Offseason Oral Peds for Men
by Andrew Berry on June 14, 2024Last month I discussed female offseason PED compounds. This month, I’m going to focus on male oral PED use and how I tend to use orals in the offseason- if at all.
I say “if at all” because out of the plethora of compounds we have at our disposal ranging from injectables, insulin, GH, IGF-1 and others, orals are probably the last thing I like to consider adding in. Here are the primary reasons why.
- Orals tend to disrupt the appetite and digestion, primarily taking the appetite away. The last thing we want during a blast or push up phase is to lose the ability to eat regularly.
- Secondarily, orals tend to have more of a cosmetic effect on the physique which is why we rely on them more heavily in the later stages of a contest prep when the layers of fat are stripped off. I can tell you that there have been many times when I looked vastly different in a matter of hours just from adding a dose of anavar or winstrol in.
- Lastly, orals tend to have a quicker negative effect on health parameters ranging from blood pressure increases to liver health deteriorating. It makes sense right. anything taken orally, has a first pass metabolism through the liver. When you are already slamming food, additional liver stress is not something you want.
Years ago, when I first started bodybuilding, it seemed like all the early cycle advice included recommendations to add in Dianabol. A typical cycle might be 500 mg of testosterone per week and 40-100 mg of DBOL per day. I understand why it was recommended… first, in the early 2000’s it was rather hard to get your hands on quality steroids and DBOL was one of those compounds you could get rather easily. I remember getting an email address from a guy that knew a guy and putting my order in and then putting cash in a cd case and shipping it across the country, praying that the guy wasn’t a scammer and that something, anything resembling an anabolic would show up 3-4 weeks later. Today, we all have it easy. It’s like one step below amazon prime ordering comparatively. But anyway, back then, let’s just say the menu was limited so you ordered what the guy had.
Additionally, there just wasn’t a lot of information or anecdotal experiences to read about online regarding compounds, approaches and protocols, health parameters to watch etc.… Today we have coaches’ experiences, YouTube videos about individual compounds, books, websites like mountaindogdiet.com and many other resources to learn from. Most of my knowledge in those days came from message boards.
Anyway, back to oral offseason PED use… I primarily only like to run Anadrol with guys in the offseason. I think the around the clock pumps are amazing, the strength boost is solid and it’s a great way to pack on some pounds quickly. I mentioned before that orals can seriously affect your appetite and Anadrol is no slouch in that department. Because of this, I typically recommend it in 10-14 days bursts at 50-150 mg doses per day. Most guys will start to seriously complain after 1.5-2 weeks of using Anadrol at 100 mg a day and my advice in check ins is to pull it the minute they wake up and have no desire to eat their first meal.
Now, the crazy thing is that often guys will report that despite missing a meal here and then during the tail end of an Anadrol run, they keep gaining weight. It’s not unheard of to gain 8 pounds in a week for some people. If you are new to Anadrol, you do not need to jump to 150 mg right out of the gate. See what 50 mg a day does for you. I would split whatever dose you end up taking to twice a day, taken first thing in the morning and again 6 hours later. If you can’t gain some quality size and strength quickly from Anadrol, its either fake, or you have some of the worst genetics possible. I might run two to four, 10–14-day Anadrol bursts in someone’s cycle but there isn’t necessarily an organization to it. I would probably start out of the gate or in the early stages of an injectable cycle and then wait to add it back in again based on feel. What would the variables be that I would consider adding it back in again? First, I would like to be sure appetite and digestion are running well. I don’t want to add a negative variable to the mix if it can be avoided. The other thing I might look for is a spot where someone is getting stuck at a particular bodyweight. I could keep pushing food, but the chances are I have already been doing that and I don’t want to lose insulin sensitivity or ruin the appetite. There isn’t a clear-cut example of when to layer an oral like Anadrol in which is one of the many reasons I always say that bodybuilding is one part science and one part “feel.”
I do have another way I like to use Anadrol. Let’s say the athlete has a weak body part. Either in terms of strength, or visually compared to the rest of the physique, or both. I might layer it in on this training day only. Or perhaps there are several body parts that we are looking to bring up and I might use it like this twice a week doing 100-150 mg spaced throughout the day. Using it in this method, I am more comfortable stacking it throughout the length of good chunk of the cycle.
Extra: Let’s say you are looking to hit a PR on a lift or maybe just get back over a hump that has been haunting you for several weeks or months. First, assess that the issue isn’t form, sympathetic fatigue, or some other reason. Once you have determined that it’s not any controllable variable, you can layer in Anadrol with Halotestin around 20-30 mg. I like to save this for only a few times a year to make sure the systolic blood pressure doesn’t hit 180. But about 2 hours before your workout, do 50-100 mg of Anadrol with 20-30 mg of Halotestin and then count the minutes down until you get to unleash some fury. Many clients in bodybuilding, powerlifting and strongman have hit new PR’s or rep PR’s using this strategy but again, I want to caution against using too frequently.
Those are usually my go to orals. Sometimes, clients like to use Anavar or Winstrol as part of their offseason cycle, and often I oblige based on their desire, they are just not my go to orals of choice.
Andrew is a strength coach and nutritionist in the South Burlington, Vermont area. Andrew has worked with John closely for several years and knows the ins and outs of the Mountain Dog philosophy and is an integral part of the team.