Old timers, newbies, everybody. How long did you research?

[Dakota]

I didn't touch gear until I was 27. My training partner in the 80s started using gear when we were about 22, but I didn't dive in despite seeing him jump up 20lbs on me. I moved away not long after or I might have used gear early.

In my 20s, (there was a time before internet kids) I bought every book from the back of the mags available, read every book available at the library and talked to the few guys that I knew used gear but I never took the plunge.

It was probably due to the crazy shit advice that was in some of the books and all the "you are going to die" articles, pix of abscesses in the muscle mags. There was SO much misinformation out there, even and sometime especially from Doctors. One underground publication I read said to keep uping your Dbol until you pissed blood and then back off some. I am not kidding!!

Come 27, My first cycle was just 150mg of Deca/week and I worked my way up to 20mg of Dbol a day for a 6 week cycle. I was that cautious. Even so, I jumped up about 30 pounds on my bench and leaned out nicely.

6 months later I used 150mg of Deca and one Rediject Sustonon harpoon per week for another 6 weeks and added a good 12 or more pounds but plenty watery.

Then I didn't touch them again until I was 35. The INTERNET was available and I researched researched researched. WOW all that info. Then I found the forums. Thick 1 gave me a more serious but mild cycle to try of Test, Deca, and Winny. I was a great cycle and I was hooked.

I would take off 6 or 8 weeks and do it again with something else. I used all the old painful shit and brewed my own from Finaplix. I thought the Finaplix home brew would kill me.

In the next couple of years I spent a ton of time on the boards and researched. I moved up in ranks on the boards until I was the one giving the advice. I went from 178 to 220. Then just like that.... I had enough. I loved being big but hated carrying that much weight on a 5'8" frame. It interfered with all the other joys of my life, like hardcore hunting.

Over the next few years I went back to completely clean and dropped all the way back to under 200. (but not lean) My seriousness in the gym ebbed and flowed for years but I stayed natural.

I gradually put on a couple of pounds of fat each year even with a pretty good diet compared to most. I found out I was low T and got prescribed. Just like that, leaner stronger happier. I got the bug. My Dr. upped me to 300 mg cyp every 10 days. NICE. I had to change Drs and the next one would not go over 200 every 2 weeks. Back to the internet.

Now I had the bug again. I started researching and looking at the boards again. My old boards were long gone. Then I ran into some familiar handles on Peak and since I have become serious again and I am thankful for all those here and other boards over the years that have motivated me to leave behind a 215 doughboy a few years ago. By the time I joined Peak I was in pretty good shape again but I have made some excellent improvements since coming aboard. Great info here and the board REALLY helps one to stay in tune and motivated. I still love to research almost as much as I like to train. I love the info and the input available here. I love the shop talk and all the theories.

I got seriously side tracked from the original point but post up your own research and training journey. It is cool to see Glyco, a brother I have a lot of respect for also waited until 27.

Maybe add what was the most surprising or interesting thing you learned with your research as well.

Lifts, I want to hear your story too.

[Dawgpound_Hank]

Started with the iron at 14. I put on alot of muscle pretty fast, going from 170 at 14 to 205 at 16, then 230 at 18. I did some teen shows, won a couple, placed 2nd in one. To continue to be competitive I would have turned to supps. I had been preached to from football & wrestling coaches about the "dangers" of them, and that stuck in my mind. End of the day I didn't take that next step.

Long story short, I kept hitting the iron seriously over the next 2 decades, got a lil bigger and stronger over the years, usually hovering around 240-245 in decent shape. I finally decided to try supps right before my 40th bday. Yeah, that's a long ass time of nattiness haha.

The catalyst for me was one day a regular at the gym hit me up asking me what my cycle was. I told him no cycle, all natural. So as with most, he didn't believe me. I had been accused often of doing supps over the years, so it certainly wasn't new to me being asked again. He had made tremendous improvement is his physique, which was easy to notice, going from like 180 @ 5'10 to 200 and harder in like 4 months. He said he was prepping to do his first show.

A bell went off in my head- I was like man I see all these guys making these great gainz on supps, and here I am much better developed being natty, so what IF I did some supps too? I figured at almost 40, if I keep waiting I'm never gonna try it out. So I joined the boards, did extensive reading for about 6 months, then finally did it up.

[MR. BMJ]

I started lifting after junior high (8th grade) before heading into high school as a freshman. So I was maybe 14'ish. I couldn't play football because they misdiagnosed my back as having spina bifida, so that is what got me into training....hoping i'd be able to play football. I was in all other sports like basketball, soccer, track, and shit. Wish I would have done wrestling and MMA, etc....but oh well. I got tired of all those sports, and just concentrated on the weight room.

Got to my Senior year and everybody in sports were doing AAS....mostly Mexican stuff, but a few who had veterinarian hook-ups. I was one of the stronger and bigger kids (though slender built), and was still natty while others were smaller and juicing. I'm not gonna count guys who were built like offensive lineman....they were bigger of course, but most were not as strong....but yea, I was not built like that.

Anyway...a few guys got under my skin that they were passing me up my junior and senior year. I used to think they were cheaters. Likewise, I was always reading the mags at the time, and of course, everybody in those mags stated they were natty, and I believed them, and that with time, I could be like them.

2 things happened over my junior and senior year...

1) While a junior, and some of my senior years in school, a lot of the older guys (already graduated but playing junior college football) would tell me all the time that at some point I would have to use them to repass the guys that were growing like weeds. I brushed it off until my senior year.

2) My senior year, I started picking up then MM2K mags. Those opened my eyes.

My senior year, I started using...I was 2-3 months from turning 18 years old. I took 1 Primoteston amp, and a weeks later I took half a sustanon. LOL. Even with those 2 injects, my strength shot up, and my clothes got a little tighter. A few months later I took Anadrol tabs....like 1/4, 1/2, 1 whole tab...pyramided scheme. At the time, Anadrol was the shit...the shit everybody wanted to get big and crazy. It was the drug touted the most to make the most changes if taken....but everybody mentioned how they would turn crazy and want to fight, so hence the small doses. I took those 1-2 months before graduating, and was able to hit a 365 bench at maybe 205#, squat was down, maybe 400'ish. My traps and arms would grow like weeds, and I have kind of a wide look.

Anyway, when I bought the Anadrol from a guy selling it, I was just as big as him, and he was nervous to sell me any because he thought because I was already carrying a lot of lean size, that I would stick out and be noticeable to others as a user. He charged my ass $8 a pill Yea, talk about getting ripped off! I didn't know it at the time, but I had enough to do my pyramided run for a few weeks.

The last few months of high school and the rest of the next few years after that, I was going down to TJ weekly. The rest is history.

But yea....it was a dime a dozen with guys using in high school and all around the gyms here where I live. It was so common, you were kind of a loner if you didn't use. I had a lot of older guys help in the training department, but I read and experimented a lot of my own. The MM2K mags and the internet (95/96 onward) helped me out a lot. I knew that diet and training were what mattered most, I hammered that into me....but also wanted to use a lot of AAS and learn how they worked on me as well. A lot of the older guys I think I knew more than them to be honest....for them, it was just eat a lot and lift heavy and often...almost overtraining at times. Diet didn't matter, you just ate a lot. I don't dismiss that, especially for certain circumstances, but not to such an extreme.

You have to remember, that outside of maybe the fatter powerlifter guys, a "Big Guy" at the time was maybe between 225-250#. Now you see guys hitting way over those weights in size and it makes those guys back then seem tiny. I mean, there were big guys, solid size and lean, but now there are more of them in the gym.....actually, to clarify, just as many users, but I more guys wanting a beach body look. The BB physique is dying out imo. It wasn't until Met-rx/EAS came out that supplements really started to get anywhere. Now AAS cvan be obtained b y anybody with a I-phone or pc.

Back then, HGH was a pipedream unless you had money (90's), but guys around me were already using insulin, and this was probably around 1996 and onward.

I knew probably more than anybody here in town in the 90's from reading the forums.....EF, Meso, AnabolicResearch, mfw, bolex, etc....and MM2K/Duchaine's stuff....well, and you can't forget the older Anabolic Reference Guides by BP etc. A lot of the older guys on the forums helped me out a lot.

[liftsiron]

I started lifting as a senior in high school, no idea what steroids even were. I went into the military after high school hooked up with a powerlifting coach and trained and competed in seven powerlifting events. Still no juice, I was also competing in full contact karate at the time. I worked for a year after the military, no lifting during that time. I then went to college and begin lifting again, I met a few super strong guys in the gym who introduced me to the dark side. i tried to find as much info in the body building rags and research into steroids at school. In those days it was all "steroids will kill you bullshit."
I got nearly all my info from the big guys in the gym,
I was lucky the majority were actually quite intelligent about them. Several years later i discovered Elite Fitness web site and became a member of a bunch of differant sites. including being a mod on the old Intense Training site. I migrated from powerlifting to bodybuilding early in my college days.