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  • Follow the 2026 Olympia on September 24 to 27, 2026!

esters -- long vs short

eazy_team usp

eazy_team usp

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There is more to esters than half life.

I learned two things that caught my interest.

1) Short esters yield a higher peak plasma concentration than long esters.

2) Long esters are more anabolic, and will cause more muscle gain.

Short esters--

Short esters yield a higher peak plasma than long esters.

Peak plasma concentration is the highest level of drug in the blood, short esters provide more of a drug then long esters.

A 1954 study (1) compared the effects of different injected testosterone ester preparations in men to identify formulations providing longer and more consistent testosterone levels than testosterone propionate.

What they found was that the shortest ester provided the highest peak levels of testosterone, followed by the medium length ester, and the lowest peak level was found with the longest ester.

Does this mean I will see better results with a shorter ester because I am being provided more of the compound?

Long esters--

Long esters cause higher levels of estrogen, cause more water retention, cause more suppression of the HPTA, cause higher levels of nitrogen retention, are more anabolic, and will cause more muscle gain.

A 1954 study (1) comparing Testosterone Enanthate with Testosterone Propionate. The results of this study was that Test Enanthate resulted in total nitrogen retention of 1.76g/day vs Propionate only 1.02g/day. They also found that the duration of anabolic activity was 33 days with test e and 12 days with prop.(1) These were with the same doses 200mgs of each. Overall, the longer ester retains more nitrogen (muscle gain) per day then shorts, and remains active in the body for much longer.

Testosterone’s effect on gh and IGF-I are dependent on aromatization to estrogen, the long ester's increased conversion to estrogen will provide a greater elevation in your GH and IGF-1 levels.

Should I be using both long and short esters in a cycle to get the maximum benefits?

references:

(1) https://agsjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1532-5415.1954.tb00207.x
 
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