Mark Bell's Power Project - Odd History of PEDs, "Pro Hormones" and Tren - Anthony Roberts MBPP Ep. 883

Episode Date: February 8, 2023

In this Podcast Episode, Anthony Roberts, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about the wonderful world of supplements, peptides and more. Follow Anthony on Twitter: https://twitter.com/anthonyroberts  New Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the new Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw Special perks for our listeners below! ➢https://hostagetape.com/powerproject Free shipping and free bedside tin! ➢https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!! ➢Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM ➢https://www.vivobarefoot.com/us/powerproject to save 15% off Vivo Barefoot shoes! ➢https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off site wide including Within You supplements! ➢https://mindbullet.com/ Code POWERPROJECT for 20% off! ➢https://bubsnaturals.com Use code POWERPROJECT for 20% of your next order! ➢https://vuoriclothing.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order at Vuori! ➢https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro at 8 Sleep! ➢https://marekhealth.com Use code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off ALL LABS at Marek Health! Also check out the Power Project Panel: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off! ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150 Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en  Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

All right, Anthony Roberts, why don't we just start off with what everybody wants to know about and that's trend All these conversations they started in with trend, right? It always comes back to trend. It seems like have you heard of the trend twins? I have you have I just heard about them recently. There's a young young duo. They're twins and they're on trend Oh, I think they had a great opportunity for one to do trend and one to do something else You know, that would have been such a great study. Right. Right. I think I heard.

What's his name? Big fucking hell. This big white guy was talking about him. Fuck. Do you know what I'm talking about? No, but it's a big, but no, it's going to be, it's going to come to me. Yeah. You'll think about it later.

Yeah. Anyway, I heard about them yesterday. Your brother. The Trent twins. Yes. I heard about them yesterday from your brother. The Trent twins? Yes. I love it. And I thought, I hoped at first that it was just a clever nickname. Like maybe they were really jacked. Like the Barbarian Brothers back in the day.

They weren't necessarily actually barbarians. That's who they were compared to the Barbarian Brothers. They have like the personality of like the... Oh, awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's great. So they're going to do some movies, I hope. Some big movies.

They're going to cut off those old school Cavaricci pants or whatever. Zubas. Jorts and string tank tops. Here they are, the trend twins. Okay, okay. I'm digging it. Seth Ferosi. Seth Ferosi made a video about the trend twins that's right

he is a big white guy i'm sorry seth it's very true nailed it so uh that's what i was thinking when you said big white the story is uh these guys were exposed to trend in the womb? Yes. Yeah. They were exposed to trend in the womb, and the breast milk that they drank was also infused with that trend. Well, it's working. It's working. They look jacked. Hence the trend. So I'm going to get super nerdy on this. Do you know when they look at the soil and the plants around slaughterhouses and places where there are cattle that are exposed to trend?

You know there's trend in the soil. What? In the water, yes. Yeah, for sure. Where? So. Where can I get the soil? Is this in Jersey?

So I was, have you seen the Jersey Shore? I have, yeah. Beautiful. They're like spittles lining. It explains why everyone there is in such a good mood all the time. they're like spittles lining it explains why everyone there's in such a good mood all the time so i was i was involved in a big criminal case that involved a trend balloon type substance and the law reads that if it's not found in in nature and some other things it can't be in a supplement so i started researching like oh is trend found in nature and trying to figure out some like

convoluted legal argument to make like well it's in the soil you know and ultimately that was uh that was abandoned because it was a stupid argument but you can't find it in the soil it is contaminating the soil and the water around those places yeah interesting yeah because they're giving it to cattle yeah because trend doesn't die like when you have it in these animals and these concentrations, it just lingers, man. Do you know if that's still a practice? Are people still doing that? Or is that like an older thing? People still doing that to make the cows bigger? Yeah. Yeah. In fact, so they sell them. They're called Finiplex. And you can order Finiplex cartridges online

without a prescription because they're counterfeit. This is kind of the origin of Tren, right? It kind of started that way, right? And people would break that down back in the day like in their tub or whatever? Okay, yeah. So – Oh, actually? Just in case.

I hope not in their tub, but yeah. This is where the tale starts I think, right? The tale of Tren. So what people would do was they would take the Trent blown cartridges and they would break them open. Now, they were meant to be put into a cattle implant gun. They weren't meant – like so imagine trying to break the cartridge, let's say like the magazine for a pistol open. Like it would be really hard. That's what it's like to open a Trent cartridge I've heard.

And they would take the pellets and they would grind them up so if you have a mortar and pestle or if you have whatever you had you grind them up till you got them pretty small i've heard and and so you get a powder and you dissolve the powder in oil don't do this and then you would add like a sterilizing agent you'd pass them through a syringe filter and then you would maybe you'd boil it too like maybe you would do a double boiler and then you ended up with a liquid that you hoped was sterile and contained enough active trend hoped and you could you could you know you could use some other agent to break it down before you put in the oil. What year are we talking about? Like yesterday.

For me? No. This is like state of the art in the 80s. This was – there was a pretty big power lifting group that was doing that. And they were doing it a little differently. But, yeah, that's how they were getting it. And my understanding is some of these compounds from back then when people were making these, they also had like estrogen in them too, right? Yeah.

Like hefroid or something or testosterone. Well, that was estrogen. It was estrogen. Yeah. I think if we're talking about Ralgro, that's a synthetic estrogen, right? That's going to make you bigger. Estrogen will make you bigger.

And if you're breeding cattle to kill them for meat, you just want a huge piece of meat. So giving them these drugs was not problematic. Now, some powerl lifters experimented with with ralro or hefaroid or whatever but the chemical name i think is arenal but like you're not going to use it for bodybuilding right you're gonna be too big estrogen gains you know so no no one used it in in bodybuilding and some of the testosterone pellets would have estrogen in them. So you could get the same cattle implants, but they would have estrogen in them. So you had to do what's called a saturation reaction to dissolve the pellet and remove the estrogen.

Jeez, if you want to be big, you got to be a chemist. Quick question. So people would, like to do this shit, people would find cattle pellets and do all this shit. How many horses and how many cows do you have, sir? Is this the third time you've been in this week? Wow. I have a very large ranch. So for a while, and I can't speak to this now, but those cartridges were available on like Amazon.

Wow. Really? Yes. Interesting. That's crazy. So what the hell is Tren? Why is it so powerful? And did somebody know this when they started trying to find it in these pellets and stuff?

So Tren is – it's a testosterone-based anabolic. You basically have three families of anabolics, right? You have testosterone-based. You have 19-nortisosterone-based. You have dihydrotestosterone-based. So this is a – let's call it a testosterone molecule to make it simple. Then it's got three modifications. I think it's at the fourth, eleventh, and ninth position or four-eleven, four-nine-eleven, four-seven-eleven. I forget which one it is.

But you have these three and that's where a trend like try. That's where that comes from. And when they did the original studies on it, it was a testosterone to 100 over 100 drug. The anabolic to androgenic ratio is 100 over 100. It's the baseline. That's why it's 100 over 100. Tren is 500 over 500. So it's –

Five times stronger. Yes. In rodent models, which is the best we had back then. We're talking about back in the day. And so which is the best we had back then. We're talking about back in the day. And so that was the best we had. It's called the Hirschberger assay. And that's where you take rodent, castrated, of course, and you give them the drug at a certain dose,

the same dose as you would have given them testosterone. Then when they're sacrificed, you weigh. When they're killed, they're sacrificed for the greater medicine. When they're killed. These damn mice. They're always getting fucked over. Well, that's what it says in the studies, right? They use the word sacrifice.

So when they're sacrificed, and they do a little ceremony and, you know, they— Like he really loveded. Yeah. So when they're sacrificed, they – and they do a little ceremony and, you know, they – Like he really loved lifting. Yeah. He was a great mouse. Yeah. He won all these contests. When they're sacrificed, they weigh their – they weigh different organs. So like the seminal vesicles and then some levator ani, right, which is leggish muscle.

And they just compare the weights to the weights of those same muscles or whatever from the testosterone rodents. So if it was five times bigger, it's five times the potency. And it's somewhat irrelevant to humans at this point. We know that it's not a great way to do it. But it's the best we have. So – but when you look at that ratio, when you say this is five times more anabolic, everybody wants it. All right. You were part of some of these original writings and stuff.

You've been talking about performance-enhancing drugs for a long time. MesoRx I, was your thing. Do you still have that? Is that still an ongoing thing? I know you were doing it like 30 years ago or something like that, or 20-something years ago. How old do you think I am? I don't know.

It was 30 years ago. I don't know. I remember from a long time ago. Yeah, I'm 45. Nice. There you go. So when I was 15, I was a bonehead. There's no way.

How long has it been around for? I've probably been writing about steroids professionally for about almost 20 years, let's call it. Oh, okay. What drew you to love steroids so much? Still a long time. What? Why wouldn't anyone? No, you know, I was writing actually because like it was more writing.

I read Muscle Media back in the day and Muscle Media was just so compelling. And they had this writer, Dan Duchesne, and his writing was just dangerous. When you read it, right, when you read the recipe for Tremblone in a magazine you could buy at a bookstore. Yeah. You're like, is it legal to own this? This is a recipe for an illegal thing. Like, can I, is this like, am I allowed to have this? I was like 15.

Wow. So you're just thinking, this is the most dangerous thing I've ever seen committed to paper, right? He had recipes for GHB, for trend pellets, for test pellets. Yeah. So you, it was just so dangerous and so cool. As a kid, that's what you're into. You're like, this is cool. Extreme, yeah.

Yeah. You had like a newsletter, right? Dirty Dieting, yeah. That was after. But yeah. And that was 10 times what the other one was. It was insane. I'm actually curious from both of you.

I know you mentioned that you don't pay much attention to YouTube and social media and stuff, but do you think when you were a teenager and you were a teenager, were as many young guys hopping on shit as now? Because TRT seems so common now, but I don't know. Was it as common when you guys were younger

for a 19, 20, 21-year-old? From my experience being like when I was, I guess, before the age of like 20 or so, it seemed like you would have to like poke around a little bit to find them, but it wouldn't be hard. Like you would be able to find steroids if you went to a local gym. You saw someone that's pretty jacked up. Um, the leap to go and do them, I think, uh, was a lot less than, I just think that, uh, I don't even know, I'm not sure what your experience is, but I would imagine that if I went to somebody when I was like a kid, I think that, I think somebody would have been like, you,

you should probably take your time, dude. Like, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna even, I think somebody would have been like, you should probably take your time, dude. I'm not going to even, I'm not going to entertain telling you where to go to get it. Yeah, there was a code of honor, for sure. For sure, there was a code of honor. If you went on a discussion board and you were 15, they would boot you. They would be like, absolutely

not. And I think if you went to the gym at 15 and you just went up to the big guy and you were like hey i'm you know he would be like absolutely not there was a code of honor back in the day i don't i don't see that yeah i don't see that happening now i think guys are just like yeah sure here's my source yeah i remember some guys talking about it and when they would talk about i remember them even saying like hey you know this is something you you know don't worry about this or don't mess with this and they're like if you ever do take these things or like study up on it, make sure you know about it, and wait until you're out of your parents' house.

Yeah, yeah. Wait until you're on your own. The first – I remember the old – and I always thought it was kind of condescending, but now I think it's kind of true. They would say, what should I do for my first cycle? And the common answer was research. Everybody would be like, research. That's the first thing you should do. Okay.

Yeah, because when people ask that type of question now, like people are handing out prescriptions. You got guys that are like 22, 23 making videos of what my first cycle is going to be. And I guess it's the information age, So it's good that people are getting education. But then it's just – it's sort of rampant it seems. Being somebody that has put out information for 20 years, what was the inspiration for getting some of that information out? So, yeah, it's kind of funny. I got my first job.

There was a steroid website that was paying. funny i got my first job there was a steroid website that was paying they were paying for people to write articles steroid articles profiles on different drugs and so it was like 200 for however long it took you to explain any particular drug and i was like i could use 200 and so i just started writing and it was this huge project and like 30 people signed up and like five people ever wrote anything so I wrote let's call it 95 percent of the information so I wrote a hundred profiles or whatever and then a few other people each did one five people did one and so they ended up making my work into a book. So that's how I got published.

Wow. Yeah, and that kind of sets you on a trajectory, right? So I did that and then some companies wanted an e-book and some other companies wanted this. And so I ended up being able to write a few books. It was probably important back then especially, maybe people just didn't have any clue on how to do it safely. And maybe the information that was passed around the gym wasn't always the best, you know, from the biggest guy. Like maybe you're not going to get the best information from that knucklehead guy at the gym. You know, maybe you should learn a little bit more about it. And with the information not being so prevalent, it was probably

a big deal that your work was out there. Yeah. I mean, it followed, you know, the Underground Starred Handbook was the first sort of printed thing. And at that point you could only get printed work, right? I mean, that was before the internet. I mean, obviously the internet's been around for however long. It's definitely, obviously I was writing online. So it was around when I was writing. So I could sort of go on PubMed and do all those things. My book was after Llewellyn's book by several years. So there was already written work on it.

You know, there was already written work. Mine was just different than his. I think mine was a little more approachable, a little more conversational, more like the Underground Starred Handbook. But yeah, no, that's the most important thing is people at least don't go in blind. Pat Proctor, family, how's it going? Hope you're enjoying the episode.

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to save $101 off of that entire panel. Links to them and all the information down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. Can you, okay, so some people don't believe this, but my knowledge on this realm isn't that great. And I think it would actually do people a good service to make a difference between certain things.

So what's the difference between like steroids, peptides? What other thing is out there that people talk about? There's steroids, there's peptides, there's what else? SARMs. SARMs. Sure. Pro hormones.

Pro hormones. Are these, is that on a different thing? Different thing. Yeah. Okay. I don't even know. Pro hormones,

like, uh, I wouldn't say they're different. So yeah, from, from what you know, what, what,

what's the difference between these things? Like when people throw out the word peptides, cause like I've seen supplements that have the word peptides on it. You know what I mean? So it's like, what is the difference with this shit? Well, Like when people throw out the word peptides because like I've seen supplements that have the word peptides on it. You know what I mean? So it's like what is the difference with this shit? Well, I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt and say that when you see peptides on a supplement, they're talking about like – Collagen peptides. I'm hoping.

Right? Yeah, that's like – yeah. Sure. But when I talk about peptides, right, I might be talking about something like GHRP6 or GH, growth hormone-releasing peptide 6. Those are things that in the example of the growth hormone-releasing peptides, they tell your body to release growth hormone. So unlike taking growth hormone, right, we're just putting it in. They're telling the body to release it. So think of them sort of like – this analogy isn't going to work unless you know steroids.

But think of them sort of like HCG, which is human chorionic gonadotropin, which tells your body ultimately to release testosterone. They're kind of like that for growth hormone. So like precursors. Are those things safe oh sorry is hcg what's measured in women when they're pregnant or my way off no no you're right okay yeah what's interesting is that i get so confused sometimes i'm like is that true like that's how they that's what they measure right when they pee or whatever right right so what happened was actually this comes from the bodybuilding world so now if someone has low testosterone, they get HCG.

Well, that comes from bodybuilders using HCG after a cycle. That's actually something the medical community took from bodybuilding or the use of Novodex, which is tamoxifen or Clomid, which is clomiphene. So Novadex, which is tamoxifen or Clomid, which is clomiphene, those are – well, Novadex is used as an anti-estrogen in women for breast cancer. Clomiphene is a fertility drug in women. But when men take it, it increases testosterone. So a lot of these things are ahead of the medical community, but they're ahead because they're taking risks that are bad to take, right? They're terrible.

But every so often, they're right. And the medical community says, oh, let's do that. Are peptides something that like they're tested for, correct? Yes. Like – okay. Yeah. What's going on with uh this uh is it ozampic is that the name of the brand that's a brand yeah it's uh i guess people are kind of

saying it's like a diabetic medication but now there's like a lot of people just taking it for weight loss and it seems like some people that are diabetic are having a hard time actually getting it and i don't know if that's true like ob yeah i don't know i just see it on the news i don't know if it's like you know some propaganda to like rev up sales or something so here's so here's where i question that knowledge right and i agree i saw it this morning yeah i saw it on today's show okay so we both watch terrible tv shows i'm in a hotel what What's your excuse? I got none. So I was watching this show and they were saying, oh, people are having problems. So, okay. First of all, you wouldn't know what a doctor is prescribing it for. Like, so how do we know as the general public, how does a journalist

know that, oh, these doctors aren't prescribing it for the right thing? We don't know that. That's true. They're not releasing their prescription information. They're not saying, We don't know that. That's true. They're not releasing their prescription information. They're not saying, hey, I regularly prescribe this for off-label use. So we don't know that. All we know is there are a bunch of buffoons on TikTok saying they got the drug and they're using the drug. But they could have been getting it from some online pharmacy without a prescription at all.

Some of them have a prescription, but it's off-label use. We don't know that the majority are these people. I just, I question that narrative. I love Al Roker as much as you, but I question that narrative. What does that drug do? I don't know. I have no idea. It's never interested me. The only reason I know about it is because people are allegedly using it for the wrong reasons. But also, I would say that these are, I don't want to say fact, but these are people that you would

think they need some metabolic work. So is that a bad reason? I mean, this guy needs to- Somebody wants to lose some body fat. Right. He might go harm in that. Yeah, and a high BMI is indicated in a ton of different health problems. So. Right.

Why is that less noble than the guy who has needs for this other reason that's implicated for the same cause or whatever? Why do you think steroids are illegal? Or should they even be illegal? So. I actually know why steroids are illegal in i believe it was 1988 it was the first time congress looked at steroids and said we're going to make this illegal they looked at dianabol it's the most popular steroid in the nation at that time so they looked at dianabol said, we need to make this illegal. They tried to make it schedule one.

If you don't know what schedule one is, it's heroin. It's like the worst of the worst. So Congress was saying, this is as bad as heroin. So they called in DEA, FDA, human health. And those people were like, you're out of your minds. You can't – this is not even close. So they shelved that for a while. And then again they began looking at it as 8889.

And every time we look at steroids, it's connected to some kind of sports doping, right? steroids, it's connected to some kind of sports doping, right? They're not looking at it saying, hey, this isn't in the news, but I really want to address it. They're looking at it saying, this is in the news, and I too would like to be in the news because I'm a politician. So the next time they looked at it, 1989, they had a little bit more reasonable approach. They said we want to make it Schedule 3. There's five schedules on the Controlled Substance Act.

Three is in the middle obviously. So it's still some opiate turn, Schedule 3. So they went to the DEA and the DEA has the ability to schedule drugs. Okay. So they went to the DEA and the DEA has the ability to schedule drugs. OK. The Controlled Substance Act has a bunch of – we'll call it criteria for which to schedule drugs. If it meets this criteria, you do it this way.

This other criteria, you do it that way. DEA said we can't schedule this. We don't have the authority. It meets none of the criteria on the Controlled Substance Act. None of it. We can't do it. So Congress had to pass an act to schedule steroids because it doesn't fit on the CSA. So that's how it became scheduled.

They became scheduled. Does that maybe have anything to do with the Olympics? Yeah. Because that was like the Ben Johnson, Carl Lewis. So the Summer Olympics were called the GH Games that year, and they just couldn't test for them. They couldn't test for GH, and athletes basically were saying, you know, whatever, I'm going to use tons of it. And that's when Dan Duchesne was on the front page of the New York Times,

you know, saying, I can beat all these drug tests. And that's what we thought happened. And obviously, 89 was Ben Johnson and all that. And 1990 was the first ASCA, Anabolic Steroid Control Act. I wonder if when it comes to steroids and sports – it would be great if athletes didn't. But there's a way to – there's always ways that athletes are going to be able to get past or get something above another athlete. Like maybe there should be like a base level of something you can use. Like I don't know.

But shit. Yeah. I mean, well, they kind of went the other way on that, right? You can't use anything even if you need it. Even if you have zero testosterone, you can't take testosterone. kind of went the other way on that, right? You can't use anything even if you need it. Even if you have zero testosterone, you can't take testosterone. They went the absolute other way on that. But aren't there some athletes who are able to like NBA players? Well, the NBA doesn't test for it, I don't think.

I don't know. Chris was telling me that actually. I didn't know that until Chris told me. Yeah, I don't think the NBA cares. That's interesting. Well, baseball didn't used to care either until they had to. Right. Well, the Mitchell Report in 2003 and 2004, they had to call in these other things. But there's a huge percentage of, let's say, Olympic distance skiers, right? Cross-country skiers who are on asthma medication. here. The first is that we have to believe that all of these courageous athletes overcame asthma to be some of the best distance athletes in the world. Scenario two, maybe they're just getting their doctor to prescribe it and saying they have asthma. So we have to believe one of those two

things. I know which I believe, and it's kind of the same thing as when, this might get me into trouble, but when you look at college admissions, right, and you look at the Ivy Leagues, 25%, I think, of those students are learning disabled. They all get extra time on their tests. They all get to take the test in a separate room. They all get extra time on their tests. They all get to take the test in a separate room. So we have to believe that these 25% of courageous Ivy League students have overcome serious learning disabilities and require all this extra time. Is it really as high as 25% of Ivy League students are learning disabled? Yeah.

Wow. So they get extra time on all those admittance tests that cause nightmares. I'm not even going to ask that. I wonder if – So the same scenario. Either we have to believe these courageous students have overcome learning disabilities or they just had a sympathetic doctor. Interesting. Do you think kind of what's going on nowadays with the information that's out there, do you think that's – do you think it's a good thing or a bad thing? Like where do you kind of stand on that?

Like there's a lot of people with videos that are talking quite a bit in detail about steroids, how to take them. But maybe some of that information is getting the younger and younger people. I think it is. I think it's getting to younger and younger people. I think it is. I think it's getting to younger and younger people. Also, there are people who, when they talk about steroids, they know a lot, but they don't know as much

as they're portraying that they know. And unless you know more than them, which is unlikely for the most part, the analogy I use is, imagine you didn't know anything about sports. And I said, I'm going to teach you about football. I said, but we're not going to talk about the New York Giants. They're my home team.

And we're not going to talk about the New York Jets because they're also my home team. Also, we're not going to talk about Manchester United. Okay, so you know that obviously that's football. If I'm talking about the Giants and the Jets, that's not the right kind of football. Different football, yeah. That's what it's like. You have to know that fact. So when I watch

steroid personalities or influencers or whatever, they make mistakes that you already have to know that that's the wrong thing. You already have to know what they're talking about probably better than them or you're not going to spot the mistakes. Yeah, that would be hard. That would be extremely hard to know that information.

Do you think steroids are powerful enough to have permanent negative impact on some people, especially if they are taking them at 14, 15 years old, even if they come off and stuff like that? On some people, yeah. Yeah, that's the important question, right? Can they have that impact on some people? Yes. And like 14-year-olds are boneheads because I was a 14-year-old and I was a bonehead, right? So I wouldn't have made the best decision for myself in the future.

So you have to think that 14-year-old you might not be making the best choices for 44-year-old you. In fact, probably isn't making the best choices for 44-year-old you. And that's really the perspective you need. Will I make the right choice given this information? I'm probably not at 14. What type of drugs do you think are, you know, I guess as far as the education is concerned, are maybe they're not talked about with as much responsibility as they should be.

I mean, we did mention Trent at the beginning of the podcast. I think everyone on the internet that is into this stuff is understanding that Trent is a big deal. But what do you think is like stuff that people are talking about really casually? Sure. No, I think people realize trend is a big deal, but it's also kind of common. Like there are more great trend memes than probably any other steroid. I mean that's just a constant source of enjoyment for me.

I mean that's just a constant source of enjoyment for me. Yeah, they – what's – I would say the SARMs or peptides, anything not blatantly illegal. Yeah. That's a problem. So as far as SARMs are concerned, there are people that like believe that SARMs are safer than steroids. Is that actually the case or is – yeah, is that the case? Can be. I guess sometimes right these are the worst answers ever but that's kind of what a lot of it comes down to it's going to be sometimes

it's going to be they can be SARMs are obviously androgen receptor modulators so the idea is that they stimulate the androgen receptor in a highly specific manner. So maybe you get the muscle building without the prostate enlargement. And some of them work really well and some of them don't work as well for those purposes. But at the same time, none are FDA approved. So that should tell you something about safety and efficacy. So if there's a young kid who's like, I'm going to start some SARMs, what do they, do they just need to remember this is not FDA approved and you are taking a risk that you may not know the outcomes of? For sure. Yeah. I mean, there's a reason, right? The FDA, I mean, there's

a lot of companies that stand to make a lot of money, right? That have these patents and they're incentivized to do the clinical trials to get them approved and they haven't. They have not been able to get them approved. So what does that tell you? There's a lot of money at stake and they're not approved yet. Probably be a good idea for people to recognize that if any drug is being talked about that you're in a category of receiving some like medical advice, right? Sure. And then you've got to really think about like, who is this person?

You know, who is this person that's sharing this information with me? Why are they sharing this information? Have they had a good track record previously sharing this information? I think it's important. I think people should – that's an immediate just – not necessarily a red flag, but it's an immediate thing that I think people should proceed with caution once there's like a drug involved that's being like recommended or prescribed. I think you should then start to think about I should investigate and research this person a little bit more. So how about it's a flag, right? It might not be a red flag, but you know right away this guy's not a doctor and he's talking

about steroids, right? I'm not a doctor. I'm talking about steroids. That should be a flag. Should it be a red flag? That depends. That depends on the research. So if you look into someone, you say, like, this guy really came out of nowhere.

I don't know, you you know what's going on you read his work it seems a little off right it's like typos everywhere and like you know that might be a reason to say i don't know if i want to invest much stock in this guy right but you could take like some of the guys you've had on the show like andrew huberman right that's a guy like all right he's a doctor like he knows what he's talking about he's never umming and awing you know he has the answer and he's got the credentials so that's that's that's a white flag i guess what's the opposite of red it's a blue flag is it a blue flag that's the other kind of flag whatever that is there we go green yeah green yeah so but yeah i mean it as soon as anyone who isn't a doctor is talking about that, anyone going outside their subject matter expertise, you want to start evaluating the person as well.

This is interesting because I did see you. You've talked about this before, but within like the bodybuilding space and even some of the powerlifting space, there are coaches that will prescribe their clients to take X, Y, and Z. the power of the space there are coaches that will prescribe their clients to take x y and z i had a client that i worked with when i was coaching people a long time ago who came to me and he was mentioning yeah he was like 21 and i won't say who his coach was but he's like yeah my coach had me on all this stuff and i was like wait up why did your coach have you start he's like because he said it helped me get stronger faster so i wonder long term, why – like wouldn't there be legal ramifications against coaches like prescribing substances? Because it's not like they have a prescription, but they tell you to use this. And if some of these clients get health issues, can that come back and bite that person in that ass legally or is it just –

For sure. Oh, yeah. Yeah. No, so I think the reason it hasn't, right, is – think about it. The client has to say, I went to this guy for help winning a bodybuilding show. Health coaching. Right. I went to this guy. I was trying to win the New Jersey Classic or whatever, right, the Jersey Shore Classic.

No, that's a real thing. Just so you know, that's a real thing. It's a real thing. Let's go. It's not at the Jersey Shore. It's called the Jersey Shore Classic. It's got nothing to do with the Jersey Shore Classic. No, that's a real thing. Just so you know, that's a real thing. It's a real thing. Let's go. It's not at the Jersey Shore. It's called the Jersey Shore Classic. It's got nothing to do with the Jersey Shore. I need to go to this.

So, right? So you're saying I went to this – and then you have to go to who? Like you go to the law enforcement authorities or whatever. You go to the local state prosecutor and you say, I took a ton of steroids, but he told me to. That's a kind of a, I'm not, I'm sure you're not going to get prosecuted most likely, but that's a dicey proposition. You might get some traction if you say, I use these steroids and I had these health effects and he has like a hundred clients. Yeah. But it's dicey, man.

You're going to have to walk in and be like, I wanted to win a bodybuilding show. So I asked a guy to help me with steroids and then I bought steroids illegally and then I used them illegally. I don't know of a lot of clients that are going to do that. It just presents this weird situation where you have to fess up to all of your crimes. And I've never seen it happen. Yeah, and somebody would have to then try to say that they had no idea it was dangerous and stuff. It's like, well, you must have knew. How did you not know it was dangerous?

Sure, there's that and then there's the – well, if somebody gets hurt, badly hurt, or let's say, God forbid, somebody dies, then that prosecutor can bring that case, right? You would imagine that they would want to. But they haven't. I mean, there are guys who have died, right? Yeah. They were working with coaches. In fact, the recent kind of slew of guys who have passed away, they had coaches.

It was known who their coaches are. It's still known. I haven't seen charges. So for whatever reason, prosecutors aren't pursuing it. Washington Post just ran a huge series. Yeah. Talking about all these coaches, naming them, publishing emails. I haven't seen an indictment.

What do you think the cause is of a lot of these bodybuilders that have been dying with the last maybe five years? Is that right? Heart attacks. all of them. So that's kind of probably a multi-factor answer. One is that the doses are going up. They're just going up. There's more experimental compounds being used, more things that people just say, hey, I read this journal article.

So this is something that I was told by some suppliers in China. Once a journal article comes out that says like, oh, full of statin modulator experimental, people are already on the phone. Get this for me. I want to shoot it in my butt. Immediately they're on the phone trying to get every new thing that's in every study. So people are using things that's in every study. Yeah. So people are using things that just haven't been vetted.

I don't think that's necessarily the cause, but that tells you the attitude. So people are taking back in the early, call it the early 90s, professional bodybuilder might be on two grams a week, right? Total anabolic use. Just anabolic use. anabolic use okay yeah right so just whatever they get their hands on two grams of it now that would be like a local right that would be for a male competitor you could see that at the local level yeah so the doses are escalating the recklessness is escalating the proliferation of pre-contest coaches so it's one thing right just

as an example i don't know if you plot your own workouts i don't know if you plot your own workouts but you're going to ultimately step under 500 pounds 600 pounds whatever it is that you're going to put on your back yeah you understand you know right like i've had 500 pounds on my back and i'm like if i move the wrong way this is going to end really badly right like my knee is going to blow out whatever it is you're you're taking responsibility for that right and you know my knee feels dodgy today my workout says this i'm not doing it so you have skin in the game. Pre-contest coach, they're just saying, here, here's a list of stuff. Shoot it in your butt. And they have no skin in the game.

And even when their client dies, they're just like, wasn't me. Of course it was you. Your client had a congenital heart defect and you were telling them to take grams and grams of steroids. Of course it was you. So, and I think that's a huge part of the escalating dosages when you don't have to take responsibility when it's not 500 pounds on your back i know that sounds weak to you but it's a lot for me when you when you don't have to have the weight on your back you take more risks i guess i mean and that's what it seems like is like just

because you want that person to do like you want that person to win because it makes you look good as a coach if you have this massive bodybuilder that just won an overall who cares how much shit you put him on as long as he wins because i know some i know some people who kind of have that mindset that's what it takes to get there but here's the other thing that's the way that they start to think if i were to ask you name you know the top 10 whatever bodybuilding coaches you could name them and i would say name their clients and you could name like maybe five clients for each guy and there would be like overlap but they have like 100 clients they're also training the guys who didn't make it they're also giving advice to guys who went nowhere yeah and that's their own little laboratory they're giving guys right yeah if they want to make the next mr olympia to giving that

guy mr olympia doses that's their little their little lab so what you're seeing is their best client out of a hundred it's not really that great that's not an awesome record and that's an interesting thing too because i mean don't get me wrong i don't know a crazy amount but i've heard like people say like i think uh i don't know jay cutler or one of those top guys like yeah i really didn't use that much stuff so there's people that are like i didn't actually use a lot and then there are other guys that are like yeah i managed to use a lot and there are absolutely no issues so the weird thing is that there are some people who, for some reason, their bodies can handle just a fuck ton of anabolics, right?

Whereas there's some people who don't need that much anabolics and they get these amazing results. But everybody's just a fucking test when it comes to these drugs. I wonder about that. I wonder about that. Like, I didn't get any side effects. So what was your blood work like? And you're like, no, I don't mean that.

I mean like I didn't go bald. It's like, I didn't get any side effects. So what was your blood work like? And they're like, no, I don't mean that. I mean like I didn't go bald. It's like, really? You know, they never have like any solid numbers. They're like, oh, I didn't get gyno. Or I've heard people say I've never gotten bad side effects. Well, I had gyno surgery. Well, that's, you know, you got part of your tit cut out. What do you mean you didn't have side effects?

And I've known a guy – I knew a guy who said, no, I never got like irreversible side effects, but he couldn't have kids, right? So like – That's a huge deal. Huge deal. Right. What are some – Actually, you know him too. you know them too.

What are some things that you've seen in terms of like super high testosterone levels in people and, and it having like maybe a negative impact, you know, like is there, is there a range that people can get to that's like kind of safe? So one of the things people don't get is that if you take 200 milligrams of testosterone, it doesn't give you a testosterone

level of 200, right? It gives you like go over a thousand when you first take the shot. And testosterone increases in a linear dose response curve. So I'm sure you'll be shocked to find out the more testosterone you take, the more size and strength you get, right? testosterone you take, the more size and strength you get, right? That goes the same for the bad effects, right? But see, the testosterone goes up like this, still linear, and the bad effects go up like that. People need to find that where the bad effects get above the threshold they're willing to deal with. So your cholesterol might go up a few points, but it's not in a dangerous zone. For other people, they think, well, my cholesterol is high, but that's not a problem. I don't have heart disease in the family. No one's ever

had a problem with that and it's reversible. So that, you know, here, that side effect here, that's not something they're worried about, right? So it's more about figuring out what level you can get to where the side effects are either manageable or not relevant to you, right? But a lot of people play with that, right? They say, well, my cholesterol is 500, but I don't have a history of heart disease. It's like you're about to start a history of heart disease. So that's the thing. people can get to that level and it'll be different for everyone so i see a lot of guys with great results on 120 milligrams a week yeah and i see guys that that would do nothing for but one thing to remember too is the gut, like Dorian Yates is a great example.

He got to where he got and he always said, like, I only took a little bit of Premavol and a little bit of test. Let's assume, let's give him the benefit of the doubt here. It's different to use testosterone like HRT doses to maintain as opposed to getting there. You're going to maintain a huge, huge percentage of those gains using exogenous testosterone. You're not going to get there using 120 mg a week, but you might be able to maintain most of it.

But you might be able to maintain most of it. Yeah. So the fact that whoever, and I just used Dorian, I know nothing about him right now. The fact that he's on 120 mg a week and saying, well, I'm 240, shredded. Yeah. But you didn't get there on 120 mg a week. Yeah. So a lot of those guys preaching HRT doses don't realize that's not how they got there. And they wouldn't have gotten there on the dose they're

using now so that's an important you know way to distinguish the dose that got you there versus what you can tolerate now would you guys say that like the the and andrew chime in too because y'all know about this would you see that the use of trt just way too liberal these days or is it good that more men are getting on TRT? Because you've heard Andrew Huberman talk about like the benefits of TRT, right? And we've had people talk about that too here. But do you think the use is too liberal or it's just – it is what it is? I think it could be kind of life-altering for some people.

Like there are some people that they put a decent effort in, in the gym and they are spending time working on their nutrition and they're kind of just spinning their wheels. They're not like that motivated. Maybe on a scale of one to 10, they're putting in like a six, but there is an effort there. Sometimes when someone takes TRT,

maybe they start bumping that up to like a seven or eight in terms of how motivated and excited they are about training or running or whatever it is they're doing. If you look at someone like Tom Segura, I mean, he's made tremendous progress in the last, you know, several months. He's completely transformed. And like, that's a, I think that's a wonderful thing. It's, it's nice to be able to have that opportunity. Now, what people miss is that that person, a lot of these people that you see that are making these great transformations, they still change their habits. And a lot of people don't get their habits together. So I think sometimes people think I'm going to go on TRT.

A lot of people think they're going to like lose like 40 pounds and put like 10 pounds of muscle on. And it will not work that way unless you get a hold of your habits first. I would suggest get a hold of some decent habits first and then start to look into that. So for you, have you ever gotten like a new pair of running shoes? Yeah, recently. Like you're psyched to go out and running sucks, right? But you're psyched to go on that first run. In those shoes. In those shoes. that's what that can be for someone they can get their stuff

together and then now they're like it's not even you know a huge dose but now they're psyched to get to the gym uh-huh right and it might not be any sort of psychological effect from the drug it's just the new shoes of going to the gym on steroids or whatever like a lot of times i think it's that and people tend to do everything right not everyone but people tend to do things right when they're on steroids because either they think oh i'm wasting them if i don't eat right or i don't train right yeah there's this fear of wasting them or there's this if i'm going to take the health risk i'm going to make it worth it i'm going to get you know maximize gains so i think i think it's

more that i think people just tend to do things better yeah we're using something i'd agree with that because i would like before i got on trt i would be in the gym and i'm like man i hope these reps and sets are actually accounting for something and now I feel like I'm getting like the most bang for my buck because it's now being utilized correctly. But I wouldn't say it's being used. I mean, I guess it can be used liberally. But I think maybe the excuse to get on is a lot like the barrier of entry is so much lower now. People are like, yeah, I am kind of tired. Yeah.

So I'm going to go see what my doctor says. And when they go to a regular doctor and they usually get shot down, then maybe that's where it ends. And so taking that extra step to actually trying to reach a different doctor, then maybe it's like, well, shit, dude, if you're this motivated to, you know, meal prep, maybe you wouldn't be so tired. But in my opinion, like what Mark was saying about like maybe get the habits in line first. But then what he was just saying about like, well, you get pretty motivated once you start getting those new shoes. So I always say like, why not both? Like if you're doing both at the same time, you're going to be like even more motivated. So that was part of my old advice to people. I used to say to them, okay, you know,

you've never done steroids and you want to, you want to try them. Get everything right for a month. Do everything right for a month. So for 30 days, don't miss a workout. Don't cheat on your diet. Don't do anything wrong for a month. And then, you know know at the end of the month you know you might be ready and they would be like well i i messed up this day i

couldn't do it's like right well you can't get your act together for 30 days and you want to do a 12-week cycle you're not going to get your act together for the 12-week cycle wait till you can do things right for 30 days before you commit to a situation where you're putting something at risk for 90 days. So that was my standard advice, was just get everything right for a month. Yeah. There's so many people that their goal is to lose weight.

And so with that in mind, it can be a disaster for someone to start taking testosterone. And it could be a huge disaster if they're not just taking TRT, if they're randomly just blasting some testosterone and like lifting with their buddies and stuff. They're just going to get red and they're going to be – they're going to gain a lot of weight. Their blood pressure is going to go way up and it's just not going to be a good sight. It's not going to work out the way that you think. And so I really think nail down some of those habits yeah yeah yeah no for sure that and that's what i'm saying like you need to get you need to prove to yourself you can do things

right once at least right before you say this is the way i'm going to go i haven't i haven't gotten the results i want we haven't put the effort in you literally can't do it for a month so if you haven't put the effort in it's a bad move yeah and and the barrier to entry is is a lot lower right what do you guys think about what do um 40 50 something that's not old but it's you know getting a bit older so what do those yeah so i was careful because of you two. So when guys choose to like – because a lot of guys are now getting on TRT at those ages. But is there something extra that they need to be trying to think about when it comes to this? Because like again, you see all these bodybuilders, right? But then you probably also have just like guys that might be not taking care of certain things and then they have pop on

and they're already aging what are things that they need to try to think about as they i don't know get on trt or go the route of using more shit so i'll i'll tell you that i actually the first time i did trt i was with a prescription right So like legitimately did – Replacement. Right. I was 28. Really? Yeah, when I got my first prescription. Okay. And it was through a place that's not open anymore, shockingly. It's in Florida once again.

Shock. It was called Palm Beach Rejuvenation and they got swept up right around the same time as the signature pharmacy thing happened. So I was – they made me get blood work. So my testosterone levels, they said, were low enough. My anivar levels were very low. They were zero. So they prescribed me anivar as well. For a second, I just like – I had a little short circuit in my head too i was just like wait what

needed replacing immediately for an adult male zero that's like crazy not okay so i got i got i think it was uh like 200 mg a week testosterone and 25 mg a week of of anivar a day rather of aniv of Anivar. Anivar is always thrown into the mix of everything. Yeah. Let's bring a little Anivar in there. A little Oxangelone. So, you know what? And here's the thing. I did that more because I was

writing about steroids and it's kind of... You have to make a decision. If you're going to be like the steroid guy or whatever, you have to make a decision. Do I want to be like the steroid guy or whatever you have to make a decision do i want to be the guy that puts out all this information or do i want to buy steroids cheaply and illegally because that's a terrible idea if you're publishing books on steroids to also be involved in the black market and buying stuff illegally because you are on the radar. Like I've gotten calls from FDA agents.

I've gotten calls from DEA agents. Goddamn. But they're never saying, hey, you know, we caught you or we did that. They're always – they're asking for information. Like the example I gave before, taking 200 milligrams of testosterone doesn't make you testosterone. One of them called me and asked me what the dose response relationship was, right? For a case he was prosecuting.

So you need to make that decision. Do I want to be legitimate and be able to put out information without fear? Or do I want to like get a bottle of test for 50 bucks? Do I want to get trend illegally? So that was a decision I made. So I went on TRT. But again, it was 28 and it was not a doctor, but I would say it was dubious prescribing protocol.

Was there anybody kind of leading you through any of that or just like they just gave it to you and that was kind of it? I had a sales rep. Like when you go to the doctor, of it i had a sales rep like when you go to the doctor you don't have a sales rep right like you have you know i don't know a doctor right or like someone at least like a nurse or someone who owns a pair of scrubs whatever i don't know what the barrier is but i don't think this guy owned a pair of scrubs i think he was i think he was like from a car dealership and then he got this job selling this and that's how i think that went down yeah um my experience like i i didn't get any like anything prescribed until

um i don't know maybe like five years ago or something like that other than that it was like just picking up shit from people in parking lots and stuff like that really yeah which is always weird because like it's just strange you're like i'm not like i'm not this guy but i am this guy yeah it's like you end up in some weird spots when you see the car like parked all the way away from every other car in the parking lot and then someone pulls up next to them that's not because they want to walk to the taco bell. Like, when I see that, I'm like, come on. Like, I know what you're doing. Like, at least be a little more conspicuous. Nobody's parked by you.

Yeah. You know what was great, though, is I used to get stuff in, like, a really— I don't know if I should share this. Share it. You're halfway there, man. Yeah, I used to get stuff in, like, a really big bottle. It was bigger than this. Like a jug.

We call them a jug, a 50 mil. Yeah, it was like 100. It was awesome. And it just had. It was bigger than this. Like a jug. We call them a jug. A 50 mil. Yeah, it was like 100. It was awesome. And it just had a screw on top like this. It was awesome. It was so great. That's sterile. Yeah, it was fine.

It didn't have the little stopper on there, so you didn't have to even jam into the thing. It was amazing. You didn't have to. I prefer to because that keeps it sterile. That was fine. So I knew a guy who had like 18-gauge needles, right? Like an 18-gauge needle is like a sewing needle. It's a harpoon, I guess.

Yeah, like a – Whoa, so it's strong. It was super thick, yeah. And so he had regular anabolics, right? So he had the – and he would stick the needle up in and draw with that needle and then change the needle to inject into his body. But the problem was that bores a hole in the rubber stopper to where

if you turned the bottle upside down, it would just leak out. I was like, this is not sterile at all. Okay. I do want to ask about that because I've had so I have used the big harpoon 18 gauge needles to draw stuff

but it destroys the stopper big time then even will like put uh like the rubber stopper particles inside the test and i'm like well now i can't fucking use this like what do i do so like what do you recommend that you draw with then if because like i can't draw with the needle that i'm going to inject with because it just one it won't work or it'll take forever well i mean for me honestly my prescription is that i get uh one mil vials oh okay so you know i never have to worry about that uh but but that's not i mean you could draw with it with a 20 you could with a 21. You could draw with a 23. I've since started drawing with a 21. So other than that, are there any other precautions with the stopper and keeping things sterile?

Yeah, when the stopper is floating in the oil, that's – I just swim around it is all I do. And if it gets in the syringe, I just like – A little rubber in the body. I just stop before the rubber goes in the body. I'll understand all of this once I start using some injectable L-carnitine. I hope you don't. I will.

I mean. It's L-carnitine. It's not a steroid. I don't want you. Yeah, that's, I mean, for the stopper thing, I mean, like I said, I just use, I use the same needle to draw as I used to shoot. It doesn't, it's metal going through rubber. It doesn't appreciably dull it to where it's painful for me. Okay.

But generally, like whenever I've seen someone use like a harpoon or sewing needle, whatever, the first draw, once you turn it upside down again, there will be oil leaking down the needle. That tells me that if oil can get out, air can get in. It doesn't present a septic environment necessarily, but I'd rather not create that situation where it's possible. Can't we just get stuff preloaded? Have you ever seen the preload? They're 20 gauge. They're 20 gauge.

Oh, are they? Yeah, so preloads. So what he's talking about is a needle that comes with steroids in it, the whole thing, the casing. Yeah. But you can take that thing off maybe, you know? Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah, you could take the needle off and use a smaller one.

Yeah. But those are massive. You need a testosterone pen. Come on, people. Let's go. Yeah. They make like pens for HCG and different stuff where you just tick it and then you yeah inject it it's fucking easy they exist and i won't say who i'll tell you guys off air just

just just in case um because i don't know if he wants to be known for it but we all know somebody that designed like a like an epi pen of test yeah we need that and he has like the blueprints and everything all drawn up for it well Well, I meant you and I. I wasn't throwing him in. I'm not that busy. I have time to just pull it out of the thing. That 30 seconds, I'm okay with. 30 seconds once a week, I'm okay with that. I don't know how busy you are, but I don't need the pen because I'm on the go.

I just hate any of the extra any of the extra fuss that's all yeah i have a i have a lot more downtime i'm not like man that 10 seconds i'm using that's i need something that goes right in there i don't need that i'm set you can be patient with it yeah and that's why i don't so much care for the 18 gauge needle to draw like yeah it falls into the syringe right away like but i don't like again, like, again, I have the 20 seconds. Like, I'm not worried about that. So, I mean, we understand that, like, 20 mg a week does not equate to a 200 mg, whatever, testosterone level. But what is, like, ideal?

Like, the top, I think, is, like, 1,200s per deciliter um for like a nat or a normal range of testosterone but at the high range is that like optimal for everybody like how like like what at what level does somebody start feeling really good and start developing a lot of muscle so that the answer to the first question was the second question so what's optimal is where you feel really good right and and chasing the number is a bad idea right that's that that doesn't work because if i feel great at 900 it doesn't mean you don't feel great at 600 or 1200 so i think chasing that number is a bad idea and i also think that's why there's some flexibility when doctors prescribe stuff and they'll say, oh my God, this doctor prescribed 400 milligrams a week to this guy.

All right, but maybe that's where he feels right. Maybe that's where he should be. And then he prescribed 100 to this other guy. Maybe that's where that guy needs to be. It's very dependent on how you feel on that dose and what's not crushing you you might feel terrible in 400 megs you might feel great has testosterone been tested pretty well like do we have pretty good information on it i mean the right like the layup answer is like it's been

tested for the last million years right yeah yeah yeah like it's it's one of the drugs that's been tested most extensively. What about in the performance enhancing realm like where somebody is taking 400 or 600 milligrams? Like are there studies and stuff that's been like actual studies? Yeah, yeah. So 600 milligrams, there's the 1996 study. That was – I'm going to butcher his name but Bhasin et al. So B-H-A-S-I-N.

butcher his name but basin at all so b-h-a-s-i-n does a 20-week study on testosterone that examined the linear dose response curve from i think 50 mg sorry 25 mg up to 600 and they found statistically relevant statistically relevant trends towards getting worse blood lipids and you know detrimental to cholesterol and whatever but they didn't it wasn't bad enough to stop right it wasn't these guys are going to die and they found that basically the more you take the more you grow the more your strength goes up and that was 20 weeks which is a pretty long study. And 600 mg a week, that's a dose. That's up there. I don't think anyone's getting that from a doctor. So yeah, there have been studies.

I think he did a follow-up in 2000 or 2001. Checked back in with those people again? Yeah, yeah. And none of them suffered any sort of irreversible long-term health effects. The thing to remember is that that wasn't the only drug they were taking. They were taking GNRH, right? Sorry, no. They were taking a gonadotropin inhibitor. That gives you a better, cleaner study. None of the – so everything they were taking, they were taking a test blocker for their own natural test. So we know that the 600 mg of test were the only 600 mg in them, right? They were taking a blocker as well.

So none of them suffered as far as I remember any long-term health effects. Do you think people should cycle? Do you think people should come off stuff? Well, if you're replacing it, no, right? But for me, so after I replaced all the Anovar I was missing when I was in my 20s, I did come off for about 10 years. And when I went to go back on, I was, again, it was a prescription. I think I was 240 test level. Oh, okay.

So pretty low. And people always say, can I get back to my baseline test? Right? After a cycle, I'm going to try and get back to my baseline test. You're older at the end of the cycle. So if you go on steroids for five years years you're not going to get back to where you were you've aged five years so that's that's not the kind of goal we should set i think people could come off there's a lot of reasons to come off one is psychological can you stop using

them right that's one of the best reasons to go off can you take a couple months and figure out where you are but if everything's in line you don't necessarily have to if your cholesterol is okay your your health is okay and you're replacing it which means by definition you don't come off but there's reasons to i'm curious if you what your thoughts are on this because i know there's definitely been no research or anything but kind of going off of what mark mentioned there there's reasons to. I'm curious what your thoughts are on this because I know there's definitely been no research or anything. But kind of going off of what Mark mentioned there, there's this guy named Clark Bartram. We'll probably have him on the show later on. But he's an older guy now, I think late 50s.

And he has a test around eight something. He's never really been on anything. And I wonder if a guy chooses to hop on testosterone replacement or even go on higher testosterone doses for a while, if they chose to come off in the future, like, you know, we know all these lifestyle habits that can be done in terms of getting sleep, your diet, exercise, the things you do, getting sunlight, that can have a positive impact on your test. But if you go on testosterone replacement for a while and you choose to come off, will you have naturally lower test because your body's used to needing testosterone replacement versus kind of trying to get better testosterone through lifestyle habits and just trying to keep it there for a prolonged period of time?

Well, anything you replace in your body, you're signaling, you're telling your body, I don't need this. And that goes for, for example, antioxidants. Your body has a natural antioxidant system, right? If you take, if you megadose them, your body doesn't need to produce them, right? And nobody says, well, what will happen if I stop taking all these huge doses of vitamin C? Nobody asked that question, right? Eventually, your body figures out there's a

deficit unless you've done some kind of damage. It's kind of difficult to say, well, if I go back on, will I be okay? I don't know. Are you a football player? Did you damage your pituitary, right? Have you been subject to numerous subconcussive blasts? Have you ever been knocked out? There's a ton of things. Probably a football player wouldn't get his natural testosterone back, right? Those are, I mean, you look at football. Guys are running. They're like small cars crashing into each other, right?

It's like getting hit by a car, right? Some of those guys are up 20 miles an hour when they're sprinting. You don't want to get hit by something. And they're doing it, know every play so that guy probably not going to get back his normal test levels a lot of guys that were in special forces subject to i don't know how many sub concussive blasts there's some shearing forces right that happen inside the brain those guys probably need hrt it's been a few studies on that they're probably not going to get back to the level they would age standardized but you know again i hate to give the answer it depends yeah of course it's always going to depend i don't know who um cla Bartram is. Yeah, he's in the fitness industry, has been for a while.

That's not him currently. That's him when he was younger. But now he still looks really good, and he has high levels of testosterone, but he's never used anything. He's never been on replacement. He's just had a really good lifestyle for a long, prolonged period of time. I think that's an accurate picture of him now, late 50s. Okay. long prolonged period of time i think that's that's a yeah accurate picture of him now late 50s okay yeah i mean that's right it's one of those you know did he i mean did he wrestle when he was

younger did he do mma because those are all there's mma guys that i know that that are hypergonadal from getting slammed on the mat so many times they They can't take HRT, right, per the UFC rules, which UFC is now, I believe, under the purview of WADA, right? So they can't take anything, which is a shame because it's protective, right? The testosterone, they're sort of thinking now part of it is the aromatization, the estrogen, but it's neuroprotective.

So why would you not want these guys protecting your long-term health? Pat Proctor, family, how's it going? Now, we talk about sleep all the time on the podcast because it's one of the biggest things that helps you with your health and fitness, your recovery, your muscle gain, your fat loss, everything. That's why we've partnered with Eight Sleep for such a long time now because the technology behind the mattress allows you to track your heart rate, the amount of times it takes you to fall asleep, your tosses and turns, your heart rate variability the amount of times it takes you to fall asleep, your tosses and turns,

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you guys will actually save $150 off of your entire order automatically. Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. I think the natty or not thing is a healthy, like you think it's good to, you know, that people are kind of actively outing people and maybe trying to explain that people are maybe misleading people. So yeah, I like a lot of things that aren't necessarily good.

You know, like bourbon and, you know, whatever, nicotine. I like a ton of things that aren't necessarily good. So I like the Natty or not thing. I think it's probably good to give kids realistic expectations. You have kids kind of thinking, thinking like I can look like whoever Chris Hemsworth right and probably most people can't look like that you can don't say

no like most people can't there are some people who can there are some people who can't one at this table can so you say not him so no like it's just better right it's better no it's just better to set like a reasonable expectation for these kids who are like i want to look like the guys in the marvel movies i want to look like hugh jackman probably you can't

and the natty or not thing probably helps those kids but that's not why i like to look like hugh jackman probably you can't and the natty or not thing probably helps those kids but that's not why i like it i like it because it embarrasses the other people you like that it mixes things up a little bit right yeah it gets gets people uh arguing a little bit which is entertaining right we need we need some entertainment in the fitness industry we need a little wwe going on But at least put the doubt out there. At least be like, look, we don't know whether these people are using or not, but it's unlikely. It's unlikely that you could look that way. We don't know if they're using.

But most people can't look like that. I also think it's kind of neat, too, for someone to say, this is not realistic. I don't think you can look this way. I think there are some kids, there are some people out there who take that as a challenge. Oh, let me see. I think I can look this way I think there are some kids there are some people out there who take that as a challenge oh let me see I think I can look that way well that's good too watch what I can do

because I got faith in this other guy there's other people that they're actually sharing the truth with me they're actually telling me that they're natural and if they were able to do it

maybe I could be the next guy to do it too it's a healthy mindset though now if you're a pessimist kid and you're what people like to call a realist it's going to be like oh no yeah there's no possible way i can't do that and you go go in your room and cry and then pin yourself but you could you can only judge potential in retrospect

like you can't say like i'm predicting you can say it right but it really holds no intellectual currency to say i don't think you can based on it's hard to do i think these people might take his motivation and we'll know if they can do it when they either do it or don't but what's the worst thing that happens if you said it like i think chris hemsworth's natural and i don't look like that and then you eat right and you train like what's the worst that happens you you look a lot better you look better you don't look like that you you fall short but you look a lot better so what's the what's the negative outcome right i also kind of wonder too i i think when people are thinking about like uh looking a particular way they're thinking about aesthetics you think the one thing that kind of sticks out is like body fat percentage and it's like what's associated

with body fat percentage so you might not it might be hard to be big might be hard to be big and lean but just to get lean and to be shredded i think a lot of people can probably figure out single digit body fat yeah i remember it might be tough might take a lot of time but i think a lot of i don't i don't think there's a genetic or i would say that there's probably a genetic component for some people but for the majority of people almost everybody can probably get under 10 body fat well i remember when the big thing was brad pitt fight club body and people didn't understand like he was like 160 pounds. Right. Because on screen, he looked fantastic. And people just thought, oh, he's got to be like 200 and shredded. It's like, no, he's like 160.

Set your goal, right? Like, everyone probably can get shredded. And 160, that's not. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's not a lofty goal, right? Looking at it now, like, dang, that's not a lofty goal. He has a great build, though. Don't get me wrong.

He's got some, like, nice shoulders, and his stomach's lean. Traps. They're there, yeah. But that was huge, right? It was. That was a lot of people were like, I want that body, right? Yeah. And he's just strung out.

Looks like he needs to eat, and that's what he looks like yeah eat a sandwich or something a cheeseburger look great in troy too though oh yeah yeah yeah you did look great so so i mean and that's i think that's achievable because it's just like you said it's it's ripped right but he's not he's not huge we don't we don't know what he was benching. Probably also 160, right? We don't know. So it's definitely achievable. It's a goal and it's a matter of not eating as much.

It looks bigger there. It looks much bigger there. Better advice? We talk a lot on this show about penises and in particular kind of like our own. I think it pops up a lot, right? Does it?

Literally pops up quite a bit. We mainly talk about Andrews, but we have the penis pump behind you back there. That's the first thing I noticed. Yeah. You know, what's interesting is the Joel Kaplan male enhancement pump. I was wondering why Joel Kaplan, I'm wondering why that name, like it always, I'm always like, I know that name. I've seen that name. Well, it's, it's, uh, in, uh, Davis, there's like a real estate guy. I see the name all the time when I'm like walking

downtown, when I'm running or walking downtown, I see that name all the time. Like, is that the same? I wonder if it's the same guy, probably the same guy, real estate mogul and penis pumper. Maybe. And SAT prep course. Exactly. That's what he does.

He's raking, raking in the money. Yeah. So what do we got on like the male enhancement side? I don't know if you've ever, you know, you digging in through all these steroid things and guys that sometimes take steroids and go on cycles for a long time, they end up sometimes with erectile dysfunction. Sometimes they end up with great results and sometimes they end up with not such great results.

Sure. You got any info on any of that kind of stuff? So, well, I mean, you know, the standard, right, if the only problem is like the equipment doesn't work, the obvious move is like Sodefnil or Tadafil or whatever, Viagra, Cialis. Right. But there's also some pretty cool evidence that those are like their performance enhancers, not that way. Right. Because they work on the nitric oxide system of the body. the nitric oxide system in the body.

So, you know, you have to see all those supplements, right, that purport to increase nitric oxide levels and do this and blood flow and whatever. And it'll explode from back in the day. Yeah. Well, there's some evidence that that does have like an ergogenic effect and these are drugs and they do it for real, right? Not like the supplements are supposed to do it and you get into something called the Arginine Paradox where they do it and then they just stop. They just stop working.

So the Cialis, the Viagra, they've actually been shown to have some, some organic effects. I don't know if you guys heard about, there's a guy who died in buds, uh, just recently. Oh yeah. He was taking, he was taking a Viagra Cialis for the, for the ergogenic effect.

Really? So, so how much was he taking though? I just had a boner all the time. No, I have no idea. I don't, I didn't,

didn't say the dose, but he was, he was also taking steroids, but the Viagra was specifically tailored for that whatever. Yeah. So if somebody – if anybody is doing like a Viagra or Cialis while they're taking steroids, is there anything that they need to be thinking about? Well, those are going to increase blood pressure, right? Increase blood pressure.

I mean they were – yeah, that could theoretically be a problem. If you take a ton of Cialis or Viagra, I don't want to say you can feel your blood pressure going up. But someone takes their face – if they take too much, you'll just see their face get red, right? Which is also like you said. When you take too many steroids, you don't get the effect you want. What you at least end up with is a really bright red head, right? That's what's going to happen. I thought those drugs were to lower your blood pressure, no?

Yeah, yeah. Viagra and stuff. Well, that didn't quite make it for that though. Oh, okay. As far as I understand it, those were scrap heap, right? They were like, hey, take this. We'll see if it lowers your, right? And it had a different effect.

No, but I got a boner. Okay. Awesome. like, no, but I got a boner. Okay. Awesome. Yeah, no, I mean, you can sort of feel that temporary, it's, you know, transitory rise. And that's what I think is going on. You can feel that, though. You can feel like if you've ever, you know, done steroids for a while and you know, this is how I feel. That's kind of how you feel

when you take too much yeah you know and then what about uh like arginine and some of these things um do they you know are they good for like pumps and stuff like do they thing right same thing but they after a certain point whatever whatever your body is doing whatever your body does to figure out okay we're getting this in excess your body figures that out within about a month and you just don't feel the same effect so that's that's actually called the arginine paradox what about other supplements because you've been in the supplement you've been into supplements as well um what supplements have been like effective like what do you think uh works well so i don't even consider it a supplement but protein obviously so but here's an interesting thing we were talking about peptides earlier and i was saying you're probably talking about

peptides that occur you know in nature right occurring whey protein has peptides, right? Dianthripeptides. And then it's got fractions, something like a macro peptide or lactoferrin. Okay. So you can buy lactoferrin. So as a supplement company owner, you can go buy it, right? You can buy a kilo of it. That comes from whey protein. So at some stage, when these major companies get their whey protein, they do what's called peptide mining. They strip it of all the beneficial peptides and then they sell the beneficial peptides separately so they could turn a greater profit on each kilo of whey protein. So you have to be careful, right? I don't know or I wouldn't say which companies are doing it necessarily, but that's something that's done.

So the whey protein where you say, oh, it's got these immuno-enhancing effects and it's got this effect on iron and satiety or whatever, they might have stripped it of all of those things before they sold that to the consumer. Depending on like what their source is or something like that? Yeah, well, I mean, you know, just from an economic point of view, if you have a certain amount of things that you can strip out of the whey protein and still sell the whey protein than sell the other stuff separately. That's an economic decision for these big companies. But generally, I think whey protein is good. You just have to know that some people do that.

Creatine, I love creatine. As you know, I'm sort of a pescatarian. I basically just eat fish or whatever. Creatine has been great for me. The first time I used creatine, I think I gained like 15 pounds on my bench like right away because I hadn't been eating meat. So I gained a ton of weight and strength. I don't think most people need heavy multivitamins or heavy antioxidants i think they need a little to prevent deficiency like the kind you see like centrum one a day right i don't think people need can i say animal pack that's the only like mega thing that i know of i don't think people need

that level i think people need like enough to not be deficient. And in fact, when you take too much antioxidant wise, you inhibit your, your adaptations. Yeah. So you can actually get less results from, from taking antioxidants.

Wow. Yeah. Well, because you're causing oxidative stress. Yeah. So you're looking for that reactive oxidative species and what you're getting is complete inhibition because you have these circulating crazy levels of antioxidants. So you probably get less results. And that's, that's been studied and that's exactly what happens. Any good supplements for health?

Like, uh, so somebody's maybe they, – maybe they have been doing steroids for years and maybe they are concerned about cardiovascular issues or other organs. Any good supplements that you've seen help with stuff like that? So that's an interesting question because when I get that, like, hey, I'm using a bunch of steroids and i want something that'll make me healthy like less steroids is what you should be doing like that's always been a weird thing right people say i want to take a ton of testosterone but the problem is that it aromatizes to estrogen and now you know i don't want to get gyno what should i take with the testosterone to not get gyno and the answer is less testosterone it's not yeah just load up on anti-estrogens so a lot of the things like like that question what if someone's taking a ton of steroids they

want to be healthy it's like don't take a ton of steroids like that's that's the answer right most of the things that will help you for example things that things that'll help your liver most of them most of them are detrimental to the the oral steroid they're gonna make it less effective so you might as well not take as much when you're talking about liver detox stuff. Milk thistle is going to reduce the effectiveness of oral anabolic steroids. So just take less steroids. So the guy that wants to be healthy, that's the answer. Don't try and also take a ton of drugs or take red rice yeast. Well, that's got colostatin.

It's got a statin in it, right? Don't. Take less. Always opt to take less. Good message. For like one thing that I do always hear, not necessarily with celebrities and like actors and stuff, but about dudes at like the Olympia stage,

if somebody gets outed or somebody shares their cycle and like oh but the guys at the top are taking like a hundred times more than me um is there any truth to that or are people just super misunderstanding of what it takes to be an olympia stage competitor I think what it takes to be on the Olympia stage is your, your personal reaction to the steroid. So you can look at guys like flex Wheeler, right? If you've ever seen him pre steroid, he doesn't look like a guy that, that would be on the Mr. Olympia stage. Really?

Oh no, no. Oh, he's No. Oh. He's, yeah, he's definitely not, doesn't look like that. He reacts well. So it's like, oh, the top guys take so much more. It's like the top guys react differently. The top guys just react differently. So their cycle is not going to be the blueprint to get there. I mean, and here's the other thing.

If you take steroids, the common wisdom, and I agree with this, you're going to know right away. You're going to know, am I starting to look like Dorian or am I not looking like Dorian? And Dorian looked great when he was like 18 or something or 16, whatever that photo was of him with the shaved head and like boots and braces. He looked good. You could tell. It's like this guy's got a good build. Yeah. Like I have what it takes or I'm taking – I'm spending half my paycheck on drugs and I look like Mr. Whatever Street we're on, second place winner. Like there's no question.

I mean there are guys who – they could make it to the national level just by sort of sheer determination, just by being willing to eat and take a ton of drugs yeah but it's not it's not going to end with them on the olympia stage and there's a point of diminishing return although it's a linear dose response curve if you think i gain 10 pounds off 500 megs a week of testosterone but i need to gain 50 pounds I'm going to take five times as much. You're not getting to the Olympia stage. You don't have that in you. The real story is that people say, I took 10 milligrams of D-ball and gained 30 pounds in my first cycle. That's the guy who's probably going to make it.

The guy who takes mega doses to step on the local stage, that's not going to make it. The guy who takes megadoses to step on the local stage, that's not going to end well. What do you do nowadays to keep yourself motivated to go into the gym? Did I say I was motivated to go into the gym? At this point, it's more about being able to move, being able to get through the day. I'm not trying to set bench records. I'm not trying to set PRs.

It's more about being able to function, being able to say like if your brother says I want to go for a walk, not being like, you know, my back. How far are we going? Okay, around the block. I don't want to do that. I want to be able to walk and be able to move. If I want to play sports, if I want to shoot some hoops, I'll be able to. So if you do train, you don't kill yourself with it? No, no. I mean, I have a membership at the kind of gym I would make fun of myself for going to when I was training hard.

Did you train there? That's where I'm at now. You don't have the giant duffel bag anymore. Gallon of water. Yeah, the chalk and everything in there, the wrist straps. I used to bring chalk. I did used to bring chalk to the gym. That's great.

I never had like a gallon of water though because like I wasn't going to the desert. I was Chuck to the gym. That's great. I never had like a gallon of water, though, because like I wasn't going to the desert. I was going to the gym. They have water fountains, right? It means you're serious when you get that gallon out. It means you're serious when you bring the gallon to work and work a normal job. Yeah. And a cooler. That means you're serious.

You mean business. Yeah. All right. Andrew, want to take us on out mean business. Yeah. All right. Andrew, want to take us on out of here? Absolutely. All right. Thank you, everybody, for checking out today's episode. Please drop those comments below and make sure you hit that like button in case the

video gets suppressed on YouTube. We would appreciate that. And subscribe if you guys are not subscribed already. Powerproject.life for these dope ass hoodies. And make sure you guys are following the podcast at MBPowerProject all over the place. My Instagram is at IamAndrewZ. And Simo, where you at? I'm at Sim in your understanding youtube i didn't see my yin yang on tiktok and twitter discords below anthony where can people find you anthony roberts at twitter

all right i'm at mark smelly bell strength is never weakness weakness never strength catch you guys later bye