How to Use Anavar (Oxandrolone) for Bodybuilding and Weight Loss

Anavar is the commonly recognized trade name for the compound oxandrolone, an oral anabolic steroid that was first synthesized in the sixties in order to cure problems linked to abnormal physical growth. Other brand names for Anavar are Oxandrin, Anavar, Lonavar, Oxandrolone, Oxanabol and Xandrol.

Oxandrolone represents an anabolic steroid which has numerous medical applications. It can help in unfortunate cases where an excessive amount of androgenic hormones in the pubertal stage of a child blocks or impairs their skeletal growth. The androgenic hormones are responsible for this only in a very indirect manner, given that the problem is actually due to the conversion of the said androgenic hormones in estrogens (by means of their aromatization), which explains very well instead why females reach their maximum height in an earlier stage compared to males.

The History of Anavar and its Medical Use

The above scenario is why the first pharmaceutical company that synthesized oxandrolone, tried to manufacture a hormone with the least estrogenic activity possible. Oxandrolone was at last the proper answer to such a need, and as such, it had initially a great success.

However, the sales of oxandrolone plummeted strongly in the late eighties, when the pharmaceutical company that first produced it stopped manufacturing this anabolic steroid. It was largely due to FDA’s pressure that had somewhat tightened its grip on the general anabolic steroid market overall. In 1995, Oxandrolone reappeared thanks to the company Bio-Technology General CORP (BTG), now Savient, under the trade name Oxandrin. Nowadays, tablets of oxandrolone are available under various other trade names all over the world.

What is Anavar and How Does It Work?

Oxandrolone is a dihydrotestosterone (DHT) hormone that has been altered in its basic structure by adding an oxygen atom as replacement of the carbon-2 position in the A-ring – such an addition and alteration increases the hormone’s overall anabolic activity, preventing it also from being metabolically broken down. It also undergoes a second alteration in the 17th carbon position by means of the addition of a methyl group, which allows the hormone to be ingested orally and increase its effectiveness – so Anavar is classified as a C17-aa anabolic steroid.

In sports and, particularly, in the bodybuilding circles, Anavar is widely used for its fairly good anabolic properties and low androgenic effects. Anavar is useful in order to improve one’s physical appearance and muscular strength, and also in order to build quality muscles without those much despised side effects like water retention and excessive build-up of body fat. For the previously stated reasons, Anavar is used mainly in the pre-contest periods, but in fact its effectiveness is actually modest when it comes to maximizing in full lean muscle mass. It’s often stacked with other complementary anabolic steroids in order to better reach the users goal.

Using Anavar Safely and Avoiding Side Effects

With regards to its collateral effects, other than the ones shortly stated above, oxandrolone can inhibit, albeit not too extensively, the production of endogenous (the body’s) testosterone; such an effect may become somewhat important when Anavar is supplemented in high dosages and for a prolonged period of time – hence the need to seek professional and sound advice with regards to dosages and cycles.

Among possible side effects of this anabolic steroid, we shall recall the following, which by no means constitutes an exhaustive list: high blood pressure, temporary infertility in men, testicular atrophy, body hair growth and other male sexual features in women, menstrual irregularities, fetal growth anomalies (if the anabolic steroid were to be implemented during pregnancy), impairment in the physical growth (if administered during the youth), dysfunctions of the liver and increased aggressiveness.

One common side effect of an excessive implementation of Anavar is represented by gynecomastia, a medical term which indicates the abnormal growth of mammary tissue in men. If not faced with the due timing and the appropriate means, basically a pharmacological treatment, such a condition at times may become totally irreversible, and the only possibility left in such a case is to undergo surgery.

Oxandrolone does, as any other oral steroid, have an impact on the liver. But it is generally well tolerated by its users and does not normally cause significant alterations to this organ – which, by the way, is the biggest organ in the human body and serves a multitude of fundamental duties. For this reason, Anavar is one of the least toxic oral anabolic steroids and can be implemented for relatively prolonged periods of time. Such prolonged administration however worsens in the long run the blood and lipids profiles of the user, lowering in their organisms the so-called ‘good’ cholesterol (HDL that is High Density Lipoproteins) and thus elevating the cardiovascular risks.

Optimal Anavar Cycles and Stacks

Anavar is generally implemented anywhere between 15 and 25mg per day in men, while women will use much lower dosages, around 5mg per day, in order to avoid chances of undergoing any androgenic effects.

During pre-contest phases, Anavar  is sometimes associated with the implementation of other anabolic steroids that do not aromatize, such as Winstrol or Primobolan. In other cases, Anavar is coupled with strong androgenic products which cannot themselves be aromatized, such as Halotestin, Proviron  or Trenbolone, with an aim to increase the user’s muscle density and to lower body fat.

Some athletes like to associate it with other anabolic steroids during bulking cycles, pursuing the distinct objective of maximizing their muscle mass without having to worry about the increase in body fat and water retention.

As it happens all other oral anabolic steroids, Oxandrolone too has a relatively short half-life, as it is rapidly metabolized by the human organism. A recent study has shown that there is a need for implementing it twice daily in order to keep the blood levels deriving from this hormone in a constant fashion.

Anavar is one of the most counterfeited anabolic steroids on the market. For this precise reason, you need to exercise caution.