T3 and the Modern Athlete

So you've decided to use T3 to help you shed fat now that you've read up on it and gotten past the nay Sayers who expound the ills of shutting down your body’s own production of natural thyroid. Wonderful, T3 when used correctly can be a great addition to any diet and cardio plan. Read that again boys and girls, IN ADDITION TO ANY DIET AND CARDIO PLAN!!! If you've turned to T3 because you think it's a magic pill that will allow you to eat like crap and still lose weight you've been listening to the wrong advice. Can you lose weight/fat while using T3 and still eating junk food, unfortunately yes to a degree. I say unfortunately because this fact often leads people to do just that, it starts with a cheat meal that turns to a cheat day, which eventually has the athlete eating whatever and whenever they want and still they lose some weight. So what's wrong with this if the eventual out come, weight loss that is, is reached? The first problem is the weight you are losing may not be fat if your eating like crap, the second is what happens when you stop the T3 cycle and your metabolism is suppressed temporarily, if you were eating sloppy during the T3 usage your most likely to keep following that pattern and the combination of a slow metabolism combined with sloppy eating results in rebound weight gain. So in the end what have you really accomplished outside of being able to eat what you want with out getting any fatter for a month or so? And that's if you’re lucky and the rebound weight gain doesn't push you past your starting weight!!!

Now that I have your attention and you know what NOT to do, let's concentrate on what TO do. Just like any other chemical we find in our arsenal, T3 can and is used in a variety of ways when it comes to dosage and length of cycle, both for cutting and bulking. This article will deal with cutting use only. There are some who prefer to "hit it hard" and go high dosage with a quick taper down at the end losing a great amount of weight in a short time, but this way tends to eat as much muscle as fat in my experience and you end up looking basically the same as when you began, except that you weigh less and are smaller. There are those who like to use the same dosage throughout the cycle with no taper up or down figuring if your metabolism is going to be sluggish anyhow why waste the days using it at a low dosage when you could be burning more fat on those days. Then there are those who slowly taper up, maintain the highest dosage for a set time and then slowly taper down. It's the last group I'll concentrate on here, as this is the system that has shown it's best overall results with those I've worked with.

Let's start with the dosage, T3 is a very individual drug, when it comes to dosage I've seen guys use as high as 250-300mcg/day and others as low as 25mcg/day where both athletes lost fat and reached their goals. As a rule I start everyone (and for now I'm dealing with men I'll pen an article on women’s usage in the future) at 25mcg/day. I usually base the time of the cycle on their individual weight loss goals, if it's a smaller amount I'll go 3 weeks tops, if it's a lot of weight to lose we'll go 4, 5 and sometimes 6 weeks. I generally don’t go over 6 weeks with anyone, as T3 tends to stop working in most people after that amount of time. I’d rather they run 4 weeks cycles with 2 weeks off where they use an ECA stack or Clen during the break to continue to lose fat, then run another 4 week cycle. So the 1st 3 days in this cycle would be 25mcg/day, then the 2nd 3-day period is 50mcg/day, etc. The typical 21-day cycle will look like this:

	Day 1	Day 2	Day 3	Day 4	Day 5	Day 6	Day 7
Week 1	25 mcg	25 mcg	25 mcg	50 mcg	50 mcg	50 mcg	75 mcg
Week 2	75 mcg	75 mcg	100 mcg	100 mcg	50 mcg	75 mcg	75 mcg
Week 3	75 mcg	50 mcg	50 mcg	50 mcg	25 mcg	25 mcg	25 mcg

As you can see the dosage is increased by 25mcg/day every 4th day until the maximum dosage is reached for the subject, in this case 100mcg/day, then lowered the by the same 25mcg/day increments every 4th day until the end of the cycle. Given that most of the people I've worked with have tried everything else and are still considerably overweight when they start, the full 4-week cycle is often used instead of the 21-day cycle. The one I've used lately with the most success is as follow, remember the jumps are still 25mcg/day but this time you increase/decrease the dosage every 4 days:

	Day 1	Day 2	Day 3	Day 4	Day 5	Day 6	Day 7
Week 1	25 mcg	25 mcg	25 mcg	25 mcg	50 mcg	50 mcg	50 mcg
Week 2	50 mcg	75 mcg	75 mcg	75 mcg	75 mcg	100 mcg	100 mcg
Week 3	100 mcg	100 mcg	75 mcg	75 mcg	75 mcg	75 mcg	50 mcg
Week 4	50 mcg	50 mcg	50 mcg	25 mcg	25 mcg	25 mcg	25 mcg

Note: You could also do the 3-day increase/decrease and hold the maximum dosage of 100mcg/day for days 10-19, but some find 100mcg/day makes them too uncomfortably warm and they sweat too much, especially during the warmer months.

There you have it, simple yet effective. If you remember to supplement your diet with plenty of protein (which every lifter should anyhow), eat a clean calorie controlled diet, drink 1-2 gallons of water per day and to take a mild steroid cycle to minimize muscle loss you should be able to see rapid fat loss with this cycle. I should also mention that some people like to stack T3 with Clenbuterol for even better results. I’ve purposely left this out as I will be including Clen in Part 2 of this series. Good luck and may you all reach your cutting goals!!!

Thyroid Suppression
Let’s start with the biggest misconception still around where T3 is concerned, that is suppression of natural thyroid output. I’m amazed that this drug has been used now for the past several years by literally thousands of athletes with few if any reported cases of thyroid shutdown yet the 1st thing someone says when a person asks about T3 is “it will shut down your natural thyroid and you’ll be on T3 the rest of your life”. Numerous studies have been done and show that cessation of exogenous T3 does not shut down your natural thyroid. The 1st study was done in 1951 by M. Greer (1) and showed that patients that were misdiagnosed as hypothyroidism that later had their medicine withdrawn showed no shutdown of their natural thyroid as their thyroid returned to normal within 2 weeks. His studies also showed that it didn’t matter if the patients thyroid had been medically suppressed for 30 years or a few days they both returned to normal within two weeks. Hence my mentioning in Part 1 of a sluggish thyroid post T3 cycle and my suggestion that you continue to eat clean, do cardio and use a fat burner like the Ephedrine/Caffeine/Aspirin stack, Clenbuterol or an over the counter fat burner until your natural thyroid output returns to normal. Numerous studies have been done since Greer’s that have confirmed his findings. As with any medicine there are always exceptions to the rule and there have been a few people who claim to have had their own thyroid function permanently damaged by T3 usage but in my experience this only occurred when ridiculously high dosages were used, if you adhere to the dosages recommended here in you should be fine.

T3/Clenbuterol Cycle
This has to be the most often used cutting combo used today for fat loss in weight trained athletes, or at least the most talked about. Both drugs when used on their own are effective fat burners through differing pathways, but used together they have a synergistic effect and create a very potent fat burning cycle. The medical reasoning for this is long and complicated and not necessary to understand at this point but it is out there for anyone to research should you need to know, in simple terms each not only do their own job but also help the other’s fat burning process so that in effect, as they say, 1+1=3. So what dose do you use for each drug? For the T3 I suggest you use the same dose scheme I outlined in Part 1, again I took some flack over the lower dosing as some feel you should go higher but as I said from my experience anything over 75mcg-100mcg/day (for men, women’s dosage should go no higher than 50mcg/day) usually burns much too much muscle tissue in addition to fat tissue, unless that is your goal I would stay with as small a dose as you can get away with where you can still tolerate the increased body temp, for most men that is 75-100mcg/day, for most women that is 50mcg/day max. *Using Clen will increase your body temp also so you will have to monitor both drug dosages to see what you can comfortably tolerate. Clenbuterol dosing is a very individual thing, some cycles recommend 160mcg/day at the maximum dosage some 80mcg/day but the 1 thing most agree on is to start low and ease your dosage upwards as you feel comfortable with it the 1st time you use it. With subsequent cycles you can start at your maximum tolerable dose or slightly lower and then increase the dosage over a few days until you reach your maximum again as some people report the maximum they can use differs from 1 cycle to another. Which brand and whether you use tabs vs. liquids could also have something to do with the differing max doses. I would suggest you start your 1st cycle of Clen with 20mcg/day and increase by 20mcg/day until you reach the upper maximum you can use based on the side effects. The most common side effects are shaking, jitteriness, anxiety and raising of body temperature, basically the feelings you get when you’ve had way too much caffeine or cold medication are what your looking out for. When those sides get to be too much cut back to the last tolerable dose. A popular Clenbuterol cycle is 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off. For men I would suggest starting at 20mcg/day and going up to 100-120mcg/day or like I said whatever you can tolerate, stay there until day 14 then end the cycle, women should try half that max dose but if you can tolerate more and want to use it then go for it this is definitely a trial and error process. Take 2 weeks off and then repeat if desired, again starting at or near your maximum dose that you figured out with the 1st cycle. When stacking with T3 the question becomes what do you do on the 2 weeks your off Clen but still are on T3? That’s really an individual decision for you to make, you could rotate an ECA stack or a Gugglesterone with the Clen cycle so that your doing 1 for 2 weeks then the other for 2 weeks. Or you could simply take 2 weeks off after the end of the Clen where your only on the T3 for the next 2 weeks, you’ll be at your mid to max dosage of T3 by then so you’ll still be burning fat just fine. Then after the 4 weeks of T3 you’ll be done with both the T3 and the Clen and you could start a ECA stack for 2 weeks if you are ending the cutting cycle and want to protect yourself against rebound weight gain while waiting for your natural thyroid levels to return to normal. If you have more fat to lose you can cycle off T3 for 2 weeks as I said in Part 1 and repeat the cycle again. When to use Clen again will depend on when you used it last, remember 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off. There’s nothing to say you can’t cycle T3 ad ECA together while you wait to add the Clen back in, just remember whenever you come off the T3 you want something in your system to help burn fat while you wait for your natural thyroid to return to normal. Also remember that Clen cycles are like T3 cycles in that there’s several different cycle’s currently popular, and you’ll most likely get different advice to the length and type of cycle by asking more than one person. The advice I give is based on those I’ve had use it and report back to me their results and feeling on it. I’m all for experimenting but until something comes along that proves to be better I’ll stick with the 2 weeks on/2 weeks off cycle advice where Clen is concerned.

T3 in Bulking Cycles
I briefly touched on using T3 in bulking cycles and many members seemed confused as to how a fat burner could help with a bulking cycle. T3 is a drug mainly known for raising one’s metabolism and burning fat, and possibly muscle tissue, when used at higher dosages (> 75-100 mcg/day for men, > 50mcg/day for women), but at lower dosages (12.5-25mcg/day for men, ½ that for women) it causes a faster conversion of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. It’s the increased conversion and absorption of nutrients that increases the results of your bulking cycle when you use it with a bulking cycle. When you run a bulking cycle you do so in conjunction with a higher protein/higher calorie diet because we know in order to grow muscle we need to feed the body nutrients, so there are plenty of nutrients to be converted, thus the bulking cycle gets a “push” if you will yielding better results. I can tell that literally every single person who has taken my advice and tried using a small amount of T3 daily with their bulking cycle has reported better gains than they usually get without it. I’ve even had success using 25mcg/day every other day with a bulking cycle. When you consider the low cost of T3 at such small a dosage it’s definitely a cheap insurance to better gains.

Women’s Cycles
Although women have been known to use T3 with good success I always hesitate to recommend a cycle to them for the simple reason that women seem to be much more sensitive to T3 than men are. The rebound weight gain can be significant if the post T3 period isn’t monitored stringently and an over the counter fat burner isn’t used. That said if you’re still set on using it here is a simple straightforward 21 day cycle, again using the 3 day ramp up and ramp down method.

	Day 1	Day 2	Day 3	Day 4	Day 5	Day 6	Day 7
Week 1	12.5 mcg	12.5 mcg	12.5 mcg	25 mcg	25 mcg	25 mcg	37.5 mcg
Week 2	37.5 mcg	37.5 mcg	50 mcg	50 mcg	50 mcg	37.5 mcg	37.5 mcg
Week 3	37.5 mcg	25 mcg	25 mcg	25 mcg	12.5 mcg	12.5 mcg	12.5 mcg

If you want to run it longer than 21 days, you can add in more days at the maximum dosage or use it in 4 day blocks with the ramp up and ramp down. Again please remember women are more sensitive to T3 than men and the rebound weight gain can be much more significant if your not ultra vigilant with the post T3 period, keep eating a very clean diet with calories below maintenance, and use either Gugglesterones, ECA stack or any other over the counter fat burner you feel comfortable with to help boost your natural metabolism until your system recovers, which could be anywhere from a few days to about 2-3 weeks.

Dosage Timing
T3 has a ½ life that doesn’t necessitate multiple daily dosing, so taking your entire daily dose at once is usually recommended. That said if your cycle requires you to take 100mcg/day or more I usually recommend splitting the dosage in ½ and taking it twice per day just to insure if you are sensitive to the drugs possible side effects you limit the exposure. Again I would suggest taking it in the morning, then around dinner time if a 2nd dose is necessary. I know that for myself, certain brands cause an upset stomach if I take more than 50mcg at a time, so at 75-100mcg/day I’d split it into 50mcg in the morning and the balance at nighttime.

Rebound Weight Gain
Rebound weight gain is inevitable when using T3, the best you can hope for is to minimize it. A good start is to make sure you use at least a small amount of a steroid with the cycle, this will help you to hold on to the muscle mass you already have. The best thing you can do is to take a post cycle over the counter fat loss product such as ECA stack, Gugglesterones or some other similar product. What your looking for here is the continuance of the fat loss while your system returns to your normal thyroid output. This should occur with in 2-3 weeks, so during that time continue to eat clean, do cardio, drink plenty of water and take the over the counter fat loss product. You’ll know when your thyroid has returned to normal when your body temp returns to normal. Women are especially warned to be very vigilant here, most people are eager to eat more when their cycle ends but this is not the time when using T3, you need to make sure your metabolism has been restored before splurging a bit.

 

T3 Theories and Observations

i never used it without GH for that long except once or twice, of course it worked nowhere near as good as it did in conjunction with GH.,

i had tried it the usualy pyramid up to high dose as quick as possible, stay there then tapered down after 8-12 weeks while dieting with really good results once... so im not just talking out of my ass supporting longer cycles with a more moderate dose with no experience about short cycles.

i found even though i didnt suffer any real bad rebound(none that i couldnt attribute to mainly my diet getting way loose after cutting hard) nor did i see anylong term supression from the short cycles, i definitely felt suppressed for at least a month or two and my body temp was much lower.

i also have had friends who did the usual high dose short cycle thing under the assumption that staying on for a short period and using a dose higher than normal or a dose that puts the levels above HIGH NATURAL levels in the body, the theory was flawed and they suffered supresson basically at least for as long as they were on in many cases. ,



RESULTS OF THE TYPICAL HIGHER DOSE TAPER CYCLE
IMO and in theirs it wasnt worth it, especially since real strict dieting usually results in slacking off when you come off the diet, so coming off of a diet AND off of t3 is a bad idea for maintaining results. plus, any technique that you can use for fat loss or to maintain fat loss such as dieting stricter, lowering cals/carbs, or increasing cardio/training to increase your fat burning naturally, every one of those techniques also negatively influence thyroid output or recovery.


LONGER, LOW/MODERATE DOSE USE
without GH, id probably either use bloodwork to monitor thyroid output during dieting and just use exogenous t3 as a way to keep my thyroid at optimal levels when the diet starts to slow down natural production. i know this is the way alot of contest prep gurus suggest, and many experienced pros. if you dont want to do the whole bloodwork thing, your best bet is to take your temp every morning at the same time for a couple weeks before you start dieting as a baseline to get an avg. temp per week, and then keep taking it ED when you start your diet.

when you start seeing a consistent temp decrease ED over a week or so, its a good bet that your body is reacting to the diet trying to do the homeostasis thing, and you could benefit from adding t3 n increments of 12.5-25mcg of t3 per day and seeing how that affects your temp results boosting them back near normal.

id say 25mcg to start, then if you dont see results after 7-14 days as far as fat burning slow down start pickng up at least, or an increase to your morning body temp, then add another tab of t3 per week until you do. even the largest pro's that do this say that you shouldnt need more than 50-75mcg MAX.


LOW/MODERATE DOSE RESULTS
there are HUGE benefitsto this method IMO.

this seems much more effective and safe in regards to staying on it for a longer period. if you are simply adding enough t3 to keep your body in optimal range as it fights to stay the same as part of your training and diet regime, IMO coming off will be much much less painful and the results of coming off will be minor or neglible even perhaps, as long as you keep your diet very clean, i would imagine even if it was after a show, an increase in CLEAN cals plus some gugguls/iodine and other thryroid support supps would help your bodies natural thyroid output recover as quick as possible.

that is my observation from personal results of both methods as well as what have seen with others, regarding the low/moderate dosages in regards to using anywhere from 2-6 months without gh, and even up to 10 months or so in conjunction with 3-6iu gh per day.

if your not going to have your thyroid levels tested often while on it trying to stay in optimal normal levels, AT LEAST have them tested before, and then 4-8 weeks AFTER you cease using t3 and/or dieting. id take my temp ED as well, if anything using it as a guideline to decide when to get my levels checked.. if my morning temp is rising consistently for a few weeks after i come off, or if they are at or close to my pre diet temperature in relation to how much my temp dropped while dieting when i was dieting, then i know that levels are probably back or close to 100% and its time to get the bloodwork to know for sure.

on the other hand, if my temp is still noticeably lower than pre diet levels, or as low or lower than my AM temp was prior to adding low dose replacement t3 to my diet, its a sign im not recovering, and its time to get bloodwork done to see what is up and how low they are.

if they are still low, i dont know of how much you could do to encourage recovery except for some support supps and more time off.

HOWEVER, continuing to restrict calories, as well as overtraining will have definite effects on your thyroid levels. these factors can inhibit thyroid output even if you hadnt used exogenous thyroid meds, so you may want to alter these variables if you are not recovering. a MODERATE increase in CLEAN calories, adding a piece or two of fruit, and a decrease in training volume and intensity after a very intense period of training and dieting even after using t3 should help your natural levels recover.

WHY HIGHER DOSE SHORT CYCLES FAIL FOR ANYTHING BUT TEMPORARY RESULTS

you really need to remember these factors and not be afraid to gain a lb or two of fat and water after you come off, you cant stay in contest shape forever, and like stated before, even in a non t3 assisted diet, when getting VERY lean, the intensity of your dieting and training will negatively effect thyroid output as your body fights the change to stay in homeostasis.

by staying SUPER strict, ie very low carbs low fat or low anything, or continuing to do high levels of cardio ie 2 a day sessions on top of your weight training etc, you may be doing yourself more harm then good in the long run, at the minimum keep lifting intensely, but reduce your cardio and increase your cals slightly to support your thyroid recovery.

many guys do crazy shit like even increasing their cardio or calorie restrictions after coming off of t3 in an attempt to keep every last lb of fat and water they lost off of their bodies... all this achieves is continuing to supress your thyroid levels regardless of coming off IMO.


HERE IS MY THEORY ON WHY SHORT BURST PYRAMID T3 CYCLES SUCK, AND WHY LONGER LOW DOSE IS BETTER

IMO if you keep cals SUPER clean but let them increase to maintenance at least, and decrease the cardio but keep the lifting intense, you better your chances of natural levels recovering as quickly as possible, AND ALSO by lifting intensely doing everything you can by keeping as much of the weight you do regain as muscle, you cant stay super lean forever, but you CAN eat and train in a way that supports body recomposition as favorably towards muscle as possible.

dont forget, the biggest boost to your metabolism is your muscle mass and increasing it... that is another reason why i think longer lower dose t3 cycles are FAR more optimal to the old pyramid up, pyramid down high dose brief cycles that you see everywhere, lasting anywhere from 4-10 weeks.

low/moderate dose t3 may have a positive effect on metabolism and muscle building, but when using doses that put you way out of the natural optimum levels, you are simply increasing your metabolism to a point that you need to eat extra protein and cals to stave off the muscle loss.

logically, if you are using t3 in dosages that put your levels way over normal range, you are simply making up for a shitty innefficient diet, either due to inexperience or just laziness and RELYING on the drug for fat loss, instead of using it as an adjunct to a proper diet and training.

for someone inexperienced in thyroid use, compare it to gear use. take 2 guys of similar genetics, and both are using the same types of gear, say test and tren or something basic but effective.


SHORTCUT VS LONG TERM COMPARISON
bber #1 has an impeccable work ethic, trains hard and intensely but also efficiently and intelligently to avoid overtraining. he also follows a good well rounded bbing diet, rarely misses meals, and although he enjoys himself and will have some drinks with his buds and party or get drunk every blue moon, he mostly makes sure he is well rested to ensure proper recovery. most importantly #1 does all these important things that build lean muscle CONSISTENTLY and both on or off cycle.

bber#1 uses a base of test, moderate dose of 400mg tren E or para. he may use an oral or fast acting drug to kick start his cycle for couple weeks or a month, and then use a fast acting drug towards the end of his cycle with proper PCT when he comes off, or uses an HRT dose as a bridge

bber #2 goes through the motions at the gym, when he is on he trains balls to the wall sometimes every day for 1.5-2hrs a day cuz his cycles enable him to feel like superman and his strenght stays up and he doesnt fatigue anywhere near as fast as he does when clean, and following his more is better philosophy, he trains each bodypart until he "feels" its time to stop, and trains them up to 2x a week when he is on cycle and feels this is better. however he is quick to burnout, even while on a heavy cycle, and starts missing workouts.

#2 is the same way with dieting, goes to the extreme over does everything, but isnt consistent. he also doesnt eat near as clean, he gains alot of water/fat weight when he is on, gets burnt out and either starts dieting or simply skipping meals soon after he bulks, never being able to stick to one or the other for 6-8 weeks. he still makes great gains and can look just as good as bber #1 sometimes and can hang with him in the gym when they are on cycle.

#2 will run 1g of test per week minimum, with at least 100mg of tren ace per day or an equal dose of longer acting tren per week. he will throw in orals, dbol/anadrol, anything that gives him immediate results to kick start his cycle, even if the results on the scale and in the gym as far as weights are simply a temporary boost from increased in water, even if its intramuscular mostly and he still looks good.

also, if his gains slow or come to a halt, he simply ups the dose, adds more gear, or throws the orals back in.

his training and diet, while sometimes very dedicated, even to the point of being counterproductive, are very inconsistent. he looks to drugs as the main source of gains or lack thereof and never really sits back to look at the big picture and never figures out that its his lack of a consistent schedule/diet, and inadequate rest, and too much partying.

even tho bber #2 also makes incredible gains when he is on cycle, he looks to drugs as the be all and end all, cause of and solution to results and/or lack.

#2 thinks every bber that is pro or even bigger than him either has better genetics, and/or is on higher doses and other drugs and combos that he cant afford or believes he just doesnt know about.

now lets say both bbers at the peak of their cycles are in very similar condition, almost exact as far as mass/leanness...

which bber do you believe will have the most success at maintaining or bettering their peak or near peak condition year round whether or not they are at the peak of their cycle, or are simply off or on an HRT replacement dose.

anyways, if u look at my example, IMO it VERY relates to a bber using t3. if you have to use a dose of T3 that pushes your levels way past the upper normal limits, you are using it as a crutch to either A)make up for a diet and/or training that is severly lacking, or B) your trying to lose too much fat too fast.

in the case of A, if you need higher doses of t3 to achieve a level of leanness you couldnt approach otherwise, you are really setting yourslf up for a big dissapointment. IF YOU CANT GET NEAR THAT CONDITION WITH NO OR LOW TO MODERATE T3 USE, HOW ARE YOU GOING TO MAINTAIN ANYTHING CLOSE TO THAT WHEN YOU COME OFF, EVEN IF YOUR LEVELS RECOVER AS FAST AS POSSIBLE?? YOU CANT!

so IMO low/moderate use, though best used as short as possible, even if u need to use it longer cuz you have more fat to lose, it is MUCH more optimal to do it this way as far as maintaining or even gaining some muscle while getting to the desired body composition. plus you will be n a much better.

Short term higher doses could be used if your really impatient and out of shape and want to get lean as fast as possible, but pretty much unless you are just looking for temporary results it is a waste, and though you might not gain EVERYTHING back, any results are much harder to maintain.