When you have an activity such as bodybuilding which has taken the entire world by storm and is found practically in every country with fans counted in the hundreds of thousands if not millions, you’re bound to have issues. Issues with the barbells and dumbbells that may hit the floor up to the very people building their huge muscles even bigger taking steroids by the doses and not forgetting the PCT when the cycle ends. Please read on.

Any issues knowing what Tamoxifen Does?

Tamoxifen is a SERM, an abbreviation which stands for “specific estrogen receptor modulator”.

It acts as an antagonist or a bully on or in the brain and the breast areas which means that it stops the female hormone estrogen from casting its influence on those areas.

It’s bullying in the brain effectively interferes with the conversion of testosterone to estrogen which ultimately mean that during a workout cycle, the levels of estrogen in the body remain at a low ebb.

Low levels of estrogen is regarded by builders as a definite advantage especially for its roles in helping to build muscle mass as well as boosting libido or the sex urge on cycle.

One issue that can emerge is when compounds for enhancing testosterone are used together with tamoxifen by bodybuilders. This dual use can result in the loss of gained muscle mass and any enhanced libido gains that normally go hand in hand with any increase in testosterone levels.

Dosage of Tamoxifen used in Bodybuilding

Typical doses of Nolvadex taken for the first 2 weeks of a PCT begins with a dose of 40mg/day but is then reduced for the last two weeks to half that amount to 20 mg daily.

However, not any one drug medication may be the ideal drug for PCT given that Tamoxifen just might not be the one and only choice for everyone.

The downsides of using Tamoxifen

We’ve been advised that tamoxifen is categorized as an antagonist to estrogen but from another angle there are some parts of the body, in which tamoxifen actually works as a pro- estrogen hormone.

This actually means that the drug medication works in the way estrogen works rather than the opposite which the experts have led themselves and us to believe.

Tamoxifen action in the liver

When Tamoxifen acts the way estrogen acts, for instance, in the liver, tamoxifen can has the ability to boost levels of sex hormone binding globulin (SHGB) which then binds itself to testosterone thereby decreasing the amount of free testosterone in the body.

By free testosterone is meant the amount of testosterone not bound to (SHGB) floating about in the system.

This is the level of testosterone which largely reflects the highly positive impacts of the body’s high testosterone content in the increased muscle mass, strength and sex urge.

The ability of Tamoxifen to lower the levels of free testosterone means that it can potentially damage the gains won from bodybuilding

This lends credence to the fact that tamoxifen has never been used on its own to boost testosterone levels (as done with a testosterone booster) and also the fact that no muscle mass is gained despite the enormous increase in testosterone which it can produce.

Big rise in testosterone levels against SHGBs

The truth here is that despite a really big increase in testosterone levels, they are simultaneously cancelled out by the significant rise in SHGBs.

Using the liver again to show an example of tamoxifen’s negative impact is the suppressed production of the peptide hormone IGF-1. IGF-1 which is regarded as being more potent than growth hormone itself for forming muscle tissue.

The higher the level of IGF-1, the better the chances of being able to form a more excellent physique. However, the ability of tamoxifen to downplay IGF-1 presents another reason why its use can be a disappointment in a bid to build or maintain more muscle mass.

In spite of being branded as an anti-estrogen inhibitor, it should always be remembered that apart from some of the body’s tissues, tamoxifen will always promote genuine estrogenic effects.

A study in support

A published study showed that when tamoxifen was used over the long term, it increased serum testosterone levels by 50%, a very healthy increase.

Disappointingly however, serum estrogen levels simultaneously skyrocketed a whopping 341%. More amazing was that the control group in the study which took tamoxifen only for a week revealed that estrogen levels increased just after 4 days.

The above results emerged from a dose of only 10 mg which was used by the subjects. What would be the results if a higher dose was used as by a bodybuilding group for example?

Tamoxifen and “gyno”

As a known suppressor of estrogenic action in breast tissue, it’s only logical that tamoxifen has often been used to thwart estrogenic action in breast tissue to prevent the onslaught of gynecomastia or “gyno” for short, which it performs rather well.

However there’s little doubt that on its own, tamoxifen won’t totally eliminate gyno especially with the effectiveness of steroids in boosting estrogen levels which makes it necessary to use another supplement like Vitex.

These however are not the main issues here but instead, what would happen if tamoxifen were to be removed from the equation,

If the above study is correct in saying that a profound rise in the level of estrogen took place when tamoxifen was used, then what if it were to be removed?

We would be left in a situation where high levels of estrogen in the body remained free to cause gyno with nothing to stop it from doing so especially in male bodybuilders.

This is just the kind of recipe that may well see a repetitive rebound of gyno which has often been aired by people complaining of their occurrence on bodybuilding forums.

To make matters even worse, the suppressive nature of high estrogen levels, may delay gym workouts due to the ending of tamoxifen use. 

Bottom line

When compared to our other drug medication Anastrozole, Tamoxifen may be a bit more complicated although generally speaking their goals are practically the same. This is to say that they are both anti- estrogen and as such are perfectly ideal for the treatment of breast cancer. Both drug medication can also be used to treat the development of gynecomastia or “gyno” for short, a condition that involves the development of enlarged breast glands in men.