Why People Take Winstrol

Why People Take Winstrol

Most people take Winstrol to . . .

Build muscle
Lose fat
Get stronger

. . . but there are many anabolic steroids that can do this, so what are the Winstrol benefits that make it so special?
To understand what makes so many athletes do a Winstrol cycle rather than take other steroids, you need to understand how steroids work.
How Steroids Work

Most of the cells in your body have specialized proteins on their surfaces called androgen receptors.
You can think of these proteins as mailboxes that only receive messages from testosterone or similar hormones circulating in the blood.
You can think of androgenic hormones like testosterone as incoming mail that’s circulated throughout the body, giving cells instructions on how to behave.
When a testosterone molecule or other steroid attaches to an androgen receptor, its messages are transported to the nucleus of the cell, which alters the cell’s behavior.
As you probably know, the main message that steroids send to cells are to build muscle. Researchers refer to this as the steroid’s anabolic effect. An anabolic steroid is one that promotes the growth of tissues, including muscle growth.
Steroids also send other signals to cells, though, and many of these are broadly labeled as androgenic effects.
Androgenic means a substance that promotes male characteristics, such as chest and facial hair growth, a deepened voice, an exaggerated jawline, aggression, acne, etc.
In other words, the androgenic effects of steroids are most of the side effects that people want to avoid. That said, there are still plenty of side effects from steroids that aren’t solely due to their androgenic effects, so just because a steroid isn’t highly androgenic doesn’t mean it’s safe.
Scientists have known that all steroids have both anabolic and androgenic effects for decades, and some early researchers created a scale known as the anabolic:androgenic ratio.
That is, how much muscle-building will this steroid produce relative to its unwanted side effects?
They used testosterone as a baseline, with an anabolic to androgenic ratio of 100:100.
More or less every steroid you’ve heard of—trenbolone, nandrolone, Dianabol, and others—are all variations of testosterone that have been chemically modified to have either stronger anabolic or weaker androgenic properties.
That is, they’re basically “franken-testosterones” that are designed to produce more muscle gain with fewer side effects.
Now, it’s worth mentioning that much of the research behind the anabolic:androgenic ratio was based on studies of rat muscle tissue. What’s more, the researchers looked at the levator ani muscle, or the muscle surrounding the anus, which is a smooth and not a skeletal muscle.
Since humans aren’t big rats and smooth muscle isn’t the same as skeletal muscle, some scientists have suggested that we take the research on the anabolic:androgenic ratio with a big grain of salt.
That said, lacking better information, it’s still considered a good starting point for estimating the muscle-building potential of steroids compared to their side effects, including steroids like Winstrol.
Winstrol Benefits

The main reason bodybuilders and athletes love “Winny” is that many of them think the Winstrol benefits outweigh the Winstrol side effects.
That is, it has a higher potential to increase muscle growth on a gram for gram basis than testosterone, and it produces fewer androgenic side effects. In reality, though, all else is not equal, and a Winstrol cycle isn’t as effective at building muscle as taking pure testosterone (more on that in a moment).
Specifically, its anabolic to androgenic ratio is 320:30.
Harsher steroids, like trenbolone, have an anabolic to androgenic ratio of 500 to 500, and milder steroids like boldenone undecylenate have a ratio of 100:50.
Now, due to the arcane laws of steroid science, this doesn’t mean Winstrol will build exactly three times more muscle than testosterone. That said, the important thing to know is that milligram per milligram, Winstrol is more effective at building muscle than testosterone and produces fewer negative side effects.
This is particularly important for women, who generally don’t take highly androgenic drugs (like trenbolone) due to the harsh, masculinizing side effects.
If a man takes highly-androgenic steroids, the short-term side effects are typically things men deal with at some point or another anyway:

Hair loss on the scalp
Denser facial and body hair
Acne and oily skin
Deepened voice
Rougher skin
Increased aggression
Infertility

If a woman takes highly-androgenic steroids, she can look forward to all of that plus . . .

Drastic increase in clitorus size (clitoromegaly), which in some cases can resemble a small penis
Masculine, “Brad Pitt-esque” jawline growth
Menstrual irregularities
Breast shrinkage
Birth defects
Severe depression

Which is why many female bodybuilders who’ve taken powerful steroids for years end up looking and sounding like, well, men.
Here are a few examples:

Thanks to Winstrol’s low androgenic score, it poses a much lower risk of causing these side effects in women than other steroids.
This is why it’s often taken by female bodybuilders and athletes who want the muscle-building benefits of steroids without turning into jacked gargoyles.
That said, there’s scant long-term research on how steroids affect women (and very little on how they affect men), so it’s impossible to know what Winstrol side effects women would experience if they took it for years on end.
It’s likely that if a woman took Winstrol for long enough or at a high enough dose, she’d still experience many masculinizing side effects. That’s just part and parcel of taking steroids.
This aside, another unique feature of Winstrol is that it isn’t converted into estrogen-like many other steroids are.
You see, a major problem with many steroids is that although they increase muscle growth, they also increase estrogen levels in the body.
Why?
Well, in men estrogen is produced by an enzyme known as aromatase, which converts a percentage of our testosterone into estrogen through a process known as aromatization.
When testosterone levels are at their normal, healthy level, estrogen levels also remain relatively low in men.
When testosterone levels are 3, 5, or 10 times their normal level, which is what happens when people take steroids, estrogen levels increase proportionally.
Some steroids like Dianabol, for example, are also readily converted into estrogen in the body.
This can lead to a long list of feminizing effects such as gynecomastia (“man boobs”), water retention, and fat gain.
To counter these side effects, many athletes take estrogen blockers (which come with their own side effects), but this also presents a problem:
Estrogen plays an important role in muscle growth, too, and reducing it to rock bottom levels reduces the muscle-building benefits of steroids.
Specifically, estrogen . . .

Plays an important role in muscle recovery and repair by improving muscles’ ability to absorb glucose and boosting growth hormone levels.
Improves the body’s response to anabolic steroids by increasing the number of androgen receptors on muscle cells.
Allows you to train harder by bolstering serotonin levels, which increases your arousal, focus, and ability to push yourself in workouts.

So, how is a roider to reap the benefits of estrogen without growing man boobs and getting bloated and fat?
Winstrol is part of the answer.
Because Winstrol isn’t converted into estrogen, you could take as much Winstrol as you wanted and never run into any of the side effects of excess estrogen (although you’ll still experience other side effects).
This is why Winstrol is often taken by athletes who want to maximize muscle mass, strength, and performance, without the bloating and fat gain that often results from other steroids.
Now, steroids that don’t increase estrogen levels also are generally less effective for muscle growth. This is why people who only take a Winstrol cycle typically don’t make the dramatic size gains that people taking testosterone, Dianabol, and other estrogen-producing steroids do.
In other words, on paper Winstrol results should be better than pure testosterone, but in reality its muscle-building properties are hamstrung due to its inability to raise estrogen levels.
This is why Winstrol isn’t as effective at building muscle as testosterone despite having a higher anabolic score.
Thanks to its lack of aromatization into estrogen, Winstrol also produces little if any water retention or fat gain, which makes it an ideal steroid for cutting or lean bulking (or sprinting, if you’re Ben Johnson).
Finally, another reason many bodybuilders and athletes like Winstrol is that it also works synergistically with other steroids to promote muscle growth.
It does this by reducing the levels of a protein called sex-hormone binding globulin (SHBG) in the blood. This protein regulates the effects of testosterone in the body by glomming onto the testosterone molecule, preventing it from giving its “message” to cells.
By reducing SHBG levels in the blood, Winstrol increases the effectiveness of whatever other steroids you take, too.
Although all anabolic steroids reduce SHBG levels, Winstrol is particularly effective at this.
A good example of this is a study conducted by scientists at the University of Hamburg, who gave 25 young men and women a 0.2 mg/kg stanozolol dose (Winstrol) for three days. This Winstrol dosage works out to be what a small bodybuilder would take.
The scientists took measurements of everyone’s SHBG and hormone levels before and 5, 6, 7, and 8 days after they started taking Winstrol.
The scientists found that Winstrol reduced the subject’s SHBG levels by 48% after a week, on average. For comparison, testosterone typically reduces SHBG levels by around 30%.
All in all, what this means is that Winstrol will generally improve the effectiveness of other steroids you take, as well as boost muscle growth by itself.
This is part of why most informed steroid users take a Winstrol cycle in addition to other steroids, like testosterone.
Winstrol Side Effects

So, now you know all of the “perks” of taking Winstrol.
What are the downsides?
If you look online, these are the main things people will warn you of:

Liver damage
A drop in natural testosterone levels and testicle size
Achy joints
Acne
Toxin exposure from tainted steroids

Sounds fun! Let’s go over each one.
Liver Damage

There are two primary ways to take steroids:

Orally in the form of pills
Intramuscularly in the form of injections

The reason many bodybuilders inject steroids is that they’re easily absorbed by the body, multiple steroids can be mixed together in a single shot, and the steroids don’t have to pass through the digestive system before entering the blood.
The downside is that it involves injecting yourself with a needle at least once per week and often several times per week. Needles and needle marks are also harder to hide than pills.
Oral steroids work a bit differently.
Most steroids like testosterone are destroyed in the liver by an enzyme called 17beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase (17beta-HSD). You could swallow a whole bottle of testosterone, and only a small fraction would ever show up in your bloodstream. Probably not even enough to fail a drug test.
To prevent this from happening, chemists combine steroids with a particular combination of carbon and hydrogen atoms, a process known as alkalization.
When the liver tries to break down alkylated steroids, they simply pass on through to the blood where they quickly begin telling your muscles to grow.
There’s a major downside of alkylated steroids, though: liver damage.
Scientists still aren’t sure exactly why or how this occurs, but the most promising theory seems to be that the liver is highly sensitive to anabolic steroids. When it isn’t able to break down the steroids—which is the case with oral steroids like stanozolol—the excess steroids can cause liver damage and dysfunction.
The most common form of liver damage is known as cholestasis, which is a medical condition where the flow of bile from the liver into the digestive system is impaired.
This causes a buildup of bile salts, bilirubin, and other digestive compounds in the liver and blood, which causes all kinds of problems including:

Clay-colored stool
Amber colored urine
Jaundice
Itching
Nausea
Stomach pain
Reduced appetite
Fatigue
Death of liver tissue

More severe symptoms can include liver inflammation, blood-filled cysts on the liver (peliosis hepatis), internal bleeding, and various forms of liver cancer.
The good news is that you usually have to be taking oral steroids for quite a while or in very large doses for these side effects to appear. This is why most informed steroid users only take oral steroids for 8 to 12 weeks or less before giving their livers a break.
That said, there are no long-term studies on how Winstrol dosage affects the liver, or how taking a combination of Winstrol and other anabolic steroids might affect liver health.
There have also been several case reports of otherwise healthy bodybuilders dying of liver cancer after taking oral steroids.
No matter how you slice it, oral steroids like Winstrol are more dangerous than injectable steroids when it comes to liver health. There’s also no way to know what the long-term effects will be on your health.
A Drop In Natural Testosterone Levels and Testicle Size

Like every other steroid, Winstrol reduces your natural testosterone levels.
This is an unavoidable, intractable, inherent side effect of all steroids, and something that can’t be reduced, modified, or changed whatsoever.
Anyone that says differently is either lying, ignorant of their actual testosterone levels, or are taking fake or watered down steroids.
To understand why natural testosterone levels always drop when you consume any kind of anabolic steroid, you first have to understand how testosterone is produced in the body.
The process goes like this:

Testosterone is produced in the testes in men (and ovaries in women). When testosterone levels begin to flag, a portion of the brain known as the hypothalamus senses this and releases a hormone called Gonadotropin-Releasing Hormone (GnRH).
When the pituitary gland senses the high levels of GnRH, it produces luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH), which trigger specialized cells in the testes known as Leydig cells to produce testosterone.
As testosterone levels rise, the hypothalamus produces less GnRH, testosterone production decreases, and the cycle repeats itself.

Assuming someone is otherwise healthy, this system does a remarkably good job of keeping testosterone levels within a relatively narrow range.
Everything changes when you introduce anabolic steroids into the mix, though.
The massive rise in testosterone levels triggers the hypothalamus to more or less shut down GnRH production, which shuts down LH and FSH production, which shuts down testosterone production.
Within days of taking steroids, natural testosterone production falls to almost nothing, and over several months, testicle size shrinks as well.
The only way to increase natural testosterone production and testicle size again is to stop taking steroids, and even then it can take months before testosterone levels and testicle size return to normal.
Due to the fact that Winstrol works the same way as testosterone, chances are that the effects are similar.
You can expect a major drop in testosterone levels in the short-term, a drop in testicle size in the long-term, and a long, frustrating, low-energy road to recovery after you stop taking Winstrol.
Achy Joints

If you search for “Winstrol side effects” online, you’ll often see people claim that Winstrol makes their joints feel achy, sore, and stiff.
Chances are good they’re mistaken, though.
As you know, Winstrol causes little to no water retention, which makes you look leaner and more “full” and “dry.” You’ll often hear bodybuilders make the apocryphal claim that Winstrol does this by “pulling water out of your joints.”
They’re wrong.
Although Winstrol doesn’t cause significant water retention like other steroids, it doesn’t dehydrate you or pull water out of your joints or any other part of your body.
There are two more likely explanations of why bodybuilders complain of joint pain when taking Winstrol:

They read it online, assumed it would happen to them, and then experienced joint pain thanks to the nocebo effect or blamed any joint pain they actually did experience on Winstrol.
They were training harder, more often, and with more volume, which are some of the Winstrol benefits. Their joints started feeling sore thanks to the significant uptick in training volume and intensity, not the Winstrol.

In fact, steroids generally promote tissue growth, healing, and recovery, so you’d expect steroids (including Winstrol) to make your joints more durable, resilient, and strong while you’re taking them, not weaker.
Although it’s possible that certain steroids might cause joint pain, we simply don’t have enough evidence to know for sure, and very little research suggests this is the case.
Instead, it’s more likely this is an unfounded facet of bodybuilding lore, handed down from one generation to the next on anonymous Internet forums.
Acne

Acne is caused by a bacterium which primarily resides in the oil of the skin.
Scientists aren’t entirely sure why or how it flares up, but things that increase oil production in the skin—like the rapid rise in androgenic hormones that accompanies adolescence—also tend to increase acne.
Testosterone and other steroids also increase oil production in the skin, which has the potential to give you acne or make existing acne much worse.
Typically, the acne is most severe around the shoulders, chest, and upper back, like this:

And if you’re thinking you’re safe because you don’t have acne now, think again.
Pete Rubish, a powerlifter who’s been open about his steroid use, also had clear skin before he started taking steroids. After a few months of taking steroids he says, “It’s so bad that if someone literally just pats you on the back you’re in horrible pain.”
More disturbingly, he said it also got worse after he stopped taking drugs, and it didn’t go away until he went to a dermatologist and started taking acne medication.
There isn’t much direct research on Winstrol and acne, but it appears to be more mild than testosterone in this regard.
That said, people’s reaction to Winstrol varies, and it’s possible some people might get more or less acne than others.
Although acne is a temporary side effect of Winstrol use, it can cause permanent scarring.
Toxin Exposure from Tainted Steroids

Currently, no companies produce Winstrol for human consumption, which means when you buy Winstrol, you’re putting your health and life in the hands of private labs or individuals who have stolen it from pharmaceutical companies making it for animals.
Needless to say, their products undergo no formal oversight, regulation, or testing procedures, which means the product you end up with could be counterfeit, tainted, and watered-down.
Watered-down steroids are exactly what they sound like—steroids mixed with other inert or less powerful compounds designed to pad profit margins. While these won’t produce the results most users want, they aren’t necessarily any more dangerous than other steroids like Winstrol.
A more serious problem are tainted steroids, which are often contaminated with toxins such as heavy metals, pathogens, and various contaminants, which can cause a long list of health problems that may not show up until years after you’ve stopped taking steroids.
There’s no way to know what percentage of steroids on the market are tainted, but it’s likely significant. For example, a study conducted by the Center for Preventative Doping Research found that of 70 different anabolic steroids seized in various police raids, 34% didn’t contain the ingredients listed on the label.
They also found that without sophisticated testing methods, it’s often very difficult to differentiate between real and counterfeit steroids.
While they didn’t test the steroids for contaminants, it’s also likely a much higher percentage contained various toxins and other pollutants and impurities.
Finally, unlike some other drugs, there are no reliable at-home tests steroid users can employ to ensure the steroids they’re taking are pure.
All steroid users can do is try to find a supplier they trust, inspect the packaging and products as best they can, and hope for the best.
Other Side Effects

Winstrol, like all steroids, causes many other side effects that could fill their own article.
Instead of going through all of them, here’s a short list of what you get to look forward to when taking a Winstrol cycle:

Insomnia
Night sweats
Increased blood pressure
Hair loss
Erectile dysfunction
Infertility
Increased aggression
Increased risk of prostate, brain, and breast cancer
Increased risk of heart disease, permanent testicular atrophy, insulin resistance, nosebleeds, and other medical issues