Just fifty years back, drugs had yet to appear on the bodybuilding scene. It wasn't until the late 50s that we begin to hear about drug use in sport and by the early 60s Dianabol was being taken by bodybuilders. This coincided with the big drug companies seeing their opportunity of making big money through the development of their own steroid drugs most of which are still in use today. Things didn't quite turn out as expected though as the initial drug use reports appeared and many companies abandoned their products. Although many good drugs were actually patented, they were never fully developed.



Right through the sixties and seventies there was major use of orals and some bodybuilders of the time have suffered liver and kidney problems, which were probably exacerbated by the use of large amounts of such drugs over very long periods. In the seventies, as a young bodybuilder, I never used more than 10 x 5mg Dianabol tablets per day and even that was not for long periods. More normal was 4 to 6 Dianabol per day with 200 mg per week of an injectable [Deca or Testoviron] the total intake was about 300 to 400mg per week maximum. Pretty basic stuff compared with today.

But during that time it was considered quite a normal stack, although some did use more and normally through extra orals - the fact was that gains were being produced through these drugs. Today, even competitors at beginner level use around 1000mg weekly (and some even more) which include quite dangerous stuff such as Oxymetholone, Halotestin, Parabolan, etc. I do realize that you can only get some of these with different names through several suppliers outside of Europe, but the toxic effects of the basic drugs remain the same.

Nowadays novice bodybuilders are using some really impressive stacks and as they move up the competitive ladder the steroid intake increases and other products are also taken on aboard. Some examples being DNP [di-nitro-phenol], various diuretic products, anti-catabolic drugs [Aminoglutethimide (Orimeten)], Nubain even, prostaglandins, IGF-1 [perhaps], as well as insulin and growth hormone. We are now entering a critical phase regards both cost and health risk as I know of many health problems related to these types of drugs.

Today's youth don't really take the drug issue seriously and who can really blame them. Let's take cigarette smoking as an example, where health warnings are in place. The UK government takes a total of $16,000,000,000 from tobacco revenues per year, which is about 5 times as much as it costs to treat smoking related diseases. It's sad to say that the youth are just not convinced about the dangers of recreational drugs.

These dangers are very often exaggerated and they will only find out by their own experiences. Many who start bodybuilding used or still do use a combination of recreational substances and deciding to take a few bodybuilding drugs as well does not faze them. For the more serious bodybuilders, it should be mandatory that all the recreational stuff is abandoned. But many won't and the load on their body systems will be increased as their kidneys and livers [particularly] try to deal with the heavy loads of toxins.

Doses of steroids and other performance enhancing drugs have multiplied in bodybuilding throughout all competitive levels, and are still increasing and we have to begin to believe that competitors' health is being affected. Extremely high doses of steroids and other drugs are being used by most bodybuilders at higher levels. Don't take any notice of those who say that they only use low doses and that it's the other bodybuilders who use a lot more than they do. Don't believe it; they are lying.

There are guys out there who may have the most incredible genetics and can grow and condition themselves with a lot less gear than many other bodybuilders. But should this be true, and if he had used more, he could, maybe, be the best in the world. Will he continue to say that he won't use any more? If you believe the answer to be no, that he won't use more, then I think you have a different understanding of bodybuilders than the one that I have. What would I do in that position? I would use more and more until problems began to develop! Anyway, we think that problems only happen to other people. Or am I wrong? (Coming soon Part 3)