Valentin Bosioc
We’re all curious about that guy at the gym who’s super ripped and muscular, the powerlifter benchpressing 450+, the bodybuilder claiming to be ”natural” or your baseball teammate who all of a sudden hits 500-feet bombs like it’s nothing.
Well my friend, there’s a decent chance these guys are on steroids. It’s not that we’re trying to find excuses as to why these guys are ahead of us. These days anyone with a pulse can get access to anabolic steroids and tons of people are using them. I’m not just babbling stuff I head in the media here.. I play a lot of competitive sports, go to the gym, got some friends.. and let me tell you steroids use is rampant.
You don’t have to be a Ronnie Coleman or Jay Cutler to use steroids. Hell I’ve seen occasional 150-pound gym goers try a cycle or two, and I’ve seen people use them thinking they’d hit more homeruns in their coed league softball! It’s not always easy to discern what is legit and what is not, but it’s doable.
SEE ALSO: How Higher Testosterone Levels can Improve Your Sex Life
It’s not bad that some athletes use steroids to achieve great results in a short time, but it’s annoying that some steroid users don’t want to admit it. There are those who hide it as if it was the biggest secret and lie to those who want to know the truth.
If you think that people you know might be using steroids but don’t want to admit to it, here are six ways that will help you point out dem steroid users.
Read below a few easy ways to tell is somebody is using anabolic steroids. There are some signs…
1.) The Big Gut
What causes the big guts seen in the above pictures is not necessarily caused by anabolic steroid use. These pro bodybuilders take a LOT of difference supplements, including insulin and human growth hormone (HGH), which are most likely to have caused the so-called ”GH Gut”.
One thing you can be sure of : if someone uses HGH and/or insulin, you can be pretty sure that person is also on steroids and who knows what else.
2) Disproportionate development of upper body muscles
A steroid user’s upper body muscles (traps, shoulders, neck, pecs, back and especially lats) are often disproportionally big compared to his lower body counterparts. This is due to the fact that upper body muscles have more androgen receptors than other muscles and respond better to resistance training. This is why new steroid users see their shoulder, traps and back explode very fast in the first few steroid cycles. Of course, leg and torso muscles grow as well but never as fast. This is what causes the ”V-shape” in roid users who normally wouldn’t have the genetics to produce a wide shoulder/thin waist body.
MUST READ: How To Increase HGH Naturally
The shoulder-to-waist ratio is a good indicator of steroid use but is definitely not a sure giveaway, because :
- Some of us are born with incredibly good genetics
- Some of us only train upper body and never do leg
3) Gynecomastia or Bitch Tits
This abnormality happens when there is too much testosterone. While people who don’t use steroids rarely produce that much testosterone, it’s just as harmful as when there is too little of it.
READ: How To Get Rid Of Man Boobs (Gynecomastia)
The reason is that when there is too much of this hormone, it converts into estrogen; the female sex hormone. While males also produce a bit of estrogen (it’s needed to stay healthy), too much testosterone that converts into estrogen results in bitch tits.
4) Skin problems caused by steroid use
Steroid use can cause skin problems such as :
- Acne
- Stretch marks
READ: How to Get Rid of Back Acne Fast & Safe
Another factor that may help you to determine if a person uses steroids is stretch marks. Most often, stretch marks become visible if a person achieves drastic gains in a very short time. It’s because massive muscle growth makes it hard for the skin to stretch at the same rate that the muscles grow at, causing stretch marks. Look for them on the upper lats, pectorals, and biceps.
5) A too fast transformation
If you see a person who has been in the same shape for a long time and then without any particular reason has become a lot more athletic, it may be the result of steroids. Of course, if a person starts to lift for the first time and does everything properly, great results are easy to achieve even without steroids.
However, if these results are so great that a person gained 10 pounds of muscle and leaned out a lot, it’s safe to say that the person is either using steroids or is a genetic monster.
There you have it! Let’s keep in mind that we can never be 100% sure who’s on roids and who’s not. Some are gifted with phenomenal genetics. Others have stellar work ethic, good training programs, perfect diet, good lifestyle and sleep habits. Some have 10-15 years of training experience under their.
Fitting only one of the criteria above might be proof of anabolic steroid usage, but when you have three or four then you can make a case. The goal of identifying roid users is not to call them on shit, but it’s to prevent yourself from getting ripped off by training programs promising stellar results when your know the results were attained with illegal substances.
