Ep. #332: 6 Things You’ve Always Wanted to Know About Steroids

Mike: [00:00:17] Hello there, Michael Matthews here for Muscle For Life and Legion Athletics. And in this episode of the Muscle For Life podcast, we’re to talk about steroids. So if you want to know how steroids work, how effective they really are, what kinds of side effects they cause, and more than this podcast is for you.

[00:00:37] Now, if you’ve poked around online and read at all about steroids, of course, you know that some people say they are absolutely safe and absolutely awesome. Other people say that they can cause permanent damage to your body and even be deadly.

And many steroid users swear that they are not addicted and that they can quit at any point if they want to. While others admit that life is definitely better on steroids and really don’t plan on giving them up ever, if they can somehow swing it.

Now, many recreational bodybuilders often claim that steroids don’t make as big of a difference in terms of muscle and strength gain as most people think. But a quick look at professional fitness competitors and not just bodybuilders, but also the physique competitors, yeah, that suggests otherwise.

[00:01:32] So my point here is that there’s a lot of mystery surrounding steroid use and even more confusion. And like most things health and fitness, opinions are all over the place.

[00:01:45] Now, I assume you are listening to this podcast because you want to know how steroids work, how effective they are, what the side effects are like, and how to determine if someone is likely natural or enhanced. And that’s why we are going to take an in-depth look at steroid use in this podcast, and touch on all those points, and more.

[00:02:08] Before we start, though, I would like to make my personal position on steroids clear. I’m mostly, but not completely anti-steroid. I’ve never used steroids and never will. I mean, I guess I could see if I were in my 50s and beyond and if I were doing everything I could to preserve my hormonal health and my testosterone was low and I’ve tried everything, there’s nothing I can do to bring it up, then I would consider TRT.

But that’s really the only circumstance I could see myself going on steroids. And to clarify that, by steroids I actually just mean testosterone, I would consider that. And the reason being: quality of life. Low testosterone doesn’t just mean that it’s harder to gain muscle and get strong, it means lower sex drive, lower energy, it just means a lower quality of life. And I also think just regarding steroids in general, that most people do not need them to achieve their fitness goals.

[00:03:05] So keep those things in mind as you are listening to this podcast, because especially the first half of it, which may give you a bit of a chub, or whatever the female version of fat is, for doing at least a cycle or two of steroids. Make sure you get through the rest of the podcast, though, before you run off to the juicehead in your local gym.

[00:04:51] All right. So as per the usual, let’s start our discussion with the most basic of questions, which is what are steroids exactly and how do they work in the body?

[00:05:01] Now, when we say steroid, what we really mean is anabolic steroid, which is a man-made substance that has similar effects to testosterone in the body, including increased muscle growth and recovery, strength, and leanness. Steroids accomplished this through various different mechanisms, but the net result is the same: protein synthesis rates and particularly muscle protein synthesis rates are greatly increased or protein degradation rates are greatly reduced or both, which results in faster muscle growth.

[00:05:36] Now, the mechanisms whereby body fat levels are reduced or suppressed, kept lower than usual, vary from drug to drug and aren’t really worth diving into here. But you should just know that that’s part of the package that steroids deliver.

[00:05:53] Now, while testosterone itself is the best known and most popular anabolic steroid, there are many others that are very popular among athletes and bodybuilders like nandrolone, stanozolol, trenbolone, oxandrolone, deca-Durabolin, Dianabol, methandrostenolone, boldenone, oxymetholone, and drostanolone. A lot of tongue twisters in there.

[00:06:20] Now, why are there so many different types of these drugs, you might be wondering? The answer is because each have unique profiles in terms of potency, toxicity, side effects, and synergism. Those drugs and others are combined in various different ways, at various different dosages to create different types of steroid cycles for different purposes and goals.

[00:06:47] So, for example, if you were a competitive bodybuilder or physique competitor and you wanted to add, let’s say, 20 pounds of muscle to your body in your offseason, which would be absolutely impossible, of course, as a natural weight lifter, unless that’s your first year of lifting, your steroid cycle would be very different than when you were cutting down for a show and needing to reduce body fat as quickly as possible while also preserving your muscle and increasing your muscle fullness, dryness, hardness, and separation.

[00:07:20] So let’s talk about effectiveness. How effective are steroids? Well, many steroid users would like you to believe that they’re superhuman physiques are more a result of just hard work and #dedication than drugs, but this is not true. It is true that it takes a lot of hard work to build a top tier physique. Absolutely, no question. But it also takes a lot of drugs.

And the reason for this is very simple: you can only build so much muscle and get so lean naturally. And if you want to get an idea of how much muscle you can build, naturally, head over to muscleforlife.com and search for “build muscle naturally“, that should pull it up, and you’ll see an article that I wrote that has a calculator that allows you to estimate how much muscle you will be able to gain naturally. And we’ll talk a bit more about the limits in this podcast, but if you really want to dive into it, go check out the article.

[00:08:13] However, before we get into the natural limits of muscle growth and fat loss, let’s take a brief look at the facts of how powerful steroids really are.

[00:08:23] So one study, which was conducted by scientists at Maastricht, [laughing] there’s my German pronunciation, University found that during a period of 10 weeks or less, the average muscle gain in people doing resistance training while on anabolic steroids ranged between 4 and 11 pounds.

And the most impressive amount of muscle growth that they saw, the researchers found in their review of the literature, was nearly 16 pounds of lean mass gained in just 6 weeks of weightlifting with steroids. And if those numbers don’t boggle your mind, consider this: the most accurate science-based models of natural muscle growth predict that men can gain no more than 20 to 25 pounds of muscle in their first year of weightlifting.

And women can gain about half that amount. Therefore, with the right steroids cycle and training and diet, you can do in just two to four months what would take a year to accomplish naturally.

[00:09:29] Now, another bit of research that lends insight to the power of steroids was a case study conducted with an elite bodybuilder. This guy worked with scientists for a year using steroids for all but four weeks of the period.

Now, in that year, this guy gained about fifteen pounds of muscle, which is about three to four times as much as someone natural with his level of training experience and conditioning could expect to gain. And honestly, it could even be less than that, depending on genetics and other things.

[00:10:03] Yet another refutation of the people who tried to downplay the effectiveness of steroids is a study conducted by researchers at the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science. Now, in this study, 43 men were randomly assigned to one of four groups. Group one was a placebo group with no exercise.

Group two was testosterone with no exercise. So exoticness injected testosterone with no exercise. Third group was exercise only. And the fourth group was testosterone supplementation with exercise. The subjects were given a standardized diet to follow as well, but it was self-reported, which isn’t ideal but doesn’t really matter given the results of the study.

[00:10:49] So what the exercising subjects did is they squatted and bench pressed three times per week for a total of 12 sets of 6 reps each with varying amounts of weights lifted in each workout. Muscle size was measured with MRI and strength was determined by actual one-rep maxes. So it was a pretty well-designed study.

And after 10 weeks, here’s what happened. The testosterone only group gained 6.6 pounds of muscle. The exercise group gained 4.4 pounds of muscle. And the exercise plus testosterone group gained 13 pounds of muscle. And no, I did not misspeak there. The testosterone only group, that’s all they did was inject testosterone, they did not exercise, gained more muscle than the guy’s weightlifting three times per week on a pretty well designed, simple upper body, lower body kind of strength training program.

And I know some people will try to argue that what we’re really seeing here is just increased water retention in the muscles registering as lean mass, but other research conducted by the same group of scientists clearly demonstrates that that is not the entire story. Anabolic steroids do increase muscle fiber growth. It’s not just sarcoplasmic growth, it’s not just more fluid in the muscles.

[00:12:05] Now, another thing to keep in mind here is that this study involved the use of 600 milligrams of testosterone per week, which is a moderate dosage by today’s standards. Many people out there, many people you see on Instagram are using multiple times that amount with multiple other drugs as well.

And research shows that the more anabolic that you take, the more muscle you gain. The effects are additive and in some cases, they’re also synergistic. Now, muscle growth and strength aren’t the only benefits of steroid use. Of course, I mentioned that these drugs also help you stay lean.

Now, research shows that testosterone directly inhibits the creation of fat cells, which helps explain why higher levels of testosterone are associated with lower levels of body fat and lower levels of testosterone with higher body fat percentages. And remember, as I’ve mentioned, that’s just testosterone. Several other steroids also promote a leaner, more muscular physique and when combined properly, are incredibly powerful in this regard.

[00:13:11] So the bottom line here is: steroids are very, very effective at increasing muscle growth and strength gain and promoting leanness. And that includes testosterone. Even if that’s all someone’s taking is a moderate to high dosage of testosterone, that can make a huge difference.

[00:14:53] Okay, so now let’s talk about natural muscle growth. How much muscle can you build naturally? And let’s talk about it in the context of steroids and just touch on the main points. Again, if you want to go really in-depth here, head over to Muscle For Life and check out the article.

[00:15:05] But to better understand how much muscle we can ultimately build drug-free, let’s first look at the research that has been done on the correlation between what is known as your fat-free mass index and natural and chemically enhanced bodybuilding.

[00:15:22] So first, some terms. Fat-free mass is everything in your body that doesn’t contain fat such as muscle, bone, and water. And fat-free mass index also referred to as FFMI, is a measurement of how muscular you are. And it’s calculated by dividing your fat-free body mass in kilograms, by your height in meters squared. Now, of course, this also does include bone weight and water weight, but the majority of the weight that determines your FFMI is muscle, and that’s why it’s used to indicate the general muscularity of people.

[00:15:56] So let’s talk about the research. A study that was conducted by scientists at McLean Hospital involved the analysis of 157 male athletes, including elite natural bodybuilders and strongmen. About half of the men in the study had used steroids, at least at some point, with about two-thirds having used in the past year – two-thirds of that half.

And the other half had never used steroids at any point in their lives. And what the researchers found is that the average FFMI among natural athletes was about 22. The average FFMI among steroid using athletes, however, was about 25. The highest FFMI seen among the natural athletes was 25. And the highest FFMI among steroid using athletes was 32.

[00:16:45] That’s pretty surprising because the average steroid user was as muscular as the absolute best of the best of the natural athletes. And the best of the steroid users were about 50 percent more muscular than the average natty. That’s crazy. Now, let’s put some visuals to this. If you head over to my Instagram, Instagram/muscleforlifefitness, and check out physique shots, really you can go back years at this point because my physique hasn’t changed that much. I haven’t done much in the way of lean bulking.

I’ve kind of just been maintaining and trying to add, slowly add mass to certain areas of my body while maintaining others. You’ll see that my FFMI has hovered around 23 for a long time now. Right? So right now I weigh about 195 pounds, that’s my average daily weights. And I’m around, let’s say 9 percent, maybe 10 percent body fat. And I’ve been as low as 6 or 7 percent body fat in the past. And the last time I was that lean, I weighed about 188 pounds or so.

[00:17:50] Now, if you look at your average jacked fitness model competitor, like, for example, if you search for the competition, shots of Jacko De Bruin, I’m mispronouncing his last name. I think he’s South African, so I’m not sure. You know, I’m looking at a picture of him, I’m actually not sure when this picture was taken, it would’ve been years ago, but he has green posing trunks on and he’s absolutely massive and shredded.

If you can find those pictures or just look at pictures of again when he was competing, I don’t know if he competes anymore. He is 6’1″ and he would step on stage at about 194 pounds at, you know, whatever, probably 4 or 5 percent body fat, putting his FFMI around 25. And as far as I know, Jacko says that he has never used steroids.

[00:18:41] And if you look at Phil Heath, the current Mr. Olympia, he is about 5’9″, he weighs about 250 on stage at 4 to 5 percent body fat, putting his FFMI at about 35. And at least one point, Phil was claiming that he is natural as well.

[00:18:59] And just for comparison’s sake, go look at some shots of the legendary Frank Zane when he was in his prime, who has been very open about his steroid use. I mean, he looked awesome. He was 5’9″ and he competed at about 185 pounds again, let’s say around 5 percent body fat, maybe 6, which puts his FFMI at that time at about 26. And that was him in his prime with again, very open about steroid use.

[00:19:24] And then let’s talk about Arnold, who, of course, has admitted to using steroids throughout his entire bodybuilding career. In fact, the steroid use probably began when he was quite young, really. Arnold 6’2″ and he competed at about 235 pounds. You know, that was his stage weight. Again, let’s say 5 percent body fat, which put his FFMI at about 30.

[00:19:47] So as you can see, once your FFMI starts approaching 25, every uptick from there equates to a pretty significant change in terms of your overall physique and in terms of how much muscle you can build as a natural weightlifter. I think it’s safe to assume that 25 is going to be your ceiling.

And getting there requires a lot of time and a lot of work. And I would probably also say good genetics as well. Some people genetically are able to build more muscle than others. And there are reasons for that which are discussed in the article that I’ve mentioned a few times now. We don’t have to get into it here.

[00:20:24] Now, another reliable way to determine your muscle growth potential is to use a simple formula devised by Martin Berkhan over at leangains.com, and here’s how it looks. His formula is your height in centimeters minus 100, and that is the upper weight limit in kilograms in contest shape, which is 4.5 percent body fat.

[00:20:46] So here’s how that plays out for a few heights and poundages. At 5’8″ that is 160 pounds at 5 percent body fat. It’s about 170 pounds at 10 percent body fat, putting the total muscle mass at about 153 pounds. At 5’10” it’s 171 onstage. You know, 5 percent body fat, it is 180 on the beach, 10 percent body fat. Total muscle mass of about 162 pounds. At 6’0″ it’s 182 onstage, you know, 5 percent body fat. It’s 192 at about 10 percent. Total muscle mass of about 173 pounds.

[00:21:21] Now, if you want to calculate numbers for other heights, multiply the inches by 2.54 to get centimeters and then subtract 100 for your maximum weight in kilograms at 5 percent body fat. Multiply that by 2.2 To get pounds.

[00:21:38] Now, according to Martin’s formula, the biggest that I can get naturally would be about 194 pounds at about 5 percent body fat. And that would mean that I would have to add about seven pounds of muscle to my frame, which might be doable. It would probably take three years or so of consistent, you know, lean bulking for really as much time as I can and really managing my cuts properly so I lose as little muscle as possible in the cuts.

And again, I mean, trying to spend at least twice as much time in a surplus as a deficit. And it would require a lot of hard work in the gym. I probably would have a fair amount that I could gain still in my legs, even though I’m not – I wouldn’t be too excited about that. I’m already at the point where jeans kind of don’t fit all that well.

And yeah, by bodybuilding standards, my legs are probably considered a little bit small given my upper body size. But by my personal aesthetic, I think my legs look good. They’re not imbalanced. Even my calves are coming around now. Even my calves are starting to at least look more balanced with my upper legs.

But if you look at my upper in particular with my upper body, I think there’s definitely symmetry there. And I personally actually don’t really like the really big leg look, which I know is the bodybuilding look, it’s just not really my thing personally.

[00:22:57] All right. Now let’s talk about side effects. Side effects of steroids. So these drugs may not be as dangerous as some people think or have you believe, but anybody who’s using steroids in the belief that they are completely safe and harmless, if managed properly, is whistling past the graveyard.

[00:23:18] For example, research shows that some of the side effects of steroid use are reversible and some are not reversible. Permanent damage is possible. For example, reversible changes include testicular atrophy, shrinking, acne, cysts, oily hair and oily skin, elevated blood pressure and elevated bad LDL cholesterol levels, increased aggression, and lowered sperm count. And irreversible damage includes male pattern baldness, heart dysfunction, liver disease, and gynecomastia – bitch tits, right? Male breast development.

[00:23:57] Another major downside to steroids is the risk of biological and psychological addiction. For example, one study found that 30 percent of steroid users developed a dependence syndrome. And if you speak to enough honest drug users, you will hear about the addictive properties. One of the more common things that I hear from steroid users is just how much better they feel while on cycle than off.

[00:24:27] When I was living in Florida, I would often talk with a long term user of many different steroids in the gym who’d work out in the morning with me. Super cool dude, nice guy. And he put it very simply. He said that when he’s on cycle, he feels invincible. He can train hard, he has sky-high energy levels all day, he pursues his goals more aggressively, he needs less sleep, and his confidence is out the roof.

When he’s off-cycle, though, he would say that he felt like a shadow of his superhero self. It was like he was just stuck in second gear. And he was open about regretting ever starting steroids for this reason alone. You know, he knows the many health risks that are associated with long term steroid use, but he just can’t bring himself to quit because the drugs make him feel too good.

[00:25:20] Now, some people argue that you can heavily mitigate or even eliminate the risks of steroid use by properly managing your drug cycles and your overall health and I think this is wishful thinking. Yes, you can definitely reduce the risk of catastrophes by being smart about your drug use and your overall health.

But you can’t bring the risk to zero. Steroids do put a lot of stress on the body and every time you inject or swallow them, there is a chance that something can go very wrong.

[00:25:55] So now let’s talk about spotting steroid users, how to tell if someone’s on steroids. Now, it’s pretty easy, actually. If they look better than you, they’re stronger than you, if they’re making better gains than you, if they have more money, if their girlfriend is hotter – steroids. 100 percent every time. That’s how the average gym bro thinks, at least, right? 

[00:26:16] Now, the real way, of course, is to look at their social media. And the more they claim natty or talk about their #dedication, #nodaysoff the more drugs they’re on. I’m only half-joking there, actually. I think there is definitely a correlation between natty claims and drug use.

[00:26:36] No, but seriously, before we get into how to actually spot steroid use, let’s quickly talk about why we should even care. Because as a general rule, I actually don’t think that we should. I think that people have the right to do whatever they want with their bodies. I don’t think that using steroids is cheating.

If someone just wants to look a certain way or if they compete in a sport where pretty much everyone is on drugs, regardless of its official stance on drug use. Or if the person’s job requires that they be in extremely good shape, you know, such as fitness modeling or acting and so forth.

Where I do object to drug use, however, is when people use steroids to achieve a physique that isn’t attainable naturally and then claim that they did attain it naturally to sell other people on their advice, products, and services. This, I believe, is a huge disservice to people because as you well know, everything changes when you are on drugs.

You can train a lot more frequently and intensely. You don’t have to be as strict on your diet. You don’t have to be as concerned with recovery. You can actually make a lot of mistakes, particularly in your training, in your program, and you can have a pretty poorly designed workout program, but if you combine it with enough steroids, it can go really well for you.

And that, of course, becomes a problem when that person is claiming natty and advising others to do what they do because those people will never get anywhere near the same results. And I know this firsthand, having worked with and heard from and spoken with so many people over the years.

Many people, guys mostly, of course, then assume that they just don’t have the genetics to have a great physique and either give up or relegate themselves to mediocrity or turn to steroids. And I know there are definitely fake natural trainers and coaches out there who do understand the difference between natural and enhanced and know how to modify routines and diets for natural weightlifters, but these people are few and far between.

[00:28:47] So let’s not talk about spotting steroid use. One thing is FFMI. If FFMI is too high, that’s a pretty reliable indicator of drug use. And that’s why many Instagram peoples often lie about their height or weight or both. They’re reverse engineering their numbers to put their FFMI somewhere around 25, 26, which is of course, possible naturally.

And when you look at them, though, you go, “those numbers just don’t make sense.” You’re not necessarily looking at FFMI, but there’s one guy who I won’t name, who was, I remember years ago – I don’t pay attention to the space that much, I have no idea what this guy’s doing these days – but he said that he weighed 200 pounds and the dude was actually as big as or bigger than Arnold in his prime.

And I think he says he’s like 6′ or 6’1″ or something. And so you run those numbers – he was lean too, let’s say around 7, 8 percent body fat – you run those numbers, and yeah, FFMI was 25, 26. But then you look at me again, you’re like, “wait a minute.” 200 pounds looks as big as Arnold in his prime. Arnold is, whatever, 6’1″. It doesn’t quite make sense.

So keep that in mind. But if you have reliable statistics on somebody, if they’re FFMI is between 25 and 27, it’s almost guaranteed that steroids are involved. It’s possible to be as high as 25. But again, it requires many years of hard work and good genetics as well. There are definitely people out there who have that.

They have the freak genetics. They have a couple of decades of training and they might be able to get up into this range. But that’s going to be very, very rare. Now, if someone’s FFMI is over 27 they are on drugs, period. There’s just no way to do that without drugs.

[00:30:38] Another reliable indicator is a massive upper chest, massive shoulders, and massive traps. Now, this is a reliable sign of drug use because research shows that these areas of the body have a lot of androgen receptors, which are special types of proteins and cells that respond to certain anabolic hormones in the blood.

So when you see someone whose shoulders are almost as big as their head, whose upper chest is incredibly full, and whose traps are several inches thick, just know you are probably looking at drugs because this look is just not attainable naturally.

[00:31:19] Another reliable indicator of drug use is they are ultra shredded, dry, and full with amazing muscle separation. Now you can get very lean and you can get very dry naturally, but you simply cannot achieve that look of being carved out of marble with full striated, you know, 3D muscles that just pop off of your bones.

[00:31:43] Yet another indicator is they stay extremely lean, full, and dry year-round. And this is kind of a corollary to the previous point, because with proper training and dieting, you can naturally look impressive for a photoshoot and you can maintain it for a little bit, but not for long, unless you are ready to suffer.

And trust me, I’ve tried. The problem is here are many. You just can’t eat enough food to feel good, your training kind of just goes to shit, your sleep suffers, your sex drive plummets, your energy levels dip. The reality is the human body was just not meant to stay that lean. And I’m talking about, you know, 7 percent, 6 percent body fat in men and less.

In women, it’d probably about 14 or 15 percent and leaner. Now, the right drugs, they change all of that completely. You can stay absolutely shredded while eating quite a bit of food every day and training extremely hard and your body simply will not have any of those issues that I just mentioned.

It will recover, your sex drive will be fine because you are obviously artificially inflating your hormones, and you can feel pretty good actually while being super lean on drugs.

[00:32:54] Now, I’d say if you have good genetics maintaining maybe I mean, 7 is a little bit low, maintaining anywhere from let’s just say, 7 to 10 percent body fat for men or 16, 17 percent to about 20 percent for women is possible. I mean, I stay around probably 9 percent year-round. Sometimes I go a little bit lower, let’s say down to 8, sometimes a little bit higher, depending on, I guess, my diet.

Even though my diet is very regimented, I tend to eat the same foods because I just like them. But sometimes, you know, holiday season, I don’t get too OCD about my food. I kind of do my normal thing and I have bouts of overeating that make me a little bit fatter and then I have to get rid of the fat after the holidays.

Doing that, though, staying pretty lean year-round, requires that you carefully watch what you eat. You have to always be at least paying attention to your calories. You don’t have to necessarily be weighing or tracking every single thing that you eat, but you have to be very cognizant of what you’re eating and how much exercise you’re doing.

[00:33:48] Another indicator of steroid use is bad acne and male pattern baldness. Now some people are more prone to having breakouts and baldness. This is just genetics, but steroids often aggravate these problems. So if someone is huge, shredded, dry, and full with acne all over their backs or their shoulders or even, you know, sometimes they get it in their chest. You are probably looking at drugs. And if you add a deeply receding hairline, then you’re almost certainly looking at drugs.

[00:34:22] So now, what about alternatives? Are there any natural alternatives to steroids? And the answer here is no. Full stop. Forget with the supplement companies tell you. Test boosters are worthless, HGH boosters – worthless. Most muscle building supplements, period, are worthless. 

[00:34:39] One of the only ones that is actually worth taking, in my opinion, that will help you build muscle and strength faster, assuming you’re not a no responder because there are people out there that just don’t respond to it, period, is creatine. It’s not nearly as effective as steroids, not anywhere even close, but it does work. And, you know, it’s probably the most researched molecule in all of sports nutrition at this point. It does work for most people.

[00:35:04] So I hope this podcast has given you a well-rounded and objective understanding of steroids and has also shown you what you can realistically expect in your own physique. If you’ve been chasing the dream of naturally achieving a physique that is only possible with drugs, or if you have been following the poor advice of a fake natty, you now know better. You should adjust those expectations and you should unfollow the asshole.

If, however, you want to do well as a competitive bodybuilder or physique athlete, and especially if you want to make money, if you want to do well enough to make a living at it, you are going to need steroids. A lot of steroids. End of story. And while I personally have no interest in competing or taking drugs, if that’s your thing, if that’s your passion, I totally understand. I don’t think anybody should judge you for that.