doping

Drugs n Stuff: Steroid Research, Risk Mgmt., Female AAS Use

DRUGS N STUFF 37

So grateful to have had the amazing opportunity to join Dave Crosland and Scott McNally last week for an episode of Drugs n Stuff.

We covered a bunch of my favourite topics, including:

▫️ The state of academic research on anabolic androgen steroids.
▫️ Tips on how to find and evaluate studies.
▫️ Risk management for the use of AAS and other steroid hormones.
▫️ Women and anabolic androgenic steroids use - strategies for assessing and management use.
▫️ Is PCT (post-cycle therapy) needed for female users?


Click the links below or search "Advices Radio" on podcast apps.

EPISODE LINK

ITUNES

STITCHER

 


Learn more about Think Big Bodybuilding Media:
YOUTUBE: Think Big Bodybuilding Media
FB: @advices.radio
WEB: www.advicesradio.com

 



Bodies, Barbells & Bagels: Part 2

Part 2: PED's, Steroids & the Female Body

After being away from the mic for 6 months, I’m back! And what a real treat it was to make my return as a guest on Bodies, Barbells & Bagels with Alice Round and Sean Mclaney. They let me dive deep into women’s health, menstruation, and steroids - so deep in fact that they turned the conversation into a two part podcast!

Thanks Alice and Sean for a wonderful show! It was a real honour to be a guest on your show.


Check out their show summary below!

In this episode of BBB, we have part 2 of our interview with the female hormone expert- Victoria Felkar, where we discuss all things STEROID related, encompassing contraception, Performance Enhancing Drugs (PED's) and even some medications such as Corticosteroids and how they can affect women in both the short and the long term, including potential unwanted negative side effects. DISCLAIMER: We do not condone drug use as Anabolic Androgenic Steroid use is illegal in Australia

PODCAST LINK:

https://bodiesbarbellsbagels.libsyn.com/episode-26-peds-steroids-the-female-body-with-victoria-felkar-part-2

ITUNES:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-26-peds-steroids-female-body-victoria-felkar/id1346601256?i=1000443225383

Learn more about Alice & Sean:

Alice Round
WEB: http://aliceround.com/
IG: @aliround & @mclaneytrained
FB: @aliceroundnutritiontraining
YOUTUBE: Alice Round

Sean Mclaney
IG: @mclaneytrained
FB: Sean Mclaney

TRT Revolution with Jay Campbell

How to Help Chemically Castrated Women Get Their Health Back

This podcast was everything! I had a fabulous time chatting with Mr. TOT himself, Jay Campbell of TOT Revolution. I met Jay at SWIS in October 2018, and loved the no b.s. energy and endless passion he brought to the conversation of hormone replacement therapy. His mission to provide the best education possible through partnering with the world’s best is also so near and dear to my own heart.

Thanks Jay for everything! Can’t wait for the next opportunity to talk shop with you!

Check out Jay’s amazing summary and show notes below.


Women’s health has been neglected and filled with myths and ignorance since the beginning of endocrinology.

Why is progesterone one of the most underestimated and misunderstood hormones, and what are its uses?

How has birth control destroyed the health of both men and women?

How can we help chemically castrated women get access to lifesaving healthcare?

On this episode, I talk with health practitioner, consultant, author, and educator, Victoria Felkar about what’s getting in the way of the help women need and what can be done about it.

The more you screw with hormones earlier in life, the more you’re setting yourself up for difficulty later on— but the salvation is in lifestyle.

-Victoria Felkar



At the start of the show, we talked about why women’s endocrinology is handled so badly, and the double standards that cause this.

Next we talked about the connection between hormones and sport, and how the stigma was born. We discussed how hormones are used at the elite levels of sport and how birth control is destroying us.

We also talked about the alarming warning signs about menstrual cycles that we shouldn’t ignore.

We also discussed:

  • Why progesterone is a wonder hormone

  • How hormones can be used as tools, not crutches

  • The commonality of performance enhancement in sport

  • The importance of tracking your hormonal bio-feedback

So many women are suffering because hormones like progesterone have been so maligned. At the same time, birth control pills have been misused and abused.

The truth is, the more you screw with hormones earlier on in life through birth control, fertility drugs, and other substances, the more intense the issues will be later on in life.

Lifestyle is actually a very important part of women’s reproductive health, not the manipulation of menstrual cycles we are seeing today.

If you have lower rates of stress, you’re going to improve your reproductive health. The woman’s body has its own built in clock, and it’s like a symphony that requires all the instruments.

If we start manipulating or removing some parts, there’s no telling how bad the impact will be, and we’re definitely starting to see the negative downstream effects now.



PODCAST LINK:

http://www.totrevolution.com/how-to-help-chemically-castrated-women-get-their-health-back-w-victoria-felkar/

ITUNES:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/trt-revolution-podcast/id1097576864?mt=2

Learn more about Jay Campbell & The TOT Revolution
WEB: http://www.totrevolution.com
IG: @TOTrevolution
FB: @TRTexpert
YOUTUBE: TOT Revolution

SARMs: Golden Goose or Sitting Duck?

SELECTIVE ANDROGEN RECEPTOR MODULATORS: 

A GOLDEN GOOSE OF GAINS, OR JUST ANOTHER SITTING DUCK FOR YOUR LIVER?

 

Have you ever heard the story of the golden goose?

It’s an old incredibly old fable, literally about a goose that one day lays a golden egg. Rather than waiting to see if the goose would lay more gold, it was killed by its impatient owner who wanted all of the riches immediately.

On the surface this may not seem like anything more than a foolish children’s tale, the tale of the golden goose serves as vivid reminder that ‘greed loses all by striving all to gain.’  You’d probably never guess, but there’s a similar story behind the mythical substance, known as SARMs.

 

Originally developed as a 'big-pharma' ticket item since the late 1990’s, in recent years, selective androgen receptor modulator or SARMs have gained a cult-like following as the new magical-anabolic substance within the fitness industry. However, outlandish claims together with the exploitation of pharmaceutical patents, abuse of legal-loopholes, and booming black-market business, have the potential to destroy SARMs before they can even turn a legitimate profit or be used to treat some of the most vulnerable clinical populations.


What exactly are SARMs? Believe it or not, that’s not actually the simplest question to answer. For the purposes of this article we’ll be looking at a novel class of nonsteroidal selective androgen receptor modulators that fall under the popular umbrella-name of SARMs.
 

Before we go any further, let me clarify something about SARMs – they are drugs. They have medical, ethical and legal implications associated with them. Yet, many recreational users probably don’t have a clue what they are or how they work. To be honest, with so much misinformation about them out there, I can’t entirely blame them for that either.

Unlike many other popular-fitness articles about these drugs, you won’t get any advice on how to take SARMs here. Not only would that be totally unethical and illegal, but in my opinion, the trend of the blind leading the blind has only fueled the unsubstantiated worship of these compounds by bro-pharmacists and guru-prep coaches.

Don’t let the fact that until a couple years ago you could readily and legally purchase SARMs from various pseudo-supplement retailers, and often voluntarily be sold false claims about the effectiveness, safety or purity of these drugs.

As it stands today, there’s a lot still to be uncovered about the newest kid on the anabolic block. Indeed, SARMs are steroidal millennials. They haven’t even been a ‘thing’ for 20 years, yet have a reputation that far precedes the research, data and efficacy of these drugs.


With so much bad, incorrect and misleading information on SARMs, we’ve literally got to start at the very beginning. Let’s talk about androgens.

 

 

LAYING ANABOLIC GOLD

I’ll try to keep this as simple as possible, but in order to better understand how these drugs work it’s important to know a little about the biochemical properties and physiological processes of androgens and SARMs.

Even though they are dubbed ‘male’ hormones, each of us produce varying degrees of androgens naturally throughout the life course. They are complex molecules that act as ‘chemical messengers’ for numerous processes essential to bodily function. Made at different locations throughout the body including the ovaries or testies, adrenal glands and fat cells, androgens all share a 4-ringed cholesterol structure.

Regardless of the job at hand, many androgens act on - or send messages inside specific target cells known as “androgen receptors” or “AR”. As a member of the steroid receptor superfamily, the androgen receptor is an incredibly important target for numerous pharmaceutical interventions, including in, for example, cases androgen deficiency, osteoporosis, and muscle wasting. There are many drugs that interact with androgen receptors, and promote androgenic or anti-androgenic effects. These compounds are known as “androgen receptor ligands” and typically are thought of as either causing: (a) androgenic results (“agonists”); or (b) anti-androgenic results (“antagonists”).

 

Another way, and possibly simpler way to understand this process is by thinking of lock and key: only certain keys can unlock certain doors.

Here’s an example of what I mean. You have a house that has a front door, back door, side door, and a door that provides entrance to a basement suite. It’s likely that you would have a master key – a skeleton key of sorts that can open all four doors. This “key” represents substances like testosterone and other anabolic-androgenic steroids. These drugs “unlock” androgenic receptors, which results in various androgenic effects.

But, what happens if you want to provide limited entrance to your house only through the basement door?

Thanks to SARMs, you can now do that too.

 

The ability to only “unlock” some or selective androgen receptors is the main reason behind the development of SARMs. By doing so, researchers thought that it would be able to minimize undesirable side-effects normally associated with anabolic-androgenic steroids. At the same time, it was believed that by opening some ‘doors’ and not others would allow users to exploit desirable effects - aka. the gains. And, all it would take would be to swallow a pill or two, once a day. I’ll let you decide for yourself if maybe that sound a little to good to be true.

While it took a few decades, a lot of money and numerous failed experiments, by the late 1990’s pharmaceutical companies believed they finally had created the perfect oral-anabolic drug for use in clinical populations. To do so, they developed a nonsteroidal substance that could do the job of a steroid by acting on specific androgen receptor sites. It also had simply dosing, little side effects and all the anabolic benefits desired. Hopefully it goes without saying that this was no easy feat – and arguably came with some issues for both researchers and trial users.

How exactly do you create a substance that can act on androgen receptors and provide all the tuff’ with none of the fluff?

Completely change the way it looks.

 

Let’s go back to our house analogy. Is there a way to unlock a door without having the key? Sure, grab yourself a hair pin and pick the lock. Now, if you’ve ever tried picking a lock with a hair pin, you’ll know this is a skill that requires mastery. While it’s not impossible to do, you must have the right combinations to be successful.

Does a hair pin and a key look anything alike? Heck no.

Guess what?

Neither do steroids and SARMs.

As I mentioned above, as a steroid, androgens share a 4-ring cholesterol structure. Guess what? SARMs don’t. Just by nature of them being a nonsteroidal compound they can’t and don’t have this same signature structure. Instead, there are 8 different chemical structures or “scaffolds”, that make-up the SARMs family – and each family has a host of different SARMs nested within it. As a result, the total number of specific SARMs structures are endless.

Unlike steroids, SARMs shouldn't metabolize into DHT (dihydrotestosterone by 5-[alpha]-reductase) or aromatise to estrogen – which means there shouldn’t be the same side effects such a male patterned hair loss, or gynecomastia.

In theory, SARMs may sound like a pretty golden product to try… all gains and only glory. Think again. This goose needs a lot more time, before it can safely take flight.

 

 

THE DUCK TEST

Have you ever heard of the duck test? You know the one I mean … "if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck."

What happens if it doesn’t look like a duck?

What happens if we change one of the crucial identifying components? If it doesn’t look like a duck, but it swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, is it probably a duck? I’ll let you be the judge of that one.

The reason I bring this up, is that this premise underlines the popular opinion of SARMs safety.

If it looks like a steroid because of a specific 4-ring structure, works on an androgen receptor, and can promote muscle growth and strength, then it must be an anabolic steroid… and those come with some hefty side-effects. So, what happens if it doesn’t look like a steroid? There aren’t any side-effects, duh.

Just like that, we have the foundation for one of the biggest myths surrounding SARMs. That they are somehow ‘safe’ to use - a ‘healthy’ steroid alternative that doesn’t have any side-effects. Sure, SARMs many not ‘look’ structurally like steroids, but they still share a lot in common with anabolic steroids, including similar associated health risks.

 

Before I go any further I also want to make something else clear – contrary to what many in the industry are saying about SARMs, they are not “100% anabolic.” While a major selling point of these compounds is that they are drugs that can provide only the anabolic effects of anabolic-androgenic steroids, and that’s just not the case - at least not yet. Plus, many of the popular SARMs used within the industry still have androgenic components – thus, opening the door for androgenic side effects. And these go beyond potential visual changes, and suppression of testosterone and sperm development through suspending the hypothalamus-pituitary-gonadal axis.

SARMs have many of the same side-effects of oral anabolic steroids, including influencing a rapid breakdown to levels of HDL or high-density-lipoprotein cholesterol (the good stuff) and inflammation-induced rise in liver enzymes. While it’s possible these could be rectified by using an injectable form of SARMs, the reality is, that probably won’t be manufactured anytime soon. Keep in mind, these drugs were almost exclusively designed for oral use in therapeutic populations.

Many of negative sides of SARMs are exaggerated by supraphysiological dosages … you know, the “higher than suggested” standard doses used by athletes and bros alike.

Clinical studies on SARMs have only been done in vitro, isolated cells or in either animal studies (aka on rats) - or like many steroids, on the sick or old within clinical population settings. They have not been tested on healthy, young active males and females, and the doses within the research on SARMs are significantly lower than those required for performance enhancing effects. Even those lower doses have been seen to result in negative side-effects!

I think this is a good time to remind you that we’re dealing with the millennial anabolic. If after over 75 years we don’t know the full extent of AAS side effects, how do we know the health consequences of SARMs? We don’t.

We do not know the health consequences of SARMs.

Not only that, but by the time that we learn about a new SARM, it’s often already been re-configured by researchers. Currently pharmaceutical companies are testing “second-generation” non-steroidal SARMs (maybe even third by the time you read time) – leaving an entire flock of first-generation SARMs behind.

Why didn’t those ones go to clinical trial? Simple, they didn’t work like they were supposed too. Many first-gen SARMs had far too many risky side effects to ever get ‘stamp of approval’ required for their use.

No stamp = no approved used = no profit for drug companies.

And so, first gen-SARMs got scrapped by the pharmaceutical world. But you know what they say. One man’s trash, is another man’s treasure.

 

 

KILLING THE GOOSE

First-gen SARMs were found by researchers to dangerous and not actually effective, but that didn’t stop our industry’s serial snake-oil supplement gurus from manufacturing, propagating and making millions off sales. Unfortunately, this is one of many shortcomings associated with mainstream SARMs use.

The propaganda surrounding SARMs are plentiful. Much of it is nothing more than a myth – it holds small fragment of reality, and a whole lot of bs.  

For example, SARMs do build muscle. I can’t deny that. In some of the early studies on first-gen SARMs, there were ‘modest gains’ in lean mass – 1.0 to 1.5kg over the course of 4 to 6 weeks. Here’s the kicker – studies on injectable testosterone resulted in 5 to 7kg of lean mass gains over the same period. Plus, the modest SARMs gains came with nasty side effects!

 

If you’re familiar with SARMs you’ve probably noticed that many of them have code names, usually being made from a combination of letters followed by numbers. The reason for this is rather simple. SARMs are patented products that have not been approved for use, and are either still in – or never made it out of trial phases. They are experimental drugs that have not been offered for commercial sale by legitimate companies. Nevertheless, this hasn’t stopped the World Anti-doping Agency (WADA) or recent law changes from tightening the iron anti-doping grip on the sale and use of SARMs.

In early 2008, SARMs were added to WADA’s prohibited list, becoming one of the many substances banned for use in athletic competition. Mainstream use continued to fly under the radar. But in May 2016 that would come to an end when the FDA reportedly explored complaints of specific SARMs being marketed and sold by supplement companies.

Basically, a pharmaceutical company caught wind that one of the drugs they had been studying in clinical drug trials for nearly a decade was being reproduced by sport supplements companies and marketed to the masses. Under the guise of calling this drug a “dietary supplement”, these companies almost got away with it too! Obviously, there’s more than one legal issue here. One of these include that under US federal law, dietary supplements can’t include a substance being investigated as a new drug. Which as you’ve just read, many SARMs most definitely are!

 

There’s also been recent (and growing numbers of) reports discussing SARMs being found in various products that they shouldn’t have been included in… buyers beware: tainted supplements do exist!

As I mentioned earlier, SARMs are patented – that means any company manufacturing them without the consent of the founding pharmaceutical, is doing so illegally. While it’s recorded that at least one pharmaceutical company has begun sending cease-and-desist letters to stop the illegal manufacturing of a specific SARM, there remains numerous other SARMs still readily available for purchase.

 

How did supplement companies get away with selling SARMs illegally for so long?

Through the lovely legal loophole known as “research chemicals.” Discussing it is out of the scope of this article, but I’ll say this – at this time, SARMs are not available for resale under any circumstances in both United States and Canada. Yes, Canada too… contrary to popular belief SARMs are not licensed or permitted for medical or therapeutic use in here either. If you doubt this, just take a look at the numerous cases against athletes who have been caught using SARMs through the Sport Dispute Resolution Center of Canada.

There are also major questions being raised about the purity of SARMs currently being sold. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Those backyard black market labs who make dirty gear, are now also in the SARMs game too. Underground SARMs tested by academic researchers found that instead of containing a pharmaceutical-grade drug as claimed, the products were more like a D.I.Y. disaster – containing at least 15% impurities.

So, what does all this mean? Although SARMs can’t be legally defined as ‘anabolic steroids’ (since they don’t have structurally resemble testosterone), that doesn’t mean they are free game.

 

Thought to be the “future of androgen therapy,” SARMs were truly believed to be an alternative to steroids – a Utopian drug that would revolutionize the pharmacological world. It’s been nearly 20 years since their inception, and there has yet to be an approved drug in this category yet. Few have been close, and while there are a few hopefuls currently in trial stages, at this point in time the golden egg hasn’t had time to hatch. Ultimately, the golden goose of gains hasn’t even been laid yet.

Thankfully, this hasn’t killed the SARM dream yet. Researchers are continuing to reconfigure molecular structures at an astronomical pace, and the newest generation of drugs may be available for clinical use within the next few years. Presently, both the side-effects and suspicious claims are alive and causing a lot of potential harm for the future of these drugs.

For now, it looks like SARMs may be nothing more than a sitting duck.

 

 

 

© Victoria Felkar. All rights reserved. For informational purposes only, not to be construed as legal or medical advice.

 

 

The Vanguard Sessions Podcast: Drug Talk

The Vanguard Sessions with Andrew Rose #10

 

Back at podcast guesting thanks to Andy Rose and The Vanguard Sessions!

I first met Andy a few weeks back at the elitefts Sport Performance Summit. I was on stage just about to sit down with the other presenters for a Q&A session, when he introduced himself and asked me if I would be interested in coming on his podcast. In the days following, after exchanging banter and chatting about the current state of the industry, I knew that this was going to be a great podcast experience.

From the pervasive and historical use of drugs in sport, to talking about some of the current issues surrounding anabolics and women's health, we dive into the PED abyss. Thanks again Andy!

 

EPISODE LINK:

https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-tapap-8dbc0c

 

ITUNES: 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-vanguard-sessions-podcast/id1350278649?mt=2

 

Andy's Summary: 

I think it's high time we unbury our heads from the sand. Drugs - the performance enhancing kind - are here and they're here to stay. What's not here, unfortunately, is the data needed to help keep us healthy and safe. Sure, we're all getting bigger, faster, and stronger. Are we dying quicker? Are we destroying our bodies faster than we're repairing them? Will we ever have the answers? Or will we keep fumbling around in the dark using anecdotal broscience from some forum our old gym buddy once read on his ex-cousin-in-law's phone? This is a long episode, but I couldn't cut it short. There was way too much to be discussed.  Enjoy.  

 

spartan_2.jpg

 

Learn more about Andy Rose & The Vanguard Sessions podcast:
www.aefit.net
FB: @AndrewRose
IG: @vanguardbarbell
 

 

Ask Me Anything E1: PEDs

Do you believe there's a time and a place for PEDs?

In this clip I go over the complexities of performance enhancing drug use by discussing:
· A brief history of their use in sport
· What exactly is performance enhancement
· Societal ideals of PED use
· The importance of knowing your own stance on PEDs
· Therapeutic value of compounds vs. enhancement

If you like it, please feel free to share!
 

· · · ·

Video Location: Android Bodies
www.androidbodies.ca
FB: Android Bodies Inc.
IG: @androidbodies

Video by: Alora Griffiths
aloragriffiths.foliodrop.com
FB: Alora Griffiths
IG: @aloragriffiths

 

 

SARMs for Women

In this Q&A I tackle a question about SARMs for women, but in doing so open up a bigger conversation about the "new" kids on the anabolic block and the importance of information literacy.

Clearing Up Clenbuterol

A Dopers Delight or Misused Stimulant?

Following the Olympics in 1992, a new breed of stimulant gained global recognition. Hailed as the “dopers delight”, this anti-asthma medication was special. Not only could it be used as a stimulant but many believed it could also enhance muscle growth. Only 4 years earlier, steroid guru Dan Duchaine introduced the bodybuilding world to this same drug - which to this day remains one of our sports most misunderstood and misused compounds: Clenbuterol Hydrochloride.

Targeting specific receptor sites in the body’s sympathetic nervous system (SNS), Clen is a selective beta-2 sympathomimetic… wait, a what?

A car backfires and subconsciously you jump off your couch - this is an automatic physiological response initiated by our SNS in response to a perceived threat. Known as fight-or-flight, this response is the result of the release of a hormone called norepinephrine (NE). To work, NE has to bind and activate a specific receptor in your body called a beta-2 receptor. Think of this like a lock and key. Only one key (NE) can both fit (bind) and unlock (activate) one lock (beta-2 receptor).

This is where Clen comes in. Clen acts as a “fake” key that can unlock only some beta-2 receptors (why it’s called “selective”).  

Although its labeled use is an anti-asthma medication, Clen is able to unlock fat and muscle tissue cells throughout the body. Like other beta-2 agonists, clen is a “thermogenic” = Clen-sweats. This is caused by an increase in body temperature and metabolic rate, as well as its ability to directly target fat cell breakdown of triglycerides to free fatty acids is what makes Clen such as popular “fat loss” drug.

Its anabolic capabilities however are still up for debate. Although since the early 90s bros have been using clen as a part of post-cycle therapy or as an alternative to steroids to get “lean-gains”, there remains no human research (animal studies only) that provide evidence to support an increase in lean muscle mass as a result of clen. Regardless, Clen has become a stable drug for many athletes both inside and out of bodybuilding. While Clen-shreds may sound enticing, they certainly don’t come without controversy and concern. It doesn’t matter how Clen gets into your body – inhaled, pill or liquid form, or injected, remember this: Clen is dangerous.

Keep in mind that clen is different than other beta-2 agonists or stimulants based off: specificity, potency, and duration of effect. This makes for steady, strong blood levels of Clen, which often are easy to achieve with just a single or twice-daily dose (thanks to its 35-hour half-life). After a few weeks (usually 4-6 weeks) the body’s beta-2 receptors slowly stop responding due to a process called “down regulation” … simply put, they stop responding and require rest (aka. stop the drug).

However, like other performance enhancers, Clen is great at turning users into complete idiots by tempting them with magical everlasting results. What follows is the “more is better, longer is better” complex.       

From developing a psychological dependency based off ill-informed perceptions that Clen can be used long term, to the fact that users gauge the effectiveness of the drug based off the presence initial side effects such as shaky hands, insomnia, sweating and nausea – it appears that we have a growing Clenhead epidemic on our hands.  

Yes, initial side effects should dissipate after a few days and this does NOT mean that the drug has stopped working, so please stop boosting the dose to supersonic levels and somehow believe that stacking it with other stimulants will results in “better results” and not a cardiac arrest. Wake up and education yourself on drug dependency and the long term effects of Clen that happen even after beta-2 receptors stop “responding.”

Not only that, due to its strength, long half-life, and perceived effectiveness, there is such thing as Clen toxicity – which is why in Canada it’s not available for human use even with a prescription, and within veterinary practice has dramatically declined over the past few years.

Clen has never been made available for human or animal use in the US, and within sport clen it is completely banned regardless of the fact that some countries around the world (Bulgaria, Russia and China) continuing to prescribe it as a therapeutic drug. (… cough cough, the IOC wonders why there has been an increase of athletes with “asthma”).

Since the mid-90’s, it’s even illegal to use Clen to bulk-up livestock. Not only were the animals questionable, but those who ate Clen’d meat suffered symptoms of Clen overdose, such as fever, vomiting and diarrhea. Just an FYI to athletes who travel - be mindful that not all countries have banned its use in livestock. Anti-doping agencies have reported a number of cases where athletes tested positive for Clen after eating contaminated meat … or at least that’s what the athlete told officials after being caught Clen-handed.

Regardless of the fact that Clen is pretty much illegal for ALL consumption, it continues to be widely available on the black market and used for performance enhancement. From the consumption of cocaine in 18th century, amphetamine use during cold-war and now to today’s Clenheads – even though athletes have been using stimulants for centuries it doesn’t make it safe or smart. 

 

Originally Published: Insider Controversy, Muscle Insider Magazine, 29: June/July 2016

 

Too Big to be Natural?

Debunking the Gospels of Dr. Harrison Pope

Are you male? Do you lift weights or participate in bodybuilding? Do you want to change your physique … maybe add some muscle or decrease your body fat? Do you lift weights for more than a few hours a week? Do you pay attention to your diet? If you said yes to any of the above questions then you could have a psychological illness – one that the field of psychology believes is a growing ‘secret crisis’ and epidemic among men who workout. 

A variant of Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD), Muscle Dysmorphia (MD) - also known as bigorexia, megarexia or reverse anorexia nervosa - is formally defined as a pathological preoccupation or obsession with muscularity and leanness. In other words, it is that constant drive to get jacked. The official list of criteria includes a range of characteristics such as feelings of guilt or shame when having to miss a workout, constantly checking one’s reflection to see if they have added size, training “past the pain” or while injured, an “excessively controlled” dietary regime, and anabolic steroid use.

Hold on… from the sounds of it, it seems nearly every bodybuilder that I have ever crossed paths with is considered by psychology to be a little unhinged. My goal is not to debate whether or not muscle dysmorphia is a legitimate mental illness or not. As a teen and former competitive ballet dancer I personally struggled and overcame severe anorexia nervosa – a disease that to this day still has lingering physiological health effects. Needless to say, I am the last person who will argue the legitimacy of what defines a mental illness. But I digress. Let us get back to the topic at hand.

Yes, the concept of muscle dysmorphia has some validity BUT there are some big problems with the methodology and theories of the mastermind behind the bigorexia phenomenon. Ladies and gentlemen, I let me introduce you to Dr. Harrison “Skip” Pope. 

Published in 2000, Pope and colleagues introduced the world to muscle dysmorphia (MD) in their book, The Adonis Complex: The Secret Crisis of Male Body Obsessions. Like with any new sexy scientific finding, the media quickly swallowed up Pope’s new diagnosis of MD without much criticism. In fact, during the firestorm of the Major League Baseball drug scandals in the early years of the new millennium Pope became the media’s go-to ‘steroid expert’ tasked with explaining why anyone would ever go to such dangerous lengths to improve their sporting performance.

For Pope, the motives behind anabolic steroid use are not about a desire to achieve athletic excellence but rather are solely fueled by a culturally induced desire to improve personal appearance. In other words, Pope claims that (and I’m not exaggerating here) men take steroids to get bigger. Performance enhancing drug use is less about becoming a better athlete and more about achieving the ultimate muscular appearance.

Pope links this relentless desire for size through AAS use back to the Adonis Complex that he declares “afflicts millions in our society” and has been brought on by “modern society’s and the media’s powerful and unrealistic messages emphasizing an ever more muscular, ever more fit, and often unattainable male body ideal.” Said best by former powerlifting world record holder and Sport Historian at the University of Texas, Dr. Jan Todd, if that is truly the case then “perhaps we should rename gyms – if there are truly millions of such folks – Body Dysmorphic Centers.”

I agree that there has been a sort of steroid driven metamorphosis since the 1940s in how the male body is depicted within popular culture. Whether it is in action figures and comic books, professional wrestling and bodybuilding, in magazines and movies or even just in advertisements, there has been a remarkable transformation of the muscular male body over the past 75 years. But can we really boil a supposed male need for anabolic steroids and automatic diagnosis of a MD down to this? Could the development of new techniques of athletics and strength training have anything to do with this unquestionable growth in muscularity and strength? What about the countless new findings within the fields of kinesiology, sport science, nutrition and medicine? Are women immune to developing muscle dysmorphia? What about athletes? Where do you draw the line between obsessive behaviour and doing simply what is needed in order to excel in elite sport?

Due to an overwhelming lack of scientific detail, the complete absence of a bibliography, questionable research methods and overall weak scholarship, there remain countless questions that could be further discussed regarding Pope’s Adonis Complex – however the most problematic of his claims we haven’t even got to yet.

Measuring Steroid Use.

Possibly the boldest and most absurd of Pope’s claims is not only the discovery of a “natural limit” of muscular development without steroids but also that a simple formula could be used to detect anabolic-steroid use. The formula, called the Fat Free Mass Index (FFMI), can “predict” steroid use by combining a series of mathematical calculations to determine a person’s lean muscle mass determined from height, weight and body fat percentage. Pope believes that the higher your FFMI is, the more likely it is that you are using anabolic drugs.

Wait a second. Could the FFMI really be a new cheap and non-invasive alternative to drug testing? Think about it. Natural bodybuilding federations can just weigh and measure competitors, throw some numbers into a free online body composition calculator and within minutes know exactly who is juiced up. To some this may sound like a promising development, however the reality is the FFMI is not only dangerous but pretty darn idiotic.

First, let us look at exactly how Pope and his colleagues have come to find this “sharp upper limit to how muscular you can get by natural means.”

The FFMI uses a subject’s height, weight and body-fat percent to gauge overall muscularity. This score is then compared to a scale in order to determine anabolic steroid use. Sound simple enough?

To create this scale the researcher took data from 84 AAS users and 74 non-users. In this same study, FFMI estimates were derived from photographs of Mr. America winners (1939-1959) from the “pre-steroid era” and compared to estimates obtained from pictures of modern bodybuilders featured in bodybuilding magazines from 1989 to 1994. It was found that the average Mr. America had the FFMI average of 25.4 but the modern bodybuilders had much higher FFMI results. 

What does this all mean?

From these two data sets the researchers created a score to represent the highest level of muscularity that one could potentially achieve naturally. With an estimated FFMI score of 25.7, former Mr. America Steve Reeves was cited to exemplify this new natural limit of muscularity.

Pope was so confident about this natural limit that he stated “any male scoring 26 or higher who is not visibly fat, and claims that he has achieved this physical condition without the use of drugs … is almost certainly lying.”

While there are many different issues with the FFMI, for the sake of brevity, let us focus on three:

1. The issue of using young male amateur bodybuilders to further demonstrate this ‘upper limit of muscularity’ that can be achieved naturally.

Is it not just a little problematic to be classifying young males who have yet to finish puberty and only have a few years of lifting experience as recreational bodybuilders? Or what about the fact that to obtain the subject’s FFMI score Pope used skinfold caliper measures – a method that has many sources of error, not only with the technique of ‘pinching’ but also with the formula that is used to predict body density. When it comes to tracking change over time skinfolds testing can do a pretty good job – but when it comes to predicting body composition there can be as much as a 5% or more range in results even when computed by the same person. Sounds like a great method to me… NOT!

2. Using photographs to predict FFMI in bodybuilders.

There are some major discrepancies in the methodology used by Pope and colleagues to obtain the FFMI results. Furthermore, although Pope cites Steve Reeves with a FFMI of 25.6 as the upper limit, he fails to recognize that two-time Mr. America John Grimek (1940, 1941) has an estimated FFMI of 31.99. Why wasn’t Grimek used then to demonstrate the highest level of muscularity that could be achieved naturally? Your guess is as good as mine.

3. Pope’s lack of understanding of the history of physical culture and development of sport training over the past century is appalling.

Pope selected his sample of Mr. America winners from the 1939-1959 timeframe simply because he believed that they competed in a time before steroids were used by athletes and bodybuilders. Hmm… really?  

Before WWII bodybuilders didn’t specifically train for physique competitions. In 1939, the sport of bodybuilding was still in its early years. During this time, competitors were most often weight lifters who would strip down after a meet to have their physiques judged. This was a time before specific machines were used to isolate set muscle groups – before specific bodybuilding resistance training techniques were invented, or knowledge of how diet and proper supplementation could help ‘build’ a body. Needless to say, the use of bodybuilders from this era as exemplary of the ‘natural’ ideal or a steroid-free maximum is utterly misleading and a prime example of poor research. If Pope had had a more thorough understanding of the iron game might he have been able to develop a more accurate measure of muscle mass?

Overall, it saddens me deeply that an unsupported claim such as this can be made and disguised as ‘science’, distributed to the general public and accepted without any critical thought. It is because of this and more that I fear the FFMI has and will continue to fall into the wrong hands. I fear we will see the false naming of individuals as steroid users and the continued profiling of those with hyper-muscular bodies.

Yes, anabolic steroids have been a contributing factor to the development of bigger bodies over the past 100 years but there have also been astronomical advances in medicine, sports science, nutrition and coaching. Such advances have forever changed not only bodybuilding but all of sport more broadly.

For some, all of this may seem irrelevant. Why should we even care about some silly formula used to estimate anabolic steroid use? The answer is simple. Pope’s work has become embedded in contemporary physical culture. Within recent years, Pope’s FFMI has already made media headlines and the Adonis Complex has become a go-to theory in the field of psychology. Pope is hailed as one of the foremost leading experts on steroid use and has even testified before Congress on the issue - all of this without any critique or inquiring into his methods. Rather than question his research or explore the impact of his unproven claims, Pope continues to receive attention and funding, recently receiving a grant of nearly 2.5 million dollars to study the long-term dangers of steroids.

It is no wonder that popular perception of anabolic steroids is not one of fact but rather a fictional story of mentally disturbed mass monsters. As one of the most cited psychiatrists of the 20th century, the impact of Dr. Pope approaches the “biblical proportions” range. In a world where there is a preoccupation for athletes to continue to push the limits of athletic performance, Pope’s will to set ‘natural’ limits to muscular development is more than just problematic, it is an example of literal ‘natural’ selection. Except rather than allowing the big, strong and fast to excel, an overly simplistic math equation and psychological diagnosis may have the power to undermine the evolution of human potential.

 

 

Originally Published: Feature, Muscle Insider Magazine, 26: Dec/Jan 2016

The Good, the Bad and the Juiced: A Critical Conversation about Muscle

SWIS OZZIE TALK2016

From booming numbers of new dietary supplements to the rising celebrity status of social media’s fit-bodies, the popularity of today’s fitness industry is unquestionable. While current fitness trends provide for a greater social tolerance of muscle, there remains continued cultural condemnation of bodies that are arbitrarily deemed as ‘overly’ muscular. The boundary between what is defined as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ muscle is further complicated by problematic perceptions of anabolic steroids. In fact, the automatic vilification of the drugs has shaped popular representations and misconceptions of the hyper-muscular body with devastating results. Regardless of the lack of academically sound and clinically applicable information on anabolic steroids, suspected users are often viewed as social sinners, demonized, and in some countries arrested and prosecuted based solely on a muscular physique.

Guided by a critical socio-cultural historical perspective, this project explores how, overtime, the muscular body has become ridiculed, condemned and criminalized. Through the use of several examples, including the rise of criminal anthropology in the late-1800s and the evolution of the ‘evils’ of anabolic steroids use, within this project I challenged popular perceptions of muscle and identify the impact of these powerful and inescapable stereotypes for contemporary fitness culture. 

Want more? Watch the full video here.