Mrrippedzilla
MIA - PM only
AGE
The first and most important requirement of running a cycle is your age. Through my years as a nutritionist I have seen some very athletic young men with ages ranging from 18-23 who look more ready for a cycle then most who are at the proper age. Regardless, someone who is young has a very high natural testosterone level of 800-1000ng/dl. Getting to the root of the issue, there are two major reasons why running a cycle at a young age is unacceptable and risky. Running a cycle at that young of an age will only risk the recovery of those high levels of testosterone, even if the user runs a perfect post cycle therapy (pct) (we will discuss that later) one could end up with subpar levels of natural testosterone for life after the fact . Secondly, between the ages of 18 and 23 one still has room to grow in height. When a surge of testosterone runs through the body at a supra-physiological dose your growth plates fuse and you're at the tallest you will ever be.
Everything 3J states here is backed up by science.
Here is an awesome study that I recommend everyone reads:
http://press.endocrine.org/doi/abs/10.1210/jc.2010-0435
Firstly, in the study they used a mixture equivalent to sust 250 during puberty in order to stop teenagers from growing too tall (this was apparently a bad thing in the 50s).
The cycle lasted 1.5 years & was successful in stopping height growth - this is CLEAR evidence that taking aas too early WILL stop you from growing any further.
Secondly, they did a follow up 21 years later to see if there were any lasting effects from the aas use during puberty.
They found that, compared to an average individual of the same age, serum test levels were SIGNIFICANTLY lower for that group.
Again, this is strong evidence that using aas too early means you can forget about recovering your natty t levels & increases the likelihood of trt significantly for the future.
As for the "25" number, as Mega stated this is simply a rough average - some will be ready earlier & some later but there is no way for us to determine this on an individual basis without an extended period of time getting to know the person.
From a personal perspective, this also gives guys time to get a number of years of training under their belt along with dieting experience so that the POTENTIAL of their first cycle is maximized.