Well, N=1 but I tried both Ostarine and low level of Sustanon (testosterone blend) and depending on your objectives, I actually think steroids are safer than SARMS for now. The research is going good on that front so I'm sure they will come up with better substances but Ostarine failed at stage 3 trials for lack of efficiency (they added muscle mass but didn't increase exercise tolerance, but it was with elders and at 3 mg a day). Personnaly, I had no ill-effects from Ostarine at 12 mg a day and it did help with recovery and joint pain. I had no "shut down" of natural t production, acne or whatever but the effects were sublte.
With Sustanon, I had to be careful not to gain too much weight, I was stronger then I ever was before, recovered much faster but my joints were hindering me. I had not negatives from Sustanon at 150 mg a week (TRT doses really) but my balls did shrink and my LH was down. Also, Sustanon cost less than Ostarine in my case.
Anyways, this is just my experience and you will hear things all across the board: SARMS cannot be compared to steroids but I think it is mainly a dosage issue: bodybuilders take 10-20 times the amount of testosterone normally given, as high as 1000 mgs a week, and they want to compare those doses to low levels of SARMS (we don't know what the sweetspot is in terms of dosage for SARMS.).
The legal issue is another factor to weight in but my TRT were prescribed by a doctor...
If I had to quantify, looking at my training logs, here we my stats at the end of the Ostarine cycle (8 weeks) and at the end of the sustanon (12 weeks)
Ostarine:
Bench press: 275x4 (from 235 the year before)
Deadlift: 315x5 (from 290 the year before, my deadlift sucks!
Squat: 395 x 5 (from 370 the year before)
Clean and Jerk: 175x5
Sustanon:
Bench press: 315 x 5
Deadlift: 355 x5
Squat: 455 x 5
Those were one year apart but I don't train for strenght very long, just about 10 weeks before switching to more explosive movement. Some of the increases might be due to training but considering I was at a complete plateau for 3 years before doing either, I think it shows you just how efficient both of these are.
Edit: sources
On steroids, very good and complete review of litterature, discussing side effects, results etc...
http://link.springer...80-00003#page-1
On Ostarine:
http://www.businessw...on#.VP8Nn_mG9hw
Edited by cani!, 10 March 2015 - 03:28 PM.