Steroids.

iregk

Ok I'm interested to find the views from others on this site regarding the use of steroids. I know we have covered a lot of discussions and that and someone posted up a video regarding steroids that in fairness opened my eyes a little. That said it didn't overly teach me anything I didn't really know already.

My personal opinion is steroids are cheating. As a cyclist I'm sure you will agree I have a huge case here . But not just for my sport but for anything. Sprinting, body building, cycling etc... to me they are means of a cheat. For competitors I can understand the temptations but I will never understand people taking them just to look good in a gym.

Over here they are still looked down on yet in the states they are widely accepted and promoted in gyms. When I see someone who is huge in the gym and then I hear they are taking I loose all interest in them and look at the as a cheat. The lads that have done it taking only protein supps, dieting and through sheer determination in my opinion are the naturals and the real lifters. These are the guys I look up to.

What do others think? Am I wrong maybe even ignorant and should steroids be promoted as genuine tools or should they be frowned upon as cheating material?

daveirl

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t-ha

I don't like the idea of their use in competitive sports or in natural bodybuilding shows. It is cheating in that context. What people do privately is their own business. I do think it's sad that it's hard to find good rolemodels as a natural trainee. Many of the 'natural' bodybuilders are simply not on steroids at the time of competing, as opposed to being fully steroid-free trainees.

Also, I find your signature line to be amusing, given the context of this thread

iregk

Hahaha well spotted t-ha. I hadn't even thought of that. Maybe it is the point personified? Loosers wont take drugs, Floyd Landis will (winnner!)

daveirl

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Degsy

My problem with gear is people starting off in bodybuilding taking gear to put on two or three stone in six months,they havnt put in the hard work or the time necessary to build a good basic size and they've basicly taken a shortcut to what it takes years to achieve naturally.They're only fooling themselves anyway,as soon as they stop juicing they'll go back t o thier old size.

amazingemmet

I have no problem with people wanting to do them or doing them as long as its all safe and sane usuage.

In sports i'd like to see events broken up into categories where you'd have natural and doped athletes in seperate competion so it gives a level playing field. The odd thing is with usage is when the whole playing field is doing roids it basically comes down to who is naturally better at the end of the day

daveirl

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iregk

amazingemmet wrote:

The odd thing is with usage is when the whole playing field is doing roids it basically comes down to who is naturally better at the end of the day

I don't think thats really the case. What happens here is what is happening in cycling. It comes down to what team has the best pharmacist and whoever is using the best substance has the best results...

thirtyfoot

I think streoids and any PED are the scourge of any competitive sport and the people who use them or condone the use of them would be in the same league as a scumbag selling heroin on a street corner.

Degsy

Tingle wrote:

I think streoids and any PED are the scourge of any competitive sport and the people who use them or condone the use of them would be in the same league as a scumbag selling heroin on a street corner.

Ah now steady on..i mean,do people mug old ladies to pay for thier gear habits?

thirtyfoot

Degsy wrote:

Ah now steady on..i mean,do people mug old ladies to pay for thier gear habits?

They are mugging the 30,000 who may pay in to see them compete, or they are mugging the guy in second place who is clean and really deserved that big paycheck or the kid who buys their runners or sportsgear. I am not talking about smalltime guys in gyms but elite athletes who use PEDs to get massive paycheks or endorsements, they are scumbags.

amazingemmet

I'm gonna go on a limb here and say up to 95% of professional atheletes in speed/power events sports events are using something.

@ Dave people react differently to everything but there's so many different cycles/ combinations that can be taken there's no real reason why it matters.

I do disagree with people claiming that they're clean and competing in events just because their test are showing clean. Basically it comes down to honesty if your taking say so and compete in events where you can be honest with people about it

shoutman

amazingemmet wrote:

I'm gonna go on a limb here and say up to 95% of professional atheletes in speed/power events sports events are using something.

If by something you mean protein suplements, creatine etc then I would agree,
but if you are talking about steroids etc. I would have to say you are way off.

rubadub

iregk wrote:

but I will never understand people taking them just to look good in a gym.

because they are vain. Women wearing make-up or a push up bra could be seen as "cheating". Peter andre with his plastic implant pecs is cheating.

I see it as cheating in sports since it is specifically not allowed. Each to their own outside of sport. I lost weight by diet and exercise, if somebody chooses liposuction it may be seen as "cheating", if they were in a weightwatchers competition or something it would be cheating, or if that bloke who flogs subway sandwiches turned out to have had liposuction, that is cheating. I see steroids and liposuction in a similar light, unnecessary drugs/surgery

Mickk

Don't forget steroids are just naturally occuring hormones in your body. You are not putting anything new into your body just more of what you have already. All the males on this site have been on "steroids" during puberty but did we all end up looking like bodybuilders? People think that you take steroids and then bang all of a sudden you are huge. That is not the case at all, the level of test in your system during puberty is comparable to a bodybuilder on a cycle. The side effects are exactly the same aswell, acne, hair growth, agression, constant erections and a deeper voice.

I could show you people who have done 5-10 steroid cycles and are chubby 10 stone wasters who you would think never touched a weight in their lives. The main thing steroids will do is help you push yourself harder in the gym to make the gains yourself. They will ONLY work if your diet and training and rest is very good, this is why for 90% of us the steroids during puberty did not make us very muscular.

As for the level playing field argument I really think its bull****. It has been shown that healthy adult male african-american have 50% more testosterone than healthy adult male asians!! How is that a level playing field? If two 25 yo males, one asian and one african american, decided to take up a physical sport, both ate exactly the same meals, both did the exact same training and lived the exact same lives the african american would do much better in the sport, how is that fair? "Oh well the steroids he is on are natural so thats ok", if you legalise steroids in sports that will create a level playing field, the sucess of the players will be based on the effort, training and dedication put in by the players and all their hormones will be the exact same.

Another myth people have is that there are magical steroids that have special ingredients in them. All steroids are roughly based on testosterone. People often think that designer steroids are better and unique so that would make it unfair on athletes who cant get designer steroids, this is wrong, they are just normal steroids with one molecule or atom different to avoid detection in testing.

Another thing that makes me laugh is that people dont respect bodybuilders because they take steroids. I challenge anyone to find another sport where the top atheletes are more dedicated than top bodybuilders. NO OTHER sport requires the same level of dedication that bodybuilding does, a good example of this is Jay Cutler, he eats 11 times a day, including waking up twice during the night to eat!!

I think it should be noted aswell that people often lump in EPO and HGH with steroids. iregk started this post and talked about it in relation to cycling, I think the majority of cyclists use these rather than steroids so that is a different subject. Also before anyone says I am obviously on steroids I am not. I have done them in the past when I was to young to do them, I felt great and my training was great but my diet was bad and I ended up a heavy bag of ****. The last 4 years I have been natural and currently I am heavier from muscle, stronger and look better than I ever did when I was on. When I think I have reached my natural limit with natural training I think I will do another cycle. Thankfully in Ireland this is not illegal, unlike the US where steroids are a controlled drug (over here they are simply a legal medication).

trollybus

I had there pleasure of meeting the worlds strongest man two years ago, I asked him about his personal steroid use and he told me that he uses them and they only give him a boost of about 10%. His analogy was "if you put high octane fuel in a Lada it won't drive like a Ferrari" basically these athletes have genetic gifts and the ability and knowledge to push harder than most gym users. Shawn Ray always said Dorian Yates had 60% of the genetics to be mr Olympia but wanted the title 200% more than anybody else.
To say its all drugs is ignorant and insulting to these athletes. And before anybody says it I personally don't use drugs but I don't have a problem with those who do, they have simply chosen a different route!

yomchi

Gotta agree with MickK and Trollybus here. Im involved in many martial arts and have been for a long time. I remember being around a guy preparing for the Natural world championships last year (body building) and throughout my years in the martial arts competing field which included training along side current world champions, I've never come across such dedication and personal sacrifices that B Bers endure , its inspiring.

MickK is right, the amount of people who think steroids is a shortcut to being huge are fooling themselves. Im sure he'll agree that working in the supplement business the amount of wannabe's that come through your door saying their juicing and you just know they haven't got it. I had a guy who looked liked he never lifted a weight in his life tell me he was going on growth hormone..he bought a tub of promax and left. I didn't even try and tell him what he was doing was futile!

There are drugs in every sport. The desire to be the best is too enticing. But the approach that body builders take is different. It's all measured, cycled and taken the right way. Until you train with one, who can't understand the dedication and the pain that's come with being an athlete in that sport.

daveirl

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daveirl

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Boru.

Stangely enough my feelings on the matter were definitively settled when I saw an episode of South Park dealing with Steroid Abuse in the Special Olypmics.

At the end of the episode Jimmy, who had been taking streoids for the games delivers the follwoing speech. My apologies to anyone offeneded by this material;

Taking steroids is just like pretending to be handicapped at the Special Olympics. Because you're taking all the fairness out of the game. But I know now that even if you do win on steroids, you're really not a winner. You're just a p-pussy. You're just a big fat p-p...p...pussy, and if you take steroids, the only decent thing to do is come forward and say, "Remove me from the record books, because I am a big, stinky p-pussy-steroid-taking jackass. That's how I feel about myself, and why I must decline this medal and my place in the history books. And if you'll let me, I'll be back next year. To compete with honor.

That cartoon probably had one of the most accurate and honest debates on the subject of streoid abuse in competition. If you get the chance watch it.

As for the safe use of steroids in a non-competitive enviroment, well that's another episode entirely.

secret_squirrel

Just playing devils advocate here but ultimately is there any significant difference between taking supplements or drinking protein shakes than taking roids?

They all offer nature a helping hand.

The line between them all is a very thin one indeed imo.

Chucky the tree

daveirl wrote:

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He used said Asians, not europeans.

Chucky the tree

secret_squirrel wrote:

Just playing devils advocate here but ultimately is there any significant difference between taking supplements or drinking protein shakes than taking roids?

They all offer nature a helping hand.

The line between them all is a very thin one indeed imo.

I am no expert, but i am guessing the increase in performance from using steroids is alot greater then using a protein supplement.


As long as steroids arent allowed in sport, everyone who is caught should be banned.

Mickk

Chucky the tree wrote:

He used said Asians, not europeans.

Two seperate studies were done in relation to prostate cancer, one showed african americans had 19% more than caucasians and the other showed that caucasians had 20% more than asians. Therefore african americans have a huge 50% more test on average than asians, when you factor in the differences in distributions that daveirl talks about it distorts the "equal" playing fields even further.

Dont forget the way the tests work, athlete 1 could have x amount of testosterone and fail a drugtest and athlete 2 could have twice the amount of testosterone in his system and pass, the tests are based on a ratio of testosterone and a corresponding hormone. When steroids are taken testosterone levels are raised and the corresponding hormone doesnt change so an abnormal ratio is what actually gives a positive test...

justsomebloke

secret_squirrel wrote:

Just playing devils advocate here but ultimately is there any significant difference between taking supplements or drinking protein shakes than taking roids?

They all offer nature a helping hand.

The line between them all is a very thin one indeed imo.

well yes there is a quite a difference between the 2, supplements are jsut that supplements to help aid your diet in areas where it is lacking, the reason alot of people take protein supplements especially BB's is that is that it can be quite hard to take in the amount of protein in the diets from whole foods alone as well as then getting there ratios correct after. Also if they where to try and get it from whole sources there is other factors they would have to take into account like there is too much colestrol in eggs so they have to limit there intake of them, then there is estrogen in chicken and too much red meat can increase your chances of certain cancers.
So supplement are just that supplements.

Steroids are however are used to help your body artifically help your body to perform better then it could have done otherwise

t-ha

secret_squirrel wrote:

Just playing devils advocate here but ultimately is there any significant difference between taking supplements or drinking protein shakes than taking roids?

They all offer nature a helping hand.

The line between them all is a very thin one indeed imo.

Most competitive sports organisations will have pretty strict rules about what is allowable and what is not - largely based around the kind of competitive advantage the supplements offer. Most AAS are out, but there are also caps on the amount of many other substances, such as caffeine, you can take. The idea is to try and maintain a reasonably level playing field.

daveirl

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iregk

Well my fience's brother used to play for Bolton Wanderers and I remember when he used to get sick it was pretty much cup of tea and sweat it out of you. The only tabs he could take were very low grade (100m) of paracetamol. Even lemsips and all that were out.

Caffeine i think in most cases is out but very small quantities are allowed.

trollybus

The ban on caffine was lifted a few years ago, jesbs I hope so anyway cause I've been tested a few times and I had huge quantities in me. Lemsips would not be they must of mistaken it with cough medicines containing psuedoephedrine

t-ha

I'm sure my info is out of date then, so you can sleep easy trollybus , but the basic point was that it tends not to be just a blanket ban on steroids, but a large range of compounds that could offer performance enhancement. That's why drinking protein shakes is allowed & injecting test isn't.

Also mickk brings up an interesting point, the test for testosterone is currently to measure the testosterone:estrogen ratio, and I believe a fail is a ratio of greater than 6:1. One of the problems with this test is that it ignores total concentrations, but a larger problem is that it is not beyond reasonable doubt that in some rare cases, people would naturally have higher ratios than that. A test:LH ratio test would be alot more telling - though I'm no expert in the area & I'm sure they have their reasons.

secret_squirrel

jsb wrote:

well yes there is a quite a difference between the 2, supplements are jsut that supplements to help aid your diet in areas where it is lacking, the reason alot of people take protein supplements especially BB's is that is that it can be quite hard to take in the amount of protein in the diets from whole foods alone as well as then getting there ratios correct after. Also if they where to try and get it from whole sources there is other factors they would have to take into account like there is too much colestrol in eggs so they have to limit there intake of them, then there is estrogen in chicken and too much red meat can increase your chances of certain cancers.
So supplement are just that supplements.

Everything you said there applies equally to steroids. Your body cant manufacture enough of them on its own, so you supplement it.

Imo the only real difference between supplements and steroids is one is (generally) ok for competition and the other is illegal.

I think that measuring the degree of helping hand they give is avoiding the issue.

Mickk

t-ha wrote:

I'm sure my info is out of date then, so you can sleep easy trollybus , but the basic point was that it tends not to be just a blanket ban on steroids, but a large range of compounds that could offer performance enhancement. That's why drinking protein shakes is allowed & injecting test isn't.

Also mickk brings up an interesting point, the test for testosterone is currently to measure the testosterone:estrogen ratio, and I believe a fail is a ratio of greater than 6:1. One of the problems with this test is that it ignores total concentrations, but a larger problem is that it is not beyond reasonable doubt that in some rare cases, people would naturally have higher ratios than that. A test:LH ratio test would be alot more telling - though I'm no expert in the area & I'm sure they have their reasons.

Its actually the ratio between test:epitest rather than estrogen. Any steroids that aromatize wil cause test estrogen levels to remain in correct ratios and you might even end up with a nice little pair of eamonns hanging off your chest if you are lucky.

The reason they dont use the test:LH ratio is that it is not fixed as epitest:test is and also it is easy to manipulate. Although lately they have also synthesized epitestosterone...

Another advance in the technology lately is that scientists have found a test that can differentiate between syntethic and natural test. They differ in ratios of isotopes and nothing so far has been shown to cause natural test to show similar properties. These days they use the test:epitest ratio test as a guide and if a sample is found positive give the second sample an isotope test.