Ticks said:
DrPEPr said:
miameow said:
At 38 you've still got plenty of runway, so if cost isn't a concern, secretagogues could be worth a shot — tesa in particular as a starting point. Personally I ran CJC no dac alongside Ipa, and honestly the ipa gave me nothing except intense hunger, even though I was already on a fairly hefty reta dose. Compared to any secretagogue, HGH is in a completely different league, though the difference hits harder when your igf is genuinely low and/or you're simply older.
That said, muscle growth isn't something any of these will deliver. What they can do is help you lean out and make the muscle you already have stand out more.
Well... men typically live to about 76 on average, so by that math he's already at the midpoint (coming from someone who's 46yo
)
Tattoo85 said:
jimmyjames01 said:
Besides going the route of strong anabolic steroids (though I am also attempting to start Trt, which would likewise only be a microdose), what other options might be superior? Cost is not a concern
When you say micro dosing, are you talking about standard TRT instead of "TRT+"? I wouldn't go below a TRT dose and take the chance of suppressing my own natural production.
For my weekly testosterone enanthate intake, I'm aiming for 140 - 150mg, and I'll inject 20mg each day—that's the microdosing approach I was referring to.
Right, that's what @Gr33dyOctopus was getting at — split dosing.
Have you gotten any labs done to check your current hormone panel (test as well as gh/igf1)?
My point is that pinning just 140-150 per week could leave you with the same test level you already have — maybe even lower. (I've seen numbers land between 600 - 900 on those amounts). In other words, you'd be disrupting your endocrine system for nothing.
And another thing...
2 years of gym time still puts you in beginner territory, with a ton of 'n00bGainz' left to tap. There's zero reason to bring in any compounds for muscle growth at this stage.
What I'd suggest:
Stay 'natty' and really commit for another 2-3 years, running a solid training plan plus a few (lean)bulk and cut cycles, then reassess.
Everyone has their own view, but that reasoning doesn't line up with what my RS and the people close to them have actually gone through. When your T isn't naturally where it should be and you're getting close to 40, even a modest weekly T dose of 140-150 can lift your levels by 2x or even 3x. Add in naturally low igf1 and your progress gets held back no matter what protocol you follow. Boosting your T output is definitely a long-term commitment, yet small amounts of supplementation won't wreck your endocrine system nearly as badly as mainstream media makes it sound. Going all in with huge doses is where you're playing with fire, but this whole thing is about optimization, and trt plus tesa can genuinely get your hormones dialed in. In my book, 2 years of serious effort isn't really a beginner either; I've watched people go from 0 to hero in that same stretch. Just my 2c
There's quite a bit to unpack in this thread.
DrPEPr said:
miameow said:
At 38 you've still got plenty of runway, so if cost isn't a concern, secretagogues could be worth a shot — tesa in particular as a starting point. Personally I ran CJC no dac alongside Ipa, and honestly the ipa gave me nothing except intense hunger, even though I was already on a fairly hefty reta dose. Compared to any secretagogue, HGH is in a completely different league, though the difference hits harder when your igf is genuinely low and/or you're simply older.
That said, muscle growth isn't something any of these will deliver. What they can do is help you lean out and make the muscle you already have stand out more.
Well... men typically live to about 76 on average, so by that math he's already at the midpoint (coming from someone who's 46yo
)
Tattoo85 said:
jimmyjames01 said:
Besides going the route of strong anabolic steroids (though I am also attempting to start Trt, which would likewise only be a microdose), what other options might be superior? Cost is not a concern
When you say micro dosing, are you talking about standard TRT instead of "TRT+"? I wouldn't go below a TRT dose and take the chance of suppressing my own natural production.
For my weekly testosterone enanthate intake, I'm aiming for 140 - 150mg, and I'll inject 20mg each day—that's the microdosing approach I was referring to.
Right, that's what @Gr33dyOctopus was getting at — split dosing.
Have you gotten any labs done to check your current hormone panel (test as well as gh/igf1)?
My point is that pinning just 140-150 per week could leave you with the same test level you already have — maybe even lower. (I've seen numbers land between 600 - 900 on those amounts). In other words, you'd be disrupting your endocrine system for nothing.
And another thing...
2 years of gym time still puts you in beginner territory, with a ton of 'n00bGainz' left to tap. There's zero reason to bring in any compounds for muscle growth at this stage.
What I'd suggest:
Stay 'natty' and really commit for another 2-3 years, running a solid training plan plus a few (lean)bulk and cut cycles, then reassess.
Everyone has their own view, but that reasoning doesn't line up with what my RS and the people close to them have actually gone through. When your T isn't naturally where it should be and you're getting close to 40, even a modest weekly T dose of 140-150 can lift your levels by 2x or even 3x. Add in naturally low igf1 and your progress gets held back no matter what protocol you follow. Boosting your T output is definitely a long-term commitment, yet small amounts of supplementation won't wreck your endocrine system nearly as badly as mainstream media makes it sound. Going all in with huge doses is where you're playing with fire, but this whole thing is about optimization, and trt plus tesa can genuinely get your hormones dialed in. In my book, 2 years of serious effort isn't really a beginner either; I've watched people go from 0 to hero in that same stretch. Just my 2c
The answer hinges on what the OP's natural testosterone production looks like, and right now that's a blank.
Speaking from my own labs: at age 40 my total test sat between 950–1000 ng/dL, and at 46 it's still hovering near 900. Had I started a conventional TRT protocol of 140–150 mg/week back then, I'd probably have landed at the same numbers I already produce on my own — maybe even beneath them. Response to exogenous hormones varies from person to person, but a rough guideline is that 100 mg/week tends to put most men somewhere in the 700–900 ng/dL range.
Nobody should be pinning anything before getting full bloodwork. Handing out a cookie-cutter TRT dose without knowing where someone starts is guesswork, not medicine.
DrPEPr said:
miameow said:
At 38 you've still got plenty of runway, so if cost isn't a concern, secretagogues could be worth a shot — tesa in particular as a starting point. Personally I ran CJC no dac alongside Ipa, and honestly the ipa gave me nothing except intense hunger, even though I was already on a fairly hefty reta dose. Compared to any secretagogue, HGH is in a completely different league, though the difference hits harder when your igf is genuinely low and/or you're simply older.
That said, muscle growth isn't something any of these will deliver. What they can do is help you lean out and make the muscle you already have stand out more.
Well... men typically live to about 76 on average, so by that math he's already at the midpoint (coming from someone who's 46yo
)
Tattoo85 said:
jimmyjames01 said:
Besides going the route of strong anabolic steroids (though I am also attempting to start Trt, which would likewise only be a microdose), what other options might be superior? Cost is not a concern
When you say micro dosing, are you talking about standard TRT instead of "TRT+"? I wouldn't go below a TRT dose and take the chance of suppressing my own natural production.
For my weekly testosterone enanthate intake, I'm aiming for 140 - 150mg, and I'll inject 20mg each day—that's the microdosing approach I was referring to.
Right, that's what @Gr33dyOctopus was getting at — split dosing.
Have you gotten any labs done to check your current hormone panel (test as well as gh/igf1)?
My point is that pinning just 140-150 per week could leave you with the same test level you already have — maybe even lower. (I've seen numbers land between 600 - 900 on those amounts). In other words, you'd be disrupting your endocrine system for nothing.
And another thing...
2 years of gym time still puts you in beginner territory, with a ton of 'n00bGainz' left to tap. There's zero reason to bring in any compounds for muscle growth at this stage.
What I'd suggest:
Stay 'natty' and really commit for another 2-3 years, running a solid training plan plus a few (lean)bulk and cut cycles, then reassess.
Everyone has their own view, but that reasoning doesn't line up with what my RS and the people close to them have actually gone through. When your T isn't naturally where it should be and you're getting close to 40, even a modest weekly T dose of 140-150 can lift your levels by 2x or even 3x. Add in naturally low igf1 and your progress gets held back no matter what protocol you follow. Boosting your T output is definitely a long-term commitment, yet small amounts of supplementation won't wreck your endocrine system nearly as badly as mainstream media makes it sound. Going all in with huge doses is where you're playing with fire, but this whole thing is about optimization, and trt plus tesa can genuinely get your hormones dialed in. In my book, 2 years of serious effort isn't really a beginner either; I've watched people go from 0 to hero in that same stretch. Just my 2c
What cable news has to do with endocrinology, I genuinely don't know, but the physiology is not up for debate:
any dose of exogenous testosterone shuts the HPTA (Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Gonadal Axis) down completely. Natural output goes to zero whether the injection is 1 mg or 5000 mg.
What
is accurate is that genuine TRT dosing — restoring levels inside normal physiological bounds — has a health and safety profile that looks nothing like supraphysiological dosing ("blasting"). Shutdown, however, happens either way.
DrPEPr said:
miameow said:
At 38 you've still got plenty of runway, so if cost isn't a concern, secretagogues could be worth a shot — tesa in particular as a starting point. Personally I ran CJC no dac alongside Ipa, and honestly the ipa gave me nothing except intense hunger, even though I was already on a fairly hefty reta dose. Compared to any secretagogue, HGH is in a completely different league, though the difference hits harder when your igf is genuinely low and/or you're simply older.
That said, muscle growth isn't something any of these will deliver. What they can do is help you lean out and make the muscle you already have stand out more.
Well... men typically live to about 76 on average, so by that math he's already at the midpoint (coming from someone who's 46yo
)
Tattoo85 said:
jimmyjames01 said:
Besides going the route of strong anabolic steroids (though I am also attempting to start Trt, which would likewise only be a microdose), what other options might be superior? Cost is not a concern
When you say micro dosing, are you talking about standard TRT instead of "TRT+"? I wouldn't go below a TRT dose and take the chance of suppressing my own natural production.
For my weekly testosterone enanthate intake, I'm aiming for 140 - 150mg, and I'll inject 20mg each day—that's the microdosing approach I was referring to.
Right, that's what @Gr33dyOctopus was getting at — split dosing.
Have you gotten any labs done to check your current hormone panel (test as well as gh/igf1)?
My point is that pinning just 140-150 per week could leave you with the same test level you already have — maybe even lower. (I've seen numbers land between 600 - 900 on those amounts). In other words, you'd be disrupting your endocrine system for nothing.
And another thing...
2 years of gym time still puts you in beginner territory, with a ton of 'n00bGainz' left to tap. There's zero reason to bring in any compounds for muscle growth at this stage.
What I'd suggest:
Stay 'natty' and really commit for another 2-3 years, running a solid training plan plus a few (lean)bulk and cut cycles, then reassess.
Everyone has their own view, but that reasoning doesn't line up with what my RS and the people close to them have actually gone through. When your T isn't naturally where it should be and you're getting close to 40, even a modest weekly T dose of 140-150 can lift your levels by 2x or even 3x. Add in naturally low igf1 and your progress gets held back no matter what protocol you follow. Boosting your T output is definitely a long-term commitment, yet small amounts of supplementation won't wreck your endocrine system nearly as badly as mainstream media makes it sound. Going all in with huge doses is where you're playing with fire, but this whole thing is about optimization, and trt plus tesa can genuinely get your hormones dialed in. In my book, 2 years of serious effort isn't really a beginner either; I've watched people go from 0 to hero in that same stretch. Just my 2c
Two separate ideas are being mixed together here.
Sure, a novice who cleans up a disastrous lifestyle and stays disciplined with food and training for two years will show a dramatic visual change ("zero to hero").
That said, when we're talking about progressive overload and physical adaptation, two years of consistent lifting still falls well inside the "newbie gains" window, which can keep producing results for as long as 3 to 5 years. Call the OP "intermediate" if you want to argue labels, but hitting a wall at the 2-year point is essentially never a hormonal ceiling demanding clinical help. The far more probable culprit is a weak link in training intensity, volume, or calorie intake — something a sensible program tweak resolves without much trouble.
@jimmyjames01 Running anabolics is your decision to make (your body, your rules). My suggestion, though, is to call it what it is — a cycle — instead of dressing it up as TRT. Merely matching the testosterone you already make naturally gets you nowhere.
Step one: get a full hormone panel done. If nothing is flagged, begin with testosterone alone at a moderate dose (200–250 mg, for example) and observe how you respond. Then repeat bloodwork 3 to 4 weeks in to review your markers and see how your body is handling it (especially whether you aromatize heavily or run into other sides).
I strongly suggest splitting the dose (3 to 4 micro-injections weekly) instead of one big weekly shot, since that keeps serum levels far steadier and blunts estrogen spikes.
Whatever route you take, I'm rooting for you.
