Let's Talk About Steroids

For decades, in the world of bodybuilding, steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs have been the elephants in the room: known about, but rarely addressed. Well, it’s time we addressed them.

- Michael Weinreb

IT’S BEEN NEARLY 30 YEARS SINCE CONGRESS PASSED the Anabolic Steroids Control Act, rendering testosterone and other substances illegal. In many ways, thanks to the internet and the black market, the use of PEDs is as prevalent as ever in nearly every sport in America—though the bodybuilding community is often targeted, fairly or unfairly, as the epicenter of steroid culture. While there are obvious dangers to abusing steroids, there is also rampant misinformation about their effects. To clear up the confusion, we set out to have honest conversations with experts in the field to give you a sense of what you should know.

At 16, I started training with weights, and I trained naturally until I was 26. By the time I was 20 or 21, I was helping my friends get ready for shows, because I had more knowledge than most people did. This was the early ’90s, and there was no internet. We didn’t have these commercial gyms—you only had hardcore gyms. You almost had to be in the fraternity, you know? I was a young kid who busted his ass. I wasn’t a pretty boy. One Friday night—the gym closes at 10—I was training, and the staffers were like, “You can stay if you want.” All the little guys were leaving. And this guy hands me a bottle of Anadrol 50, which is a mass-building drug—a very strong oral steroid.

“How much for the bottle?” I ask. “$250,” he tells me.

I say, “How much is this shit at GNC?”

They laughed.