A personal lean-mass protocol — building muscle that lasts, one honest kilo at a time

Who this is for

This page is for the adult who already lifts and wants more from it: the office athlete whose numbers have not moved in a year, the forty-something who has noticed that weight comes off the bar more easily than it goes on, the competitor between seasons. You are not looking for a shortcut around training. You want the recovery, sleep and growth signal that make the training you already do pay out.

A lean-mass protocol fits best when most of these are true:

• You lift three or more times a week on a programme with progression written in.
• Body fat is already sensible — roughly under 20 % for men, under 30 % for women. If not, fat loss or recomposition comes first.
• You can eat a small, consistent surplus and 1.8–2.2 g of protein per kilo of body weight, every day.
• Recovery, not motivation, is the bottleneck: sore for three days, joints complaining before muscles do.
• You will do baseline labs — including IGF-1 — and a repeat mid-cycle.

It is not a page for anyone under 18, pregnant or breastfeeding, with active or recent cancer, or with an untreated thyroid or pituitary condition — growth-signalling compounds are a hard stop there. And it is not for someone who wants the pen to replace the programme. It will not.

What a protocol for this goal usually contains

The compound layer here is quieter than people expect. Most of the muscle comes from the programme, the protein and the sleep; the compounds make those three work better. No doses — they are written for you after your labs.

Compounds that are usually in the conversation

• CJC-1295 + Ipamorelin — the usual lead: a pulsatile growth-hormone signal taken at night, studied for sleep depth, recovery and, more slowly, body composition.
• MOTS-c — for the researcher whose sessions feel like a grind; studied for training tolerance and metabolic flexibility. Dosed, then trained.
• Wolverine (BPC-157 + TB-500) — only when a tendon, shoulder or elbow limits the training; studied for soft-tissue repair, alongside a loading plan.
• NAD+ — occasionally, when the recovery problem is really an energy problem after travel or burnout.

Training

• Your programme, kept, with the volume checked: ten to twenty hard sets per muscle group a week, the last set of the main lifts one to two reps from failure.
• A deload every fourth or fifth week, in the calendar.
• Short zone-2 once or twice a week — never the day before a heavy lower session.

Nutrition

• A surplus of roughly 200–300 kcal a day — enough for 0.25–0.5 kg a month, not enough to need a fat-loss cycle afterwards.
• Protein at 1.8–2.2 g per kilo across four feedings, one within a couple of hours of training; carbohydrate around sessions, where most people under-eat it and call the result "bad recovery".
• Creatine monohydrate daily — which is why kidney function is always cystatin C, never creatinine.

Sleep and recovery

• Seven and a half to eight hours; most growth-hormone release and muscle repair happen in the first deep-sleep cycles, which the nightly compound is timed to.
• Last meal two to three hours before bed, which the fasted timing of the nightly pen also needs.
• Rest days that are actually rest — a walk, not "light cardio" that turns into intervals.

Clinic and lab levers

• Baseline labs: IGF-1, fasting glucose and HbA1c, lipids, liver enzymes, thyroid (TSH, free T4), a full blood count, total and free testosterone, and cystatin C.
• IGF-1 and fasting glucose repeated at week 6 — the markers that confirm the dose is right and not more than right.
• Weight weekly, waist and a mid-thigh or upper-arm circumference fortnightly, and the training log — the real outcome measure.
• A physician copy for your own doctor, with the growth-signalling exclusions spelled out.

What you'll feel — and when

Typical ranges from research settings and the researchers we write for — not promises. Lean mass shows in the log before the mirror, and in the mirror before the scale; the protocol says what to measure.

How we build it for you

A lean-mass protocol is written around your programme, not instead of it — the intake asks what you lift and how it has moved lately.

1. Intake. Fifteen minutes of honest answers in the Research Protocol Builder. Labs are optional here — upload later and we revise.
2. Safety gate and baseline labs. The exclusion list first (pregnancy, active cancer, under 18, the compound-specific red flags), then the baseline panel your plan needs — kidney function as cystatin C, never creatinine alone.
3. Human review. A writer drafts from your intake and labs; a reviewer checks every dose, lab threshold and interaction. Typically within 24 hours.
4. Three documents. A short results version for your phone, the full clinical document with the week-by-week schedule and lab plan, and a physician copy for your own doctor.
5. A free coach call on WhatsApp to walk it through and read your labs against the plan.
6. Check-ins at week 2, mid-cycle and the end. Mid-cycle labs decide whether the dose holds, steps or stops.

We write the budget option first — the fewest pens that can honestly move the goal — and you upgrade at a check-in once the labs have earned it.

What it costs

The personal research protocol is €399, follow-up included: intake, human review, the three documents, the coach call, the check-ins and any revision when new labs arrive. No subscription.

Pens are not included: we do not sell, supply, source or ship any compound. The protocol lists the pens it assumes (300 clicks each). A twelve-week lean-mass cycle usually runs on one nightly pen; a recovery or metabolic pen is a second pen, not a second protocol.

Got an invite code or gift code from a coach? Enter it at the start of the intake and the protocol is on us — we are by invitation only, and the codes are how the invitation travels.