Anavar is based on the DHT (dihydrotestosterone) hormone, with some small modifications that make a big difference in its effects.
Oxandrolone (Anavar) Structure
It’s an oral steroid that comes with its own pros and cons. Anavar comes with many benefits and potential uses, but without a doubt is it most famous for its use as a fat-burning steroid, and it has very specific and unique effects in that area which we’ll see below.
Most importantly, Anavar has strong anabolic properties (in fact, three times that of testosterone), and weak androgenic effects – which is what makes it potentially suitable for use by women, unlike most other steroids which are far too androgenic for females.
Anavar is known as a C-17 alpha alkylated steroid, and this allows it to be taken as an oral steroid. There are no Anavar injections – it is purely an oral compound.
The seemingly very insignificant single atom swap of oxygen in place of its second carbon atom gives Anavar a substantial increase in anabolic strength compared with regular DHT. At the least, Anavar is three times more anabolic than testosterone. It has an androgenic rating of just 24, compared to 100 for testosterone.
This tells us automatically that we’re unlikely to be dealing with many of those androgenic-related side effects that are so prevalent with a lot of other compounds.
Most people will want to use Anavar for a cutting cycle, and this is where its benefits are most well known.
In fact, it’s known as possibly the best cutting steroid out of all the options we have. And this is for two main reasons:
So while these are two critical benefits of Anavar, they definitely aren’t the only ones. Even if cutting is your number one reason for wanting to use Anavar, you’ll get a host of other positive effects that will only add to your gains and overall results.
Strength, endurance, stamina, and recovery are all enhanced with Anavar. So no matter what type of workouts you’re doing, you are going to see a noticeable difference in your performance and your capacity to work out beyond your normal level; whether that be endurance cardio work or lifting weights (or both).
With Anavar’s ability to enhance recovery, you will notice an ability to increase the frequency of your workouts, while the intensity and duration of your training are substantially improved because your body is recovering more efficiently. In the end, all this means better, faster results thanks to the wide-ranging effects of Anavar.
At the most basic level, you can expect to see some nice fat loss and some moderate muscle gains when you use Anavar. Obviously, the type of your workouts is going to steer the direction of your results, so whether that includes mostly cardio or only moderate resistance training, this is really going to be the biggest factor in how much fat you’ll be able to burn.
In any case, the hardness and dryness of Anavar gains and fat loss are one of its strongest and most desirable benefits. Not having to deal with water retention is a relief for anyone wanting to achieve a shredded, hard, and vascular physique.
One of the less spoken-about benefits of Anavar is a possible boost to your overall mood. Not everyone will notice this, but some guys definitely notice a positive change in mood and mental energy, translating into a more positive mindset and even better sleep – all of this is going to contribute to better workouts and better recovery. The same can’t be said for a lot of other steroids which can potentially cause anxiety and increased anger instead.
Let’s sum up the most important and attractive benefits of Anavar, especially when you’re wanting to compare it to other steroids:
Anavar really is one of the few compounds I can confidently say is suitable for beginners, intermediate and advanced users.
Some of the most powerful steroids should never be touched by a new user, but Anavar isn’t one. And even the most advanced users can find a place for Anavar in their cycle when cutting.
This makes it a really versatile steroid and one that I have certainly felt more confident using than a host of other compounds that might have much stronger effects, but way too many side effect risks that require constant monitoring and mitigation throughout your cycle – for the most part, Anavar doesn’t have you focused on side effect prevention and allows us to fully focus on our results.
Anavar is very often stacked with one or more other steroids. If Anavar is the main steroid you want to use, you’re still almost certainly going to stack it with at least a form of testosterone as a testosterone replacement during your cycle.
Many more advanced users will go further than this though, making use of one or more other compounds at performance-enhancing doses alongside Anavar. This is a useful strategy particularly for cutting and shredding (which is where Anavar excels), although it is not likely to be used in pure bulking cycles because there’s a limit on just how high your dose of Anavar should be before health risks kick in.
Below I will reveal some of the best examples of beginner, intermediate, and advanced Anavar cycles and stacks.
Anavar is a great choice for your first steroid cycle, and at a low dose, you’ll still get excellent results and might even be able to avoid side effects completely.
Starting as low as 15mg daily for 6-8 weeks will give powerful results, but you can consider raising this to 30mg or even 40mg daily depending on your reaction to the steroid. Anavar can either be the main compound in your beginner cycle, or you can stack it with a testosterone steroid if you want a more powerful anabolic effect.
If your primary goal is cutting, testosterone can be included at a replacement dose only as it’s possible that Anavar can still suppress your natural testosterone at this lower dosage. The addition of 100mg weekly of Testosterone Enanthate will provide that hormone replacement to stop you from falling into a low testosterone state.
Once you’ve already done a few cycles of Anavar and Test and are comfortable with the experience, it’s time to increase the dosage to a level that is much more likely to bring about side effects but will also substantially improve your results and performance.
Intermediate users will often push Anavar to around the 70mg daily level, and you will almost certainly want to split this higher dose into two administrations throughout the day.
Unless bulking is the main goal, we are still only including Testosterone here for hormone replacement purposes and Testosterone Enanthate is a great choice at 100mg weekly. Your Anavar cycle should end at 8 weeks, but many users will choose to continue the testosterone for another 4 weeks. This cycle should still result in nice dry gains and excellent fat loss, as your testosterone dose is not high enough to cause any notable amount of estrogen conversion.
Once you’re comfortable enough to consider yourself an advanced steroid user, your goals are most likely going to be pretty extreme when it comes to cutting, as well as putting on lean mass if that’s part of your requirement for this cycle. With this comes the addition of more steroids into the cycle, with Anavar just being one compound that works in synergy with the others, rather than it being the main workhorse as it is with a beginner and even intermediate cycle.
Adding a compound like Trenbolone Acetate at a low dose will provide a very powerful kick to this cycle, and it will be a fast-acting cycle full of compounds that start working quickly. Like Anavar, Trenbolone doesn’t cause any estrogenic side effects so it’s the perfect combination for dry gains and shredding. In fact, this is a cycle that can be used for various goals, and your workouts and diet will steer it in the direction you want to go.
For an 8 week advanced Anavar cycle:
Again I use testosterone for hormone replacement purposes at a low dose, with the chosen ester being the faster-acting Testosterone Propionate.
Stacking Anavar with other steroids is the ultimate way to combine the benefits of multiple compounds to maximize your results.
You can add other powerful cutting steroids like Winstrol if your ultimate goal is a shredded physique, or you can go the other way and ramp up your testosterone dosage or add other bulking steroids if gaining mass is your main aim. The great thing about Anavar is that it can be tailored for multiple purposes, and is not just strictly a cutting steroid.
An important thing for you to consider when planning your Anavar stack is the big benefit of its lack of water retention because it doesn’t convert to estrogen. You can take advantage of this by stacking it with other compounds that also don’t aromatize like Trenbolone and Masteron.
Such a stack can effectively have you not have to think about fluid retention at all unless you decide to take a higher dose of testosterone in the stack. When stacking Anavar primarily for cutting purposes, your best options are:
For hardcore bulking cycles, men are very unlikely to want to include Anavar in a stack because it would need to be used at unsustainably high doses, and there are simply much more powerful compounds to use instead. It is however useful as a moderate lean mass gainer for men, and one that is effective for women when stacked with Primobolan or Winstrol.
Regardless of what you’re stacking Anavar with, the cycle length of this steroid should still be no longer than 8 weeks.
Your goals, experience, health status, age, gender, and body type are all considerations when planning your Anavar dosage.
Anavar has a short half-life and leaves the body fairly quickly, so if you experience adverse effects from a dose that’s too high, you should overcome the symptoms within a short time and you can adjust your dosage lower for the remaining cycle.
When used medically, Anavar doses have always been at the very low end compared to performance enhancement and bodybuilding use. Usually, this is between 5mg and 10mg per day, though it can be as low as 2.5mg daily – depending on the patient and their condition. Importantly, the length of time that Anavar is usually taken medically is much shorter than when used for bodybuilding or, with a 2 to 4 week period being the most common, and only in rare circumstances will Anavar be used for several months at a time for medical purposes.
Considering that you’re likely to be stacking Anavar with one or more other steroids, this will influence what your bodybuilding Anavar dosage will be. Your particular goals and your past experience with steroids are also important factors. Thankfully Anavar is a pretty simple steroid to determine dosages for, and having a short half-life means that if you think you’ve got it wrong, it quickly exits the body and you can adjust your dose up or down accordingly.
Most guys will find a nice balance at 50mg of Anavar daily, split into two doses. You can even get away with no or just very mild side effects at that dose.
Even beginners can start at 50mg, but don’t discount taking just 30mg daily if it’s your first cycle so you can gauge your body’s response. If muscle gains are your main priority rather than fat loss, it’s not too uncommon for 80mg to 100mg to be used – but beware of your lipid profile at doses that high as well as a much higher risk of other side effects rearing their head.
Anavar is one of the very few anabolic steroids that can be considered “female-friendly“. That is, at lower doses many women can use Anavar without any side effects at all. Higher doses are certain to bring on the development of masculine features though, but these will disappear once you stop using Anavar. Women should use no more than 10mg of Anavar daily, but 5mg is often more than enough. To avoid the onset of androgenic effects, female users should limit an Anavar cycle to 4 weeks, and no longer than 6 weeks at the maximum.
Compared to injectable steroids, Anavar’s half-life is short at between 9 and 10 hours. This puts you in the position of choosing between administering your chosen dosage either once or twice each day. Some factors to consider here are how long the days are where you live, and what time of day you work out. The goal is to keep your blood levels of Anavar at the optimal level as much as possible. A twice-daily administration is as simple as cutting your total dose into two equal amounts. A common schedule is to take half the dose in the morning at breakfast, and the second half about an hour before your workout (if you workout later in the day).
All steroids come with great risks, both during the time you’re using them and on your long-term health. Everyone who uses steroids knows there are risks, and most of us have seen some tragic stories of people who’ve taken steroids use to extremes and severely damaged their health or even lost their lives.
Anavar certainly comes with risks and side effects, although it’s considered to be one of the more mild steroids in this regard. Some people can even use Anavar and experience no immediate side effects, but your individual reaction and your dosage (as well as cycle lengths and the effects of any other steroids being used) will determine your own unique experience when it comes to possible Anavar side effects.
Here are the main side effect possibilities to look out for during your Anavar cycle:
Most guys using Anavar at 50mg or less daily will see minimal or even no side effects at all. Many worries that they’ll have a loss of appetite (you still want SOME appetite if you’re cutting, and some users do want some muscle gains on Anavar as well). Other concerns like changes in lipid profiles concerning cholesterol levels, and liver toxicity, are often unfounded at moderate doses. With that said, if you’ve got existing high cholesterol, you MUST keep track of your cholesterol health throughout an Anavar cycle.
After all, this isn’t something that you can just walk into a store and buy off the shelf with confidence that you’re purchasing a high-quality, pure, regulated product.
You also won’t be able to legally get pharmaceutical-grade Anavar sold for medical use unless you have a prescription.
Most users will source their Oxandrolone on the underground market, or through personal contacts at the local gym; and these people themselves would have purchased Anavar on the black market, so there’s still no guarantee you’ll be getting a safe, quality product no matter how much you trust your gym buddies.
This is simply one of the risks we face when choosing to use steroids and there’s no way around it. It’s one of the big reasons many of us go looking for legal Anavar alternatives.
So we know that Anavar is insanely effective at delivering outstanding results, but at the end of the day steroids simply aren’t for everyone. Sure, we all want the results but a lot of guys still won’t take the plunge into actually using a steroid like Anavar.
There are many good reasons to avoid using steroids, and the good news is that we now have legitimate alternative options that are both safe and legal while still providing most (if not all!) of the benefits of Anavar itself.
Personally, I’ve stopped believing it’s worth taking the risk with steroids.
There are a great number of risks to long-term health, some of which we might not notice until much later in life. I’m not willing to take that risk anymore, and that’s how I came across what I believe is the number one legal substitute for Anavar – Anvarol.
The benefits and effects of Anvarol essentially mirror Anavar:
Of course, there is no water retention to worry about with Anvarol either, because there are no hormones in the formula. It’s a totally natural formula of safe ingredients that are proven to be effective, especially in the process of regenerating ATP to boost your energy and pumps while working out. It also won’t shut down your testosterone, not even a little bit so you won’t be wasting any money or time on PCT.
Anvarol comes with no side effects, can be bought over the counter, and is completely legal to purchase and use. You’ll know exactly what you’re getting in the bottle, and no chance of contamination or low-quality product as is a high risk with steroids bought on the black market.
Anavar can definitely give you a boost in strength thanks to its high anabolic rating. One of its original medical uses was to increase muscle strength in patients with muscle-wasting conditions, so at higher bodybuilding doses it is likely to give you a fairly significant strength improvement. Anavar is not widely known as a strength-enhancing steroid, but it actually excels in this regard and one reason is that the ATP uptake in muscle cells is increased. You’re likely to see a great improvement in the amount of weight you can lift when using Anavar.
A standard Anavar cycle will run for 6-8 weeks only. You might choose to add another compound to extend the cycle for several more weeks after stopping Anavar, depending on your goals. It’s strongly recommended that Anavar not be used for longer than 8 weeks due to its potential for causing stress to the liver as an oral steroid. Even though it’s not as potent in this area compared with other orals, you will still want to exercise caution when using Anavar when it comes to liver health and the main way to do that is by limiting your Anavar cycle length to 8 weeks or less.
Anavar is about three times more powerful than testosterone when it comes to anabolic effects so it’s possible to see significant gains in strength, as well as some lean muscle gains. Anavar will help you lose fat, without gaining any water because it does not convert to estrogen. It has powerful anabolic effects on the body, but it has much reduced androgenic effects when compared to testosterone.
Anavar itself is derived from DHT (dihydrotestosterone), with some slight alterations to the structure of the hormone. This means that Anavar can not convert to DHT, because it essentially already is DHT. Because it is a DHT steroid, it can bring about head hair loss in male users who are already genetically predisposed to male pattern baldness.
Anavar’s half-life is around 9 to 10 hours. This makes it a fast-acting steroid which is to be expected for an oral steroid. It also means you’ll most likely want to split your daily dosage into two administrations to maintain optimal blood levels, although it is possible to maintain a once-daily dosage schedule with no negative issues.
Your Anavar dosage will depend on many things: mostly, your personal goals, and what other steroids you plan to stack it with. Beginners often start with up to 50mg daily, and the most experienced users can often take up to 100mg per day – but such a high dose is not recommended for the novice.
Using any anabolic steroids can put the kidneys at risk of damage. Your kidneys can become stressed when using Anavar. If you have no existing kidney problems, using low doses and short cycles of Anavar is unlikely to cause kidney damage, but if you use excessive doses and long cycles you will be putting your kidneys – and other organs – at great risk of harm.
Some users have reported experiencing anxiety-type symptoms when using Anavar. This is likely to be an individual response to the steroid and not something that impacts everyone. Any steroids can possibly cause a change in moods, after all, you’re putting hormones into your body so it’s more than possible that fluctuations occur which can cause symptoms like anxiety – especially if you’re someone who is already to anxiety and other mood disorders.
There are two main things to watch out for when you stop taking Anavar: one is withdrawal symptoms, although these are not known to be common with performance use where cycles are short. The second is much more likely: a suppression of your natural testosterone. Anavar is not the most suppressive steroid, but your natural testosterone production is likely to have taken a hit. This can cause symptoms of low testosterone when your cycle ends, including loss of muscle and fat gain. You can avoid this by doing PCT after your Anavar cycle.
You’re most likely using Anavar for cutting, so your diet is going to contain fewer calories than you’d normally eat because you want to burn fat. This will greatly depend on your goals and body type, and how extreme you want your cutting cycle to be. But it’s a good start to measure your personal BMR by using an online calculator. This will provide you with a recommended daily caloric intake; when using Anavar for cutting, reduce your intake by about 500 calories under the recommended amount and this should consist of high-quality protein and carbs (not refined or white carbohydrates).
I’m not going to deny that Anavar works amazingly well. It might be “mild” as a steroid – but it’s still a steroid. We know that steroids can cause long-term health issues, especially if you want to maintain your physique for many years and want to use steroids regularly.
I’m very happy that there are now legitimate Anavar alternatives out there that are total substitutes and come without side effects and health risks.
Anavar’s pros and cons are clear:
For me, it’s a no-brainer to switch to Anvarol and do away with the high risks of Anavar. I can use Anvarol for the rest of my life and know that won’t be putting my liver, kidneys, cholesterol, and who knows what else at risk of long-term damage – but I can still reap the same benefits.
