pct explained

[musclehustle]

i hijacked this post from anthon roberts but is still a excellent read
hope this helps had to break it up to fit

After a cycle, we have one goal: to hold onto the gains we made during the cycle. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done, because the levels of various hormones and other substances that were circulating around your body during the cycle (huge amounts of testosterone, insulin-like growth factor, growth hormone, and lower amounts of muscle-wasting glucocorticoids) are now changing. Sadly, they are making way for lower amounts of the hormones we want for building muscle, and higher amounts of the catabolic ones. What needs to be done, as quickly as possible, is to get your body to begin production of your own natural anabolic hormones, and produce less of the catabolic ones. Unfortunately, your body has other plans.

But then, so do I?
?and I?m very confident that this protocol will allow you to recover your own natural hormonal levels quickly and lose far less of the gains you worked so hard for on the cycle. This protocol, which is typically implemented after a cycle is called ?Post Cycle Therapy? or ?PCT? for short.

First, I?m going to tell you what anabolic hormones are typically low when a cycle ends, and which catabolic ones are high, then I?ll tell you what drugs can change that condition as fast as possible. Is all of this necessary? No, not at all. You can skip to the end of the article and look for a little chart I made - the extent of my computer skill - which has all of the dosage recommendations and compounds involved to properly recover from your cycle. I think, however, that you?ll see some very odd recommendations if you simply skip to the end, and will find yourself reading through the whole article to find out where they came from - or maybe you?ll just try to find out what?s gotten into me?

I?m not re-inventing the wheel here, and you may have seen a piece of this information elsewhere (possibly in something I?ve written, possibly somewhere else on the internet or in a magazine), but I?m sure of two things:

You?ve never seen this PCT protocol anywhere
This is the most effective PCT you?ll ever see
First, I?ll give you a brief explanation on the body and how it works, and why there?s a lag-time after the cessation of Anabolic Steroids before the body returns to normal. Remember, during this lag-time you lose gains, so we really need to make it as short as possible. First, we need to understand a bit of what is going on in your body, what causes it to happen naturally, and what hormones are performing what function. Don?t worry, I?ll try to make it painless.

At the age of puberty, Gonadatropin Releasing Hormone (GnRH) is increasingly released from the Hypothalamus, in turn causing the secretion of Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH) and Luetenizing Hormone (LH) from the pituitary, and finally the male gonads (testes) are then stimulated by those pituitary hormones (LH and FSH). (1). FSH, although generally thought to only have a role in production of sperm, actually aids the in regulation of Leydig Cell function (2), while LH directly causes the Leydig Cells in the testes to secrete androgenic hormones such as testosterone (which is causes a surge in other anabolic hormones: Insulin Like Growth Factor, Growth Hormone, etc?). Androgens do this by then targeting other tissues inside the body, either by attaching to the Androgen Receptors (AR), which are found primarily in the cytoplasm of specific cells, or by what?s known as non-receptor mediated effects. When an androgen (your own natural testosterone or an anabolic steroid you?ve injected or ingested) binds to a receptor inside the cell, it activates the transcription of specific genes. What does this mean? Don?t worry, it just means that the steroid molecule gives the cell a message to do something. In the case of testosterone, for example, one of the messages it sends to the cell is to increase nitrogen retention in your body, thus allowing you to use more of the protein you take in, and build more muscle. In the case of testosterone (or anabolic steroids in general), this transcription causes a lot of different anabolic effects to take place: an increase in IGF, a decrease in cortisol, an increase in Red Blood Cell count, and the increased protein synthesis I already told you about. This is not to say that AR binding is the only thing that causes anabolic or androgenic effects, however. Oxymetholone and Methandrostenolone (Anadrol and Dianabol) both bind very weakly to the AR yet are both highly anabolic and androgenic. The diagram below is an example of an androgen?s entry into a target cell, where it (in this case) stimulates protein synthesis, which is a major anabolic effect:





Under the control of this heightened state of androgens, you also go through androgenic development as well as anabolic development. This can be seen in puberty when males grow body hair experience voice changes, as experience genital development and growth.

Another characteristic of androgens in the body is that they are subject to what?s known as a ?negative feedback loop?. Lets review one of the first things I mentioned, ok? Your Hypothalamus secretes GnRH, thus making the pituitary secrete LH & FSH, finally in turn causing the testes to stimulate the Leydig cells to produce testosterone (by conversion of cholesterol), remember? Ok, now, once testosterone is created however, it has the ability to in turn to undergo various metabolic processes that will inhibit GnRH, which in turn inhibits the secretion of LH and FSH, and that brings a halt to natural testosterone production. Once testosterone has stopped being produced, it no longer sends this negative signal, and GnRH eventually begins to do its job again. In this way, your body prevents excess hormones from being secreted and thus maintaining homeostasis (the status quo? in this case a state where you are neither gaining nor losing muscle) (1). This negative feedback loop is partially why we use anabolic steroids?we want more testosterone for anabolic purposes (or more Anavar or whatever) than our body will let us produce (not that our bodies produce Anavar, but you get the idea). When we use that injectable testosterone, it sends the message to our body to begin the negative feedback loop and discontinue producing/secreting the hormones that cause our natural testosterone production. The chart below clearly shows this process, displaying both the negative and positive feedback system(s):