Stop Worrying About Whether Fitness Influencers Are on Steroids
The best and worst thing about social media is that it allows us to compare ourselves to others. When it comes to athletes and fitness influencers, these comparisons can inspire us. But what happens when someone tells you that you’re a fool for idolizing them (insert any name) because they’re clearly on steroids? Does it change your attitude towards their achievements? More importantly, does it change the way you feel about yourself?
It’s a social media rabbit hole you can slide down forever: watching video after video, figuring out if famous people are “clean or not” (naive means “natural”) and arguing on Reddit about what you’ve learned. The people most resented by the alleged use of steroids by an influencer often say they do it to protect others from the harms of drugs and to temper newcomers’ expectations of what is possible without drugs. I think the opposite is also true: obsessing over whether others are on is likely to do you more harm than good. Let me explain.
What are “realistic expectations”?
If you’re lifting weights with the goal of gaining strength or visible muscle mass—or both—you probably need some way to assess where you are on this journey and what the future might hold for you. Some people say that you should only compare yourself to yourself in the past, but there is such a thing as being inspired by others. Imagine advising a musician not to listen to better musicians, or advising a writer not to read good stuff. I have my personal list of athletes and influencers who inspire me, most of them are women of my height who lift mind-boggling weights.
Are some of them taking steroids? May be. It’s possible. Famous athletes lose all the time. But on the other hand, there are many people who are accused of doping when they don’t, such as Stacey Burr, a powerlifter who spoke about her drug use on the Empowered by Iron podcast. She says she was constantly accused of doping for years before she decided to start taking them.
Or, for a historical example, look at people like Eugene Sandow and Miriam “Volcana” Williams , who had careers as strong (female) men at a time when steroids didn’t exist as doping. People with the same amount of muscle (or less!) are regularly accused of using drugs in online “good or bad” discussions.
The problem with “beautiful or not” videos
Let’s forget about the muscular influencers for a moment and look at the influencers who make video after video (or encourage discussion after discussion) about whether such-and-such a person is in business or not. It’s important to know that these accusations are extremely popular content , and they are created as content . If you click and/or argue, you are part of someone’s money making scheme. These videos don’t exist to educate you, they exist because that’s what people love to yell about on the internet.
It is true that many athletes and fitness models dope. But it’s not, which you can find out just by looking. If that were the case, the World Anti-Doping Agency would get rid of urine tests and just hire a bunch of YouTubers with expert eyes to look at athletes and determine if they are doping or not.
What actually happens when creating this content is that the crowd of cute or not will look at anyone with a physique or above average results and declare that the person must be on steroids. Some of the things that will give you a chorus of steroid accusations online are:
- compete in crossfit
- powerlifting competition
- noticeably large deltoid muscles (shoulder muscles) or trapezius muscles (muscles on the sides of the neck)
- take before and after photos where the lighting is better in the after shot
- have any muscles as a woman
He quickly becomes an echo chamber with zero regard for reality. The influencer only has to say (or hint) that someone is in the business and that he believes it because of X’s observation, so that his followers repeat this phrase among themselves. It’s not like they guess who’s on the show and then reveal the answer and admit who is and who isn’t; it’s just a constant stream of accusations as influencers and their followers become more and more convinced of the veracity of the rumors they made up.
There are influencers and athletes who accept gear and talk about it openly, but many of them are in countries other than the US because of our drug laws. However, this is a catch-22 if one is not in the know: they either deny it and are considered doubled, or they ignore the accusation and consider them guilty of not responding.
Why is it all a waste of time
Okay, so you’ll never know for sure if your favorite athlete or influencer uses steroids (unless they come out and tell you), and it’s not exactly a secret that many of them use . So what’s wrong with speculation?
Here’s the thing: it’s true that steroids help you build more muscle, but there are plenty of athletes who can build a lot of muscle without drugs. Anyone who is at the top of their sport probably has good genetics and a long training history, whether they add steroids to it or not. (For a realistic look at how much strength and muscle mass a person can actually gain with steroids, here ‘s a science-based breakdown.) It’s like pointing out that a basketball player is tall when she’s wearing high heels. So what? If she took off her heels, she would still be tall and a better basketball player than the rest of us.
The real end goal of the “beautiful or not” obsession is not getting realistic expectations, shrugging your shoulders, and going to the gym to focus on yourself. No, this leads to a further distortion of your own expectations of what is possible. Maybe it’s just that I spend too much time on Reddit, but I feel like there’s a pretty strong correlation between the people who care the most about calling “fake cuties” and the people who have the least experience in gym (and rather weak). elevators).
Steps away from the phone, you will find people who have heard from someone who has heard from someone that most influencers and celebrities are on steroids. They say to look like Fight Club’s Brad Pitt or Lean Beef Pie , you need gear. I agree, they look amazing, but none of them have the amount of muscle that would require steroids to achieve. If you’re used to looking at someone with a moderate amount of muscle and feeling overwhelmed – like you can’t reach that size without steroids, so you could give up – I’d say your expectations are really unrealistic.