Finding a PhD candidate in pharmaceutical science isn't all that hard. There are hundreds of them working around the country, mostly in the white, sterile, back rooms of drug company giants. Finding one, however, who's interested in all the chemicals and drugs that bodybuilders and strength athletes find so spay-shul is a little harder? why, you could count them on one hand — a hand that was involved in a horrible chemical accident and lost a couple of fingers in the process.

Luckily, we've got one of those mangled digits working with us. His name is Bill Roberts, and you may have read our two-part interview that was posted on the site earlier this year.

Bill's agreed to start writing a Q&A column for us, and although he might handle some of the same ground as Brock Strasser occasionally, it's always cool to get a second opinion, especially since Bill's area of specialization is delivery systems and drug design.

Whadda' say we reschedule the drug test for next week?

Q: Was wondering if you could help me with a few points regarding clearance times for some "supplements." If a guy was going to take Testosterone enanthate at around 200 mg a week for 6 weeks, how close could he do this to a competition and test clean?

Also, if this same person was going to be tested randomly and possibly rung up at home for some out-of-season testing, is it possible to still occasionally take some Testosterone in small amounts and be reasonably confident of passing that friggin' test?

The Ripped One

A: Testosterone enanthate has a half-life of 5 or 6 days. Let's say it's six days to be conservative. This means that six days later, half of what you injected will still be present, and twelve days later, one quarter of it will be present, etc.

So, if you're using T enanthate at the 200 mg/week level, 6 days will get you down to the 100 mg/week level, and 12 days will get you down to the 50 mg/week level. Your T levels will certainly not be too high to pass the test at this point. If your natural Testosterone production is restored, then you'll also be producing enough epitestosterone to be able to pass the ratio test. With this timing scheme, there are no worries.

If, however, you'd been using 400 mg/week, you'd need another six days of clearance, or if you used 800 mg/week, you'd need yet another six days clearance to be certain. These values are conservative.

Often, it isn't necessary to let levels drop all the way to the 50 mg/week level. You could save time by taking the test when at the 100 mg/week level, and this is usually low enough to pass. But if you're clean at the time of the competition, it really doesn't make a significant difference to your condition whether you came off a few days earlier or not (providing your natural T levels are good), so why risk pushing it that close?

All of this doesn't apply to steroids that aren't naturally present in the body. For them, you have to wait until levels are far, far lower than this. They can take dozens of half-lives before being undetectable.

Let's say, however, that you want to use something continuously, even while facing the possibility of a random drug test. If you can keep your natural Testosterone production up, for example with Clomid or HCG (if HCG is not being tested), you could get away with at least 50 mg/week of added injectable Testosterone. Many athletes, in fact, are able to get away with 100 mg/week. I am not advocating cheating, but ideally one would monitor results with self-tests. Without self tests, you're shooting in the dark.

Dianabol and Anavar, Good Dance Partners?

Q: Would d-bol and Anavar (oxandrolone) work well together as in an oral stack?

Dave

A: I haven't tried that particular combination, except in tapers, where it's worked well. Even so, I'd think that these steroids would stack well for gaining mass since Anadrol definitely stacks synergistically with oxandrolone, and I've found Dianabol and Anadrol to be very similar in their action as androgens.

By synergistically, I mean that, for example, 75 mg/day each of oxandrolone and Anadrol are much more effective than 150 mg/week of either by itself, even though the total amount of steroid is the same. In this particular case, the difference is pretty dramatic.

Something to remember with oxandrolone, though, is that there's no miracle regarding its effectiveness per milligram. No commonly-available steroid does a great deal for a male athlete at doses much less than 200 mg/week, and it usually takes 500-1000 mg/week to get a pretty strong effect. Thirty milligrams per day of oxandrolone is actually a pretty small amount of steroid (210 mg/week) and it gives results that are reasonable for that low a dosage. It's not weak per milligram, but it's often incorrectly called weak simply because people tend to take small, or weak amounts.

It's really not a cost-effective drug for the male athlete or bodybuilder though, unless bulk powder is used. Even then it tends to be expensive.

Primobolan injectable would be a far more cost-effective choice. For the price of a small amount of oxandrolone, you could be using 400-1000 mg of Primo per week, and you'd get more results with less toxicity.

It's a commonly held notion that oxandrolone has no liver toxicity is, but that's incorrect.

Nor-4-AD vs. Nor-5-AD, a Don King Production

Q: I remember Dan Duchaine seemed to think 19-nor-5-androstenediol was a better product than 19-nor-4-androstenediol, at least with injectables, which bypass the liver. Which prohormone will you be using in Nandrosol and why?

Jason

A: Dan liked estrogenic steroids. He liked methandriol, which is quite estrogenic, and he also felt that the high estradiol levels experienced from aromatizing steroids might help gains. For cattle, it's certainly true that estrogens plus androgens give more weight gain than androgens alone, but with bodybuilders, I don't care for the side effects. Beyond that, it's just not necessary.

In fact, I've seen athletes gain 15 lb of LBM (retained) in two weeks while using antiestrogens, and many competitive bodybuilders use antiestrogens throughout their cycles with excellent results. Generally, normal body levels of estrogen are clearly sufficient and you don't need to take estrogenic or aromatizing steroids to make optimal gains.

As far as nor-4-AD and nor-5-AD, my guess is that nor-5-AD is estrogenic, because 5-AD itself is estrogenic and removing the 19 methyl is structurally going to make it even more similar to an estrogen. I don't have specific data proving that, though. Nor-4-AD is certainly the far more proven product, and that's the nordiol that will be used in Nandrosol.

The Clenbuterol and Cytomel Diet for Rugby Players

Q: I am 5'7", 230 lb and about 20% body fat. Yup, definetely a fat bastard, but nonetheless, I've been training for about 5 years now. I'm just one of those guys that when you look at him, you can't believe that he actually weighs what he says, but it's true. I have a lot of strength, and since I'm training for rugby that's what I'm aiming for. However, I'm ready to shed some fat so I can be more mobile before season starts.

In season I'm usually a solid 200, but I've fallen out of shape about the same "distance" as a pile of trash dropped from the tenth floor of a project in the Bowery. I have decided to try a Clen/Cytomel cycle and was wondering what kind of diet I should follow. My source insists I should be able to lose around 6-8 lbs a week on the cycle he's selling me.

My training is usually 6 days a week, 10 times a week with 4/5 weekdays doing morning routines that involve some cardio. My question is this, should I follow his advice? Or do you have something better? I know what you're probably going to say? try and lose it without the drugs or with some MD6... I know. I'm not making this a lifestyle, but rather a push over the speedbump. If you could outline a rough diet and cardio routine I would appreciate it a lot.

Here is my cycle:

Both Clen and Cytomel, start with 1 tab per day, then increase an extra tab every day until 5 tabs per day. The Clen tapers back down the same way every 2 weeks, and thyroid tapers down at 6 weeks.

Ultimate Rugger

A: Your clenbuterol program is pretty reasonable, though it isn't necessary to cycle down as your source is recommending. Levels naturally taper down — once you stop taking it — due to the long half-life of clenbuterol.

You may find that using ephedrine in the off days will help you a great deal, too — otherwise, you may lack energy due to downregulated beta receptors.

I'd also like to see lower thyroid doses than most other people are arguing. Brock Strasser tells me about guys who have theories that involve taking one mcg/day for every pound of bodyweight, so a 200-lb guy would be taking 200 mcg/day, or 8 tabs.

I don't think much of those doses. These guys are in the flat part of the dose-response curve for sure. I mean, a full replacement dose is only 25 mcg.

What you have to consider is whether taking 200 mcg/day gives 8 times the extra fat loss of 25 mcg/day, in effect causing the user to lose an extra 8-16 lb per week instead of an extra one or two? No, and it doesn't give four times the results either, or even twice the results. The dose response curve has flattened out long before reaching this dosage level.

Fifty mcg/day will cause somewhat more fat loss than 25 mcg, though it may be bothersome for many users and will shut down natural thyroid production almost completely. Seventy-five mcg/day will enhance the effect slightly, but beyond that, the curve's pretty much flat.

Personally, I radically advocate going in the opposite direction — I like to see doses as low as 12.5 mcg/day. Here, natural thyroid production isn't reduced much. You get most of the benefits, and almost none of the adverse effect. Using this dosage, you should be able to lose 3 lb of fat per week, or close to it, with no problem? if all else in the diet and exercise program is good.

Taking the 12.5 mcg/day dose level actually results in about 50 mcg of drug in your system, because T3 (Cytomel) has a long half life and your system doesn't contain just the amount you took today, but also about three times more than that left over from previous days. For this reason, I'd take a 50 mcg loading dose the first day (if I knew I handled T3 well), and then maintain that level with 12.5 mcg/day after that. If it were my first use, though, I'd let levels build up slowly instead of taking the loading dose.

If you want to lose fat faster than 2-3 lb per week, expect to lose LBM and expect it to be a brief crash program, like Brock's Fit Fast Diet. You could, of course, crash off 10 lb or so in the first week, but most of it would be water and glycogen loss. Sustaining a fat loss of 6-8 lb week after that, as your friend says you can do, isn't realistic.

Since strength is important to you, I'd keep calories up — 12 cal/lb/day, figuring your desired weight is 200 lb, so for you, that equals 2400 calories. Keep protein up, and either use an isocaloric diet or a cyclical or targeted ketogenic diet. I'd definitely do far less aerobics than mentioned, no more than 2 hours per week. Keep protein up to at least 200 g/day. MD6, added caffeine, and optionally added ephedrine will help. Don't combine the MD6 with the clenbuterol, though. That could be a very bad mistake, since both the clenbuterol and the yohimbine in MD6 have some action on the heart.

Keeping androgen levels up or elevated above normal would help greatly, especially when using thyroid hormone — use of the substance tends to cause a lot of LBM losses if androgens aren't used.

Clomid for Life

Q: I have a question about the drug Clomid. It seems a good way to boost T levels. This seems much better to me than introducing a foreign substance into the body that will eventually shut down the testes' natural production of T. As men age, 50 mg/day for extended periods seem to be ideal to boost flagging T levels and increase one's quality of life.

Since Clomid is not a controlled substance — as anabolic steroids are — and with the U.S. law stating that a person may buy 90 day's worth of a drug for personal use, will a person break US law by buying Clomid from an overseas pharmacy?

Rich

A: It's definitely legal for you to import Clomid for personal use.

Clomid is one of the safer prescription drugs available, but I wouldn't assume that it's necessarily quite as ideal as you are thinking. For one thing, it isn't known whether Clomid acts as an estrogen or as an antiestrogen in the prostate. If it acts as an estrogen, it might be very inappropriate for older men.

Clomid is chemically very similar to tamoxifen, and tamoxifen is reasonably safe for use over a period of a decade or more, yet there's evidence that it may sometimes induce resistance to its own effect. Perhaps Clomid has the same problem. Its safety in men has been shown for periods of up to a year, but not for lifetime replacement therapy.

I think it's an excellent drug for athletes as part of a cycled plan, but I am not sure it is the best idea to be on it 365 days a year for the rest of one's life. I'd look at other ways of keeping Testosterone up, and perhaps just use Clomid as part of a cycled program.

Making gains out of thin air

Q: I'm about to do a cycle. If I can, I want to stack 400 or more mg/week of Primobolan depot with Androsol and get really good results, or if I can't get a hold of any Primobolan, I'll start with just the Androsol for my first one. I'll be happy with 5 lb of retained muscle mass and it sounds like I can get that.

But what do I have to do to make sure I don't blow it and miss these gains?

Rick

A: The best way to ruin a cycle — whether it's Androsol-only or a full blown steroid cycle — is to fail to take in enough extra calories and protein to support muscular growth. Muscle simply can't grow out of thin air, and the body cannot convert fat stores to muscle protein. The protein must come from your diet.

One gram of protein per lb of bodyweight per day is a good maintenance level for the weight-training athlete. If you want to grow, the needed protein should come from amounts above and beyond this.

The body doesn't have 100% efficiency in converting either dietary protein to muscle or in converting caloric energy to muscle, and my observations are that about 240 grams of protein and close to 2000 calories are needed for each pound of muscle added.

So if you want to gain 5 lbs of muscle during your cycle, plan on eating at least 1200 grams of protein above and beyond the maintenance figure, and nearly 10,000 calories, certainly at least 7500 calories, over your usual maintenance. Carbs should be reasonably high, at least as high as protein, and fat doesn't have to be very high, but should include both saturated fats and essential fatty acids.

A good training program is a must, and it's certainly possible to choose the wrong time for the steroid use. For example, if you've been training heavy for the last 10 weeks and you've stalled out, more of the same kind of training, even with steroids, is quite likely going to give you much less gains than you might experience if you recouped, dropped the weights down to a lighter rep range, and then built up over a couple of weeks before starting the steroid cycle. Obviously, there are a lot of great training programs available. Check out Ian King's articles in particular.

You also want to make sure that you get a lot of quality rest and that you're not presently undergoing a disastrously stressful time in your life. If you are, again, you can expect gains to be greatly compromised.

Good luck! I think you should easily meet your goal, or even surpass it.

Orally active? That's no way to talk about my sister!

Q: I have two questions that have stumped me, given the resources in my area.

1) If a "product" contains acetate, would that mean it is designed to be suspended in sterile water? And if it did contain acetate, is that what makes the product faster acting?

2) Is "orally active" (for the most part) defined by the addition of a methyl group at the 17 position?

Thanks

MM

A: The name of the ester — for example, acetate, propionate, or enanthate — tells you how long a chain of carbons is in the ester. The longer the chain, the more the steroid ester tends to be dissolved in fat instead of water. This keeps it out of blood circulation a higher percentage of the time, and therefore the steroid is slower and longer acting.

Acetate is the shortest ester, and the half-life will be several days shorter than for an enanthate ester.

Generally speaking, acetate esters will be much more soluble in oil than in water. The only acetate esters of significance today are, I think, trenbolone acetate, which can be put into oil solution, but not water solution, and methenolone acetate (Primobolan acetate), which is not available as an injectable presently (only as an oral).

As far as oral bioavailability, your assumption is, for the most part, correct. Without a 17-alkyl group (alkyl can be methyl or a few other things), oral bioavailability is usually low. However, steroids that have a methyl in the 1-position can have partial oral bioavailability. Primobolan and Proviron are examples of such steroids.

By the way, the existence of a methyl group at the 17-position winds up changing the shape of the entire molecule: it's not just a small change in one part of the molecule. (Chemistry fanatics might want to know the reason: it's because the 17-alpha position is pseudo-axial and therefore substitution to this position induces a conformational change to make it closer to equatorial. Non-chemistry-fanatics can completely ignore this side note with no loss of quality of life whatsoever!)

So when people say, for example, that boldenone (Equipoise) is just like Dianabol except for the lack of the 17-methyl, that's true technically, but the molecules have such different shapes that the body won't necessarily metabolize them in the same way; nor will binding to receptors necessarily be similar.

Putting the methyl on the 17-position doesn't just give you oral bioavailability, it really gives you a whole new steroid.

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