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It is my understanding that by and large, they haven't made great strides in making them more effective; no need to.
They have made strides in making them harder to detect.
It's admittedly not my area of expertise. I also kind of doubt that average Joe buying steroids in the gym locker room is actually taking the new generation of anabolic steroids. Professional athletes, yes. Guy buying stuff in the locker room, I kind of doubt it. There's a lot more money in juicing professional athletes and most of the money is contingent on it not being detectable. I doubt it's making its way downstream to mainstream usage as the cash cow is in professional sports.
I've never used steroids so I have no first hand opinions. I have considered it in the past and did a lot of research including talking to a lot of people who do and have used them for 10-20+ years, listening to guys like Dorian Yates who's very open about exactly what he used and how much and generally being open minded about research from both ends of the equation. And I don't really see how you can prove that there are any long term negative effects. Everyone points to Lyle Alzado and now Piana but what about the millions of other people that have used them regularly for decades? I'm sure 70% of pro athletes and olympic athletes have used something and 100% of pro bodybuilders, strongman, powerlifters etc. Bigger, Stronger, Faster asked question of where are all the bodies if it's so bad for people? And of course the most publicized guys that have died are people that are doing all kinds of damage to their body. Alzado died of brain cancer and there still have been no links that show steroid use played any part of in that. Piana probably walked around at 300+ plus and had to eat a tremendous amount of calories, did minimal cardio exercise because that hurts your gains if you're a body builder and all of that stuff alone takes a toll on your heart with or without steroids. There are certain steroids that raise blood pressure so maybe that came into play but nobody knows what else he was doing or what other drugs he was taking for recreation or anything else.
Personally I decided against using any steroids because of the fact that it seemed that most of what you get is coming from black market home chemists and is equivalent to meth or bathtub gin in safety because it's not regulated and made by people that may or may not have chemist/drug manufacturing experience. If i was able to get stuff that I know was made by pharma companies and lab tested etc and I knew exactly what I was getting I'd reconsider.
They aren't any safer. Actually, in a vaccum, they were never that dangerous. Steroids, while relatively recent in baseball (due to the misguided notion that weight training would screw up "timing" for batters, have been used for 50 years by other athletes where extreme bulk isn't an advantage. Cyclists, runners, swimmers...you never really hear about ill effects in their population despite their being used for decades.
Bodybuilding (in the Rich Plana sense of the world) isn't a healthy endeavor. Steroids play a role as to why, but aren't the only cause. A few points: these guys eat like crazy, workout like crazy, take insulin and other stuff as part of their stack, walk around at 300+ lbs, then take diuretics and whatnot to achieve the shredded vascular look for the show.
Gynocemastia (******* t!ts) and acne are still there.
None of these guys look great 365 days a year, they're like anyone else, and they don't put the pictures of gristly skin on instagram. Also, there are things they'll take to clear acne up, and they watch their diets, some of them have good genes or whatever and don't deal with it as much. They'll take accutane in a pinch to clear it up.
Gynecomastia can be handled by a handful of estrogen receptor inhibitors (arimidex, 4-androstenedione, nolvadex.)
And yes, lots of them keep close tabs on things with the help of a doctor, either an anti aging doctor or endocrinologist.
Should have read your reply before I posted mine
The insulin and diuretics are things that can actually kill you immediately. I still have never heard of someone dying from a steroid OD but you take too much insulin and you go into a coma and die (which just happens to be exactly what happened to Rich)
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