Inside and outside of bodybuilding, the use of performance-enhancing drugs has always been a controversial subject. In Breon Ansley’s latest endeavor, he discussed how steroids can be used safely, and believes in some cases, they can even make athletes healthier.
A former two-time Classic Physique Olympia champion, Breon Ansley has seen it all throughout his bodybuilding career. As one of few men to hold victories over the current reining Olympia titleholder Chris Bumstead, ‘The Black Swan’ is well-respected in the community for his symmetry, conditioning, and calculated posing routines.
Having watched bodybuilding evolve, Ansley suggests that education surrounding steroid use is ‘off.’ He hopes to enlighten viewers on how they can be beneficial to athletes, especially for those competing in the IFBB Pro League.
Bodybuilder Breon Ansley Says Education About PEDs is ‘Off’: ‘You Can Do Steroids Safely’
Ansley acknowledges that there is an ongoing problem with young people using PEDs. To rectify this issue, he believes education surrounding steroids needs a revamp.
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“It’s definitely a problem [young people taking steroids],” says Ansley. “It’s definitely something that needs to be addressed. It’s definitely — even on the flip side though, even on the flip side, I think the education about steroids is off even to the public and to the masses out there.”
According to ‘The Black Swan,’ most people assume they are ‘bad’ but he believes steroids can done safely by monitoring blood work and testing the body.
“Steroids are still just bad, bad, bad. You think steroids and you think bad, and don’t do it. I totally disagree with that. I totally disagree with that. You can do steroids safely with monitoring blood work, with testing your body and making sure everything is good from the inside.”
In addition, Ansley highlights that bodybuilders must pay attention to emotional health as well when using such substances.
“Also with how you feel, so many bodybuilders don’t pay attention to them feeling bad and them having problems, and symptoms coming up and all that, they just ignore it and go through it and then it’s kind of what you get.”
In some instances, Ansley says athletes ‘can actually be healthier when taking’ steroids.
“There’s so many variables that come into play with how it can be safe, with how it can be administered, with how it can be watched, with hormones, with age, and how we can actually be healthier when taking them.”
In today’s social media landscape, Ansley suggested that kids are more open to being ‘lab rats’ at a young age, not realizing it took him over 30 years to sculpt his physique.
“Also the kids man… because it’s again — with social media, we have people that are open and honest about it and kind of making themselves to be maybe lab rats or something. It’s so popular to do that and then the kids don’t realize okay, so the kids now, right, they come up to me, because they are barely starting to 16, 17, 18, 19-year olds, they are barely starting to know who I am.
They don’t realize that I’ve been training for over 30 years and to get to this point, it’s over 30 years of training, right? So, they think that from because of what they see now, they think I’ve been training for three years or so and I got like this.”
He adds that steroids aren’t the magic pill for achieving an impressive physique as diet, sleep, and recovery play a massive factor in how someone looks.
“You can’t administer these things or you can’t ingest these things and sit on your ass. You know? And not take, not be disciplined and take all the other precautions and take all the other steps it takes to build a physique not even compete! Just build a nice physique that looks like you’re on something with diet, with sleep, with recovery, with maybe getting body work done.”
“You need all that still to build a decent physique, and that’s just a decent physique,” says Ansley.
Ultimately, Ansley credits hard work as the ultimate precursor to a next-level physique, not steroid use.
“This sport is one of the few to where you can’t cheat what you’re going to look like. You can’t cheat what you’re going to look like. You can’t. There’s no way around cheating the science. That’s always something to draw back on when we’re talking about, ‘Oh, steroids this, steroids that, steroids this,’ yeah, if you want to say that person is on steroids, fine. I guarantee you they didn’t get that way from steroids, they got that way from hard-ass work.”
The safety of steroids has been brought into question following several bodybuilding deaths over the last few years. Most notably, Classic Physique standout Neil Currey passed away at the tender age of 34 years old. Months following his death, his parents blamed steroids for his demise.
PED use in bodybuilding doesn’t appear to be going anywhere anytime soon. Above all else, Breon Ansley believes the community would benefit from more education on how to use them properly and safely.
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