How Much Do Steroids Actually Help?

Hello fellow T-Nation members! Not really sure into what sub-forum this question really belongs, so let me clarify my question:

I am a lifetime natural, meaning I have never taken any drugs, nor do I intend to. I am simply intrigued by the effects of how steroids/PEDs/needles/pills in any form help lifters take it to the next level.

I didn’t start this thread in order to bash lifters who aren’t natty or to belittle their work in the gym. All I am curious to know is:

  • What are the different drugs available today? (the most popular, of course)
  • What are their effects? What kinds of gains do people see with them as opposed to without enhancement?
  • What are the adverse effects? Short-term and long. (Shrinked testicles? = myth? Blood pressure? Redness of the face? Mood? Sleep?)
  • If a natural lifter and an enhanced lifter were starting of as complete clones, and they trained and ate the exact same way. What kinds of better results would the enhanced lifter see through the bodybuilding eye, with the popular steroids (and their recommended dosages) compared to the natural lifter?

I am aware of the fact that factors such as size of doses, age, size, different individuals all react differently. I probably missed some other critical piece of information that changes the nature of this question, but I can edit as we go along. I also probably might have a fundamentally wrong idea of how all of this works, hence why I started this thread in order to educate myself.

This is not for the sake of any homework, or because I wish to buy them myself. I am simply curious as to what different reasons people feel they need them in a scientific point-of-view. Do they promote protein synthesis to a larger degree? Do they make you recover faster? Does putting creatine in your socks promote super levels of testosterone? Does your endocrine system become more efficient? Speeds up fat loss?

Imagine this is a restaurant, and the different drugs make the menu. Now tell me the ingredients and what they do for you.

Yes, yes, a lot of questions. Answer those you know or simply link me the address to other threads/websites you know that answer all of these questions, since I am probably not the first to ask.

Thank you

Edit: I just saw that we have a “Steroids” sub-forum, my mistake. Mods: you can either move this thread to Steroids section or we can stay here and have a more general discussion and hope someone from the Steroids forum ventures of to this sub-forum. Also I hope none of my questions belong in the “Steroids bloopers” thread :stuck_out_tongue:

if you want to see the difference they make, compare lifters at natural shows to ones at untested shows.

I’m not really an expert, but to give you an example of the sort of gains, I have done 2 rather low dosed steroid cycles (my goals are fairly modest so I don’t run heavy stacks), and for my first, after the cycle was done I had gained 8lbs in 12 weeks, lost a little fat and had put 20k on my bench. That was doing a fairly typical beginners cycle. I probably could’ve got a little more out of it but I was nursing a back injury at the time so was kinda limited in what I could do for legs.

So they absolutely do make for a rollickin good time in the gym.

As for adverse effects, well the stories you’ve heard about shrunken nuts and guys growing tits are true, however it’s fairly easy to prevent those. Most steroid side-effect horror stories happen to guys who don’t really know what they’re doing. It is pretty easy to put your hormones out of whack if you’re not careful but as long as you are smart you will be ok.

[quote]rds63799 wrote:
if you want to see the difference they make, compare lifters at natural shows to ones at untested shows.
[/quote]

Haha well, this was pretty obvious=) But can the amount of food have anything to do with it? I mean could a natural lifter be consuming less food because of fear that he’ll get fat as compared to an enhanced lifter? I remember Ronnie Coleman looked pretty amazing when he claimed “natural status” but then again I’m not sure what his definition of natty is.

Basically, how far apart are lifters who “only” take some more milder drugs as compared to lifters who take the best drugs money can afford? I know its a tough question since you’d have to either have been with someone every second of their life to know this or have done it yourself. And also the effects are different for two different individuals.

I can’t really comment on the difference in food intake between nattys and unnattys (did I just invent that term?) but I think it’s fair to assume that the assisted guys eat more to support the extra muscle. Maybe someone like The Mighty Stu’ll comment on how fat nattys get when bulking compared to assisted guys.

As for your second question, well a lifter who can afford to run a gram of test and 2g of tren per week, with 10iu of GH a day (that’s a ludicrously high dose of everything, just btw) will obviously gain more than a lifter who can only afford to run half a gram of test but it’s impossible to say how much more one person will gain than another at any dose.

You never really hear the top pro’s talk frankly about their steroid use. Dorian did and nobody believed him! Lol

Fair enough;) Thank you rds63799

no worries man, maybe someone else who knows more about it’ll chime in. Forum’s pretty quiet on a Sunday. I’m just here because there’s nothing for me to do at work today

With a moderate dose 500mg a week of test with like 4 weeks of an oral you can gain and keep like 10-15lbs and loose a bit of fat, grantes proper traning and diet.

They help a lot when dieting down.

You CRUSH weights in the gym, make workout more fun.

I did a check on what people classified as a “natural lifter” basically most agree

any muscle growth promoting hormones such as for example:
testosterone
anabolic steroids (AS)
human growth hormone (HGH)
insulin
insulin-like growth factors (IGFs) such as IGF-1 and IGF-2
any anabolic prohormones, prosteroids or precursor steroids
thyroid hormones such as T3 and T4
2,4-dinitrophenol (DNP)
clenbuterol
erythropoietin (EPO)
norephedrine, ephedrine, ephedra, and ma huang
stimulants such as amphetamines
diuretics
synthol
experimental muscle growth promoting products such as:
selective androgen receptor modulators (SARMs)
myostatin inhibitors
gene doping
muscle stem cells

Basically means you’ve given up the right to linger in your mothers womb. Are there any in this list that don’t belong or can be found in natural occurrences?

[quote]rds63799 wrote:
I can’t really comment on the difference in food intake between nattys and unnattys (did I just invent that term?) but I think it’s fair to assume that the assisted guys eat more to support the extra muscle. Maybe someone like The Mighty Stu’ll comment on how fat nattys get when bulking compared to assisted guys.

As for your second question, well a lifter who can afford to run a gram of test and 2g of tren per week, with 10iu of GH a day (that’s a ludicrously high dose of everything, just btw) will obviously gain more than a lifter who can only afford to run half a gram of test but it’s impossible to say how much more one person will gain than another at any dose.

You never really hear the top pro’s talk frankly about their steroid use. Dorian did and nobody believed him! Lol[/quote]

Guys on massive amounts of anabolics and various hormoes eat MUCH more than the natty guys.

If the natty guys were to eat as much as top level pros (Jay, Heath, etc.) they would get pretty fat.

[quote]rds63799 wrote:
I can’t really comment on the difference in food intake between nattys and unnattys (did I just invent that term?) but I think it’s fair to assume that the assisted guys eat more to support the extra muscle. Maybe someone like The Mighty Stu’ll comment on how fat nattys get when bulking compared to assisted guys.

As for your second question, well a lifter who can afford to run a gram of test and 2g of tren per week, with 10iu of GH a day (that’s a ludicrously high dose of everything, just btw) will obviously gain more than a lifter who can only afford to run half a gram of test but it’s impossible to say how much more one person will gain than another at any dose.

You never really hear the top pro’s talk frankly about their steroid use. Dorian did and nobody believed him! Lol[/quote]

Do you have a link for that? Would be interesting for me to look at?

a link for the Dorian thing?

According to Arnold, only 5%. lol

[quote]rds63799 wrote:
a link for the Dorian thing?[/quote]
Yah - please.