Steroids and People Under 25
Posted by madruga elsewhere, lifted for your consideration...
Remember, training is a lifestyle- Dying to get big? Don't make it a dead end.
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Steroids for People Under 25
Young people have always been intrigued by and tempted to use performance enhancing drugs such as steroids and growth hormones. This could stem from a variety of things: low self-esteem, competitiveness in sports, desire to attract the opposite sex, etc. In a 2002 study, 6% of males in grades 9th-12th admitted to using steroids at one time or another. This may not seem like a large percentage, but when you consider that nearly one quarter of the population is under the age of 18, the numbers seem to start growing. I am among this 6%, as I experimented with performance enhancing drugs (PED's for short) all throughout my high school career.
In high school, I was involved in many different types of athletics: football, wrestling, and track and field (100m, 4x100m, 4x400m, 300m hurdles, shot-put, discus, and long jump). My main focus was football, however. Blessed with natural size, strength, and decent athletic ability, I started at linebacker and offensive guard for the varsity team as a sophomore. Although I was big and relatively strong, I always pushed myself for more (as did the coaches)…more speed, more agility, more explosiveness, more aggression, more strength, etc. I worked out twice a day, as well as went to football practice for two hours every evening. But still, it seemed to be not enough. In tenth grade, I ordered some pre-ban 1-AD. Albeit a pro-hormone (PH) and not an actual steroid, according to some, my sixteen year old body responded greatly to the influx of testosterone in my system. My agility and overall speed increased, strength increased, and my BF% decreased. I was working hard, and the 1-AD was really giving me that extra bit of boost that I needed to get noticed by the coaches and college scouts. I took the 1-AD for four straight months, often at double the dose that was prescribed.
After football season came wrestling season, and I had to drop weight…from 225 to 189 in about a month’s time. I quit taking the 1-AD, as I noticed that I carried a good bit of water while I was on it. Once off of the PH, dropping the weight was no problem. But as the weight dropped, so did the strength. During the summer between my junior year and my senior year, the pressure was really on to be the absolute best that I could be as to impress the college scouts that would be watching me perform at the various camps and combines that I would be attending. This time, I got some M1T (a banned PH) as well as some M1P and M1Alpha (both similar to the banned M1T and produced by a company called Legal Gear, now known as LG Sciences). I wanted to cut weight, drop my 40 yard dash time by four tenths of a second, and gain lean body mass. The stack did the trick. In less than 3 months, I had dropped 7% bodyfat, dropped my total weight from 235 to 210, dropped my 40 yard dash time from 4.9 seconds to 4.56 seconds, gained 60 lbs. on my one rep bench max to hit 320 lbs., increased my squat max to 455 lbs. and my clean max to 305 lbs.
But there was one thing that I didn’t know about: Post Cycle Therapy. And “time on equals time off”, what in the world does that mean? I had played with my hormones so much that by the beginning of football season, I was developing Gynecomastia (b*tch tits) and my joints were extremely sore and achy. But I was still able to compete, and compete well. However, in the third quarter of the first football game of my senior year, I was blindsided and I tore my ACL and LCL, as well as cartilage and part of the meniscus in my left knee. All of that time and hard work down the drain.
Because of the knowledge and maturity level of most young people, steroids can be a very dangerous road to take en route to a better looking and performing body. Most teens and young adults are very narrow-minded when it comes to their health. They will readily take a pill if it will make their bodies leaner, stronger, or overall more appealing to others. Young people think that if a little needle stick will increase their aesthetics, and countless others are doing it (such as professional athletes, models, etc.), then there can’t be anything wrong with it. Below is a list of reasons that young people should NOT use anabolic performance enhancing drugs.
1. Gynecomastia
2. Stunted Growth
3. Weakened Ligaments and Tendons
4. Psychological Side Effects
5. Liver Damage Associated with Steroid Abuse
6. Natural Testosterone Production is Already High
7. Reliance on Steroids
Gynecomastia
Gyno is the development of abnormally large mammary glands in males. This is caused by an imbalance in sex hormones. Gyno can be a real problem, correctable only by surgery, if it is not treated quickly and properly. Gyno can show up during the use of steroids, immediately after, or, as in my case, months after the discontinuation of use of steroids.
Stunted Growth
As adolescences, our bodies are told how much to grow and when to stop growing by hormones. By taking steroids and chemically adjusting one’s hormone levels, one can actually keep the bones from growing as much as they would have if steroids had not been introduced into the body. Steroids can close the growth plates of the bones, and once these plates are closed, they cannot be reopened. This can cause a person to not grow as tall as they would have.
Weakened Ligaments and Tendons
Typically, the process of athletic training and muscle building strengthens the entire body as a whole. As muscles get stronger, tendons and ligaments get stronger, and bones get stronger. But when steroids are introduced into a young person’s body, muscle is built so quickly that the connective tissues simply can’t keep up with the rapid growth and as a result, these tissues are significantly weaker than they need to be to support your body. The end result can be ligament tears are well as bone fractures. I experienced this firsthand, as a routine hit during a football game caused two of the four major ligaments in my knee to tear, along with a few other things.
Psychological Side Effects
There is no denying that a person’s life during the ages of fourteen to twenty-five are some of the most character shaping years in one’s life. There is also no denying the fact that steroids do affect your psychological well-being. I am only talking from experience here: while taking steroids in my youth, I was an unruly, angry, impatient, and aggressive person. In my mind, I was also invincible. As a football player, not all of these were bad side-effects. However, as soon as I came off of the drugs, I because severely depressed and emotionally unstable. I couldn’t look in a mirror without feeling the urge to somehow better my body. My self-esteem was so low that I felt that I was a failure at everything that I attempted, which was not the case in the least. Young people are confronted all of the time with trials and social pressures that wreck havoc on one’s psyche. There is no need to submit one’s self to even more psychosocial pressures that come with the use of steroids.
Liver Damage Associated with Steroids Abuse
Because of the positive side-effects associated with steroid use, they can potentially be mentally addicting drugs. Add that with a young person whose maturity level lower than the average adult and who would do anything to make their bodies look or perform better and you have a recipe for disaster…and liver damage! In high school, when I was popping my magic pro-hormone pills, all I could see was the strength gains and the athletic accomplishments that I was able to achieve through the use of the drugs. Therefore, I stayed on them for months at a time…..MUCH longer than I should have. There is no telling what kind of damage I could have done to my liver but pumping them so full of my methylated magic pills. I was too young to realize the dangers of steroids to the internal organs of the body, and even if I HAD been aware of the dangers present, I would have more than likely continued because of my short-sightedness, which is common amongst many young people.
High Natural Test Production
A man’s testosterone is at its highest levels when the man is in his mid twenties. After that, the natural production of testosterone in a man’s body slowly decreases during one’s life span. However, a young male is already producing copious amounts of testosterone naturally, and the need to further supplement that testosterone is not nearly as vital to the development of muscle as it is to older males who are not producing as much testosterone.
Reliance on Steroids
After taking steroids and seeing what kind of gain that could be made in such a short amount of time while taking them, it is common to feel a sort of reliance on the drug. Young users may feel that they might as well not exercise and train unless they are taking steroids, because they feel that without the drugs, they are simply wasting their time. This could not be further from the case! Young “virgin” lifters have so much potential for growth that, with hard work and a correct diet, they can build muscle and gain strength with and without steroids.
Steroids are simply not intended to be taken by young people. There is so much more room for error when a younger individual takes steroids versus an older, more knowledgeable and mature individual. Typically, the negative side-effects of steroid use by people under the age of twenty-five are amplified by the immaturity, fact that they are misinformed, and lack of knowledge of the individual. I can personally guarantee that nearly one-hundred percent of all steroid users who started using under the age of twenty-five will, at some point in their life, wish that they had waited and made more gains naturally.
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03-15-2009
Kaizen Racing Champion!
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