Boldenone as an Anabolic Steroid

The use of boldenone has long been a popular drug for administration in various animals, such as cattle. Boldenone has been shown to improve the growth and feed conversion of cattle resulting in more efficient meat production. Structurally, boldenone differs only slightly from testosterone in that it possesses a double bond at the 1st position on the A-ring of the steroid structure. The two drugs however are very different in their effects and metabolism. Furthermore, the literature states that boldenone is, in fact, orally available in humans despite lacking a methyl group to protect the 17-OH group. However given the chemical properties of boldenone (as undecylenate), namely that it is a liquid at room temperature; this would obviously pose a significant problem in producing an oral version of this hormone. The literature is not clear on the difference in potency between orally administrated versus injected boldenone, probably again due to the lack of use of boldenone in an oral manner.

Many see boldenone as a relatively weak steroid, with little use in bodybuilding. In more recent years however, it has become more popular along with other steroids such as methenolone (primobolone). Many people suggest that its sole use is in increasing appetite. Certainly this mechanism is true of use in cattle and one reason why it is extensively used in the cattle and meat production industry. Most users do report that of all AAS, boldenone is the best for increasing appetite.

However, the use of boldenone is gradually becoming more respected by many top athletes, and more than just for its appetite-enhancing properties. I suspect that in previous years bodybuilders have not found boldenone use as beneficial due to the preparations available to them. One popular brand of boldenone undecylenate is Ganabol; a vetinary preparation of boldenone has just 50mg per 1ml of oil carrier. Even a modest dose of 400mg per week would necessitate the administration of 8ml of oil which, bearing in mind the user will probably also be cycling other steroids, a real inconvenience. It is this author's view that a minimum of 600mg/week of boldenone undecylenate is needed for beneficial effects, ideally 800-1000mg/week. With preparations such as Ganabol, doses of 800-1000mg/week would require 16-20ml per week, which is not very practical.

Contrary to what many bodybuilders think, high mg/ml preparations of boldenone undecylenate are fully feasible. As this hormone is a liquid at room temperature, even preparations of up to 500mg/ml and beyond should be pain-free when injected. As the hormone crashing in the muscle post-injection usually causes pain, and as boldenone undecylenate is unable to crystallise being a liquid, this will not occur. Fortunately, many 'underground labs' are producing preparations of boldenone undecylenate at a concentration of at least 200mg/ml, meaning dosages approaching 1000mg per week should not prove troublesome.

At higher doses of boldenone, users can expect to reap better results than previously suggested cycles of 400mg/week or lower. Boldenone itself does aromatise, however this occurs at a significantly less rate than that of testosterone. Thus users should not have to worry about the onset of gynecomastia or other estrogen-related side effects, unless using very high doses and are highly sensitive to estrogen. However for the vast majority, negative estrogenic issues will not occur. It should be noted that there are benefits to estrogen presence (up regulation of androgen receptors for example), thus the small amount of aromatisation is of actual benefit, largely speaking. Boldenone possesses decent anabolic properties, however is a very mild androgen, thus those users who suffer bad side-effects of strong androgens (such as trenbolone for example) should not see such side effects with boldenone use (unless very high doses are used).

As already mentioned, one of the most appealing positive effects of boldenone use is the dramatic increase in appetite. This makes boldenone a useful addition in my opinion, to people who struggle to consume large amounts of calories (which are needed for muscle growth), and moreover it may be useful for combining with heavy cycles, where higher doses of other AS tend to suppress the user's appetite. There is obviously little point in running heavy cycles if they are going to significantly inhibit your gains by suppression of your appetite whilst on a cycle, thus boldenone may offer an advantage in this sense to the advanced bodybuilder who uses heavier cycles.

One further property of boldenone that is most advantageous to athletes who partake in cardiovascular exercises is that boldenone directly stimulates the kidneys to produce erythropoeitin (EPO). EPO is a hormone that increases the number of red blood cells in your blood, thus increasing blood viscosity but more importantly allowing more oxygen to be carried to the cells in your body, improving performance of aerobic exercises. This may also help increase vascularity in users as well. Overall however, as boldenone is a mild AS, the negative side effects will be at a minimum, although some androgenic effects such as acne and increased body hair may start to occur at high doses.