Is Cardarine the perfect SARM for endurance and fat loss?
Cardarine is very popular amongst fitness people because of its fat-burning effects and it can also increase endurance. In fact, many marathon runners, cyclists or even cross-fitters are using cardarine to get lean and last longer. This can adapt to your workout in the gym, with cardarine you should be able to make your training harder and longer and your cardio easier!
What is Cardarine?
Cardarine is a PPARδ receptor that was developed as a safe alternative for heart and metabolic conditions. That’s right guys, it isn’t a Selective Androgen Receptor Modulator (SARM), but it is marketed as one.
Because it helped enhance endurance, stamina, and metabolism it has gotten very popular amongst bodybuilders and athletes. It’s now known as the strongest endurance enhancer out there.
Endurance exercise training can promote an adaptive muscle fibre transformation and an increase of mitochondrial biogenesis by triggering scripted changes in gene expression. However, no transcription factor has yet been identified that can direct this process. The studies describe the engineering of a mouse capable of continuous running of up to twice the distance of a wild-type littermate. This was achieved by targeted expression of an activated form of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor δ (PPARδ) in skeletal muscle, which induces a switch to form increased numbers of type I muscle fibers. Treatment of wild-type mice with PPARδ agonist elicits a similar type I fiber gene expression profile in muscle. Moreover, these genetically generated fibers confer resistance to obesity with improved metabolic profiles, even in the absence of exercise. These results demonstrate that complex physiologic properties such as fatigue, endurance, and running capacity can be molecularly analyzed and manipulated.
What To Expect From Cardarine?
This is where things get interesting. There’s a lot of things you can expect from this compound. Cardarine is known to have many benefits that will help you boost your progress. People like to stack cardarine with other sarms such as Ostarine, or LGD based on their goals to get the most out of it. Read our quick guide to Sarms for more.
Based on acedotal experiences, you can expect the following…
Before we jump into the benefits for bodybuilding, we cite one of the research studies that have shown other benefits of PPAR agonist..
Apart from being investigated as a potential new therapy for metabolic disorders, selective PPAR β/δ agonists including GW501516 and GW0742 have been suggested as a treatment for a great range of disorders, including pulmonary hypertension (Harrington et al., 2010), septic shock (Kapoor et al., 2010), atherosclerosis (Fan et al., 2008, Takata et al., 2008), liver disease (Kino et al., 2007, Nagasawa et al., 2006, Tailleux et al., 2012), kidney disease (Clark et al., 2009), and muscular dystrophy (Bueno Junior et al., 2012).
What can Cardarine do?
It can burn belly fat
This alone is enough reason to consider adding Cardarine at low doses to both, your cutting stack as well as body recomposition stack.
According to a clinical trial conducted on 13 obese men who had a high body fat percentage, high levels of belly fat and an unhealthy lipid profile, just 2.5mg of Cardarine every day reduced LDL and triglycerides and fatty acids.
Further, there are tons of anecdotal reports that suggest that the fat loss while using Cardarine is most pronounced near the midsection, where the body tends to hoard the most stubborn fat.
So, if your fat loss has plateaued at the last 10 lbs., then Cardarine, even at low doses might help you break through it.
It prevents plaque build up in arteries
Cardarine boosts the level of nitric oxide in arteries which in turn prevents oxidative damage caused to them.
Even at low doses, it helped reduce inflammation and tissue damage in arteries of mice.
At performance enhancement doses, which are typically used by athletes and bodybuilders, we believe that it might help your arteries from hardening which can be very beneficial.
Particularly if you are a long term AAS user or someone above the age of 40.
And now benefits for bodybuilding and fitness
Improved Cardiovascular Performance
One of the very first things you’ll start noticing is that GW501516 boosts your stamina. It’s going to increase a lot and you will be able to push yourself to the limit. It really shines during cardio sessions, it will be a lot easier to complete your workouts. This effect usually lasts throughout the entire cycle. Some customers have mentioned that even after taking the cardarine, they were able to keep their stamina on the top. It is probably because they got used to training longer and harder, so even after the cycle they were able to keep it.
Cardarine actually increases our endurance in two different ways:
- Suppression of Glucose metabolism (switching energy source from glucose to fat).
- Increased oxidative capacity in muscles.
Both of these together result in a serious increase in endurance. Most people are able to increase their endurance by up to 60% after about 30 minutes from their first Cardarine dosage. Insane, right?
Rat studies actually proved this benefit. The studies showed that the group of rats that were taking Cardarine almost instantly had 50-70% more endurance than the other rats. In other words, it took them almost twice as long to get tired.
Unsuprisingly, a lot of athletes take GW 50156 just because of this benefit. Sadly, a lot of professional athletes use it as well to get an edge over their competition. In fact, Lance Armstrong is said to have used Cardarine as well as Stenabolic (a similar compound that increases endurance) to be able to win Tour de France 7 times.
You can expect to see increased endurance 30 minutes after your first dosage. You will get even better endurance week after week if you run and train hard. And the best thing about this is, you can keep most of the endurance you gained during your Cardarine cycle if you continue to train and run after the cycle is over.
Most people instantly see around a 50 – 60% endurance increase. This means that if you are able to run 2 miles, you will easily be able to run 3 miles after the first dosage. A lot of people even say that being on GW 50156 feels like you have three lungs because you can breathe so easily.
You won’t notice it only when running, you will also see the increased endurance when lifting weights. You won’t need as much rest time between sets, you won’t be out of breath as much, etc.
Boosts Fat Loss
With the increased stamina and performance, you will be burning through a lot more calories. It’s also known for boosting metabolism. Cardarine can help use your stored fat for energy, speeding up the fat loss progress. This is why a lot of users will add it to a cutting cycle. Some of the studies have found that you should be able to lose fat even without doing anything which is great, right? But we always suggest having good nutrition as well to get shredded even more!
Similar to increasing endurance, Cardarine provides us with the benefit of fat loss in two different ways:
- Increased oxidative capacity in muscles – This means that we will burn more calories when exercising than we normally would without Cardarine.
- Suppression of Glucose metabolism – switching energy source from Glucose to fat. – This one is pretty self-explanatory. By switching the energy source from glucose to fat, we are able to directly burn off fat instead of first burning off the excess glucose that our body stored. In fact, the effect is very similar to a very strict ketogenic diet, but without actually doing the diet.
Lot’s of animal testings done on rats proved Cardarine helps a lot when it comes to fat loss. The studies showed that the rats that were on GW 50156 dropped 5% body fat more than the rats that weren’t taking the compound.
According to a study that tested Cardarine on 13 obese men with high body fat percentage and an unhealthy lipid profile. Just 2.5mg of Cardarine reduced their LDL, triglycerides and fatty acids.
In our experience, most people are able to drop 5-7% of their body fat over the course of an 8-week Cardarine cycle. You will be able to lose fat even when on a calorie maintenance diet or a slight calorie surplus. However, for the best results, I recommend that you stick to a slight calorie deficit diet during your GW 50156 cycle.
Remember, when it comes to fat loss, your diet and training will make the biggest impact. You can take as much of Cardarine as you want, if you have a bad diet, it won’t make much of a difference.
Preserve Muscle Mass
Whilst in a caloric deficit, you may be at risk of losing muscle mass. Cardarine might be able to help preserve muscle mass whilst cutting. When the PPAR delta gets activated it doesn’t only melt fat off, it also stimulates the muscle fibres. You can even make additional gains while using Cardarine, especially in combination with Sarms like Ostarine, LGD or RAD140.
No Suppression Of Hormones
Since this compound doesn’t interfere with your natural hormone production, you won’t require a Post Cycle Therapy (PCT), this is not valid when you use other sarms in the stack with Cardarine. It also has no estrogen related side effects. This is a huge advantage over other performance enhancers.
Dosage Information
Cardarine is extremely effective at low dosages of 10 to 20mg per day. If you don’t have any experience with GW501516, most users will advise to start out with a low dosage.
Even at 10mg per day, you will be able to experience a significant increase in performance. Due to the fact that this compound is very potent, it’s not recommended to go any higher than 20mg per day. The cycle length is usually 8 weeks but you can even go for 12 weeks and not being scared of side effects.
What can you stack with Cardarine?
Cardarine is mainly used in diet or when doing a lot of cardio or training for marathon and similiar sports. If you want to increase fat burning effect you can stack it with SR9009. If you want to keep as much muscle possible, Ostarine is a good choice to get some lean mass while building muscle and it is also one of the cheapest and most researched stacks on the market. Ostarine can be substituted by RAD140, which will be even better for building muscle in the diet, however you will need PCT and also it is recommended for advanced users.
BODY-RECOMPOSITION STACK
- Cardarine GW-501516
- Ligandrol LGD-4033
CUTTING STACK
- Testolone RAD-140
- Cardarine GW-501516
- Stenabolic SR-9009
STRENGTH STACK
- Testolone RAD-140
- Cardarine GW-501516
BRIDGING STACK
- Ostarine MK-2866
- Cardarine GW-501516
- Stenabolic SR-9009
ENDURANCE STACK
- Cardarine GW-501516
- Stenabolic SR-9009
BULKING STACK (WITH MINIMUM FAT-GAIN)
- Cardarine GW-501516
- Ostarine MK-2866
- Ligandrol LGD-4033
- Testolone RAD-140
Has Cardarine any side effects?
Cardarine is one of those SARMs that have not been properly researched, but it has been around for years. Apparently, Armstrong was caught by WADA when professionally cycling for use of Cardarine. Yet, there was not found any side effects. You should always stick to recommended dosage and never overdose with any supplement. Cardarine does not suppress your testosterone because it works on different receptors. So, you do not need PCT.
The 2007 GSK (GlaxoSmithKline) conducted a study that showed an accelerated cancerours tumor development in rats that were taking Cardarine.
Some people are very skeptical of this study because they used absurd dosages of Cardarine for extremely long cycle periods. Since 2007, there have also been a lot of studies that are contradictory to the one that showed cancer development. Basically, the whole thing is a bit controversial.
Contrary to popular belief, there have been many GW 50156 human trials done and no, none of them got cancer.
There were three Cardarine human trials:
These human trials showed that Cardarine isn’t liver toxic as there were no changes in the liver that could demonstrate damage.
Also, there were significant, very positive, changes to HDL, cholesterol, and triglycerides. The second and third studies also saw improvements in insulin sensitivity and a decline in fatty acid ~20%.
Not only that, but these human trials also saw a big improvement in body composition. However, body fat% data wasn’t captured so there is no clear data on that.
An interesting thing about these human trials is that some groups were given dosages of 10mg a day for 12 weeks. These dosages gave all of the mentioned benefits and didn’t show any side effects.
Because of this, a lot of people, including me, take Cardarine at 10-15mg a day for 8-week cycles without worrying.
Summary
Cardarine or GW501516 is great to supplement for those who want to significantly increase the endurance in a short period of time. It is also beneficial when dieting and getting leaner. With Cardarine, every cardio session is easier! As with every Sarm, more research is needed. We have just taken information from different websites and put them into one article. So, it is all your responsibility, the decision, whether you decide to take any SARM.
