Dancing with the dark side: so, you think you're ready for your first steroid cycle?
Maybe you're a beginner who's just getting acclimated to the bodybuilding lifestyle, or maybe you've been training for a few years and feel you've reached your ultimate genetic potential. No matter where you're at in your bodybuilding development, at some point you may find yourself wondering what would happen if you tried "juicing."
"Everyone else is doing steroids," you're told. This belief is reinforced by a tight-shirted "expert" or two in the gym. You also notice that the steroid option is promoted by numerous Web sites created by self-proclaimed authorities and gurus, whose skills begin and end with their ability to register a domain name on the Internet. But you don't know that. After all, they sound as if they know what they're talking about. Using steroids is even supported by some publishers in our industry who care more about selling magazines with exciting copy than teaching bodybuilders about proper nutrition and training. You're swayed by the hype. It seems clear that you need to take drugs if you want to grow.
Convinced of the benefits of steroids, you start looking for a dealer. You ask around the gym and find out who the local "source" is, then nervously approach this stranger. This drug dealer, of course, has your best interests in mind ahead of his own personal financial gain. After discussing your needs, the steroid dealer acts as if he has the knowledge of a doctor and says he knows exactly what you need to grow muscle. And--surprise, surprise--Dr. Dealer can sell you exactly what you need.
You've done some research, so you know that the vast majority of anabolic steroids sold on the black market are not manufactured in legitimate labs, so potency is always in question, not to mention purity and sterility. To be sure you're not getting counterfeit juice, you sternly ask about the reliability of Dr. Dealer's product, using the type of hardball questioning streetwise drug buyers employ on television programs. Your seasoned dealer looks you straight in the eye, and with a loyalty earned from the deep friendship you've nurtured in the few minutes spent together, he assures you that what he sells is "real." Even if you're the type of person who scrutinizes labels on protein drinks to ensure their quality and contents, your desire for instant progress drives you to feel comforted by the sincerity and caring of Dr. Dealer. You're sold. At this point, getting big means more to you than anything. After all, Dr. Dealer has assured you all will go well. He'll demand payment in cash, by the way. Bring plenty.
MEET THE NEEDLES Dreaming of oak-tree thighs and baseball delts, you speed off to the sanctity of your home to count your treasures. You're champing at the bit to get started on "the program." Chances are, you bought injectables, and you were smart enough to get a supply of fresh needles because, despite what anyone says, reusing a needle is dangerously stupid. In fact, reusing your own dirty needles can lead to infections. A needle should be used only once and then thrown away. Did Dr. Dealer tell you that? Oh, must have slipped his mind.
Your extensive medical training on safe injection sites and sterile procedures--learned through visits to the doctor or from the accelerated Dr. Dealer course--will give you the confidence to drive an inch-and-a-half needle into your body to deliver the contents of the mystery vial into your unsuspecting tissues. If you make a mistake, it's really no big deal. A painful infected abscess on your body can easily be removed if caught quickly--for a couple thousand dollars and a month or more of missed training and work. If the abscess isn't caught in time, it could become a serious infection requiring major surgery; so you nervously keep an eye on any needle wound and look for the first sign of swelling or pain. The permanently misshapen tissue around the injection site and resultant scars will hardly be noticeable unless you wear a swimsuit or take off your clothes. Your girlfriend or wife will be very understanding, not to mention proud, of your beautiful new muscles and scarred injection sites.
If the drugs you take are actually steroids, you will know soon enough. Along with getting a little bigger, you may also have a problem with acne or boils, a common side effect of steroid use. So is gynecomastia, or b*ch tits as it's called in the gym world. That's the growth of breast tissue caused by the drugs aromatizing into estrogen to balance out your testosterone levels. Having tits and zits may not be a big deal for you, though, as long as your arms look a little bigger.
If you are squeamish about the whole needle thing, then you may opt to buy oral steroids. They're safer, right? Unfortunately, the side effects are much the same, except that oral steroids can do even more damage because they're more toxic. But you won't know the damage is done until you end up sick and in a doctor's office, where the physician may inform you that some of your vital organs are not functioning properly. Steroids are toxic substances that have to be cleaned from the body by your liver and kidneys, and without regular testing by a doctor, you will have no idea how your body is dealing with the drugs until it's too late.
You may have heard warnings of possible kidney and liver damage from anabolic steroids, maybe even from reading FLEX, but you figured that only happened to other guys. Maybe you had symptoms, but were afraid to visit your doctor out of fear he would learn you were taking illegal drugs--something you should never fear because doctor-patient privilege is inviolable and everything you take, regardless of its legal status, should be discussed with your physician. But Dr. Dealer didn't tell you that. He was too busy counting the wad of cash you handed him.
THE VICIOUS CYCLE If all goes according to plan, you finished your first eight-week cycle, which cost you from $400 to $500. Eight weeks is a fairly mild cycle. If Dr. Dealer has done his job, he will have convinced you that success is not assured unless you up the dosage. The most effective trump card in his deck is to tell you that your first cycle was a good one--for a girl. Of course, you would feel compelled to take more than any woman, so you demand more manly doses, this time for 10 weeks. Of course, it'll cost you more. Have the cash ready.
You may be happy with some of the results. A 10-week steroid cycle can noticeably increase your strength and weight, provided that what you bought contains any actual anabolic steroids at all. If so, an average weight gain over a 10-week period could be anywhere from 10 to 20 pounds.
At the end of 10 weeks, though, you'll stop taking the drugs. Not surprisingly, you'll lose much of the weight you have gained, because much of it was a result of water retention. If you're fortunate enough to hang on to a couple of pounds, you must have eaten and trained correctly. Then again, if you did that, you would have made good progress without taking the drugs in the first place.
By the way, you lose more than water weight after a cycle. Any steroid you swallow or inject is a synthetic form of the naturally occurring hormone testosterone that your body produces. When you add synthetic testosterone to your delicate endocrine system, your body adjusts by suppressing your natural production of testosterone. When you come off a cycle, your body produces lower than normal levels of testosterone. Until your normal levels return--which can take anywhere from two to four months--you'll lose muscle, as well as your drive and energy to train hard. That won't be a big concern though, because with low testosterone levels, you probably won't feel much like training. Some warm tea, a box of tissues and an afternoon with Oprah may feel like a much better way to spend your time for a while.
After months of recovery from your big cycle, your natural testosterone should return to normal. That is, unless you're one of the unlucky few whose natural testosterone production never returns to its previous levels after a steroid cycle or two. But chances are good that you retained a pound or two of muscle from your manly cycle, which is quite a bit less than you could have gained if you used the time to learn about proper nutrition and training and applied it to your lifestyle. Never mind. You made your choice.
THE TRUE DEFINITION OF A MAN So, after two cycles and anywhere from four to six months, you're starting all over again. You don't look much different than you did before you started your first cycle--unless you count minor side effects such as an odd-shaped ass, a few scars here and there, and maybe a little more breast tissue than you previously had. Your wallet, though, will look significantly leaner.
For most bodybuilders, however, the losses that result from coming off a cycle just strengthen the desire to start another one as soon as possible. It feels good being on steroids. You feel big and strong, and the risks don't seem real--despite the personal tragedies you may have read about in FLEX. Remember, that only happens to other guys.
Pretty soon, you don't even think it's worth training unless you're on steroids. It can get expensive, so despite it being illegal, it may occur to you that selling a little on the side will help pay for what you need. So you begin to deal to make extra money. You become one of the gurus with all the answers, trying to sell what you can because you need another cycle. "Need" being the operative word. Steroids are not physically addictive, but many will attest that they're psychologically addictive. Taking drugs to get results is easier than training, and your newly fortified ego won't let you show up at the gym without that juiced body. Of course, you'll have to keep your shirt on to hide the scars from zits, boils and gyno surgery.
Don't worry, you won't have to master bodybuilding science to be an "expert." If you were to ask a typical drug guru about advanced bodybuilding nutrition or how to train past sticking points, he would be at a loss. He'd probably just offer to sell you another cycle and tell you to lift heavier. Sadly, that's probably all he knows.
With or without the help of drugs, the components of a solid bodybuilding program are training, nutrition and rest. It takes time to build your body, just like it takes time to do anything worth doing. It's a lifestyle. There are no quick fixes or shortcuts in our sport, just as with any athletic endeavor. If you were to get involved in any other sport, you would expect to have to learn all you could before you succeeded. Bodybuilding is no different.
Unfortunately, drugs are a part of our sport. There's no denying it. But starting off with drugs as your foundation is like taking your first flying lesson in a rocket ship. That's why you won't see the steroid option promoted in FLEX. Our job is to share the knowledge about training and nutrition possessed by generations of successful bodybuilders and top industry experts.
Real men proudly work for what they earn. They don't look for quick fixes or magic bullets. Lasting results don't come overnight. You need patience to grow, despite what some people would like you to think. Your progress will be unpredictable and temporary as long as you lean on the crutch of drug use. Then there's the significant health risk of doing black-market drugs without the supervision of a doctor. Ask those who have paid the price if it was worth it.
Getting the most out of the bodybuilding lifestyle is a lot of hard work. It takes discipline and learning, but the payoff is bigger than a muscular physique. You'll have the satisfaction of acquiring expertise in one of the toughest sports in the world. And you'll have the pride of mastering your own body, harnessing the ability to control your progress throughout your entire bodybuilding career without drugs. You will be a man to be admired, a man of accomplishment. Why look like a man on the outside if you can't be a man on the inside? Don't let drugs take that away from you.
RELATED ARTICLE: FLEX'S DRUG BUST
The use of performance-enhancing drugs is part of sports and has been for decades. Their use is a reflection of human nature at its most ambitious and competitive. The drive to excel, to be better, to be the best, fuels world-class athletes, and so they are continually on the lookout for an extra edge with which to improve performance. Cue the drug culture, which is becoming an ever-increasing part of all sports, not just bodybuilding.
Unfortunately, to hear some so-called bodybuilding authorities speak, drugs are the sole reason why the current crop of IFBB pros look exactly the way they do. That contention demeans the athletes themselves. It insults the ferocity of Ronnie Coleman's workouts (see "The Ronnie Horror Show," beginning on page 66, and check out his video), and it also ignores his total dedication and his drive to be the best bodybuilder on the planet. Hard work and perseverance built that Sandow-winning body. If drugs were responsible for Ronnie's physique, wouldn't all the drug gurus and all their clients look Colemanesque?
Cognizant of the reality that drugs are part of the pro bodybuilding world, we at FLEX are regularly asked why we feature pro bodybuilders and their training and nutrition philosophies without getting into drug regimens. The reason is, as stated previously, drugs aren't everything and pro bodybuilders have a lot to teach everybody about the fundamentals of training and nutrition, the bedrock components that built their bodies.
The vast majority of FLEX readers will never take performance-enhancing drugs and have no desire to compete. They are content and fulfilled by using the routines, techniques and nutrition guidance of the pros in their own individual quests to build a better physique--and reap the ancillary benefits of feeling better about themselves.
That's why we don't give out prescriptive drug information or glamorize its use. That type of information is pertinent to only a small number of people who may feel the risk of taking drugs is worth the eventual result. And, let's not forget, it would be encouraging people to break the law.
You will never reach your genetic potential without knowing and applying what you learn about nutrition and training, and FLEX magazine is committed to giving you the information you need from the best sources in the world. We help you learn from the in-the-trenches experiences of others who have paid their training and nutrition dues in the sport. We're here to help make you a better bodybuilder, not a bitter drug user.
--Peter McGough
Terry Goodlad has 20 years of experience in strength sports as a bodybuilder, competitive powerlifter and trainer, and he is a well-known industry writer, photographer and frequent contributor to FLEX.
Maybe you're a beginner who's just getting acclimated to the bodybuilding lifestyle, or maybe you've been training for a few years and feel you've reached your ultimate genetic potential. No matter where you're at in your bodybuilding development, at some point you may find yourself wondering what would happen if you tried "juicing."
"Everyone else is doing steroids," you're told. This belief is reinforced by a tight-shirted "expert" or two in the gym. You also notice that the steroid option is promoted by numerous Web sites created by self-proclaimed authorities and gurus, whose skills begin and end with their ability to register a domain name on the Internet. But you don't know that. After all, they sound as if they know what they're talking about. Using steroids is even supported by some publishers in our industry who care more about selling magazines with exciting copy than teaching bodybuilders about proper nutrition and training. You're swayed by the hype. It seems clear that you need to take drugs if you want to grow.
Convinced of the benefits of steroids, you start looking for a dealer. You ask around the gym and find out who the local "source" is, then nervously approach this stranger. This drug dealer, of course, has your best interests in mind ahead of his own personal financial gain. After discussing your needs, the steroid dealer acts as if he has the knowledge of a doctor and says he knows exactly what you need to grow muscle. And--surprise, surprise--Dr. Dealer can sell you exactly what you need.
You've done some research, so you know that the vast majority of anabolic steroids sold on the black market are not manufactured in legitimate labs, so potency is always in question, not to mention purity and sterility. To be sure you're not getting counterfeit juice, you sternly ask about the reliability of Dr. Dealer's product, using the type of hardball questioning streetwise drug buyers employ on television programs. Your seasoned dealer looks you straight in the eye, and with a loyalty earned from the deep friendship you've nurtured in the few minutes spent together, he assures you that what he sells is "real." Even if you're the type of person who scrutinizes labels on protein drinks to ensure their quality and contents, your desire for instant progress drives you to feel comforted by the sincerity and caring of Dr. Dealer. You're sold. At this point, getting big means more to you than anything. After all, Dr. Dealer has assured you all will go well. He'll demand payment in cash, by the way. Bring plenty.
MEET THE NEEDLES Dreaming of oak-tree thighs and baseball delts, you speed off to the sanctity of your home to count your treasures. You're champing at the bit to get started on "the program." Chances are, you bought injectables, and you were smart enough to get a supply of fresh needles because, despite what anyone says, reusing a needle is dangerously stupid. In fact, reusing your own dirty needles can lead to infections. A needle should be used only once and then thrown away. Did Dr. Dealer tell you that? Oh, must have slipped his mind.
Your extensive medical training on safe injection sites and sterile procedures--learned through visits to the doctor or from the accelerated Dr. Dealer course--will give you the confidence to drive an inch-and-a-half needle into your body to deliver the contents of the mystery vial into your unsuspecting tissues. If you make a mistake, it's really no big deal. A painful infected abscess on your body can easily be removed if caught quickly--for a couple thousand dollars and a month or more of missed training and work. If the abscess isn't caught in time, it could become a serious infection requiring major surgery; so you nervously keep an eye on any needle wound and look for the first sign of swelling or pain. The permanently misshapen tissue around the injection site and resultant scars will hardly be noticeable unless you wear a swimsuit or take off your clothes. Your girlfriend or wife will be very understanding, not to mention proud, of your beautiful new muscles and scarred injection sites.
If the drugs you take are actually steroids, you will know soon enough. Along with getting a little bigger, you may also have a problem with acne or boils, a common side effect of steroid use. So is gynecomastia, or b*ch tits as it's called in the gym world. That's the growth of breast tissue caused by the drugs aromatizing into estrogen to balance out your testosterone levels. Having tits and zits may not be a big deal for you, though, as long as your arms look a little bigger.
If you are squeamish about the whole needle thing, then you may opt to buy oral steroids. They're safer, right? Unfortunately, the side effects are much the same, except that oral steroids can do even more damage because they're more toxic. But you won't know the damage is done until you end up sick and in a doctor's office, where the physician may inform you that some of your vital organs are not functioning properly. Steroids are toxic substances that have to be cleaned from the body by your liver and kidneys, and without regular testing by a doctor, you will have no idea how your body is dealing with the drugs until it's too late.
You may have heard warnings of possible kidney and liver damage from anabolic steroids, maybe even from reading FLEX, but you figured that only happened to other guys. Maybe you had symptoms, but were afraid to visit your doctor out of fear he would learn you were taking illegal drugs--something you should never fear because doctor-patient privilege is inviolable and everything you take, regardless of its legal status, should be discussed with your physician. But Dr. Dealer didn't tell you that. He was too busy counting the wad of cash you handed him.
THE VICIOUS CYCLE If all goes according to plan, you finished your first eight-week cycle, which cost you from $400 to $500. Eight weeks is a fairly mild cycle. If Dr. Dealer has done his job, he will have convinced you that success is not assured unless you up the dosage. The most effective trump card in his deck is to tell you that your first cycle was a good one--for a girl. Of course, you would feel compelled to take more than any woman, so you demand more manly doses, this time for 10 weeks. Of course, it'll cost you more. Have the cash ready.
You may be happy with some of the results. A 10-week steroid cycle can noticeably increase your strength and weight, provided that what you bought contains any actual anabolic steroids at all. If so, an average weight gain over a 10-week period could be anywhere from 10 to 20 pounds.
At the end of 10 weeks, though, you'll stop taking the drugs. Not surprisingly, you'll lose much of the weight you have gained, because much of it was a result of water retention. If you're fortunate enough to hang on to a couple of pounds, you must have eaten and trained correctly. Then again, if you did that, you would have made good progress without taking the drugs in the first place.
By the way, you lose more than water weight after a cycle. Any steroid you swallow or inject is a synthetic form of the naturally occurring hormone testosterone that your body produces. When you add synthetic testosterone to your delicate endocrine system, your body adjusts by suppressing your natural production of testosterone. When you come off a cycle, your body produces lower than normal levels of testosterone. Until your normal levels return--which can take anywhere from two to four months--you'll lose muscle, as well as your drive and energy to train hard. That won't be a big concern though, because with low testosterone levels, you probably won't feel much like training. Some warm tea, a box of tissues and an afternoon with Oprah may feel like a much better way to spend your time for a while.
After months of recovery from your big cycle, your natural testosterone should return to normal. That is, unless you're one of the unlucky few whose natural testosterone production never returns to its previous levels after a steroid cycle or two. But chances are good that you retained a pound or two of muscle from your manly cycle, which is quite a bit less than you could have gained if you used the time to learn about proper nutrition and training and applied it to your lifestyle. Never mind. You made your choice.
THE TRUE DEFINITION OF A MAN So, after two cycles and anywhere from four to six months, you're starting all over again. You don't look much different than you did before you started your first cycle--unless you count minor side effects such as an odd-shaped ass, a few scars here and there, and maybe a little more breast tissue than you previously had. Your wallet, though, will look significantly leaner.
For most bodybuilders, however, the losses that result from coming off a cycle just strengthen the desire to start another one as soon as possible. It feels good being on steroids. You feel big and strong, and the risks don't seem real--despite the personal tragedies you may have read about in FLEX. Remember, that only happens to other guys.
Pretty soon, you don't even think it's worth training unless you're on steroids. It can get expensive, so despite it being illegal, it may occur to you that selling a little on the side will help pay for what you need. So you begin to deal to make extra money. You become one of the gurus with all the answers, trying to sell what you can because you need another cycle. "Need" being the operative word. Steroids are not physically addictive, but many will attest that they're psychologically addictive. Taking drugs to get results is easier than training, and your newly fortified ego won't let you show up at the gym without that juiced body. Of course, you'll have to keep your shirt on to hide the scars from zits, boils and gyno surgery.
Don't worry, you won't have to master bodybuilding science to be an "expert." If you were to ask a typical drug guru about advanced bodybuilding nutrition or how to train past sticking points, he would be at a loss. He'd probably just offer to sell you another cycle and tell you to lift heavier. Sadly, that's probably all he knows.
With or without the help of drugs, the components of a solid bodybuilding program are training, nutrition and rest. It takes time to build your body, just like it takes time to do anything worth doing. It's a lifestyle. There are no quick fixes or shortcuts in our sport, just as with any athletic endeavor. If you were to get involved in any other sport, you would expect to have to learn all you could before you succeeded. Bodybuilding is no different.
Unfortunately, drugs are a part of our sport. There's no denying it. But starting off with drugs as your foundation is like taking your first flying lesson in a rocket ship. That's why you won't see the steroid option promoted in FLEX. Our job is to share the knowledge about training and nutrition possessed by generations of successful bodybuilders and top industry experts.
Real men proudly work for what they earn. They don't look for quick fixes or magic bullets. Lasting results don't come overnight. You need patience to grow, despite what some people would like you to think. Your progress will be unpredictable and temporary as long as you lean on the crutch of drug use. Then there's the significant health risk of doing black-market drugs without the supervision of a doctor. Ask those who have paid the price if it was worth it.
Getting the most out of the bodybuilding lifestyle is a lot of hard work. It takes discipline and learning, but the payoff is bigger than a muscular physique. You'll have the satisfaction of acquiring expertise in one of the toughest sports in the world. And you'll have the pride of mastering your own body, harnessing the ability to control your progress throughout your entire bodybuilding career without drugs. You will be a man to be admired, a man of accomplishment. Why look like a man on the outside if you can't be a man on the inside? Don't let drugs take that away from you.
RELATED ARTICLE: FLEX'S DRUG BUST
The use of performance-enhancing drugs is part of sports and has been for decades. Their use is a reflection of human nature at its most ambitious and competitive. The drive to excel, to be better, to be the best, fuels world-class athletes, and so they are continually on the lookout for an extra edge with which to improve performance. Cue the drug culture, which is becoming an ever-increasing part of all sports, not just bodybuilding.
Unfortunately, to hear some so-called bodybuilding authorities speak, drugs are the sole reason why the current crop of IFBB pros look exactly the way they do. That contention demeans the athletes themselves. It insults the ferocity of Ronnie Coleman's workouts (see "The Ronnie Horror Show," beginning on page 66, and check out his video), and it also ignores his total dedication and his drive to be the best bodybuilder on the planet. Hard work and perseverance built that Sandow-winning body. If drugs were responsible for Ronnie's physique, wouldn't all the drug gurus and all their clients look Colemanesque?
Cognizant of the reality that drugs are part of the pro bodybuilding world, we at FLEX are regularly asked why we feature pro bodybuilders and their training and nutrition philosophies without getting into drug regimens. The reason is, as stated previously, drugs aren't everything and pro bodybuilders have a lot to teach everybody about the fundamentals of training and nutrition, the bedrock components that built their bodies.
The vast majority of FLEX readers will never take performance-enhancing drugs and have no desire to compete. They are content and fulfilled by using the routines, techniques and nutrition guidance of the pros in their own individual quests to build a better physique--and reap the ancillary benefits of feeling better about themselves.
That's why we don't give out prescriptive drug information or glamorize its use. That type of information is pertinent to only a small number of people who may feel the risk of taking drugs is worth the eventual result. And, let's not forget, it would be encouraging people to break the law.
You will never reach your genetic potential without knowing and applying what you learn about nutrition and training, and FLEX magazine is committed to giving you the information you need from the best sources in the world. We help you learn from the in-the-trenches experiences of others who have paid their training and nutrition dues in the sport. We're here to help make you a better bodybuilder, not a bitter drug user.
--Peter McGough
Terry Goodlad has 20 years of experience in strength sports as a bodybuilder, competitive powerlifter and trainer, and he is a well-known industry writer, photographer and frequent contributor to FLEX.
en grijp vooral niet te snel naar de AAS. 
