Steroid user and natural gym-goer spend 100 days training to see the difference drugs make
When a steroid user and man training naturally went head-to-head for 100 days to see how their muscles developed they both saw some impressive results.
YouTuber Jeremy Ethier conducted the 100 day experiment that took two volunteers and put them through a lengthy process of workouts and scans to measure just how their bodies were responding to the exercise and steroids.
In the steroid corner we had Todd, who started his 100 days weighing in at 183lbs with 19 percent body fat and a lean mass of 148lbs.
Described as a more serious lifter than his opponent, Jeremy explained that Todd would under normal circumstances gain muscle mass three times slower than his natural gym-going rival since he already had more of it.
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Over in the natty corner there was the lean and probably-not-very-mean Brandon, weighing in at 149lbs overall with a body fat percentage of 13.6 and a lean mass of 128lbs.
The opening stages
Brandon did start with a bit of an advantage over his roided-up opponent in that he was already quite lean, so he could put his focus on 'gaining weight to maximise growth' whereas the 'aspiring bodybuilder' Todd would have to diet down during his 100 days.
Jeremy picked a workout that would give Brandon's muscles more of a challenge when he was stretching on the expectation it'd help grow his muscles more.
He also had to teach the natural trainer how to 'train to failure', going until he could go no more.
Brandon said his regime was 'five times as painful' as he was used to, but he was feeling 'optimistic' about it.
Meanwhile, Todd wasn't having to stick to the normal rules of biology since he was on steroids, and before long Jeremy noted that 'Todd's chemically enhanced body was now performing at a completely different level than it used to'.
He found his workouts on steroids were lasting around two hours, whereas before getting on the gear they were lasting about half that time, so he was able to train for longer times and harder intensities than the other guy.
Calorie boosts and tight t-shirts
Jeremy explained that 100 days of hard training would typically see someone on steroids put on muscle around three times faster than someone trying it naturally.
However, Todd's growth slowed down when he had to start going on a diet to lose some of his body fat.
He also moved away from Jeremy during the experiment, so they lost track of his progress and had to wait until he showed up again at the end to see how he was doing.
Brandon, meanwhile, was doing plenty of exercise in and among his workouts with Jeremy, so had to boost his calorie intake to around 3,000 a day and was still not gaining weight.
He got his own boost in the form of the supplement creatine, which isn't a steroid and is a favourite of many bodybuilders.
By day 85, Brandon was starting to notice a lot of his t-shirts weren't fitting him properly as he'd put on some more noticeable muscle mass.
The results
Todd and Brandon met up again at 100 days, with the steroid user noting that he was feeling pretty tired from everything.
During the 100 days Todd went from 19 percent body fat to just seven percent, though you'll remember his dieting part-way through played a part in that.
Still, during the 100 days thanks in part to steroids he gained a whopping 13lbs of muscle from his workouts.
At the 100 day milestone, Brandon's body fat percentage had dropped to 13.5 percent, meaning it had only reduced a small amount in proportion to the rest of his body, but his overall weight had increased to 154lbs as he'd 'gained 5lbs pure muscle'.
He also outdid Todd in delt and bicep growth overall.
Ultimately, Jeremy declared that while Todd had done very well on steroids, Brandon was proof you didn't have to go on steroids to see major results from physical exercise.
Joe Harker