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Who comes to mind when you picture a steroid user?
Close your eyes and think of the first person who pops up.
If you’re like most people you probably pictured Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan The Barbarian or Sylvester Stallone in Rocky IV.
Or maybe you thought of the massive bodybuilders you sometimes see at your gym hogging the bench press or the MMA fighters or other athletes who consistently end up in the news for testing positive for banned substances.
But what are the actual signs of steroid users? Buy legal steroids online here.
Table of Contents
Signs of Steroid Users
It’s very unlikely that you picture an out of shape man or woman who is just trying to get a leg up on getting in shape.
But that’s who a large percentage of steroid users are according to Doctor Michael Scally who told Mens Health
“Of all the people I’ve seen who admit taking steroids, I’d say 90 percent don’t even look like bodybuilders…they’re just using them to try to get in shape faster.”
That’s right, most people who use illegal steroids look more like the average man or woman than Conan or Rocky.
In fact what we normally associate as signs of steroid users are often signs of anabolic steroid abuse.
The jacked up guys you see on the covers of magazines like Muscular Development and Men’s Health or the guys you see at the gyms who are huge and ripped are often abusing more than using them.
Do all bodybuilders use steroids?
The answer is a resounding “no.” There are plenty of bodybuilders who have achieved massive results without the use of anabolic steroids, though they may not have achieved these results as quickly, they also didn’t suffer the dangerous consequences of steroid use.
With the right diet, the right workout and the right amount of discipline, your body has everything you need to reach your fitness goals without introducing anabolic steroids.
There is a whole community of bodybuilders who choose to forgo steroids for nutritional supplements that promote a lot of the same effects of synthetic steroids to a lesser degree.
If you take a minute to look at the before and after results of these bodybuilders, you will agree that performance-enhancing drugs are an option, not a necessity.
What are the signs of steroid use?
You may be able to spot steroid use by the increase in size of an athlete or bodybuilder, but not necessarily.
There is no doubt that steroids can be used to greatly increase a person’s sheer size. But as we established, a lot of these results can still be achieved without the use of steroids, albeit maybe at a slower rate.
In most cases, you will spot steroid use by negative, external side effects.
What are the side effects of steroids?
There are both internal and external steroid side effects in addition to the long-term dangers like liver cancer, kidney disease, high blood pressure, strokes and heart attacks.
The adverse effects are:
- Unnaturally rapid muscle growth
- In men, gynecomastia or the excessive development and enlargement of breast tissue
- Male pattern baldness
- Greasy hair and/or oily skin, sometimes accompanying severe bouts of acne on the face, back and shoulders
- Disturbed sleep patterns, including insomnia and oversleeping
- Dizziness, trembling, nausea or vomiting
- Jaundice
The internal signs are:
- High cholesterol
- High blood pressure
- Liver disease
- Joint pain
- Gynecomastia
- Heart disease
- Infertility
What are the behavioral effects of steroids?
Some of the most severe psychological and behavioral side effects of steroids can include:
- Mood swings or “roid rage,” sometimes leading to violent behavior
- Paranoia
- Extreme shifts in appetite
- Hyperactivity
- Depression
There are also specific signs that affect men and women differently, let’s now take a look at some of the ones that affect men.
Signs of Steroid Use in Men
One of the easiest ways to identify those who participate in anabolic steroid in men is if they have an action hero physique.
There are anatomical limits on how big and how lean a man can get without using drugs and if you see someone who challenges those ideas, chances are he might be using AAS.
Dr Harrison Pope M.D a professor at Harvard has even created a scale for measuring how close you are to your physiological ceiling based on a variety of factors like weight and height.
Based on the scale anything over a 26 or 27 is almost certainly on steroids or a genetic freak.
Another one of the common signs of steroid use in men is gynocomastia or enlarged breast tissue or swollen puffy nipples.
Men are also at risk for a variety of sexual side effects ranging from shrunken testicles to infertility and even erectile dysfunction.
Last but certainly not least especially for the vain bodybuilders out there is the hair loss that steroids can cause in men leading to thinning hair and even baldness.
Signs of Steroid Use In Females
With women, there often is not as pronounced of a muscular gain as there is with men.
Instead women often use steroids to lean out.
While it is possible for women to naturally have “6 pack abs” often times this is a sign that a woman is getting some chemical help.
Other signs in women include:
- Increased facial hair growth
- Decreased breast size
- An enlarged clitoris
- Deepened voice
- Irregular periods
Signs of Steroid Use In Athletes
The last group we will discuss when it comes to spotting steroid users is athletes.
Athletes can be one of the most difficult groups of people to detect because of the many impressive physiques found in professional sports.
In most cases we judge professional athletes on whether or not they pass “the eyeball test.” Meaning do they look like their physiques have changed over the years?
A famous example of an athlete failing the eyeball test while passing all of the required drug testing is Juan Manuel Marquez before his famous knockout win over Manny Pacquiao in their fourth fight.
Marquez showed up for the press requirements before the fight and at the weigh ins looking markedly more muscular at the age of 38 years old.
Marquez had fought to a draw and lost to pacquiao twice before the fourth fight but ended up scoring one of boxing’s most iconic knockouts of the last decade in this fight.
The eyeball test does not always tell the whole story though as you will often see athletes whose physiques are not impressive like Orlando Magic forward Rashard Lewis who was suspended for failing a test for performance enhancing drugs.
Another example is of Manny Ramirez the former Boston Red Sox slugger who never had an imposing physique before or after his drug test failure.
It makes sense that extremely competitive people who have millions of dollars on the line may be tempted to try steroids or performance enhancing drugs.
It’s also possible that millionaire athletes have access to new kinds of performance enhancing drugs that are undetectable.
This does not mean that the average guy should risk their health to get a better body.
There are a few signs of steroid users in bodybuilders we can look for that might point to potential use in athletes such as:
- Enhanced performance. The best example of this is a huge jump in power numbers like home runs by a baseball player who had never had that kind of power before.
- Gaining “15lbs of muscle” in the offseason. The term “15lbs of muscle” as well as being in “the best shape of my life” or showing up with a dramatically more muscular physique may point to potential steroid use in athletes.
- Suspicious activity with drug tests. Most professional athletes are only drug tested during competition, which makes passing a steroid test more of an intelligence test than an actual test for performance enhancing drugs.
Because most of the testing is scheduled and not random, if an athlete has any issues with a drug test such as Serena Williams or MMA fighter Alistair Overeem had it is a likely sign they have something to hide.
In conclusion, while there is no typical user, there are signs of steroid use in teenagers, in men, women and athletes.
These signs range from the external like hair loss and acne to the internal like roid rage, gynecomastia (in men) and infertility.
If you are considering using steroids, make sure that you are aware of all of the risks and signs associated with them and make sure you speak with a doctor before starting.
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- Vasiukova EA et al . [Anabolic steroids in the treatment of endocrine diseases]. Ter Arkh. 1969 Apr;41(4):9-15. Review. Russian. No abstract available.
- Rahnema CD et al . Anabolic steroid-induced hypogonadism: diagnosis and treatment. Fertil Steril. 2014 May;101(5):1271-9. doi: 10.1016/j.fertnstert.2014.02.002. Epub 2014 Mar 14. Review.
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3 Comments
Great article! It can sometimes be so hard to tell if people at the gym have bulked naturally or with a little help. Can be discouraging when you see others making huge gains only to find out theyre just juicing and thats why they gain faster
Really helpful article. A friend of mine went to a bodybuilding competition once and she and her husband could pick out many of the roid users based on how much acne was down their backs. Not a great look at all!
Very informative content. It’s nice to know how to monitor peoples gains in the gym, whether they’re natural or enhanced by specific drugs.