1-Andro: King of the Prohormones.
Prohormones are an over the counter supplement that can be taken either sublingually or through capsule form that is a hormone precursor that will convert to a usable hormone throughout the body. Depending on what supplement you take, it will depend on which hormone precursor gets converted to and what effect it will have on the body.
Androstenedione and androstenediol were some of the first prohormones introduced in the supplement market. With the use of a prohormone, users saw an increased addition to strength and size. This allowed prohormones to gain popularity relatively quickly.
Why would someone use prohormones?
Ever since our parents introduced us to little league sports we were taught to play fair and at this point, god-given genetics ruled the playing field. It wasn’t until around high school that the true competitive nature started sinking into athletes. To play for your school’s hockey team you had to be no worse than twenty other kids that went to your school. But what kid hopes to not be worse than another kid? They want to be better than everyone else and this is no different as we grow up into adults.
Especially in the fitness and bodybuilding industries where the top goal on everyone’s mind is to have that jaw-dropping physique that awards them a six or seven-figure contract to allow them to work out for a living. This is when they start looking for a competitive edge that will help enhance themselves to get the body of their dreams.
Prohormones are in that gray area between legal dietary supplements like protein that have no increase in anabolic effect and illegal steroids that are constituted of concentrated human hormones. Prohormones have increased in popularity because of their risk-reward ratio. They’re legal and can be readily purchased to increase size and strength without the legal repercussions of seeking and obtaining illegal steroids. With prohormones, you have a better idea of what you’re getting in your product. What happens if your source sells you bogus steroids? You can’t go to the police or the Better Business Bureau with your complaint about your drug dealer.
Whether you are interested in a legal, grey area, or illegal products, it is strongly advised that you do your research on each product. The goal is to be fully versed in the rewards and consequences of each supplement so you may make an informed choice that is best for your health. Many companies are known to boast claims about what their product can do, but in all reality, their product contains fillers and only a fraction of the ingredients promised for a certain reaction.
Building a House
I like to use the “building a house” method of explaining how muscle is built. Amino acids (protein) are used as the bricks for the house, the workers are the key factors in protein synthesis, mainly testosterone, and the money we pay the workers is carbohydrates and fats.
Everything must be on point for muscle to be built at a maximum rate. If we don’t eat enough protein we can’t give the workers enough bricks to build the house, so they just sit around. If we don’t eat enough carbs and fats we stop paying the workers so they go on strike and quit building our house. Also if we have both enough bricks to build the house and enough money to pay our workers but not enough workers, we’re still not hitting our maximum potential for muscle growth.
We can achieve both providing enough bricks (protein) and money (carbohydrates and fats) by eating enough calories throughout the day within our diet. Almost all males should easily be above 3000. That’s the easy part of the equation. Now for the hard part of the equation, how do we hire more workers (testosterone)? Legally we can do that with a natural test booster which you probably won’t see much results in the area of free testosterone. We can move to the grey area and supplement with prohormones which will convert to increased amounts of testosterone. Or we can go through the illegal channel and directly inject testosterone into our bodies.
Ban Hammer
In 2004 Congress passed the Anabolic Steroid Control Act, which banned a large number of prohormones that included the two mentioned above from being sold as dietary supplements.
In 2014 the Designer Steroid Control Act successfully banned designer steroids that were passing themselves off as prohormones. Designer steroids are considered oral steroids that are already in usable hormone form and didn’t need to be converted to a usable form within the body. Congress has ruled that prohormones are only allowed to be legal if they are plant derivatives. This leaves very little wiggle room as most past prohormones are now considered illegal.
