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[2020] Update-The dark truth of the physical and mental condition of bodybuilders.

Hi Guys, This is Prabhat

Nowadays the fitness industry has taken a terrible turn whose main goal is muscle building, not health. So the result is, this creates the drastic physical and mental condition for bodybuilders and the proof is in front of us,

From the past few decades, the deaths of bodybuilders have drastically increased. Recently a bodybuilder of 34-years-old named Vinay from Karnataka, India died in his second round because of a heart attack. Trainers were blaming a supplement for his heart attack. We will discuss later the actual cause of his death, which habit of him triggered the chances of getting a heart attack.


The-dark-truth-of-the-physical-and-mental-condition-of-bodybuilders-[2020]-Update
Rich Piana
Image Source: Google|Image By bodybuildinggold.com

And one another case of Rich Piana, who also died because of "serious heart disease".

He was an American professional bodybuilder and won the IFBB Mr. California competition at the age of 18, and then he won the title of the IFBB Mr. California in 1998.

He died at the age of 46. At the time of his death, his heart and liver had a double weight relative to an adult male.

The postpartum report says a yellowish type of fluid was present in his lungs, his arteries hardened, his brain tissues had no much supply of blood, and had discolored and congested kidneys.

How strange it is!

Doctors say the core reason for his death is steroids.

A stat says that "most of the professional bodybuilders die at the age of 30-40 years due to heart attack, kidney failure, liver cancer, etc". (✓)

Even FDA (Food and Drug Administration) claims that "Steroids have many serious negative effects on the various systems of organs and in many cases, this damage is not reversible" 


The-dark-truth-of-the-physical-and-mental-condition-of-bodybuilders-[2020]-Update
Source: Google|ScreenShot of Website: fda.gov

But still, Using steroids among bodybuilders is not a very uncommon thing in the bodybuilding industry.

And this number is very huge. A study conducted on 100,000 athletes for the International Olympics committee around the world, showing 1.6% test positive, and out of them, 65% are of anabolic steroids.


The-dark-truth-of-the-physical-and-mental-condition-of-bodybuilders-[2020]-Update

Source: Google|ScreenShot of Website: webmd.com

The-dark-truth-of-the-physical-and-mental-condition-of-bodybuilders-[2020]-Update
No. of athletes who take steroids
Source of Data: webmd.com

The-dark-truth-of-the-physical-and-mental-condition-of-bodybuilders-[2020]-Update
No. of athletes who take anabolic steroids
Source of Data: webmd.com

But what is an anabolic steroid? How it can affect us physically and mentally?

Anabolic steroid is artificial testosterone which is made from soy and yams in factories and taken by bodybuilders through injections.

Gary Wadler told the reason why bodybuilders use these steroids for their muscle growth who is MD, chairman of the Prohibited List and Methods Committee of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA),

"steroids will decrease the recovery time from intense exercise, increase the strength of muscle and mass and keep muscle tissue from breaking down".


The-dark-truth-of-the-physical-and-mental-condition-of-bodybuilders-[2020]-Update
Source: Google|ScreenShot of Website: webmed.com

But with this, it has countless and dangerous side effects too such as  

Serious health problems that will affect us physically and mentally (✓):

  • Liver damage
  • Tumour 
  • High chances of blood clotting

and problems like

  • Enlargement of heart 
  • High blood pressure
  • Increase in cholesterol level

can lead to a heart attack.

And in Men's:

  • Baldness
  • Development of breast
  • The decrease in sperm count
  • Baldness
  • The decrease in the size of testicles
  • Increased the chances of prostate cancer

In Women's:

  • Baldness
  • Breast size decreases
  • Voice becomes deep
  • Hair grows on face and on other body parts
  • Disturbances in the menstrual cycle

In Teenagers:

  • Hindered the growth of bones and height

Rich Piana knows the side effects of steroids. But still, he was taking these steroids, according to Wikipedia.


The-dark-truth-of-the-physical-and-mental-condition-of-bodybuilders-[2020]-Update
Source: Google|ScreenShot of wikipedia.org


Do you know how bodybuilders go through physical and mental pain during the days of competition?

There is nothing wrong if we say that these competitions might be a nightmare for any normal person. We will discuss later why is this so?

But first, let's know some basics,

Generally, a preparation period for a bodybuilding competition lasts long for about 12 to 24 weeks which includes two phases.

It is always said for competitive preparation, "Shorter the time period for competition, worse it will be for your health because our body has less time to adjust according to this situation, as written down in the article of abc.net.au

The first step of muscle building is bulking, in that period bodybuilder consumes more energy than he burns. 

In this phase, bodybuilders consume calorie-dense proteins and carbohydrates with normal weight training. 

According to Dominique Condo, sports and performance dietitian of Deakin University that "In this phase, you will gain muscles mass and also will be increasing fat on the body as written in abc.net.au",


The-dark-truth-of-the-physical-and-mental-condition-of-bodybuilders-[2020]-Update
Source: Google|ScreenShot of Website: abc.net.au

And the next stage is called the lean down phase which comes 2-3 months before the starting of the competition. In this phase, bodybuilders reduce calorie intake and burn more calories than consuming. 

In this phase, you have to lose the amount of fat by maintaining the maximum amount of muscles.

For this purpose, trainers also include some cardio in their schedule.

Here are some best exercises which can give you insight into what they actually do in cardio.

But what actually happens to your muscles when you do cardio? Is it can help you to increase your muscle mass or can reduce muscle mass? (check it out here)

Doing cardio to gain lean muscles is a very good option but the harsh changes in the diet to achieve the goal is the worst thing of the whole process of competitive preparation.

To accomplish their goal through diet, they cut down the intake of carbs, water, fats, salt, and sugar. And near the days of competition, they follow this regime to the extreme level and starve themselves which totally disbalance the equilibrium of the body.

The reason why they do so, they want to achieve the lowest minimum fat percentage on their body ignoring the importance of fat for various functions of the body.

For showing your muscles, it is not important to make your fat percentage at the minimum level. You can look good or even better at a little bit higher body fat percentage.

You can check it out here, how your body looks at the different fat percentages.

Did you know,

The body fat percentage of Arnold Schwarzenegger is 7% but now the average fat percentage among pro-bodybuilders has been dropped down to 3%.

"It is very dangerous to attain this low percentage of body fat because it can badly impact the reproductive system, bones, thyroid, and metabolism'' as said by Dr. Kendall in abc.net.au.

According to the American Council of Exercise, for women,10% of body fat is the recommended minimum percentage but in the contest, almost all of them are at 6-10 %age of body fat.

For men, 2% is the minimum body fat for pro-bodybuilders but some pro-bodybuilders claim that they have 0.33% or even 0% body fat.


The-dark-truth-of-the-physical-and-mental-condition-of-bodybuilders-[2020]-Update
The percentage range of fat from worst to best for both men and women
Source Of Data: acefitness.org

There are many instances of bodybuilders who have to compromise with their life span. The same situation happened with Legendary Bodybuilder named "Andreas Munzer" who died because of multiple organ failure.

Andreas Munzer's autopsy revealed that he had almost 0% body fat as reported in abcnews. And "such a small percentage of body fat could be the reason for his premature death", experts say.


The-dark-truth-of-the-physical-and-mental-condition-of-bodybuilders-[2020]-Update
Source: Google|ScreenShot of Website: abcnews-go-com.cdn.ampproject.org

Carol Garber, professor of movement sciences at Columbia University in New York City said in abcnews the importance of fat in the body,

"You need body fat for cellular function, energy use and to pad the joints and organs. "Having too little can lead to nutritional deficiencies, electrolyte imbalances and malfunction of the heart, kidney, and other organs.”

This is the reason, the low-fat percentage kills us indirectly by disturbing the equilibrium of the body. (✓)

Related to the above, Have you noticed that there are many cases of bodybuilders' death on stage because of a heart attack?

The same condition happened with Vinay from India who died on stage because of a heart attack.

This is because of the harsh conditions of the last phase or leans down phase.

If we talk about the general case then the core reason behind this comes out to be an electrical imbalance in the body.

As we have discussed earlier, bodybuilders have left their salt intake 2-3 days before their competition and started taking AMP's, diuretics, or water pills.

All these meds in combination create a drastic condition in our body which adversely affects our heart.

For a moment, let's talk about diuretics and how it leads to the death of an individual.

The most common diuretics used is a loop diuretic which is given to those who have the excess presence of water in the body. To regulate the water content it throws out sodium or potassium or both from the body.


The-dark-truth-of-the-physical-and-mental-condition-of-bodybuilders-[2020]-Update
 Source: Google|ScreenShot of Website: mayoclinic.org

Let's take an example of a man who takes diuretics due to which he has less amount of sodium in his body which leads to an imbalance between sodium and potassium which further leads to an electric imbalance in the body. Now this situation increases the chances of having cramps.

In India, young bodybuilders do the mistake, they take more potassium to compensate for the requirements of sodium. But they don't know that only sodium can control the contraction of mostly all muscle except for the heart.

Due to which the amount of potassium increases at a very extreme level and causes electrical imbalance. Moreover, our body is also sugar depleted due to which our low blood sugar level leads to low blood pressure. These both in combination increase the rate of a heartbeat but in an unsynchronised way and the rhythm between 4 chambers of the heart disturbed.

Due to this fast heart rate, the oxygen requirement increases very much of the heart itself. Due to out of synchronization, it can't even supply oxygen to itself to work and finally gets a heart attack.

Now you have got some idea about the actual dark life of bodybuilders.

The above points we have discussed are physiological but what about the psychological or mental impact on bodybuilders?

The reason behind the mental condition of bodybuilders is again steroids. Steroids can trigger the aggressive personality of a person.

According to the finding of Benson (2002), published in the article (Depression Among Bodybuilders: The Impact of Supplements) by Ivan Das 

Research Scholar

Department of Psychology, Tripura University, the usage of Anabolic Androgenic Steroids (AAS's) became popular in the 1970s. In the animal model, the relation demonstrated between aggression and AAS's. In some studies, more than 80% of animals become aggressive after treating them with steroids. In recent years, reachers have come to know that steroids induce aggression colloquially which is known as "roid-rage". This is a phenomenon that occurs due to the large intake of doses of steroids by individuals for a long period of time.

But still, the consumption of these steroids is very high among the athletes. 

The study published in the article by Ivan Das, which shows that 70% of competitive bodybuilders and 24% of non-competitive bodybuilders were indulged in the AAS's.

The-dark-truth-of-the-physical-and-mental-condition-of-bodybuilders-[2020]-Update
No. of Competitive and Non-Competitive bodybuilders who take anabolic steroids
Source of Data - Depression Among Bodybuilders: The Impact of Supplements



Even it has been proved in a double-blind, randomized study that these steroids worsen the mental condition not only in the bodybuilders but also in the common man. It also mentioned in the study that the effect of these steroids could vary dramatically from person to person even at the controlled doses and this makes it very unpredictable and or more dangerous to use.

With this, these are addictive in nature which makes it even more dangerous. (✓)

The consequence is, this will badly affect your serotonin and dopamine secretion.

Related to this, Ivan Das says in his article depression among bodybuilders, "During the off days of the gym, men generally feel the loss of happiness in their life which increases the chances of getting depression. This only factor can send the man back to use the steroid again and the result, he becomes addicted.


The-dark-truth-of-the-physical-and-mental-condition-of-bodybuilders-[2020]-Update
ScreenShot of Article: Depression Among Bodybuilders: The Impact of Supplements



Another study is written in the same article by Ivan Das, in which 3 groups are made, each has 30 members between the age of 18-30.


The-dark-truth-of-the-physical-and-mental-condition-of-bodybuilders-[2020]-Update
Source of Data - Depression Among Bodybuilders: The Impact of Supplements

And this study was conducted for at least 1 year. In these groups, groups A had those participants who had never been a part of any kind of sports. Group B had those participants who had never taken any kind of supplements for gaining muscle mass for at least 1 year. And Group C contained participants who were taking supplements for their muscle gain.


The study presents us the result in front of us in the given table:


The-dark-truth-of-the-physical-and-mental-condition-of-bodybuilders-[2020]-Update
Difference between the depression level among the bodybuilders and non-bodybuilders
Source of Data - Depression Among Bodybuilders: The Impact of Supplements

The stress level was measured by this inventory by the questions, which pertains to 21 depression dimensions.

So it is clear that those who do only their gym workout without taking any type of supplements have much fewer chances of getting depression than those who do their gym workout with including supplementary products in their diet.

But the situation is different for those who do their gym workout for the first time. This type of group has slightly higher chances of getting depression than those who are doing their gym training for a longer period of time. But still, chances of facing depression problems lower than those who do their training with supplementary products.

Now we will discuss a real-life case of a person who had faced depression problems due to bodybuilding and how he got success to overcome his mental condition.

A person who told his story on Reddit was self-obsessed with his gym workout and would feel extremely frustrated if he couldn't lift even for a day. Therefore he rarely took a break from his lifting routine.

But still, he was critiquing himself over the smallest imperfection in his body and faced a lack of courage to wear a sleeveless shirt without pumping his muscles.


The-dark-truth-of-the-physical-and-mental-condition-of-bodybuilders-[2020]-Update


And this became a mental barrier for him and cause of self-doubt and a source of stress.

But later on, he wanted some money for day to day his needs. Therefore he started working as a laborer for 8.5 hours a day and 1-2 hours of traveling left him so tired to go to the gym and after some days, he stopped lifting even on the weekends.


The-dark-truth-of-the-physical-and-mental-condition-of-bodybuilders-[2020]-Update


This is the moment when he realized a feeling of happiness with his body and learned to stay satisfied without going to the gym.

He said, "Girls still wanted me, guys still made jealous jokes about my arms, even though I looked flatter and less defined than I had in ages. He added, " People respected me more than before due to my increased confidence and I began to enjoy food again".

All these changes in his lifestyle made positive changes and he noticed a surprising improvement in his mental health.

Now let's finish this with a positive note, "lifting is one of the most productive hobbies one can have for becoming a better version of yourself but letting it turn into an obsession will only hurt you, mentally, physically and socially", he said.


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