Anabolic steroids help you build big muscles, but the main problem with them is the side effects they carry on. The long cycle is more effective in building big amounts of muscle gains, but there are big chances you will experience a huge drop in your lipid profile or such effects as acne, prostate hypertrophy or even baldness. Beginning with the 4th week of cycle many of body indicators begin to worsen, so it is good to stop at this time. If you do so you can enjoy decent results and almost no side effects.
This is the specific of short cycles. Generally, any cycle that has 6 or fewer weeks is called a short cycle. You can organize the cycle in 2, 4 weeks, but every time it has to be followed by at least the same amount of time for recovery. The most popular is 4 weeks on, and 4 weeks off letting you be free of steroids almost half a year. Short cycles benefit your body in many ways. Here they are:
Related Article: Short Steroid Cycle
Long cycles are followed by a long time for recovery during which you lose a big part of your gains. If you are tired about it than you can switch to short cycles. Since the time you are “off” is much shorter, the losses in muscle gains are lower.
It is true that you have not expected the big muscle gains as you used to during long cycles. But the main point here is that you are able to preserve most of it, and all this with no side effects. What can be better than this?!
Must Read: How to Take Steroids Without Side Effects
Anabolic steroids taken even in small doses affect your lipid levels. You have noticed every time you take steroids there is a big decrease in good cholesterol (HDL), and an increase in bad cholesterol(LDL). In the first two weeks of the cycle, the HDL level lowers with almost 50%, while LDL raises with almost 40% during the first 4 weeks. The further you go, the worse situation is.
During a long cycle, good and bad cholesterol levels reach dangerous thresholds and may lead to heart diseases. The best is to keep DHL level at least 40, the minimum being 35, while the ratio of good/bad cholesterol should be 3 to 1. Short cycle allows you to keep cholesterol levels under control and once it finished they return to normal values pretty fast.
Oral steroids used for a long time affect your liver function. This is a fact and most of the bodybuilders faced this problem. Going for a short time allow you to put less total stress on your liver and let it fully recover in the short time that comes after cycling.
Must Read: Liver Damage While On Oral Steroids
If you already have some genetic predisposition to a liver disease than taking oral steroids, even for short time, can be dangerous for your health. Most of the injectable steroids have no effects on the liver, so you are recommended to choose one of them.
After just a week of running a steroid cycle, the Hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis (HPTA) begin to shut down, affecting the size of testicles. Since this period is quite short, it happens in a very small degree, letting the HPTA recover pretty soon once the cycle is ceased. The use of HGH is not necessary, but you can do it if you want.
Must Read: Do Steroids Effect Penis Size
First of all, high estrogen level is bad for your prostate. Many professional bodybuilders put their prostate function down because of taking powerful steroids for many weeks in a row. You do not want it to be this way, so be careful with your estrogen level. Running a short cycle allow you do not take them at all, but if you want to feel safe and keep the water retention low, you can add them to your cycle.
For all these side effects there are mainly two main cause: the dose and the period of administration. The worst is when you take big doses for a long time then some of these side effects are granted. Short cycles are safer since even taken in higher doses the time you take them is pretty short, thereby side effects are easy to keep under control.
Huge muscle gains. If you are a professional bodybuilder than surely short steroid cycles are not what you need. High doses for a long time is what you search to keep up your muscle mass. Meantime, all those who just look to improve body shape with no other complications than short cycle is what they need to follow.
Short steroid cycles help you to gain a decent amount of muscle mass, with almost no side effects on your health. Adding up to 10-15 pound of muscle gains during a 4-week steroid cycle is possible. Just make sure you follow a proper diet and exercise program.
Must Read: 5 Best Steroid Cycles for Beginners
What is really good with short cycles is that muscles losses during PCT are minimal. Which can not be said about long cycles, after which most bodybuilders lose out much more than 10%-15% of gained muscle?
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