SARMS vs. Prohormones: The Complete guide

When it comes to testosterone, we have been up against Nature in a long-winded fight. In her infinite wisdom, Nature seemed to have ordained that our testosterone levels should drop as we age. Refusing to submit to this, however, we have fought back with tools that provide us with various options.

First, there were the utterly brilliant steroids which produced stunning results on our bodies – including making some of us Olympic champions. But steroids quickly came to infamy for their ugly side effects and their eventual ban by the authorities and sports bodies. Next, we tried our hand on two other great options – Prohormones and Sarms. But what are these compounds and how do they stack up against each other?

In this article, we find the answers to these interesting questions and a great deal more.

What’s a prohormone

Prohormones are synthetic compounds which act as precursors to some hormones in the body. The word precursor is just a common lingo among researchers used to mean something that you add or put in (input) to get something else out (output). Think of it as a raw material. So you need to put in a prohormone to get out a hormone. That sounded so easy, right?

Once in the body, some enzymes in the body go to work converting the prohormone into certain kinds of hormones such as anabolic hormones. As a bodybuilder or fitness person, what could be better? After all, the more anabolic hormones you have swarming in your body, the more muscle you can build or the better you can bulk up, right?

You will sometimes hear the name steroidal supplements being used to refer to prohormones. That can be confusing because they are not steroids. There are also not hormones. Prohormones can help the body to improve its absorption of hormones that you can’t take by mouth. They increase the bioavailability of hormones that are not absorbed well through injection.

Another attraction of prohormones is that they allow you to pick and directly control any hormone you want. Do you want more androgenic traits? (these are usually produced by testosterone) Simple, just take a prohormone for testosterone, and your body will latch onto it and get you more testosterone and androgenic features.

Prohormones were considered to be a safer alternative once steroids shocked people with their host of nasty side effects. They didn’t give you the same quick, astonishing results as steroids did, but they delivered them with less side effects. After all, what good is being a bodybuilding powerhouse with your organs living on borrowed time?

However, prohormones weren’t entirely safe either. They too came with some unpleasant side effects like hormone suppression. For a while, there was nothing else bodybuilders could go for so they hung onto prohormones for their muscle building needs. However, all that changed when another colorful character arrived: SARMs or selective androgen receptors modulators.

What is more, prohormones entirely dropped from the radar, and you can only find it today with the greatest difficulty. This follows the legal ban on it and the bad side effects it produces.

Examples of prohormones

• 1-andro
• 4-andro
• EpiAndrostetone
• 1,4-andro
• 1,4-OHP
• 5aOHP
• 5-andro

What are SARMs

SARMs are a range of chemical compounds that have fascinated fitness and health watchers for years now. When they arrived on the scene in answer to the otherwise brilliant steroids, they completely blew away the competition and won over many admirers. Almost overnight people made the switch to SARMs as their performance enhancement compound of choice. Indeed, it is estimated by the World Anti-doping Agency (WADA) that 10% of athletes worldwide use SARMs as a performance boost. Among the most popularly used SARMs is Ostarine.

SARMs, also called Selective Androgen Receptor Modulator, tackles the problem of testosterone shortage quite differently from steroids or prohormones. It helps unlock desirable traits which one seeks from body cells. For example, it can unlock greater muscle expansion from your muscle cells. Unlike steroids which go unlocking indiscriminately from any cell, SARMs are much more targeted, seeking out particular cells and leaving out the rest. This avoids the terrible side effects that steroids can produce such as hair loss, enlarged prostate, liver damage, and even death.

But SARMs didn’t only arrive recently. Before that, we even had a steroid version of SARMs called steroidal SARMs. They produced results that were almost identical to steroids, achieving stunning physical transformation but carrying the baggage of side effects such as kidney and liver damage and men’s boobs.

It was not until the early 1990s that scientists made a breakthrough step by turning steroidal SARMs into non-steroidal SARMs. They did this simply by coming up with a protein-based SARM. Nonsteroidal SARMs came with almost all the advantages of steroids without their harmful side effects.

Examples of SARMs

• MK-667 (Ostarine)
• LGD-4033 (Ligandrol)
• GW-592156 (Cardamine)
• GSX-007 (Andarine)

Legality

Prohormones come under the scheduled III category of controlled substances. That means it’s an illegal substance and can’t be sold for human consumption. You can find prohormones in the black market, however, but this is difficult.

SARMs, on the other hand, are legal substances but only as a research chemical. Users, however, can work around this by buying SARMs as a chemical research product which they can then direct to personal use.

Benefits of SARMs

What are the benefits you can get from SARMs? The benefits you can get from SARMs are the following

• Can help build mass gain
• Helps to cut out weight creating an excellent well-chiseled physique with great tone
• Can enhance your power and strength
• Gives quick recovery
• Elevates aggression level during workout sessions
• Improves your appetite
• Gives you more pumps
• Improves your sleep

Benefits of prohormones

• Can help build mass gain
• Helps to cut out weight creating an excellent well-chiseled physique with great tone
• Can enhance your power and strength
• Gives quick recovery
• Elevates aggression level during workout sessions
• Improves your appetite
• Gives you more pumps
• Improves your sleep

Side effects of SARMs

Steroids, SARMs, and prohormones all have side effects, but SARMs have the least side effects followed by prohormones. These are some of the side effects of

• Acne
• Increased amounts of LDL, also bad cholesterol
• Testicular atrophy: this is where the balls grow smaller
• Cysts
• May affect your blood pressure
• May reduce testosterone levels
• Low sperm count

SARMs, unlike prohormones, do not convert into DHT or estrogen, a process called aromatization. Given no such aromatization, SARMs will not cause issues like men’s boobs or gynecomastia.

Side effects of prohormones

Prohormones can’t be selective as SARMs do, so like steroids, they target pretty every cell in the body. That is disastrous because it can leave the body reeling with many side effects. Regardless of the dose used in prohormones, these side effects persist

Some of these side effects include:

• Headaches
• Dizziness
• Acne breakout
• Mood swings
• Water retention
• Gynecomastia or men’s boobs
• Organs like the kidney, the liver can be destroyed by toxicity

Availability and price

Prohormone

Prohormones are so scarce today that you can only get them with great difficulty. It’s not impossible to get them, but I don’t advise you to find them. Apart from the fact that they are illegal, the benefits they provide can be obtained in other ways such as SARMs with fewer side effects.

SARMs

You can get SARMs from several reputable vendors. You also have several choices of SARMs from which to choose, depending on your individual needs. Different SARMs are ideal for different purposes, such as cutting, bulking, or decomposing. You can also stack different SARMs to get even better and more rapid results.

Conclusion

So which is the winner between SARMs vs. prehormones? The clear winner between SARMs vs. prehormones is SARMs. Although both SARMs and prohormones have fewer side effects compared to steroids and are considered to be better alternatives, SARMs is even better because it has fewer side effects. Keep in mind however that prohormones have greater potency than SARMs, but given the risks, they pose in terms of Side effects they are not worth it.

Prohormones have a list of side effects the worst being that they can mess up your liver. They also almost always lead to hormone suppression which requires a PCT, which is expensive, lengthy and time-consuming (often lasting from 3 to 4 months) Unlike SARMs, prohormones are banned substances and finding a supply of it is essentially impossible. Moreover, any supply of it you get is more likely to be counterfeit.

SARMs are legal (though only as research chemicals) so it is relatively easy to find genuine, high-quality SARMs. Virtually no research is being done on prohormones while intense research still goes on with SARMs with prospects looking promising that one-day SARMs may replace steroid therapy. For all these reasons, SARMs are a better choice than Prohormones if you are looking to cut, bulk or decompose without resorting to anabolic steroids.