While injecting testosterone increases protein synthesis by roughly 50 times, depending on dose and time, most bodybuilders forget that it will reduce collagen synthesis by more than 50%, giving you the collagen synthesis rate of a senior citizen. Since collagen is a major component of tendons, individuals are highly susceptible to injury if they continue lifting very heavy weights without cycling off testosterone and allowing their collagen synthesis to return to normal levels. It’s like having the skeletal muscle of a gorilla with the tendons of an ancient man.
Winstrol increases collagen synthesis. It will give you bigger tendons. However, your body compensates by making them more brittle, weaker, and more prone to injury. I am unable to count the number of individuals who engage in anaerobic exercise and sustain injuries while on Winstrol. Guys who lift in the 1-5 rep range while on Winstrol and baseball players who sprint all out from a stationary position—Winstrol should be the LAST drug they choose. Winstrol is popular because it doesn’t cause weight gain, but it harms bros who train anaerobically. Tendons tear easily on it.
Also, the drugs I mention increase collagen synthesis while increasing collagen cross-linking integrity, making for a much stronger tendon.
Winstrol, on the other hand, will dramatically increase collagen synthesis, but ironically, it decreases collagen cross-linking integrity, thus making a much weaker tendon.
You can plan a cycle of AAS, which will increase collagen synthesis and skeletal muscle growth at the same time. The key is the drug(s) you choose.
Deca, Equipoise, Anavar, and Primobolan will ALL increase skeletal muscle while at the same time dramatically increasing collagen synthesis and bone mass and density, leaving you with a substantially reduced chance of becoming injured compared to if you choose to use AAS like Sustanon, cypionate, or enanthate.
While testosterone will increase bone mass and density, even at supra-physiological levels, the result is weaker tendons due to inhibition of collagen synthesis.
To plan a cycle where the goal is to increase skeletal muscle mass/strength while at the same time increasing joint/tendon/ligament strength enough to keep up with the dramatic increase in skeletal muscle, you must choose drugs like EQ, Deca, Anavar, or Primo as the base of your cycle. Testosterone and its esters can be added to your cycle to keep levels within a ‘normal’ physiological range (i.e., 100-200 mg/wk) but must not go above this. Since drugs like EQ, Deca, Anavar, and Primo will reduce endogenous, natural levels of test, these levels may be maintained with exogenous tests in the 100–200 mg/wk range. Tests at this dose will not inhibit collagen synthesis but, paradoxically, will help increase it. It is when exogenous testosterone is used at > 200 mg/wk that collagen synthesis is inhibited.
At 3 mg/kg a week, Deca (about 270 mg/wk for a 200 lb male) increases procollagen III levels by 270% by week 2. Procollagen III is a primary indicator used to determine the rate of collagen synthesis. As you can see, Deca is a powerful drug at giving you everything you want—an increase in collagen synthesis, an increase in skeletal muscle, and increases in bone mass and density. The one thing it does not give you is wood
Primobolan, at 5 mg/kg, will increase collagen synthesis by roughly 180%—less than Deca and Equipoise but still substantial.
Equipoise at 3 mg/kg will increase procollagen III by approximately 340%—slightly better than Deca.
Oxandrolone has over a hundred studies documenting its effectiveness at treating patients needing rapid increases in collagen synthesis to enhance healing.
These drugs have longer half-lives than most other AAS, so this should be considered when timing your post-cycle Clomid use. Here they are:
Deca: 15 days Equipoise: 14 days Primobolan: 10.5 days
Anavar has a half-life of only 8 hours, so it should not pose a problem.
GH is probably the most remarkable drug at increasing collagen synthesis. It increases collagen synthesis in a dose-dependent manner—the more you use, the more you will increase collagen synthesis. It has also demonstrated this ability in short- and long-term studies. From what I’ve read, hGH at 6 IU/day increased the collagen deposition rate by around 250% in damaged collagen structures. This result indicates that the stronger wounds in collagen structures treated with biosynthetic human growth hormone were due to more collagen being added to those structures.
Eq, primo, anavar, and deca are all good—they increase several biomarkers of collagen syn., i.e., type III, II, I, and procollagen markers. Among these options, human growth hormone (GH) appears to enhance collagen synthesis the most significantly.
Use of any of these drugs at supra-physiological levels with a maintenance dose of testosterone will increase collagen synthesis while at the same time increasing skeletal muscle mass. Skeletal muscle mass gains will not be as dramatic as with large testosterone doses, but you have to weigh the risk/reward basis for yourself. Furthermore, these drugs do not satisfy the libido like testosterone, but that is not the point of this thread. This thread aims to demonstrate that you can simultaneously increase skeletal muscle and collagen synthesis using certain anabolic androgenic steroids (AAS), but the decision to do so is ultimately yours.
