Not that I’ve noticed. In my early 20’s I was into hitting the gym and saw guys there they were obviously on massive amounts of illegally sourced test. They had issues ranging from face/back acne right up to gynecomastia (breast enlargement in men requiring surgery). Then big crashes of hormone levels and wild moods once they went off the drugs.
Mine is really nothing like that, it’s just micro-dosing. In my recent tests my levels hovered right in the ‘regular’ range for a late 30s male. If I did start going too high, the doc would have reduced the dosage.
This might come back to haunt me but I dabbled with steroids 10-15 years ago whilst hitting the weights and a long time before riding a bike.
I’d be happy to answer any questions anyone might have. It’s difficult getting honest answers on the subject from someone that is actually willing to be open about their use.
Never understood, why a perfectly healthy person would rather rely on questionable pills or injections, instead of relying on millions of years of evolution in order to get fitter.
I ran a few steroid cycles and never took a higher dosage than what many would consider a bare minimum. There are levels to it.
As such I did see gains, yes but nothing that I could look back on and say it was worth it.
When my cycles ended I always lost a lot of the size I had built but somehow maintained most (but not all) of the actual strength. It took a while for my natural testosterone to kick in (I can’t remember the textbook answer but I wanna say around a month) during which time lifting was difficult but not impossible.
When ppl say when you’re taking testosterone do not race cause it’s doping what is the time period of not racing ? Forever? I’m just curious, I do not plan on doing that nor do I argue with the doping part. Sorry if it was written somewhere already
Wow, the level of misinformation in this thread is insane!
While there is clearly a HUGE issue with people getting TRT that have no business getting it…for those that do, it’s a NEED! To suggest those people are simply aging and should live with it is like saying “i can handle a few beers, so I don’t believe alcoholism is real”
What are you guys telling women whose lives are rubbish until they get HRT? Suck it up lassie?
The USA system of not issuing TUE to race is daft - at least in the UK a non-competitive athlete can race on TRT and simply has to apply for a TUE if tested (which is almost never going to happen) - unless you think the 50 year old coming in 20,000 place in the London Marathon is going to get tested because its a UK athletics sanctioned event.
And as for it’s actual benefits - taken at true TRT levels the advantage it offers an endurance sport is almost entirely via increased motivation to train…although it’s also harder to drop weight, so…swings and roundabouts. I’d put decent quality sleep, diet, training programme VASTLY ahead of TRT in pure performance benefits.
I wonder what kind of good training and diet it is, that could help me? Because I’m diagnosed with low-T, and can’t handle relatively low volume of training without going into overtraining state.
Normally it goes like this:
After about a week of little anaerobic load I’m fully rested and start training
My routine is 2 training session 2 hours long in weekdays (FTP/VO2 max intervals for 40-50mins, the rest is just spinning in zone 2), followed by a few sets of pull ups and push ups, and bench press for one more hour - and one long ride at the weekend, 6-10 hours long, zone 2
After the first week I already can’t recover in time so I often have to skip the first session or substitute with easy spin. If I force it, then till the end of that 2nd week I go into overtrained state - my sleep is ruined, I fill extremely shitty and week, my head hurts all the time (this is reflected pain from neck muscles which won’t subside without medication) - and I have to rest for a complete week again before I have a chance to train again.
I eat more than enough, take a lot of vitamin and mineral supplements, aminoacids, you name it - doesn’t help at all. Everyone around me, even people 10 years older than me, do much better. They easily maintain harder training routines without any such consequences.
I could lower training intensity and volumes - but they are already close to nothing, assuming my goal is to progress. T substitution therapy seems to be my only option.
Are you saying your long ride is 6-10 hours or that you total 6-10hpw?
Sounds pretty intense either way. To think you need to take synthetic testosterone as your only option is quite the stretch. Try getting a coach and following a training plan first.
The long ride itself is 6-10 hours. That means in total, including all the stops. It can be 100kms ride over 5 hours, with 50-60mins of stops in it. A 10-12 hours is something like 150-200kms and happens quite rarely. Usually it’s 100km, at 120-130bpm what is in zone 2 for me.
So in total it’s like 10-12 training hours per week usually, what is I believe not very much even by amateur sportsman standards. People I know train much more than that without any issues. They have like 4-5 training sessions per week, run or swim, or go to gym on top of it - and feel good.
Another symptom in favor of low T levels is the fact that I broke my sternum while doing push ups on bars last year. I descended lower than you should and it just cracked. My doctor said he never saw sternum broken beside some traumatic accidents. So I suspect my bones are quite frail already (what is another consequences of low T). There is also noticeable drop in libido over the last 10 years, to boot. Too much symptoms to ignore.
I think you are severely over trained and that’s why you feel crummy all the time. 5 hr to complete 100km is not fast, so I suspect you have a low ftp. It’s one thing to ride lots because you love it, and you probably do. But, you are doing a huge amount of training relative to your fitness. It’s unsurprising that you’re not recovered during the week after a huge ride and then you do two intense rides mid week. That’s why I suggest getting on a systematic training plan that builds in recovery, etc. I think if you take syn-T, you will overtrain in a similar way, but just be able to push high watts while doing so. The highest level pros who dope(d) still need rest and recovery in a proper training plan. T is not an invincibility drug
I’m not on it. But T is the closest thing we have to superpower. I bet in the future it will be the standard for older adults, as the risks involved become better understood.
My current FTP is about 250w My usual avg.speed in zone 2 is 25kph (assuming little to no hills, about 500m of ascent over 100kms), so 5 hours means ride for 2 hours with some stops, have a dinner at some cafe, ride another 2 hours back to home.
I also ride brevets occasionally, I completed 300, 400 and 600kms distances this year, with average speed at about 20-23kph. So 100km is just a long walk for me, unless I turn it into a 3rd training session (sometimes I just can’t control the urge to speed up…)
My training sessions is usually 3x10 per FTP power, or 4x4min per 117% of FTP, or 2x12x30s of 140% FTP (depending on how I feel; if I feel I didn’t recover I either skip, or reduce power, or substitute it for casual ride for 1-2 hours in zone 2) - that’s 40-50 mins of it; plus warm up, plus cool down which is another 30 mins. The rest is just easy spinning in zone 2. Nothing especially hard
So in total I have 3 training days, and 4 days of complete rest. That’s an ample rest, compare to a lot of other amateur athletes I know. I’m actually not sure what to throw out of it tbh, it’s bare minimum already imo.
I’ve scheduled one for the nearest future (first I suspected my thyroid is off, as I had some troubles with it in the past; but blood test showed it’s ok, so low T is now even more probable), but I want to sufficiently recover before it, to see the maximum current number in it (as currently I’m in the overtrained phase again, it took me 10 days to get there this time, from a perfectly rested state…)
So I just went ahead and tried to study what my perspectives are if test will confirm it - that’s how I found that thread.
One week off, especially when in an overtrained state, is not completely rested.
Go see a Dr, and get a blood test, that will be the best way of confirming things. I suspect that (depending where you are in the World and if you’ve gone to a Dr that sells T) your normal Dr would say that you’re overtrained and need a longer period of rest and recovery. Even if your Testosterone is low, you should give your body the appropriate amount of recovery and time to correct it. Rather than pharmaceutical intervention so soon.
You may consider your training load low. It’s not compared to many athletes on the forum and all around the world. I think your expectations are too high and that perhaps you could build up to that amount of training over a longer period of time if you give your body the chance to adequately heal itself first.
