GH Cycling for Beginners
By: TJ
You’ve decided to take the plunge (pun intended) and finally try Growth Hormone. Wonderful, the benefits are wide and often remarkable, depending on what your goals with it are. If you’re a weightlifter, and since this article is being written for weightlifters and your reading it, I’m going to assume your goals are either to add muscle mass, to lose body fat or both. That’s great because GH when used correctly can easily accomplish both. But how it’s used and what it’s used with will greatly impact how well it does its job so before we dig in with the actual nuts and bolts of your cycle let’s recap a little on what exactly GH is and does.
Growth Hormone is a 191-amino acid, single chain polypeptide hormone (wow that’s a mouth full), let’s just say it’s a combination of amino acids arranged in a specific order to make up a hormone. Prior to 1985 it was harvested from cadavers (dead people), now it is constructed in a lab. GH is involved in over 500 different hormonal processes such as reproduction, fat burning, regulating basal body temperature, reducing insulin sensitivity, stimulating the immune system, hair and nail growth, bone growth and most importantly for lifters muscle growth, including many, many others. Of note though, the most noticeable effect reported from using GH is an increase in overall well being, that is the user reports feeling great overall without it being isolated to one body part. In some cases they say they feel 20 years younger, not bad from a simple daily injection right? Again though for the sake of this article we’ll concentrate on the muscle gains and fat burning. With that in mind let’s jump into a couple cycle options.
GH Cycle Option 1: Daily Injections
So what exactly constitutes the “correct” GH cycle? Well that’s a good question, since there are an infinite number of ways to take any chemical what usually gets passed off as the “correct” way is often just the most common. That doesn’t always mean it’s the best or most efficient way of doing things, just the most common. The 1st cycle we will discuss is the old standby, which is the daily injections method. This method has been used since the 70’s when athletes started experimenting with GH. Assuming your GH is of good quality and has been stored and shipped correctly there need not be any reason for you to use more than 4iu/day, most users of higher dosages do so because their GH has degraded somewhere along the line. I know I’m going to take flack on this from more experienced GH users but this article is be written for beginners and users with little GH experience and for those users the total dosage doesn’t need to be any higher, anything more will be a waste and with the cost of GH what it is that’s plain madness. Most athletes that I’ve trained and counseled on the use of GH have received great results using 2-3iu/day total so 4ius is a safe bet. I always believe in starting as low as possible, you can always go up if lower dosages don’t yield the desired results, but once you’ve used a dosage going back down doesn’t work as the body gets used to a certain level and anything under that level just won’t cut it so let’s start with 4iu/day if we need to go up later you can. Below I’ve laid out a very basic GH cycle, one that should work nicely for most users.
4ius/day Growth Hormone, 2iu injected upon rising, 2iu injected immediately post-workout
500mg/week Testosterone
12.5- 25mcg/day T3
As you can see I’ve added in 2 additional chemicals that I feel are necessities to getting all you can out of your GH cycle, Testosterone and the thyroid medication T3. GH and Testosterone used together yield that much sort after synergy, that is in this case when the 2 chemicals used together yield the results of more than the 2 alone could. When you add in small amounts of T3(12.5-25mcg/day) to any steroid cycle it increases the muscle gains by increasing the absorption of protein and other nutrients, it also speeds up the metabolism just enough to start burning fat albeit small amounts at that dosage but still since the GH is building muscle and burning fat at the same time it will only enhance the results your seeking. T3 is a cheap addition that like I said will also help shed some fat while adding muscle mass, and we all know the muscle building properties of steroids like Testosterone so taken together these 3 chemicals should net you very favorable results. While you can get results from using GH by itself there is literally no comparison to the results gained by using the 3 chemicals listed above.
GH Cycle Option 2: 3/week Protocol
In recent times through experimentation lifters have discovered a new and exciting way of extracting even better results from the same amount of GH, and as an added benefit without the all too often experienced negative side effects like carpal tunnel syndrome, water retention or aching joints. This method involves taking your weekly total of GH you would use over a 7 day period, dividing it by 3 and using 1/3 post workout after 3 selected workouts each week. Now obviously the individual shots will be bigger, but because their infrequent the body doesn’t grow accustomed to them and the side effects never show. In the 2 plus years I’ve been counseling lifters on their GH usage not 1 has experienced any side effects using GH this way, yet the muscle gains and fat loss results they experience are far better than ever. I’ve had guys who couldn’t get any results from daily injects suddenly gain a solid 15lbs in 4-8 weeks by doing nothing more than switching their cycle from daily shots to the 3/week protocol. The cycle would look like this.
9-10ius GH 3 times per week, post workout, preferably IM injection
500mg/week Testosterone
12.5- 25mcg/day T3
Again you see that the 3 components are the same, GH, Testosterone and T3. The only differences between this option and option #1 is that you are doing shots only post workout and only on 3 workout days, on the “off days” you are not shooting anything. You are also only shooting your GH once that day, right after your workout, not upon rising from sleep. The idea here is to hit it hard and infrequently, causing the body to react in a favorable way and then let it rest. I can state emphatically that I haven’t had 1 person I’ve recommended this to over the past 2 plus years not be far more pleased with the results than with the daily injection method.
Conclusion
As you can see I’ve laid out what I feel are the 2 most popular methods of cycling GH, the decision is yours in which to try but I would make this recommendation to you if your goals are to gain muscle mass use the 3 times a week protocol, if fat loss is more your goal use the daily injection method. That’s said, I’ve said this a hundred times so I may as well say it again, I don’t like using GH for fat loss it’s much too expensive for the amount of fat loss you’ll experience, there are far better and cheaper chemicals you can use like T3, Clenbuterol and the ECA Stack. Also, you’ll hear of the 5 on/2 off method, that is simply the daily injection method outlined above only you skip every 6th and 7th day, this isn’t to keep things fresh in the body like with the 3 times a week protocol it’s just so you save some money by doing 5 injections a week vs. 7. If you are going to do this save a few extra dollars and to it 7 days a week don’t skimp and do it ½ way, go all the way and do it right.
One last thing, many people will tell you that you need to stack insulin with GH to get it to work, this is bull crap plain and simple. Will you get better results using Insulin, yes, but not because it makes the GH work any better but because Insulin is a very potent drug and the extra gains come from that. I’ve purposely left it out because these cycles are aimed at early users of GH and at this point Insulin shouldn’t even be considered. Save that for years from now when you are struggling to get results from the chemicals you are using now. Use it now and you won’t have anything to turn to later. Hopefully one of the cycles I’ve laid out will help you reach your goals, work hard and it will come!