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I think Alan’s decision to not take anything because he wants to see how far he can take himself naturally is what I relate the most to. It’s not about perception of others, I just know once I open that door, I can never close it again. I’d like to see how far I can take it with all other aspects of training and nutrition.
@@Wisey_83 keep your mind open. For some of us its somewhere in the middle. Some guys wanna look alot better in their 30, 40s and 50s and maybe live 75years, not 99 you know.... Enough to see your grandchildren but maybe avoid diapers again...for yourself I mean ;) and I dont think simple testosterone blasting (with something like 400-500mg/week) and cruising(100-150mg/week) till the end of your life gonna cause that much dmg anyways.
That's why steroids are in fact addictive. I don't think you need a 35 minute video to defend that point. It's just the truth. Even Bromley said he got off for a while, got all soft and round and his wife hated his atritude when he was off. Those are signs of withdrawl. You can compare it to alcohol but that shit is not healthy for you either. Do what you want, it's America but natural will always be your safest bet.
Great honest, blunt discussion. Thank you. My beef with PEDs is the cheating in tested sport and manipulation of naïve social media viewers for financial gain.
@@foca7550 Shockingly bad take. What a lack of contribution to a discussion. "You know man, we're like all stardust, so like, what does it all even matter? Drugs are just like, molecules, which are like, atoms, which are like subatomic particles, so like, why talk about a topic, when there's a much broader topic to talk about?" Blaming steroid use on "capitalism" is dumb. People have many incentives for their actions. In fact, if they were really capitalists, they would never go to the gym again, and instead get a finance certification and sell people investments. It would be a far more effective use of their time, and much easier to monetize. Blaming all "negative" behavior on this ambiguous "capitalism" is dumb.
Just as a note, I've updated my opinion since that time you mentioned. I think you're referring to the Humiston video? I gave him a hard time mostly because he put out 50 videos on different bicep curls, said progressive overload and compound movements don't work, not for injecting test. I'll probably make a full video on it at some point. I still often see TRT used recklessly. The latest Iron Culture episode covered this: just *4%* of those starting TRT had the advised two low tests, and 2/3rds had no test at all! That combined with the very high rate of ceasing TRT after one year of starting (85% dropping out [!!!]) makes me quite critical of it as a whole. Many men just think it'll solve all their problems then are underwhelmed. I do still follow a variety of sources, both natural and enhanced, and some of the latter still put out invaluable information, such as yourself. I also don't think taking TRT when actually needed should be shamed or stigmatized. But at the same time, it's so often just shredded instagram or tiktok influencers who never learned how to train pushing BS, and claiming TRT while just blasting away. I'm pro natural. But I'm not entirely anti-enhanced. I have friends who use. It's their choice. Ultimately I think people should just be informed and try to make the best decision for themselves.
Sorry, I should have specified the video but it was just off the top of my head. It was some influencer I had never heard of who was natty for a time then went on trt. A full TRT video would be great! No doubt there's a frivolous component of the industry and I would love to see some more hard data on reported benefits and concrete risks. The number of people who stop by 1 year seems like a daming number, but I can't help but think of how many people ditch their blood pressure medication out of sheer inconvenience. My brother was on trt and exclaimed how it saved his libido which was affecting his marriage..... only to stop because he didn't like taking injections.
Nice points and my observation of the TRT trend as well. The significant majority of the uptick are from guys who have normal levels of test but think TRT is their loophole to legal/ethical/moral PEDs and that it'll make them the Chad Thundercocks overnight/without effort. Much like dispensaries, these TRT clinics are mostly just a competition of which doctors have the loosest prescirption pad (oops 799 is lower than optimal, better jump on a higher end dose to correct that).
Yeah, it's a very different world for prescriptions. Doctors are taught a much more conservative prescribing practice than the public would like, because doctors see the knock on effects and all the side effects present in large groups taking these meds. Trt clinics are viewed with suspicion because most of them embrace very poor prescribing practices, doing exactly what natural health advocates claim is already medicines main goal: treating a lifestyle problem with pharmacology.
@@viator22 I think a majority of doctors aren’t specialist so that’s why they don’t prescribe it as often. I had a 197 ng/dl test levels and they didn’t contact me for two weeks. I called that doctor and said I’m going to a actual clinic and have been doing great on HRT for 5 years.
72 yrs old and still lifting. If I had ever done steroids, it's likely I'd be in a wheelchair or dead. Dreaming for a 315 bench in the upcoming year, and that's plenty for me.
Man I don’t think you’re promoting drug use at all. I appreciate your content. As a natty I think there’s a lot of bullshit about drugs, whether it’s straight up lying or just disingenuous. I’m never going to take steroids, but I’m interested in how they affect those who do, so thanks for keeping it real.
Fair assessment. I think getting on gear as a strength afficionado should stay a personal choice. If you like your life as a natty and you feel you're good without them, go ahead. If you don't and want to get on some stuff, do it. It's all a personal choice. Neither side should be lambasting the other.
I think Allen is trying to help average joes not feel pressure to use gear just because other people do. Gear use is incredibly prevalent and he’s using himself as a man example of success without steroids. Allen made some points that I don’t agree with on a factual level which you addressed very well. I think the real motive of his video is just trying to lower peer pressure to use gear to normal people which would probably be beneficial for many people
In regards to the Geoffrey quote: we lose sight of what “low” test is. Low test, as in low normal, can often be fixed via lifestyle and dietary changes. A lot of folks I know who ended up using TRT were in the low normal range with absolutely fucked sleep, diet, and training. I don’t begrudge anyone for using trt, but I do get concerned when clinics prescribe without addressing those factors. Being outside of the normal range is a different beast altogether, and may need lifestyle changes and trt.
It seems that a lot of guys that go on TRT don't like it and come off. The "you tube TRT" trend of the last 5 years has probably accelerated that somewhat. Personally, I have low T (230, tested multiple times), in spite of good lifestyle, and was a candidate for TRT, but was advised against it by endocrinologists because I've had issues with blood clotting and stroke risk. However, it's really easy for me to put on muscle, almost ridiculously easy. My Doc thinks that's probably the result of naturally high IGF-1 levels. I'm in the minority, clearly, but evidence now suggests that the link between test levels and muscle growth may not be quite as strong as once thought, not until you get to super-physiological levels that is.
I 100 percent believe this. Lifestyle can totally change your test. A sedentary person who gets no sleep, doesn't eat right, doesn't exercise, can definitely raise his test levels dramatically by doing most things right and should always attempt to do so before just coming to the conclusion "I have low test and need to take trt".
@@BuJammy excellent comment. I was in the 250’s when I got tested. I adjusted my sleep and stress (finished grad school lol) and I feel better. I’d be curious to retest. Barbell medicine has done some good work disseminating the research on test and muscle building.
@@GVS definitely agree, I’d have to rewatch the referenced video but I tend to agree with your pov on many topics. If anything, you might’ve made a comment that sounds more absolute than intended. I would casually say “most men don’t need trt” when I really mean “it’s highly unlikely that you do, as even with low t you can do many things to raise it without pharma. Talk to your medical team and find solutions.”
@@markmele2131 Of course you were. If you can gain 10lbs of QUALITY muscle in a calendar year as a natural. You've done extremely well. Past newbie gains few realize how slow the process is. That's how you out someone on steroids. Nobody ever gains 30lbs of muscle in a few months. I don't care what your genetics.
I like the fact that Alan is staying true to himself by not using. He doesn't need to justify his stance to others but I'm glad it's based on his values rather than feeling pressure from others to change his values. The same should be true for those who do use and the reasons that motivate them to do so.
Alan Thrall would still break through starting today. He is extremely unique and he would find a way to get it done. It would be enough to set himself apart.
When GVS talks about not needing to replace testosterone just because it's low, it's because there are so many lifestyle changes one can make before jumping to PEDs. If your sleep, food, stress, recovery are all bad, then your testosterone is going to tank, the solution to that isn't injecting testosterone.
Sleep food and stress is not the difference between test being 90 and 500. If someone has hypogonadism, there are a bunch of potential causes and you as someone who is speculating on someone elses treatment has no idea what they are or what the solution should be.
@@AlexanderBromley good points all around. I would say A) I'm looking at this from more of a population basis than an individual basis. What percentage of men are actually living a reasonable lifestyle and have a testosterone level as low as 90? Are lifestyle factors going to get you from 90 to 500, certainly not. Would they get you from 200 to 300 and thus put you in the normal range? Possibly right. Although I am admittedly outside my depth here so maybe I'm talking out of my ass. B) I'm also not sitting here judging every individual taking testosterone and assuming they're just a lazy POS and that i know their lives and their bodies better than them to be clear. I just think across a population the average person with low testosterone has several changes they could make before injecting test. But again, definitely not my area of expertise
@@danielgilbert8338I think your take makes total sense. Let’s not kid ourselves here. Theres tons of influencers out here pushing this narrative of how they had low T so they can say they’re on TRT… when many of them are definitely cycling/dosing higher than TRT treatment for hypogonadal causes. It allows them to be open about some of their use but not give the game away. So not only does this normalize the TRT thing and make it trendy as a means to get big under the guise of a medical treatment… but it’s also misleading, because the influencers have misled what they’re actually taking. So what you get from all this is kids who start dosing, and are disappointed when it doesn’t get them huge like their favorite influencer. And once you start using drugs to increase muscle size, those drugs become a much bigger variable / pedal to step on to get bigger, since those individuals never figured out the process to put even 10lbs of muscle on naturally. That’s a very slippery slope that is dragging people to continued PED abuse and eventually crashing out, looking like shit, and no longer caring about fitness.
Good for Alan for being so blunt. Social media is causing so many young men to have anxiety about their body and so many are looking to drugs to feel better about themself and appeal to others.
Not really social media in way you think. It's because women think that these PED users are just normal male physique if you're even slightly athletic. While in truth no man can ever reach those levels without using PEDS or working out for decades (depends what you're trying to reach).
I think his point is that adding strength artificially past his natty peak will not benefit his life further. But the natty training he has done definitely benefitted him via physical health and mental strength.
I think GVS' mindset in his video is that people are being made to feel like they need TRT. He points out in the vid that it's very easy to be diagnosed with low T if there isn't a comprehensive testing process. The issue stems from people who could likely improve their life in many other ways at no financial cost being convinced that there is a problem. That's not to say that there isn't a problem for certain individuals, but people have a tendency to nocebo themselves into a lot of situations. It's more about the fact that a lot of people don't need TRT, but that doesn't invalidate those that genuinely do. Everyone is welcome to do whatever tf they want, but it's about removing the pressure of "what if I have low T?" As a cause for concern for people that needn't be bothered by this mindset. Just food for thought
Understood, but that would only be a point of concern if there was something at stake, either some consequence for taking TRT when you don't "need" it (assuming there is a clear definition of "legitimate need") or no potential benefit. There isn't an epidemic of people wrestling with the effects of coming off 100mg of test, but there are a sea of people who found their lives improved substantially by taking it. It's easy to get trt prescribed because a ton of people have low T, or at least are in a position where they might experience health/quality of life beneifts by elevating it, and it isn't even remotely as dangerous as the psychotropics or pain killers that get regularly prescribed. If a doctor, who has no care whatsoever of your next bench PR, says "you might benefit from supplementing this hormone you are deficient in", jabber from the internet community about it can only be a result of an irrational stigma they've assigned to it.
@@AlexanderBromley Yeah that's fair, I def agree with that mindset. If it's something that would susbtantially improve your quality of life with negligible side effects, then I suppose it's really an obvious decision. I think a lot of internet jabber comes from those who want to draw a line in the sand in the lifting community. Beyond that, I think there's a lot of anti-drug (including legitimate pharmaceutical) rhetoric floating around. People like to correlate obvious moderation with clear abuse of substances like they're one and the same. Anyways, really good vid and good to have an open conversation about things, thanks dude
And it rebounds in 6 weeks with a normal post-cycle therapy. No one has ever been permanently shut down off 100mg of test. The fucking hysteria you guys engage in; overwhelmingly comes from people who aren't active, eat like shit and drink recreationally.
There's this sense that success doesn't count unless you disadvantaged yourself as much as possible, which is strange to me. Where people put that line of how disadvantaged you need to be for it to count is arbitrary. I've met guys in football that were brilliant athletes who would brag about being 'all-natural' because they didn't lift weights; from their vantage point, having to train to get stronger was next to cheating. Not discounting the personal standards Alan holds for himself, just drawing some connections to how we talk ourselves out of doing everything we can to succeed. I think there are parallels to how society views success in general.
@@AlexanderBromley "There's this sense that success doesn't count unless you disadvantaged yourself as much as possible..." That's one way to look at it, although more likely that should be; "There's this sense that success doesn't count if you advantaged yourself as much as possible / beyond what is reasonable..." Probably most people's "sense" of "reasonable" is sticking a needle in your ass and deliberately intervening in your hormonal processes in a very direct way. Personally, I don't care if someone is enhanced or not, and I live in a country (Britain) where steroid use is legal.
@@AlexanderBromley it's very curious how you associate being natural as being disadvantaged, even tho it's as the name suggests, the natural way of things. The difference between drugs and genetics is that you can decide to up the dosage whenever you're not satisfied. I get the feeling that because you became "unnatural" now being natural ironically doesn't seem natural to you
Training with weights is unnatural, as are the programs we follow, the things we eat, the clothes we wear, our modes of entertainment, our method of transportation, our medical and surgical procedures, and on and on. But something tells me you wouldn't give those up. Everyone has a problem with things that aren't natural, right up until it describes the things in their lives they enjoy and take for granted. I don't view PED as 'unnatural' or otherwise; they aren't any more or less unnatural than any other drug, medically prescribed or otherwise, that people can take without the same stigma. I view the fixation on 'natural' as disengenous in the first place because 'natural' doesn't describe anything about our lives. I also don't believe that 'more natural' automatically means better.
21:21 Interesting point, but I think Thrall is also part of the reason the strength space on RUclips is so saturated now. OGs like him paved the way. But yeah also the standards to stand out in terms of performance have increased a lot, I can think of untested former ATWR holders from when I started lifting who wouldnt even be competitive at the USAPL nationals now if they put up those same numbers today (and somehow slipped through the cracks with the testing)
Lifetime natty fatty, I have some trophies and record certificates from powerlifting in my office (always good to have something to break the ice with customers) A lot of conversations start like this: Them: what are those trophies for? Me: powerlifting Them: so like bodybuilding? Me: yea kind of (i've learned not to even try to explain lol) Them: so how much can you bench? Me: just north of 500lbs Them: no way! My friend is like this ( *performs ILS syndrome pose* ) and benches like 300 Me: *shows video* Them: oh so you must like take steroids and stuff.... Always goes from there's no way I can to I must be on gear 😂
@@aavila1206 one of the certificates literally says drug tested on it (they dont look that close though, usually just a quick glance and "what are those?")
I'm more in the same camp as Alan, I train to see how strong I can get on my own while enjoying the process and I intend to keep lifting and chipping away at said process for several decades. I really appreciate your openness on the topic though. Keeping a lid on this controversial topic does nothing good. Sub'd!
I think the issue with perception of guys on TRT is the volume of guys on, like you said, """"TRT""""" that they got from the LA Fitness locker room, or guys that are shut down from previous gear now needing it. These guys are just like the recreational marijuana users who have "chronic back pain" but just want to get high and watch Animal Planet. The perception of the prevalence of these people ruin the legitimate use for everyone else
It seems that a lot of guys that go on TRT don't like it and come off. The "you tube TRT" trend of the last 5 years has probably accelerated that somewhat.
Nah, it’s because people who eat garbage, never get enough sleep, or try to stay extremely lean year round use TRT to overcome the unwillingness to work.
Amen brother. My biggest takeaway from this was you mentioning our time on this rock is short. The risk to reward of engaging in gear is subjective and an individual decision. I'm a 60 year old retired Marine and also a washed up powerlifter. I do however train 6 days a week and try to stay strong and relevant but it's getting hard. I'm dangerously close to trying TRT to see if I can prolong the inevitable. I no longer care what my total is, I just want to remain active and not become a food blister. Alan is a Marine and has an interesting past in the Corps. What he did for our fallen Marines; trust me few others have. If he's juiced or natty I do not care - he's a Marine and that's all that matters to me. Semper Fi, Ken
It would be interesting to dig deeper in another video about how your social interactions changed after achieving your strength and size gains and the impact it had on your life outside of the gym.
@@AlexanderBromley I believe this is something many people can relate to and would enjoy discussing. Personally, I've had many changes in my life as a result of pursuing strength and size. It has definitely impacted the world around me and changed my social interactions. Sometimes it's not always positive things, though. It really sucks when you're significantly injured. Your mood and lifestyle can get all kinds of fucked up.
All good points as usual. I'm a big fan of Thrall, and I like getting the different perspectives on these things from people with different goals and the like. Alan's point about not wanting to lie to people is valid, at least on the bodybuilding side of things (I can't comment on PL/strongman influencers, I don't follow that many). Bodybuilding social media is fucking FLOODED with fake nattys selling shit programs and cashing in on their, for lack of a better term, dumb luck. And it's mainstream as hell, like Chris Hemsworth's fitness app bullshit that doing some kettlebell dick swings will make you as jacked as Thor.
this is a topic that is EVERYWHERE in the industry that apparently nobody wants to talk about. It's good it gets some exposure. I really have the same, "mindset" as mr Thrall when it comes to the "why".. It wouldn't be me and my achievement it would be because of substance abuse to reach a set goal. But I can still appreciate the being devils advocate, because, as with so many things when it comes to fitness health and sport there's a shitload of nuances. as always great content!
I disagree a bit with the trt point you made. Geoffrey is correct in that low T does not necessarily mean you should go on trt. If you only take one sample ALL men will turn up for low T out of every few tests. Testosterone, like literally every other hormone in your body, is not produced constantly (nor should it be) it fluctuates as needed. Yes there are people who have chronically low T, as in they test low over and over no matter the time of day and independent of other lifestyle choices. However those people are in a SIGNIFICANT minority of men. Just pinging for low T on a test does not warrant going on HRT, especially if you are under 35, and have in-tact testes. People are really just using a very normal thing (a random low T score) as the free pass to go on cycle and brush it off as a medical intervention when 9 times out of 10 it was unnecessary.
The robot Arms example is very interesting, I think it speaks to the difference in perspectives. If my main goal is body building and making my muscles bigger, I could inject some synthol or whatever in there and the goal is accomplished, muscles are bigger. But that's not the point for me, the point is seeing how I can get my body to adapt to training. What I can build through hard work Strapping on robot arms might make you stronger, but the experiment of what strength you can build for yourself is over.
Absolutely true! For some, aesthetics is the point, and to that end implants and lipo have become completely normalized. Bodybuilders see synthol as a dirty tactic, but you wouldn't likely speak down to a girl who had fake breasts or lip injections (even though the bodybuilder has a vested interest in aesthetics and the person who gets lip injections does so frivolously) Some want the journey and some want the destination. Its the difference between buying a faster sports car and spending years fixing up an old model T.
@@AlexanderBromley good points. The parallel with cosmetic enhancements is an interesting one. At the end of the day this is just about looking good to some people. For me the journey has become the main motivation to such a degree that it's hard for me to understand that perspective, which is a failure on my part. Appreciate the conversation. I'm a newer subscriber, so very impressed by the level of engagement. Your ability to make analogies and find parallels in other parts of life is very much conducive to a productive conversation. Keep up the great work!
I think priorities matter when you think about fitness in a modern context. I'll happily brand myself as a recreational lifter (perhaps hypertrophy focused). I don't ever plan on using steroids, but if I had a health condition that affected my testosterone, I'd seriously consider TRT (as I would for another hormone deficiency). I think that's a rational discussion to have. One of the reasons why I really dislike social media is what it does to people's perception of what is 'normal' or 'regular'. I think this has a lot of unhealthy consequences, such as living outside your means or chasing something that isn't exactly achievable. Comparing yourself and your performance to another lifter when you're missing context can be fairly damaging especially when you consider how young some of the folks are on these platforms. Plus, some of the influencers are dishonest shills for the garbage they're selling. Makes my skin crawl to think about what some of these young kids have to filter through. FWIW, I started lifting in early high school with sports... and luckily missed out on a lot of the social media nonsense. But, I did also have much less access to information (coaches and peers mostly). Tradeoffs, I guess. I definitely was indoctrinated into compound basics and hard work, but I really wish I knew how to balance my lifting (basic programming these days).
I'm really glad your talking more about this. We need more honest people talking openly about these things. You can easily go down whatever rabbit hole depending on your Google search. Trt is either a great idea or a terrible one. Just depends what I type in the search bar Appreciate the info
Steriods must be psychologically addictive because most steroid users are addicted to it via the way they feel and their strength levels and body composition. Weed is also addictive even though before I'd say it wasn't, it is. If you can't stay off it, its addictive. I appreciate the honesty in your videos but if you take PED you are risking your health and you can become addicted to the benefits vs. healthy body. I dont care what people do but the truth needs to be laid out on the table.
You aren't entirely wrong. We describe being drawn into something that provides a benefit or makes us feel a certain way as broadly 'addictive' but that definition is watered down and applies to just about everything: sugar, relationships, adrenaline. The force that pushes people to take those things to the extreme (where most dont) lies more with the individual being prone to compulsive behavior. When we talk about the type of addiction that hard drugs create, we are talking about a specific physiological response that effects everyone, regardless of personality. 100% of people experience withdrawal symptoms from going off heroin. No such thing as testosterone withdrawal
@@AlexanderBromley I'm defining "addictive" as anything your being physically/ psychologically drawn to over and over again, disregarding the side affects to your physical and mental/psychological health. Didn't you say in a video your wife hates when you get off PED's because you get moody? That sounds like symptoms of withdrawal to me. Maybe not in the way heroine would be but a symptom of withdrawl no less. Also, you said you got off cycle for a while and now your back on. So you were drawn back to PED's. It's hard for you to stay off the whole phase of cycling. Im not judging you or anyone for it but anything can become addictive and steriods are surely one of those things. So, I just thought it was strange you would take a hard stance on steroids not being addictive while you yourself have gotten back on cycle after trying to be off for a time. It's like when people say weed isn't addictive while not being able to go a day without smoking in some capacity.
@@AlexanderBromley Yes it is, dude. I know you have skin in the game but if your being honest with yourself you'll know it's the truth. Have you ever seen an oxycodone addict without pills? Mood swings out the yin yang. Even weed addicts get moody without their smoke. Your the same age or maybe younger than me and you look at least 10 years older and steroids accelerated your hair loss. Steroid have net positive effects only to strength gains and the gym. Your internal and external health and appearance suffers and you don't like being without PED's because you've been on them since your 20's. Is it all really worth it? Your not a professional strongman who makes their living through strength competition. You make money on RUclips and have a regular job. I would respect you just as much as a strength coach if you weren't on PED's and had good programming ideas. It's an ego boost at the end of the day and I know you could easily do impressive number if you quit steroid and put the (longer) time in as a natural lifter. Please, just stop acting like PED's or being off of them for that matter aren't addictive and/or don't affect your mood because that's just not the truth. Even certain PED's their self are mood-altering and you know that.
overall fair response but i think the comparison to alcohol doesn't take into account usage rate. if people used steroids at the same rate as they used alcohol, its health effects might dwarf alcohol's. it's just that almost everyone drinks, whereas maybe less than 1% of people use steroids. imagine if 99% of people used steroids, instead of 1%, just as about 99% of people drink at least occasionally. how many more deaths would there be then?
If half the population drank and the other half took a moderate amount of gear, cycling off and getting health markers checked regularly, there is zero doubt that the alcohol group would experience more death and dysfunction. By a lot. Millions of people use (without really knowing what they are doing) and there isn't so much as an estimate of how many deaths are linked to it.
You only think there's a lot of deaths because a few prominent bodybuilders die somewhat regularly. 100s of millions of people worldwide use anabolics. Are they all dropping like flies? You'd hear about it in the news if it were an epidemic. So, they're not. Also, athletes from other sports that abuse PEDs aren't dropping like flies.
@@toximan2008 no it's just a statistical fact. has nothing to do with anecdote. more people die on the bodybuilding stage than fighting in MMA matches.
I'm 100% with Alan on the "scenic route". I want to enjoy the ride, take my time, breathe the fresh air and go at my pace. Maybe down the line I do wanna go 150 mph balls to the wall in the Ferrari, but not any time soon
just started watching the channel, Bromley is very intelligent, analytical, and nuanced... very impressive analysis all around, one of the best weightlifting channels I've seen
I strongly relate to Alans point. Being natty just is natural, there's kind of a sense of health and respect for your wholistic fitness that comes with positive attitudes to being natty. Obviously if you want to be able to work harder and grow bigger and get stronger, and have the time to commit to those goals, then go for it. But I'd rather feel like a human being and feel pride in my natural ability. With one caveat: possibly at an older age I might consider some Test, just to keep being strong and able to lift, run, do sports, etc.
I'm not sure that's quite a perfect analogy, alcohol and steroids. Like, far less people in America are killed by landmines than they are by steroids. That doesn't mean landmines are fine.
?? Landmines are infinitely more deadly than alcohol. Steroids are objectively less. You can't support the thing that ruins lives without providing a positive return and demonize steroids and be considered a consistent person.
@@AlexanderBromley haha sorry man, just some random snark I threw in between (bad) bench sets. My more fully fleshed out thought is that it's a very simplistic comparison with no nuance. Obviously, way more alcohol is consumed than steroids, so it would make sense that more people would die from it. If steroid use was as widespread as alcohol was, what would be the effects on society at large? Probably quite bad- of course, worse than alcohol? That's the argument you could make. It's a comparison that needs a per usage/per capita kind of thing to be valid, that's what I'm getting at
@@cyurisich Don't apologize. My point is that, yes, steroid use is proportionately less dangerous than alcohol use (by a lot), both in terms of early deaths and in terms of tanking quality of life. Alcohol abuse doesn't just kill people from poisoning or liver damage, it is responsible for contributing to automotive deaths, domestic violence, sexual abuse and is credited with the desolation of entire communities. Levels of steroid abuse comparable to alcoholism is extraordinarily rare because it's so prohibitively expensive (and typically pointless), and, even at its worse, doesn't result in the same cost to the community.
I agree with so much of what you said here but at around 7:20 in I have to disagree with your sentiments. The difference is training without PED's and getting stronger, bigger etc is coming without the potential health risks. So with PED's there is the normal associated benefit of training but along with it risk, and for a lot not just risk - harm. You can train and get the benefits without that harm by not using. Thresholds of diminishing returns are at play here wouldn't you say?
I have a Pituitary gland tumor and I don't produce testosterone anymore, I have to take trt for the rest of my life probably if I don't undergo medical knifing. TRT SUCKS. Finding the dose, mantaining, it feels diferent having a high level instead of pulses like normal trt. Things feel different that they've felt before. I've always had high test, and I needed to change doctor because the first didin't believe in that and thought I just wanted to use it for muscle gain, even tough I was big before this problem came to surface. Things aren't like they seems when they make ads for trt, just more energy etc.. fuck that, and the psychologic part of it all? Your body works very differently and the chance of someone talking about that instead of just 'ye e ey ey muscle more muscle my dick is hard all day like a teenager!!' like this was normal as an adult. There's so much disinformation, so much, there's so many levels of education about our fucking body man, the way it works it's crazy. People just don't realize how much they are messing with everything in their lives just because they want to 'look better'. Also: testosterone is definitely psychologically and physiologically addicting.
I remember one time I went on this high frequency strict OHP specialization block because I was impatient (which was stupid). I made 5 to 7 pound jumps every three weeks or so until the shit was so draining I had to stop. My idea was that I was going to take a week off, and then just progress it at a normal pace for a while. After only one week off I was noticably weaker on the movement. Some of that progress was an artifact of the specialization, and didn't increase what I had naturally at baseline. It really was similar to going off gear. Then I realized, what's happening with the OHP right now, is going to happen with every lift as I get stronger. The specialization seemed like a magic bullet, but had I focused moreso on building more mass, I could have raised my performance capacity at baseline. All that seemed really productive when I was doing it, but it was a training masterbation.
Yeah. I have found that, despite getting noticeably more muscular over my third consecutive year of training… better body composition now than when I was previously at my same body weight, bigger arms, etc… most of my big lifts have stalled and in some cases gotten weaker. I have never really specializes yet, and insist on attempting a 5 rep max for all the standard compound movements every “training week” (usually 8 day frequency). It’s kind of discouraging to see that I’m not as strong as I expected to be… but my overall training volume is significantly higher right now than the time point I’m comparing myself to. I suspect if I backed off to train 3 times a week instead of 5 or took a break from OHP, my bench would go up (or vice versa). But I kind of read your experience and think to myself that modifying my training only to hit the magic PR numbers wouldn’t really serve anything but my ego
@@spencerschubert5001 If you got bigger pressing muscles, and your pressing didn't improve, you might just need some practice to get efficient enough at using that new muscle. If it's not that, then it's almost certainly that your upper back is behind. If you don't have good control of your scapula, and your spine, your body won't let you use the strength that you have. If your bent rows go up enough enough everything goes up, because that is what is going to build stability, and force transfer in all of your lifts. If you are missing that, then yeah, you should modify shit. That needs to be not only worked on, but moving up.
@@leinekenugelvondoofenfocke1002 funny enough, it’s the presses that are kind of lagging. I went from 5 reps of 60lb weighted pull ups to now 5 reps of body-weight+80lbs. But I must admit I don’t don’t prioritize horizontal rows nearly as much… so I might try a phase to build strength there. I have a feeling that if I push myself to gain 15lbs over about 6 months to reach a new high body weight, I’ll crush my press PRs
21:05 this is a question that a lot of us have about different creators. A lot of the guys that are grandfathered in with an audience wouldn’t be as big. That said Alan does have quite a bit of charisma so he’d have some level Of success even if he started now.
You have great videos about programming and the mechanics of hypertrophy and strength, but I can't agree with you here. I feel like your own experience using steroids has changed what's normal for you and messed with your head a lot. I see this in how you talked about other people's perception of you. If an amount of hypertrophy is not possible for you to achieve naturally, it is unhealthy to pursue it for the sake of other people's perception. Maxing out your natural potential is pretty dang badass, even if you don't look like anything special compared to the gear users. I know a guy who's a pretty prominent politician here in Sweden, and he's jacked. He doesn't have a lot of time for lifting nowadays with his profession, but he's still pretty close to his ceiling, and he gives off an aura of power, strength, and stability. In fact, I've noticed in pictures of myself lately, as a natural early intermediate lifter with some bulk on, weighing just over 200 lbs, I look big and respectable, and I've still got a lot of room to grow. Someone who's significantly bigger than my politician friend just starts looking like a gear user, someone who messes with his hormones and fertility because of insecurities. That does not give off the same aura. For the record, I think birth control, especially hormonal, is a bad idea. Having kids is awesome. But that's not important for this. You say they're not hard drugs, and I have to concede the benefit of the doubt since you've used, and I haven't. However, I find it hard to believe something that when used gives you high and stable testosterone and then takes that away into zero until recovery (if you're lucky) isn't physiologically or chemically addictive for the same reasons you describe how beneficial TRT can be for men's health. Having low testosterone really makes you feel awful physically. It sucks. You're frail, tired, irritable, socially weak, and your lifts suck too. That's the chemical addiction. I also think it's inevitable that people get addicted to the high and start thinking they're nothing without the gear, something Alan mentions. If you've taken gear and added like 100 lbs to your deadlift, and then you have to come off, your lifts will drop back down. Possibly to well below what you were doing as a peak natty. You become afraid of losing your gains to the point you keep taking, ignoring all the risks. You become Larry Wheels. Steroids make you feel super good and powerful, and when you come off, you are in a weaker state than you were before you started taking them to begin with. Sounds like hard drugs to me. Lastly, you talk about mortality. It clearly wears you down, even if it takes a long time. It can make a low test man in his 40s or 50s feel better, but that doesn't mean he'll feel better decades into the usage. And a guy who's been using since he was young is gonna become that fat, washed up uncle with b tch tits unless he keeps using the drugs, in which case he's putting a further strain on his heart and the other organs. The same way that you mentioned weed mortality is reported from insane and rare uses like the locked in a room with a pound, consider that your assessment of mortality doesn't bring up something obvious as well. Sure, these people might not have died when they did if it weren't for the other drugs they were using, but that does nothing to prove that the steroids don't shorten lifespan. Immediate (like with the diuretics) and more short-term and medium-term deaths are not all deaths. If they were, you could also argue that smoking tobacco is mostly not harmful, and that there's an anti-tobacco hysteria. But of course, we know that's not true. The oldest woman who ever lived made it to 122 and she was a lifelong smoker, and we all know a smoker who made it to 90-something, but we also know that it causes a lot of deaths and disability, including from lung cancer, decreased heart capacity, cataracts, etc. We also always ask, when an old smoker finally dies, how long they would've lived without the cigs. Why is that not a legitimate question for the steroid users? There's an obsession with your organs being "okay" after being done with gear (if you can get yourself to stop taking it) and not enough talk about how much their capacity and health was reduced by taking it. Being within normal levels isn't the same as doing as well as you were before the usage.
What an excellent post. Sums up everything I wanted to say and even more so. sadly these real concerns and points made against it will be ignored as people who see these problems as people who are just puritans and do not see the positive sides of these drugs. If you are dependent on a Drug to pass through the day. In my book. You are a drug addict. Doesn't matter if it is legal or illegal drug. Painkillers are legal street drugs. Did people not learn anything from the prescription drug problem during early 2000s?
No, that is not what an addict is. This 'purity spiral' phenomenon of having stricter and stricter standards makes 'perfect the enemy of good'. It is like when they count homeless populations as people who live out of trailers and are couch surfing (because anyone not in a home is unacceptable, we need to save them all!); the numbers get inflated 3x as much and it gets labeled as a 'housing' crisis while the absolutely destitute, those shitting on the sidwalks, don't get the priority they deserve. Or when everyone wants to 'normalize' mental health by making posts about their struggles with anxiety or intrusive thoughts (because ALL mental health is valid and don't want to leave anyone behind!), meanwhile those with schizophrenia or histories of massive trauma, those who are the most risk to themselves and others, get lost in the noise. Yours is a completely puritanical and functionally useless definition of 'addict'. It steals all attention away from those who are actually suffering the consequences that addiction is supposed to define. This is how you guarantee serious problems go unsolved.
This is such a Swedish response it's comical. There is a book from the 70s called the new totalitarians by Roland Huntford explaining the puritanical character of Sweden. Highly recommend!
Sorry to make two comments on one video, but I don’t know if I agree on drug use and local meets for Strongman specifically. I did a local Strongman meet a couple of years ago and I’m very confident that almost all of the competitors were on PEDs (exception of me, another novice, a girl, and a couple of older dudes). To me, this seems to set the bar for the events. For example, there was a strongman style squat for max reps. I think if the LOCAL competition was based on a natural strength bell curve, the weight would’ve been 400-450 for the MWM. However, the meet director chose 500 lbs. I’d be lucky to hit that for 1-2 reps, I think a 500 squat for a natural at 200lbs Bodyweight is huge, not to mention for reps. It feels extremely difficult to hit the barrier for entry into strongman as a natural, since the standards are based on guys who take drugs.
Brian Shaw has always said the perfect Strongman event is one that a third will do very well a third will do alright and a third will fail miserably regardless of competition level (something to this effect)so any event that everyone or near everyone can do is too easy. What makes this important is that Shaw is at the forefront of a prominent people in the Strongman push to higher relevance. We know that influence trickles down the grapevine more than back up it the vast majority of the time. The sport is already getting a bit of a backlash for getting lighter and more movement oriented and away from static displays of power at it's most publicly watched show. I can't imagine it getting lighter now.
8:47 "You can even take that one step further and infer things about [list of non-physical but beneficial traits]" - I actually just got my dream job, after years of unemployment, because of this exact scenario. Some awesome people who don't even lift, but are good friends with lifters who got me in touch with them, hired me on the basis I probably have all those things if I have worked towards a national record and have the comp history I do. They didn't really know me from a bar of soap, and even though I had the right degree, I have gone through LONG stretches of unemployment so my work history is vary varied and spotty and just about non-existent, tbh, so they basically took a chance on me because I showed up having put some care into my appearance and with them knowing some of my lifting feats from our mutual friends. So yes, the degree to which that has improved my life - I couldn't possibly impart how much this has helped me turn my life around! With regard to the core topic, perhaps I could have had the same response if I was in a non-tested fed, but I doubt it. The people would be different, and yes, the perception would be different. Whether my bosses could spot a user, though, not sure.
I agree with a lot of what you said but not about it not being hard drugs, That is simply denial, people on high levels of streroids will never be able to come off of steroids for the rest of their life physiologically. There is a also a huge array of psychological side effects and health detriments.
Context beats hysteria 10/10 times. 1.) That's not the definition of 'hard drugs'. It's more than "something with a risk I personally don't want to take" 2.)The incidence of people who are permanently shut down is really damn small and usually a result of reckless use over a long period of time without break. 3.) Whatever psychological or health detriments you can point to are not worse than those experienced with casual alcohol consumption, which I'm guessing you don't have a problem with.
@@AlexanderBromley Hardly hysteria, any drug used in high dosages could come under the wikipedia definition of "hard drugs" if used in high enough quantities. Paracetamol is a harmless painkiller, but its also a cousin of heroin. You cannot see physical benefits of PED's or steroids without abusing steroids. TRT I think is a taboo but brilliant form of treatment that is yet to be recognised, but to say steroids are not hard drugs is not true
@@AlexanderBromley Regarding number 3, isn't that kind of just avoiding the fact that steroids have negative effects? We're not talking about alcohol, we're talking about people harming themselves with unnecessary steroid usage. Also you mentioned permanent shutdowns are rare and a result of reckless use, how many of those alcohol relate deaths are rare and from reckless use? Seems like some kind of copium here TBH
@Ben Lincoln "You can't see physical benefits of PEDs without abusing steroids" Are you just making this shit up? You must be, I can't even think of anyone you might have seen on social media dumb enough to have planted this seed in your head. What's it like to have strong opinions about things you have no experience, education or operational knowledge of? Ben, seriously, that was one of the most dumbass statements I've ever seen on social media. Re: your insistance that words don't have definitions: When you stretch and deconstruct the definitions of words to encompass anything to satisfy whatever point you're trying to make, you remove any functional use those definitions have. "Hard drugs" is used to identify especially dangerous compounds, it is not a definition you slap on "anything used in excess to where it's harmful", otherwise it would encompass so many over-the-counter drugs that it would be useless as a means of differentiating really, imminently dangerous shit from things that can be used responsibly as a tool. Your method of arguing has real fucking consequences to how we address serious problems. We run into the same problem of people jumping into a goddamn purity spiral by having stricter and stricter definitions to show how "zero tolerance" they are to bad things. They do it with addressing the homeless problem by counting people who live in trailers or are couch surfing. They do it with bringing awareness to mental health issues by spamming instagram with posts about mild anxiety or banal childhood issues; all the while it absolutely steals attention away from the people who are in the most dire straits. Your definition of "hard drugs" is complete nonsense. You made it up. It is objectively, measurably wrong.
@Jaku Alcohol kills 95k people yearly in the US from poisoning, liver damage and drunk driving accidents, and contributes to a whole array of domestic dysfunction that has obliterated entire communities. I's completely normalized. My point isn't that steroids don't have negative effects (I recommend watching the video next time), it's that they pale in comparison to the effects alcohol has and that having this hysterical reaction towards steroids and being fine with alcohol makes you an inconsistent hypocrite who makes the rules up as you go. I'm on copium? Sounds like you want to be able to drink and feel good about it while still being judgemental towards people who use. Can't have it both ways bub.
Everyone has different reasons for doing things and outside of a competitive situation with clear cut rules on the matter, what a person does with their own body is really no one else's business, and destigmatizing use (and this can apply to any drug use not just PEDs) so that people can have open conversations means that they make informed decisions and properly assess the risk to rewards. I'm glad to see that starting to happen more but I still think too much emphasis is being placed on having to justify use. Is having a particular physique for aesthetic reasons less valid than for performance benefit? I don't think it should matter. Alan is speaking from a position where he is happy with the body he has, but that isn't the case for everyone and while I fully believe in learning to love yourself regardless, if you have the means and desire to change something you should go for it. Transgender people medically transition because doing so improves their material quality of life. Disclaimer: having body dysmorphia and being trans are absolutely not the same and I have no desire to speak for the experiences of trans people, but if you think about it in a broader sense, gender dysphoria is recognized as a diagnosable mental illness for which HRT is the standard of care for treatment. So assuming you aren't a bigot, you can apply the same logic to any situation where external body modification, be it gear, tattoos, piercings, etc. if it makes a person feel more comfortable with the body they're in, there shouldn't be any shame in doing so. As long as you're not purposefully misleading people by claiming natty so you can sell programs and supps (and destigmatizing use will ultimately help stop people doing that), then why you chose to do it shouldn't matter to anyone but you.
This discussion ultimately leads to a whole philosophical cluster-fuck. Every modification we make to ourselves, from makeup and plastic surgery to gender-affirming procedures, stands somewhere between "if self-modification makes you happy, you should do that" and "increased normalization for these procedures creates societal pressure, which deprioritizes self-satisfaction and leads to a host of other issues". As someone who has made this decision for myself, I have no idea what I would tell my daughters about how to navigate these waters, in a way that wouldn't carry some emotional consequence for them or that wouldn't lead me to being a massive hypocrite. Doesn't seem like there is a line in the sand that won't be arbitrary, which is why I can see an exotic dystopian future where half the people are cyborgs and the other half are Amish.
In a sane world PED's would be completely legal. Remove the fear of legal ramifications for speaking about them and you'd have a hell of a lot more information out there to use to make an informed decision.
It seems that a lot of guys that go on TRT don't like it and come off. The "you tube TRT" trend of the last 5 years has probably accelerated that somewhat. Personally, I have low T (230), in spite of good lifestyle, and was a candidate for TRT, but was advised against it by endocrinologists because I've had issues with blood clotting and stroke risk. However, it's really easy for me to put on muscle, almost ridiculously easy. My Doc thinks that's probably the result of naturally high IGF-1 levels. I'm in the minority, clearly, but evidence now suggests that the link between test levels and muscle growth may not be quite as strong as once thought, not until you get to super-physiological levels that is.
@@Thundertepi I know a lot of international competitors and usually they are the worst offenders. American's don't tend to reach the level of use that many Russian or Middle Eastern lifters do; there is a much bigger cultural incentive to take on risk in order to win. Curious, what country are you in? And were these competitors are casual lifters?
The only time I could or would justify using steroids would be if I was facing any possibility of getting incarcerated. I do boxing and it is illegal in boxing therefore I wouldn’t use gear. That and if I was going to be drafted and deployed in a war zone then drugs are on the table. Maybe steroids more for the psychological aspect of it. Or what the Wagner Mercenaries bring a bottle of wine with them when deployed is a good idea.
Steroids are dangerous. I've done few cycles on small doses (dbol, sustanon, anadrol, just 1 of these at a time). I'm now 39, haven't done bloodwork or measured my test levels, but have the feeling that it's quite low, compared to what it probably could have been, if I never used gear. My sex drive is quite low these days, and I actually had it very very high (more than my friends) in my teenage and 20s. I'm also almost quite bald. Steroids gave me a lot of strength, many people don't believe me when I say my bench press went up with 30 kg in 40 days during my first cycle with just 5 mg dbol a day. But along with the strength gains, I probably am affected a lot by the side effects. Fortunately, I never did high doses (50 mg anadrol max).
in my opinion, as long as somebody is honest about it, gear use vs not is entirely a personal choice, we all have an unknown, but mostly set number of years in life. steroids objectively cost years off your life span, but so do a lot of things, so does going out to drink every weekend. driving a car regularly presents risks. the question one must ask is, will the things i get out of steroids worth years off the end of my life. the only person that can answer this is the would be user.
I'm almost 50 but have Testestorone levels lower than the average 80 year old. I love it. Life is so much more chill than when I was younger with higher Test. Why should I do TRT?
I remember Alan saying in an interview that RUclips was only an attempt to advertise his gym. Apparently the gym revenue is massively higher than the YT revenue. May have an impact on his answer to "would you consider PEDs if you were starting now". I follow both you guys because the main focus of your channels ISN'T physique-centric. You're both basically forced to put out higher quality content with your shirts on, rather than, you know, lie...
You can see that his channel is kind of on auto-pilot at this point. Shame, because at next to 1M subs, a minimal amount of optimization would make his YT a 50k per month channel. As far as the quality of my content goes... just wait until these cuts come in!
13:41 - GVS was correct, and not because he was being uncharitable, but because he knows more about physiology. The amount of free T is not representative of a particular set of phenotypic traits - some people have low readings, but they have such a high RECEPTOR count throughout their body that that is enough to do all the work of a higher reading in someone else. A low reading on its own only tells you one single part of the story, and while it might correlate in general with some common "symptoms", that is not ALWAYS the case. GVS knows his shit, I haven't seen that video, but I would not be surprised if he was thinking in those terms.
He isn't in a position to make that assessment. If someone was open about using doctor-prescribed anti-depressants, would you accept "just because you're depressed doesn't mean you need antidepressants" as a meaningful statement?
@@AlexanderBromley Absolutely I would, as someone who was prescribed anti-depressants that turned out to not actually be more effective than placebo (when really studied AFTER being released to the public) and with not-insignificant potential side-effects. I also could have benefited from better psychotherapy, so again, there are often more variables than you might take into account with any intervention. There is also the similar issue of lifestyle changes you can make in both instances. Very few things in life are so black and white, and as someone with a mol biol degree who works as an RA within the biological sciences, I keep learning first hand (to my annoyance, heh) how complex biology is and that it's almost never a case of "condition A will ALWAYS resolve with the BEST outcome using intervention B in EVERY individual", especially if that intervention is pharmaceutical. Probably a better analogy would be "would I say to someone that 'just because you have type 1 diabetes, doesn't mean you need to take insulin'?" Because obviously that is a case where it really IS black and white. Neither depression nor androgen response/status is like that, though, which was my point. Yeah, you can make generalisations, but if you're actually pointing out that generalisations don't always hold, that's legitimate.
That's my point; in cases where things aren't black and white, it is useless to make a judgement call without knowing the specific details of the case. He would be correct if it was a a 'matter-of-fact' statement about the when supplementation is or isn't needed, but it wasn't, it was a judgemental statement directed towards an individual without knowing the individual's circumstances.
Honestly, I believe his previous look with the long hair and beard combined with his lifts helped him grow. His look set him apart. Starting brand new in 2022 looking like that, yeah, I think it would be a lot more difficult for him. (To be clear, he gave up his hair for a fantastic cause, so I don't fault him for that at all.)
I think a good personality is more important in your day to day with others then physical prowess and science backs me up on this. Personality is more important to your social game than physical size. Even if we look at primates in the jungle, the hierarchy is set up by social ability and not size. Cheers Alex.
By and large, I agree. On a day-to-day basis, we spend most of our time developing connections within social circles we have either already established or involved ourselves in. Within these circles, the longer we spend improving those relationships, the less that external one-dimensional factors (such as appearance) matter. Whether or not I go bald won't affect my daily relationships to any significant extent - perhaps a joke or two will be made, but those close to me know who I am, and that's majorly due to my personality as opposed to my appearance. Conversely, the external one-dimensional factors do matter a great deal more in the realm of cultivating new relationships. If I look rather unsightly being bald, that'll not only play a role in how attractive I seem to new people, but will also affect how confident I feel, thus impacting the way I present myself to others as well. So in essence, I think it boils down to where your priorities are. If you're satisfied with the relationships in your life, working on your appearance perhaps won't do all that much for you.
Being jacked / shredded is intrinsically linked to ones status in the _cough_ 'fitness community'. It also becomes part of the individuals persona. We don't need to mention names, but there's at least several high profile guys I can think of who have seen a steady decline in traffic since 'coming off'. There's simply more interest in seeing a 300 lb + man perform crazy feats of strength than there is seeing a 190 lb middle aged man re invent himself as a semi endurance athlete. Thats why Piana has a legion of fanboys despite being basically a self destructive drug freak and supplement huckster who offered virtually nothing in the way of useful training or nutritional advice. Personas like his have become pretty much the template for the whole sick industry. Personally, I believe Brian Alsure would be Alan Thrall if he was on the gear. So I don't wonder. Or care.
just one issue with what you said about "hard drugs": there are people who regularly take small to moderate amounts of meth, opiates, amphetamines and so forth. My grandma has been on the same moderate dose of opiates for 15+ years. The reason why people land under bridges has more to do with the criminalization of drugs than with their "dangerousness". Not saying that some people won't always overdo it and ruin their life - but as you pointed out, that applies to all kinds of drugs, including PEDs.
No, people do not end up under bridges because drugs are illegal. They end up under bridges because addiction ruins your life. Go to any 12 step program or half way house counseling session and listen for anyone to say "things were gravy till I got arrested!". Instead, it usually goes, "I had a $200 per day pill habit", "I didn't care about who I hurt", "I was stealing my mom's cancer medication". After 15 years of opiate dependency, god help your grandma if she can't get her fix. I watched my dad go through withdrawal and if you had to see her do the same, you wouldn't talk about it like it's casual drinking on the weekends. You're bought into the normalization of dependency, I STRONGLY recommend you check out ALANON.
I wrote a negative comment, but after finishing the video I deleted it. I still don't agree with everything but the honesty and interesting discussion gets my thumbs up.
Right now, competing is the primary driver, which I'll be able to keep up at a high level for 5 or so more years. But there are about 19 different reasons I train besides that which will keep me in the gym after my competitive years are behind me. It's the one thing that keeps me from being completely sedentary, it manages anxiety and depression, contributes to my appearance (being a big potato over a small one), I like being physically capable, and so on. I think everyone should have something to chip away at and should find something in their life to display excellence in. This is mine and I'm fortunate to be able to make a living off of it.
Those aren't fans though. If no one watches for entertainment, the sport stays tiny and no one gives a shit. Boxing and MMA, football, Olympics are all fueled by the human interest story and drama. So I say more drama.
@@AlexanderBromley Why do you want a bunch of people watching weightlifting videos and never weightlifting themselves? Why are they watching? For Sam Sulek updates?
I went from the skinniest guy in highschool to a guy that looked skinny with clothes on and you couldn't tell I was in shape until I removed my clothes. It was frustrating because I was a diehard natty lifter. Many people would laugh if they knew how often and seriously I took my training. I started bulking which had people now calling me fat. I kept getting fatter and fatter because I wanted to maximize my muscle gain..the bulk went on for years with very small marginal gains. The first cut I did, I lost most of my muscle and looked terrible. I adjusted my calories, training and reduced volume. I got better results. I found out that my low calorie diet crashed my testosterone and got on TRT. It was absolutely a game changer. Quality of life is much better if you are on doctor prescribed TRT. Just 75 mg a week was more than enough. Added some SARMs and things finally started to get even better. Being natty was just a made up label in my head. I could definitely stop everything and still feel great because I've learned how to train better and eat the right amount.
I'm still learning something from you, being a veteran of the sport for 36 years (yes I'm 63) and former national powerlifting champion. And I'm a non-user. Steroids work, I'm convinced, but to what cost? At 63 years I still train in my garage gym and don't have significant health problems and still have a nice rather muscular body. I would discourage steroid use. There's more in life than strength (even if it's very fun to improve it in a natural way!)
I think what Alan says is solid as stone. When people begin to deviate from this, that's precisely where you see people drifting into "idolitry", as your grandma would adroitly state. A lot of these discussions become much less foggy when a person has a solid grasp on fundamental truths like "who are we? why are we here?" Our modern culture (and, for that matter, most non-modern cultures) have eventually drifted toward either nihilism or hedonism...or both. The pursuit of "transcendent strength" or a "divine aesthetic" are vapid luxuries of those with youth. Often, wisdom may begin to creep in when the fleeting nature of those things inevitably manifests.
OK - final comment. I like your view that we have to understand the context for ANY drug. Many prescription drugs are more deadly that steroids if they are dosed the way some people dose steroids.
Part of the natty life too is what I like to call the "Goku ideal" How at every turn that goofy dude would let his opponents power up just to defeat them at their max. Now, that's not to say every natty is saying "I'll outlift geared guys, watch me" but in my case I do want to be something of a contender. Not hopeful for anything beyond regionals, especially seeing some of the monsters coming out of the woodwork, but I do wanna see what I can do regardless.
I completely relate with Alan, I want to see how much I can achieve naturally without assistance. Hopping on gear or TRT is most likely a life long decision because your natural test production will only decline.
I 100% gave up listening to muscle building advice from enhanced bodybuilders whether they are open or not. I am natty and lifing for 10 years so those channels are of zero benefit to me. I only listen to enhanced lifters when they can improve my technical abilities like you. The rest are natty channels like Scoffield and NH. Good stuff man thank you!
Love Alan. His content is/was of its time. It changed from breaking down of powerlifting to more strong man and now general health and fitness. I don’t know why that happened - maybe his journey changed but I desubbed and I expect his numbers have gone down. Hopefully he made enough money, can run a famous gym and is able to look after his family. It’s more Bromely’s time now. The world just moves on.
When I actually started going to the gym lifting for a little bit (had to stop because of some events that are happening but will be back asap) is that the reason why I want to be natty other than the health effects of steroid use is that I want to see how strong I can get with everything I can do and use (that aren’t steroids). I won’t condemn steroid users unless they use it to cheat or scam people by lying that they’re natty. Also, nice video btw
To Alan's point, I do think that there are a lot of coaches and influencers that feel they do not need to disclose their PED usage and that that is their business. I was arguing over that lack of transparency with a Kabuki Strength coach and they saw absolutely nothing wrong with keeping that secret to themselves while selling products to consumers knowing full well that their strength and physique is a marketing tool.
I'm not the best person to talk about this, but I was recently listening to (I think) sigma nutrition, and they were talking about the rigor of prescribing practices for TRT/HRT. Basically 3-4% of people prescribed TRT had their doctor follow the endocrine society's guidelines of two serial tests (since testosterone can vary so much throughout the day, even over short time spans). Moreover, 80% of people did not even have their testosterone tested. They were just prescribed TRT based on symptomology. Even more than that, so many thing can lower your testosterone. Sedentarism, poor diet, lack of sleep, lack of calories, high stress levels. I'm not saying we should not prescribe TRT in these circumstances, but I am unsure if it should be the first choice. I do generally agree that TRT is a good tool, and is helping many people though. I just think it needs to be less of a gray market thing the way that getting an Adderall/Vyvanse prescription has turned into. We are basically at the point with some of this stuff where you just need to find the right doctor (who is very free with their prescribing), and say the correct things to them symptomology wise. You can game subjective screening practices, and many people do. That is not a reason to not treat these symptoms, and it's probably better to over-prescribe than under prescribe imo.
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So much coping in this video from your side. xD
ok im no youtuber but i never found myself too strong to do something ...
"He's betrayed us... he got the action figure... disgusting" lmao I'm dying
Disgusting haha
I laughed pretty hard!
Reminds me of fat n fit community.
How dare he take care of his liver haha
I’m a small guy with 6 pack , anyone wanna go rock climbing?
Normal lifters don't take PEDs because they believe they can still do good without it. I don't take PEDs because I'm broke af. We are not the same.
i dont take PEDs cuz needles are scary, we are not the same
Be grateful then. You’ll never be referred to as a CHEATER.
@@sec9788 PEDs aren't cheating unless you are in a tested competition.
@@foca7550 still think its fucking dumb unless you earn good money out of it
@@foca7550 And even then, not really, since everyone at the top uses anyways
I think Alan’s decision to not take anything because he wants to see how far he can take himself naturally is what I relate the most to. It’s not about perception of others, I just know once I open that door, I can never close it again. I’d like to see how far I can take it with all other aspects of training and nutrition.
Perfectly valid! I think most lifters are best suited to go that route.
I also believe Alan is keeping in good shape because he has children and has changed his mindset about what he wants for himself in life ..
@@anthonyluisi7096 health > huge epic gains.
@@Wisey_83 keep your mind open. For some of us its somewhere in the middle. Some guys wanna look alot better in their 30, 40s and 50s and maybe live 75years, not 99 you know.... Enough to see your grandchildren but maybe avoid diapers again...for yourself I mean ;) and I dont think simple testosterone blasting (with something like 400-500mg/week) and cruising(100-150mg/week) till the end of your life gonna cause that much dmg anyways.
That's why steroids are in fact addictive. I don't think you need a 35 minute video to defend that point. It's just the truth. Even Bromley said he got off for a while, got all soft and round and his wife hated his atritude when he was off. Those are signs of withdrawl. You can compare it to alcohol but that shit is not healthy for you either. Do what you want, it's America but natural will always be your safest bet.
Great honest, blunt discussion. Thank you. My beef with PEDs is the cheating in tested sport and manipulation of naïve social media viewers for financial gain.
I share your gripes.
So many people lie about it all the time too. That is the biggest problem
The Rock, John Cena, Liver King, and all the other liars
That's not an issue with steroids. That is an issue with capitalism. Is it a rental car company's fault if people pretend to have a Ferrari?
@@foca7550 Shockingly bad take. What a lack of contribution to a discussion. "You know man, we're like all stardust, so like, what does it all even matter? Drugs are just like, molecules, which are like, atoms, which are like subatomic particles, so like, why talk about a topic, when there's a much broader topic to talk about?"
Blaming steroid use on "capitalism" is dumb. People have many incentives for their actions. In fact, if they were really capitalists, they would never go to the gym again, and instead get a finance certification and sell people investments. It would be a far more effective use of their time, and much easier to monetize. Blaming all "negative" behavior on this ambiguous "capitalism" is dumb.
Just as a note, I've updated my opinion since that time you mentioned. I think you're referring to the Humiston video? I gave him a hard time mostly because he put out 50 videos on different bicep curls, said progressive overload and compound movements don't work, not for injecting test.
I'll probably make a full video on it at some point. I still often see TRT used recklessly. The latest Iron Culture episode covered this: just *4%* of those starting TRT had the advised two low tests, and 2/3rds had no test at all! That combined with the very high rate of ceasing TRT after one year of starting (85% dropping out [!!!]) makes me quite critical of it as a whole. Many men just think it'll solve all their problems then are underwhelmed.
I do still follow a variety of sources, both natural and enhanced, and some of the latter still put out invaluable information, such as yourself. I also don't think taking TRT when actually needed should be shamed or stigmatized. But at the same time, it's so often just shredded instagram or tiktok influencers who never learned how to train pushing BS, and claiming TRT while just blasting away.
I'm pro natural. But I'm not entirely anti-enhanced. I have friends who use. It's their choice. Ultimately I think people should just be informed and try to make the best decision for themselves.
Sorry, I should have specified the video but it was just off the top of my head. It was some influencer I had never heard of who was natty for a time then went on trt.
A full TRT video would be great! No doubt there's a frivolous component of the industry and I would love to see some more hard data on reported benefits and concrete risks.
The number of people who stop by 1 year seems like a daming number, but I can't help but think of how many people ditch their blood pressure medication out of sheer inconvenience. My brother was on trt and exclaimed how it saved his libido which was affecting his marriage..... only to stop because he didn't like taking injections.
Nice points and my observation of the TRT trend as well. The significant majority of the uptick are from guys who have normal levels of test but think TRT is their loophole to legal/ethical/moral PEDs and that it'll make them the Chad Thundercocks overnight/without effort. Much like dispensaries, these TRT clinics are mostly just a competition of which doctors have the loosest prescirption pad (oops 799 is lower than optimal, better jump on a higher end dose to correct that).
Yeah, it's a very different world for prescriptions. Doctors are taught a much more conservative prescribing practice than the public would like, because doctors see the knock on effects and all the side effects present in large groups taking these meds. Trt clinics are viewed with suspicion because most of them embrace very poor prescribing practices, doing exactly what natural health advocates claim is already medicines main goal: treating a lifestyle problem with pharmacology.
Trt is no different than trannies getting prescribed it to look different and it's "safe and effective" for them. It's a bullshit double standard
@@viator22 I think a majority of doctors aren’t specialist so that’s why they don’t prescribe it as often. I had a 197 ng/dl test levels and they didn’t contact me for two weeks. I called that doctor and said I’m going to a actual clinic and have been doing great on HRT for 5 years.
72 yrs old and still lifting. If I had ever done steroids, it's likely I'd be in a wheelchair or dead. Dreaming for a 315 bench in the upcoming year, and that's plenty for me.
Fucking legend. That’s the dream man
Lmao still dreaming for 315...I'd rather be dead
Great story bro.
Hope I'm still lifting into my 70s. Shit I hope I can even get there. Respect
That’s amazing man. Proud that you’re still in the gym!
Man I don’t think you’re promoting drug use at all. I appreciate your content. As a natty I think there’s a lot of bullshit about drugs, whether it’s straight up lying or just disingenuous. I’m never going to take steroids, but I’m interested in how they affect those who do, so thanks for keeping it real.
Fair assessment. I think getting on gear as a strength afficionado should stay a personal choice. If you like your life as a natty and you feel you're good without them, go ahead. If you don't and want to get on some stuff, do it. It's all a personal choice. Neither side should be lambasting the other.
I think Allen is trying to help average joes not feel pressure to use gear just because other people do. Gear use is incredibly prevalent and he’s using himself as a man example of success without steroids. Allen made some points that I don’t agree with on a factual level which you addressed very well. I think the real motive of his video is just trying to lower peer pressure to use gear to normal people which would probably be beneficial for many people
In regards to the Geoffrey quote: we lose sight of what “low” test is. Low test, as in low normal, can often be fixed via lifestyle and dietary changes. A lot of folks I know who ended up using TRT were in the low normal range with absolutely fucked sleep, diet, and training. I don’t begrudge anyone for using trt, but I do get concerned when clinics prescribe without addressing those factors.
Being outside of the normal range is a different beast altogether, and may need lifestyle changes and trt.
It seems that a lot of guys that go on TRT don't like it and come off. The "you tube TRT" trend of the last 5 years has probably accelerated that somewhat. Personally, I have low T (230, tested multiple times), in spite of good lifestyle, and was a candidate for TRT, but was advised against it by endocrinologists because I've had issues with blood clotting and stroke risk. However, it's really easy for me to put on muscle, almost ridiculously easy. My Doc thinks that's probably the result of naturally high IGF-1 levels. I'm in the minority, clearly, but evidence now suggests that the link between test levels and muscle growth may not be quite as strong as once thought, not until you get to super-physiological levels that is.
Will do a full TRT video at some point. It's sometimes needed. Often not.
I 100 percent believe this. Lifestyle can totally change your test. A sedentary person who gets no sleep, doesn't eat right, doesn't exercise, can definitely raise his test levels dramatically by doing most things right and should always attempt to do so before just coming to the conclusion "I have low test and need to take trt".
@@BuJammy excellent comment. I was in the 250’s when I got tested. I adjusted my sleep and stress (finished grad school lol) and I feel better. I’d be curious to retest.
Barbell medicine has done some good work disseminating the research on test and muscle building.
@@GVS definitely agree, I’d have to rewatch the referenced video but I tend to agree with your pov on many topics. If anything, you might’ve made a comment that sounds more absolute than intended.
I would casually say “most men don’t need trt” when I really mean “it’s highly unlikely that you do, as even with low t you can do many things to raise it without pharma. Talk to your medical team and find solutions.”
I don't always agree with you Bromley but I do respect you for thinking your arguments through and being a genuine guy. I appreciated this video.
Alan Thrall has the best squat tutorial videos of all time. also the best bulking video ever. went from 160lbs to 215!!!
And bench press :)
You went from 160 to 215 natural no fat in 1 year? I thinks not. Even Arnold couldn't do that..
@@stevemann1299 no i was fat lol
@@markmele2131
Of course you were. If you can gain 10lbs of QUALITY muscle in a calendar year as a natural. You've done extremely well. Past newbie gains few realize how slow the process is.
That's how you out someone on steroids. Nobody ever gains 30lbs of muscle in a few months. I don't care what your genetics.
I like the fact that Alan is staying true to himself by not using. He doesn't need to justify his stance to others but I'm glad it's based on his values rather than feeling pressure from others to change his values. The same should be true for those who do use and the reasons that motivate them to do so.
Well said.
Alan Thrall would still break through starting today. He is extremely unique and he would find a way to get it done. It would be enough to set himself apart.
I'm inclined to agree. I just thought the thought experiment was interesting.
This was really thought out, honest, and went beyond what one would expect from such a topic.
When GVS talks about not needing to replace testosterone just because it's low, it's because there are so many lifestyle changes one can make before jumping to PEDs. If your sleep, food, stress, recovery are all bad, then your testosterone is going to tank, the solution to that isn't injecting testosterone.
Sleep food and stress is not the difference between test being 90 and 500. If someone has hypogonadism, there are a bunch of potential causes and you as someone who is speculating on someone elses treatment has no idea what they are or what the solution should be.
@@AlexanderBromley good points all around.
I would say A) I'm looking at this from more of a population basis than an individual basis. What percentage of men are actually living a reasonable lifestyle and have a testosterone level as low as 90?
Are lifestyle factors going to get you from 90 to 500, certainly not. Would they get you from 200 to 300 and thus put you in the normal range? Possibly right. Although I am admittedly outside my depth here so maybe I'm talking out of my ass.
B) I'm also not sitting here judging every individual taking testosterone and assuming they're just a lazy POS and that i know their lives and their bodies better than them to be clear.
I just think across a population the average person with low testosterone has several changes they could make before injecting test.
But again, definitely not my area of expertise
@@danielgilbert8338I think your take makes total sense. Let’s not kid ourselves here. Theres tons of influencers out here pushing this narrative of how they had low T so they can say they’re on TRT… when many of them are definitely cycling/dosing higher than TRT treatment for hypogonadal causes. It allows them to be open about some of their use but not give the game away. So not only does this normalize the TRT thing and make it trendy as a means to get big under the guise of a medical treatment… but it’s also misleading, because the influencers have misled what they’re actually taking. So what you get from all this is kids who start dosing, and are disappointed when it doesn’t get them huge like their favorite influencer. And once you start using drugs to increase muscle size, those drugs become a much bigger variable / pedal to step on to get bigger, since those individuals never figured out the process to put even 10lbs of muscle on naturally. That’s a very slippery slope that is dragging people to continued PED abuse and eventually crashing out, looking like shit, and no longer caring about fitness.
Good for Alan for being so blunt. Social media is causing so many young men to have anxiety about their body and so many are looking to drugs to feel better about themself and appeal to others.
Not really social media in way you think. It's because women think that these PED users are just normal male physique if you're even slightly athletic. While in truth no man can ever reach those levels without using PEDS or working out for decades (depends what you're trying to reach).
@@Tespriwomen don’t care, or they care very little. It’s all men trying to impress other men.
I think his point is that adding strength artificially past his natty peak will not benefit his life further. But the natty training he has done definitely benefitted him via physical health and mental strength.
Very thoughtful and well said, both Bromley and Thrall. There is a huge diversity in how folks respond to steroids, esp at the TRT range.
Really appreciate your thoughtful analysis of this topic Alex. Many good points I had not considered.
I actually take it as a compliment when people ask if I take gear, although not many people ask 😂
I think GVS' mindset in his video is that people are being made to feel like they need TRT. He points out in the vid that it's very easy to be diagnosed with low T if there isn't a comprehensive testing process. The issue stems from people who could likely improve their life in many other ways at no financial cost being convinced that there is a problem. That's not to say that there isn't a problem for certain individuals, but people have a tendency to nocebo themselves into a lot of situations. It's more about the fact that a lot of people don't need TRT, but that doesn't invalidate those that genuinely do. Everyone is welcome to do whatever tf they want, but it's about removing the pressure of "what if I have low T?" As a cause for concern for people that needn't be bothered by this mindset. Just food for thought
Understood, but that would only be a point of concern if there was something at stake, either some consequence for taking TRT when you don't "need" it (assuming there is a clear definition of "legitimate need") or no potential benefit. There isn't an epidemic of people wrestling with the effects of coming off 100mg of test, but there are a sea of people who found their lives improved substantially by taking it.
It's easy to get trt prescribed because a ton of people have low T, or at least are in a position where they might experience health/quality of life beneifts by elevating it, and it isn't even remotely as dangerous as the psychotropics or pain killers that get regularly prescribed. If a doctor, who has no care whatsoever of your next bench PR, says "you might benefit from supplementing this hormone you are deficient in", jabber from the internet community about it can only be a result of an irrational stigma they've assigned to it.
@@AlexanderBromley Yeah that's fair, I def agree with that mindset. If it's something that would susbtantially improve your quality of life with negligible side effects, then I suppose it's really an obvious decision. I think a lot of internet jabber comes from those who want to draw a line in the sand in the lifting community. Beyond that, I think there's a lot of anti-drug (including legitimate pharmaceutical) rhetoric floating around. People like to correlate obvious moderation with clear abuse of substances like they're one and the same. Anyways, really good vid and good to have an open conversation about things, thanks dude
100 mg of test will still kill your natural production and make you a slave to the pharmaceutical industry. Complete horseshit to say otherwise.
And it rebounds in 6 weeks with a normal post-cycle therapy. No one has ever been permanently shut down off 100mg of test. The fucking hysteria you guys engage in; overwhelmingly comes from people who aren't active, eat like shit and drink recreationally.
I think his point is that it won't feel like he earned the muscle/strength if he wasn't natty. That's why it makes him feel disingenuous
There's this sense that success doesn't count unless you disadvantaged yourself as much as possible, which is strange to me. Where people put that line of how disadvantaged you need to be for it to count is arbitrary. I've met guys in football that were brilliant athletes who would brag about being 'all-natural' because they didn't lift weights; from their vantage point, having to train to get stronger was next to cheating.
Not discounting the personal standards Alan holds for himself, just drawing some connections to how we talk ourselves out of doing everything we can to succeed. I think there are parallels to how society views success in general.
@@AlexanderBromley "There's this sense that success doesn't count unless you disadvantaged yourself as much as possible..."
That's one way to look at it, although more likely that should be;
"There's this sense that success doesn't count if you advantaged yourself as much as possible / beyond what is reasonable..."
Probably most people's "sense" of "reasonable" is sticking a needle in your ass and deliberately intervening in your hormonal processes in a very direct way. Personally, I don't care if someone is enhanced or not, and I live in a country (Britain) where steroid use is legal.
@@BuJammy yeah, Bromly is a smart man. His takes on steroid use have always shocked me.
Of course the way you phrased it is the correct one
@@AlexanderBromley it's very curious how you associate being natural as being disadvantaged, even tho it's as the name suggests, the natural way of things. The difference between drugs and genetics is that you can decide to up the dosage whenever you're not satisfied. I get the feeling that because you became "unnatural" now being natural ironically doesn't seem natural to you
Training with weights is unnatural, as are the programs we follow, the things we eat, the clothes we wear, our modes of entertainment, our method of transportation, our medical and surgical procedures, and on and on. But something tells me you wouldn't give those up. Everyone has a problem with things that aren't natural, right up until it describes the things in their lives they enjoy and take for granted.
I don't view PED as 'unnatural' or otherwise; they aren't any more or less unnatural than any other drug, medically prescribed or otherwise, that people can take without the same stigma. I view the fixation on 'natural' as disengenous in the first place because 'natural' doesn't describe anything about our lives. I also don't believe that 'more natural' automatically means better.
21:21 Interesting point, but I think Thrall is also part of the reason the strength space on RUclips is so saturated now. OGs like him paved the way. But yeah also the standards to stand out in terms of performance have increased a lot, I can think of untested former ATWR holders from when I started lifting who wouldnt even be competitive at the USAPL nationals now if they put up those same numbers today (and somehow slipped through the cracks with the testing)
Lifetime natty fatty, I have some trophies and record certificates from powerlifting in my office (always good to have something to break the ice with customers)
A lot of conversations start like this:
Them: what are those trophies for?
Me: powerlifting
Them: so like bodybuilding?
Me: yea kind of (i've learned not to even try to explain lol)
Them: so how much can you bench?
Me: just north of 500lbs
Them: no way! My friend is like this ( *performs ILS syndrome pose* ) and benches like 300
Me: *shows video*
Them: oh so you must like take steroids and stuff....
Always goes from there's no way I can to I must be on gear 😂
"I bench just north of 500lbs, but my crossfat box jumps are even more impressive btw"
@@thesamu100 you're gonna make me blush
A 500lb natural bench at your size is a legitimately rare feat. My heart goes out to you for the lifetime of false accusations you must endure.
If you told your (oblivious) customers your trophies were in drug tested sport they’d 100% believe you haha
@@aavila1206 one of the certificates literally says drug tested on it (they dont look that close though, usually just a quick glance and "what are those?")
I'm more in the same camp as Alan, I train to see how strong I can get on my own while enjoying the process and I intend to keep lifting and chipping away at said process for several decades. I really appreciate your openness on the topic though. Keeping a lid on this controversial topic does nothing good. Sub'd!
I think the issue with perception of guys on TRT is the volume of guys on, like you said, """"TRT""""" that they got from the LA Fitness locker room, or guys that are shut down from previous gear now needing it. These guys are just like the recreational marijuana users who have "chronic back pain" but just want to get high and watch Animal Planet. The perception of the prevalence of these people ruin the legitimate use for everyone else
It seems that a lot of guys that go on TRT don't like it and come off. The "you tube TRT" trend of the last 5 years has probably accelerated that somewhat.
Nah, it’s because people who eat garbage, never get enough sleep, or try to stay extremely lean year round use TRT to overcome the unwillingness to work.
Amen brother. My biggest takeaway from this was you mentioning our time on this rock is short. The risk to reward of engaging in gear is subjective and an individual decision. I'm a 60 year old retired Marine and also a washed up powerlifter. I do however train 6 days a week and try to stay strong and relevant but it's getting hard. I'm dangerously close to trying TRT to see if I can prolong the inevitable. I no longer care what my total is, I just want to remain active and not become a food blister. Alan is a Marine and has an interesting past in the Corps. What he did for our fallen Marines; trust me few others have. If he's juiced or natty I do not care - he's a Marine and that's all that matters to me. Semper Fi, Ken
It would be interesting to dig deeper in another video about how your social interactions changed after achieving your strength and size gains and the impact it had on your life outside of the gym.
I'll consider that. Pretty sure I could fill up an hour...
@@AlexanderBromley I believe this is something many people can relate to and would enjoy discussing. Personally, I've had many changes in my life as a result of pursuing strength and size. It has definitely impacted the world around me and changed my social interactions. Sometimes it's not always positive things, though. It really sucks when you're significantly injured. Your mood and lifestyle can get all kinds of fucked up.
Steroids don't make sense at all for lifters that don't care about competing with others and having numbers is all I take from Alan's video
All good points as usual. I'm a big fan of Thrall, and I like getting the different perspectives on these things from people with different goals and the like. Alan's point about not wanting to lie to people is valid, at least on the bodybuilding side of things (I can't comment on PL/strongman influencers, I don't follow that many). Bodybuilding social media is fucking FLOODED with fake nattys selling shit programs and cashing in on their, for lack of a better term, dumb luck. And it's mainstream as hell, like Chris Hemsworth's fitness app bullshit that doing some kettlebell dick swings will make you as jacked as Thor.
As a natty lifter I’d much rather somebody asks me if I’m on gear than they ask me if I workout.
this is a topic that is EVERYWHERE in the industry that apparently nobody wants to talk about. It's good it gets some exposure.
I really have the same, "mindset" as mr Thrall when it comes to the "why".. It wouldn't be me and my achievement it would be because of substance abuse to reach a set goal.
But I can still appreciate the being devils advocate, because, as with so many things when it comes to fitness health and sport there's a shitload of nuances.
as always great content!
I disagree a bit with the trt point you made. Geoffrey is correct in that low T does not necessarily mean you should go on trt. If you only take one sample ALL men will turn up for low T out of every few tests. Testosterone, like literally every other hormone in your body, is not produced constantly (nor should it be) it fluctuates as needed.
Yes there are people who have chronically low T, as in they test low over and over no matter the time of day and independent of other lifestyle choices. However those people are in a SIGNIFICANT minority of men. Just pinging for low T on a test does not warrant going on HRT, especially if you are under 35, and have in-tact testes.
People are really just using a very normal thing (a random low T score) as the free pass to go on cycle and brush it off as a medical intervention when 9 times out of 10 it was unnecessary.
The robot Arms example is very interesting, I think it speaks to the difference in perspectives.
If my main goal is body building and making my muscles bigger, I could inject some synthol or whatever in there and the goal is accomplished, muscles are bigger. But that's not the point for me, the point is seeing how I can get my body to adapt to training. What I can build through hard work
Strapping on robot arms might make you stronger, but the experiment of what strength you can build for yourself is over.
Absolutely true! For some, aesthetics is the point, and to that end implants and lipo have become completely normalized. Bodybuilders see synthol as a dirty tactic, but you wouldn't likely speak down to a girl who had fake breasts or lip injections (even though the bodybuilder has a vested interest in aesthetics and the person who gets lip injections does so frivolously)
Some want the journey and some want the destination. Its the difference between buying a faster sports car and spending years fixing up an old model T.
@@AlexanderBromley good points. The parallel with cosmetic enhancements is an interesting one. At the end of the day this is just about looking good to some people.
For me the journey has become the main motivation to such a degree that it's hard for me to understand that perspective, which is a failure on my part.
Appreciate the conversation. I'm a newer subscriber, so very impressed by the level of engagement.
Your ability to make analogies and find parallels in other parts of life is very much conducive to a productive conversation. Keep up the great work!
Appreciated!
I think priorities matter when you think about fitness in a modern context. I'll happily brand myself as a recreational lifter (perhaps hypertrophy focused). I don't ever plan on using steroids, but if I had a health condition that affected my testosterone, I'd seriously consider TRT (as I would for another hormone deficiency). I think that's a rational discussion to have.
One of the reasons why I really dislike social media is what it does to people's perception of what is 'normal' or 'regular'. I think this has a lot of unhealthy consequences, such as living outside your means or chasing something that isn't exactly achievable. Comparing yourself and your performance to another lifter when you're missing context can be fairly damaging especially when you consider how young some of the folks are on these platforms. Plus, some of the influencers are dishonest shills for the garbage they're selling. Makes my skin crawl to think about what some of these young kids have to filter through.
FWIW, I started lifting in early high school with sports... and luckily missed out on a lot of the social media nonsense. But, I did also have much less access to information (coaches and peers mostly). Tradeoffs, I guess. I definitely was indoctrinated into compound basics and hard work, but I really wish I knew how to balance my lifting (basic programming these days).
Why do we train? As Rippatoe says, “Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and are overall more useful.”
It applies to mental strength as well.
I'm really glad your talking more about this. We need more honest people talking openly about these things. You can easily go down whatever rabbit hole depending on your Google search. Trt is either a great idea or a terrible one. Just depends what I type in the search bar
Appreciate the info
Steriods must be psychologically addictive because most steroid users are addicted to it via the way they feel and their strength levels and body composition. Weed is also addictive even though before I'd say it wasn't, it is. If you can't stay off it, its addictive. I appreciate the honesty in your videos but if you take PED you are risking your health and you can become addicted to the benefits vs. healthy body. I dont care what people do but the truth needs to be laid out on the table.
You aren't entirely wrong. We describe being drawn into something that provides a benefit or makes us feel a certain way as broadly 'addictive' but that definition is watered down and applies to just about everything: sugar, relationships, adrenaline. The force that pushes people to take those things to the extreme (where most dont) lies more with the individual being prone to compulsive behavior.
When we talk about the type of addiction that hard drugs create, we are talking about a specific physiological response that effects everyone, regardless of personality. 100% of people experience withdrawal symptoms from going off heroin. No such thing as testosterone withdrawal
@@AlexanderBromley I'm defining "addictive" as anything your being physically/ psychologically drawn to over and over again, disregarding the side affects to your physical and mental/psychological health. Didn't you say in a video your wife hates when you get off PED's because you get moody? That sounds like symptoms of withdrawal to me. Maybe not in the way heroine would be but a symptom of withdrawl no less. Also, you said you got off cycle for a while and now your back on. So you were drawn back to PED's. It's hard for you to stay off the whole phase of cycling. Im not judging you or anyone for it but anything can become addictive and steriods are surely one of those things. So, I just thought it was strange you would take a hard stance on steroids not being addictive while you yourself have gotten back on cycle after trying to be off for a time. It's like when people say weed isn't addictive while not being able to go a day without smoking in some capacity.
@@afterzanzibar lol no being moody is not withdrawal. People tend to go back to things that provide a net benefit
@@AlexanderBromley Yes it is, dude. I know you have skin in the game but if your being honest with yourself you'll know it's the truth. Have you ever seen an oxycodone addict without pills? Mood swings out the yin yang. Even weed addicts get moody without their smoke. Your the same age or maybe younger than me and you look at least 10 years older and steroids accelerated your hair loss. Steroid have net positive effects only to strength gains and the gym. Your internal and external health and appearance suffers and you don't like being without PED's because you've been on them since your 20's. Is it all really worth it? Your not a professional strongman who makes their living through strength competition. You make money on RUclips and have a regular job. I would respect you just as much as a strength coach if you weren't on PED's and had good programming ideas. It's an ego boost at the end of the day and I know you could easily do impressive number if you quit steroid and put the (longer) time in as a natural lifter. Please, just stop acting like PED's or being off of them for that matter aren't addictive and/or don't affect your mood because that's just not the truth. Even certain PED's their self are mood-altering and you know that.
@@afterzanzibar Comparing oxy
withdrawal to going off test.... jfc. You sound ridiculous
You ARE entertaining, and your videos get exponentially better edited.
overall fair response but i think the comparison to alcohol doesn't take into account usage rate. if people used steroids at the same rate as they used alcohol, its health effects might dwarf alcohol's. it's just that almost everyone drinks, whereas maybe less than 1% of people use steroids. imagine if 99% of people used steroids, instead of 1%, just as about 99% of people drink at least occasionally. how many more deaths would there be then?
If half the population drank and the other half took a moderate amount of gear, cycling off and getting health markers checked regularly, there is zero doubt that the alcohol group would experience more death and dysfunction. By a lot.
Millions of people use (without really knowing what they are doing) and there isn't so much as an estimate of how many deaths are linked to it.
You only think there's a lot of deaths because a few prominent bodybuilders die somewhat regularly. 100s of millions of people worldwide use anabolics. Are they all dropping like flies? You'd hear about it in the news if it were an epidemic. So, they're not. Also, athletes from other sports that abuse PEDs aren't dropping like flies.
@@toximan2008 no it's just a statistical fact. has nothing to do with anecdote. more people die on the bodybuilding stage than fighting in MMA matches.
you are the only reasonable voice on this issue im hearing right now.
I'm 100% with Alan on the "scenic route". I want to enjoy the ride, take my time, breathe the fresh air and go at my pace. Maybe down the line I do wanna go 150 mph balls to the wall in the Ferrari, but not any time soon
Plus roids are just dirty fr. Idk I don’t respect it because it just makes it faster it’s not really as earned fr. No delay of gratification.
just started watching the channel, Bromley is very intelligent, analytical, and nuanced... very impressive analysis all around, one of the best weightlifting channels I've seen
I strongly relate to Alans point. Being natty just is natural, there's kind of a sense of health and respect for your wholistic fitness that comes with positive attitudes to being natty.
Obviously if you want to be able to work harder and grow bigger and get stronger, and have the time to commit to those goals, then go for it. But I'd rather feel like a human being and feel pride in my natural ability.
With one caveat: possibly at an older age I might consider some Test, just to keep being strong and able to lift, run, do sports, etc.
I'm not sure that's quite a perfect analogy, alcohol and steroids. Like, far less people in America are killed by landmines than they are by steroids. That doesn't mean landmines are fine.
?? Landmines are infinitely more deadly than alcohol. Steroids are objectively less. You can't support the thing that ruins lives without providing a positive return and demonize steroids and be considered a consistent person.
@@AlexanderBromley haha sorry man, just some random snark I threw in between (bad) bench sets. My more fully fleshed out thought is that it's a very simplistic comparison with no nuance. Obviously, way more alcohol is consumed than steroids, so it would make sense that more people would die from it. If steroid use was as widespread as alcohol was, what would be the effects on society at large? Probably quite bad- of course, worse than alcohol? That's the argument you could make. It's a comparison that needs a per usage/per capita kind of thing to be valid, that's what I'm getting at
@@cyurisich Don't apologize. My point is that, yes, steroid use is proportionately less dangerous than alcohol use (by a lot), both in terms of early deaths and in terms of tanking quality of life. Alcohol abuse doesn't just kill people from poisoning or liver damage, it is responsible for contributing to automotive deaths, domestic violence, sexual abuse and is credited with the desolation of entire communities.
Levels of steroid abuse comparable to alcoholism is extraordinarily rare because it's so prohibitively expensive (and typically pointless), and, even at its worse, doesn't result in the same cost to the community.
I agree with so much of what you said here but at around 7:20 in I have to disagree with your sentiments. The difference is training without PED's and getting stronger, bigger etc is coming without the potential health risks. So with PED's there is the normal associated benefit of training but along with it risk, and for a lot not just risk - harm. You can train and get the benefits without that harm by not using. Thresholds of diminishing returns are at play here wouldn't you say?
I have a Pituitary gland tumor and I don't produce testosterone anymore, I have to take trt for the rest of my life probably if I don't undergo medical knifing. TRT SUCKS. Finding the dose, mantaining, it feels diferent having a high level instead of pulses like normal trt. Things feel different that they've felt before. I've always had high test, and I needed to change doctor because the first didin't believe in that and thought I just wanted to use it for muscle gain, even tough I was big before this problem came to surface. Things aren't like they seems when they make ads for trt, just more energy etc.. fuck that, and the psychologic part of it all? Your body works very differently and the chance of someone talking about that instead of just 'ye e ey ey muscle more muscle my dick is hard all day like a teenager!!' like this was normal as an adult. There's so much disinformation, so much, there's so many levels of education about our fucking body man, the way it works it's crazy. People just don't realize how much they are messing with everything in their lives just because they want to 'look better'.
Also: testosterone is definitely psychologically and physiologically addicting.
I remember one time I went on this high frequency strict OHP specialization block because I was impatient (which was stupid). I made 5 to 7 pound jumps every three weeks or so until the shit was so draining I had to stop.
My idea was that I was going to take a week off, and then just progress it at a normal pace for a while. After only one week off I was noticably weaker on the movement. Some of that progress was an artifact of the specialization, and didn't increase what I had naturally at baseline. It really was similar to going off gear.
Then I realized, what's happening with the OHP right now, is going to happen with every lift as I get stronger.
The specialization seemed like a magic bullet, but had I focused moreso on building more mass, I could have raised my performance capacity at baseline.
All that seemed really productive when I was doing it, but it was a training masterbation.
Yeah. I have found that, despite getting noticeably more muscular over my third consecutive year of training… better body composition now than when I was previously at my same body weight, bigger arms, etc… most of my big lifts have stalled and in some cases gotten weaker. I have never really specializes yet, and insist on attempting a 5 rep max for all the standard compound movements every “training week” (usually 8 day frequency). It’s kind of discouraging to see that I’m not as strong as I expected to be… but my overall training volume is significantly higher right now than the time point I’m comparing myself to. I suspect if I backed off to train 3 times a week instead of 5 or took a break from OHP, my bench would go up (or vice versa). But I kind of read your experience and think to myself that modifying my training only to hit the magic PR numbers wouldn’t really serve anything but my ego
@@spencerschubert5001 If you got bigger pressing muscles, and your pressing didn't improve, you might just need some practice to get efficient enough at using that new muscle.
If it's not that, then it's almost certainly that your upper back is behind. If you don't have good control of your scapula, and your spine, your body won't let you use the strength that you have.
If your bent rows go up enough enough everything goes up, because that is what is going to build stability, and force transfer in all of your lifts. If you are missing that, then yeah, you should modify shit. That needs to be not only worked on, but moving up.
@@leinekenugelvondoofenfocke1002 funny enough, it’s the presses that are kind of lagging. I went from 5 reps of 60lb weighted pull ups to now 5 reps of body-weight+80lbs. But I must admit I don’t don’t prioritize horizontal rows nearly as much… so I might try a phase to build strength there. I have a feeling that if I push myself to gain 15lbs over about 6 months to reach a new high body weight, I’ll crush my press PRs
21:05 this is a question that a lot of us have about different creators. A lot of the guys that are grandfathered in with an audience wouldn’t be as big. That said Alan does have quite a bit of charisma so he’d have some level
Of success even if he started now.
You have great videos about programming and the mechanics of hypertrophy and strength, but I can't agree with you here. I feel like your own experience using steroids has changed what's normal for you and messed with your head a lot. I see this in how you talked about other people's perception of you. If an amount of hypertrophy is not possible for you to achieve naturally, it is unhealthy to pursue it for the sake of other people's perception. Maxing out your natural potential is pretty dang badass, even if you don't look like anything special compared to the gear users. I know a guy who's a pretty prominent politician here in Sweden, and he's jacked. He doesn't have a lot of time for lifting nowadays with his profession, but he's still pretty close to his ceiling, and he gives off an aura of power, strength, and stability. In fact, I've noticed in pictures of myself lately, as a natural early intermediate lifter with some bulk on, weighing just over 200 lbs, I look big and respectable, and I've still got a lot of room to grow. Someone who's significantly bigger than my politician friend just starts looking like a gear user, someone who messes with his hormones and fertility because of insecurities. That does not give off the same aura. For the record, I think birth control, especially hormonal, is a bad idea. Having kids is awesome. But that's not important for this.
You say they're not hard drugs, and I have to concede the benefit of the doubt since you've used, and I haven't. However, I find it hard to believe something that when used gives you high and stable testosterone and then takes that away into zero until recovery (if you're lucky) isn't physiologically or chemically addictive for the same reasons you describe how beneficial TRT can be for men's health. Having low testosterone really makes you feel awful physically. It sucks. You're frail, tired, irritable, socially weak, and your lifts suck too. That's the chemical addiction. I also think it's inevitable that people get addicted to the high and start thinking they're nothing without the gear, something Alan mentions. If you've taken gear and added like 100 lbs to your deadlift, and then you have to come off, your lifts will drop back down. Possibly to well below what you were doing as a peak natty. You become afraid of losing your gains to the point you keep taking, ignoring all the risks. You become Larry Wheels. Steroids make you feel super good and powerful, and when you come off, you are in a weaker state than you were before you started taking them to begin with. Sounds like hard drugs to me.
Lastly, you talk about mortality. It clearly wears you down, even if it takes a long time. It can make a low test man in his 40s or 50s feel better, but that doesn't mean he'll feel better decades into the usage. And a guy who's been using since he was young is gonna become that fat, washed up uncle with b tch tits unless he keeps using the drugs, in which case he's putting a further strain on his heart and the other organs. The same way that you mentioned weed mortality is reported from insane and rare uses like the locked in a room with a pound, consider that your assessment of mortality doesn't bring up something obvious as well. Sure, these people might not have died when they did if it weren't for the other drugs they were using, but that does nothing to prove that the steroids don't shorten lifespan. Immediate (like with the diuretics) and more short-term and medium-term deaths are not all deaths. If they were, you could also argue that smoking tobacco is mostly not harmful, and that there's an anti-tobacco hysteria. But of course, we know that's not true. The oldest woman who ever lived made it to 122 and she was a lifelong smoker, and we all know a smoker who made it to 90-something, but we also know that it causes a lot of deaths and disability, including from lung cancer, decreased heart capacity, cataracts, etc. We also always ask, when an old smoker finally dies, how long they would've lived without the cigs. Why is that not a legitimate question for the steroid users? There's an obsession with your organs being "okay" after being done with gear (if you can get yourself to stop taking it) and not enough talk about how much their capacity and health was reduced by taking it. Being within normal levels isn't the same as doing as well as you were before the usage.
What an excellent post. Sums up everything I wanted to say and even more so. sadly these real concerns and points made against it will be ignored as people who see these problems as people who are just puritans and do not see the positive sides of these drugs. If you are dependent on a Drug to pass through the day. In my book. You are a drug addict. Doesn't matter if it is legal or illegal drug. Painkillers are legal street drugs. Did people not learn anything from the prescription drug problem during early 2000s?
No, that is not what an addict is. This 'purity spiral' phenomenon of having stricter and stricter standards makes 'perfect the enemy of good'. It is like when they count homeless populations as people who live out of trailers and are couch surfing (because anyone not in a home is unacceptable, we need to save them all!); the numbers get inflated 3x as much and it gets labeled as a 'housing' crisis while the absolutely destitute, those shitting on the sidwalks, don't get the priority they deserve. Or when everyone wants to 'normalize' mental health by making posts about their struggles with anxiety or intrusive thoughts (because ALL mental health is valid and don't want to leave anyone behind!), meanwhile those with schizophrenia or histories of massive trauma, those who are the most risk to themselves and others, get lost in the noise.
Yours is a completely puritanical and functionally useless definition of 'addict'. It steals all attention away from those who are actually suffering the consequences that addiction is supposed to define. This is how you guarantee serious problems go unsolved.
This is such a Swedish response it's comical. There is a book from the 70s called the new totalitarians by Roland Huntford explaining the puritanical character of Sweden. Highly recommend!
@@AlexanderBromley In my view the whole "natty" movement can and has already shown signs of being a puritanical woke cult.
Sorry to make two comments on one video, but I don’t know if I agree on drug use and local meets for Strongman specifically.
I did a local Strongman meet a couple of years ago and I’m very confident that almost all of the competitors were on PEDs (exception of me, another novice, a girl, and a couple of older dudes). To me, this seems to set the bar for the events.
For example, there was a strongman style squat for max reps. I think if the LOCAL competition was based on a natural strength bell curve, the weight would’ve been 400-450 for the MWM. However, the meet director chose 500 lbs. I’d be lucky to hit that for 1-2 reps, I think a 500 squat for a natural at 200lbs Bodyweight is huge, not to mention for reps.
It feels extremely difficult to hit the barrier for entry into strongman as a natural, since the standards are based on guys who take drugs.
Brian Shaw has always said the perfect Strongman event is one that a third will do very well a third will do alright and a third will fail miserably regardless of competition level (something to this effect)so any event that everyone or near everyone can do is too easy. What makes this important is that Shaw is at the forefront of a prominent people in the Strongman push to higher relevance. We know that influence trickles down the grapevine more than back up it the vast majority of the time. The sport is already getting a bit of a backlash for getting lighter and more movement oriented and away from static displays of power at it's most publicly watched show. I can't imagine it getting lighter now.
8:47 "You can even take that one step further and infer things about [list of non-physical but beneficial traits]" - I actually just got my dream job, after years of unemployment, because of this exact scenario. Some awesome people who don't even lift, but are good friends with lifters who got me in touch with them, hired me on the basis I probably have all those things if I have worked towards a national record and have the comp history I do. They didn't really know me from a bar of soap, and even though I had the right degree, I have gone through LONG stretches of unemployment so my work history is vary varied and spotty and just about non-existent, tbh, so they basically took a chance on me because I showed up having put some care into my appearance and with them knowing some of my lifting feats from our mutual friends. So yes, the degree to which that has improved my life - I couldn't possibly impart how much this has helped me turn my life around!
With regard to the core topic, perhaps I could have had the same response if I was in a non-tested fed, but I doubt it. The people would be different, and yes, the perception would be different. Whether my bosses could spot a user, though, not sure.
When I was super jacked and natural and some one asked if I was on steroids, I took it as a compliment.
"ill-gotten gains" lol, that term fits so well
"life is a garden, dig it."
great job of getting different takes on a difficult topic, for a lot of people to even understand slightly
I agree with a lot of what you said but not about it not being hard drugs, That is simply denial, people on high levels of streroids will never be able to come off of steroids for the rest of their life physiologically. There is a also a huge array of psychological side effects and health detriments.
Context beats hysteria 10/10 times.
1.) That's not the definition of 'hard drugs'. It's more than "something with a risk I personally don't want to take"
2.)The incidence of people who are permanently shut down is really damn small and usually a result of reckless use over a long period of time without break.
3.) Whatever psychological or health detriments you can point to are not worse than those experienced with casual alcohol consumption, which I'm guessing you don't have a problem with.
@@AlexanderBromley Hardly hysteria, any drug used in high dosages could come under the wikipedia definition of "hard drugs" if used in high enough quantities. Paracetamol is a harmless painkiller, but its also a cousin of heroin. You cannot see physical benefits of PED's or steroids without abusing steroids. TRT I think is a taboo but brilliant form of treatment that is yet to be recognised, but to say steroids are not hard drugs is not true
@@AlexanderBromley Regarding number 3, isn't that kind of just avoiding the fact that steroids have negative effects? We're not talking about alcohol, we're talking about people harming themselves with unnecessary steroid usage. Also you mentioned permanent shutdowns are rare and a result of reckless use, how many of those alcohol relate deaths are rare and from reckless use?
Seems like some kind of copium here TBH
@Ben Lincoln "You can't see physical benefits of PEDs without abusing steroids"
Are you just making this shit up? You must be, I can't even think of anyone you might have seen on social media dumb enough to have planted this seed in your head. What's it like to have strong opinions about things you have no experience, education or operational knowledge of?
Ben, seriously, that was one of the most dumbass statements I've ever seen on social media.
Re: your insistance that words don't have definitions:
When you stretch and deconstruct the definitions of words to encompass anything to satisfy whatever point you're trying to make, you remove any functional use those definitions have. "Hard drugs" is used to identify especially dangerous compounds, it is not a definition you slap on "anything used in excess to where it's harmful", otherwise it would encompass so many over-the-counter drugs that it would be useless as a means of differentiating really, imminently dangerous shit from things that can be used responsibly as a tool.
Your method of arguing has real fucking consequences to how we address serious problems.
We run into the same problem of people jumping into a goddamn purity spiral by having stricter and stricter definitions to show how "zero tolerance" they are to bad things. They do it with addressing the homeless problem by counting people who live in trailers or are couch surfing. They do it with bringing awareness to mental health issues by spamming instagram with posts about mild anxiety or banal childhood issues; all the while it absolutely steals attention away from the people who are in the most dire straits.
Your definition of "hard drugs" is complete nonsense. You made it up. It is objectively, measurably wrong.
@Jaku Alcohol kills 95k people yearly in the US from poisoning, liver damage and drunk driving accidents, and contributes to a whole array of domestic dysfunction that has obliterated entire communities. I's completely normalized. My point isn't that steroids don't have negative effects (I recommend watching the video next time), it's that they pale in comparison to the effects alcohol has and that having this hysterical reaction towards steroids and being fine with alcohol makes you an inconsistent hypocrite who makes the rules up as you go.
I'm on copium? Sounds like you want to be able to drink and feel good about it while still being judgemental towards people who use. Can't have it both ways bub.
Everyone has different reasons for doing things and outside of a competitive situation with clear cut rules on the matter, what a person does with their own body is really no one else's business, and destigmatizing use (and this can apply to any drug use not just PEDs) so that people can have open conversations means that they make informed decisions and properly assess the risk to rewards. I'm glad to see that starting to happen more but I still think too much emphasis is being placed on having to justify use. Is having a particular physique for aesthetic reasons less valid than for performance benefit? I don't think it should matter. Alan is speaking from a position where he is happy with the body he has, but that isn't the case for everyone and while I fully believe in learning to love yourself regardless, if you have the means and desire to change something you should go for it. Transgender people medically transition because doing so improves their material quality of life. Disclaimer: having body dysmorphia and being trans are absolutely not the same and I have no desire to speak for the experiences of trans people, but if you think about it in a broader sense, gender dysphoria is recognized as a diagnosable mental illness for which HRT is the standard of care for treatment. So assuming you aren't a bigot, you can apply the same logic to any situation where external body modification, be it gear, tattoos, piercings, etc. if it makes a person feel more comfortable with the body they're in, there shouldn't be any shame in doing so. As long as you're not purposefully misleading people by claiming natty so you can sell programs and supps (and destigmatizing use will ultimately help stop people doing that), then why you chose to do it shouldn't matter to anyone but you.
This discussion ultimately leads to a whole philosophical cluster-fuck. Every modification we make to ourselves, from makeup and plastic surgery to gender-affirming procedures, stands somewhere between "if self-modification makes you happy, you should do that" and "increased normalization for these procedures creates societal pressure, which deprioritizes self-satisfaction and leads to a host of other issues". As someone who has made this decision for myself, I have no idea what I would tell my daughters about how to navigate these waters, in a way that wouldn't carry some emotional consequence for them or that wouldn't lead me to being a massive hypocrite.
Doesn't seem like there is a line in the sand that won't be arbitrary, which is why I can see an exotic dystopian future where half the people are cyborgs and the other half are Amish.
In a sane world PED's would be completely legal. Remove the fear of legal ramifications for speaking about them and you'd have a hell of a lot more information out there to use to make an informed decision.
I think of peds like upgrades on a motorcycle. There's no reason to upgrade until you've mastered the stock bike.
It seems that a lot of guys that go on TRT don't like it and come off. The "you tube TRT" trend of the last 5 years has probably accelerated that somewhat. Personally, I have low T (230), in spite of good lifestyle, and was a candidate for TRT, but was advised against it by endocrinologists because I've had issues with blood clotting and stroke risk. However, it's really easy for me to put on muscle, almost ridiculously easy. My Doc thinks that's probably the result of naturally high IGF-1 levels. I'm in the minority, clearly, but evidence now suggests that the link between test levels and muscle growth may not be quite as strong as once thought, not until you get to super-physiological levels that is.
know a lot of people who used PED's in powerlifting and allmost all of them say, they wish they diden't do it.
Strange, I know hundreds of strongmen and powerlifters and hadn't heard that once.
@@AlexanderBromley Different countrys have different values i think. Most of them broke themshelfs with big weights.
@@Thundertepi I know a lot of international competitors and usually they are the worst offenders. American's don't tend to reach the level of use that many Russian or Middle Eastern lifters do; there is a much bigger cultural incentive to take on risk in order to win. Curious, what country are you in? And were these competitors are casual lifters?
@@AlexanderBromley Finland prety strong people talking over 800 lbs deads
Waking up to a big brom vid? Gonna be a good day 👍
The only time I could or would justify using steroids would be if I was facing any possibility of getting incarcerated. I do boxing and it is illegal in boxing therefore I wouldn’t use gear. That and if I was going to be drafted and deployed in a war zone then drugs are on the table. Maybe steroids more for the psychological aspect of it. Or what the Wagner Mercenaries bring a bottle of wine with them when deployed is a good idea.
Steroids are dangerous. I've done few cycles on small doses (dbol, sustanon, anadrol, just 1 of these at a time). I'm now 39, haven't done bloodwork or measured my test levels, but have the feeling that it's quite low, compared to what it probably could have been, if I never used gear. My sex drive is quite low these days, and I actually had it very very high (more than my friends) in my teenage and 20s. I'm also almost quite bald. Steroids gave me a lot of strength, many people don't believe me when I say my bench press went up with 30 kg in 40 days during my first cycle with just 5 mg dbol a day. But along with the strength gains, I probably am affected a lot by the side effects. Fortunately, I never did high doses (50 mg anadrol max).
in my opinion, as long as somebody is honest about it, gear use vs not is entirely a personal choice, we all have an unknown, but mostly set number of years in life. steroids objectively cost years off your life span, but so do a lot of things, so does going out to drink every weekend. driving a car regularly presents risks. the question one must ask is, will the things i get out of steroids worth years off the end of my life. the only person that can answer this is the would be user.
I'm almost 50 but have Testestorone levels lower than the average 80 year old. I love it. Life is so much more chill than when I was younger with higher Test. Why should I do TRT?
Everyone has a different path. If it isn't negatively impacting your life, there isn't a reason to!
I remember Alan saying in an interview that RUclips was only an attempt to advertise his gym. Apparently the gym revenue is massively higher than the YT revenue. May have an impact on his answer to "would you consider PEDs if you were starting now". I follow both you guys because the main focus of your channels ISN'T physique-centric. You're both basically forced to put out higher quality content with your shirts on, rather than, you know, lie...
You can see that his channel is kind of on auto-pilot at this point. Shame, because at next to 1M subs, a minimal amount of optimization would make his YT a 50k per month channel.
As far as the quality of my content goes... just wait until these cuts come in!
@@AlexanderBromley lol, bet
13:41 - GVS was correct, and not because he was being uncharitable, but because he knows more about physiology. The amount of free T is not representative of a particular set of phenotypic traits - some people have low readings, but they have such a high RECEPTOR count throughout their body that that is enough to do all the work of a higher reading in someone else. A low reading on its own only tells you one single part of the story, and while it might correlate in general with some common "symptoms", that is not ALWAYS the case. GVS knows his shit, I haven't seen that video, but I would not be surprised if he was thinking in those terms.
He isn't in a position to make that assessment. If someone was open about using doctor-prescribed anti-depressants, would you accept "just because you're depressed doesn't mean you need antidepressants" as a meaningful statement?
@@AlexanderBromley Absolutely I would, as someone who was prescribed anti-depressants that turned out to not actually be more effective than placebo (when really studied AFTER being released to the public) and with not-insignificant potential side-effects. I also could have benefited from better psychotherapy, so again, there are often more variables than you might take into account with any intervention. There is also the similar issue of lifestyle changes you can make in both instances. Very few things in life are so black and white, and as someone with a mol biol degree who works as an RA within the biological sciences, I keep learning first hand (to my annoyance, heh) how complex biology is and that it's almost never a case of "condition A will ALWAYS resolve with the BEST outcome using intervention B in EVERY individual", especially if that intervention is pharmaceutical.
Probably a better analogy would be "would I say to someone that 'just because you have type 1 diabetes, doesn't mean you need to take insulin'?" Because obviously that is a case where it really IS black and white. Neither depression nor androgen response/status is like that, though, which was my point. Yeah, you can make generalisations, but if you're actually pointing out that generalisations don't always hold, that's legitimate.
That's my point; in cases where things aren't black and white, it is useless to make a judgement call without knowing the specific details of the case. He would be correct if it was a a 'matter-of-fact' statement about the when supplementation is or isn't needed, but it wasn't, it was a judgemental statement directed towards an individual without knowing the individual's circumstances.
I agree with your thoughts and points related to the stigma around TRT. great comparison between test replacement and thyroid hormone replacement.
“Train untaymedeh!”
Honestly, I believe his previous look with the long hair and beard combined with his lifts helped him grow. His look set him apart. Starting brand new in 2022 looking like that, yeah, I think it would be a lot more difficult for him. (To be clear, he gave up his hair for a fantastic cause, so I don't fault him for that at all.)
The information at 11:58 to 14:44 is so true!!!
I think a good personality is more important in your day to day with others then physical prowess and science backs me up on this. Personality is more important to your social game than physical size. Even if we look at primates in the jungle, the hierarchy is set up by social ability and not size. Cheers Alex.
By and large, I agree. On a day-to-day basis, we spend most of our time developing connections within social circles we have either already established or involved ourselves in. Within these circles, the longer we spend improving those relationships, the less that external one-dimensional factors (such as appearance) matter. Whether or not I go bald won't affect my daily relationships to any significant extent - perhaps a joke or two will be made, but those close to me know who I am, and that's majorly due to my personality as opposed to my appearance.
Conversely, the external one-dimensional factors do matter a great deal more in the realm of cultivating new relationships. If I look rather unsightly being bald, that'll not only play a role in how attractive I seem to new people, but will also affect how confident I feel, thus impacting the way I present myself to others as well. So in essence, I think it boils down to where your priorities are. If you're satisfied with the relationships in your life, working on your appearance perhaps won't do all that much for you.
Being jacked / shredded is intrinsically linked to ones status in the _cough_ 'fitness community'. It also becomes part of the individuals persona. We don't need to mention names, but there's at least several high profile guys I can think of who have seen a steady decline in traffic since 'coming off'.
There's simply more interest in seeing a 300 lb + man perform crazy feats of strength than there is seeing a 190 lb middle aged man re invent himself as a semi endurance athlete. Thats why Piana has a legion of fanboys despite being basically a self destructive drug freak and supplement huckster who offered virtually nothing in the way of useful training or nutritional advice. Personas like his have become pretty much the template for the whole sick industry.
Personally, I believe Brian Alsure would be Alan Thrall if he was on the gear. So I don't wonder. Or care.
"Reefer Madness!" Haha! Favorite quote: "I'm red hot." "You'd better slow down or you'll be ice cold."
Disillusioned? No man quite the opposite. This was empowering.
I heard stop over analyzing and searching for perfect and just do what works for you.
just one issue with what you said about "hard drugs": there are people who regularly take small to moderate amounts of meth, opiates, amphetamines and so forth. My grandma has been on the same moderate dose of opiates for 15+ years.
The reason why people land under bridges has more to do with the criminalization of drugs than with their "dangerousness".
Not saying that some people won't always overdo it and ruin their life - but as you pointed out, that applies to all kinds of drugs, including PEDs.
No, people do not end up under bridges because drugs are illegal. They end up under bridges because addiction ruins your life. Go to any 12 step program or half way house counseling session and listen for anyone to say "things were gravy till I got arrested!". Instead, it usually goes, "I had a $200 per day pill habit", "I didn't care about who I hurt", "I was stealing my mom's cancer medication".
After 15 years of opiate dependency, god help your grandma if she can't get her fix. I watched my dad go through withdrawal and if you had to see her do the same, you wouldn't talk about it like it's casual drinking on the weekends. You're bought into the normalization of dependency, I STRONGLY recommend you check out ALANON.
PED users have the most precious sensibilities.
Being natty and ppl asking you if you are on roids, or what kind of pds u take is a great compliment.
I wrote a negative comment, but after finishing the video I deleted it. I still don't agree with everything but the honesty and interesting discussion gets my thumbs up.
I believe Alan Thrall makes most of his money from his *Hydro-20* product.
when he says he wants to be honest he means that he doesn't want to mislead people about the results they would get based on a particular program
What are your reasons for training bromley?
"To crush my enemies, to see them driven before me, and to hear the lamentations of their women."
Right now, competing is the primary driver, which I'll be able to keep up at a high level for 5 or so more years. But there are about 19 different reasons I train besides that which will keep me in the gym after my competitive years are behind me.
It's the one thing that keeps me from being completely sedentary, it manages anxiety and depression, contributes to my appearance (being a big potato over a small one), I like being physically capable, and so on. I think everyone should have something to chip away at and should find something in their life to display excellence in. This is mine and I'm fortunate to be able to make a living off of it.
Fans should focus on lifting not on high school drama.
Lol that doesn't match the definition of fan anywhere
@@AlexanderBromley People who watch weightlifting videos should lift themselves not watch for entertainment and the high drama.
Those aren't fans though. If no one watches for entertainment, the sport stays tiny and no one gives a shit. Boxing and MMA, football, Olympics are all fueled by the human interest story and drama. So I say more drama.
@@AlexanderBromley Why do you want a bunch of people watching weightlifting videos and never weightlifting themselves? Why are they watching? For Sam Sulek updates?
I went from the skinniest guy in highschool to a guy that looked skinny with clothes on and you couldn't tell I was in shape until I removed my clothes.
It was frustrating because I was a diehard natty lifter. Many people would laugh if they knew how often and seriously I took my training. I started bulking which had people now calling me fat. I kept getting fatter and fatter because I wanted to maximize my muscle gain..the bulk went on for years with very small marginal gains.
The first cut I did, I lost most of my muscle and looked terrible. I adjusted my calories, training and reduced volume. I got better results. I found out that my low calorie diet crashed my testosterone and got on TRT. It was absolutely a game changer.
Quality of life is much better if you are on doctor prescribed TRT. Just 75 mg a week was more than enough.
Added some SARMs and things finally started to get even better.
Being natty was just a made up label in my head. I could definitely stop everything and still feel great because I've learned how to train better and eat the right amount.
I'm still learning something from you, being a veteran of the sport for 36 years (yes I'm 63) and former national powerlifting champion. And I'm a non-user. Steroids work, I'm convinced, but to what cost? At 63 years I still train in my garage gym and don't have significant health problems and still have a nice rather muscular body. I would discourage steroid use. There's more in life than strength (even if it's very fun to improve it in a natural way!)
*22:37** hahahahaha that blindsided me. also how you very casually moved past that example haha* 😂😂😂
I think what Alan says is solid as stone. When people begin to deviate from this, that's precisely where you see people drifting into "idolitry", as your grandma would adroitly state. A lot of these discussions become much less foggy when a person has a solid grasp on fundamental truths like "who are we? why are we here?" Our modern culture (and, for that matter, most non-modern cultures) have eventually drifted toward either nihilism or hedonism...or both. The pursuit of "transcendent strength" or a "divine aesthetic" are vapid luxuries of those with youth. Often, wisdom may begin to creep in when the fleeting nature of those things inevitably manifests.
OK - final comment. I like your view that we have to understand the context for ANY drug. Many prescription drugs are more deadly that steroids if they are dosed the way some people dose steroids.
great stuff as always
Part of the natty life too is what I like to call the "Goku ideal" How at every turn that goofy dude would let his opponents power up just to defeat them at their max. Now, that's not to say every natty is saying "I'll outlift geared guys, watch me" but in my case I do want to be something of a contender. Not hopeful for anything beyond regionals, especially seeing some of the monsters coming out of the woodwork, but I do wanna see what I can do regardless.
I completely relate with Alan, I want to see how much I can achieve naturally without assistance. Hopping on gear or TRT is most likely a life long decision because your natural test production will only decline.
I 100% gave up listening to muscle building advice from enhanced bodybuilders whether they are open or not. I am natty and lifing for 10 years so those channels are of zero benefit to me. I only listen to enhanced lifters when they can improve my technical abilities like you. The rest are natty channels like Scoffield and NH. Good stuff man thank you!
Love Alan. His content is/was of its time. It changed from breaking down of powerlifting to more strong man and now general health and fitness. I don’t know why that happened - maybe his journey changed but I desubbed and I expect his numbers have gone down. Hopefully he made enough money, can run a famous gym and is able to look after his family. It’s more Bromely’s time now. The world just moves on.
And a big YES! Once peds were deemed illegal, control was taken from the doctors and given to the black markets
When I actually started going to the gym lifting for a little bit (had to stop because of some events that are happening but will be back asap) is that the reason why I want to be natty other than the health effects of steroid use is that I want to see how strong I can get with everything I can do and use (that aren’t steroids). I won’t condemn steroid users unless they use it to cheat or scam people by lying that they’re natty. Also, nice video btw
To Alan's point, I do think that there are a lot of coaches and influencers that feel they do not need to disclose their PED usage and that that is their business. I was arguing over that lack of transparency with a Kabuki Strength coach and they saw absolutely nothing wrong with keeping that secret to themselves while selling products to consumers knowing full well that their strength and physique is a marketing tool.
I'm going to the Gym so I have to take less meds so . . .
Perfectly valid!
I'm not the best person to talk about this, but I was recently listening to (I think) sigma nutrition, and they were talking about the rigor of prescribing practices for TRT/HRT. Basically 3-4% of people prescribed TRT had their doctor follow the endocrine society's guidelines of two serial tests (since testosterone can vary so much throughout the day, even over short time spans). Moreover, 80% of people did not even have their testosterone tested. They were just prescribed TRT based on symptomology. Even more than that, so many thing can lower your testosterone. Sedentarism, poor diet, lack of sleep, lack of calories, high stress levels. I'm not saying we should not prescribe TRT in these circumstances, but I am unsure if it should be the first choice.
I do generally agree that TRT is a good tool, and is helping many people though. I just think it needs to be less of a gray market thing the way that getting an Adderall/Vyvanse prescription has turned into. We are basically at the point with some of this stuff where you just need to find the right doctor (who is very free with their prescribing), and say the correct things to them symptomology wise. You can game subjective screening practices, and many people do. That is not a reason to not treat these symptoms, and it's probably better to over-prescribe than under prescribe imo.