Thanks for the responses guys.

Both of what you're saying makes a lot of sense. Given the experience of the person recommending this I wanted to get some other opinions, what you're saying matches my gut reaction.

The other option I was leaning towards was running Test/Tren/Dbol for a series of 2on/2offs. I'm 12 weeks out from competition and so I can't risk a large mass gain pushing me up a weight class - which is why I'm not just running Test E @ 250mg E3D for 8-12 weeks. There were a lot of threads about 2on/2off protocols over at TNation a few years back but I haven't found anything recently on it, not sure if the idea has died. It would look like:

W1-2
Tren Ace 50mg ED (100mg frontload)
Test Prop 30mg ED (100mg frontload)
Dianabol 50mg ED
Adex .25mg ED

W3-4
Nolva 20mg ED

Repeat the above for 3x total and then go 4+ weeks off.

Of course this falls victim to the "not knowing which compound is causing sides" as well. Given the short esters, if I run into problems I'd plan on backing off of things one at a time (tren first most likely) and I'd check in with my doc. I realize this is slightly more gung-ho than adding one thing at a time, I'm willing to take that risk given the short cycles and esters.

If neither of these are particularly good, I'll likely just wait until after this competition and run test straight for 8 weeks (frontloaded). I've been doing this a long time natty and am not going to rush into something blindly. But, if there's a way to fit enhanced gains into this time period, all the better.

Thanks!