The NSCA's Strength and Conditioning textbook has a chapter on PEDs, because the NSCA believes that professionals in this field should understand what these drugs do and how they affect performance, since they are inevitably and invariably used at the elite level of athletic performance. I agree with their approach: if you are going to compete or even heavily participate recreationally in a kind of training or sport, ignorance of the advantages available to you or your opponents (however rule-breaking they may be) will only hurt you.
Why use the label "performance enhancing drugs" instead of "steroids"?
Not all PEDs are steroids, and for that matter not all steroids are anabolic. An enormous number of drugs are steroids; a steroid just any drug with a specific carbon-ring structure. Corticosteroids won't help you at all. Estradiol (estrogen) is a steroid but if anything supplementing this will harm performance in strength training, not help.
PEDs overwhelmingly come into two types:
1. bulking PEDs -- PEDs that help you add muscle, or speed muscle recovery. Almost always these are hormonal and usually (but not always) women should not take them.
2. cutting PEDs -- PEDs that help you retain muscle or burn fat, but do not necessarily help you gain it. Women can usually take these because they are not always hormonal.
The first one is what most people think of when they think of steroids.
Explaining testosterone, bulking PEDs and external hormones in general
Testosterone is overwhelmingly what most people think of when they think of PEDs. Backtrack a little bit, though: Why? The answer to this question will help you understand why steroids work the way they do in the first place.
Keep in mind that testosterone is produced by the body. Both men and women produce testosterone, but men produce more of it than women.
In fact, when a man has low testosterone and goes on testosterone-replacement therapy, this isn't called "using steroids." This is called testosterone-replacement therapy.
And when men take exogenous testosterone (external test. given via injection), it can be used as birth control. Why is this the case? Because it's the exact same principle that the female birth control pill follows, which is the exact same principle any hormonal birth control follows: administration of exogenous sex hormones will shut down the endogenous production of reproductive hormones. Meaning, if you take a sex hormone (testosterone/estradiol depending on if you're a man or woman) externally, your internal reproductive hormone production will shut down. So if you are a guy, your spermcount will tank and if you are a girl you will lose fertility. The female birth control is just female sex hormones (progesterone and estrogen) administered externally with a pill. Estrogen is the female sex hormone; testosterone is the male sex hormone.
Pills generally have shorter half-lives than esterified injectables. An ester is just an extended half life. So testosterone enanthate has a 7-day half life (or around this); testosterone laurate has a super-long half life at (if I recall correctly) 20-30 days. Depo provera is just progestin (progestin is synthetic progesterone, "progesterone" refers to the hormone that is endogenously (internally/naturally) produced) with a really long half life.
So when women get pregnant on birth control it can very well be because they didn't take pills with sufficient regularity, due to the short half-life. Sometimes injectables are a lot better for this.
Obviously, the shutdown is temporary and lasts for the duration you're taking the hormone. If this were not the case, women who take birth control would never get pregnant again.
Sometimes steroid use can affect the level of natural sex hormones produced, though. So long-term hormone use might make men produce less testosterone once they come off. I say "might" because most studies I've read show that nearly everyone can restore their levels of natural testosterone with enough post-cycle therapy. There are outliers, though, so I won't make any certain claims about this.
You might have been wondering this, because I did: why is the birth-control pill something you can get easily from Planned Parenthood, while testosterone is a schedule III controlled substance and considered an anabolic steroid otherwise? Further, why is testosterone replacement therapy in high doses considered an anabolic steroid, while testosterone replacement therapy in statistically average doses considered hormone replacement therapy? I have no idea, but it's probably a really stupid reason.
With this in mind you have enough knowledge to understand why steroids work in the first place.
Testosterone can function at an anabolic steroid because once your doses surpass what is naturally possible, you get higher-than-naturally possible levels of muscle growth. The NSCA cites a figure of 2-3 times the natural rate of muscle growth using anabolic steroids in their text. So, if you're using a shitload of drugs, your training is excellent (meaning you're not training like a gymbro idiot) and both your training and diet are adjusted to this new rate of growth, you can expect 2.5 times what you would have gained naturally. As you go above your genetic limits, this will drop down substantially, and will drop even more as you go further above the natural limit.
To put this in perspective, that's like earning a Ph.D. (which normally takes five years) in two years. Or a four-year college degree in a little over three semesters. However, this assumes you are optimizing everything. I can't stress enough how underwhelming PEDs can be if your diet and training remain what they would be if you were training naturally and for that matter if your training remains what it would be if you were training naturally. Without making these adjustments, you could run a cycle of high testosterone and barely notice a difference from your natural results.
Informally, I've noticed that a lot of guys cap out at around 360lb for their bench naturally, and I've noticed that people who reach their PED max can do something like 450lb with PEDs. Using http://www.exrx.net/Testing/WeightLi...Standards.html as a reference, the effects are more dramatic with squats and deadlifts -- something like 500lb might be the max for squats and 550lb for deadlifts. So if you're already at your genetic max, you might expect +100 for bench, +200 for squat and +200 for deadlift going above it. Some guys can get +200/+300/+300 above what they would have gotten naturally, but they're huge outliers, physically and statistically.
Gains in muscle mass tend to disappear after exceeding the genetic maximum. Interestingly however, strength gains tend to stay after PED use because of concentrations of satellite cells and CNS adaptation. Several former heavy users have reported insane lifts like 800+lb squats years after ending PED use.
Some hormones like insulin and HGH are used to increase muscle mass far beyond what is even possible with testosterone. This is also the biggest difference between bodybuilders of the Schwarzenegger era (who himself used a combination of testosterone, metenolone enanthate (primobolan) and methandrostenolone (dianabol)) and the bodybuilders of today. Schwarzenegger had an FFMI of something like 31 or 32, while Ronnie Coleman has an FFMI of nearly 40.
The reason insulin and HGH have such dramatic results is because they shuttle all food into growth of the body. However, they are indiscriminate with what they actually grow -- meaning organs will grow as well. This is why Olympia-level bodybuilders now have such enormous guts, inspite of muscular abs covering the guts. HGH can also be taken by men/women prior to the age of 20 to grow a little bit taller, though this isn't always a guarantee. Note also that while growth hormones produce dramatic increases in size, they are not necessarily useful for strength -- the strongest powerlifters definitely take steroids, but don't show signs of insulin use.
Cutting PEDs
Cutting PEDs are gray areas a lot of the time, because lots of things can aid fat loss without necessarily increasing the growth of muscle. Clenbuterol is a great example -- it's a stimulant that aids fat loss and reduces catabolism, but amphetamine (aka adderall, AKA adhd medication) has similar effects. Is someone who takes adderall "not natural"? What about other recreational stimulants like cocaine or methamphetamine?
In general, anything that reduces muscle catabolism can be used as a cutting agent. Trenbolone is both one of the strongest bulking steroids and one of the strongest cutting steroids because it muscle wasting while using it almost doesn't exist; further, it's reported to have a nutrient-partitioning effect that is beneficial for muscle growth and preservation. While cutting naturally you might have to take your deficits slowly (500 calories per day) but using trenbolone you can have enormous calorie deficits without concern for muscle loss.
I will expand on this section later, because I'm limited in time and I think this section is the least important for understanding PEDs.
Side effects and why they happen
If a PED is effective, it's going to have a side effect of some kind. The hyped-up side effects of steroids are legendary. I will do my best to explain why they happen.
Testicular atrophy (reduced testicle size): This occurs because external administration of testosterone shuts down reproductive hormone production. The testes are responsible for producing testosterone, so if they're getting it elsewhere, they won't be enlarged and making it constantly.
This is both a temporary side effect and a counterable one. It's temporary because once testosterone production returns to normal, testes size returns to normal also. It's also counterable while using testosterone through use of human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG).
There is a myth that steroid usage shrinks the penis. This is both wrong and impossible.
Acne: Boys in high school get acne due to testosterone fluctuation. The same thing applies while using testosterone. Further, increased testosterone usually means increased estrogen, and increased estrogen usually means increased sebum production.
Not everyone is vulnerable to acne, however.
Acne while using steroids can be countered in several ways: through use of an aromatase inhibitor (anti-estrogens like anastrozole), through use of some other inhibitor (e.g. a prolactin inhibitor if the acne is prolactin-induced) and through use of acne medication (e.g. isotretinoin/accutane).
Baldness: Androgens accelerate baldness. This is usually a side effect that augments what was going to happen anyway -- i.e. if you get baldness while using steroids, you were going to go bald later in life. I believe there are ways to counter this side effect, although I'm not sure what they are as this is one of the rarer issues I've encountered.
Gynecomastia: This happens when someone greatly increases their testosterone levels, ceases testosterone administration and still has high estrogen levels. So if someone does not take an aromatase inhibitor while using steroids and does not take a SERM after cessation, the user will have extremely high estrogen levels. High estrogen levels usually means breast growth.
This is one of the more feared side-effects, although it's the most easily-countered with proper care and dosing. Some people are more vulnerable to this than others.
Virilization: This happens when women take hormonal PEDs designed for men. Some PEDs do not virilize, while some do. Testosterone for example will give a woman a hormonal profile of a man, and she can grow muscles accordingly. Meanwhile, something like oxandrolone usually does not virilize and will not produce any male traits in the woman taking it.
Virilization usually means hair growth when they didn't have it before, growth of the clitoris, deepening of the voice, etc.; it's unpleasant and most women don't want it.
Women can avoid virilization by avoiding steroids that do not virilize. There are anti-androgenic therapies for this, but frankly I've never looked into it.
Increased aggression ("roid rage"): By far the most hyped-up side-effect, but largely a myth. Some steroids do augment aggression in high doses (e.g. trenbolone) but people who act out under these steroids were the kind of people who would do this anyway without steroids. Excess testosterone largely does not cause increased aggression unless testosterone levels were low to begin with.
Left-ventricular hypertrophy and increased blood pressure: These are the side-effects that most people who use steroids should be concerned about, but are also the ones I hear the least about. I suppose the more superficial and trivial side effects like testicular shrinkage are easy potshots for audiences who don't know anything about the drugs.
Increased blood pressure is something you should already be familiar with. Steroids in general do this -- some more than others. Users will take medicine like n2guard to reduce blood pressure.
Left-ventricular hypertrophy is when the muscles of the heart itself (specifically the left ventricle) enlarge. This happens when steroid use is maintained over a long period of time and especially when cardiovascular activity is intense while using steroids.
Note that natural athletes can get LVH too -- steroid use just accelerates the process. Obviously, you should avoid intense cardiovascular exercise over long periods while on high dosages of anything like this.
Closing notes
I am not specifically endorsing the use of any of this; however, since this *is* a fitness board, and most competitive lifters *do* use PEDs, an understanding of the drugs they're taking is useful for putting their accomplishments in context.
Why use the label "performance enhancing drugs" instead of "steroids"?
Not all PEDs are steroids, and for that matter not all steroids are anabolic. An enormous number of drugs are steroids; a steroid just any drug with a specific carbon-ring structure. Corticosteroids won't help you at all. Estradiol (estrogen) is a steroid but if anything supplementing this will harm performance in strength training, not help.
PEDs overwhelmingly come into two types:
1. bulking PEDs -- PEDs that help you add muscle, or speed muscle recovery. Almost always these are hormonal and usually (but not always) women should not take them.
2. cutting PEDs -- PEDs that help you retain muscle or burn fat, but do not necessarily help you gain it. Women can usually take these because they are not always hormonal.
The first one is what most people think of when they think of steroids.
Explaining testosterone, bulking PEDs and external hormones in general
Testosterone is overwhelmingly what most people think of when they think of PEDs. Backtrack a little bit, though: Why? The answer to this question will help you understand why steroids work the way they do in the first place.
Keep in mind that testosterone is produced by the body. Both men and women produce testosterone, but men produce more of it than women.
In fact, when a man has low testosterone and goes on testosterone-replacement therapy, this isn't called "using steroids." This is called testosterone-replacement therapy.
And when men take exogenous testosterone (external test. given via injection), it can be used as birth control. Why is this the case? Because it's the exact same principle that the female birth control pill follows, which is the exact same principle any hormonal birth control follows: administration of exogenous sex hormones will shut down the endogenous production of reproductive hormones. Meaning, if you take a sex hormone (testosterone/estradiol depending on if you're a man or woman) externally, your internal reproductive hormone production will shut down. So if you are a guy, your spermcount will tank and if you are a girl you will lose fertility. The female birth control is just female sex hormones (progesterone and estrogen) administered externally with a pill. Estrogen is the female sex hormone; testosterone is the male sex hormone.
Pills generally have shorter half-lives than esterified injectables. An ester is just an extended half life. So testosterone enanthate has a 7-day half life (or around this); testosterone laurate has a super-long half life at (if I recall correctly) 20-30 days. Depo provera is just progestin (progestin is synthetic progesterone, "progesterone" refers to the hormone that is endogenously (internally/naturally) produced) with a really long half life.
So when women get pregnant on birth control it can very well be because they didn't take pills with sufficient regularity, due to the short half-life. Sometimes injectables are a lot better for this.
Obviously, the shutdown is temporary and lasts for the duration you're taking the hormone. If this were not the case, women who take birth control would never get pregnant again.
Sometimes steroid use can affect the level of natural sex hormones produced, though. So long-term hormone use might make men produce less testosterone once they come off. I say "might" because most studies I've read show that nearly everyone can restore their levels of natural testosterone with enough post-cycle therapy. There are outliers, though, so I won't make any certain claims about this.
You might have been wondering this, because I did: why is the birth-control pill something you can get easily from Planned Parenthood, while testosterone is a schedule III controlled substance and considered an anabolic steroid otherwise? Further, why is testosterone replacement therapy in high doses considered an anabolic steroid, while testosterone replacement therapy in statistically average doses considered hormone replacement therapy? I have no idea, but it's probably a really stupid reason.
With this in mind you have enough knowledge to understand why steroids work in the first place.
Testosterone can function at an anabolic steroid because once your doses surpass what is naturally possible, you get higher-than-naturally possible levels of muscle growth. The NSCA cites a figure of 2-3 times the natural rate of muscle growth using anabolic steroids in their text. So, if you're using a shitload of drugs, your training is excellent (meaning you're not training like a gymbro idiot) and both your training and diet are adjusted to this new rate of growth, you can expect 2.5 times what you would have gained naturally. As you go above your genetic limits, this will drop down substantially, and will drop even more as you go further above the natural limit.
To put this in perspective, that's like earning a Ph.D. (which normally takes five years) in two years. Or a four-year college degree in a little over three semesters. However, this assumes you are optimizing everything. I can't stress enough how underwhelming PEDs can be if your diet and training remain what they would be if you were training naturally and for that matter if your training remains what it would be if you were training naturally. Without making these adjustments, you could run a cycle of high testosterone and barely notice a difference from your natural results.
Informally, I've noticed that a lot of guys cap out at around 360lb for their bench naturally, and I've noticed that people who reach their PED max can do something like 450lb with PEDs. Using http://www.exrx.net/Testing/WeightLi...Standards.html as a reference, the effects are more dramatic with squats and deadlifts -- something like 500lb might be the max for squats and 550lb for deadlifts. So if you're already at your genetic max, you might expect +100 for bench, +200 for squat and +200 for deadlift going above it. Some guys can get +200/+300/+300 above what they would have gotten naturally, but they're huge outliers, physically and statistically.
Gains in muscle mass tend to disappear after exceeding the genetic maximum. Interestingly however, strength gains tend to stay after PED use because of concentrations of satellite cells and CNS adaptation. Several former heavy users have reported insane lifts like 800+lb squats years after ending PED use.
Some hormones like insulin and HGH are used to increase muscle mass far beyond what is even possible with testosterone. This is also the biggest difference between bodybuilders of the Schwarzenegger era (who himself used a combination of testosterone, metenolone enanthate (primobolan) and methandrostenolone (dianabol)) and the bodybuilders of today. Schwarzenegger had an FFMI of something like 31 or 32, while Ronnie Coleman has an FFMI of nearly 40.
The reason insulin and HGH have such dramatic results is because they shuttle all food into growth of the body. However, they are indiscriminate with what they actually grow -- meaning organs will grow as well. This is why Olympia-level bodybuilders now have such enormous guts, inspite of muscular abs covering the guts. HGH can also be taken by men/women prior to the age of 20 to grow a little bit taller, though this isn't always a guarantee. Note also that while growth hormones produce dramatic increases in size, they are not necessarily useful for strength -- the strongest powerlifters definitely take steroids, but don't show signs of insulin use.
Cutting PEDs
Cutting PEDs are gray areas a lot of the time, because lots of things can aid fat loss without necessarily increasing the growth of muscle. Clenbuterol is a great example -- it's a stimulant that aids fat loss and reduces catabolism, but amphetamine (aka adderall, AKA adhd medication) has similar effects. Is someone who takes adderall "not natural"? What about other recreational stimulants like cocaine or methamphetamine?
In general, anything that reduces muscle catabolism can be used as a cutting agent. Trenbolone is both one of the strongest bulking steroids and one of the strongest cutting steroids because it muscle wasting while using it almost doesn't exist; further, it's reported to have a nutrient-partitioning effect that is beneficial for muscle growth and preservation. While cutting naturally you might have to take your deficits slowly (500 calories per day) but using trenbolone you can have enormous calorie deficits without concern for muscle loss.
I will expand on this section later, because I'm limited in time and I think this section is the least important for understanding PEDs.
Side effects and why they happen
If a PED is effective, it's going to have a side effect of some kind. The hyped-up side effects of steroids are legendary. I will do my best to explain why they happen.
Testicular atrophy (reduced testicle size): This occurs because external administration of testosterone shuts down reproductive hormone production. The testes are responsible for producing testosterone, so if they're getting it elsewhere, they won't be enlarged and making it constantly.
This is both a temporary side effect and a counterable one. It's temporary because once testosterone production returns to normal, testes size returns to normal also. It's also counterable while using testosterone through use of human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG).
There is a myth that steroid usage shrinks the penis. This is both wrong and impossible.
Acne: Boys in high school get acne due to testosterone fluctuation. The same thing applies while using testosterone. Further, increased testosterone usually means increased estrogen, and increased estrogen usually means increased sebum production.
Not everyone is vulnerable to acne, however.
Acne while using steroids can be countered in several ways: through use of an aromatase inhibitor (anti-estrogens like anastrozole), through use of some other inhibitor (e.g. a prolactin inhibitor if the acne is prolactin-induced) and through use of acne medication (e.g. isotretinoin/accutane).
Baldness: Androgens accelerate baldness. This is usually a side effect that augments what was going to happen anyway -- i.e. if you get baldness while using steroids, you were going to go bald later in life. I believe there are ways to counter this side effect, although I'm not sure what they are as this is one of the rarer issues I've encountered.
Gynecomastia: This happens when someone greatly increases their testosterone levels, ceases testosterone administration and still has high estrogen levels. So if someone does not take an aromatase inhibitor while using steroids and does not take a SERM after cessation, the user will have extremely high estrogen levels. High estrogen levels usually means breast growth.
This is one of the more feared side-effects, although it's the most easily-countered with proper care and dosing. Some people are more vulnerable to this than others.
Virilization: This happens when women take hormonal PEDs designed for men. Some PEDs do not virilize, while some do. Testosterone for example will give a woman a hormonal profile of a man, and she can grow muscles accordingly. Meanwhile, something like oxandrolone usually does not virilize and will not produce any male traits in the woman taking it.
Virilization usually means hair growth when they didn't have it before, growth of the clitoris, deepening of the voice, etc.; it's unpleasant and most women don't want it.
Women can avoid virilization by avoiding steroids that do not virilize. There are anti-androgenic therapies for this, but frankly I've never looked into it.
Increased aggression ("roid rage"): By far the most hyped-up side-effect, but largely a myth. Some steroids do augment aggression in high doses (e.g. trenbolone) but people who act out under these steroids were the kind of people who would do this anyway without steroids. Excess testosterone largely does not cause increased aggression unless testosterone levels were low to begin with.
Left-ventricular hypertrophy and increased blood pressure: These are the side-effects that most people who use steroids should be concerned about, but are also the ones I hear the least about. I suppose the more superficial and trivial side effects like testicular shrinkage are easy potshots for audiences who don't know anything about the drugs.
Increased blood pressure is something you should already be familiar with. Steroids in general do this -- some more than others. Users will take medicine like n2guard to reduce blood pressure.
Left-ventricular hypertrophy is when the muscles of the heart itself (specifically the left ventricle) enlarge. This happens when steroid use is maintained over a long period of time and especially when cardiovascular activity is intense while using steroids.
Note that natural athletes can get LVH too -- steroid use just accelerates the process. Obviously, you should avoid intense cardiovascular exercise over long periods while on high dosages of anything like this.
Closing notes
I am not specifically endorsing the use of any of this; however, since this *is* a fitness board, and most competitive lifters *do* use PEDs, an understanding of the drugs they're taking is useful for putting their accomplishments in context.
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