keeping muscle during and after pct?

[NeverSatisfied]

this is not a quesiton about pct or how to keep your gains. i know all about it and how to do it correctly. i hope i don't confuse anyone but i don't know how to say it exactly. i am wondering whether when you come off, is your old muscle mass safe, or is it in danger of being lost.

in other words, lets say the you already have a certain amount of muscle mass when entering a cycle. this is your old muscle mass. to make it simple we'll call it "muscle mass A".

then during your cycle you put on 10 lbs of new muscle mass. we'll call this "muscle mass B".

when you come off, which is in danger of being lost? only muscle mass b(the newly acquired muscle) or is muscle A also in danger?

i hope i didn't confuse everyone, but i'm sorry if i did. i know what i want to ask in my head but it seems hard to put it into words.

for example, lets say i run a cutter....all i do is cut fat-i don't gain any new muscle, i just maintain the muscle i entered the cycle with.-my question would be that since i am just keeping the muscle i had before the cycle and not adding any new muscle, would i still have to worry as much about losing muscle post cycle?

anyone who takes the time to attempt to figure out what i am trying to ask, thanx for your time.

[FUZO]

I'M CONFUSED. SOME IT UP. WHEN YOU COME OFF YOU WILL LOSE SOME, BUT KEEP THE CALORIES UP TAKE CREATINE,PROTIEN, TRAIN HARD AND YOU WILL KEEP MOST OF IT.

[DaSarge]

If A + B = C does C - B = A?

I don't know.
I just lift weights and eat a lot.

[Slightly Enhanced]

Okay, I think I understand what you are saying, and the answer is yes. You are at risk of losing more muscle than you gain.

I cannot speak from experience, but I think I understand enough to help you with this. After the cycle your natural hormones are suppressed. So the longer they are suppressed the more susceptible you are to losing muscle because of the catabolic environment within your body.

So someone who uses no pct will be basically on a downward spiral until their body recovers naturally. I don’t believe your body makes a distinction between what was before and what is now.

Hopefully someone else will come in and confirm this or offer a more proper explanation.

[obscured78]

i know what u r saying but i really dont know. i never lost more than i gained. in fact i never came back down to original weight after ending a cycle. always ended up bigger and stayed bigger. the key is diet and training.

[jsjs24]

I think you are gonna lose the new muscle mass because that is what you cheated to gain. Your body was already used to having the old muscle, so it should be no problem to keep that. This is how I see it anyway.

[orion76]

Yes you can lose previously gained mass.

If you get shut down real hard and run into recovery problems and didn't gain much on your cycle and then have very low testosterone for several months you can actually lose more muscle in that period than you gained from your cycle.

See cycling as taking two steps forward and one step backward. If you fuckup you can take one step forward and two steps backwards.

That's why short cycles, e.g. 4 or 5 weeks are a very bad idea.

[njjuicer]

i guess it coudl happen if u stopped lfitng etc.. but i never had that ahppen i enver totally lsot any thing ig ained forma cycle only water ret and maybe few lbs notihng major

[Extranero]

I think you will lose 'old' muscle mass too. Your body needs certain test levels (whatever is normal for you) to maintain your current mass.

If you stay shut down, you won't have enough test to support what you had before. It would be a race to see if your test levels naturally recovered or you lost some of your original mass.

[digital]

understand what you mean,

and i agree with whats already been said,but i think if you run your pct keep cal up etc you will not only retain your old muscle but most of your new as well.

cheers

[NeverSatisfied]

for those of you confused...i was just asking- when it comes to post cycle, whether your body makes a distinction between the mass you've had for a while, and the mass gained during a cycle?

seems like there is split opinions so far. bump for more input

[digital]

no i personally believe that muscle is muscle ,what determines your question is do you have the test available pct that you had before your cycle to support your previous mass and when it recovers enough to support your newly aquired mass.i think your body will just chew muscle based on that as well as a host of other factors.

i hope that made sense,because now i am confused

[orion76]

There is no old mass and new mass. It's the same mass only the muscle cells are larger. They can shrink post cycle and they can shrink to a smaller size than they were at the time you started the cycle.