Steroids, aging, and paying attention to your overall health
March 27, 2015 By John Doe
I have written and erased this article a few times now. I had started to write this as an informational blog to try to educate readers, but then I thought that maybe if I took the angle of speaking about my own experiences and of a couple guys I know it would be easier to write this.
A few years ago I was like everyone else and I’d defend steroid usage up and down, all day long. Nobody wants to think that what they’re doing can have any negative health consequences. A guy smoking 2 packs of cigarettes every day doesn’t know he can get lung cancer until he’s told he has it. Someone shooting heroin doesn’t think they can overdose until they buy a stronger grade or shoot a little too much. Someone who has used steroids for several years doesn’t know they can negatively effect their health until things start getting out of whack.
The issue with hormones is it’s seldom one of these deals where you inject this one day, and the day after you die. You can’t point your finger at something and say “Yep, he took steroids so this is what’s going on here.” The negative effects creep up very slowly and they usually don’t become an issue until later in life. Do I believe steroids can cause negative health consequences? Yes, BUT ONLY WHEN ABUSED AND HEALTH GOES NEGLECTED.
[size=14pt]
Size not steroids is the culprit
But I want to dig deeper into this thing first. You can’t say it’s just the steroids, it’s a little more involved than that. Let’s take 2 different guys for example, the first guy takes steroids and floats around 180-200 lbs in fairly lean condition year round. The second guy balloons up to 250 lbs and stays that size for the next half of his life. The 250 lb individual has increased his risk of health complications from body stature alone, not just steroids.
Sure, steroids may have helped him get there, but it’s now the effects of increased body mass and stress on the heart that becomes the health culprit, not the fact that this guy used steroids. The heart has to work harder to pump blood to the body because of his size, and throughout a number of years at this rate, he has increased the likelihood of a possible stroke or a heart attack.
Now, in some people who were genetically predisposed to be larger individuals anyways, this may not always be 100% accurate. But this is bodybuilding, and most of us were not genetically predisposed to become the size that we become. Organs in the body have to work harder to process things when more and more things have been introduced into the body. Be it food, drugs, caffeine, alcohol, chemicals in soda or whatever, the body has to work to process anything we put into it.
Bloodwork
So again, overall consumption becomes an issue as well, not just steroids. So what is the key to knowing how far you can take it? It’s called getting LABS DRAWN ON THE REGULAR. Whether you use performance enhancement or not, I believe anybody over the age of 30 should be getting regular bloodwork done, ESPECIALLY IF YOU USE STEROIDS!! Steroids are not a death sentence, not even when used long term, if you know what the hell you’re doing and when to back off.
Let’s talk about false readings on blood labs. I use the word “false reading” very loosely here, because in a way it’s false and in a way it’s not. If you’re using steroids and go get your labs drawn mid-cycle then things may look a little out of whack. This is only a false reading in regard to the fact you’re taking something that is throwing things off short term, it’s not a false reading in that the measures shown aren’t really what they say at that given point in time.
When you come off your cycle then your labs will look better almost 90% of the time. Well when you never come off cycle then guess what? Your hematocrit that reads high is sure as hell isn’t lying. Your elevated blood pressure is really high as hell, it’s not just some fluke or something. You’ve gone several years now with these values possibly elevated, and that my friends causes damage.
Before you go freaking out on me, let me explain a few things here first. Much of this depends on what you’ve used, how your body has reacted to it, and how much you took. A guy who has used 200 mg/wk of nandrolone for 20 weeks straight while maintaining good blood pressure, cholesterol levels and liver values, is in far better shape than that same guy who blindly uses 200mg/wk of nandrolone but is predisposed to elevated blood pressure from it. It becomes an individual thing to some degree, which is why you can’t generalize everyone who used steroids as a walking death sentence. But, the misinformed and stubborn ones are most often the ones with negative health consequences.
Have some stability before you take steroids
When a guy comes to me and asks me if I think he should use steroids, I don’t tell him yes or no. I prefer to educate them on the reality of it and what they’re looking at down the road. The first thing I ask him is “Where do you work and do you have health insurance?” If this guy tells me he has some stability in life and can go to a doctor if he needs to, then I tell him to go for it. If this guy is a 19 year old kid who has no health insurance and no clue as to what the hell he is going to do with his life then I advise against using them.
He’ll probably be perfectly fine and a lot like everyone else. He’ll hit a few cycles and get some results, and then he’ll probably move on and won’t take the gym as seriously as he gets older, or when he settles down with a wife and kids he’ll just quit altogether. He’ll be one of the guys who talks about, “Yeah, back in the day I tried dbol, tren, and test” but he’ll get over it and move on and his hormone levels will come back to normal range.
HOWEVER, if he is someone who stays in the gym throughout the years and continues to use steroids into his 30’s and 40’s, but doesn’t have the financial means to get blood labs drawn, or proper health care coverage, he just may be a walking time bomb. It’s nice to think that you’ll make health a priority and get regular labs done and just pay cash, but 90% of people just can’t afford it and aren’t going to do it without heath insurance. So much of my answer to someone who asks me about steroids is based on that factor right there.
I know a guy right now in his mid 40’s who is going to die if he doesn’t get a kidney transplant. I’m talking about the walking picture of health and fitness his whole life. This is a guy who always ate clean and always stayed in the gym. But he always ran a bunch of gear, used recreational drugs, and never went to a damn doctor. This guy went downhill so fast it would make your head spin. I didn’t see him for a few months, and then one morning in the gym he pops up and he was so thin and frail looking I thought he must have had AIDS.
He didn’t speak to me that day and I later found out why. Nobody feels like talking when they think they’re on their deathbed, especially when they were known for being a picture of health and fitness before their life went to shit. Now, of course recreational drugs can play a major role in this, but who knows the specifics of it? He could have been someone who never came off orals, and I’m guessing that bloodwork wasn’t in the picture for him. This was a national level bodybuilding competitor who probably never went off gear. The point to this story is get your damn bloodwork done if steroids is a part of your lifestyle, so if you need to back off you know when.
A good friend of mine was just referred to a kidney specialist last week. He calls me up and tells me this, and starts asking all these questions about kidney values. Then he asks me what he could still use as far as steroids and what dosages I thought he could get away with. He is talking to me in terms of “If I can just make it another 5 years.” He is talking to me in a way that say’s he’s accepted the fact he is going to die soon, and if he can’t bodybuild then he’d assume to be dead anyways.
There were a lot of old timers that were like this, and many took their own lives when bodybuilding was over with. It drove them absolutely nuts that they were falling apart and they ended it before they suffered. Sometimes this isn’t always a deal where you have something happen and in a blink of an eye you’re dead. No, I’d almost say those may be the luckier ones. A lot of guys suffer through a lot of bullshit before they finally tap out.
Bodybuilding is still new
You have to remember that bodybuilding is still new. A lot of old timers from the 60’s and 70’s are just now starting to die off. They rarely make 70 years old and the ones who make 70 years old are lucky. Now we have a new breed of bodybuilders who are taking far more drugs, far bigger dosages, and far longer cycles. Well what comes to my mind is if the old timers rarely see 70 years old, then what is the time clock for a newer guy? Even with advances in the medical field something just tells me you can only fool mother nature for so long.
Now, on the other side of the coin we have health issues that come on from low testosterone. I know another guy who has been in the gym for 40 years, and has juiced up a total of 30 years now. He went off everything once for a period of 3 months due to a non-related medical condition. Guess what happened? His bloodwork went to hell, but then went back to normal when he resumed testosterone replacement therapy!! Low testosterone is terrible and I’d dare say the lack of energy, anxiety, and stress, is worse than being on testosterone for the rest of your life. So you definitely cannot just rule this out and deem testosterone replacement therapy as the anti-Christ here.
From my experiences in bodybuilding and performance enhancement, every decade yields a twist in the way you eat, train, and even use performance enhancers. Yes, I’ve only been at this 2 decades now, but I’m already wise enough to know it’s going to change at 40 years old, again at 50 years old, and so on. But the thing is I already know what to do to manipulate things and how to train as an aging male.
I have too many friends and acquaintances in their 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s who I know on a very good level, so I know what it’s all about. I’ve seen it just in my time with bodybuilding alone, but I’m talking about some guys with 30 and 40 years of bodybuilding and steroids under their belt. One thing I’ll tell you is the quality of their lives is much better than their “normal” counterparts, because they are doing it right.
So how do we do it right? I’ve devised a list of things to pay close attention to in order to maintain your health while using steroids and aging;
#1- Protein goes up when cycling, it drops when maintaining. Too much protein makes your kidneys work harder, and it can also make you sluggish. It’s a wise idea to lower it once in awhile, and it’s my belief that .8 grams per pound of bodyweight is all that is needed to build quality muscle for most people.
#2- Dosages need to be lower as you age, but done with compounds you can run out for longer durations without negatively impacting labs to any significant degree. My drugs of choice as I’ve gotten older and on TRT (testosterone replacement therapy) would be low dose deca, NPP, primobolan depot, anavar, masteron, and moderate dosages of EQ.
#3- Anyone on replacement therapy should be donating blood on a regular basis. Donating blood keeps things in check; especially red blood cells and hematocrit. Women statistically live longer than men because of their menstrual cycles; their bodies lose blood and the creation of new blood pulls toxins from their vital organs. It’s a wise idea to donate blood on the regular if you commit to TRT or steroids for life.
#4- Calories should be consumed at maintenance level to slightly below maintenance levels 80% of the year. There is no more gaining 20 lbs of muscle mass from cycles or ballooning up with water weight and fat gain. Your metabolism is getting slower and it doesn’t take as many calories to do the job. You will find yourself more energized on fewer calories than packing them in all the time.
At this point you’ve gained what you’re going to gain in terms of size (unless you’re new to it) and your efforts are better spent constantly refining what you have into better and better quality. I call this “old man muscle” and this is that grainy ass, hard as nails muscle you only see on vets who have been at this for years and years. It’s quite impressive. 90% of veteran trainers or middle aged men have absolutely no reason to consume over 3,000 calories per day.
#5- Repetitions should become higher than they were in the beginning. It’s fine to occasionally drop to lower reps, but remember that your tendons and joints haven’t gotten as strong as your muscles have. The first rep of any set is the most dangerous rep, and the last rep is the safest. Whoever says you cannot benefit from high rep training is full of shit. I have found that a slower rep speed and reps frequently taken into the teens has done me a world of good as I’ve continued to train and use steroids along with getting older. Volumizing the muscles and pump becomes more important than lifting heavy as you get older. Your joints will thank you!!
March 27, 2015 By John Doe
I have written and erased this article a few times now. I had started to write this as an informational blog to try to educate readers, but then I thought that maybe if I took the angle of speaking about my own experiences and of a couple guys I know it would be easier to write this.
A few years ago I was like everyone else and I’d defend steroid usage up and down, all day long. Nobody wants to think that what they’re doing can have any negative health consequences. A guy smoking 2 packs of cigarettes every day doesn’t know he can get lung cancer until he’s told he has it. Someone shooting heroin doesn’t think they can overdose until they buy a stronger grade or shoot a little too much. Someone who has used steroids for several years doesn’t know they can negatively effect their health until things start getting out of whack.
The issue with hormones is it’s seldom one of these deals where you inject this one day, and the day after you die. You can’t point your finger at something and say “Yep, he took steroids so this is what’s going on here.” The negative effects creep up very slowly and they usually don’t become an issue until later in life. Do I believe steroids can cause negative health consequences? Yes, BUT ONLY WHEN ABUSED AND HEALTH GOES NEGLECTED.
[size=14pt]
Size not steroids is the culprit
But I want to dig deeper into this thing first. You can’t say it’s just the steroids, it’s a little more involved than that. Let’s take 2 different guys for example, the first guy takes steroids and floats around 180-200 lbs in fairly lean condition year round. The second guy balloons up to 250 lbs and stays that size for the next half of his life. The 250 lb individual has increased his risk of health complications from body stature alone, not just steroids.
Sure, steroids may have helped him get there, but it’s now the effects of increased body mass and stress on the heart that becomes the health culprit, not the fact that this guy used steroids. The heart has to work harder to pump blood to the body because of his size, and throughout a number of years at this rate, he has increased the likelihood of a possible stroke or a heart attack.
Now, in some people who were genetically predisposed to be larger individuals anyways, this may not always be 100% accurate. But this is bodybuilding, and most of us were not genetically predisposed to become the size that we become. Organs in the body have to work harder to process things when more and more things have been introduced into the body. Be it food, drugs, caffeine, alcohol, chemicals in soda or whatever, the body has to work to process anything we put into it.
Bloodwork
So again, overall consumption becomes an issue as well, not just steroids. So what is the key to knowing how far you can take it? It’s called getting LABS DRAWN ON THE REGULAR. Whether you use performance enhancement or not, I believe anybody over the age of 30 should be getting regular bloodwork done, ESPECIALLY IF YOU USE STEROIDS!! Steroids are not a death sentence, not even when used long term, if you know what the hell you’re doing and when to back off.
Let’s talk about false readings on blood labs. I use the word “false reading” very loosely here, because in a way it’s false and in a way it’s not. If you’re using steroids and go get your labs drawn mid-cycle then things may look a little out of whack. This is only a false reading in regard to the fact you’re taking something that is throwing things off short term, it’s not a false reading in that the measures shown aren’t really what they say at that given point in time.
When you come off your cycle then your labs will look better almost 90% of the time. Well when you never come off cycle then guess what? Your hematocrit that reads high is sure as hell isn’t lying. Your elevated blood pressure is really high as hell, it’s not just some fluke or something. You’ve gone several years now with these values possibly elevated, and that my friends causes damage.
Before you go freaking out on me, let me explain a few things here first. Much of this depends on what you’ve used, how your body has reacted to it, and how much you took. A guy who has used 200 mg/wk of nandrolone for 20 weeks straight while maintaining good blood pressure, cholesterol levels and liver values, is in far better shape than that same guy who blindly uses 200mg/wk of nandrolone but is predisposed to elevated blood pressure from it. It becomes an individual thing to some degree, which is why you can’t generalize everyone who used steroids as a walking death sentence. But, the misinformed and stubborn ones are most often the ones with negative health consequences.
Have some stability before you take steroids
When a guy comes to me and asks me if I think he should use steroids, I don’t tell him yes or no. I prefer to educate them on the reality of it and what they’re looking at down the road. The first thing I ask him is “Where do you work and do you have health insurance?” If this guy tells me he has some stability in life and can go to a doctor if he needs to, then I tell him to go for it. If this guy is a 19 year old kid who has no health insurance and no clue as to what the hell he is going to do with his life then I advise against using them.
He’ll probably be perfectly fine and a lot like everyone else. He’ll hit a few cycles and get some results, and then he’ll probably move on and won’t take the gym as seriously as he gets older, or when he settles down with a wife and kids he’ll just quit altogether. He’ll be one of the guys who talks about, “Yeah, back in the day I tried dbol, tren, and test” but he’ll get over it and move on and his hormone levels will come back to normal range.
HOWEVER, if he is someone who stays in the gym throughout the years and continues to use steroids into his 30’s and 40’s, but doesn’t have the financial means to get blood labs drawn, or proper health care coverage, he just may be a walking time bomb. It’s nice to think that you’ll make health a priority and get regular labs done and just pay cash, but 90% of people just can’t afford it and aren’t going to do it without heath insurance. So much of my answer to someone who asks me about steroids is based on that factor right there.
I know a guy right now in his mid 40’s who is going to die if he doesn’t get a kidney transplant. I’m talking about the walking picture of health and fitness his whole life. This is a guy who always ate clean and always stayed in the gym. But he always ran a bunch of gear, used recreational drugs, and never went to a damn doctor. This guy went downhill so fast it would make your head spin. I didn’t see him for a few months, and then one morning in the gym he pops up and he was so thin and frail looking I thought he must have had AIDS.
He didn’t speak to me that day and I later found out why. Nobody feels like talking when they think they’re on their deathbed, especially when they were known for being a picture of health and fitness before their life went to shit. Now, of course recreational drugs can play a major role in this, but who knows the specifics of it? He could have been someone who never came off orals, and I’m guessing that bloodwork wasn’t in the picture for him. This was a national level bodybuilding competitor who probably never went off gear. The point to this story is get your damn bloodwork done if steroids is a part of your lifestyle, so if you need to back off you know when.
A good friend of mine was just referred to a kidney specialist last week. He calls me up and tells me this, and starts asking all these questions about kidney values. Then he asks me what he could still use as far as steroids and what dosages I thought he could get away with. He is talking to me in terms of “If I can just make it another 5 years.” He is talking to me in a way that say’s he’s accepted the fact he is going to die soon, and if he can’t bodybuild then he’d assume to be dead anyways.
There were a lot of old timers that were like this, and many took their own lives when bodybuilding was over with. It drove them absolutely nuts that they were falling apart and they ended it before they suffered. Sometimes this isn’t always a deal where you have something happen and in a blink of an eye you’re dead. No, I’d almost say those may be the luckier ones. A lot of guys suffer through a lot of bullshit before they finally tap out.
Bodybuilding is still new
You have to remember that bodybuilding is still new. A lot of old timers from the 60’s and 70’s are just now starting to die off. They rarely make 70 years old and the ones who make 70 years old are lucky. Now we have a new breed of bodybuilders who are taking far more drugs, far bigger dosages, and far longer cycles. Well what comes to my mind is if the old timers rarely see 70 years old, then what is the time clock for a newer guy? Even with advances in the medical field something just tells me you can only fool mother nature for so long.
Now, on the other side of the coin we have health issues that come on from low testosterone. I know another guy who has been in the gym for 40 years, and has juiced up a total of 30 years now. He went off everything once for a period of 3 months due to a non-related medical condition. Guess what happened? His bloodwork went to hell, but then went back to normal when he resumed testosterone replacement therapy!! Low testosterone is terrible and I’d dare say the lack of energy, anxiety, and stress, is worse than being on testosterone for the rest of your life. So you definitely cannot just rule this out and deem testosterone replacement therapy as the anti-Christ here.
From my experiences in bodybuilding and performance enhancement, every decade yields a twist in the way you eat, train, and even use performance enhancers. Yes, I’ve only been at this 2 decades now, but I’m already wise enough to know it’s going to change at 40 years old, again at 50 years old, and so on. But the thing is I already know what to do to manipulate things and how to train as an aging male.
I have too many friends and acquaintances in their 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s who I know on a very good level, so I know what it’s all about. I’ve seen it just in my time with bodybuilding alone, but I’m talking about some guys with 30 and 40 years of bodybuilding and steroids under their belt. One thing I’ll tell you is the quality of their lives is much better than their “normal” counterparts, because they are doing it right.
So how do we do it right? I’ve devised a list of things to pay close attention to in order to maintain your health while using steroids and aging;
#1- Protein goes up when cycling, it drops when maintaining. Too much protein makes your kidneys work harder, and it can also make you sluggish. It’s a wise idea to lower it once in awhile, and it’s my belief that .8 grams per pound of bodyweight is all that is needed to build quality muscle for most people.
#2- Dosages need to be lower as you age, but done with compounds you can run out for longer durations without negatively impacting labs to any significant degree. My drugs of choice as I’ve gotten older and on TRT (testosterone replacement therapy) would be low dose deca, NPP, primobolan depot, anavar, masteron, and moderate dosages of EQ.
#3- Anyone on replacement therapy should be donating blood on a regular basis. Donating blood keeps things in check; especially red blood cells and hematocrit. Women statistically live longer than men because of their menstrual cycles; their bodies lose blood and the creation of new blood pulls toxins from their vital organs. It’s a wise idea to donate blood on the regular if you commit to TRT or steroids for life.
#4- Calories should be consumed at maintenance level to slightly below maintenance levels 80% of the year. There is no more gaining 20 lbs of muscle mass from cycles or ballooning up with water weight and fat gain. Your metabolism is getting slower and it doesn’t take as many calories to do the job. You will find yourself more energized on fewer calories than packing them in all the time.
At this point you’ve gained what you’re going to gain in terms of size (unless you’re new to it) and your efforts are better spent constantly refining what you have into better and better quality. I call this “old man muscle” and this is that grainy ass, hard as nails muscle you only see on vets who have been at this for years and years. It’s quite impressive. 90% of veteran trainers or middle aged men have absolutely no reason to consume over 3,000 calories per day.
#5- Repetitions should become higher than they were in the beginning. It’s fine to occasionally drop to lower reps, but remember that your tendons and joints haven’t gotten as strong as your muscles have. The first rep of any set is the most dangerous rep, and the last rep is the safest. Whoever says you cannot benefit from high rep training is full of shit. I have found that a slower rep speed and reps frequently taken into the teens has done me a world of good as I’ve continued to train and use steroids along with getting older. Volumizing the muscles and pump becomes more important than lifting heavy as you get older. Your joints will thank you!!
