The men's fitness blog

For thousands of years, humans have been trying to create substances to increase strength, athletic ability and endurance. Modern experimentation has focused on steroids and related substances.

Steroids (a.k.a. "Anabolic Steroids") are natural or synthetic chemical compounds similar to male hormones, in particular testosterone.

This post gives helpful information about steroids from a neutral point of view.

In the body, hormones are chemicals released by cells, which carry a chemical "message" to other cells. Testosterone is a naturally occuring hormone, which carries a message to muscle cells to increase their rate of division - in other words, to increase muscle growth. Since anabolic steroids are related to testosterone, they also have the ability to increase muscle growth rate (they have other medical uses). Anabolic steroids are available in both natural, or synthetic (manufactured) forms. They come either in oral (pill) form, or parenteral (injected with a syringe).

Steroids have been a subject of controversy lately, mainly because of the negative media coverage given to sportsmen and women who have been disqualified or banned for using them to gain a competitive advantage.

Obviously, serious sportspeople should never take steroids or any other performance-enhancing substances; but if you're not a competitive sportsman, you may want to try steroids to allow you build muscle faster.

Perhaps, being a busy professional, you don't have a lot of time to work out. Or maybe you have been working out for a long time, but aren't getting the results you want. These are valid reasons. However, steroid over-use (particularly with synthetic steroids) sometimes leads to other issues. In particular: hair loss, liver problems, breast tissue formation, erectile dysfunction and psychological effects. Some take anti-estrogen compounds to counteract some of these effects.

In addition to steroids themselves, some non-steroid compounds such as Clenbuterol have become very popular, mainly due their ability to help the user avoid the typical undesirable side-effects of steroids. (Clenbuterol does not increase muscle growth, but reduces body fat, As such, it is often incorporated into athletes' training regimes as a weight-loss aid, or used by bodybuilders going for a defined look).

Whatever your reason for using steroids, make sure you think seriously about the side-effects before doing so, and always seek professional advice from a doctor or personal trainer before starting a course of steroids.

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