You may have heard of them, but what are SARMs? Well, you’re in the right place to find out.
In essence, SARMs are often referred to as a safer alternative to steroids, but that’s not a very nice way to put it. SARMs are so much more than that, and not to mention, they are legal for the most part.
In this article, we will cover everything you need to know about SARMs so that you can decide if you would like to try them. And if you do, next is to find the best place to buy SARMs.
Contents
What Are SARMs?
Selective androgen receptor modulators, also known as SARMs, have been around for a long time. The first introduction of SARMs occurred through marketing for osteoporosis, cancer, and other disease treatment by Ligand Pharmaceuticals. At the time, they were called steroidal SARMs.
After a short amount of time, researchers quickly discovered that the steroidal SARMs were prone to side effects. Patients would see large gains in lean muscle mass, but doctors would note several negative side effects as well.
Steroids (steroidal SARMs) cause a variety of side effects, such as low libido, gynecomastia, heart disease, and liver damage. But don’t fear, these are not the SARMs we are going to talk about.
After these discoveries, doctors stopped prescribing these steroidal forms of SARMs. Not much else was said for steroidal SARMs for a long time.
Over a period of time, closer to our day, GTx INC began to release non-steroidal SARMs. Those are the protein-based chemical structures that we now call SARMs. They can give us a variety of benefits that steroids do, but with significantly fewer side effects, making them a very feasible opportunity for bodybuilding.
Now that you know what are SARMs, let’s learn about the difference between them and steroids.
Steroids vs SARMs
Anabolic steroids are a case of nortestosterone and testosterone derivatives that stimulate hormone responses that result in muscle growth. They were developed by German scientists who wanted to gain an advantage in the Olympic games. They began more commonplace with bodybuilders in the 1950s.
Just like there are many varieties of steroids, there is also a lot of different SARMs. They all have similar effects, but what differs is the method of action. And it does make a very noticeable difference.
While almost all steroids bind with all androgen receptors in the body, SARMs only bind to a select number of them. While this might seem unimportant, it’s the most prominent difference from steroids for individuals who want to avoid side effects.
Due to this selective approach of SARMs, they only have a fraction of the potential side effects but are just as effective as steroids.
When you take testosterone enanthate, it will bind to all of your receptors, even those in your heart, blood, and other parts of the body. This results in a lot of adverse side effects.
Contrary to that, SARMs selectively choose the receptors to bind with. Not to mention, some of the SARMs don’t bind to receptors at all.
Some SARMs modulate the receptors, which lets the user achieve positive results while avoiding heart and liver problems.
SARMs Legality
One of the biggest questions that people have after learning about the effect of SARMs is their legality. Fortunately for most, SARMs are entirely legal to sell, buy, and possess. And that’s because they are sold for “research purposes”, not for human consumption.
According to most law regulations, unless you pull your SARMs out at the police department and begin to use them, it’s entirely legal.
The only time not to consume SARMs is if you’re a military member, college athlete, or Olympic athlete because these groups can get tested for them. However, usually, only professional athletes have to worry about SARMs since they are tested against the World Anti-Doping List, which does cover SARMs.
SARMs are currently 100% legal in the US, UK, Australia, Europe, and Canada. SARMs are also legally purchased and owned in India, Pakistan, Sweden, Netherland, and many others.
It’s not hard to find SARMs for sale, but it’s hard to find reputable and high-quality SARMs. As long as you place substantial effort into researching and learning about the companies you will be ordering from, you will be well ahead of other individuals who don’t know what they are doing.
So don’t hesitate to spend hours trying to learn about SARMs, because it’s your health on the line. And even though SARMs are safe, what you buy might not be SARMs, and that’s a problem.
Now let’s get into the most prominent substances of the SARMs family.
MK-2866: Ostarine
Ostarine is a very common SARM, which was initially developed to treat muscle-wasting. It didn’t take long before users caught onto the musclebuilding effectiveness and started to bulk up.
Apparently, even 3 mg of ostarine per day can help you gain substantial muscle mass, especially when put against placebos. To add perspective, ostarine is safe in dosages up to 50 mg each day. That’s 15 times more than the dose mentioned earlier.
Lifters who take ostarine do so during bulking stages and recomposition. During bulking, many reports getting over 10 lbs of muscles in 2 months, as well as shedding fat and improving strength outputs.
But the real power comes from stacking ostarine with other supplements. It can be stacked with ligandrol, cardarine, and andarine, all of which are also SARMs.
GW-501516: Cardarine
Cardarine reprograms the muscle fiber types that are responsible for endurance during cardio. In moderate doses, it’s noted that cardarine significantly improves endurance and oxidizes more fat than ever before.
Even though cardarine isn’t technically a SARM, it’s listed as one that many websites sell. Cardarine binds to peroxisome proliferator-activated receptors, which is why it’s not a “SARM”.
It’s primarily used in competitive environments to achieve weight and improve endurance. So it provides athletes with huge advantages.
In fact, many users report that they can endure cardio for days when taking it. Many people use them to run marathons. Users also report cutting and drying properties that help improve their physique before competitions.
LGD-4033: Ligandrol
Ligandrol is generally well-tolerated with most people. It’s noted for enhancing lean body mass, weight loss, and an improved sense of wellbeing.
It’s primarily known for the ability to shred fat when preparing for beach season or competitions. It’s not uncommon to take ligandrol and find that fat is being burnt quickly.
However, the real magic of ligandrol comes out from stacking it with cardarine. SARMs are great on their own, but even better when combined.
These two make for a great fat-burning complex, which will give you a hard clean dry look and help you shed weight quickly.
S4: Andarine
Andarine is great for building muscle, increasing strength, and shredding fat. However, it’s also good for building bone density. It’s very impressive in terms of reducing water retention, which leads to a dry look.
In totality, as with other SARMs, there are very few side effects when taking it in the advised range of dosage. When dosed over 50 mg per day, andarine does lead to side-effects.
The first is HPG axis suppression, which means your testosterone production is reduced. However, this is not permanent and can be fixed with a regular post-cycle therapy schedule.
The more serious side effect is the potential for nighttime blindness.
It’s not what you might think though. It’s simply a color shift when taking large doses of andarine. So make sure to stay within the advised limits.
RAD-140: Testolone
Testolone is potentially the most powerful SARM on the list. It also has the best anabolic to androgenic ratio at about 90 to 1. This means that not only will it provide steroidal growth effects, but it will have practically zero androgenic side effects.
Regular testosterone steroids have an anabolic to androgenic ratio of 100 to 100. This means that for every anabolic receptor it binds to, it will also bind to an androgenic receptor which is responsible for side effects and estrogen increase.
Testolone does not do this; it’s anabolic entirely. In a scientific study done by the Cambridge University, they described this SARM as being an orally bio-available and potent non-steroidal SARM. They even compared it to steroids.
It stimulates muscle weight increase at low doses, which does not enable the prostate weight to increase. Moreover, it has a selective efficacy because the fully anabolic result is significantly above the minimal efficacy on the seminal and prostate vesicles.
All in all, testolone is very powerful with potentially no side effects.
MK-677: Nutrabol
Have you ever heard of human growth hormone? Well, it’s the hormone we release when we sleep and it has a wide variety of beneficial effects on the body. It helps with bone growth, muscle growth, blood sugar, metabolism, and much more.
But as we get older, HGH decreases.
Nutrabol is not technically a SARM; it’s a growth hormone secretagogue. This means it’s a chemical that encourages the pituitary gland to secrete HGH.
It’s often sold with SARMs and stacks great, leading to an even wider range of potential effects. Short-term administration can increase IGF-1, GH, and IGHBP-3. It’s the bulker’s best choice, as it secretes three different hormones that aid muscle mass.
Also, because of its effect profile, nutrabol helps recovery tremendously, especially when combined with testolone and ostarine.
Bulking SARM Stack
A typical SARMs bulking stack will help you gain muscle as soon as possible and as quickly as possible. It’s important to maintain a caloric surplus when bulking; 700 calories over your maintenance is a good range.
Some options for a SARM bulking stack are RAD-140, MK-677, and LGD-4033. However, the beauty of SARMs is in the ability to design your own stack; you don’t even have to follow our guide. We only listed, what, like 5 different SARMs?
There are certainly over a dozen available, and that’s just the most popular ones. So do your research, and find what’s best for you.
Cutting SARM Stack
If you want to shred fat and not focus on muscle mass, you will want to use a cutting stack. These are geared towards weight loss while muscle mass is maintained.
Some people can also gain some muscle, but it’s not the primary effect. Examples of SARMs for cutting are S4, cardarine, and ostarine.
Recomposition SARM Stack
A recomposition stack is one you should use to maintain your weight, but change the composition of it. Basically, you want to gain muscle while losing fat but remaining the same weight.
A great recomposition stack relies on high-protein surplus and cardio. Some great SARMs for this stack are YK-11, cardarine, and LGD-4033.
Strength SARM Stack
Some users simply want to get more strength. Powerlifters don’t really care about looks or fat; they just want to push more weight. If you only cared about gaining weight and throwing steel around, you should try a strength stack.
This stack is very similar to that for bulking, but it will focus on muscle density, not size. A strength stack will have RAD-140, YK-11, and MK-677.
Use SARMs to Your Advantage
Now that you already know what are SARMs, you are potentially intrigued in purchasing some for yourself or continuing your studies. However, we cannot provide any purchasing advice for SARMs, so we’ll leave that up to you.
As long as you look for reputable and well-known vendors with certificates of analysis on their products, you will likely avoid all potential problems.
In any case, if you’re interested in other articles about sports or other topics, check out some of the other articles on our website.
