Many people seek supplements or other products in order to try to boost their athletic performance. They also take them in order to push further in the gym, if possible.
There are a whole host of options in the world of supplements and performance enhancing drugs: from SARMs, to peptides, to regular supplements, to steroids and other kinds of psuedo-legal drugs that many pros and amateurs alike in the bodybuilding industry still use to this day.
A big topic of discussion these days, instead, is whether or not one kind of supplement or drug is better than another. People compare SARMs to a lot of different things: some common examples are steroids and prohormones, which we’ve covered in depth previously.
While these comparisons aren’t exactly unrealistic, a lot of the time they’re quite unbalanced. SARMs are great for many people looking to up their performance in the gym or elsewhere, and help you burn fat, build muscle, and build stronger bones.
Peptides are great, too, however: and there lies the rub. Which is better?
Let’s take a look.
SARMs vs Peptides: What are the Key Differences?
To make a judgment on which is better, we need to look at all of the qualities, benefits, and negatives of each supplement or drug. Many of the side effects and benefits that each supplement has are well known. SARMs have a wide range of both positive and negative side effects, and so do peptides.
Which is more effective? Well, let’s begin with a brief summary of each.
What are SARMs?
SARMs stand for Selective Androgen Receptor Modulators – pretty long to type, so we call them SARMs. These supplements affect the way your body produces and reacts to certain hormones, which assists you when it comes to things like building muscle. Androgens are considered one of the primary sex hormones, with the main androgen that everyone knows being testosterone, of course.
SARMs have a variety of different effects depending on which one you take. Most SARMs, however, share a few results with each other: with muscle growth, increased strength and endurance, and increased endurance of bones all being common.
What are Peptides?
So we know what SARMs are, but you may still be wondering what peptides are. Peptides are completely different from SARMs, even though both are often taken as supplements by body builders, athletes, and by different people for various purposes.
Peptides are essentially polypeptides that are chains with less than 50 amino acids. This is important to note because while polypeptides are just proteins themselves, peptides are great at building muscle specifically.
The way that they do this is by the promotion of HGH in the body, or human growth hormone. It’s one of the main hormones in the body that fuels muscle growth when it happens naturally, and all peptides really do is add more of it to your system.
Peptides have their negative side effects as well. Let’s go over side effects before we move onto results.
Negative Side-Effects: SARMs vs Peptides
Negative side-effects exist in literally every drug. There isn’t a drug in this world that has absolutely no side-effects. It doesn’t matter if you’re doing something as innocent as taking cough medicine or something for your sore throat, all the way up into harsh performance enhancing drugs that can have bad side-effects. Every step of the way, they exist.
SARMs and Peptides have their own range of side-effects. Let’s go over them now.
SARMs Side Effects
SARMs have a range of side-effects from mild to major, and all of it depends on where you get your SARMs from as well as a variety of other factors, like if you follow the cycling correctly (many people do not).
With SARMs, you need to be extra careful about the source you get it from: if receiving SARMs from an unlicensed source or distributor, there is a high chance — about 50%, actually — that the SARMs could be cut or mixed in with something toxic or poisonous, which could seriously harm you or even kill you.
Clean SARMs that are pure don’t have as many of these problems. Let’s list off some common side-effects from SARMs:
- Muscle pain
- Muscle cramps
- Joint pain or cramps
- Diarrhoea
- Mood swings
- Acne
- Gynecomastia
- Testicular size reduction
- Various others
Now, while many of these side-effects may seem scary, keep in mind that many of these may not affect you much at all, for they strike randomly (muscle pain, crams, joint pain, diarrhoea), some are dependent on your body’s reaction (mood swings, acne) and some depend on your adherence to a strict cycling schedule (gynecomastia, testicular size reduction, others).
When everything is taken into account, SARMs are far safer than most people would have you believe. With supplements like these, you need to follow instructions carefully. You cannot just take ‘a little bit more’ or do whatever you want. Keep that in mind for your safety.
Peptide Side Effects
Peptides do not interfere or have an effect on the production of androgen — so many of their side-effects are not the same as SARMs are. Peptides only really affect HGH and a few other aspects of muscle/body-building, so their positives, and negatives, are a little more focused and clear-cut.
Here is a list of some negative side-effects for peptides:
- Increased water retention
- Dry mouth
- Increased hunger
- Numbness
- Joint pain
- Kidney pain
- Acne
Once again, not all of these side-effects will necessarily be present. However, unlike SARMs, there isn’t exactly an easy way to avoid many of these side-effects.
Perhaps you may have taken too many peptides, but what about people that experience these side-effects even when they take a perfect dosage? No drug is perfect. Many SARM users still experience side-effects as well, after all.
Results: SARMs vs Peptides
What kind of results can we expect from these supplements, however? Let’s break down both SARMs and Peptides on this front and see what kind of results a normal user can expect to have when taking these supplements.
Results: SARMs
Once again, it depends on SARM to SARM, but SARMs in general have great results for most of the users that employ them when trying to increase their muscle mass or gain strength or endurance. Most SARMs have a cycle that’s anywhere between 4 weeks to 16 weeks — with the 8-12 week window being the most common.
During that cycle, it’s very normal to experience an explosion in growth of muscle, a burning of fat, and an increase in strength, endurance, and the strength of your bones.
Most people will be able to see 4-5 KG of lean muscle being added onto their frame during this time. Most other supplements will not give you these kinds of results. SARMs have great results in a short period of time due to how the supplement functions.
Results: Peptides
Peptides are a bit different from SARMs in this respect. Peptides, instead, offer an increase to HGH which can promote muscle growth and definitely help, but you won’t see the explosion of muscle that many get from using SARMs.
Instead, peptides offer a wide variety of smaller benefits, including fighting aging, increasing muscle growth and mass, an improvement in the quality of your sleep, and various other smaller-style benefits.
You may see a noticeable increase to your muscle mass from peptides, but even in the best of cases, it’s not going to match up to what SARMs are able to put out. Also, keep in mind that all of this is dependent on what your diet and exercise routines look like.
SARMs vs Peptides: Conclusion
Overall, SARMs provide a stronger outcome and a better result in the short-period of time that you take them than peptides do during the same amount of time. Peptides are found in many natural foods, usually protein-rich ones, so it’s obviously a quieter, calmer supplement to take.
SARMs offer fast growth and efficient muscle bulking and stacking, while helping you cut fat and look your best. That’s not to say peptides are useless, however: with a great diet and exercise regimen, someone who takes peptides will definitely notice some kind of substantial increase over a longer period of time.
If you’re interested in trying SARMs, but don’t know where to start, here at UK SARMs we can assist you further. As experts in the field of SARM product provision with purity certificate assurance, we have expert knowledge in the field and would be more than happy to help you.
If you’re not sure what kind of SARM you want to buy, but know you want to try something, you can browse our list of SARM products here, where we have different individual SARMs to choose from.
Finally, if you’re still not certain, here is our contact form. We’ll be able to answer any question that you have about SARMs or any of our products, and we’ll get back to you as fast as possible to be able to assist you.
Whichever option you decide to try out, happy bulking!