When it comes to sports and training, most of the time those who perform those activities have a goal in mind. Whether they want to improve their performance and outperform other athletes in competitions or improve their physical capabilities and appearance, those who do muscle training or practice sports might consider using steroids. On the other hand, those who are not into physical training or want to achieve a specific goal in a short period of time, wouldn’t even consider using them.
That’s because steroids have a bad reputation in the general population. Yes, they are well known for improving physical performance, and there have been stories of athletes using them during competitions, which is highly illegal and can get you in jail or paying high fines. It’s also well known that people might get better and faster results from muscular training if they are under the effects of anabolics, but the side-effects are what stops people from trying them.
But are they actually as bad as society portrays them? Aren’t they worth it considering how many have used them? To answer these questions, we are going to talk about them, how they affect the body, and some legal alternatives you can find online with lesser effectiveness but fewer side-effects.
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Let’s Talk About Steroid Drugs, and How They Work
First, let’s talk about how you can find them on the market. Steroids are mostly known for being an injected serum that is directly applied to the muscle tissue, but nowadays you can find them as pills that have milder side-effects but might not be as effective. They are also illegal, but you can find legal variations of it, like the ones mentioned over here.
Now, what are steroids, exactly? To not complicate it too much, we can describe them as a synthetic form of a hormone known as Testosterone, a man-made injection that increases hormonal testosterone levels, thus, increasing its effect in the body. Testosterone is the hormone that develops male characteristics in both men and women, but it is more present in men.
Testosterone is really important for men since it provides a wide variety of benefits, and its deficiency can cause several side-effects that can affect their daily lives. Some of these side-effects include lack of motivation and sleep, depression and hardships when burning fats and increasing muscle mass. Sexual drive and fertility are also boosted by it.
Now, since steroids aim to increase Testosterone levels, this boost can affect our bodies in ways that increase our physical performance, energy, stamina, endurance, strength, and muscle mass production. It does so by enhancing our body’s capabilities to absorb nutrients and protein more efficiently from food, boost the muscle’s healing process, and directly or indirectly affecting other hormones that can improve our physical potential.
You can find more information about Testosterone over here https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/276013#imbalances.
It can also be of great help when it comes to burning down fat and losing weight, and it gives our bones more strength, helping them absorb more minerals and grow stronger.
In medicine, steroids are used for other purposes. They are mostly used to deal with over inflammation, which can damage muscle tissue and internal organs if untreated. Inflammation is a natural response of the body when there’s an injury or an infection, but sometimes it overdoes it, increasing the risk of damaging itself. In some cases, like kidney complications, this inflammation may cause kidney failure, which can be fatal.
In adolescents with low levels of Testosterone, anabolics can help them develop male characteristics that otherwise would be missing. Some of these features include pubic and facial hair growth, sexual development, voice deepness, hair growth, height, and muscle development.
Possible Side-Effects When Using Steroids
Now, considering how many benefits you can achieve when using steroid drugs, there’s certainly a downside to it, and that is their side-effects and the fact that you’ll have to put way more effort into your training to get actual results from them.
Which side-effects one can suffer, though? Well, they can be as mild as headaches, high blood pressure, acne, dizziness and lack of sleep, to some that are pretty intense, like depression, severe mood swings, heart diseases, aggressive behavior, muscle pain, and migraines.
Some of these side-effects can be long-term or even permanent. Kidney and liver damage is one of those complications that can be caused because of steroids, and it can cause testicle shrinkage, hair loss, increased pubic and facial hair growth and infertility. For more information about its effect on men, you can check this article.
Now, for women using steroids, the side-effects are a little different, but they can be as harmful and permanent. Besides causing liver and kidney damage, and the other side-effects linked to health complications, in women, it can cause other specific problems such as deepening their voices, facial hair growth, and clitoris enlargement. It can also lead to irregular menstrual cycles, decreased breast size, and infertility.
How Athletes Deal With Steroids
Athletes tend to take steroids with extreme care. There’s a way to benefit from them without risking too much. You can check for the legal version of steroid drugs that produce fewer side-effects but still benefit the body, increasing its growth potential.
What most athletes do is cut the consumption of this drug as soon as side-effects start showing up, and train as hard as possible to get the most out of it while it lasts. Most people using them to consider training twice as hard to achieve this, and it’s very recommended, along with special workouts routines while in steroids designed to squeeze the body into producing faster and better results thanks to the boost given by the anabolics.
