters and maximize glucose, oxygen, and blood perfusion to brain cells?”

Nootropics. The term “nootropic” is of greek origin and refers to substances that act on and enhance the mind. They have been long studied and well tolerated. [They also improve liver, heart and kidney function]. Ginko biloba is a very weak nootropic. Glaxo and Sandoz manufacture extremely powerful nootropics. Some will even increase the formation/regeneration of nerve tissue. The timing of these drugs will help the liver, and stimulate increased brain function including a rapid rebound of hypothalamic functions.

[There are psychological side effects to cycles too – and they are very real. I’ll skip that stuff for now.]

Recombinant human growth hormone, when taken at the right time will help natural testosterone rebound as well.

Those are the basic considerations of effective anabolic cycling strategies.

There are a zillion other things that help… to many to name. But the aforementioned contains the over all strategy. Life styles, meals, post-cycle changes in exercise regimen also become added concerns to address.

Eventually after a cycle, your levels of testosterone will be low, and its time to kick the HPGA into high gear.

One way to do that is to help the brain do what it has to do: That is to say, make it as efficient a recovery machine as possible.

Nootropics can greatly augment this by increasing glucose and oxygen uptake in the CNS.. and so on...

We know that nootropics max. brain neurotransmitter output. Eventually we can get around to measuring a double blind steroid recovery groups... and so on.

Max