should you cycle your ECA stack?
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Thread: ECA Stack
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05-22-2006, 09:29 AM #1
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05-22-2006, 11:57 AM #2
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05-22-2006, 01:35 PM #3
im no expert on this, but there is a thread somewhere on here (maybe the guy's supp section) where it says that this is a myth.
it said that the idea to cycle ECA came from the fact that you have to cycle clen, and it is actually not necessary.
the articles (and studies) went on to say (and show) that ECA not only didn't have to be cycled, but that it also got more effective with time.
i wish i could remember where to find this thread, it had alot of good info.
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07-31-2006, 01:23 AM #4Originally Posted by Kanute
I personally both use and reccomend
Pure EC rotated every 2-3 weeks with Thermorexin
main metabolic effects down grade after that as do the "energy" effects. The secondary metabolic effects go up after that, but the trade off for lower stimulant effects and reduced appetite suppression are not worth it.
I highly reccomend rotating
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08-02-2006, 07:31 PM #5
Alright, first off, I suggest not taking the aspirin with the stack as it can cause severe stomach issues. I have copy/pasted in a PM I sent someone else regarding my EC experiences
here are some links
Very scientific article
advocate website.. well researched - specifically, see the link here.
There was a 3rd link, from bb.com.. just basically a long thread, but I will summarize the important things for you.
I've decided NOT to cycle it (ie. just keep taking it until I have reached my fat loss goal). The only drawback to this is that the appetite suppression does wear off at about week 3 (but the appetite suppression does start out pretty extreme.. so you may want it to be gone).
You start out with 1 dose of 10/100 (ephedrine mg/caffeine mg) on a day when you won't have to be driving (so probably sunday afternoon) to see if you are intolerant to ephedrine. Since you are taking caffeine, I do not recommend drinking any coffee or caffeinated teas.
If the first dose goes ok (ie. hunger disappearing and feeling like you just had a jumbo coffee for hyperness, and an elevated heart rate is OK), then you spend 1 week at 10/100 3x/day(the elevated heart rate only lasted for 2 days for me). After that week, you up the dose to 20/200 3x/day and stay there as long as you like. On the first 3 days of 20/200 my bladder was totally off (I was also jittery, but just the first day of higher dose.. I seem to adapt quickly).. I think my body was reacting to the caffeine, and had to get used to it, as it went away.
Each dose must be at least 4 hours apart (this is the half life of the ephedrine). If you have trouble sleeping, you will have to cut the third dose (If I sleep in I cut the third dose too). Caffeine has a halflife of 6 hours, and I take it no closer than 8 hours before bedtime.
Some people recommend taking them 30 min before eating to suppress your appetite, but this is unneccessary - if you want to, you can do it. While the appetite suppression was strong, I would make sure I ate at the same time as the first EC dose, so that my cals would not be too low for the day. As well, my last meal would not be during appetite suppression time due to my 8 hour rule. You might have to count calories to ensure you are eating enough - no need to use fitday, you can probably guesstimate pretty well, and introduce some calorie dense/non-filling foods (eg. cereal with milk, fruit, more milk )
You are NOT supposed to do HIIT while taking the EC - EC raises your BMR the same way the HIIT does anyways. It is risky to do HIIT because you may raise your heart rate too high. Moderate intensity steady state or intervals are fine.
With taking care not to cheat, and keeping up regular cardio, I was losing at a rate of 1/4 inch everywhere every 2 weeks.. which is great for me.31-26-36.
Mother of 3
www.hotnfit.com - need help with fat loss, muscle gain, or having a healthy pregnancy? Visit my site! Yes safe for work and mobile friendly :)
www.********.com/hotnfitcom
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08-03-2006, 01:34 PM #6
you lose both the appetite and energy effects at week three. in my experience rotating is a lot more effective. More energy/CNS activation means greater training intensity/volume which means more calorie usage.
the beta 3 upregulation is not significant enough to overcome the loss of appetite suppression and "energy"/stim effects.
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08-03-2006, 04:06 PM #7
well.. everytime I ate over 200 cals I felt sick; the energy effects wore off on about day 3.. and I'm still losing at a really good rate, so I personally prefer to NOT cycle it. I do understand that some people would want to though.
31-26-36.
Mother of 3
www.hotnfit.com - need help with fat loss, muscle gain, or having a healthy pregnancy? Visit my site! Yes safe for work and mobile friendly :)
www.********.com/hotnfitcom
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08-04-2006, 10:32 PM #8
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08-05-2006, 07:36 AM #9
my bladder hurt.. like the same way it hurts when I am on my period (sorry if you are male and you don't get that ), I was really really worried about it, but on the third day it went away. I think it was the caffeine doing it (600 mg a day is a LOT), and NOT the ephedrine. Now, I did start out on 100 mg C/12 mg E, for the first week, and never got that symptom.
Ok.. the bladder hurting thing feels like an intense pressure on the bladder, and you feel like urinating constantly.. and the feeling wouldn't go away until the EC wore off. But this only happened for 2-3 days, if it had happened for 4 days, I would have discontinued the EC.Last edited by terracotta; 08-05-2006 at 07:39 AM.
31-26-36.
Mother of 3
www.hotnfit.com - need help with fat loss, muscle gain, or having a healthy pregnancy? Visit my site! Yes safe for work and mobile friendly :)
www.********.com/hotnfitcom
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08-05-2006, 10:20 AM #10
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08-20-2006, 09:32 PM #11Originally Posted by Kanute
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11-15-2007, 11:32 AM #12
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11-15-2007, 11:47 AM #13
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11-15-2007, 11:50 AM #14
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11-15-2007, 12:49 PM #15
Google search gets weirder every day.
There are 3 threads on the EC stack in the main supp. section every day and most of those people are referred to my site - www.hotnfit.com/ecstack.htm31-26-36.
Mother of 3
www.hotnfit.com - need help with fat loss, muscle gain, or having a healthy pregnancy? Visit my site! Yes safe for work and mobile friendly :)
www.********.com/hotnfitcom
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11-15-2007, 12:55 PM #16
:)
I work in Google optimization and have met with their engineers at times. Google changes their search patterns now and then to get rid of spam sites and provide better search results. A while ago they put more emphasis on forums and see what happens.
Anyways after doing a lot of reading (especially about the subject in the link I posted) I'm going back on EC. I tried it with 6 1/2 doses but preferred the 3 full doses (Not dosing on resting days).
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01-23-2009, 10:32 AM #17
confused
I posted this in another forum so excuse the repeat but I'm not sure where was the best place for mu question.
I feel very confused on what's best. I know I'm not supplementing right and I feel is holding be back.
I am new this site and am looking for some help. I'm 28 just under 5 '2'. my weight is down to 112 with 12% bf.
My skinfolds were:
tricep- 11
shld blade-5
pelvis crest-4
stomach-8
thigh-15
I've decided to compete in figure in april/may. I go to a small gym and the trainers aren't really experienced with training for competition. My trainer is an old wrestling coach and only a hand full of people from the gym have ever competed. None of whom would be any help to me. I can rely on my trainer to help develop my body and I do my own nutrition.
I do 3 low days of 1300 with a 50p/25c/25f with 1 high day 1800 30p/50c/20f. I carb and calorie taper on low days.
I started taking ECA a few weeks before xmas and decided this was want I wanted to stick with through my training. I relaxed through the end of dec and early jan and started back on my nutrition cycle and the ECA stack jan 10th.
I feel like I am missing out on proper supplementing. Should I be taking Creatine? HMB? a pump product?
Also is ECA my best choice? I've been reading a lot about Clen or Cytomel.
If you wouldn't mind giving me your opinion or any advice I would really appreciate it.
Thank you,
TriciaLast edited by bryker; 01-23-2009 at 10:39 AM.
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01-24-2009, 07:07 PM #18
Clen And cytomel = Not just yet hun.
Start off with ECA.
Definitely consider creatine, beta alanine, NO, whey and glutamine.Contest Prep Log: http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=146273283&p=911273403&posted=1#post911273403
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06-22-2009, 11:12 PM #19
I took clen and let me tell you, it is intense but I found that an ECA stack worked better for me. The clen gave me the shakes all day, everyday for as long as I ran it, different from ECA, more like muscle spasm's and intense shaking from my muscles, reflex's as appossed to a jittery feeling. I remember also that I couldn't sit for long and always had to keep doing something. It didn't give me the energy that ECA does in the gym either. I did lose about 8 pounds in 2 weeks using clen but bang for your buck, ECA is the way to go! Clen ran me about $130 and personally although I did lose some weight, ECA is way less expensive with the same results. Up your dosage on ECA if you can handle it and drink a **** load of water everyday! Run it for 4 weeks 3x daily and when u feellike u can, up the dose!
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11-04-2010, 08:06 AM #20
I just began taking ECA.
I found it cheaper to go to the local pharmacy and buy the pills separately. I also know exactly what I'm taking. There aren't any questionable herbal blends or extra vitamins added. I use 12.5 mg primatene-type ephedrine tabs (contains guafanesin which is irrelevant - not good if you have a sensitive stomach), 200 mg. "stay awake"-brand caffeine tabs, and 100 mg generic aspirin tablets.
Upon taking the full stack at once, I found it was too intense. So I cut all the pills in half with a pill cutter and stagger the doses throughout the day, making sure to take them with food to avoid stomach irritation. So I plan to start out with, say, 6.25mg E/100mg C/50mg A every 4 hours. I took one of the doses about an hour before resistance training last night, and felt invincible. It's like I instantly doubled my endurance, and I felt no pain from my usual workout. Amazing stuff. I can actually feel a "burn" when I take it, like a tingly feeling you get in areas with fat deposits; so I know this combo is probably doing its job.
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08-25-2011, 11:50 PM #21
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Go to your local Wal-Mart & buy "Bronkaid" at the pharmacy, costs less than $5 and has 25mg of ephedrine per pill. One box = 25 pills. FYI you can only buy this once/month because you can cook meth with it...so if you bought 400 pills of Bronkaid at once or tried to over the course of a month, they'd obviously think you're a tweeker rather than using it for recreational fat loss inside a gym.
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08-27-2011, 04:33 AM #22
Sometimes it's worth considering when in one's progress one is taking such a fat burner. Perhaps everyone here is already in the low teens in terms of BF%, but there is more value - at least with the folks i coach - in terms of making sure about eating right and using nutrition to burn the fat - to become a better fat burner - and only adding in fat burners when at a point that they make a real difference.
Otherwise, green tea (or extract) and fish oil, until getting to that level, along with as said, good nutrient timing to privilege fat burning (eg starchy carbs just after workouts), is v. effective.
just food for thought,
best
mc
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11-22-2013, 07:26 AM #23
I'm taking ephedrine and caffeine right now. I started with 1:2 (caffeine to ephedrine) ratio twice a day (that's 200mg of caffeine and 8mg of ephedrine). In Canada it is legal to buy ephedrine pretty much anywhere at any nutrition / supplement store for about 5$ a bottle. I did that for about 2 days before I realized I did NOT want to do that anymore.. now, I am doing 1:1 ratio two times a day for about a week before my tolerance goes up so I can take more.
This is a dangerous drug!! From 1:2 I had heart palpitations, anxiety.. I even had changes in mood and emotional swings.
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11-22-2013, 07:27 AM #24
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02-05-2014, 07:25 PM #25
I still remember the good 'ole days when you could buy ephedrine at gas stations . . .
http://musclereview.net/eca-stack/
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06-10-2016, 04:55 PM #26
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