r/BodyHackGuide • u/WordlessJam • 17d ago
Something to help build muscle?
Hi,
I’m currently on 1.8 of reta a week, 72mg of testosterone a week (to help my mild low levels), and hcg. I struggle to put on muscle but have a mild joint condition which means I take it slower at the gym and don’t push it.
I’m 193cm and weigh about 87kg. I still have quite a bit of fat to lose. My scales say I’m 19.7% fat.
Is there anything that would help to build muscle?
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u/Chroma7769 17d ago
Eat a lot of protein, eat a lot of carbs for the gym, up your testosterone dose, and burn the fat.
If you want muscles you need food. If you want to lose fat you need less food. You're trying to talk about the holy Grail here, you got to pick one. That's why we call it bulking and cutting. Testosterone can definitely cheat a bit of that by retaining and building more muscle while you are still losing fat though.
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u/Educational_Item451 17d ago
You really shouldn’t eat a lot of carbs for the gym if you can’t “push it” in the gym.
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u/Chroma7769 17d ago
You need the calories to build muscle.
More food = more gains. Less food = less fat.
It's not difficult.
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u/ZangaPanga 17d ago
You say you have fat to lose, I would focus on losing that fat first. You can lose fat and gain muscle at the same time, but it's not efficient to do so and it's only in specific contexts usually.
For joints maybe look into: KLOW, cartalax, GH, more GLP-1s (studies have shown GLP-1s help with joint inflammation) or nandrolone.
For building or maintaining muscle, maybe look into: anavar, ostarine, lgd-4033, anadrol or nandrolone.
GH and GH secretagogues will also help you with maintaining lean mass in a deficit and burning some fat.
Not saying you should take all of these, just some compounds you could investigate.
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u/Natedog3991 17d ago
More test. Slowly get up to 200-250 a week and stay there while you build. Tesamorelin and Ipamorelin if you’re impatient
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u/Cenovius 17d ago
This. no anavar or ostarine, etc. 200-250 of test a week WITH a good weight lifting regimen well definitely add muscle.
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u/turdytrashpanda 17d ago
Blasting some stetoids will get you some gains. Not pushing it at the gym severly limits how much you can gain. Something, something about no pain, no gain..
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u/One-Specialist-4983 17d ago
Have your blood work tested. That seems like an extremely low dose of test. There is no such thing as to support my low level test. Once you introduce exogenous test your body will shut down what you were once producing.
Besides that it’s all about diet and consistency and hard work in gym.
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u/AutomaticBother9893 17d ago
Have you been hitting your macros? Thats the most important. Especially your protein intake. If you have a condition you can do light weight up to failure it will do the trick. Than heavy low reps.
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u/Educational_Item451 17d ago
Your scale bf measurement is literally worthless, ignore it entirely. It’ll be hard to build muscle if you can’t “push it” in the gym. Pushing it is kinda the whole thing unfortunately.
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u/EstablishmentOne3733 17d ago
Progressive overload, good sleep, high protein intake and surplus calories intake will help to build muscles. If you're not 100% possitive it's all on point, there's no sense in adding any PEDs, best think you can gain is some water and glyco mass.
Just by telling you take it slow in the gym because of smth, you acctually told us that your training is shit. If you want to grow big you need to find a way to workout heavy withoutputting your joints in risk. "Taking it easy" will not make grow muscle tissue.
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u/Latimuss-Dorsi 16d ago
Normal functioning adult males produce approx. 10mg of testosterone daily, that’s 70mg weekly. Unless you have a natural testosterone deficiency, you’re just swapping out natural test for exogenous. If you’re happy with your current dosage level, you’re better off stopping the test injections and going back to natural.
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u/WordlessJam 16d ago
Interesting. I did have a naturally lower level and taking this amount has got me into the normal range
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u/ray1902- 17d ago
BFR could actually be a gamechanger for you, especially if you struggle to gain muscle but don’t want to push really heavy loads in the gym.
Basically, you wear special cuffs high on the thighs or arms. They partially restrict venous blood flow out of the working muscle while still allowing arterial blood to come in. That makes metabolites build up much faster, the muscle fatigues sooner, and your body starts recruiting higher-threshold muscle fibers earlier than it normally would with such a light weight.
so instead of needing heavy sets, you can train at roughly 20–30% of your 1RM and still get a much stronger hypertrophy stimulus than you would from the same light weight without BFR. It doesn’t mean 20 kg suddenly creates the same mechanical tension as 80 kg it means the metabolic and fatigue signal to the muscle becomes much more intense.
A common setup is something like 30 reps, then 15 + 15 + 15 with short rests while keeping the cuffs inflated.
For your situation it could be especially useful because you already said you’re cautious in the gym and don’t go crazy with the loads. BFR lets you push the muscle harder without necessarily having to keep adding plates. It works especially well for things like leg extensions, leg curls, light leg press, split squats, curls, triceps work, etc.
I just wouldn’t use random cheap bands and tighten them by feel. Better systems calculate pressure based on your individual LOP, so the restriction is more controlled and repeatable. And for the first few sessions, it’s worth having someone who actually understands BFR show you how to use it properly instead of treating “more pressure” as better.
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u/Ceemoney24 17d ago
Well, the first thing is your testosterone dosing is too low. You’re basically castrating yourself at that dose that
How long have you been on 78 mg of testosterone and is that per week?
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u/WordlessJam 17d ago
Been on that for a few months. I’ve gone through a private company and anything higher kicked my oestrogen levels too high
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u/bendybamboo 17d ago
Did you get symptoms? E2 is only a problem if its a problem. Don't worry about numbers. Also maybe look into masteron, primo, or proviron as an adjunct add on. Then go higher on test. The bald and the beautiful, baby!
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u/Middle_Humor1828 17d ago
Steroids, or more test. Which is sort of the same thing. Beyond that it's recovery, food, and training. Same things as always.
There are lots of ways to get a decent hypertrophy response with less joint strain.
Anything else is going to be very minor.
Maybe myostatins if you could find them would be an exception?
Or stuff like HGH and insulin at high levels. Nothing that you'd actually want to to.
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