23
Stronger: Strength & Performance Bigger Better

TMGP Ep 23 with 6’4’’ Vegan Bodybuilding Giant and Expert Coach/Consultant Daniel Louwrens

September 12, 2024 | 43 min | Daniel Louwrens

Daniel Louwrens is a towering figure in the world of bodybuilding and fitness. Standing at an impressive 6'4", this South African powerhouse has made a name for himself as a successful bodybuilder, personal trainer, and consultant. With a degree in Chemistry from the University of Western Cape and multiple certifications in personal training and nutrition, Daniel brings a unique blend of scientific knowledge and practical experience to the table. He has been working in the fitness industry for over a decade, helping numerous clients achieve their physical and mental goals. Daniel's journey to becoming a bodybuilding champion is an inspiring one. After suffering from injuries that forced him to stop playing international rugby, he found himself in a deep depression and gained significant weight. However, he turned his life around by competing in a bodybuilding show just 10 months later, dropping from 315 lbs and 35% body fat to 240 lbs and 7% body fat. Today, Daniel competes in bodybuilding, weighing anywhere between 250 - 300 lbs depending on his goals. He is also a coach, where he provides customized training, nutrition, and recovery plans. Daniel has also published many e-books in the health and fitness space, including ones on nutrition and supplementation. With his wealth of experience, scientific background, and passion for fitness, Daniel Louwrens is a valuable asset to the bodybuilding community. His unique perspective and evidence-based approach make him a sought-after expert in the field. In today’s episode, we can look forward to insights from Daniel related to Bodybuilding Prepping for a show Strength training Anabolism PEDs, including steroids, SARMs, peptides, and more PEDs in professional sport Prevalence of PEDs in general populations Benefits/advantages of PEDs Side effects of PEDs Male vs female characteristics and more

Episode Summary

In this episode of The Muscle Growth Podcast, host Roscoe welcomes Daniel Louwrens, a seasoned bodybuilder and personal trainer, who shares his inspiring journey from being an overweight rugby player to a competitive bodybuilder. Daniel discusses his unique approach to bodybuilding, emphasizing the importance of scientific knowledge in training and nutrition.

The conversation delves into the role of anabolic steroids and performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) in bodybuilding and professional sports. Daniel provides insights into the mechanisms of muscle growth, the prevalence of PEDs among athletes, and the ethical considerations surrounding their use. He argues that while PEDs can provide significant advantages, they are not the sole factor in achieving success in bodybuilding.

Listeners can expect to gain a deeper understanding of the complexities of bodybuilding, the science behind muscle growth, and the realities of performance enhancement in sports. The episode concludes with a discussion on the upcoming Enhanced Games in 2025, highlighting the ongoing debate about PEDs in athletics.

Why This Is a "Stronger" Episode

The primary focus of this episode is on strength training and the use of performance-enhancing drugs in bodybuilding and sports, making 'stronger' the main pillar. It also covers muscle growth techniques and bodybuilding prep, which aligns with the 'bigger' pillar. Additionally, health aspects related to PEDs touch upon the 'better' pillar.

About the Gains Guru

DL

Daniel Louwrens

Daniel Louwrens is a bodybuilder and personal trainer with a degree in chemistry. He has over a decade of experience in the fitness industry, helping clients achieve their physical and mental goals. Daniel's journey includes overcoming personal challenges and competing at a high level in bodybuilding.

Achievements & Credentials
  • Successful bodybuilder and personal trainer
  • Published multiple ebooks on health and fitness
  • Expert in anabolic steroids and performance-enhancing drugs

Key Takeaways

Daniel Louwrens shares his journey from rugby to bodybuilding.
The importance of scientific knowledge in bodybuilding and nutrition is emphasized.
Anabolic steroids and PEDs play a significant role in bodybuilding and professional sports.
Muscle growth mechanisms are often misunderstood; it's about stress on muscle tissue, not micro-tears.
The prevalence of PEDs in athletics raises ethical questions about fairness in competition.
The upcoming Enhanced Games in 2025 will further the discussion on PED use in sports.

oo another white boy with a podcast pronouns Jim bro another white boy with a podcast you want to see the video it went viral hi gains gurus and welcome to tmgp the muscle growth podcast episode 23 I am your host Rosco and today we are welcoming Daniel laurrens onto the show Daniel laurren is a towering figure in the world of bodybuilding and fitness standing at an impressive 6'4 the South African Powerhouse has made a name for himself as a successful bodybuilder personal trainer and consultant with a degree in chemistry from the University of Western Cape and multiple certifications in personal training and nutrition Daniel brings a unique blend of scientific knowledge and practical experience to the table he has been working in the fitness industry for over a decade helping numerous clients achieve their physical and mental goals that 's journey to becoming a bodybuilding Champion is an inspiring one after suffering from injuries that forced him to stop playing International Rugby he found himself in a deep depression and gained significant weight however he turned his life around by competing in a bodybuilding show just 10 months later dropping from 315b and 35% body fat to 240 lb and 7% body fat today Daniel competes in bodybuilding weighing anywhere between 200 50 to 300 depending on his goals he is also a coach where he provides customized training nutrition and Recovery plans Daniel has also published many ebooks in the health and fitness space including ones on nutrition and supplementation with his wealth of experience scientific background and passion for Fitness Daniel is a valuable asset in the bodybuilding Community his unique perspective and evidence-based approach make him a sort of the expert in the field in today's episode we can look forward to insights from Daniel related to bodybuilding prepping for a show strength training anabolism peeds including steroids ssms peptides and more peeds in professional sport the prevalence of peeds in general populations benefits and advantages of peeds side effects of PEDs male versus female characteristics and more hey gain gurus before we dive into today's episode we have a special shout out to our sponsor heart and mind sa if you're looking for a delicious way to boost your workouts their creatine gummies can be found on take a lot and are the perfect fit they're not just effective but are also a tasty treat you can look forward to every day so maybe it's time to be like me and fuel your gains with heart and mind essay if you are injured or in recovery check out the injury consultant.com and consider getting a a free consultation to see whether I can help you heal restore and Thrive lastly don't forget to follow us on all major social media platforms including Instagram YouTube Tik Tok and X find us at the muscle growth podcast and myself at reps with Rosco welcome Daniel to the muscle growth podcast where we explore subjects related to muscle sence and hypertrophy I'm to have you join us for today's conversation can you briefly introduce yourself and your journey into the world of bodybuilding and being an anabolic steroid expert cheers man um so my journey started when I was around 16 years old I transition to playing a lot of rugby and I was very overweight extremely overweight and that's the the the spark started with just wanting to lose weight so like every 16-year-old kid you just start using usend stuff and hope for the best and you just read whatever the hell is available in in magazines back then I guess um yeah you were looking at pictures of like I don't know who was sponsored by usn back then it was that British me male physique guy and and such so that started back then uh I started playing rugby then for was in Province and maybe uh kept losing weight and stuff always very interested in in strength then I got my eighth concussion and I had to transition into strength Sports completely and then I transitioned into strong man specifically a really power of thing because I hate Bening because I'm quite tall and I did a few years of of strong man I died was never really on point couldn't really care much and then that started getting to me motion like I didn't like being fat and so I decided to lose weight for a show and as I was changing shorts at the show to get into a different pairs of shorts um because I did M physique someone told me like your legs are still have a lot of size why didn't you try bodybuilding I was like sure I'll give it a go um and obviously I studied chemical Sciences there's a lot of history with that that plays into Parts as well my qualifications in personal training as well started coaching professionally and that's what I do today where did you study your VC chemistry wwc okay okay how did you find it it was fun I didn't study pure chemistry I studied chemistry with a focus on geology so it was very very fun we did run two years of organic chemistry so it was extremely extremely fun but I also did biology in high school kept studying as well where I didn't study biology per se um it was fun I'm kind of ashamed I stopped um because as I stopped or finished my degrees Co had so I couldn't really progress um but maybe one day okay what going back into biology or or further in chemistry probably chemistry um if I had to do bio I probably have to start over again which isn't necessarily a bad thing but I'd probably go down there around chemistry um bio is interesting but I don't love it so you are 6' three as you mentioned you're very very tall and 275 is that currently one week out from the Shea best classic no no I was around I would say 255 and then I went to the forest with my wife and her family to get um just just for a holiday and I was in very very good shape and then I got really really really sick with food poisoning like crawling on the floor bed like in the shower both ends bad and I lost even more weight and I've been really struggling to pick that weight up in a healthy bodybuilding like manner I guess and so literally two three weeks ago I was like the Sha best is happening I wasn't planning on competing again this year I might as well try it I might as well try in classic my my classic weight cap is 105 kgs so I'm trying to get in 105 but it's a struggle like I can't feel my feet anymore they're frozen solid um I of your bat uh yeah it's just really cold it could be neuropathy but from what I've every time it gets hotter it lessens so I highly doubt it's neuropathy which for those that don't know is the breakdown of neural neural tissue um so I doubt it's neuropathy and I have no reason to believe it is neuropathy but it's getting to me it's it's really getting to me like I have to to remind myself like it's just one more week it's just one more week okay so it's one more week you got this 100% like I know it's tough It's one week out you deplete all the rest so thank you once again so much for for coming on to the show I appreciate it even even given the the depletion so what is your kind of protocol for for the last week my protocol to be honest with you man doesn't Veer from what I've been doing I've experimented with extreme dehydration and such and what I listen to people like Jordan Peters when I listen to people like um the guy Joe oh geez my brain is so not functioning at the moment um the guy who owns John jward brilliant brilliant brilliant coach and just person all around if you look good doing what you're doing why do you think you look better doing something you've not done this entire prep and so people over complicated because they want to sex it up and make it appealing and like super dehydrates and do all these funky stuff and it might work for some people it definitely does it does absolutely I just haven't found that for myself yet I'm currently still experimenting and where my current experimentation is is preloading and then letting that saturate into a show rather than trying to Super compensate into a show so instead of depleting Monday Tuesday Wednesday car BR up Thursday and Friday what I would do is deplete slightly and on Saturday Sunday maybe Monday and carb up Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday morning and then look assess pose down and kind of let everything mature and just pop up as needed so you kind of have that safety SP to safety area to play with I'm not going to mess with water I'm not going to mess with salt um and that seems to have worked pretty pretty well for me while I was in the forest with my wife's family that's kind of when I did that experiments and I did exactly that because I got ill when I came back and that's exactly what I did because there were no germ the food that I had available wasn't spectacular so I was like I want to do a dry around with carbing up and that's exactly what I did I ate quite a few carbs and then like one or two days later I looked my best um nice and full Tighter and I think that's what's going to work best to me is is the coaching you do with like personal training um the coaching that I'm doing is definitely more gen pop general population um it's not necessarily athletes I do have clients that are in really great shape like sub 12% um specifically men but it's mostly generation generate the general public because because it's people that are cardiovascular not fit maybe dealing with some cardiovascular issues just Moms and Pops try and lose weights improve their lives there beautiful beautiful people beautiful Journeys that they live um so just about helping them get on track get on the road and then teaching them how to do these things by themselves at big big that's fantastic and that's super worthwhile so I'm glad that you're doing that that sounds like an amazing profession so well done to you it is fun it is fun the the contrast between that and like the bodybuilding mindset gets to me sometimes it's like wow bodybuilding is like you ask for forgiveness later and with general population is you ask for permission first which is the it teaches you how to be thankful for everything you have no absolutely I I totally get the the contrast there is is very evident I'm sure especially from someone that that does the the bodybuilding side of things so you know both both worlds so um you've written an ebook on yes I have written ebooks um when I used to work for the companies overseas as a writer I used to write a lot of ebooks whether that be focusing on nutrition whether that be focusing on training whether that be focusing on pharmac kinetics um I've written quite a number of ebooks I used to write 30 40,000 words a week um like I had an app that check your spelling and each week of each month it would give me a number I'm like how how how do you write that much so it was a ton of reading a ton of dissecting and things like that even editing by other writers that you have to go through and highlight and say like oh this is not true like the idea that muscle grows through micro Tears like that's not true because if it were you could drop a bowling ball on your foot on your leg and it would grow but it doesn't h right I get you so what would be the mechanism for muscle growth then mechanism for muscle growth is the crance of new muscular um neuroactive tissue it's just putting putting the muscle under stress forces it to grow new tissue but the idea that muscle has micro tears and we bold new muscle across that we have to taste that and and they have tasted that first in mice where they Dro like little balls on mice on their legs nothing happened and then humans were like well we can do it to ourselves and they dropped roling balls on guys' legs and muscle growth didn't happen even though we still teage of the muscle okay I get I get you I get you okay interesting it is it's a very big misconception it's very hard to understand if you need more information on that there's an Instagram Paul Carter his Instagram name is I think run lift bang or run bang lift um really small yeah left bang run yes so really smart on the noos guy um and I learned from him when he's like that's not how musle grows and I was like [ __ ] really so I started reading what he has to say and then I started reading the Rel literat and I saw the image of the guy like lying underneath the ball and he's like with his thumbs up and his friend was dropping a ball under on him from the study and I was like wow that makes sense okay that's that's very interesting um but yeah we'll maybe tell more about that later um what are the role of uh steroids in bodybuilding so when you look at a so anabolic anagenic steroids they can play various roles depending on how you use them depending on who uses them um and it depending to what extent you use them so obviously these things would develop to be used in a medical environment first and foremost and then what they realize is much like amino acids when you over compensate or super compensate and use a bunch of it you start having both beneficial and neg negative effects on the human body for instance we know that something like um I think it's Alexander loone but something like the the the industry name for I guess would be anavar can be used in burn patients and what they realized is when you over overuse it to a great extent it can be used to drive anabolism it can be used to drive a bit of fat l through the thyroid action um the side effects are a bit less compared to something that's a bit more aggressive like testosterone so the guess the main reasons to why people use it is for improved muscle protein synthesis improved recovery improved strength function improved aggression um some people even use it for improved hunger it really all depends as to which ones and how much no of of course and it's very different between individuals but overall would you would you agree that in bodybuilding especially Elite level that it's it's prey rampid and to actually get to that level it's a borderline impossible to to do it naturally probably yes 100% okay okay yeah I'm actually quite quite Keen to because I know we have similar views uh since I attended that amazing Workshop you did on anabolics um it was very interesting and I I learned a ton so we can maybe um if you don't mind could we talk about the evolution of um of anabolics very Sim in a similar fashion to the way you did it I know we had a longer talk then but just kind of summarized would that be okay yeah sure so if you think about it it's kind of like I always refer to cars because everyone understands cars you had the first car was great for certain reasons it was bad because of certain reasons cool how do we improve it well we adjust this we put bigger wheels on we put bigger tires on we put B suspension we put a bigger engine iterations um Antics were in the same way so we had the introduction of let's say pure testosterone and they were like okay was that the first one um I believe testosterone or tyan I'm not too sure between the two I have to go look again my brain is a bit bit worse we at the moment but um is definitely the main one because it's the one we produce of the most all anabolics can be found in nature except for a select few okay uh um the chief amongst which would probably be TR below that is completely R made but a lot of others will be found in small areas like you have nander loone in your body okay just not a lot of it just um converted from testas okay cool cool and so that is thought like okay great for Recovery drives male attributes but also drives female attributes through the female converting enzyme or the estrogen converting enzyme called aromatase how do we avoid that well let's turn it to a DHT which cannot aromatize fantastic let's make that oo okay when we did that we made an oral when it's 17 Alpha alculated it's quite heavy on the liver for instance how do we improve that well we make it an injectable cool we make it injectable fantastic now we have something like masteron fantastic still has quite a few negative side effects on your lipets your lipid levels how do we improve that well let's introduce adjust it and then introduce something like Primo um and so everything was looked at what's wrong with it improve it what's wrong with it improve it and then I think we or they reached the peak when they started using things like I believe on the injectable routes it was Prima Bolen and the oral side I think anavar was the one with the most amount of benefits with the least amount of side effects and then they started working away from anabolics because the side effects were just too much is that where sarms came in sarms alongside the development and integration of other Factor B ties to draw okay okay now now we got to go down done those rabbit holes just now but first before we do can we just briefly talk about the anabolic family tree sure so there are three main family trees or types of anabolics would share commonalities between one bar 10 you want bar 102 so these threes are DHT dihydrogen testosterone most of which have an inability to convert into estrogen and drive muscle breathing synthesis really well um doesn't increase your blood pressure tremendously really tolerates it quite well not necessarily by women tolerated very well by men not necessarily by women it's a very it's a very male quote unquote like substance then you've got the testosterone tree which are all testosterone or testosterone like factors again some have really a lot of similarities to Zone some do not for instance I believe something like Halo testin is within it this host tree no h know is a THD I'm not quite sure but the one that is not like the others that we all refer to is going to be one of the nandon and that's going to be Anadrol so that's going to be your Anadrol um which is found within the DHT group but acts like a um and nandrolone nandrolone is the last group of which nandrolone DEA on8 um Terin bone are the two main ones there's also NPP which is nandon phenol propionates kind of the same as nandon decate just some slight differences between them again um they can have massive differences from one another but as a group as a whole each group have a lot of similarities with one another okay that makes a lot of sense um I just checked now um halotestin is a testosterone derivative okay so halotestin is a testosterone derivative but doesn't necessarily act like the other testosterones it's a fairly fairly fairly really aggressive testosterone base um and so that would be used in the application where kids or boys don't go through um puberty because it is so androgenic which is the terminology used for maleik attributes broader shoulders um hairy face hairy neck um the development and the droppage of testes so that has been doubt would be used compared to DH or a normal testosterone which would just be used to replicate normal testosterone uh I that's interesting I thought that we we mentioned that Halo test maybe maybe I'm getting my um things mixed up what was the one that purely increased aggression that you said probably was okay so it's not it's not actually great for muscle growth more for getting angry MO is good for muscle growth as well no no it's not it's it's terrible no it's not because so violently bad for you you could run it long enough to actually make a difference it is very much clearly a you're using a nuke to take out a house okay it's O It's overkilled is what you're saying it is overkill there is a time and a place for it but it's a get in get out I get you is that place maybe in like a powerlifting competition where you want to be flipping you're you're ready to drive where you want to drive like a new PR a world record kind of attempt or even not a world there are definitely some folks who use it in the bodybuilding Community to get a very dry androgenic look but the The Thing Remains the Same the less exposure you get the better just because it is so bad okay is that your leopards in particular your lipids your liver kidneys so every stay away from it for 99.999999999% of the population uh pretty much if you take Halo then you must be pretty serious about or or just really not care about your body um I don't like to say that I get you I get you and what are the roles well the role of uh steroids in professional sport um to give yourself an advantage compared to others as that um and there's a study that was recently published even in evus and you stop using you permanently have an it changes your DNA forever um and there is substantial evidence that if you introduce anabolics there's an increase in antigens in your body and so your body makes more antigen receptors which are parking spaces for antigens so even if you remove the parking spaces the chances of your natural antigens finding a parking space are a lot higher and so use it once you're forever better than anyone who hasn't so the whole I'm not on cycle therefore I'm natural is absolute crap um you're still only slightly better but you are better yeah yeah you are better it's for sure made it it's difference it's um without being too controversial or I don't know it might still be it's almost like being born a male and then transitioning to female and then claiming not to have an advantage despite having gone through a male or puberty there's a lot of people that argue if you do it soon enough that won't be necessarily the face if you really really soon enough in your life yes perhaps but there are certain other things that do make a difference such as the Q angle for men and women are different which is the angle of the hips that makes a difference so Q angle is it's your bone tissue you can't change that yeah and there's forever a difference and people with a larger Q angle are um not able to squat with the same efficiency so if you were born a female um or if you b a male excuse me in transitions to female well your c angle is still a bit better off yeah yeah as as well as bone density as well men have higher bone density than than women among other factors I guess but the other the other point I wanted to to try and talk about is the the prevalence of not just steroids but performance enhancing drugs or peeds in athletes and sports people around the world and at the top level as well could you elaborate a little bit on that and and your thoughts on on I think that more people use it in general but a lot more athletes use than anyone that ever believes I follow a guy who works I'm not going to name him but I follow a guy who specifically works with athletes um and then helps them not get caught that's kind of his job which is where most the money in the industry goes by the way doesn't go to hectic so that's something I have zero idea about um just between us I guess but he posts which athletes he work or what a kind of athletes he works with what they would use for us to like interested to read and he posted if one driver is I know where is yeah holy [ __ ] is it heck no it wasn't it was just like neurochemical and things like that but it's yeah yeah for sure like that makes so much sense no absolutely and it's horse riders I was under no so it's like everyone everyone everyone everyone uses something even when we look at CrossFit athet chess players yes CrossFit athletes bonus amounts of growth hormone bonus amount of insulin being used peptides other peptides to help recover it's it's just they look like it exactly they look like it there's no like there's no even the women they they really they they don't like they have these insane physiques and they're super impressive but I just absolutely don't see it happening naturally under under any circumstances like maybe you have that uh one gene mutation that allows you to put on insane amounts of muscle like Eddie Hall apparently has um but even with that Eddie H is not deadlifting 500 with that mutation alone like he's doing it with that mutation which genetically allows him to acue more muscle mass than someone without that genetic mutation I believe it's termed the superhero Gene that might be incorrect um but that plus a large dose of anabolic steroids probably peptides growth hormone and growth hormone isopeptide and other things as well maybe insulin and uh just all the anabolics combined plus the insanely Elite genetics plus um visualizing uh car on his kids is how you how you deadlift uh for that's true I think it comes to B down to if you combine the genetic Elite with the ability to use large amounts of PEDs without suffering from the side effect very key component you get World ass world changing athletes you get your Eddie Hall you get your Ronnie Coleman you get your H bson yeah and there's not a lot of those people like I'm running out of names as I say that because those were yeah industry changing individuals absolutely absolutely and the kind of prevalence of it in general population like the average J also way more than people would would actually choose choose yes unfortunately so unfortunately it it's it's it's a thing where people think it's the answer to everything because they they see bodybuilders and physique athletes and models doing a few things in public which is eating right things like that and they think like that I do all those things there must be one thing I'm not doing it's like no that person probably person has been doing the right thing every single day for years on end genetically they Elite they've got a mindset that you cannot even fathom and then they sprinkle on the beautiful things so I think people believe that's the magic secret does it h give an advantage absolutely I'm not going to [ __ ] you yes gives you an advantage hands down but to say it gives you everything is also not true absolutely no it's it's a give and take like you mentioned um with regard to that advantage that kind of takes us quite nicely into the next topic which is the ethics of peeds um both let's start with from a professional sport standpoint I did a a research uh essay um in University on the ethics of doping and ultimately my team concluded that it is ethical um and we had a whole obviously we had a whole bunch of reasons why but the the main one for me was that like for example in the Twitter France I believe that the statistic from from a peer- reviewed study was that 19 of the 20 top finishers were either caught with doping or were on the suspected doping list um and that was that was like 19 out of 20 so like for them to strip Lance Armstrong of all of his medals when they all doing doing it it didn't really make sense to me um because without doing it you you're actually not giving yourself when you do it you're not giving yourself an advantage you're leveling the playing field what what are your thoughts on that um the the curious person in me says make it legal yes so so sorry Jesse because the next point is to do with the enhanced games coming up in 2025 so so carry on but then we'll um go back to the enhanc games and and your thoughts on that my point is make a deagle except for a few select Sports contacts Sports you can influence the livelihood of someone physically right boxes Judo players yeah J whatever um those people Mar that you can have life altering effects on someone's life and we just saw that in the game for sure um with the controversy I'm actually not sure what happened there I don't want to talk about it because I haven't done the research yeah but that's dangerous that is incredibly dangerous driving against a guy took some EPO who cares like what are you going to crash into one another and the Crash is going to be worse because you was on EPO and you weren't um but I do believe everyone uses it some people use it very smart that individual I said that I follow that works with the client you will use specific testosterones that replicates animal testosterone because all testosterone injectable testosterone is um plant and soy based so that's a way that they test it like oh this testosterone is slightly different to melean testosterone it's not coming from him so if everyone uses it I agree to an extent like there should be something done about it the the argument for the enhanced games is excuse me is certainly an interesting Prospect I mean people want to see that you've all seen the the Twitter post like screw it like just give people the gear like how much how I can youum yeah ex I'm curious about that too I just wouldn't ethically I wouldn't be okay with watching contact Sports because I've played rag professionally and I've played against guys back then were using the stuff and they they they have an aura about them like who he's using something and you kind of get scared because this person is on something that you can't even pronounce like it it doesn't feel fair I get you but but the thing is so like I totally agree with you and I think that it should be done in a controlled Manner and that certain things should absolutely be not allowed but in terms of the context sports that one I'm not saying it's more prevalent but it is definitely you still being used and like the guys aren't going to stop so I think it's more giving them the same access and I know it's it's hectic and your life is literally on the line especially in boxing rugby but I know in in rugby as well um you obviously played professional so you have that or or semi-professional um so you have that Insight but I also know people that did the same as you played for I'm not going to mention teams but of their team uh I'm just trying to quickly work out the mass roughly 80% of their team and this is a very well-known team uh were on Peds at the time of testing um and they know how to get around the testing like it's it's ridiculous like it's a formula they know how to do it they've done it so many times last Armstrong for example passed 500 Drive tests he was actually never Court uh he never failed a drug test the only reason it all came out was because uh there was a whistleblower etc etc So like um the drug test don't work W is literally a money-making racket they're not there to try and promote um fair fair sport that's not what they're there for I don't believe I believe that they are there to make money and to and it's actually it's not like taking steroids isn't career ending it the repercussions from being caught it's um a lot of professionals have managed to get away with it I know of a lot of professionals um even in sports that you really wouldn't think about uh running away from drug tests and things when they knew that they were not ready to to be doing those tests I think my my dream would be the money that you save from not testing sprinters could be used for boxes and hopefully develop kind of a new system it's a bit more prevalent a bit more um better and hopefully you would actually be able to have better yielding results but that's wishful thinking so um oh you can be optimistic I know I know my thing I think I heard it wasn't me who thought about this it was actually Mike Tyson and who said like let them use let them use just not justex Sports I was like yeah I I saw that interview that's we got but I I get you um I don't think Mike Tyson's natural I don't think he was either necessary be honest with you I didn't watch a lot of boxing so I can't really have an opinion but I trust you um so maybe he wasn't maybe he was but I don't I don't I don't know enough to have an opinion I get you I but I I totally I saw that interview I really I enjoyed that interview but it's the same thing that we're going going back to like in MMA as well your life is absolutely on the line but like you get these guys they go away for an offseason and come back with 20 pounds lean muscle and gyo uh I'm not going to mention that but people can work it out and uh it's just that's not not even with the best genetics they've been training for a long time it's not like they suddenly just started eating like chicken broccoli rice as they claim and then it's like I got 20 in like three months how it works when we look at the sprinters the sprinting record like 30 years ago was above 10 today it's below what like 98 the food and training methods really get that much better we could argue that food quality got worse sport supplementation quality got better but food quality probably worse because there's less nutrients in the ground like we could yeah phosphorus and stuff like that but training methods absolutely don't improve recovery methods absolutely don't improve but we wouldn't see week or year on year records keep getting beaten unless something was up like no this this stuff's up something up something somewhere doesn't add up um like even when you look at rug players they just keep getting bigger like sensors are like 11 115 kgs now if I was like when I was playing professionally and I got up to against 115 kg flank I was like [ __ ] he's a big boy if I ran up against kg Santa I'd be crapping seven kind of different nations of Army in my fans um so it's yeah uh I want to believe that people have more and more um ethics but at the same time I understand you're an athlete your liih depends on literally it it it is as simple as that like if you want to be the best in the world you've got to do what the best in the world do and it's the same basketball it I've I've I've went down a rabbit Hall of watching a bunch of Netflix documentaries about different sports and like a key theme was ped usage um they talk some of these documentaries are very interesting and they're very in depth and they talk about what particular teams were were doing to to get to the elitist of the elite and for me it's incredible that people are still in such denial and it's still so taboo even in like bodybuilding communities where it's well known now I see a big shift in mindset where people are um being more open about it because now it's almost trendy to uh to to admit to usage and things and then you seen as transparent and that's good it's a nice shift I can say it from like peers that I've Miss in the gym and they ask you what you take and you're kind of honest about like no I'm trying to do this naturally Etc or something like that cool fantastic and then they're like you ask them what do you take and then they kind of play it down like oh I take this and this and you get to talking a it and you mention that you studied chemistry and you're quite interested in this stuff and you're quite knowledgeable I've written a few articles and then 10 minutes later like yeah I'm actually taking like this what do you think about this I'm like really really I you lied to me now you asking for advice cheers uh no I get you so let let's go onto the next topic that we mentioned the enhanced games happening in 2025 to hear our opinion on the enhance games and other exciting topics you're going to have to tune in again next time on the muscle growth podcast thank you for tuning in to the muscle growth podcast if you found value in today's episode we'd really appreciate it if you could leave us a fstar rating and a quick review it helps us grow and reach more people just like you don't forget to follow us on all major social media platforms including Instagram YouTube Tik Tok and X find us at the muscle growth podcast and at reps with Rosco for more insights exclusive content and full episodes visit the muscle growth podcast.com your support truly makes a difference so please like share comment and follow we're grateful for every bit of it until next time keep pushing your limits and staying focused on getting bigger stronger and better