Should Testosterone Always Be Used as the Base of a Steroid Cycle?

Q: “A lot of advice says testosterone must be used every cycle. But definitely some get great results without it. Does it really need to be used for best results? Why isn’t it like with most drugs, for example the NSAIDs, where any of them does the job and combining two does nothing different than taking more of one? Or does the same principle apply and you only need to use enough of any?”

A: It’s possible to have a completely effective cycle with or without testosterone.

While each person may have his own reason for believing that testosterone “must” be used, I think the main reason many believe this is because testosterone provides a complete spectrum of effect while the synthetics generally do not do so when used individually or combined inefficiently.

For example, with only testosterone 500 mg/week might be used for a moderate but reasonably-effective cycle, 750 mg/week for a stronger but still moderate one, or 1000 mg/week for an even stronger but still hardly unreasonable cycle. There’s a substantial step up in performance at each increased level. And ultimately with still larger amounts such as 2 grams per week, performance is reaching near the maximum that can be achieved with anabolic steroids alone at any dose.

With individual synthetics such as say Dianabol, Anadrol, oxandrolone, Primobolan, trenbolone, etc, no matter how much is taken alone, that maximum level of effect won’t be achieved. There’s a substantial increase in performance as dosage is increased, up to particular amounts characteristic of each drug, but nothing really past that. Likely at that point the drugs are working fully in the ways that they work, but used alone, they aren’t covering all the bases.

Inefficient combinations work the same, or nearly so, as the individual usages. For example, about the same maximum is reached using trenbolone alone as using trenbolone plus either Primobolan or oxandrolone; and adding Anadrol to Dianabol gives little if anything beyond what Dianabol alone can do. A poor combination is rather like your example of combining two anti-inflammatories. There’s no point in doing so: there’s no resulting increase in maximal effect compared to simply taking more of one of them.

However, it’s quite different when the synthetics are combined effectively. For example, 100 mg/day trenbolone acetate alone is not too exciting for mass gain, and neither is 100 mg/day Dianabol alone. I would put either choice well below 100 mg/day (700 mg/week) testosterone. Neither trenbolone nor Dianabol alone covers all the bases.

But the same total milligram amount of drug – 100 mg/day – is an entirely different story when it’s provided as a combination of 50 mg/day trenbolone acetate and 50 mg/day Dianabol. Suddenly, you have a stack substantially more effective than 700 mg/week testosterone.

So you don’t need to use testosterone to have a fully effective steroid cycle, but it’s a simple way to be sure of covering the bases. The other ways are to use effective combinations of synthetics, or effective combinations of synthetics together with testosterone.