sk* said:
but I still don't see why not hit the receptors hard on the first cycle to take maximum advantage.
-sk
It seems this issue will never end so it is time to provide the hard facts to prove that the body and receptors DO NOT ADAPT to AAS and that there is absolutely no validity to the statement:
"The first cycle is the best because you have never done steroids before and the body is not used to them yet"
The statement that the first cycle has the most effect is true, in my opinion, only by coincidence. More accurately, the cycle starting at the lowest muscular bodyweight will have the most effect. This may be because the closer you are to your untrained starting point, the easier it is to gain.
Let us look at the example of a person who achieved excellent development with several years of natural training and then has gained yet more size with several steroid cycles. He then quits training for a year and shrinks back almost to his original untrained state.
If he resumes training and uses steroids, will his gains be less than in his first cycle? No. So what that it may be his fifth or tenth cycle, not the first? There is no counter inside muscle cells counting off how many cycles one has done. In examples that I know of, the gains in such a cycle have been greater than in the first cycle. (No, that does not prove upregulation, but it is strong evidence against the permanent-downregulation-after-first cycle "theory.")
The greater the gains one has already made, the harder further gains are. This is true under any conditions, regardless of whether AAS are involved or not.
Thus the "first cycle" argument proves nothing with regards to AR regulation.
Anyways, here are the facts:
- There is no scientific evidence whatsoever that AR downregulation occurs in human muscle, or in any tissue, in response to above normal (supraphysiological) levels of AAS.
- Where AR downregulation in response to AAS has been seen in cell culture, these results do not apply because the downregulation is either not relative to normal androgen levels but to zero androgen, or estrogen may have been the causative factor, or assay methods inaccurate for this purpose were used, or often a combination of these problems make the results inapplicable to the issue of supraphysiological use of androgens by athletes.
- AR upregulation in response to supraphysiological levels of androgen in cell culture has repeatedly been observed in experiments using accurate assay methods and devoid of the above problems.
- AR downregulation in response to AAS does not agree with real world results obtained by bodybuilders, whereas upregulation does agree with real world results. (A neutral position, where levels in human muscle might be thought not to change in response to high levels of androgen, is not disproven however.)
- The "theoretical" arguments advanced by proponents of AR downregulation are invariably without merit.
The belief that androgen receptors downregulate (get used to or adapt) in response to androgen is one of the most unfounded and absurd concepts in bodybuilding.
Therefore, there is no need for a novice to consume a gram of ANY anabolic steroid simply for the fact that it is his first cycle and he should take advantage of it.
Both bio-chemistry and real-world experience has dispelled this long-time myth several times over.
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