Yeah, that's also the case when people scoff at pro bodybuilders due to steroids. Steroids don't magically give you the gains, you still have to put the work in. You just get rewarded more, and quicker at cost of other side effects.
> Steroids don't magically give you the gains, you still have to put the work in.
That's not an entirely fair description of the situation actually.
Imagine the 4 groups from the cross product of WorksOut?(Yes/No) cross Steroids?(Y/N).
It's intuitive, obvious, and supported by the data that The WorksOut(Y) + Steroids(Y) Group reliably gains more muscle over time than other groups. And similarly that the WorksOut(N) + Steroids(N) group gains the least (including losses too!) .
The interesting groups are WorksOut without Steroids, vs Steroids without WorksOut.
The sad truth is those on steroids, though sedentary, gain more muscle
than those who workout without steroids.
And it's important we educate folks about who is likely on them and what's realistic naturally. Because many young people are innudated with drug enhanced bodies on social media and think that's possible without steroids (and their negative sideeffects). It's particularly troublesome in the case of sexual selection and competition, for example using the hetero normative pairings, when young women are attracted to the steroidal bodies and when young men are pressured to take damaging gear to compete with peers who are. (There's the equivalent analogues for other sexual pairings/preferences).
My personal experience, having had low testosterone for much of my life and then now being on testosterone replacement therapy:
- It’s obvious to me that I (n=1) gained a ton of muscle and lost a ton of fat very quickly without having done dramatic changes in workouts at first
- It also made it waaaay easier to work out. I used to hate it bc I was exhausted all the time, and now I don’t really mind, and sometimes even enjoy it. In actual practice pulling these variables apart is hard
PSA:
T levels have declined markedly over the past generation or two. But when one tests for low T, the goalposts move bc every time a new population is studied for setting benchmarks (generally every decade or two), the definition of clinically “low” is moved to the new 2.5%ile of that study, such that someone in the current 3rd %ile (considered A-okay by most doctors) would have been in maybe 2.4th %ile (considered red alert by most doctors) using the previous benchmarks (made up numbers but roughly right).
(This is a dumb approach, the binary magic of the 2.5%ile (2 standard deviations), and it frustrates me greatly bc i was denied care bc my first test was 2.4%ile and 2nd was 2.6%ile and thus i was told i was fine bc of the 2nd result and offered anti-depressants instead).
Fixing this is not about muscles, it’s about having energy to live life fully and not be cranky.
So if you’re constantly tired, consider testing for this. And use a functional doc, as in my experience from shepherding 5-10 other folks through this process, the standard doc knows little about this stuff and thinks that having a condition like this is binary
Sorry, a bit off-topic, but no change in my life has been more important besides kids, so I try to spread the word where even somewhat appropriate
> no change in my life has been more important besides kids
Quick note to add: if you're reading the above comment and you still want kids, it's important to note that loss of fertility is one of the most significant side effects of testosterone (or any steroid). There are additional medications that can reduce the risk (and possibly reverse it after fertility is already lost), but it's not guaranteed.
Yeah. A lot of the warnings on the side of the box are based on really suspect data from a very long time ago (Abraham Morgentaler at Harvard is my go-to for this) but the point cj raises is legit.
When a man takes exogenous testosterone, their endogenous production (in the testicles) plummets. This is largely fine, but the production in the testicles also leads to sperm production, and that gets lost.
The solution to this is HCG, which stimulates some testicular production. But it is not a perfect solution, and recently CA has made it much harder to use HCG for this purpose (which was always off-label).
> "The sad truth is those on steroids, though sedentary, gain more muscle than those who workout without steroids."
The proper takeaway is something like: "Untrained males without prior AAS use gained more muscle over a 10 week non-exercise period than similar males who performed exercise."
These sorts of adapations are not linear and consistent, similar to the "noob gains" experienced in the first few months by novice lifters.
Anyone who has trained in a somewhat serious gym can tell you that there are many people taking steroids, often times in dosages manyfold what this study use, who have mediocre physiques.
I understand what you're saying... You're talking about total gains over a long period of time like a 10 year sedentary steroid use versus a 10 year natural lifter doing lots of the right things... I'm not sure if there's any data on the subject besides anecdotes.
Do you have a longitudinal study source?
> "Untrained males without prior AAS use gained more muscle over a 10 week non-exercise period than similar males who performed exercise."
There's lots of studies that show steroid users accumulate about 2x as much muscle as non steroid users, but those are both in trained groups. Unclear about what happens if someone takes steroids across 10 years, and how much total muscle they accumulate relative to a natural over the same time period.
This doesn’t need to be longitudinal — the parent’s point seems to be much simpler: people who don’t work out will have quicker initial muscle gains upon starting than those who already regularly work out. This could be measured over a period of weeks but I wonder if it has been studied because it is so obviously true.
There was a paper[1] that showed taking a 600 mg of testosterone lead with no-exercise lead to more gains in strength and muscle size than a control group who did exercise and took a placebo. So some gains may just be "magic", but of course you won't look like Arnold.
there is guy here who was a wrestler in college, and now 60+.. he eats more protein per day than most people, his muscles are dense, heavy and now painful. I mean back surgery and limited mobility.. He does two minutes of exercise, claims to "stretch" then eats more.. basically, his body is making a lot of muscle but he does not do much work, and it is degenerate at his age.
This too is oversimplification. For example, due to differences in testosterone levels, a woman would need to put in significantly more effort than a man in order to approach similar strength levels.
I regularly see people pointing out that this is a myth. That even with no work being put in, there are serious gains when using steroids. I have absolutely zero sources though (like you).
