Tadalafil, also known as Cialis, may help train better in certain conditions and thus may benefit bodybuilding. It improves blood flow, reduces stress, may help reduce cardiac and pulmonary pressure during intensive workouts.
Role of Tadalafil in Bodybuilding
Tadalafil is not as potent as steroids or human growth hormone (HGH); however, unlike these substances, it is legal to use in sports. It is more readily available and has certain cost benefits. It does not have any severe side effects that are characteristic of other performance-enhancing substances.
Those training hard for competitive sports frequently use various substances to increase performance, and they know that such substances work better at much higher doses. Thus, some bodybuilders take testosterone at ten times higher than the recommended doses.
It is essential to know that tadalafil may work much better than science says at higher doses for bodybuilding. Science has some limitations like it cannot carry out clinical trials for enhancing sports performance with drugs; neither science has a right to recommend higher than approved doses.
So, yes, bodybuilders can get tadalafil legally. Many use it for performance enhancement. Needless to say, that, medical science does not approve of such use. Therefore, bodybuilders need to research to understand the risks and benefits and decide the correct dose.
Tadalafil can be used to boost energy and NO levels before a workout. It may reduce exercise-related stress. It can help recover faster due to better blood flow to skeletal muscles (1, 2).
Due to tadalafil’s effect on NO, sportspeople recommend it as a pre-workout supplement. However, unlike other supplements, it works much longer. It can continue to work for as long as 36 hours.
Additionally, recent research shows that it may modulate aromatase activity, thus reducing the side effects of steroids, increasing testosterone levels in blood on prolonged use. This means that it may have a role in preventing gynecomastia related to prolonged steroid use (3).
Tadalafil Dose for Bodybuilding
Since tadalafil is active for 36 hours, one pill a day is enough for improving performance. This means that although the first dose starts working only after an hour, for those taking it regularly, time to take the pill would not matter much – as tadalafil is continuously circulating in the blood. It also means that when someone takes one pill a day, it has some accumulative effect.
Now, coming to the dose, it would be better for bodybuilders to start with a maximum permissible dose of 20 mg a day and take it a few hours before a workout. However, do not exceed this dose, as it acts long and has an accumulative effect; at higher doses, it can cause a painful and unwanted erection that may last for hours (4).
