This Ostarine review is going to be bit different because it’s going to be honest. Too many reviews of Ostarine out there are conflicting, misleading, and really do tell you it’s a wonder fat stripper when the truth is slightly different. The truth is quite mild, and the Ostarine dosage you use is critical.
So what I’m going to do here is tell you everything you need to know about using Ostarine for bodybuilding purposes in the real world.
I’m going to talk to you about this Ostarine before and after photos, and how you can’t trust them. I going to look at the benefits and effects, dosage, and tell you about the real effects you can expect to achieve from your first Ostarine cycle.
What Type Of SARM Is Ostarine Mk-2866 ?
Ostarine, also known by the alphanumerics MK-2866 and GTx-024, as well as the names Ostabolic, Enobosarm, and even just “Osta”, is a SARM: Selective Androgen Receptor Modulator. It’s an investigational drug. I think it’s important to explain here exactly what that means.
SARMs are all investigational drugs. That means that they were developed to try and address certain problems. They then may have gone through some initial trials.
But none of these investigational chemicals have ever finished the full process of human trials and been regulated for use by any country in the world.
So what you’re getting is scientists around the world coming up with ideas for drugs. They then make them and start testing them, but for various reasons they are discarded for their originally designed purpose. The formulas are then picked up and recreated by grey market labs around the world and sold on to the people you buy them from online.
These true SARMs do exactly what they say. They selectively modulate androgen receptors. Not all SARMs do that though, and others have different mechanisms of action.
I hope we are clear here guys. You are getting grey market investigational drugs that are totally unregulated. However, that’s not the whole story with SARMs, especially not with Ostarine.
How Ostarine Works For Bodybuilding Benefits
Originally constructed to deal with muscle wasting conditions and osteoporosis in the early 2000’s, the license for development was sold by Merck to GTx.
In 2009, and again in 2012, it was stated by GTx the mechanism of action of Ostarine was still not fully understood. It has allegedly undergone phase 2 clinical trials on humans, but those results have never been published.
Although never tested in fit humans, Ostarine definitely has been tested in humans for the purposes of stopping muscle wasting in the elderly.
A 12 week double-blind clinical study of 120 healthy elderly people found a dose-dependent improvement in lean body mass, and muscle retention, even in a calorie deficit.
So what you’re basically getting with Ostarine is something that mimics the action of testosterone in muscle and bone tissue. But it only does this mildly compared to some of the more aggressive SARMs out there, which is why your body doesn’t tend to start reducing its own testosterone production, unless you take a very high dose of Ostarine for a sustained period.
Benefits And Effects Of Ostarine For Bodybuilding
So there is some evidence that Ostarine can help people to retain muscle in a calorie deficit, and improve lean body mass. Let’s stack that fact alongside nearly 20 years of grey market reconstructed formula Ostarine use in the bodybuilding community (alongside my own use) to define the benefits of Ostarine for bodybuilders:
- Ostarine has been shown to increase lean body mass, making it great for helping to build muscle, but do not expect too much.
- Ostarine can help to protect lean muscle mass even in a muscle wasting scenario, which for bodybuilders means a cutting phase. Basically, it will protect your gains as you strip fat.
- Ostarine has been shown to protect and even increase body mass in a calorie deficit, and to do this with minor androgenic effects. Basically, it does not have androgenic side effects such as testosterone drop, or increased estrogen production.
- Enhanced muscle recovery times post workout, which can be significant over the length of a cycle.
So let me spell it out here for you by talking about my own experiences using Ostarine on its own initially, and then stacked to enhance its benefits.
In a single 12 week cycle just using Ostarine, I cut 6 pounds of fat and retained all of my gains. My lean muscle mass was almost identical even though I was in a calorie deficit for several days per week.
I then stacked Ostarine with Cardarine and S-4 Andarine. This was a mega-cutting stack. What you’re getting is the preservation effects of Ostarine and Andarine, alongside the energy boosts of Cardarine. So you burn more fat, and power through your workouts.
You can even use it as part of post-cycle therapy. Stack it with Nolvadex or Clomid, to help regain your testosterone levels, while maintaining your gains and continuing to strip fat without affecting your testosterone levels.
So for me, Ostarine is mild, non-androgenic, and is brilliant on the cycle and post cycle to help strip fat and maintain gains.
What Realistic Ostarine Before And After Results You Expect?
How you use it will dictate the Ostarine before and after results you get. Stick with me here, because it’s going to take some explaining.
If you use Ostarine Mk-2866 in a calorie deficit it will protect lean muscle mass. So it’s great for cutting fat while maintaining your gains.
If you use it when you are consuming surplus calories, it can also increase lean body mass. But it does this in a minor way, and nowhere near as efficiently as aggressively as SARMs like Ligandrol. It really is a mild beginner SARM that helps you to increase lean muscle mass only slightly.
Those before and after results you experience will also depend greatly on the following:
- The dose of Ostarine you take
- Whether you’re bulking or cutting
- How hard you work out
- The length of the cycle
- Whether you stack it
- If you continue to use Ostarine post cycle
- Your own personal body response
Now I want to be clear here, that those magnificent before and after images you see are mostly rubbish. They are always mostly old anabolic steroid photos, or absolute peak performance photos.
After a single cycle of Ostarine on its own, you will see slight gains in a calorie surplus, and significant muscle mass protection in a calorie deficit. So on its own, Ostarine is really mild, and good for protecting your gains when you cut fat.
But for me, the power of Ostarine is as part of a cutting stack.
The best stack for cutting that uses Ostarine for me, is dosed at 15 mg per day, alongside 10 mg per day of GW-501516 Cardarine.
It’s a simple stack, but the combination of protecting your gains, burning fat, and the significant boost in energy you’ll get, is significant.
Everything You Need To Know About The Correct Dosage To Use
I’m now going to talk to you about Ostarine dosage with a massive caveat, which I’ve already explained to you at the start of this Ostarine review. Because SARMs are research chemicals, they’ve never been through full human clinical trials for any purpose, let alone for protecting gains by healthy people who are bodybuilding.
So all of the dosage advice is anecdotal.
For example, in the clinical trial I mentioned earlier, the elderly people took doses at different levels depending on the group they are in. The maximum dose per day was still only 3 mg. It’s important to note that only the 3 mg group saw any positive results.
And yet, bodybuilders routinely recommend as much as 30 mg per day of Ostarine is a good dose level. The study tells us that 3 mg or more is needed, but it doesn’t suggest 30 mg a sensible dose. For me, if you’re just starting out with SARMs, I go for 15 mg per day. If you are stacking it, probably 10 mg per day.
I’ve found that 20 mg of Ostarine is a sweet spot, and 30 mg doesn’t appear to have much more impact in my experience. So why take more for no reason?
In terms of women using Ostarine, it’s also very beneficial, but it should be taken at a low dose, usually around 5 mg per day, or even every other day. If you’re really pushing it, you may need 10 mg every other day. Just be very careful about your dose, and don’t go anywhere near 10 mg every day to start off with.
The other side of dosing Ostarine is around the length of the cycle. It stands to reason that the shorter the cycle, the higher the dose can be.
However, a SARMs cycle of four weeks is useless. Even six weeks for me isn’t enough to cut the fat or gain the muscle you need.
I usually do an eight-week cycle, and I’d advocate that for a beginner. You can push it to 10 weeks, or even 12 weeks, but I would make sure you are doing that at lower doses, either by starting high and tapering down, or starting low and ramping them up.
Using Ostarine As PCT
One thing that is not commonly known is that Ostarine can be used as part of post-cycle therapy (PCT). It’s well known in the anabolic steroid users community, because it’s non-androgenic, and helps to protect the gains after a cycle of anabolic steroids.
In the SARMs community, it’s not so widely used or thought of. So let me put that right here.
Because Ostarine is not androgenic at lower doses, and it protects your gains, it allows you to do a cutting cycle, and continue to protect your gains, or even increase them with a high calorie and workout regime, while you also repair your testosterone levels using Nolvadex or Clomid.
If you’re using Ostarine off-cycle though, keep the dose low. Try 5 mg per day, and if it isn’t do anything, go to 10 mg a ceiling.
Are User Reviews Online Reliable?
Those Ostarine reviews with before and after photos in them are the ones I’ve already warned you about. You just don’t know if it’s the person who’s done the review in them, or if it’s a stock photo. You don’t know if they’ve used Ostarine or even SARMs at all.
On top of all that, you don’t know the length of the cycle, the dose, anything is accurate or reliable in the review.
So for me, I wouldn’t base too much on those exceptional reviews of SARMs at all.
Don’t get me wrong, Ostarine is very good. It’s mild, even at high doses only mildly androgenic. So there are very few side effects and you probably won’t need a PCT supplement if you’re using it on its own.
But on its own, it’s not that potent. It’s good at protecting gains, but only if you aggressively cut calories. It’s only good at putting on lean mass if you work out really hard and consume massive calories.
You need a proper diet and workout routine and you need to do it over several cycles. It’s not a magic bullet, and like any SARMs on their own, or stacked, hard work and persistence are needed to get the results you want, and that you will see in those photos.
Side Effects & How To Minimize Them
On its own, Ostarine side effects are non-existent at lower doses. If you’re taking 20 mg or less per day and you not taking any other SARMs, then you should never experience any side effects at all.
At higher doses, or if stacked with other SARMs, you could start to see these side effects:
- Nausea
- Headaches
- Lower natural testosterone production
- Joint pain and muscle pain
- Testicular pain
- Increased estrogen
- Menstrual imbalances (in females)
- Increased appetite
If you want to minimize your chances of suffering side effects, go right back to what I said about dosing on cycle length. Keep the cycle around eight weeks, at no more than 20 mg per day. If you are stacking it, those less than that, and you should rarely experience any side effects.
Where To Buy Ostarine Powder And Liquid
I want to conclude here by talking to you about where you can buy Ostarine that’s good quality and reasonably priced.
Science.bio sell both powder and liquid SARMs, including Ostarine. To give you an idea on price, science sell liquid Ostarine for $59.99. For your money you will get 900 mg, dosed it 30 mg/mL.
Another place you can buy Ostarine is Swiss Chems. They sell it in convenient capsule form. 60 capsules, each dosing 10 mg, will cost you $69.95. So as you can see, Ostarine is easy get started with, low risk compared to most SARMs, and relatively cheap to experiment with.