The true stars of bodybuilding, pro and amateur sports and fitness competitions aren’t the people, it’s the drugs. Many top athletes, bodybuilders, fitness models and even celebrities are on some combination of various physique enhancing drugs.
The following list is just an example of some of the drugs a typical bodybuilder might use to build muscle or reduce bodyfat.
Oil based testosterone injectable
Water based testosterone injectable
Testosterone derivative tablets (dianabol, anadrol, anavar etc)
Injectable testosterone derivatives (deca durabolin, winstrol, primobolan)
Growth Hormone injection
Insulin injection
IGF-1 injection (insulin like growth factor)
Oral clenbuterol tabs/liquid
T3 (thyroid hormone)
HCG (Human chorionic gonadotropin)
Diuretics (oral and injectable)
This is by no means a comprehensive list, but rather the most commonly used and popular ones.
Bodybuilders are the extreme and set the stage for what the upper limit of use and abuse is. From there fitness/figure models, pro athletes and celebrities who use drugs will be using some lesser combination of the same drugs that bodybuilders use. This is the trickle down effect from the extreme.
In todays podcast we discuss how pervasive drug use is in bodybuilding circles and how it’s obscures our perception f what we think it an attainable ideal body shape, size and proportion.
John
P.S. For a good example of a steroid free bodybuilder vs a known steroid user check out this link: EUGEN SANDOW
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{ 29 comments }
look forward too listening to this!!!
I have looked into trying steroids, know where to get them from and glad to say I have never taken any. Very tempting indeed, however if I reachedmy AI with them I would always be asking myself if I could have done it naturally.
Though some of the steroid forums are pretty good and I visit one to ask for their advice. They are all willing to help.
I’ll get to 80 and then do a cycle of hgh with anavar and decadocadecdecdidecdodocahydroxymethyltestosterone and some clenbuterol. I will be the talk of the nursing home.
In the gym I used to deputy-manage ALL of the personal trainers bar two part-timers were or had been using steroids.
In the one before three of the trainers (out of the five males, me included) used or had been using steroids.
And you’d not be able to ‘tell’ in terms of ‘definite signs’ other than maybe too-rapid gains and back spots.
Just goes to show how sick our society is becoming.When at all costs!I used to compete on a state level and gave it up to the extensive use of drugs in the early 1970′s.Just could not compete with the mass monsters.I refused to take any growth drugs.I am 63 and still training hard and retain 85% to 90% of my physigue when I was my biggest and best.The ones I knew who used drugs are dead or no longer able to train because of steriods or other drugs they got into.Their health was wrecked.Women half my age and younger sometimes take a double look and smile at me when I pass them in a Mall in the summer!I will never stop training.
I had been working out doing the right exercise for my type of body for more than a decade already, and you’re right without using the steroids or any growth drugs i have developed and maintained a well-toned and proportionately muscular body which gives me pride whenever i see people looking at me smiling when i pass by them in public…some girls would even surprisingly take a pinch on my triceps…and being a college professor i have influenced both my students and peers to do the exercise which eventually gave me another promising career on a partime (yeah after School)—bodybuilding instructor… i now train people setting myself as an example
I wish you would have mentioned (just for the sake of entertainment) the signs of guys and girls who are on the sauce at the gym. When I was in college in the 90′s there was a guy who entered a lot of local contest and did well. The level of acne on his shoulders and back was freakishly scary.
Maybe we’ll talk about that next week.
“Bitch tits” alone could be a whole segment.
hi
i say steroids do change people because Ive seen it, see its a short cut with unknown consequences.without steroids we say its natural,or natural lifestyle ,so people what is the most effective steroids you put in your body without unknowing? ? ? gess…… (little hint )every body is doin that, some do know others without not knowing it…./??????/??/????/
YESSS!!!!
I can’t wait to listen to this podcast…
Great podcast
This is off topic but think this here is a good example of people who think excess calories is necessary if your interested
http://startingstrength.com/resources/forum/showthread.php?t=15876
I almost want to register on that site just to jump in on that thread. A LOT of ignorance in there
True but the author of starting strength wrote a great book on how to lift. Plus his other book is practical programming explains in pretty good detail how to train from novice to advanced in strength. But unfortunately he also subscribes to the whole eat big to get big and eat at least a gram of protein per pound of body weight and so on.
I wonder how those guys social lives are. To eat 5-7k calories a day is well…I don’t know what to call it. When I ate 3-4k a day it effected my social life pretty bad. Having to eat x amount of protein and needing so many calories was quite time consuming. And there is also the problem of thinking and worrying about not getting enough to eat.
Ah, I thank God (and Brad and John)that I no longer subscribe to that bull.
I save 30 minutes off my morning by forgoing (fasting) breakfast and probably @ 600 calories. I’ll be doing that 6x this week and thus saving 3 hours and 3600 calories (a pound of fat mind you is 3500 calories). Eat Stop Eat is also by far the cheapest diet in the world! (How much cheaper can having to buy/eat nothing can one get!?)
Josh if you do do that would you mind emailing me at James_4096@hotmail.com. I would like to see their reaction.
ehh I probably won’t, chances are it will just lead to a pointless argument. This one time I brought up john and brad’s ideas on bodybuilding.com on this girl’s blog. she thought she had hit a ‘fat loss plateau’ but she weighed 170 pounds! haha anyway she was asking for ideas, I told her she needed to drop her calories more since she had lost a lot of weight already and her BMR had probably lowered. that and she was eating too much anyway, she was under the impression that her maintenance calories was 2500 or something ridiculous like that. She said all she needed was to do a re-feed day to get her body burning again. I think I got through to her a little but this one guy was commenting about how weight loss is more than calories in vs calories, your body is smarter than that, out blah blah blah. I got tired of arguing and simply laid out the facts and left the thread, it felt like a waste of time… :/
“Eat a lot more. You need to gain 30kg. Try 5K calories per day for starters, up it to 6K calories once you’re used to that. 7K if you’re really into it.”
This gotta be a joke!
I’m confused by something in your padcast;
You said that in sports the bar is set by the drugs for athletes, but you also said you would like to see Usain Bolt take all the drugs he wanted and try to run 100m in 8 seconds, surely to be an olympic athlete he must already be on drugs and if so he would never be able to run 100m in 8 seconds as he would have already done it or be very close to doing it?
Judging by his physique do you think he is already on drugs?
Jim,
There are probably some freaks out there like bolt (potentially) who are just genetically superior athletes. I think bolt might actually be clean simply because he is so much taller than everyone else. His stride length alone could be part of the reason nobody can catch him. Biomechanically he is at a huge advantage because of the length of his legs, this might be enough of an advantage for him to easily beat shorter runners without necessarily needed to use drugs.
The shorter runners (all things being equal) can never catch a taller runner simply because of leg and stride length. In other words, the only person who will be able to beat bolt will have to be at least as tall as him and likely taller.
JB
John,
Very interesting response, that wasn’t what I was expecting at all, given all the human beings who have ever run the 100m, both on drugs and clean, the fastest person to ever do it was clean? Given the power of steroids I am amazed that it would be possible.
What about Michael Phelps? Do you think he is clean?
John
I posted on what causes muscle mass a question that I would like for you to answer if you don’t mind. I don’t know whether you just haven’t taken a look at the comments or its just too old.
But anyways in the podcast called “deconstructing fitness headlines and eating your way to bigger muscles” you said something along the lines that being in a calorie deficit can make you weaker because you just don’t have that much food in you (for energy I’m guessing). That it could effect your gym numbers by 10-15%. Isn’t that an indirect argument for eating at or around breaking even for calories? And if so doesn’t that mean there is some truth in eating more to get strong. Not that the food itself is needed for energy to recover or anything like that. But rather the food is used so that you preform your best in the gym. So if you eat say to enough so that your not gaining any fat that will be enough to have the energy to stress your body in the gym to get the most out of your training. But if your eating significantly less calories and have been doing that for awhile your gym numbers will suffer. And because of that you won’t be able to stress yourself as much as if you did have the calories in you. So you don’t get as much out of it.
It concerns me because my numbers right now aren’t as good as they were a year ago when I was 210. Now I have difficulty deadlifting 330 whereas then I could deadlift 350 for a set of 5 just over a year ago. I am not eating very much. Not very much at all. But once I’m down to an appropriate weight I’ll start eating a normal amount of food and maybe my strength will come back. Hopefully. Its either that or eat massive amounts of calories again which as I’ve posted up top I see as a huge social problem.
James, my question to you would be along the lines of what’s more important to you – getting cut & down to your target weight or lifting heavy?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m interested in the answer that John gives you as well as it’s a good question.
I suspect that overall size does have something to do with strength and I believe was referenced in 4/19 or 5/3 podcast. As I looked at the top performers in bench for the recent NFL Draft Combine it becomes obvious that the bigger one is (see offensive lineman vs wide receivers!) the stronger they’ll get.
James,
Very good point and this is something that I debate back and forth with Brad Pilon at length with. From what I can tell the lack of food might have something to do with glycogen repletion…specifically that in a big calorie deficit we might not get a chance to fully glycogen replete and therefore might not be at full energy capacity in a given muscle (might). The other issue is speculative but it could have something to do with a dampening of nervous stimulus due to a lack of total recompensation. In other words it make logical sense that if you’re body is not refeeding enough to at least meet basal needs it could very well compensate by inhibiting nervous capacity to conserve energy.
In other words, eating below BMR might cause some decrease in nervous system capacity in order to get you to do less activity…this is just a theory, but it seems to fit with the experience many people have with on a low calorie diet for extended periods of time. To be clear, we’re not talking about being bed ridden and incapacitated, we’re talking about being slightly weaker on maximum lifts and maximum strength endurance…from a physiological standpoint you are still perfectly healthy and strong, you just might not win a powerlifting competition.
JB
Thanks for responding. I wonder how quickly glycogen can be restored. It would be interesting to see the difference in strength if a person were to cut their calories severely for x number of weeks. Then eat up to or beyond bmr and see the difference in their strength and strength endurance. You probably already have experienced some form or strength loss and return due to calorie restriction. Have you any experiences?
Yup – and leverage is important.
A good bench is kinda-much ‘pushing’ the bar to your toes, a good dead is kinda-much ‘lying down’, reverse kinda-much (irritating now) the bar to your nose and a good squat is a strong back arch, hip thrust/vertical jump.
The more weight you have to manipulate against the torque of the bar the ‘stronger’ you are.
Sean
My reasons for losing my excess fat started when I was laid off and wanted to save some money. As a consequence my blood pressure also went down. Which was quite a pleasant surprise. Also I like not being constrained to eating like a pig to get stronger. I also like taking breaks from food and all the spare time I have. But if I had the choice of being lean or being strong but fat, I would pick strong and fat. However just because that is my preference doesn’t mean I can’t have my cake and eat it too? And if I have to sacrifice some time to get down to a good body weight so be it. Then I can focus on getting strong after while keeping my body fat in check.
My goal is to see if John Barban is right. I really do hope that I don’t need extra calories to gain muscle and get stronger. I also hope I don’t have to be eating massive amounts of protein as explained in brad pilons protein book. I want to see if this is all true because there are a lot of problems that rise up if you do need extra protein and calories. The amount of money alone is a big issue. I started when I was 15 and racked up a huge bill drinking ~ a gallon of milk and eating pounds of meat eggs and grain products. All in the name of gaining muscle. And in the beginning it worked. But it stopped working because those were just newbie gains. Then I just got fatter and fatter and spent most of the money I made or at least a very big chunk of it on food. I didn’t even enjoy the food. I just ate it because I thought I had to. I even dropped out of a great art class because it took 2 hours long and I didn’t get a chance to eat in the class preceding. And you know how the logic goes. You have to eat every 3 hours at least. Now I have the freedom to not eat for an entire day if I wish. And if I don’t need the calories to build muscle all my focus can go into my training where it really matters. This may not be the answer you were expecting (I’m pretty sure it isn’t) but for me right now what is what is important.
I know I’m posting pretty long but I want to make one more point.
Looking back before the steroid era guys like Eugen Sandow and Aurthor Saxon. Do you really think those guys ate huge amounts of food to get bigger?
This is totally off topic but did you guys have some workouts that target specific muscle groups? ie. chest in my case.
Thx
“but then what do you do, call the better business bureau?”
Amazing quote haha
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