1 Cycle Of Steroids = Bigger Forever?

I found a really interesting study today, and when I read it, it just confirmed SO MUCH for me and gave me the ammunition I need to slam a few people that just outright get on my nerves for lying about being a “lifetime natty”.

However let me first say that if you understand the risks of running a cycle of steroids, and there are a lot of them, which you can learn about in this video HERE, and you still decide to do it, nobody has the right to judge you. I certainly won’t. Just don’t lie about it. If someone asks if you’re natty or not just own it and say you aren’t. DONE!

What It Means To Be Natural

But lying IS an issue because guess what?  Guys like me that are in the spotlight and give fitness advice on a weekly basis online wear that “Natty4Life” title as a badge of honor, so that when I tell you to do something, or eat a certain way, or try one of my programs, you know based on my results whether my information is valid or not. I’m not saying someone on gear can’t give GREAT advice, because that’s not true at all. But just like when chicks photoshop their butts to be twice the size of what they really are and then try to sell you a glute training program, you get pissed right?  Well, it’s the same thing.

Also, as an advocate for staying natural, understand that there are ZERO SIDE EFFECTS to being natural and you keep your gains forever! So unless you plan on juicing for life for your career, the ONLY reason to go on a cycle for the majority of you is to TEMPORARILY gain some muscle, but PERMANENTLY risk your health. But back to the topic at hand, based on this new study, even if you ran ONE CYCLE of steroids in your teens and you’re now in your twenties, you’re still considered NOT NATURAL. Your body has been genetically altered at the DNA level for life and here is why.

Early Muscle Gains

Researchers at Keele University have shown for the first time that human muscles possess a memory of EARLIER GROWTH at the DNA level. And to me this has always been something I’ve known deep down to be true and to be honest I think it is the main reason why my own body is responding so well to my new level of intense training, 5 days a week at 6am. When I was in my teens and 20s I could train 5 – 6 days a week and now that I started to do that again my body remembers and my muscles are reacting accordingly and getting back into their tip top shape! I feel stronger, tighter, and bigger and overall like how my workout intensity has gone back to how it used to be.

What these researchers found out is that “periods” of skeletal muscle growth (so biceps, triceps, chest, glutes, quads, lats, traps, etc) are remembered by the genes in the muscle helping them to grow larger later in life. Think about that for a minute. If you’re going to enter a NATURAL bodybuilding show and you’re up against people that ran steroid cycles in the past, and that could be 1 year ago, 5 years ago, 10 years ago, it doesn’t matter. When they start getting show ready their DNA will remember those periods of skeletal muscle growth and that will help them grow. So, this basically means that steroids could be creating long-lasting changes, making short-term instances where athletes “stop” using them pointless in terms of fairness or competition.

What The Research Says

And now to get a bit more scientific I’m going to read directly from the study:  “Using the latest genome wide techniques, the researchers from Keele, along with the Universities of Liverpool John Moores, Northumbria and Manchester Metropolitan, studied over 850,000 sites on human DNA and discovered the genes 'marked' or 'unmarked' with special chemical 'tags' when muscle grows following exercise, then returns back to normal and then grows again following exercise in later life. Known as epigenetic modifications, these ‘markers’ or ‘tags’ tell the gene whether it should be active or inactive, providing instructions to the gene to turn on or off without changing the DNA itself”

As explained by Dr Adam Sharples and his PhD student Mr Robert Seaborne: “In this study, we’ve demonstrated the genes in muscle become more untagged with this epigenetic information when it grows following exercise in earlier life, importantly these genes remain untagged even when we lose muscle again, but this untagging helps ‘switch’ the gene on to a greater extent and is associated with greater muscle growth in response to exercise in later life - demonstrating an epigenetic memory of earlier life muscle growth!”

What Does This All Mean?

Well it’s not all bad, and I am going to relate this to everyone, whether you’re natty or not. If you are making great progress with your current workout program and get injured and have to stop, you might “lose muscle” but the on the DNA level the skeletal muscle growth you obtained will be remembered. When you recover from your injury getting back to where you were won’t take that long.  Your “muscle memory” will kick in. Which is awesome right?

This is why I think it is so important to get kids out of the house and into sports or the gym as soon as possible. They will develop their skeletal muscle tissue for growth and strength very early in life and as they get older their bodies will be healthier overall. Even if they don’t have as much time to train as they used to as they go to college or start a new job, their muscles will respond better and faster to stimulation even if they can only exercise a few days a week. In other words, it will be MUCH easier to maintain a fit physique for them versus someone who just started lifting in their mid-twenties with ZERO muscle memory.

Fake Natties

Now let’s apply this to the fake natty phenomenon. Drugs like steroids, tren, clen, and anavar are so easy to get nowadays that I’m worried for the future of the fitness industry.  Even YouTube has become a cesspool of false expectations and shitty information based on how someone “looks”. You have kids in their late teens and early 20s with the muscle maturity of a man in their late 20s and early 30s and they only have about 3 – 4 years of serious training under their belts. But what blows my mind the most is that the general public seems to accept “genetics” and “super clean eating” as the reasons why these dudes look so SHREDDED, RIPPED and HUGE 24/7.

My question to them is…where were these “genetics” 10 or 15 years ago?  I worked in a gym my entire life and saw men and woman of all ages come through the door day after day and train as hard as they could while eating on a strict meal plan, and while they looked amazing, they never built a physique like Simeon Panda, or Jeff Seid. And with this new study the conclusion is that even if people like Simeon and Jeff both stopped right now, they might shrink down a bit, but overall the drugs have unlocked the unnatural potential in their skeletal muscle to a greater extent than a true natty will ever be able to obtain.

Conclusion

So what’s the point of this article? Was it made to just call out some fake natties? Not entirely. Yes I created this article to expose and educate, but my main goal was to try to find a way to connect with each and every one of you reading and to get you to listen. At the end of the day my goal is to give you the edge you need to make more gains, and that can only happen if you set goals and expectations for yourselves that are obtainable.

And I am not just talking about who you follow on Instagram for inspiration When I started training I was inspired by Arnold’s physique to train hard in the gym. But the difference was I knew no matter how much I trained I would never look like him as a natural athlete. I admired his passion for training versus just how he looked.  Arnold would literally squat until he passed out, which insane, but inspiring to DBZ nutcase like me. There was no false expectation set for me that I COULD look like Arnold, which I think is much healthier than being fed lies by a fake natty.