Natty Or Not: Why Dost Thou Giveth A Fuck?!
Some Hollywood hunk has undergone a complete body transformation for a role, going from 140 lbs to 220 lbs of raw beefcake in a matter of weeks. That fitness influencer looks less and less like the same person the more you scroll from their latest pics down to the older ones. A gym member with an incredible physique is throwing up crazy numbers in the weight room. The person who won a recent bodybuilding show made all the other competitors look like they didn’t even belong on the same stage as them.
What do all of these people have in common?1I mean, besides them looking better than you!
Yup, you and others wondering if the person is natty or not!
These natty or not debates rage all over the place. You can hear whispers about it in gym locker rooms and around water fountains while people take their absurdly long breaks between sets. It’s the topic of discussion of many Youtube videos, message board threads, and social media comment sections. There are even entire websites devoted to exposing lifters as assisted because many claim natural status.2If you, in fact, aren’t aware of any of this shit, here’s a brief introduction to it!
A natural lifter, or natty, is someone who’s never used chemical assistance. An assisted, or enhanced, lifter is someone who’s used performance-enhancing drugs. Besides steroids, some examples include prohormones, human growth hormone (HGH), selective androgen receptor modulators (SARMs), and insulin. These substances confer muscle building and fat burning advantages to their user on a level that far exceeds that of creatine and other accepted performance-enhancers that fall under the supplement categorization. Other than yielding disparate results, another difference between the two classes is that supplements like creatine stop working upon cessation of the product and don’t alter a person’s physiology. Some performance-enhancing drugs, on the other hand, have physiological effects that extend beyond their immediate use. In the case of steroids, for example, they increase the number of cell nuclei in the muscle fibers, helping users to still build muscle long after exposure to the exogenous hormones.
There are a handful of assisted lifters who admit to their drug use. And then there are those who use every drug known to man but claim to be natural lifters, or at least give off the impression of it, when their past or present history says otherwise. The overwhelming majority of assisted lifters fall into the second camp for a number of reasons, ranging from illegality to trying to protect their image. The “natty or not” conversation is based around this figuring out of who is what they claim to be.
To those engaged in this investigative work, what flavor cookie do you get for figuring out that Kali Muscle got big as shit from using gear rather than by only eating a diet rich in tuna and ramen, as he claims?3Psst…”gear” is another name for steroids. Or that Dana Linn Bailey and Mike O’Hearn also achieved their physiques the same way despite their own protestations to the contrary? How many pats on the back for figuring out that Amanda Latona is probably on Anavar, as are most bikini competitors? Or that any competitive powerlifter or bodybuilder in the upper echelon of their “sport” is maybe using a cocktail of steroids, growth hormone, and insulin?4Wanna know what grinds my gears? People who use the term “sports” when talking about powerlifting, bodybuilding, Crossfit, golf, and any other “sport” that isn’t a sport! Good job, Colombo! You’re a regular old Nancy Drew there!
I know I most certainly don’t give a fuck about who is or isn’t on something.
And neither should you…
Why you shouldn’t care about who’s natty or not is because the question says more about you than the people you’re asking it about.
There’s no empirical data to back me up on this, but the stat I’m making up based on personal observation suggests that 99.9 percent of the people who’ve achieved any modicum of success in the gym don’t care who’s natural or not. Instead, the people who launch congressional subcommittees to look into the matter are the people with extremely unimpressive physiques or lifts.
Why does one segment of the gym population give so much of a fuck and the other not one iota?
It’s simple, really!
See, once you spend enough time in the fitness world, you grow to understand that drugs don’t mean as much as people commonly think. For one, drugs won’t turn a never-shoulda-been into a world record holding powerlifter or multiple time Mr. Olympia winner. Heck, for most people, they can pump themselves full of every chemical in existence and still be weak as shit and not look like they lift. That’s because drugs amplify one thing, and that’s genetics. Those people with exceptional bodies and strength who are on drugs would have their exceptional bodies and strength without drugs, albeit to a lesser degree, because freakdom is hard-coded in their DNA. If, however, you didn’t hit the genetic lottery, then steroids aren’t going to do shit for you no matter how many orals you take or needles you prick yourself with.
Second, while drugs will give you more strength, power, and hypertrophic gains than if you trained without them, the keyword is “train”. Without actually putting in the work, steroids aren’t going to do shit for you. Contrary to the idea floating around in most people’s heads, you don’t do ‘roids one night and then roll out of bed jacked to death the next morning. It still takes time and effort.
The above points serve to highlight that drugs aren’t the be-all and end-all of improving your body. They’re only another part of an equation that includes knowledge, a good work ethic, proper nutrition, adequate amounts of rest, and delayed gratification, among other things. Now, as important as genes are to what you can and can’t achieve, someone can still build an incredible physique and respectable strength without drugs within their genetic limitations if they do everything else they’re supposed to do. Millions of people have done it.
As for those who haven’t…
Like I stated before, my infallible personal observation holds that the majority of people concerned with a lifter’s drug use are unimpressive. More often than not, their failure to change their body lies with them eating like shit. Or getting little to no sleep every night. Or lifting with poor form. Or working out with comical intensity on the rare days they do decide to work out. Or a combination of all, as well as many other things.
Whatever the case, rather than honestly looking at themselves for their lack of progress and then placing the blame where it belongs, they pin the blame on their not pinning themselves with any substance. It’s these people who don’t try hard and long enough who then get on their moral high horse and look for scapegoats to absolve themselves of responsibility for their shortcomings. It’s these people who attribute someone else’s success to drugs alone — not that person having the foresight to pick the right parents so they’d have the genetic makeup to build quality muscle; or their discipline to watch what they eat; or their attention to detail about how they train; or their patience to recognize that changing the body is a grind, whether said body is enhanced or not. Nope, it has to be because of the drugs and definitely — DEFINITELY!!! — isn’t because that person does everything they fall short of doing!
Throughout my over two decades of training, I’ve worked out with and around enhanced lifters. Never once have I cared that they were on R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, and Z drug. Neither have I lost sleep trying to figure out if someone I was around or training with was as natural as they claimed nor what their status was if it was unknown.
Know why?
Because, as the saying goes, “What you eat doesn’t make me shit.”
In other words, what someone does with themselves doesn’t have an effect on me, so what the fuck do I care?! Exactly, it’s none of my business. All I can do is focus on myself, which is what I’ve done and is why the enhanced lifters I’ve trained with may be stronger than me but they by no means LOOK like me!5Not so humblebrag!!!
You’d be best to do likewise, and that’s to mind your fucking business and only concern yourself with yourself.
…
That is, until someone makes what they’re doing your business and you have to readjust your focus towards them.
An example of someone involving you in their business is when you both enter a drug-tested show and they win because they’ve run a cycle at some time in their life before.6Remember footnote #2? Here’s a refresher: steroids can help users make gains long after their usage. Or stopped using detectable drugs weeks ahead of the show to clear them out of their system but still be active enough. Or used a masking agent to hide the substance they’re using from showing up on the test. Or used undetectable drugs like HGH and insulin that most federations don’t test for. Or a host of other things that people do to beat drug tests as easily as they do.
Another example of someone’s status becoming your business is when they’re trying to sell you something, like an arm routine they say is why they have 22″ biceps when the horse tranquilizers they’ve been shooting up their ass since they were 17 years old has more to do with it than the bullshit program they’ve only used a couple of times, if at all.
Other than instances like these, concerning yourself with whether someone is natty or not serves no purpose because them being what they represent themselves as has zero impact on your life.
SO STOP GIVING A FUCK!!!
Glossary: biceps, bodybuilder, bodybuilding, diet, fitfluencer, fitness, genetics, gym, gym member, hormones, hypertrophy, intensity, lifting form, muscle, natty, natural, nutrition, patience, physique, program, responsibility, roids, supplement, weight room, work out
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