Andarine (S4)

Our first stint with Andarine happened years ago.

We were testing out SARMS sent out to us by a friend who had just started his new supply venture.

We were the guinea pigs.

Well, with 15+ years of AAS under our belt, we weren’t really bothered much about what SARMS could do to us.

And to be honest, we didn’t expect too much in terms of results either.

But Andarine really blew our mind. For a couple of weeks, we thought that we were using something much stronger.

Maybe a prohormone or Winny. Who knows what they cook up these days in backyard labs in China?

So, we promptly sent it to run some tests.

Much to our surprise, it came back as 95% pure Andarine, a research chemical that was still being investigated for potential therapeutic applications.

We ran some crazy doses back then, until the vision sides hit us.

Today, almost a decade later, there is a lot more clarity to what can be achieved with Andarine and how to dose it correctly.

However, there still seems to be an information void out there when it comes to comparing Andarine with other SARMS, like LGD and Ostarine.

This brief guide will help you decode Andarine and understand how to use it to achieve your fitness goals. 

What is Andarine?

Andarine is a selective androgen receptor modulator that is being developed and researched for its potential applications in the treatment of BPH, Osteoporosis and muscle wasting.

It is a partial agonist of the androgen receptor, which means that it is able to produce a desired effect from the androgen receptor without causing side effects like more conventionally used options, like anabolic steroids or anti-androgens do.

For example, in muscle wasting, Andarine helps the patient gain lean body mass without increasing the size of the prostate gland or causing virilization.

In BPH, it is able to reduce the size of an enlarged prostate (animal model) with the same efficiency as Finasteride.

That’s remarkable to say the least.

But, Andarine is known to cause some temporary vision related side effects which have led to clinical trials being abandoned at an early stage.

Main Andarine Uses

SARMS are still at a very nascent stage of research which makes it kind of difficult to divide them as pure bulking compounds or ones better suited for a cut, like anabolic steroids.

So, you might discover that a lot of them share the same properties and the results will be overlapping.

You can gain lean muscle on almost all of them. But the kind of muscle that you gain might differ.

Ligandrol for example will allow you to put on almost 10lbs of mass in a cycle. But a lot of that will be water weight. When you shed the excessive water, you will be left with around 4 lbs. of keepable lean muscle.

With Andarine though, you will have a very different experience.

Dry gains:

Andarine is not a pure drying compound. But it has a very Winstrol like effect on our bodies. The muscles look a lot drier and harder. The vascularity increases. There is very little water retention. So if you are looking for dryer gains during a bulk, Andarine might be a better bet than Ligandrol or Rad. This also makes it a great compound to use during a cut. It will help you retain your muscle without putting on too much water or fat.

Fat Burn:

Again, it’s not a stim or a thermogenic. But its affinity to bind to Androgen receptors and the selective action is so strong that it helps you drop body fat. Maybe the muscle hardening effect further amplifies this. But you will definitely look leaner by the end of your S4 cycle.

Strength:

A lot of people talk about the vascularity and the muscle hardness that they get from S4. Surprisingly, only a few of them have mentioned the strength gains. S4 will allow you to lift better and recover faster from heavy workouts. All of our 1 rep maxes increased by a slight margin during our S4 cycle.

S-4 (3 or 10 mg/kg) treatment restored lean mass in ORX animals, significantly increasing the lean mass by 15 g in 8 wk.

Endocrinology. 2005 Nov; 146(11): 4887–4897.

The vision related side effects

Since we aren’t here to peddle SARMS to you, it is important that you fully understand the side effects that Andarine can cause.

The vision side effects can be very scary to be honest. It starts with a yellowish tinge to your vision. Something like wearing tinted shades all day.

Then, it progresses to lack/loss of peripheral night vision. Like you are seeing things through a binocular. The corner of the eye vision diminishes. It might take a while for you to get adjusted to this. So we recommend that you avoid driving in the night until your eyes get adjusted.

Lastly, there will be some sensitivity when you go from a lit up room to a dark one and vice-a-versa.

However, these side effects seem to be temporary. Your vision will return to normal when you stop using Andarine.

There are all sorts of theories doing the rounds on how you can minimize the vision related side effects. Some people mention that the 5:2 dosing protocol is very effective.

Personally, we just dialed the dose down when the vision sides kicked in. It took about 2-weeks post dose reduction for the sides to fade.

You can either follow the 5 day on and two days off dosage protocol or start at an extremely low dose and titrate the dose up slowly until you hit the sweet spot.

Stop the dose the day the vision sides kick in.

There are no other side effects to Andarine, by the way.

Andarine Dosage and stacks

Start with around 15-20mg/day in split doses for a couple of weeks.

Titrate it up to 40-50mg and follow this for another week or two. If no vision sides, you can up this to 60mg.

But that’s the max that we’d go. The results start to diminish after that dose and it doesn’t make sense risking the vision sides by going higher and higher.

A normal Andarine cycle would last around 8-weeks.

You will keep your muscle and your veins will be popping out of your system.