Should a bodybuilder who uses doping substances and a natural bodybuilder follow the same methods? You might think that one will simply get better results than the other, but that both should apply the same training, nutrition, and competition preparation protocols. After all, doping substances are just a little help, right?
The belief that what works for a doped athlete will work just as well for someone who is not is completely wrong.
Proponents of doping substances will argue that the only difference between users and non-users is that users will have more pronounced growth, but both will have to work equally hard: discipline and sacrifice, meticulous care, weighing everything, and being consistent. However, the reality is not so simple because essentially, the one using doping substances is completely altering their body’s physiology, and that’s precisely why they use them. Otherwise, why would they be associated with a significant increase in mortality, as recent longitudinal studies have shown? So, the body does not respond the same way to training and does not need to perform the same type of exercises to maximize growth.
It should be noted that what is optimal for a natural athlete will also work quite well for someone who uses doping substances, but the same cannot be said vice versa: what works well for those who use doping substances may not work at all for natural athletes or may even cause them to lose muscle mass. Why? The main reason is that a natural bodybuilder needs training to trigger protein synthesis, and training is their only chance to achieve this. However, the doped bodybuilder will be in a state of elevated protein synthesis continuously because that’s what steroids do.
A doped bodybuilder does not need to trigger protein synthesis through training, as it is chronically elevated. This means that any type of training they do will work because protein synthesis is already high, and when what they are doing stops being effective, it will be enough to increase the dose for it to be effective again. However, the basal state of a natural bodybuilder is homeostasis and not protein synthesis. Basically, the body is in balance and the processes of construction and degradation are maintained at a neutral point.
It is important to understand that if training is the only way we have to break that homeostasis and elevate protein synthesis, it is essential that the training reaches a minimum stimulus threshold for this to be triggered. This is more true the more advanced our training level is, as the more adapted our body is, the higher the stimulus threshold needed for improvement.
This means that it is not enough to just go to the gym to exercise; it is necessary to focus on progressive overload. The goal of each workout will be to maximize the activation of all muscle fibers, fatigue them, and stimulate the anabolic hormonal environment. But without the protection against muscle catabolism provided by doping substances, it is not only fundamental to stimulate protein synthesis but also to inhibit anything that could reduce it.
We must ask ourselves: What are the factors that decrease protein synthesis? The answer includes the overproduction of cortisol and the enzyme AMPK, both of which inhibit or even block protein synthesis. When training, we mobilize our energy reserves stored in muscle or adipose tissue, which increases the production of cortisol. This hormone, known as the stress hormone, can increase the expression of the myostatin gene, which blocks muscle mass increase.
A natural athlete must carefully dose the type, amount, and quality of exercises in each training session to favor protein synthesis. This means selecting exercises that involve a greater amount of muscle mass in each repetition and unit of time, and focusing on physical performance in specific movement patterns rather than attacking the muscles from all angles.
The second main difference between doped and natural athletes has to do with training frequency. Someone who uses doping substances has protein synthesis continuously elevated, so they can train each muscle once a week and get good results. However, for a natural athlete, this is not the best approach, as the increase in protein synthesis usually lasts between 36 and 72 hours after training. Therefore, the ideal is to train each muscle group twice a week or every five days.
The third main difference has to do with the load used in training. Although doped athletes can move large loads, this exposes them to a greater risk of injury because steroids allow muscles to strengthen much faster than tendons. On the other hand, a natural athlete needs to train heavily to force their body to grow and break homeostasis, as muscles and tendons strengthen at the same rate, reducing the risk of injury.
Furthermore, doped athletes can respond well to training with many sets and high repetitions, as they deliver more nutrients to the muscle due to the elevated protein synthesis. However, this type of training based on metabolic stress is not effective for a natural athlete, as it consumes too much energy and increases cortisol production, which negatively affects muscle growth.
In conclusion, a natural athlete should focus on a minimalist approach that involves three fundamental points for each movement pattern: four or five sets with a heavy basic exercise at low repetitions, two or three sets in a complementary guided exercise at medium repetitions taken to failure, and one or two sets in an isolation exercise as a finisher at high repetitions. Everything else is repeating mistakes by trying to copy what the doped champions do. It simply doesn’t work.
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