Ever wonder how things in this life came to be? Why they were created? What their original purpose actually was? Legions of weightlifting enthusiasts, competitive bodybuilders and strength athletes have asked this question at one time or another about Anabolic Steroids.
The history of steroids isn't a long one. In fact, the first anabolic steroid was created in 1930's - just seventy odd years ago. Developed to prevent the atrophy or break down of muscle tissue in patients with debilitating diseases, they were also given to burn patients to prevent wasting and to regenerate the body at the cellular level.
Medicinally, steroids obviously have a very legitimate purpose for being. Athletically, their profound effect on the performance and appearance of users can neither be ignored nor denied. However, steroids didn't start being utilized for non-medical reasons for about a decade after being created. In the 40s, Nazi doctors provided steroids to their soldiers in an effort to make them more aggressive. The Soviet Union followed suit in the 50s by giving them to their athletes to enhance performance and strength..
Once the US discovered that the USSR was giving steroids to their athletes, we began to do the same in the 50s - despite years of covering this fact up for many years. But considering the successive shattering of world record after world record at large events like the Olympics, it only made sense that evolution didn't move quite that rapidly, and that something else was at play. In fact, the benefits were physically obvious: a gain in muscle size and strength that could not be achieved through rigorous training and diet alone.
For three decades or so, however, no one bothered to document the side effects of steroid use. Then, in the 60s, the first reports of undesirable effects were documented. These undesirable side effects included: Aggression, acne, hair loss, increases/ decreases in sex drive, facial cartilage proliferation, enlargement of the [male] breast and a host of other things.
In addition not enough information existed on 'how' steroids actually worked to enhance strength, size and performance. So, for years, optimizing them in terms of diet, training and recovery went largely unrecognized. It wasn't until the 70s or 80s that steroids were really utilized to their full capacity for transformation and regeneration.
Remember, too, that the first steroid - Dianabol - was, and is, an oral steroid. Injectable steroids were not originally available. So the method of delivery has also evolved throughout the years, along with the diversity of chemical compound offerings. But oral steroids are highly liver toxic, so the first generation of AS, which also included Anadrol-50, were highly hepatoxic. On the other hand, oral preparations of steroids tend to clear from the system and have always been preferred by coaches and athletes for this reason, no matter what the availability of injectable steroids may be.
The concepts of "stacking" and "pyramiding" didn't come into play until the era of the Joe Gold, Arnold, and Lou Ferrigno. Bodybuilding took stacking to a high art, and pyramiding to a point of pure creativity. Of course, no one knew the potential effects - positive and negative - of every subsequent new drug that emerged; nor anything about receptors and binding, or how to prevent receptor burnout. Considering there are more than 100 AS out there today, it's understandable that stacking is still somewhat of a mystery and crap shoot for most people.
It's only been in recent years that medical research understands exactly how steroids work to increase strength, vitality, sex drive, and cellular repair. How they work is by binding to androgen receptors at the cellular level, stimulating RNA, and increasing protein synthesis. They also have an anti-catabolic effect, even in the face of lack of adequate calories, and overtraining. They also increase aggression, produce a euphoria of sorts, and decrease fatigue, all during training, to maximize intensity and duration of training.
Though the media, public and various commissions still spurn steroid use, its many users, coaches, and others on the periphery of athletics contend that they are useful and necessary for optimal performance. And while this is certainly true, the ramifications of whether that is ethical or appropriate, will never be agreed upon. Forget that long term use is now raising even more questions about whether taking these substances is worthwhile, given long term health risks.