I recently was asked about the relationship of Var and PCr in one of the stickies. It reminded me to look it up as it was something that piqued my interest a whileback now… i have read up on it a little and i will document that here for anyone else who knows more to add to and help me/us learn about this benefit.
I’ll start with what i know about the energy system in question and how it relates to that…
Adenosine Triphosphate is the primary anaerobic fuel source used by our bodies cells. It is burnt in the mitochondria (the ‘power factory’ of a cell).
The mitochondria are part of our cells now, but once were seperate organisms in the ‘pond of life’ - both becoming symbiotic(sp?) organisms and creating the beginning of life as we know it IIRC.
I digress…
When we use ATP we ‘burn’ a phosphate molecule - this turns the Adenosine TRI-phosphate into Adenosine DI-phosphate.
This is where Phosphocreatine comes in.
Phosphocreatine is used to replenish the phosphate molecule in the ADP to turn it back into ATP. Easy.
You can see that this is why supplementing Creatine (in its now many forms) can help with force production in fast, powerful muscle contraction - the type of exercise that uses this energy system (explosive movement upto 10-15 seconds use the ATP/PCr system).
The other energy systems are the Lactate (Glycogen) and Aerobic (Oxygen) - the energy source is in brackets.
Now, according to the wonderweb sites i visited in a quick look into the anavar/PCr relationship it seems that oxandrolone stimulates the formation of Phosphocreatine - and this is how it supports that energy system and is also how it gives it’s increase in strength (supplementing creatine commonly gives a 10% increase in strength - this has been noticed by myself and has been widely reported too), especially the strength we use in bodybuilding and powerlifting - short, explosive ‘events’.
However with higher increases in var dose you have the increased formation of PCr (and Androgen Receptor[AR] mediated anabolism) while with Creatine supplementation there is only so much you can utilise…
I believe that Var DOES have this effect on PCr formation but what i want to know is if the other AAS do also - or if the other Class I steroids do at least?
Bill Roberts brushed on this recently - or something similar (IIRC) in which he suggested that many AAS drug profiles are ‘beefed up’ to make each drug sound more different than the next - when really they work by 2 different pathways only, the AR mediated and Non-AR mediated… with his classification of the two into strong affinity for the Androgen Receptor - Class I, and weak affinity - Class II.
I read that Anavar[quote]“…triggers anabolism by activating motor proteins (actin and myosin) which then stimulates the formation of new genetic material (muscle tissue)…”[/quote] however i am pretty sure this is the case for (at least) all Class I steroids. I wonder if the same can be said for it’s PCr effects?
JJ