“Once we attempt to select something by itself, we discover it hitched to the whole lot else within the Universe.”
— John Muir
“The sunshine that burns twice as brilliant burns half as lengthy, and you’ve got burned so very, very brightly, Roy.”
— Blade Runner
There are few or no organic free lunches.
This brief submit will cowl the necessities of how this precept applies to performance-enhancing medication.
However earlier than we dive in, let’s watch some leisure that drives the purpose house…
Development brokers have a spot in medication1, and a few sports activities successfully require them at greater ranges. That mentioned, there are dangers once you flip the amount to 11 inside complicated hormonal cascades with equally complicated suggestions loops. I’ve some private expertise right here. Once I way back had my shoulder fully reconstructed (video right here; viewer discretion is suggested), a portfolio of anabolic medication was a part of the restoration plan. This wasn’t suggested by my surgeon. I discovered gray-area longevity docs really helpful by world-class athletes, and the cocktail was extremely efficient for regaining full vary of movement.
Bodily optimization is basically about trade-offs.
And if you happen to ask “Is that this dangerous?,” the follow-up query is typically relative: “Dangerous as in comparison with what?” On this case, I made a decision that utilizing these highly effective medication with supervision was a suitable danger relative to the chance of in any other case by no means regaining full perform of my left shoulder.
I did a ton of homework, I budgeted for attainable issues, and I didn’t take it flippantly.
It’s alarming what number of people now deal with “T” or “TRT” (testosterone alternative remedy) as one thing akin to taking a multivitamin, once they by no means would have thought-about taking androgenic-anabolic steroids (AAS) a couple of years earlier. Like Patagonian toothfish has grow to be Chilean sea bass on modern menus worldwide, it’s fairly the rebrand story, however that doesn’t change the underlying biology.
It additionally doesn’t change the underlying “alternative” a part of TRT, which applies to many medication.
If you happen to take one thing exogenously (originating from exterior an organism; suppose “exo” of exoskeleton) that your physique produces endogenously (originating from inside an organism), your physique—in its infinite knowledge—will cut back or cease producing mentioned one thing. Endocrinology abhors waste. Because of this many males’s testicles will shrink right down to Raisinets once they take supplemental testosterone, and for a good proportion of these males, the deflated balloons is not going to return to baseline perform with out post-cycle remedy (PCT) medication like Clomid/clomifene and/or hCG. Aspect notice: simply as with testosterone, you shouldn’t casually take hCG. Faustian bargains abound if you happen to don’t have a fundamental grasp of the programs you’re tinkering with.
This additionally applies to dietary supplements and meals. The extra technical FDA definition of “drug” highlights a authorized distinction, not a pharmacological one. If one thing’s supposed to supply a change in your physique, take into account it a drug and also you’ll make fewer errors. That is useful reframing, whether or not the enter is a prescription drug, illicit drug, peptide, mineral, complement, or banana.
Individually, many development brokers aren’t hyper-selective (e.g., human development hormone [HGH], IGF-1), that means that they don’t simply have an effect on one tissue sort. If, like some enhanced Main League Baseball gamers, your head jumps a couple of helmet sizes, that enlarged skull received’t shrink when your muscle mass atrophy after getting off the sauce. Ditto if you happen to unknowingly supersize your liver and spleen. It’s onerous to hit undo on Dolph Lundgren jawlines if you happen to’re a girl, it may be tough to unwind drug-induced breast tissue development (gynecomastia) if you happen to’re a male, and it’s onerous to whisper your organs down a measurement if you happen to’re a human.
Suppose very rigorously about which doorways are two-way doorways—reversible—and that are one-way doorways. Finest to measure twice and reduce as soon as.
This isn’t to say there isn’t a spot for TRT. There’s. However the use case issues, and the dose makes the poison. If I had been 50+ years previous and had chronically low testosterone plus signs of low testosterone plus I’d been evaluated for attainable reversible causes of low T, I would take into account TRT to convey me inside physiologically regular ranges. That is basically completely different from somebody taking supraphysiological doses—quantities larger than usually discovered within the physique—for getting swole like a kangaroo.
This all might sound sophisticated, however most of what I’m saying boils right down to fundamental logic and some tips.
I’m not a physician, and I don’t play one on the Web, however the beneath heuristics have helped me keep away from loads of issues with performance-enhancing “medication,” as broadly outlined earlier:
- Assume there isn’t a organic free lunch.
- Assume that the bigger the amplitude of optimistic impact of *something*, the bigger the amplitude of unwanted effects, whether or not they’re recognized or unknown. This might apply to modafinil or a high-octane macchiato.
- Don’t ask a barber if you happen to want a haircut. If somebody is promoting the factor you’re contemplating, or its use has grow to be their identification, anticipate biased recommendation.
- Replicate earlier than you escalate. This comes again to “measure twice, reduce as soon as.” I’ve seen many mates take dramatic steps earlier than replicating their checks. If you happen to booze over the weekend, sleep like rubbish, after which do a blood draw later AM on Monday, you would possibly discover that—gasp!—you’ve gotten low testosterone. Earlier than you pull out the large weapons, maybe it’s best to repeat the check on two Wednesdays and accomplish that earlier within the morning, when T will usually be greater. Some proof additionally suggests predictable seasonal differences in T ranges. Final however not least, labs make errors. I recall one well-respected lab for allergy testing returning 100% optimistic outcomes for black bean allergy to all of their purchasers for a two-week interval. It was a lab error. Earlier than any intervention with attainable unwanted effects, replicate.
- I routinely cycle off of medicine and dietary supplements I can safely cycle off of for brief durations of time. This could be one week each two months and one complete month a 12 months. These are mainly intermittent wash-out durations, supposed to permit my physique to reestablish some homeostasis and suggestions loops and not using a bunch of confounding variables. Put one other means, we don’t know what we don’t know, and a few medically supervised type of pharma-fasting is an insurance coverage coverage. I take into consideration low-cost insurance coverage in life rather a lot. THIS DOES NOT APPLY TO CRITICAL MEDICATIONS, AND YOU SHOULD SPEAK WITH YOUR DOCTOR BEFORE MAKING ANY CHANGES TO YOUR HEALTHCARE REGIMEN. Please don’t win any Darwin Awards.
- Understand how you could possibly get off of any substance earlier than you get on it. Our understanding of biology is incomplete, so as with every type of playing, irrespective of how knowledgeable, know your exit plan earlier than you sit down on the desk.
- Biceps are non permanent, baseball helmet sizes are eternally.
Select properly and play the lengthy sport, my mates.
– T
P.S. Honest because of AS, PA, SG, KS, and MN for studying drafts and offering suggestions. In fact, any screwups are mine. In well timed information, the next got here out in Forbes, simply as I used to be about to hit publish: “Billionaire Peter Thiel Backs Doping-Pleasant Olympics Rival — What To Know About The ‘Enhanced Video games.’” I’ll actually watch this competitors, however reality be informed, the doping Olympics already exists, and it’s referred to as the Olympics. Athletes and coaches simply must be champions in two classes concurrently: their sport and cat-and-mouse drug testing. I counsel the podcasts, documentaries, and books beneath for a style of how subtle this has grow to be.
Further assets:
All issues testosterone and testosterone alternative remedy by Dr. Peter Attia. (Solely for my viewers, Peter kindly made this podcast episode—a 2-hour deep dive on testosterone and TRT— accessible totally free. It’s usually behind a paywall and a part of Dr. Peter Attia’s membership, which presents intensive present notes for each podcast episode, member-only “Ask Me Something” episodes, premium articles produced by Peter and his devoted crew of world-class analysis analysts, and far more. Click on right here to be taught extra about turning into a member.)
Greater, Stronger, Quicker (Documentary)
Icarus (Documentary)
Anabolics, eleventh Version by William Llewellyn
Sport of Shadows: Barry Bonds, BALCO, and the Steroids Scandal that Rocked Skilled Sports activities by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams
“The World’s Most Well-known Efficiency-Enhancement Chemist” (Podcast episode on The Tim Ferriss Present with Patrick Arnold.)
Patrick Arnold, broadly thought-about “the daddy of prohormones,” is an natural chemist recognized for introducing androstenedione (keep in mind Mark McGwire?), 1-Androstenediol (marketed as “1-AD”), and methylhexanamine into the dietary complement market.
He additionally created the designer steroid tetrahydrogestrinone, greatest often known as THG and “the clear.” THG, together with two different anabolic steroids that Patrick manufactured (greatest recognized: norboletone), weren’t banned on the time of their creation. They had been hard-to-detect medication on the coronary heart of the BALCO skilled sports activities doping scandal, which thrust Barry Bonds and others into the highlight. BALCO distributed these worldwide to world-class athletes in all kinds of sports activities, starting from observe and discipline to skilled baseball and soccer.
Associated and Really helpful
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