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Women and Steroids

AnaSCI

ADMINISTRATOR
Sep 17, 2003
8,625
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By Elizi Volk "I think"

I did my best to find the author of this artical and as best i can tell it's "Elizi"


I think its a great read....

"Nobody knew or could agree on what women wanted or
needed to be. Not even women themselves…. Up close and
dressed in anything feminine, female bodybuilders
started looking like something God had made suffering
from a divine hangover and caught in delusional
terrors beyond human imagination."1

In 1990 Harry Crews accurately predicted the dilemma
of female bodybuilding in his book "Body." Although
the use (or, more appropriately, ‘abuse’) of steroids
is prevalent throughout the entire sports world,
nowhere is it more controversial than in female
bodybuilding. In a sport where the main goal is to
build large and massive muscularity, a large number of
competitive bodybuilders, both male and female, have
resorted to using anabolic steroids to augment their
competitive edge.

For women, the dilemma is multi-faceted. Maria Lowe
states:

"Whereas the physical dynamics of consuming anabolic
steroids might be fairly well understood, the social
aspects remain unclear – particularly for women."2

Indeed, recent detraction away from female
bodybuilding and increased attention to women’s
fitness competition perhaps signifies the end of the
‘amazon’ female physique that has reigned for the past
two decades. Perhaps the primary cause of the
inevitable demise is the leadership of the
bodybuilding industry’s notions regarding muscularity
and feminism. Judges, officials and media in the
bodybuilding industry increasingly discourage extreme
muscularity in women because it is seen as unfeminine.
While on the contrary, men and extreme muscularity are
seen as compatible. Therefore, the lines are now drawn
between fitness competitions and hardcore professional
female bodybuilding.

A thorough examination of the social aspects of female
bodybuilding and related issues of gender pushing are
not the focus of this column. Nevertheless, these
issues may be of interest to readers, who may find
excellent relevant discourse in several sources.
Several books and articles are included at the end of
this column for further reference. I will, however,
address some issues here as they pertain to the
average female weightlifter.

Steroid use amongst female bodybuilders (fbbs) has had
several trickle-down effects on women and weight
lifting. Many times have I heard unknowing women state
that they do not want to partake in weight training
because they "don’t want to get ‘big’". They equate
weight lifting with the extreme muscle mass of the
professional fbbs they see in many of the muscle
magazines. They hear the taunts of their boyfriends or
husbands claiming these fbbs look like men and are
undesirable. Does this sound like an invitation for
the average woman to weight train? Not all women are
aware that these fbbs acquire their massive physiques
with the aid of male hormone drugs. I have had to
assure many women that they can’t get ‘that’ big
unless they, too, use specific drugs and train like
animals.

On the other hand, many of the average gym-going women
are sometimes daunted by the size of fbbs and think
they are doomed to never gain any muscle mass unless
they too use steroids. This is the primary impetus
behind this column. In the last several months, I have
received several emails requesting information on how
to use steroids to gain muscle mass and lose bodyfat.
These requests have come from young women and from
boyfriends and husbands who want to put their
wives/girlfriends on steroids. Most of the women had
been weight training for only three to six months.

Let’s look at why professional female (and male)
bodybuilders use drugs to enhance their physiques. As
in any sport, the elite athletes make it to the top
competition levels. These are athletes who have
several factors in their favor. First, they posses the
genetics that enable them to excel at the sport that
is particularly suited to their physical attributes.
It is well known in sports science that athletes who
have a body type suited to performing a particular
sport will most likely succeed over one who does not.
Most professional bodybuilders have genetics that are
well suited to weightlifting. They utilize training
and nutritional programs for many years that develop
their genetic potentials. It is not until they reach
the limit of their genetic potential that they utilize
drugs to take them beyond that level in order to stay
competitive.

Another reason professional bodybuilders use steroids
is to enhance their recovery during intensive
training. Granted that steroid use may increase muscle
mass without an increase in weight training, yet the
gains will be minimal. To maximize the effects of
steroids, trainees are able to increase the intensity
and volume of their weight-training program to gain
the large increases in muscle mass. Many of the
training regimes presented in the muscle magazines by
the big bodybuilders are used while they are on
performance enhancement drugs. Thus, these regimes are
falsely represented to the average weightlifter as
training programs that anyone can adopt and gain
similar results. Nothing could be more misleading.

Many athletes with less than perfect genetics use
drugs because they are compelled to stay in
competition at all costs. However, the drugs will not
guarantee winning. Even with an increment of
improvement, they may still not reach the caliber of
those who are at the top competitive levels. Then
there are those who are merely looking for the ‘magic
pill’ to replace the effort required in training and
nutrition to attain optimal results. For the average
weightlifter who is not targeting the next NPC or
Olympic competition, is it worth the health risks to
use steroids?

Most commonly, women complain that they can not
increase their muscle mass and lose body fat. First,
understand that these two processes are contradictory.
Only beginners to weight training will be able to
increase their muscle mass and lose bodyfat
simultaneously. Even then, beginners will eventually
reach a plateau where muscle gains will decrease. The
body must be in a state of anabolism to grow. In other
words, conditions must be optimal for the body to
build tissue.

The main criteria for increasing muscle mass are:

a sound training regime,
a diet that supplies the caloric level and right
macro/micronutrients for anabolic growth,
recovery and rest.
If these factors are not optimal, no supplement in the
world will add on muscle mass like magic. Steroids
will not compensate for poor training and nutrition.

Gaining appreciable muscle mass and dropping bodyfat
at the same time is not optimal. One needs to
concentrate on one or the other. Most of the claims of
the muscle magazines and supplement companies that
they or their products can increase muscle mass while
losing body fat are false and merely a sales gimmick.
The laws of thermodynamics demonstrate it is simply
not possible, unless one is a very beginner. Trainees
have to accept some gain in bodyfat along with the
gain in muscle mass. The bodyfat can be lost later
with a sensible diet.

Generally, women, more than men, tend to overtrain and
not eat enough. Most women bodybuilders spend hours on
the cardio deck in addition to weight training 2 hours
four to six days a week. Many women weightlifters
follow training regimes they see in their favorite
muscle magazine entailing 10 or more sets per body
part. Because women have lower baseline levels of
testosterone than men, women possibly may require less
volume than men for better recovery. Adding numerous
hours of cardio on top of that most likely leads to
overtraining. As well, most women do not eat enough
for muscle growth for fear of gaining body fat.