5 Steroids Evidence Based Indicators

Is there a way to accurately tell if someone is on steroids? Whether you’re wondering about someone you follow on Instagram, a bodybuilder, or even one of your friends, it’s definitely very important to have a good idea of what’s possible to achieve naturally if you’re planning to go down the natural route. And while most people will instantly assume that steroids are involved as soon as they see some big muscles, a low body fat percentage, and some veins, unless someone looks like the Hulk, muscle size alone is actually not a very good indicator of steroid use, since you can build a whole lot of muscle and get really lean naturally.

So, I want to give you guys five signs that could suggest that steroids are actually involved. And it may come as a surprise that the amount of people using steroids is much higher than what most people might think. A self-reported study found that 4% of 12th-grade high school students had used steroids. Another study indicated that a million eighty-four thousand Americans, or about 0.5% of the adult population, said that they had used steroids at some point. And a study from 1989 indicated that for competitive bodybuilders, 54% of men and 10% of women use steroids on a regular basis.

Now, since these were self-reported studies that relied on people telling the truth, and since access to steroids has only become easier over the years, those numbers have most likely gone up. By far, one of the best indicators of steroid use, other than a blood test of course, is checking someone’s fat-free mass index or FFMI. If this is new to you, the fat-free mass index measures how much muscle mass someone has in comparison to their height. It’s like the body mass index, except instead of looking at the weight-to-height ratio, we’re essentially looking at the muscle-to-height ratio.

The formula is rather long, but luckily there are online calculators that’ll do the math for you, and I’ll include a link below in the description for one of those. Once that’s calculated, you should know that in a study involving 157 male athletes, 83 of which were steroid users and 74 were natural, researchers found that the highest fat-free mass index that natural athletes were able to achieve was about 25. On top of that, the researchers also estimated that from a sample of 20 Mr. America winners from the pre-steroid era, which was somewhere between 1939 and 1959, they all had an average fat-free mass index of 25.4.

So if someone has a fat-free mass index above 25.4, the fact is that they’re more jacked than the average Mr. America winner from the pre-steroid era, which could indicate some steroid use. However, there are some important things to keep in mind. One is that we now know a lot more about the right way to train and eat due to advancements in science. Such information simply wasn’t available during the pre-steroid era. We also have made major advancements in natural muscle-building supplements since 1959, and the sample size of non-steroid users in the study was only 74 men, which is a relatively small number. So the number 25 is not a set-in-stone number. Instead, it’s an indicator, which means you can’t rely on it with certainty. But if someone has an excessively high fat-free mass index, there’s a good chance that they’re using steroids.

The last thing to keep in mind is just because being above 25 is an indicator of steroid use, it doesn’t mean that if you’re below 25, you are 100% not using steroids. Because if someone’s taking a low dose, or if they don’t train and eat that well, or if they just started using steroids for the first time, that’ll all affect their fat-free mass. With all that said, let’s go over some examples of real-life people to help illustrate how their fat-free mass index can be used to see if they’re natural or likely to be using steroids.

First, we got Cristiano Ronaldo. He’s about 6 foot 1 or 187 centimeters tall, 191 pounds, which is 84 kilograms, and he’s got 7% body fat, which gives him a fat-free mass index of 22.39. So this is achievable naturally. Just train hard and smart, stay consistent, follow a proper nutrition plan, and get enough high-quality sleep.

Next, we have a very well-known bodybuilder, Steve Cook. He’s also about 6 foot 1, 186 centimeters to be exact, he’s 205 pounds or about 93 kilograms, and his body fat percentage is at 6%, which gives him a fat-free mass index of 25.5. So since his fat-free mass index is greater than 25, his body may not be achievable for most people naturally, but it could be possible for those who are dedicated and blessed with good genetics. So he’s right on that borderline.

Next, we got Arnold Schwarzenegger, who obviously admitted using steroids. Hey, Arnold was about 6 foot 2 or 188 centimeters, he was 235 pounds, which is about 107 kilograms, and he had 5% body fat. This put his fat-free mass index at 28.55. That’s a state that’s not attainable naturally unless you somehow have godlike genetics.

Last but not least, we have the 2018 Mr. Olympia winner, Shawn Rhoden. He’s 5 foot 10 or 177 centimeters, 245 pounds or 111 kilograms, and for competitions, he has about 4 to 5 percent body fat, which gives him a fat-free mass index of about 33. So it’s safe to say you won’t get a body like that just by eating chicken, rice, and asparagus and by supplementing with some creatine.

So now that you have a good idea of how the fat-free mass index works, let’s move on to another sign that you’ve most likely heard of, gynecomastia. Research has shown that 37% of steroid users have gynecomastia. For those of you that don’t know, gynecomastia is a term used to describe the growth of breast tissue in men, and it’s almost always caused by elevated estrogen levels.

According to research, when the female hormone estrogen is elevated, it can cause men to develop breast tissue. Everyone knows that steroids will increase testosterone, but some people are unaware that when you take steroids, your body can convert some of the increased testosterone into estrogen. This is because your body has an aromatase enzyme, and this is an enzyme that regularly converts testosterone into estrogen.

So the bottom line is that the more testosterone you have, the more testosterone tends to get converted into estrogen, which is why the more steroid someone takes, the higher his chances of developing gynecomastia is. However, gynecomastia alone, once again, is not a super reliable indicator of steroid use for a few reasons. One is that different steroids have different levels of risk when it comes to causing gyno. Specifically, Anadrol and Dianabol have been reported to be more likely to cause gyno because those steroids are more likely to aromatize.

But there are steroids out there that are much less likely to cause gyno as well. On top of that, many steroid users will also use an estrogen blocker like an aromatase inhibitor to prevent the conversion of testosterone into estrogen, ultimately helping them prevent gynecomastia while still being on steroids. Another reason why gynecomastia alone isn’t solid evidence of steroid use is that someone can have it even if they don’t take steroids. Studies show us that steroids only account for about 10 to 25 percent of the cases of gynecomastia.

Still, if someone shows some of the other signs of steroid use along with gyno, it is likely that he uses steroids. So another sign is excessively fast muscle gains. Aside from increasing the total amount of muscle someone can build, steroids also increase the speed at which that muscle growth occurs. To put it simply, steroids make you gain more muscle faster.

These powerful effects of steroids that cause rapid muscle growth were shown in a 10-week study in which 43 men were divided between four different groups. The first group was not given any steroids, and they didn’t exercise at all for the duration of the study. So, as you might expect, at the end of the 10 weeks, they experienced no real changes in muscle mass. The second group also did exercise, but the difference was they were given 600 milligrams of steroids every week, and with that, they gained seven pounds of muscle.

Then, the third group wasn’t given any steroids but did follow a progressive weight training routine, which led them to gaining an average of four pounds of muscle, which definitely isn’t bad, but it’s about half the muscle growth experienced by the men that simply just took steroids without exercising at all. Finally, the fourth group was given 600 milligrams of steroids each week while also following a progressive weight training routine, which led to 13 pounds of muscle growth. So they gained three times more muscle than the group that lifted weights and exercised just as much but simply didn’t take steroids.

And keep in mind that many bodybuilders take dosages that are much higher than 600 milligrams per week, and on top of that, they’ll combine it with other steroids like tren. This is why very fast muscle gains can be a sign of steroid use. However, as always, there are a few things to keep in mind. First, some people have better genetics and more of an ability to gain muscle naturally. Second, beginner lifters can gain muscle very fast even without steroid use. That’s because the further away you are from your genetic muscle-building potential, the faster you can build muscle. In fact, it’s estimated that people can gain about 20 to 25 pounds of lean muscle during their very first year of training as long as they’re training and eating properly. And the third thing to keep in mind is since steroids increase muscle growth in a dose-dependent way, if someone takes only small amounts, they may not make very fast gains at all, especially if they don’t eat and train properly. This could make you assume that someone is not on steroids when they really are.

So, a sign you can use in combination with rapid muscle growth to identify steroid use is if a disproportionate amount of that muscle is built specifically around the shoulders, traps, and neck, but not as much on the legs. This can, of course, also be a sign of skipping leg day. However, it is a fact that steroid use has more of a muscle-building effect on the shoulders and the traps than it has on the legs. That’s because the muscles in the upper body contain higher amounts of androgen receptors. So if you notice rapid muscle growth mostly in the upper body, that could be a further indicator of steroid use.

Another common sign and side effect of using steroids that you’ve probably heard of before is acne. It usually pops up on the shoulders, chest, or back, or a combination of all three. The reason why steroids can promote acne is that high testosterone levels enhance the activity of small oil-producing glands found in the skin. This leads to the production of more sebum, which is an oily and waxy substance that can cause a hardened plug to form in your skin follicles, leading to the development of acne. Of course, I should mention that not everyone who uses steroids will develop acne, and it’s totally possible to obviously have acne without using steroids. But acne could be a sign of steroid use, especially if you see some of the other signs that I already talked about.

Finally, the last sign that I want to go over today is again one of the more common ones that you’ve most likely heard of, roid rage, or in general, aggressive behavior. People joke about this all the time, but significantly boosting your testosterone levels with steroids can lead to more aggressive behavior in some people. Studies have shown that nearly 60% of anabolic steroid users experience increases in irritability and aggressiveness. Specifically, in a recent study, researchers found significant elevations in aggressiveness and manic scores over the course of 12 weeks while administering testosterone injections in a controlled double-blind crossover study. However, like I said, this only happens to some people. The side effect of more aggressive behavior wasn’t uniform across all the subjects in the study.

Keep in mind also that there are many other factors that influence aggression. Examples are natural temperament, whether someone is under stress, sleep deprivation, and the current situation that someone finds themselves in, and that’s just naming a few. But aggressive behavior could indicate steroid use, especially if you know someone for a long time, and he or she wasn’t aggressive before, but all of a sudden, that person starts showing more aggressive behavior frequently, even though there isn’t a distinct reason for their aggressiveness. That’s about it, guys.

Those are the five major signs you can look out for to tell if someone is on steroids. Although each sign on its own is not 100% accurate, by observing multiple signs, it could help you identify if steroids are involved.