We all know that performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) are in common use in athletics. They are at least partially responsible for most if not all world records set in the strength sports, and alas, fitness competition is no exception. Recently we’ve seen a rash of positive drug tests for top level athletes, and even more lame excuses. This article will explore some of the realities of PED use through an excellent study on anabolic steroid use in amateur bodybuilders.
Before we get into the details of this article I want to say that nothing in this article is meant to assist you in steroid usage. They are illegal, and should not be taken without supervision from a medical doctor. Secondly, there is little evidence that they will be of any great use to a fitness athlete, especially the average Jerry.
I know that sounds strange. You’re probably asking, “well why do the pro’s even take them Jake,” and “are you a boy or a girl?” Well, maybe not the second one.
The real issue with PEDs is that they aren’t studied scientifically in the same way the are used by athletes. PEDs are prescribed for a variety of reasons and medical diagnoses, but they aren’t legally available for getting jacked in the US. This means that the only type of knowledge anyone is going to have in using them for performance enhancement, is going to be anecdotal.
Just remember anecdotal evidence is only as reliable as the person telling it. So you better hope you aren’t listening to your drunk Uncle Brady!
There are; however, some scientific studies that are observational in nature, of people who take steroids for performance enhancement, and wouldn’t you know it, that is exactly what we are going to be talking about in this article.
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The Study
In this study titled,”Nutrition, Pharmacological and Training Strategies Adopted by Six Bodybuilders: Case Report and Critical Review,” we get to peer into the lives of some typical steroid users, in this case amateur bodybuilders.
This study looked at two male bodybuilders, two male physique athletes, and two female wellness athletes. This is very valuable for us the functional fitness population as their height, bodyweight, and other biological variables are pretty close to that of the average functional athlete, and of course, we have both men and women in this study.
As you will see throughout the study these athletes did not follow a particularly well designed training program, and they definitely counteracted any if not all of the gains they received from PED usage.
The Design
The researchers looked at these athletes for a total of three months with about 45 days of bulking, and 45 days of cutting in preparation for a bodybuilding contest.
They interviewed the athletes and their coaches, and made detailed notes about their training plans including the particular exercises, sets/reps, nutrition, and specific PEDs they took and in what quantities.
Most importantly for them they measured the athletes height, weight, and body fat, tracking it over the duration of their contest prep.
I’ve taken the liberty of calculating their normalized fat free mass index which are depicted in the charts below.
As you might remember from previous articles, fat free mass index, is simply a measure of the amount of muscle a person carries per unit of height.
Researchers have determined that for the vast majority of the athletic population the upper limit of muscle mass without using PEDs is around 25. This doesn’t mean that no one can be above this limit naturally, but the higher you are above it, the less likely you aren’t natural.
Here are some FFMI’s for famous bodybuilders from past and present.
Here are some FFMI’s of some top fitness competitors.
We can see some startling trends from the bodybuilder’s FFMIs. First these athletes aren’t even close to their natural muscular limits. If we use Dr. Casey Butt’s excellent calculator for predicting the an athletes natural muscular limits, we see that MB1 is predicted to have a contest bodyweight of 176lbs at 8% body fat. Where as he actually attained 158lbs at 8% body fat.
We also see that almost across the board each male athlete ended up with roughly the same amount of fat free mass as they started with. The female competitors actually ended up with more, meaning they gained muscle.
To be fair to them, each athlete lost a lot of body fat during a short cut, but that in and of itself is not the ideal way to lose weight. In order to lose fat without losing lean mass you need to aim for 1% or less of your body mass lost per week. A 200lb athlete shouldn’t lose more than 2lbs per week.
There are some reasons for this as we will see in the next section.
The Programming
We aren’t going to go into crazy detail here with each athlete’s programming because they were following a fairly normal bodybuilder split. Each muscle group was targeted once per week, and in the off season each athlete did roughly 45minutes of fasted cardio twice per week with some variances between bodybuilders, and figure athletes.
During the contest phase reps increased from 8-12, closer to 15, and cardio continued twice per week for up to 2 hours at a time. Needless to say this is far from ideal.
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Steroid Usage
These athletes are borderline crazy. Both bodybuilders used around 750mg per day of anabolic agents including: testosterone enanthate, boldenone, nandrolone undecanoate and trenbolone. In the cutting phase, the drugs of choice were propionate, stanozolol, propionate drostanolone and oxandrolone.
The second bodybuilder used 1160mg per day during the cutting phase. This is roughly 40 times the normal amount of testosterone production for the average male.
The ladies were slightly lower, starting at 400mg per day during bulking, and 740mg during cutting. While a lower overall amount this represents more than 500 times the natural amount of androgen production for women.
Keeping it Real
It’s time for a PSA moment here and a little sanity check. These athletes are competing in a local bodybuilding show. The mens physique athletes had only been training for 2 years and are under 23 years of age, and they are taking massive amounts of androgens that will have huge impacts on their health.
I’m not one to demonize steroids unfairly, as I think with medical supervision, they would probably be safer than plastic surgery, but you would have to be insane to take these risks with your health, while obtaining results a natural bodybuilder could obtain for free, given an extra year or two.
This is to say nothing of the financial cost. Illegal steroids can run up to $500 or more per vial lasting around ten days. The stack these athletes were on cost them in the range of $5,000-$10,000 for 90 days. This is crazy.
Maximize Your Natural Muscular Potential
Now, I’m done with my soap box lets get to how we can gain muscle without trying to swim in a vat of PEDs. The first thing you need to do is be consistent and get to the gym regularly.
In a meta analysis of over 200 research studies on bodybuilders they determined that a moderate volume program, that targeted each muscle group twice per week was ideal.
The take away is that smaller more fatigue resistant muscles like your biceps, calves can be trained more often, where as larger muscle groups, like quads and lats are probably better at twice per week.
Nutrition
Secondly you need to be eating the correct amount to gain or lose weight according to your goals. You can check out this article on the basics of nutrition, and download this calculator to get your own calorie and macro recommendation.
The Plan
Lastly you should check out this program based off of the latest muscle building research. It’s fairly simple, but it takes into account all the variables we’ve spoken about above. It’s also tailored for the types of movements and equipment most functional fitness athletes have access to.
Cardio
There is nothing wrong with cardio, but you must keep it to a reasonable limit. Twenty to thirty minutes per day, 2 or 3 times per week is fine. Ideally this should be in the form of intervals. You can check out this aerobic training plan for that.
Final Thoughts
There is no magic in putting on muscle mass. You have to get your ass to the gym consistently, follow a good program, and eat the right amount of food. Likewise losing fat is the same process with a few changes to your food.
Don’t look for shortcuts, because there are none. There is only hard work and the feeling you get after crushing all your enemies, seeing them driven before you, and hearing the lamentation of their women.
Questions, comments, put them below!
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Great Article.
Regarding Sandow, Were steroids even available during his time? He is at 27 FFMI same as Froning and Fraser is just below at 26. Do you think with proper training a person can hit 26/27 and be clean?
Yes it’s definitely possible to be above 26/27 given a large enough population to draw from. Steroids were not available for use until around the 1950’s and sandow predates that.