Training for natural athletes vs performance enhancement drug using atheletes – a brief comparison of the two

Training for natural athletes vs performance enhancement drug using atheletes – a brief comparison of the two.

Quite an interesting question this one. A lot of back and forth discussions online about what the right answers are too. But all opinions aside, what differences can we undoubtedly determine between a natural athlete versus an assisted athlete? Well, first we need to determine the difference between performance enhancing drugs as a whole as opposed to just anabolic and androgenic steroids. What is quite obvious in sports such as bodybuilding, cycling, weight lifting and olympic type sports, is that these PEDs (performance enhancing drugs) work in synergy with one another to create a unique cause and effect as opposed to if they were used on their own. Upon a quick Google search, a simple definition of the word synergy:

Synergy: noun.

“the interaction or cooperation of two or more organisations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects.”

Let me further elaborate. I like mathematics to explain life where possible. Let’s say for arguments sake:

– Human Growth Hormone has a value 4 units

– Anabolic Steroids has a value of 7 units

– Insulin has a value of 3 units

– IGF-1 has a value of 2 units

– Other adjuvant PEDs have a combined value of 2 units

So instead of the outcome where these drugs have an addition type outcome of:

4 + 7 + 3 + 2 + 2 = 18

The outcome is a synergistic one where these drugs have a multiple type outcome:

4 x 7 x 3 x 2 x 2 = 336

If we are to express these values as a percentage (%) and compare someone who used only anabolic steroids in their cycle as 7% versus someone who used every drug under the sun as 336% this could give some indication as to why someone can build 300% + more size, or 3 times the amount of size as someone who is just using anabolic steroids. If you ask me, 3 x more gains are not far off what I see clinically when I compare the two either. Not a bad little mathematical comparative this one. If we can all agree that performance enhancing drugs work synergistically, we can move along to the main topic of this discussion which is how these PEDs affect the training requirements of an athlete vs a natural athlete.

So these medications help us recover faster, build more muscle, build more strength, more power and either indirectly or directly some of these PEDs also aid in fat loss, endurance, speed, reduced pain and reduced injury incidence. The science behind these drugs obviously allows us to train harder, more frequently and with more volume than if we were natural. So does that mean we should train harder, more frequently and with more volume than a natural? The simple answer is “yes, you should. If you can.” When I say “if you can,” I mean that if you could actually do something absurd like 100 sets per workout with balls to walls intensity and recover in time before the next session where you could progressively overload and do 101 sets, you probably would gain more size and strength than someone who did 20 sets per workout because the science available suggests a dose response relationship in favour of “more.” The more volume you do and the more intensely you do it, the more size and strength you will gain. So, if more reps, more weight, more sets and more times performed per week is the key to getting jacked, then why do IFBB pros not train for 8 hours a day and do every muscle twice a day? Well, obviously because they would overtrain and burn out. There comes a time where the amount of volume and intensity you can complete in one week becomes too much for your body to be able to recover from in time before the next session and so you end up going in the opposite direction. Muscle loss, fatigue, performance dips etc. This is why, despite the data that has emerged over the last decade that has challenged many “bro beliefs” about training, it also reinforces some of those bro beliefs as appropriate training regimes for many also. For sure, training a muscle group 1 x per week does not seem to be optimal for most but any more than 2 x per week per muscle group for even the assisted athlete; the risk of injury and not recovering in time is a larger possibility; diminishing returns are often experienced. It also depends on which muscle group and how intense those 2 workouts per muscle group were that week, not just the overall volume performed. A host of variables that cause what is an impossible to determine absolute training prescription for all. I do have some guidelines though that I feel can be used by an assisted athlete to navigate his/her way to success in their chosen sport. You will just have to play around these guidelines and find what works best for you. This is where an experienced coach comes in handy as they’re able to skate finely on the threshold of “do not be a pussy” and “Okay, that is enough now. You may burn out or injure yourself if you go any further this week. Let’s rest and recover.” To the guidelines:

1.) It seems that most will benefit from training a muscle group or activity multiple times per week. Increase your frequency as much as you can until you notice a consistent dip in performance and energy. For all sports, these are two of my most recommended indicators when self-gauging whether or not you are doing too much. If you feel good and you are performing good, do more! I have witnessed clients who actually benefited from 3-4 x heavy and intense squat sessions a week for both muscular and strength development in their legs. Of course, this will not be for most athletes and these anomaly freaks gradually built up to this level of volume and frequency over time. This principle applies to both natural and assisted athletes but to what length you can push yourself without diminishing returns is a greater window for assisted athletes.

2.) Be methodical. Training “hard” is not even nearly as effective as training “hard and smart.” At some point, your mental toughness will go from your friend to your enemy if you cannot think scientifically. Constantly pushing to failure on every set of every day is a great way to plateau in the long term. Psychologically, this is the hardest behavioural pattern to correct in serious athletes. They do not want to do less or train less intense ever, but often you will need to take 1 step back to take 5 steps forward. This is called de-loading. Natural athletes will need to de-load more often and more aggressively but a PED assisted athlete will still need to incorporate strategic de-loads into their training program one way or another. Some of the best physiques in the world do not de-load. That is because as I mentioned earlier in this text, with steroids and PEDs you can get away with a lot more. You do not need even nearly the same stimulus you would to stimulate protein synthesis as a natural athlete would. That does not mean that these great physiques could not have been even greater with a more methodical and evidence based approach. We will never know the answer to whether or not some of these genetic freaks could have been even freakier. If I had to gamble on it, I would bet on “most definitely yes, they would have been even freakier.”

Without a method to your madness you will not likely look very mad at all. You will look more, sad. I hate to sound like an a-hole but whenever I ask a potential new client for their current training regime and they say the words “around about this many sets” “most days I’ll do a” and “sometimes I’ll switch it up” then I know there has been no attention to method. No program to provide me with on paper. No periodisation. And most often, not that great of a result in the client. Yes, you should write it down if your memory is faint and yes you need a program if you are going to advance long term. Do not get caught up in using the rare freak of nature as your example to justify “feeling your way around the workout” because the chances are you are not going to look like him no matter what you do or what you take. I had to be really firm about this paragraph and I apologise if it came across as condescending to anyone. Just trust me okay!

3.) Keep an open mind and welcome the potential for change. If a bro-split of one muscle group per day has worked for you for the last decade and you are in great shape, do not reject the notion that perhaps there is still a better way to advance. On PEDs, we will have almost constant stimulus for muscle protein synthesis which is different than that of a natural athlete so of course a bro-split will work well for a drug assisted athlete. This does not mean that splitting the volume between training a muscle twice per week (or more for some) will not have an even greater benefit than the typical bro-split. In saying this, the typical bro-split has been altered by many other big name bros over the years who were practising high rep, high volume, high frequency training styles many years before the data emerged.

All in all, the principles of what is optimal for a natural athlete vs a PED assisted athlete are more or less the same with the caveat that assisted athletes will likely get away with “bending the rules” a bit more (because of constant muscle protein synthesis stimulus) and will be able to push the volume, frequency and intensity thresholds significantly further than a natural athlete and likely also require de-loads less frequently. Those principles being that progressively overloading volume and intensity relative to the individual over time will cause the greatest results in strength, size and performance in an athlete if sufficient recovery is achieved in between workouts. So although PEDs are so powerful that you could probably swing on the monkey bars at your child’s school and still build bigger biceps than a dedicated natural, don’t let that privilege stray you away from taking full advantage of what PEDs can do for you, which is to allow you to do more!