Performance-enhancing drugs and health

These notes combine advice from 38 reviewed passages across 26 workouts.

Overview

Performance-enhancing drugs, mainly anabolic steroids and testosterone, are described as a way to grow muscle and gain strength much faster than training alone. Steroids are said to boost muscle strength and growth by roughly 400 to 500 percent and can build muscle even without training. Natural training has real limits, and the extreme sizes seen in competitive bodybuilding are described as impossible without drugs.

Coach’s advice

These substances are described as harmful to the body. Steroid use is said to weaken the heart and shorten lifespan, and a long life is considered more important than extreme muscle size.

What steroids do

The performance effects are described in concrete numbers. A person who averages 10 pull-ups might manage 13 to 15 on the best natural day, and 20 to 25 in a single set on steroids. The explanation given is that anabolic steroids remove the body’s natural block on strength, so the numbers jump.

Injections and other substances are described as preserving strength while reducing fat, which is why some people keep using them. In one reported case, someone gained four kilograms, all muscle, in six months after three testosterone injections, a result that is called very hard to achieve naturally.

A client’s visible response to the prescribed workouts is described as appearing in the second week instead of the expected two months, with the speed attributed to the client taking something.

Anabolic injections are described as strong enough that two would make gym attendance unnecessary.

Coach’s advice

The appeal is also described in everyday terms. Steroids are compared to an in-game extra that refills energy faster and keeps tiredness away, yet the bad effects are said to appear later and cause faster fatigue.

Even when using steroids, training is still required. Without training, the drugs are useless.

Natural limits and extreme targets

The limits of natural training are described with arm measurements. Good training can bring a 35 centimeter arm to 40, or a 40 centimeter arm to 45 or 46, and that range is considered enough. Targets around 55 to 60 centimeters, or taking a 30 centimeter arm to 50, are described as impossible with training alone and as requiring drugs.

Even with drugs the ceiling is described as limited: a 30 centimeter arm would reach about 40 centimeters at the training maximum. Steroids are described as compressing progress that would take six years into one year.

Why people turn to drugs

Coach’s advice

The typical entry point is described as a stall. Some trainees start drugs after about six months, when progress slows and development becomes very slow, and they keep using them to make progress quickly again. Steroid or testosterone use is described as typically spaced every three or four months rather than weekly, and is associated with competition ambitions.

Coach’s advice

Some gyms push cycles and medicines, building a body in five or six months. In elite sprinting, top speed is described as unreachable with normal training alone, but the performance is credited to a combination of demanding programs and doping.

Coach’s advice

At the international level, competitive sport is described as pushing athletes to use everything because other countries do, and as very harmful. Exercise itself is described as not harmful.

Health risks

Coach’s advice

The heart is the most repeated warning. Steroids are described as weakening the walls of the heart. Heavy or wrong use can lead to heart attacks or a torn heart. The large boost from testosterone is described as taking something from elsewhere in the body.

Coach’s advice

The connective tissue is described as not keeping up. Steroids are said to strengthen muscle without strengthening joints or bones, which is why users often have wrist problems, and to weaken ligaments even though the person looks strong.

Coach’s advice

Drugs are described as able to directly bring out a genetic condition if you have one. Heavy testosterone use is said to age a person’s appearance, such as a young person who looks much older.

Coach’s advice

Disproportionate or unprofessional injection use is described as able to ruin parts of the body; some former bodybuilders moved to calisthenics because they had ruined their bodies. Injections and other substances are said to be harmful with no long-term benefit.

Coach’s advice

The strength jump itself carries risk. Lifting heavy or pushing hard on steroids is described as where muscle tears begin. Using anabolic steroids to bypass a strength limit when unprepared can lead to muscle damage after a few repetitions, because the brain can no longer send the protective block.

Coach’s advice

The warnings extend beyond steroids. A person who used ecstasy daily before training is described as having both knees give out in one workout, with weakened bones, hospitalization, and lasting difficulty walking. A bodybuilding film is said to show drug use alongside health problems, including heart problems and masculinizing changes.

Early death and lifespan

Coach’s advice

The most serious warning is early death. Cases are described of people dying young from steroid use, including a 19-year-old and people in their mid-thirties. This kind of use is said to be not worth the risk.

Coach’s advice

Steroid use in extreme fitness is described as directly shortening lifespan. Athletes who push testosterone as high as possible may face bad consequences and possibly shorten their lives while pursuing a physique.

Coach’s advice

Cases are described where gyms had trainees given testosterone in an extremely wrong way, leading to hospitalizations for heart attacks and deaths. Some bodies and hearts cannot withstand it, and wrong use makes things worse.

Gains and regression

Coach’s advice

Muscle gain is described as following different timelines depending on what is used. A lasting physique is said to take about five years without supportive drugs or supplements, about two years with protein powder, and about six months with steroids.

Coach’s advice

The speed cuts both ways. What takes six to eight months to gain is described as able to be lost in about six months. Naturally developed gains are said to regress very slowly, while drug-assisted gains can regress substantially within about two weeks.

Exercise, sport, and drugs

Coach’s advice

Exercise itself is described as extending life: one hour of exercise is said to add about three hours of life. Pushing the body too hard, including with drugs, is described as shortening life through overuse, and complete inactivity also shortens it.

Coach’s advice

These substances are described as likely to be banned eventually, perhaps in twenty years, like cigarettes, and the advice is not to use them because they harm the body, even though they are still marketed.

Coach’s experience

In his own training, the coach does not take testosterone.

He has no objection to trying other supplements, but draws the line at steroids that completely damage the heart.

Related pages

• Exercise and longevity: Contrasts with
• Adaptation and soreness: Often discussed together