I’m back with a trainer that I like. He’s late 20s, ex-special forces. In years past, he took himself from Skeletor to Jacked (I saw before & after pics). He says he’s never injected 'roids and I can see -NO- telltale signs of recent use. He works me hard, varies workouts often using a mix of standard barbell stuff and burning-high-rep stuff (often bodyweight).
We been talking about how I could go on a mass-building cycle. His main recommendations are sensible enough: diet with 200g protein per day, 5g creatine, less carbs, etc.
I’ve pointed him to the Peri-Rx product and he says yeah, looks good, use it
He also mentioned another company’s supplement product. I don’t know if I should mention the company? (I’m not trying to ad for them.) But it looks to be a legal, U.S.-based company.
The product is in pill form. Active ingredients look to be various forms of DHEA or related concepts like 19-NorDHEA, and things that Wikipedia calls “steroidal” such as 3-hydroxy-androstane-17-one, 7-hydroxy-epiandrosterone, 6-Keto-diosgenin. All intended to support testosterone.
As mentioned, my trainer guy took his own body from Skeletor to Jacked and his comment about the product in question was, “It works”.
My questions about this product:
Given the key ingredients mentioned: would I be proverbially “on steroids”, when using it?
Do the ingredients carry dangers for normal, healthy people?
Taken in pill form, are the ingredients likely to confer any benefit? (or just placebo?)
I searched your forum history and saw the comments on DHEA doing nothing for anybody, but I have no idea about some of these other ones. thanks!
I’m not sure it makes sense to reduce carbohydrates during a “mass-building” cycle.
DHEA is a naturally occurring hormone that can convert to testosterone or estrogen, thereby increasing either of these things in the populations studied. That said, the increase in either of these hormones is not clinically significant, given that large variations in Testosterone - provided they’re within the normal range- do not alter training outcomes. In other words, trying to get your “testosterone up” without increasing it to supraphysiological levels (by using exogenous testosterone) is a waste of time.
I think this trainer is probably not up-to-date on the evidence with respect to supplement and dietary recommendations, but probably can put you through some good workouts. That said, I’d be cautious about that too.
Just to double check, my main takeaway here is: Don’t worry about DHEA or testosterone, if T is fluctuating within (wide) normal ranges. T must be either very low-out-of-range, or very high-out-of-range, before it makes a difference.
As to 3-hydroxy-androstane-17-one, 7-hydroxy-epiandrosterone, 6-Keto-diosgenin… what are those, even?
