At Rx Muscle, we pride ourselves on providing readers with an honest insider's view of all aspects of weight training - nutrition, training, supplementation and pharmaceutical usage. When it comes to athletic drug use, Dave Palumbo provides in-depth knowledge of the science behind proper therapy. John Romano does an unrivaled job of exposing the socio-cultural and legal implications of the subject. With these two areas covered, I decided to share the behind-the-scenes real world views by top athletes, explaining their introduction to anabolic use, what worked (or didn't) for them, and what type of benefits and risks they encountered.
Yesterday, I was checking out Steroid-Rx.com, and the idea of Anabolic and Androgenic scores came up in this thread. And frankly, all over the Internet, I see people posting tables and lists with various anabolic and androgenic scores (presumably compiled from the profiles I wrote for Steroid.com). These scores are comforting, because they assign a numerical value to the differing properties of various anabolic steroids - but they are almost totally misleading, to be honest. I put them in my first book because I thought that they were important, I put them in my second book because I thought people wanted to see them, and the current profiles I'm writing (for a site-yet-to-be-named) don't have them at all - and for good reason.
I recently had the opportunity to speak with a South African doctor about Post Cycle Therapy (PCT) for steroid users coming off of a cycle. My previous thoughts on this topic are probably the most widely published PCT on the internet, but I’m always looking for more information on the topic. It’s a very poorly researched area, and although I think Dr. Michael Scally’s take on this topic is interesting, I can’t help but realize that he has a huge vested financial interest in his PCT program (and as a result, uses exclusively drugs on which the patent has expired).
PROFILE: ANDRIOL (Testosterone Undecanoate)
Andriol represents a very unique approach to testosterone administration. It's the first real attempt to create an oral testosterone since Methyl Testosterone. It's also a viable alternative to injectable testosterone and other oral forms of test (which are often very harsh on the liver).
Anabolic Steroids are derivatives of the male hormone testosterone and, as such, they exert their effects on many testosterone sensitive tissues within the body. This includes reproductive tissues, muscle, bone, hair follicles, liver, kidneys, white and red blood cells and brain. These effects fall under two classifications:
If you're like me, you learned about the Declaration of Independence when you were in grade school-if not, that's the thing that says, "All men are created equal." You then went out into the schoolyard for recess, and for some reason, maybe you couldn't run as fast as some of your classmates. Perhaps you couldn't jump as high, or throw a ball as far. All men created equal? Bah! What a load of garbage!
If you have used oral steroids you will no doubt be familiar with the term c-17-alpha alkylated. This refers to the chemical alteration that enables the steroid to survive the first pass through the liver - allowing nearly all of the drug to enter the bloodstream. Now, while this is good on paper, the fact is that prolonged exposure to c-17-alpha alkylated drugs (which most orals are) can put a serious strain on the liver. It is for this reason that oral cycles should be restricted in length (usually less than 8 weeks) and liver enzyme values should be kept in check via blood work.
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