By Dan Gwartney, M.D.

Testosterone Undecanoate: Big Gains or Big Pain?

Nearly every recreational user of anabolic steroids (AAS) accepts the legal and health risks in order to improve his quality of life— a more impressive physique, greater confidence, or a competitive edge. Yet, despite the tangible benefits conferred by AAS, there are a number of pains that users face.

In the practice of pharmacy, compliance is a major issue that determines the success of a drug treatment. Compliance means the patient following directions. To combat the habit of noncompliance, drug therapies are designed to be as effortless as possible. Thus, most oral drugs are once-daily; imagine the consequences of failing to take birth control as scheduled.

by Jose Antonio, Ph.D.

Acute Testosterone With Training

You've heard the idea that certain types of workout regimens will induce marked increases in the anabolic hormones, such as testosterone, GH and IGF-1. And that by doing these exercises(i.e. following the particular rep-set-rest interval schemes), you'll havegreater gains in muscle mass vis a vis the changes in anabolic hormones. Here's an intriguing study that lookedinto just that notion. Twelve healthy young men (22 yr old) trained their elbowflexors (biceps, brachialis) independently for 15 weeks on separate days andunder different hormonal milieu. Ilike that word, milieu. In onetraining regimen, participants performed isolated arm curl exercise designed tomaintain basal hormone concentrations (low hormone, LH); in the other trainingcondition, participants performed identical arm exercise to the LH conditionfollowed immediately by a high volume of leg resistance exercise to elicit alarge increase in endogenous hormones (high hormone, HH). And they found thatthere was no elevation in serum growth hormone (GH), insulin-like growth factor(IGF-1), or testosterone after the LH protocol but significant increases inthese hormones immediately and 15 and 30 minutes after the HH protocol. Thehormone responses elicited by each respective exercise protocol late in thetraining period were similar to the response elicited early in the trainingperiod, indicating that a divergent postexercise hormone response wasmaintained over the training period.