
Clenbuterol (often called just
“Clen”) is used by athletes and
bodybuilders for it’s ability as a beta-2 agonist. It therefore
stimulates your beta-2 receptors, which in turn help you to lose fat by
allowing your body to release and burn more stored fat. Clen has been
used for literally decades in the foreign veterinary world, for
increasing the lean yield of livestock. It is clearly a very effective
agent for this purpose, although its long half life and tendency to
stay active in the body for long periods of time mean that vets in the
United States aren’t able to use it. This is also the reason why
(although it’s an asthma medication) it’s not available to asthmatics
in the US of A.
Albuterol
is Clen’s shorter acting cousin, and that’s the FDA’s drug of choice
here. But in the world of athletics, Clenbuterol
has a much longer history of use.
Specifically, it’s used for fat
loss, and since we’re talking about fat
loss here, and this purpose is what it’s most often used for by
athletes. Briefly stated,
Clen
is used as a repartitioning agent, and
what this means is simply that it will increase your ratio of Fat Free
Mass (FFM) to Fat Mass (FM)
[1]. When you
use Clenbuterol, besides
(of
course) noticing some fat loss, you’ll feel your body temperature rise
a bit, and your appetite will be slightly repressed.
[2]
Anyway, as you may have guessed, because the
FDA doesn’t allow
Clenbuterol use in asthmatics, and the
USDA
doesn’t allow it in
livestock, there aren’t a lot of human studies to really examine with
regards to Clenbuterol. Unfortunately this makes research a bit
difficult, as it’s well known that animals have a some important
differences in their beta-receptor type and concentrations, but animal
studies are still quite useful here.
Clenbuterol
is quite anti-catabolic and/or anabolic in almost every (animal) study
ever done on it, although this hasn’t been studied or confirmed in
human studies
[3]. Also, a
trend we see with Clenbuterol administration
in animals is that the doses used are very high- more than anyone I’ve
ever heard of actually taking. So, what I’m saying is that if
Clenbuterol is anabolic or anti-catabolic in humans, only mild anabolic
or anti-catabolic effects can realistically be expected. We can take a
look at horses given a human-like dose of clen (slightly over 1mcg/lb
x2 a day) and exercised for nearly human-like times (20mins, 3x a week)
showed very significant decreases in %fat (-17.6%) and fat mass
(-19.5%). Interestingly, this significantly increased (+4.4%) at week 6
[1].
This has been one of the reasons I have never believed in the 2
weeks on and 2 weeks theory of Clenbuterol administration. Why wouldn’t
we want to use it for at least 6 weeks, considering the fact that it
seems to have some profound effects during later administration. A
“second wind” so to speak (get it? “second wind”? it’s an asthma med!
Ha! Ok…moving along…).
One of the primary drawbacks of Clenbuterol is that after a couple of
weeks, it seems to stop working for most people. This is because it can
cause a downregulation of pulmonary, cardiac and central nervous system
beta-adrenergic receptors
[4]. This is
why it seems to stop burning fat
for most people at that point. To counteract this, you can take some
Ketotifen, Benadryl, or Periactim every 3rd or 4th week that you remain
on Clenbuterol. These are prescription anti-histimines, so they’ll make
you drowsy (take before bedtime).
Also, bear in mind that clen isn’t great for your heart, and can cause
some issues there (enlargement of ventricles, etc…) but most studies
showing Clen to cause heart problems are with animals, and even though
the dosing is almost similar to what humans take (in some studies its
within range of what would be double of a large human dose...). Again,
it’s important to remember that animals have more beta-2 receptors and
they cause certain event chains that humans’ beta-2 receptors may not,
due to their relatively high concentrations. Clen causes cardiac
hypertrophy to some degree, in some cases and even dose-dependent
apoptotic and necrotic myocyte death
[5].
And since Clen depletes
taurine
[6]
as do most if not all beta-agonists, you may want to
supplement your Clen use with some Taurine.
One of the weirdest things about Clenbuterol
is that even though it’s
an asthma medication, studies have shown reduced exercise
(cardiovascular) performance with Clen
[7],
but some also show that
Clen can alleviate exercise induced asthma
[8]!
Clenbuterol is one of the easiest drugs to find proper dosing for, and
I’ve always made the same recommendations as to finding the appropriate
dose for you. Basically, start with 20mcgs upon rising. If the side
effects (possible anxiety, and shaking or sweating) aren’t too
pronounced, then repeat that same dose again later in the day, and then
once again in that day (again, if you find you can tolerate the
effects). If you start experiencing intolerable sides, then decrease
the does to where it’s tolerable. If not, then start increasing the
dose more, very gradually.
Don’t go over 200mcgs, though…and keep your
Blood
Pressure at (or
under) 140/90. If your Blood Pressure goes over that, reduce your dose.
If side effects are intolerable, decrease your dose.