The problem with steroids is that they work, like really work. That’s probably irresponsible for me to say, but if we’re going to talk about the steroid epidemic, we need to do it honestly. Here’s a 3-week trend cycle update for you guys buying Trend in Thailand. Steroids build muscle way faster than something like creatine; it’s not even close. If you started taking 5 gr of creatine every day for a year straight, you’d add about 2 lbs of extra muscle. If you started taking steroids at a normal bodybuilding dose, you’d probably add about 20 lb of extra muscle that year, but it could be more depending on your genetics and how much you take.
Steroids vs. Creatine: The Muscle Building Comparison
I’m a lifetime natural bodybuilder, and these are my testosterone levels right now: 485 nanograms per deciliter. That’s right around the middle of the normal range for someone my age. This is bodybuilder Chase Irons, the world’s most honest enhanced bodybuilder. He also had blood work done this month. Where do you think his testosterone levels are? Maybe double or triple mine? Nope, his levels are literally off the charts. The test maxes out at 10,000 nanograms per deciliter, and his testosterone was higher than that. He openly admits to taking a lot of gear, and this shows just how big the gap between natural and enhanced can get. More people are taking steroids now than ever before. Why is that? Well, I think it’s because more and more fitness influencers are opening up about their anabolic use. In theory, this honesty is a good thing because anyone watching would be able to adjust their own expectations for their goals. If they’re natural and they know their favorite fitness influencer isn’t, they’d be able to lower their own standards and say, “Okay, well now I know that result isn’t achievable for me.” But this kind of backfired. A lot of people didn’t lower their expectations; they just started taking steroids.
The Influence of Fitness Influencers on Steroid Use
The bigger problem is that a lot of fitness influencers are only ever partially transparent. They say they’re on steroids and they show their gains, but they rarely, if ever, show any of the bad stuff. So the only logical conclusion is that steroids are amazing, but that’s misleading. So, to help you understand exactly what happens to your body when you take steroids, let’s inject some juice together and see what happens next – the good and the bad.
The Misleading Perception of Steroids: The Good and The Bad
This is testosterone enanthate. It’s one of the most common forms of steroids that people take. It’s basically just a testosterone molecule with a carboxy group attached and dissolved in a vegetable oil, so you can inject it. There’s also some kind of aromatic compound like benzo benzoate in here, which prevents bacterial growth and helps the testosterone dissolve better. When you inject the needle into your muscle, a bubble of oil is squeezed in between the individual muscle fibers, which spreads out and forms this elongated shape. The testosterone molecules then slowly make their way into the bloodstream over the course of several hours. There are enzymes called esterases that cleave off that carboxy group, and then the testosterone is carried by molecules called binding proteins to the muscle, where it enters a single muscle cell. Now its job is to make that muscle cell bigger. And if that’s all that steroids did, that’d be sweet, and I’d be on them. But there’s a lot more that happens.
The Impact of Steroids on Your Body: The Physiology behind It
For one, your heart is also a muscle, so of course, the same thing happens there. The testosterone enters your heart cells and tells your DNA to make your heart bigger. Having a big heart sounds like a good thing, but it’s really not. When your heart grows, especially one compartment called the left ventricle, the extra bulk actually makes it harder for your heart to squeeze and relax. This means your heart won’t be able to pump blood as effectively, which increases your risk of heart failure. Now, I want to say I’m not the health police. You can do whatever you want with your own body, and I’ve got no problem with people who enhance. But I want people to at least be aware of exactly what you’re doing and the full effects it has, good and bad.
The Psychological Effects of Steroids: Anxiety and Intelligence
Not many people realize that steroids affect your brain. Steroids can cause really high levels of anxiety in many people. It’s dose-dependent and compound-dependent. Some types of steroids, like Tren, cause way more anxiety than other milder compounds like Primo. Additionally, some types of your intelligence degrade over time with steroid use. This is tested in people currently using steroids and people who used to use steroids. Most people are totally unaware that steroids have that potential effect on IQ reduction. A 2021 study took 3D MRI scans of the brains of over 200 weightlifters, about half of them were Natty, the other half enhanced. The scans revealed that the lifters who took steroids had a significantly bigger brain age gap. That means when they looked at the natural brains, their brain age matched their actual age. But the brains of the enhanced lifters looked much older than they should look for some of their age. Their brains were aging faster than they should be.
Steroids and Brain Health: The Link to Aging and Body Dysmorphia
The psychology of steroids is fascinating. Most people take steroids because they want to look bigger and feel better about the way they look. Steroids will make you look bigger, but they might not help you feel any better about the way you look. They could actually make your body dysmorphia worse. That’s because a lot of people think if they just start enhancing, then they’ll look how they want. But just because you take gear doesn’t mean you’re going to look like that. And when you eventually come off, you’ll quickly lose a good chunk of the size that you put on and feel smaller than ever. At that point, it becomes near impossible not to go back on, take even more steroids, and the cycle continues.
The Full Spectrum of Steroid Side Effects: Hair Loss, Gyno, and More
That wouldn’t really be a problem if steroids didn’t impact pretty much every system in your body. But they do. After you inject, some of that testosterone is converted into a hormone called DHT, which causes hair follicles to shrink faster. This is why so many bodybuilders are bald in their 20s. Some testosterone is also converted into estrogen, which can increase breast tissue formation in men, leading to soft, puffy nipples, also known as gyno. Injecting testosterone also causes your testicles to shrink to about half of their usual size because they recognize that there’s more than enough testosterone to go around. Steroids also make sebaceous glands on your skin grow bigger, which causes them to overproduce a sticky, oily substance called sebum. Steroid users will try to combat this by taking other drugs for acne treatment, but then they have their own side effects.
The Risks and Rewards of Steroid Use: A Second Opinion
What are some side effects that most people wouldn’t be aware of until they’ve experienced them? There are a few of those that I can think of. Because anabolic steroids are mostly gotten in at least the United States and Canada through underground laboratories, some of the gear you get is like damn near pharma grade. Some of the gear goes in there and boy, does it mess you up. I have been personally hospitalized at least once for a non-infectant but insanely immune-responsive abscess. I’ve had friends get hospitalized for abscesses. Lastly, the term “Roid Rage,” but it’s really aggression. It rarely displays itself as actual violent acts, but the thoughts you get on steroids are disturbing. You might like warm movies and stuff, but if there’s a warm movie playing in your head every single second you’re awake and asleep, it gets a little old after a while. But hey, you have big muscles, so I guess that’s cool. So that’s how the cookie crumbles. Let me get a second opinion on that.
Responsible Steroid Use: The Importance of Medical Supervision
A pretty common reported anecdote is feeling like you just hit puberty again for the first 6 to 8 weeks. It literally feels like you’re 16 years old again. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? It’s probably not a good thing overall because you’re now an adult with the libido of a raging 16-year-old and you have responsibilities and things to keep up with, and all you can think about is your perpetually erect penis. Increased probability of injury is sometimes talked about when your strength is skyrocketing. Your connective tissue cannot maintain the pace of your muscular strength, and often this will lead to unnecessary injury in the gym. It’s hard to hold back when the weight feels like a feather, but your connective tissue is not keeping up with that pace.
It’s hard to say exactly how much steroids shorten your lifespan, but they definitely do. A 2024 paper followed over 1000 steroid users for 11 years with an average age of 27. During the same time frame, they also followed 60,000 people of the same age but not on steroids. 2.8% of the steroid users had died by the follow-up, while only 1% of the non-steroid users had died. That’s a lot of excess deaths, which led the authors to note that the excess death rate in this young adult population is striking. Of course, this depends on the dose that you’re taking. I think what a lot of people think is, “I’m not going to go crazy with the juice. I’m just going to do a little, like sports TRT or whatever, like 150 to 200 milligrams a week.” How do you feel about that?
I think the word TRT is very conflated with baby cycle essentially at this point. When you’re on TRT, even if it looks on paper like a normal total testosterone, it is not representative of what you could do naturally. So even if you’re on low-dose TRT on paper, you could define it as such, but it’s certainly like you’re essentially on mini-enhancement territory perpetually. It’s just a matter of managing the risk versus reward. If you feel it is worthwhile for yourself, considerate of all the factors that underlie it.
Knowing Your Natural Limits: The Importance of Dedication and Patience
There have been several moments in my bodybuilding career when enhancing has been very tempting, even now, especially with the fitness standards increasing rapidly and more and more fitness influencers juicing. I think the standards have shifted so much since we started out like 6 years ago. I was in the “Natty or Not” conversation as a physique that’s almost too good. And now, six years later, it’s like you’re the guy who doesn’t lift but knows. Instead of enhancing, though, I’ve decided to do something different. I keep thinking maybe I’ve reached my natural limit for muscle growth. But have I actually? Am I actually at my Natty limit, or have I just not been training as hard and smart as I could be?
I wasn’t going to reveal this, but this year, I’m doing an experiment with McMaster University here in Canada to see how much muscle it’s possible for me to build naturally this deep into my lifting journey. If I do everything perfectly, can I still make gains naturally? So for this entire year, I’ve been doing everything 100% perfectly in the gym. I’m tracking every single set, taking the last set of every exercise to true technical failure. I’m not skipping any sets or any workouts. I’m also committing 100% to my diet. I haven’t missed a single day tracking in the macro tracker, and I’ve hit my calorie and protein goal every single day.
Now, I’ll be sharing my full results at the end of this year, but I can say that I’ve definitely made some solid gains already. This doesn’t always show up as well on camera, but I’ve gotten more compliments about having put on some solid size at my local gym than I’ve gotten in years. But similar to me, what happens to a lot of guys is that they think they’re at their Natty limit and only steroids will help when in reality, they’re probably just not being as diligent with their training and their nutrition as they could be. Why not dial that up to 100% first? Then you can make that decision. That’s how I feel anyway.
The Benefits of Dedicated Training and Nutrition: A Personal Experiment
If you want to commit and join me on a year-long journey to truly dedicated lifting and eating, consider downloading my nutrition app, Weeks, for free to see if you like it first. It’s really like having me as your own personal nutrition coach for a tiny fraction of the cost. We’re about to hit 15,000 monthly users, which is pretty crazy, and we’ve gathered some incredible transformations from users of the app. Unlike other diet apps, Weeks uses science-based algorithms to tailor your calories and macros to your metabolism specifically. All you need to do is track your food and your weight, and the app will automatically update your nutrition each week.
I’ll put a link to the free trial in the description box down below if you guys want to get started with me. And that’s it for this one, guys. Don’t forget to leave me a thumbs up if you enjoyed the video, subscribe if you haven’t already, and I’ll see you guys all here in the next one.
Conclusion: Making Informed Choices about Steroid Use
The growing steroid epidemic is a topic that needs to be addressed honestly. Steroids have become increasingly popular, with more and more fitness influencers openly discussing their use. While this newfound transparency may allow individuals to adjust their expectations and goals accordingly, it has also led to a rise in steroid consumption among individuals who may not have fully understood the potential consequences. It’s crucial to be fully aware of the effects of steroids, both positive and negative, before considering their use.
The muscle-building benefits of steroids cannot be denied, as they have been shown to provide significant gains in muscle mass compared to natural alternatives like creatine. However, the gap between natural and enhanced bodybuilders can be substantial, as demonstrated by the difference in testosterone levels. Enhanced bodybuilders often have testosterone levels that exceed the normal range by a significant margin, allowing them to achieve extraordinary results.
It’s important to note that the use of steroids comes with its fair share of risks and side effects. While steroids may help in building muscle and improving physical performance, they can also have detrimental effects on various body systems. Steroids can impact the heart, leading to an increased risk of heart failure. They can also affect brain health, leading to anxiety and even a decline in intelligence. Moreover, steroids can cause hair loss, gyno, and other undesirable side effects.
Understanding the risks and rewards of steroid use requires a second opinion from experts. It’s crucial to have medical supervision when considering steroid use. Responsible use involves starting with small doses, monitoring blood work and heart health, and consulting with professionals who can guide you through the process.
Ultimately, it is important to know your natural limits and the potential gains that can still be achieved through dedicated training and nutrition. The decision to use steroids should be made with careful consideration and a commitment to responsible use.
If you’re interested in embarking on a journey of dedicated training and nutrition, consider using the Weeks Nutrition App. This app utilizes science-based algorithms to tailor your nutrition to your specific needs. By tracking your food and weight, the app will provide personalized nutrition recommendations to help you reach your goals.
Remember, the key is to make informed choices about steroid use and prioritize your overall health and well-being. Always consult with medical professionals and consider the potential risks and benefits before making any decisions.
