For people considering using steroids, there’s an awful lot of reading you need to do first. Some people will decide that steroids are right for them and other people will decide that they are not. Ultimately, there is no ‘right answer’ and the best decision is always going to depend on your goals, your health and your own personal opinions on the subject.
But what is definitely a bad idea no matter who you are is to jump into the decision without being fully informed on the matter.
And that means you need to do a lot of reading and a lot of thinking. Steroids require a good understanding of biology and there’s a lot to wrap your head around – but it’s absolutely essential that you take the time to do so.
In this article, we’re going to discuss one of the more confusing questions regarding steroids: what is an androgenic steroid and what is an anabolic steroid? Are they the same? And which should you take?
What is Anabolic?
The confusion comes from the fact that androgenic and anabolic steroids are not necessarily distinct from one another.
That is to say that an androgenic steroid is anabolic. However, not all anabolic steroids are androgenic!
Anabolic simply means – in this context – ‘muscle building’. The body generally is in one of two states: either it is catabolic or it is anabolic. A catabolic state means that the body is burning fat stores and blood sugar to provide energy and during this time you will be losing weight.
However, when the body is anabolic, it will rebuild tissue and help you to gain muscle. You naturally go into an anabolic state when you sleep or straight after you’ve trained – and this is known as the ‘anabolic window’. It’s why you need to carefully time your protein consumption!
Anabolic drugs simply make us more anabolic more of the time. This means that any anabolic steroid is a steroid that might be used by a bodybuilder. Corticosteroids are steroids but they are not anabolic. On the other hand, anything that an athlete or bodybuilder uses is likely to be anabolic.
What is Androgenic?
The term androgenic meanwhile refers to particular types of hormones. Androgenic hormones are those that control male sexual characteristics. Androgenic hormones include testosterone, dihydrotestosterone and luteinizing hormone.
Nearly all anabolic steroids work by impacting these hormones. However, in order for a steroid to be considered androgenic, it needs to work by impacting the ‘androgen receptors’ directly. These are receptors in the body that respond to androgenic hormones and when a substance binds to these, the result is that there is more free testosterone in the body.
A drug like Anadrol has a rating of 320 anabolic and 45 androgenic. That means that it is very anabolic but has a relatively ‘low binding affinity’ for androgen receptors. Rather, Anadrol works more through other mechanisms and this means that some of the side effects associated with testosterone are reduced.
Then again, you have products that aren’t steroids at all – such as Crazy Mass supplements – that are highly anabolic but not even slightly androgenic. This is by far the preferable scenario!
If you are interested in gaining muscle mass, you can consider Bulking Stack from Crazy Mass which consists of 4 legal steroids that are alternatives for Dianabol, Deca Durabolin, Trenbolone, and Testosterone. This stack is a massive hit with bodybuilders and just an 8-week cycle can help you gain massive muscles. However, your progress depends upon how you workout and also upon your diet.
