For decades, in the world of bodybuilding, steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs have been the elephants in the room: known about, but rarely addressed. Well, it’s time we addressed them.
It’s been nearly 30 years since congress passed the Anabolic Steroids Control Act, rendering testosterone and other substances illegal. In many ways, thanks to the internet and the black market, the use of PEDs is as prevalent as ever in nearly every sport in America—though the bodybuilding community is often targeted, fairly or unfairly, as the epicenter of steroid culture. While there are obvious dangers to abusing steroids, there is also rampant misinformation about their effects.
To clear up the confusion, we set out to have honest conversations with experts in the field to give you a sense of what you should know. Check out five experts’ takes on the use of steroids in bodybuilding.
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Peter Dazeley / Getty
The Former Competitor: Fakhri Mubarak
Occupation: IFBB pro and contest-prep specialist
Location: New York City
At 16, I started training with weights, and I trained naturally until I was 26. By the time I was 20 or 21, I was helping my friends get ready for shows, because I had more knowledge than most people did. This was the early ’90s, and there was no internet. We didn’t have these commercial gyms—you only had hardcore gyms. You almost had to be in the fraternity, you know? I was a young kid who busted his ass. I wasn’t a pretty boy. One Friday night—the gym closes at 10—I was training, and the staffers were like, “You can stay if you want.” All the little guys were leaving. And this guy hands me a bottle of Anadrol 50, which is a mass-building drug—a very strong oral steroid.
“How much for the bottle?” I ask. “$250,” he tells me.
I say, “How much is this shit at GNC?”
They laughed.
June 2000 was the first time I touched anything. Very basic stuff—500 milligrams of testosterone, 400 of EQ [Equipoise], 50 of Anavar, and 40 of clenbuterol.
In one month, I gained about 28 pounds. I was 5’5″, 200 pounds before that, and people were like, “He’s taking.” Then I went to the beach for the Fourth of July that year, and everybody was like, “Holy shit, you were natural.” So I decided to do a show that November. I added a couple of more things, like 50 milligrams of Winstrol to dry out, and 400 milligrams of tren (trenbolone) for more mass. I finished third in the open, won the novice overall, and people were like, “You have a lot of potential.”
Then I went to Nationals in 2001 to watch. I thought, “You know what? I think I can go pro.” So I ran the same cycle. At the 2003 Nationals, I took fourth. I added Arimedex and Proviron, both to fight estrogen, and kicked my testosterone up to 750. I was up to 230 to 240 pounds but dropped down to light-heavyweight. I won the overall.
Back then, I got my blood work checked every four to six months. Eighteen years later, I’m still cycling, and I won’t go more than six months without getting my blood checked. If my liver enzymes are too high, if my kidneys are off, I know I’ve got to come down. Every five months, I’ll take 40 days off. But I know 10 people who have had kidney failure and seen a lot of people die. There’s no direct link to a death by steroids. But if you have a predisposition to something, then, yes, steroids increase the risk factors. Doctors will blame steroids for everything if you’re a bodybuilder. But everybody should see a doctor. And if you lie to a doctor, you’re a fool.
I tell clients, “This is your decision. I’m not gonna push anything on you. Whatever you want to take, research it.” We’ll run their blood work. Do complete hormonal and metabolic panels. Often, you can see when someone is abusing steroids. [Common symptoms include distended gut, back acne, and “bitch tits,” aka gynecomastia.—Ed.]
Unfortunately, for most bodybuilders, steroid use is a real addiction. Even when the doctor tells you something is wrong, you don’t feel pain and you feel good. So you keep going. You’re used to people looking at you in a certain way. You’re used to buying triple-XL T-shirts, you know? I haven’t competed in a long time, and people still look at me and say, “Holy shit, you’re fucking huge.”
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The Steroid Lawyer: Rick Collins
Occupation: Attorney specializing in the bodybuilding and fitness industries
Location: Long Island, NY
What’s interesting is that back in the 1980s, anabolic steroids were not controlled substances. In 1990 the law changed in the aftermath of the Ben Johnson doping scandal at the 1988 Olympics. (Johnson, a sprinter, tested positive for the steroid stanozolol.) They became controlled in the same way drugs of abuse and narcotics are. That decreased the production and manufacture of FDA-approved anabolic steroids, and if you have a lower level of supply but demand remains the same, what happens? Alternative sources appear.
You had an influx of veterinary steroids and foreign steroids from Mexico and other countries. Then 9/11 happens, and you have a higher level of scrutiny over incoming packages to the United States—so these finished products get flagged by customs. Then you have what’s marketed today, which is the importation of powders—mostly from China—that are manufactured into liquids and pills by underground chemists in their own kitchens and basements. You slap on a label and sell it over the internet, on various websites or sometimes even on social media. That’s the market as it exists today. The quality control is more open to question. We went from regulated, FDA-approved products to unregulated, black-market products, which may contain little or none of the active ingredients. Or they may be contaminated.
The other thing it did was drive doctors and pharmacists out of the equation. It had a chilling e ect on doctors being involved in any capacity, and it had a chilling effect on the users wanting to tell their doctors.
I represent athletes who are accused of using steroids in violation of their sport’s rules. But the vast majority of my cases are of a criminal nature, involving people either possessing or tra cking steroids, folks who are otherwise very law-abiding people. In my experience, 80% of the users are people who aren’t involved in any sort of competition. Basically, guys who want to look better on the beach. It’s a cosmetic motivation.
The controlled-substance status has, ironically, increased the dangers that are associated with use. The law was motivated primarily because of athletic cheating. But people are using them much more in the way people opt to get cosmetic surgery or breast implants or Botox. We live in a society that is very appearance-driven. I think you’d have a safer environment for those seeking to use anabolic steroids if the doctors and pharmacists and legitimate drug companies were brought in to replace the underground labs and black-market dealers.
Every drug has risks. Thinking that anabolic steroids can’t hurt you—that’s false, obviously. But many of the issues involve supervision and monitoring. The difference between a medicine and poison is the dose.
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The Steroid Doctor: Thomas O’Connor, M.D.
Occupation: “The Anabolic Doc”
Location: Bloomfield, CT
I’ve been an internist since 2005, and I’m a powerlifter who benched more than 500 pounds in competition. I started writing and posing for some magazines, and strongmen and powerlifters started coming to me. They trusted me.
Look, if you’re a Major League Baseball player and you’re using steroids, you’d better deal with your lawyer. But if you’re a common man and you’re using steroids? They’re incredibly powerful agents. You have to be humble.
I don’t give a blessing on steroids. Some doctors care for heroin users or others who are suffering. Men are coming to me—they’ve been on for a week, or two months, or 30 years. Every single man who’s been using steroids for years comes to me dysfunctional and depleted of testosterone. I’m always respectful. I walk a fine line of, “You did steroids, now your body’s damaged. Here’s what I can do and what I can’t.” These guys have depleted brains and testicles. They have heart disease and kidney disease.
They’re buying the stuff on the internet. It’s called broscience—the clandestine term for this non-science. People are always modifying the agents. A lot of guys think they know what they’re doing, and some of them are actually really smart. It’s a dopamine high. It’s 100% addictive.
There are three doors: Door No. 1, stop everything. Door No. 2, let me help you with evidence-based weaning, or post-cycle therapy. Door No. 3 is to transition to more stabilizing agents, watch the heart, take care of fertility. I’m really a methadone clinic for steroid users.
I’ve wrecked many fledgling bodybuilders’ careers. I get men who’ve never done one steroid, and I beg them not to do it. You’re gonna destroy your body. I scare the shit out of them. And for most men who don’t have body dysmorphia, they hug me. I show them their family history of disease.
We’re in trouble. Steroids need to be studied. We need to get doctors to open up and see. I’m overloaded now with doctors calling me. I’ve put my balls out enough to say, “I’ll take care of you if you’re suffering.” And if you read my website (metabolicdoc.com), you know I’m against steroids, because they damage people.
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The Competition Coach: Justin Dees
Occupation: Exercise physiologist and bodybuilding coach/competitor
Location: Salt Lake City, UT
I think it’s ironic that it’s such a taboo thing, given that a lot of men are on it for anti-aging. They have these euphemisms now—they call it Low T. People are like, “Oh, yeah, but that’s not steroids.” I’m like, “No, that’s exactly what it is.”
I competed natural. I wanted to see how far I could take my body without them. I don’t think young men should take anabolic steroids. Not teenagers or men in their 20s. By the time I was 33, I owned three supplement stores. I’d taken prohormones before, so I wanted to see where my testosterone was. I felt like it was low. I wasn’t sleeping good. My libido was lower. The doctor says, “Your testosterone’s like a 70-year-old man.” He gave me 3cc’s of testosterone. First time I’ve ever had a shot in my life. I became kind of a research project for this doctor. Ever since then, I’ve been on them.
I honestly think most people take way too much. They have just enough knowledge to be dangerous. They think more drugs equals more results. It doesn’t. More drugs equals more side e ects. HGH is a really good example. I use 3 IUs (international units). Any more than that, and you don’t get greater benefits, but a lot more side effects, like visceral fat and stomach distension.
Unfortunately, nobody is going to do research on bodybuilders and steroids because it’s not to cure disease. They all take them, but you don’t have any studies.
Most of the pros I know are smart. They use them as a tool to be successful. The gym-rat guys are the ones who abuse them. They don’t have the genetics or the work ethic. You have to understand that you could respond negatively to those compounds. People talk about going to the dark side, but I think it’s really stepping into the unknown.
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The Steroid Researcher: Victoria Felkar
Occupation: Ph.D. student, University of British Columbia
Location: Vancouver, Canada
I got started in the bodybuilding industry when I was about 15 years old. I’m currently working on my doctorate about women and steroids. There’s just a complete dearth of research and understanding in this area.
I’ve worked with women on the Olympia stage, and I’ve worked with women who don’t even compete but—pardon my French—fuck themselves up. A lot of times, women are already on steroids because they’re on birth control, and birth control is a steroid. They go off it, their androgens can skyrocket naturally, and then they hop on gear and they’ve just opened themselves up to this whole cascade of hell.
From a female perspective, there have been maybe eight to 11 studies on this, ever. And none of them used really good methods. We don’t know how many women are using. But just anecdotally, I think it’s skyrocketed in the past three to five years. The bikini division has changed the game. Muscularity is now OK for women. You’ve got women going into menopause in their early 20s, no longer able to have children. For women, their menstrual history and reproductive health are so important. And it’s sad because anabolics aren’t bad. They’re not the devil.
There’s a huge myth and mystique that surrounds them. They’ve become villainized.
My advice: Know your body. Some women think certain ones are OK to take because of the anabolic-to-androgenic ratio. But that ratio is based off studies on male rats. You’re taking an androgen, what did you expect? You didn’t think you’d grow facial hair? That’s what androgens do inside the body.
Everything has a risk-to-reward ratio. Who you are and want to be today is not the same as 10 years from now. Your voice, hair growth, fertility—all of these can be altered when you take androgens. If somebody says, “Take this,” ask questions. This whole topic of women and steroids is an enigma. I’m not even an expert, because nobody is.
