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One of my high school friends was a great running back(graduated 1987). He was about 6' tall, and his senior year weighed approx 230 lbs. He benched approx 300lbs, and was squatting close to 500 lbs. Took steroids like crazy---serious full-body acne. He ran over other high school kids like a freight train. He walked-on at the university of arkansas as a fullback. Didn't make it long; his muscles were stronger than his joints. When he tried to bull through a Division I defensive line, he exploded a knee.
I arrived at 2/75 in early 1989. At that time, Madigan Army hospital was giving "d-bol" to guys in our battalion, doing some kind of steroid study. My first breakfast in the chow hall, I (19-year-old E-2) was thrown across the chow hall by a roid-raging E-6 who was participating in this study. (Seemed he wanted a glass of orange juice in a hurry). Another guy who participated in the study had his elbow bone begin growing. Big muscles, and a left elbow bone that dropped about two inches farther than it should have.
During the Q-course, a friend that I worked out with decided to do "just 1 cycle" (again dynabol). Prior to this, we were curling 30lb dumbbells during workouts. Four weeks later, he was doing bicep curls with 65lb dumbbells. During his cycle, his running went to crap. Looked pretty muscular when he was falling out of the runs, though.
As we sat in one of our 18b classes during that time, he was sitting next to myself and some friends. I remember him turning to me and saying "Look at that fucking instructor. I'm going to fucking kill him." My friends and I asked him why, (of course there was no reason for this outburst) and it was clear he was raging. Thereafter, he bolo'ed the 18Bcourse.(got off the roids and passed later).
Last year, a friend of mine buried his brother, a bodybuilder. Seems the brother had been buying steroids out of mexico. He became septic, and died of a super-infection.
Of course, everybody remembers the demise of Lyle Alzado.
I realize there is a medical reason for anabolic steroids. Likewise, there is a medical reason for the existence of cocaine. Nobody argues the medical benefits, it is the abuse of the substances that is a problem.
I'm sure that some medical experts would disagree with my observations(my spouse, an emergency medicine physician, does not). I worry that people hear the term "performance-enhancing" and think that it is a type of Underdog Super Energy pill. My observations, all of guys who used the steroids to get bigger, would lead to the opposite conclusion: that guys who take steroids(at least the old dynabol type)get big so quickly that they decrease their endurance abilities. Moreover, the side-effects which I have personally observed are horrible.
My apologies for the rant.
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