How SARMs helped me smash my fitness goals, Part-1: LGD-4033
Medical Disclaimer: I’m not a doctor and this should not be construed as medical advice.
Legal Disclaimer: I live in a country where SARMs are still legal. Uf you do not live in a country where SARMs are legal then I suggest you avoid seeking them out.
I’m not gonna lie to you guys:
I’m a chemical bodybuilder/hormone enthusiast and feel no shame about it. I don’t compete in any tested sports leagues and I do not coach clients. I do this for fun and for the experience.
I always wanted to have the body of a superhero so it was only natural that I went enhanced as I entered my 30s.
I was always a fan of the tried and true compounds.
Testosterone, Deca, Dbol, and var are mainly what I’ve built my physique on. I’m not really a big fan of other compounds. I’m never gonna be a professional bodybuilder, so I felt no need to subject myself to harsh stuff like Trenbolone. I won’t lie, I’ve tinkered with other stuff but I mostly find that the juice just isn’t worth the squeeze. No one is paying me for this and I’m only willing to subject my body to so much.
Ultimately, that is what led me to SARMs:
A lot of stuff, even the good stuff, has some pretty annoying downsides. Deca makes me feel weird and depressed.
Dianabol (dbol), when used improperly, can make you bloated and it’s hell on the lipids from what I understand.
Feeling weird isn’t necessarily a deal-breaker, but I didn’t get into bodybuilding to feel weird and bloated, so what’s the point?
I’m always trying to avoid downsides in my life and this goes triple for my health. What’s the point of using a compound if you don’t feel good. What’s the point of getting big if you have to feel like shit while doing it?
With that out of the way, I decided to run LGD-4033 along with a TRT dosage of Testosterone Undecanoate at 120mg split into three 40mg dosages administered weekly.
What was my particular goal:
I wanted to recomp.
Moving backward in bodybuilding is akin to chemical seppuku. No one likes taking a step back and if we do it’s so that we can quickly jump ahead. Anabolics are vital in this regard.
Like many people, Covid-19 season was a time to “bulk” and I use the word “bulk” very, very liberally here. I had access to a small, private gym and I made the best use of it that I could. I actually got through a weight plateau and was pretty pleased.
However, At a stubby 5’7 the 85kg (190 pounds) I was rocking was quite hefty on me. I carried it well, but it was still a lot to carry.
I had begun to transition my diet and hormone selection for a cut, but I was running into an issue that we often run into with this kind of stuff.
The eternal question that always pops up is “what is the best compound to use?”
In truth, this is a question that has many answers. There is no one best compound out there and there are many ways to skin the anabolic cat.
I figured something like a SARM would be a good fit for this recomp goal.
My cycle
25mg of LGD-4033 taken in powder form every day + 120mg of testosterone Undecanoate administered by injection 3 days a week to maintain stable testosterone levels in the blood.
My reasoning:
SARMs are tissue-selective so I wouldn’t retain much water and they won’t cause much inflammation if I’m careful with my diet. Not to mention, and most important, They’re super anabolic and good at muscle-sparing without all the sides that accompany things like Dianabol, Testosterone or Nandrolone.
After some research, I arrived at LGD-4033.
Can you take it without a testosterone base?
Yes you can and many guys have done so for quite a while without problems but I would not do that.
Why did I decide on SARMs?
I heard a lot of good things about them, but I was not quite convinced. However, in recent years, I’ve become a fan of “cycles” that utilize a number of different compounds that act upon different receptors instead of just slamming my body with as much Dianabol and Nandrolone Decanoate as I could handle.
For example, The classic bodybuilder stack that everyone and their uncle recommends on the forums is the Testosterone, Deca, and Dbol cycle.
Why I don’t like “classic” cycles?
They seem to exist mainly due to inertia and not because of actual reasoning, I could go more into that later, but let’s stick on point and mainly why I don’t like the aforementioned cycle in particular.
Estrogen side effects:
This fucking cycle SPIKES estrogen out of this world. Testosterone and Dbol both aromatize into estrogen with the latter aromatizing heavily into estrogen. This is like the Supersize fries of bodybuilding stacks. It’s big, greasy, tastes great but leaves you bloated and stuffed like a Thanksgiving Day Turkey. It’s not a good look at all, furthermore, it feels awful.
Why is this bad? Estrogen in and of itself is not bad. Quite the contrary, men and women both need an adequate amount of estrogen in their bodies in order to function.
However, too much estrogen can lead to a host of problems down the line.
When you take high dosages of Testosterone, Dianabol and deca you end up with quite a bit of estrogen conversion and it is awful.
This leads me to why I chose SARMS:
SARMs, at the right, conservative dosages are selective. It’s actually in the name. SARM stands for Selective Androgen Receptor Modulator.
This means that they are supposed to act purely upon the androgen receptors so that you get pure muscle growth without any pesky side effects like hair loss, deepening of the voice, body hair, prostate enlargement, aggression, kidney damage, liver damage, and a ton of other stuff I won’t go into.
In short, SARMS are supposed to help you put on muscle and nothing else.
This obviously sounded like it was too good to be true. All good stuff and no bad stuff? That sounds like bullshit to me.
On November 3rd or so I began my cycle. I already had a testosterone base of 100mg of testosterone a week so I just decided to add 25mg of LGD-4033 in a day and an additional 20mg of testosterone U weekly.
Why did I pick LGD-4033 specifically:
It’s the strongest SARM I could find! Nah, I had always heard good things about it and it seemed to have a pretty clear set of benefits that I was after. Aside from Cardarine and MK-2866, it’s also probably the most studied SARM out there. I also liked that it seemed to have the most pronounced muscle-building properties of all the other SARMS that I read about without the weird side effects that SARMs like s4 and s23 have.
Why did I take Testosterone?
Well, LGD-4033 is a suppressive SARM, meaning it will shut down your natural testosterone production if you use it for a long enough time. This has a lot of downsides, namely that it will shut down your testosterone production and estrogen conversion meaning you will feel like S**t and look like crap if you take it for too long without a base of testosterone to support your cycle. Estrogen is critical to muscle gain and anabolism.
Can you take it without a Testosterone base?
Yes you can and many guys have done so for quite a while without problems but I would not do that. If you do decide to do that I would suggest you run some sort of PCT (post-cycle therapy) with it.
Can you do it without PCT?
Yeah, but just be prepared to feel like shit for a while.
Protocols and theory:
Because the SARMs effects came on so quickly I decided that a shorter cycle was the right play. The half-life on LGD-4033 is about 40 hours or so. I decided to take it daily and in the morning.
morning time was the best time, by my estimation, because it comes on so quickly, according to others, that I would prefer that “boost” in the morning as opposed to at night.
I know, I know, SARMs are supposed to be totally selective and have no sides, but I’m a believer that anything that comes on fast can possibly have side effects related to the parasympathetic nervous system (fight or flight mode). Putting yourself into fight or flight mode late at night is obviously a bad idea. Also, I think taking something anabolic at night is kinda silly because you’re fasting as you sleep, so you are better off taking it earlier in the day when food is constantly coming in so it has something to use to build muscle.
For reference, I also administered my testosterone injections in the morning alongside my oral LGD on days where it was applicable.
Thoughts and conclusions:
Depending on the dosage, this stuff can be androgenic, meaning it has certain side effects that you might expect from older anabolic steroids.
Libido:
The boost in libido was noticeable and almost painful. I won’t go into too much detail but I’m sure you can guess.
Joints:
This is anecdotal and I wouldn’t suggest trying this compound for joint support, but I noticed that my normally sensitive shoulders were able to handle a lot more pressing work than usual. I’m not sure why this is. If you ask my totally uneducated opinion I suspect it has something to do with fluid retention in the joints. However, I’m not quite sure why fluid would be retained in the joints and not my body. This stuff burned fat off of me.
Growth:
I stayed the same weight, dried out, and got visibly tighter at the waist. This stuff is fucking potent.
Strength:
This was scary. I’m already pretty decently strong but this put me at another level. I was able to do a single-arm overhead press with a 45kg dumbbell and it felt easy. Like, stupidly easy.
I felt like a fat-burning dynamo. I was able to warm up with 100 air squats on leg day, for example. I was cranking them out. it was pretty unreal. I was also able to incline bench 80kg for 5x10 and it felt easy. I’m not a particularly good presser so this was quite a shock to me.
Honestly, I didn’t push this too much because I’m always worried about injuries. I'm not super strong by anyone’s standards but getting hurt is the best way to end your gains. Fuck that.
Prostate:
I don’t recall any prostate stimulation occurring from my month-long cycle, but I would be concerned about this moving forward. Protect your prostate, always. no questions about it. Needing to piss all the time is fucking miserable
Energy:
This is what made me think the stuff is highly androgenic. One thing that certain people report on steroids like Trenbolone is a sense of agitation, excitement, or anger. Many people speculate that this is because it puts your body in a constant state of fight or flight.
I think that LGD-4033 has a similar property. I obviously don’t have the data to prove it or the funds to run a battery of tests on myself to prove it but it’s a strong hunch I have about this stuff.
Recovery:
One thing I absolutely do want to point out is that I felt inexhaustible on this stuff. I could just train and train and train. That’s a trap, though. Training to failure is fine and all but training to failure every day for 3 weeks sounds like a great way to get hit with rhabdo. Do not do that. Trust me. You will feel like a beast on this stuff but respect your recovery, your joints, and your health and know when to go home.
Mood:
I felt very confident while on LGD-4033. I was almost delusional about my strength. It didn’t lead to any bad encounters at the gym, but I did feel an almost unnatural sense of well-being. I think it’s something to watch out for if you’re more confident naturally because I could see this being problematic. I didn’t feel any anger or anything but being super confident can be a bad thing in certain scenarios.
However, it was a definite performance boost in the gym.
Final Thoughts:
Honestly, I was kinda shocked by how much my body changed within a 3–4 week period. For while I wrote off SARMs as “weak” but I think this just seriously altered my opinion.
Fat just melted off but I didn’t lose much in the way of size. I lost two inches on my waist and regained my v-taper. Even now weeks later I am still holding a solid V taper aesthetic. Of course, diet is always in the mix and I eat pretty cleanly but I’m still very pleased with this recomp. In fact, it went so well that I feel as though I might be due for bulk in the winter.
I normally don’t do hard bulks but I’m so lean and it’s cold as hell where I am so a little bit of fluff might be just what I need.
