PEDs and The State of Natty Fitness
Do me a favour and think of a bodybuilder for a sec. Those rippling pecs, the rock-hard abs, biceps wishing to burst out from the skin, quads thicker than the average person, enough calf muscles to feed a family of four, triceps that would better fit a horse’s foot than a human’s arm, and back muscles so complex it has apartments in it. I’m just picturing Ronnie Coleman now that I think about it.
Now, I want you to imagine how long it would take for you, the average human, to look as muscular as the mass monster himself? 1 year? 5 years? 10 years? Actually, the answer is almost certainly impossible. No matter how you train your body with the best diet possible, you’ll never have a body like Ronnie Coleman, unless you partake in Performance Enhancing Drugs.
PEDs, or as we call them in common parlance, steroids, are hormones or chemicals that are meant to boost the endocrinal processes that lead to a better-looking body on show day. Maybe they increase your metabolism to make weight loss easier and more extreme, or maybe they just boost your testosterone and other muscle building hormones to build more muscle that you or anyone ever could naturally.
This knowledge is nothing groundbreaking to a majority of people. PED use and abuse are very well-known parts of the bodybuilding community even to outsiders. The specific details, effects, and risks may not be as well known, but they are for more professionally qualified people to discuss and convey, what I have been obsessing over as a gym novice is the fact that there’s no good natural bodybuilder role model for us to look up to who is sufficiently popular.
A quick look at my Instagram feed reveals a concerning amount of depression memes and a lot of bodybuilding influencers who are on some sort of PED. The most popular right now seems to be tren, being the brand name of the bodybuilding vloggers and twin brothers, ‘Tren Twins’, and part of meme songs like “legalise trenbolone acetate”. It’s a popular anabolic steroid originally used on livestock to induce muscle growth.
The current poster boy of online bodybuilding is Sam Sulek, a 21-year-old bodybuilder who openly partakes in PEDs. He succeeded Chris Bumstead, the reigning 5-time Mr Olympia Classic Physique champion who is also on anabolic steroid. Noel Deyzel, Greg Doucette, MPMD, and many others are open about their PED use, and when their fame lifecycle runs out, they are replaced by a bigger, more jacked guy on Anabolic Steroids.
Now, being open about their anabolic steroids use is good practice for all fitness influencers. People should know to not expect their results with just progressive overload and whey protein. However, that is the bare minimum, and I don’t think the bare goddamn minimum should be applauded. We need to promote more natural bodybuilders, who showcase a body that can be achieved by their audiences without shortening their lifespans down to like 40 or something.
However, this push for more natty fitness influencers is largely placing the responsibility onto the underdeveloped shoulders of the audience, a large group who can’t be held responsible because of their lack of organisation. What we can demand is for bodybuilding competition like Mr Olympia and Arnold Classic to strictly crack down on the amounts of anabolic steroids used by their competitors, or just outright ban them. Mr Olympia and Arnold Classic both do hold natural bodybuilding segments, but they don’t receive the same amount of attention and fanfare as the open category classic physique where mass monsters like Ronnie Coleman, Jay Cutler, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and now Chris Bumstead shine.
The art of bodybuilding was never lost. I still see many natural bodybuilders in my gym pushing the limits of their mortal shells and metamorphosing into beautiful mass kings. Let’s let the mass monster era of bodybuilding die, and open the floodgates into an era of clean and natural bodybuilding, so we can regulate body expectations among the non-lifter population.
The blog is finished, the next section only includes some natural bodybuilders or bodybuilding educators who do their best to regulate body expectations and still provide entertaining and educational content.
Saket Gokhale is an Indian natural bodybuilder who makes regular vlogs about his training journey and his life in general. His “Biggest crossover on Indian Fitness YouTube” video is one of my favourites because it also introduces more fitness YouTube whom I love. Don’t confuse him with the RTI Activist and TMC politician Saket Gokhale who, to the best of my knowledge, does not train to be a bodybuilder.
Josh Brett is a Fitness YouTuber who makes video essays about the trends and big news in the Fitness community. His video, “Please DON’T Follow Celebrity Fitness Advice” was my introduction to his channel and a good place to start.
Trainer Winny is an animated fitness coach whose videos I keep sending my sister when she asks for advice. He makes the starting phase of fitness very easy. Watch his “Step by Step Beginner Gym Guide” if you wish to get started in the gym.
Hybrid Calisthenics is more of a life coach who happens to make fitness videos than just a fitness coach. His earlier calisthenics videos got me into fitness and his life advice videos are genuinely inspiring. Refer to his website for an at-home workout routine that starts at your current fitness level.
