Four or five years ago you started enthusiastically to train in the local gym. You lifted weight as tough as possible almost every day and the results are visible – you grew incredibly for a few months, your strength was growing day by day, after six months you went much above the level where you were the first day. But within the next three or four months nothing happened. Your muscles were growing, your strength was at the old level. And you had long ago forgotten the beginning and looked ahead at the enormous muscles pictured on the starts’ posters. This was your aim – you wanted for six more months of training to achieve by all means a 50 cm arm, a 200 kg in a lying position and 300 kg in a crouch position. You were looking for some “beef” in the gym to give you an advice and, of course, you always chose the strongest one and get acquainted with him. After a few days or weeks he let the cat out of the bag and told you the secret recipe that says: “you buy
‘dianabol‘ from the pharmacy, a little quantity of carsyl and follow the scheme to the ‘immortality’. For about two months of pumping under the system you started growing again like a mushroom, the disks on the weight were continuously increasing their number, your self-confidence is as high as possible, your role is aggression and self-reliance. A month after the system was completed, the dimensions fell down, the disks were heavy, your self-confidence, libido and aggression disappeared. The next month you were looking again for the “beef” to get a new system and so, every second several months there started tests of systems you heard about from your acquaintances, read about in underground sites and books containing the secrets of the bodybuilding stars. All these four or five years you have been rotating the schemes, looking for the strongest roids, the secret and the strongest substance that would make you be like Dorian Yates or Rony Coleman. Now, you seem to have heard again about another combination and a growth hormone thanks to which you will get a professional form. Next, you put into your head that the chemistry you are using is not qualitative enough or fake and you cool down that those guys take something absolutely secret. Thus, you already do not stop at all the system all the year round because the steroid paranoia has fully obsessed you, the fear of blowing out is growing, you are going round in a continuous circle from a pill to a syringe, and the new systems, the 100 mg doses are laughable for you, the syringes have caused the two halves of your bottom to get swollen, you are looking for places on your hips, the biceps etc., where you can inject some of the magic substances. You do not think of stopping because you remember with fear the last rest when you have thought that you were going down minute by minute and you were the puniest guy in the gym; you do not have strength, self-confidence, energy, aggression and no libido: no, this time this will not happen, you just want to go ahead, you have heard from a builder star that the roids must not be stopped but it is just the chemistry that must be changed. You gather with other ‘specialists’ and you cool down each other and outwit that there is nothing like the roids and that they are not harmful at all. You do not read any magazines with bodybuilding information, you look with mockery at the natural additives and you do not go at all to see a doctor for a short examination and a blood test since you feel like a machine that will go through the wall. But let us see the results you have achieved after taking too much roids. If your fat is below 10%, your hand is less than 47 cm for sure. In a cold state, your legs do not have even have 70 cm, and if the day is good, you push about 190 kg in a lying position and not more than 2-30-90 in a crouch position, your weight is about 100 kg, but what you represent is nothing even for an European or world level, and let alone talk about the professional stage that is your secret dream. In this case you do not have more than 20% fat, and your hands are eventually more than 50 cm cold. You push from a lying position more than 210 kg and crouch with more than 250 kg, your weight is above 110 kg but if you make comparison with the world standards you are far behind in every respect. Even if you continue with the cycles and the big doses, your progress can hardly be seen. I will tell you: your receptors do not correspond to your stimulation, you are overfed with roids and there is no way out: the side effects are only remaining.

THE SIDE EFFECTS

If you see a part of yourself or your copy in this story, you know that you have fallen into the trap of the steroids. The use of the anabolic steroids results in a number of often met side effects, a part of which the users may sense only after they stopped taking them:

1. Steroid acne
2. Growing bald
3. Serious hairiness over the body
4. Enlargement of the prostate (risk of tumor)
5. Decrease of the testicles or full atrophy
6. Enlargement of the liver (risk of tumor)
7. Cardiac hypertrophy (risk of heart stroke)
8. Hypertonia
9. Nephrism
10. Hyperaggression, irritability, egocentrism
11. Paranoia – a psychological dependence which may deepen down to paranoia, is the most dreadful and the first problem factor which is the first one you yield to, if you do not have the will.
12. Traumas due to the fast increase of the strength, tendons and muscular fibres are often broken; besides, another type of traumas accompanying the training is hidden during “roids” taking. After its stopping they come to light and their long treatment begins.
13. Impotency. If some recovery agents are not used and there is no long rest from the roids, you have to know that there will be no lifting thereafter.
14. Tumors. If you have a genetic predisposition to tumors, you have to know that the roids will accelerate their increase several times.

The side effects are demonstrated with the different people at different time, by different way and strength but their appearance is inevitable. You have to know that the greater doses and the longer cycles result in the bigger repetitions.

HOW TO AVOID THE TRAP

1. When you come to your standstill and you are not able to make headway, the first thing you have to do is to become well educated or to consult about the following questions:

• The nutrition: Do you count how much protein you take daily? Do you count how many carbohydrates you take daily? Do you count how much fats you take daily? What is the total number of calories? How many and wherefrom you have to take them? Do you make it regularly?
• The training: Do you use the methods of Joe Wither for changing the intensity and increasing the stress, the methods of cycling, and so on? Do you apply them properly and steadily?
• Do you use natural food additives? Do you take them in the proper dose? Is it in the right time and is the duration of taking sufficient? Have you chosen the one of the higher quality?
• Do you maintain a nutrition and training log, do you analyze the results due to the changes you make?

I am sure that if you find the correct answer to these questions, your standstill will be overcome for a long time.

2. When you take advice about steroids, take into consideration
the following circumstances before you listen to what somebody tells you about that:

• If the system they propose to me contains substances that are too strong for a beginner?
• If the doses are much too high?
• Are hepatoprotectors and antiestrogens included?
• Are recovery agents included?
• What is the testosterone’s own manufacture – a substance?
• Is there an anticatabolic and recovery cycle of two months with alternative substances after the roids?
• If the old “roids taker” who makes the system can really judge what do you need? If he wants to take me into the trap of the steroids?
• Can I find the necessary substances from a sure source?

3. Before you start whatsoever experience with roids, answer
yourself the following questions:

• What is my aim: shall I be a professional athlete to run such a risk?
• Am I physically healthy for this?
• Do I have a genetic potential for a professional?
• Has my time come to use these evil spirits? Isn’t it too early?

Because you have to know that Larry Scott had a 53 cm arm at a 175 cm height with 20-30 mg doses of dianabol! In the era of Arnold Scharzenegger, 200 mg dianabol were the top of the performance! During the time of Lee Henny the athletes of Olympia were with lower doses than the athelets competing at a republican championship in bodybuilding in Bulgaria!

At my opinion, the most important thing is to be sure that you have entirely used your natural potential and there is no way to improve your achievements without steroids. I am sure that most of the sportsmen with an average genetic gift may achieve absolutely clearly 45-47 cm arms, 135-140 cm chest measurement, 170 – 180 kg in a lying position and 230-240 kg in a crouch position. And all this can be reached for a few years only if you use your head. With genetically gifted people, these results can be outpaced by at least 30%. Before you fall into the trap of the steroids, think whether it is worth!