Natural vs. Enhanced Lifters

07. 01. 2020. Natural vs.
Enhanced Lifters | T Nation
Natural vs. Enhanced Lifters

The 10 Most Important Questions Answered
by Christian Thibaudeau | 02/16/18
I'm not here to judge or recommend the use of performance-enhancing drugs. But you
have to realize these substances completely change your physiology. That means the
nutritional and training strategies that are optimal for the enhanced guy will not be
ideal for the natural guy. And vice versa. Whether you're natural or not, here are the
ten biggest questions you need answered.
1 – Who Needs to Train More Often?

Answer – Natural lifters.
I normally recommend a higher training frequency, both in the form of more weekly
workouts as well as hitting each muscle (directly or indirectly) frequently during the
week. That's best for both enhanced and natural lifters, but it's even more important for
naturals.
While enhanced lifters can still get significant gains from hitting each muscle once per
week, naturals need to stimulate each muscle at least twice a week, and ideally three
or even four to get significant growth past the beginner stage.
See, the key to building muscle is triggering protein synthesis, the process in which
your body uses amino acids to build tissue. If you want more muscle growth, then
protein synthesis has to be elevated to a higher degree and has to stay elevated
longer.
After a workout, protein synthesis remains elevated in the trained muscles for around
24 hours – slightly more or less depending on the workout. By training each muscle
only once a week, you aren't keeping protein synthesis elevated for long in each
muscle. Not only that, if you're training each muscle only once a week, you might
actually lose the positive adaptation (muscle growth) by not stimulating it soon enough.
https://www.t-nation.com/pharma/natural-vs-enhanced-lifters 1/12
07. 01. 2020. Natural vs. Enhanced Lifters | T Nation
This is called "involution." The body doesn't want to carry extra muscle mass that's not
useful. So by waiting too long before hitting a muscle hard again you might slowly lose
some of your gains. Not all of them, but it can certainly diminish your rate of progress.
A natural lifter needs the training sessions since they're the only significant protein
synthesis trigger he has. Eating also increases protein synthesis, but in a systemic
pattern and to a much lesser degree. So the natural lifter is far more dependent on
each workout to stimulate growth.
On the other hand, enhanced lifters are artificially increasing protein synthesis with
drugs. The steroids keep protein synthesis elevated around the clock. Their workouts
of course increase protein synthesis to an even higher degree, but hitting each muscle
more often isn't needed because the overall rate of synthesis will stay elevated all the
time.
Some studies have found that taking anabolic steroids led to some muscle growth
without any training. I'm not saying that people get huge that way, but it certainly
prevents losing the adaptations that can occur from only training a muscle once per
week.
Natural lifters need the workout to elevate protein synthesis. And since it only stays
elevated for 24-36 hours after a workout, they need to hit each muscle more often if
they hope to make significant gains. Enhanced lifters will also make more gains with
higher frequency training, but it's not as necessary for them.
2 – Who Should Do More Cardio?

Answer – Enhanced lifters.
Let's say you decide to use steroids, growth hormone, clenbuterol, SARMs or
peptides. Fine, it's your choice. But you should understand the importance of doing
everything possible to minimize the negative impacts on your health.
The two most important things you can do is keep both blood pressure and blood
lipids/cholesterol under control. Cardio can go a long way in keeping you healthier for
a lot longer.
Low intensity steady-state cardio is good for improving vascular health and lowering
blood pressure; intervals can help with cardiac function. It could even increase heart
elasticity and potentially help break down scar tissue, both of which would increase
cardiac function and decrease the risk of cardiac problems.
You don't need to do a huge amount either. Even just 20 minutes of steady-state
cardio (heart rate of around 110-115 beats per minute) at the beginning or end of your
workouts would be helpful. And don't worry, that's not enough to prevent protein
synthesis from happening. Or take few long walks a week and do HIIT once a week.
3 – Who Needs to Limit Volume?

A lot of lifters, natural or not, believe that the more volume they do (more sets) the
more they'll grow. We've been conditioned to believe that you get more results by
doing more work. So in our quest for more muscle, it's easy to think that pilling on
more sets is the key to getting bigger. And to some extent, if you're enhanced, that can
be true. But for natural lifters it can be a gains-stopping mentality. Here's why:
1. Volume and frequency should be inversely proportional. The more often you train
a muscle, the less volume you should do for that muscle at each workout. Since
natural lifters should train each muscle more often, they should do less volume at each
workout.
2. Natural lifters will be more negatively affected by cortisol than enhanced lifters.
Cortisol increases the rate of protein breakdown and can decrease the rate of protein
synthesis and nutrient uptake by the muscles. Growth depends on the difference
between protein synthesis and breakdown. When cortisol is elevated too much it will
negatively impact muscle growth.
Cortisol is the biggest enemy of muscle growth in the natural lifter. Why? Because
steroids, especially the more androgenic ones, greatly inhibit the action of cortisol at
the cellular level. It does so by binding to the androgen receptor and using the same
second messenger as cortisol to send its message to the nucleus of the cell. If there
are less second messengers available to cortisol, it will have a hard time doing its job.
Steroids like testosterone, trenbolone and Halotestin are great at this. And some
steroids directly block the action of cortisol (Dianabol for example). So when someone
is using steroids, the impact of cortisol on muscle growth will be greatly diminished.
That's also the main reason why steroid users lose muscle when they stop using
steroids. People assume it's simply because steroids shut down your own production
of testosterone, and when you stop your T levels are low until you recover. There is
something to that. But that wouldn't explain the muscle loss.
Sure, low T decreases anabolism, but it doesn't increase catabolism. What happens is
that when someone is "on" the action of cortisol is inhibited. The body tries to
overcome that by increasing the output of cortisol as well as the number of cortisol
receptors. When someone goes off he's left with a higher level of cortisol, more cortisol
receptors, and basically zero testosterone. This will lead to a high level of protein
breakdown and a very low level of protein synthesis. That means muscle loss.
Anyway, back to our topic. Natural trainees are not as protected against excessive
cortisol levels. And what's the function of cortisol when training? To mobilize stored
energy to make sure your muscles have enough fuel. The more energy you need, the
stored glycogen (and fat) you need to mobilize, the more cortisol you'll produce.
It should be evident that the more volume you do the more cortisol you'll release,
because more volume means a greater energetic demand. A natural trainee needs to
train harder, more often because he can't afford to compensate a low level of these
variables by an increase in daily workload.
4 – Who Needs to Push Harder During Each Set?

Natural lifters, if they want maximum growth, need to push their work sets harder.
That's because they can't do as much volume. If you can't do as much volume to
fatigue the muscle fibers, you must reach maximum stimulation a different way, and
this requires pushing each of the work sets. Take a look at this scale:
Scale of Neurological Demands
Level 1 – Complex gymnastic exercises, Olympic lift variations
Level 2 – Olympic pulls, multi-joint movements involving the whole body or having
significant axial/spinal loading
Level 3 – Multi-joint exercises with free weights involving half the body and without
significant axial loading
Level 4 – Multi-joint exercises on pulley/cable
Level 5 – Multi-joint exercises on machines
Level 6 – Isolation exercises with free weights
Level 7 – Isolation exercises on pulley/cable or machines
When using exercises that are lower on the neurological scale, or that have a lesser
postural component (levels 4, 5, 6 and 7), go to failure or beyond. Normally I
recommend going to failure when doing level 4 and 5 exercises, and going to failure
and even beyond – using rest/pause, drop sets, isometric hold at the end of the set,
partial reps, etc. – on levels 6 and 7.
Of course, the harder you push your sets, the fewer work sets you should do per
exercise. The typical example is the HIT or Heavy Duty approach of doing one set to
total failure per exercise. That's the cornerstone of my Best Damn Workout Plan for
Natural Lifters (https://www.t-nation.com/training/the-best-damn-workout-plan-for-
natural-lifters) and it has lead to amazing gains time after time. So natural lifters need
to push their work sets harder to stimulate maximum growth.
When doing exercises that are higher on the scale (levels 2 and 3) go heavier and with
low reps, really pushing hard to move more weight.
What about enhanced lifters? While they should also work hard to progressively
overload these big lifts, they need to be more conservative, using a slightly higher rep
range (6-8 instead of 3-5 for example) because steroids make the muscles grow
stronger faster than the tendons.
While enhanced athletes would also benefit from the lower number of work sets,
higher effort (failure or beyond) and more frequency for natural lifters is a prerequisite
for maximum growth.
5 – Who Needs to Eat More Protein?

Remember, enhanced lifters have an elevated rate of protein synthesis around the
clock. In addition to blunting the effect of cortisol, steroids increase how much protein
you can use to build muscle.
An enhanced body is more efficient at using amino acids to build new muscle tissue.
And since protein synthesis rate is elevated 24/7 they'll benefit from a higher protein
intake as well as more frequent feedings. An enhanced lifter will, in fact, benefit from a
constant influx of protein in their bloodstream.
A natural lifter won't. While it's undisputable that increasing protein intake to a certain
point will help build muscle, a natural body has a limited capacity to use it to build
tissue. Studies show that increasing protein intake up to 1 gram per pound when in a
caloric surplus, and to 1.2 to 1.4 grams per pound when in a deficit, has benefits. But
increasing it above that will provide no added benefit.
Furthermore, natural lifters might benefit more from more of a "protein pulse" approach
rather than keeping a more constant protein intake. A sudden increase in blood amino
acid levels (especially leucine, glycine, isoleucine, and valine) can be an anabolic
trigger itself.
The key word is "sudden." You want a peak, but you can't really have a peak if protein
intake is constant throughout the day. So you either need periods of higher protein
intake preceded and followed by periods of a lower intake to create that spiking effect,
or the use of a rapidly absorbed protein like casein hydrolysate (https://biotest.t-
nation.com/products/mag-10) . The faster a protein is absorbed, the greater the
peaking effect.
Excessive protein intake for a natural might actually "program" the body to turn protein
into energy (gluconeogenesis) instead of muscle tissue. And the more efficient your
body becomes at that process, the harder it will become to build muscle and even lose
fat. A decently lean natural who consumes more than 1 gram of protein per pound of
bodyweight when in a mass phase, or more than 1.2 grams when cutting, is doing
himself a disservice.
On the other hand, enhanced bodybuilders can and should consume more protein
than that to maximize the effect of the substances they're taking. Up to 1.5 grams per
pound, and sometimes more depending on the substance(s) they're taking.
For example trenbolone doesn't increase protein synthesis much. But it does
drastically decrease protein breakdown, so the net effect is muscle building. But it
doesn't require an increase in protein intake because your rate of protein synthesis
isn't elevated.
6 – Who Needs More Calories?

Answer – Enhanced lifters (during growth phases).
This goes with the need for more protein. An enhanced lifter simply uses nutrients
more efficiently when it comes to building muscle. Furthermore, a lot of anabolic
steroids increase glycogen storage. If you're enhanced, your muscle can store more
glycogen, which might be one of the reasons why enhanced lifters look more pumped
even at rest.
While you can of course still get fat when you're taking steroids (especially the
aromatizing kind) you won't pile on fat as fast as a natural lifter at the same level of
caloric intake.
When you're putting super fuel in your body, it improves your capacity to use nutrients
to build muscle tissue, so it only makes sense that you'd want to increase the supply of
nutrients and take advantage of this enhanced state.
And when you're using steroids and/or growth hormone, you can more easily maintain
muscle mass while dieting down. So even if you gain a bit more fat you'll be able to
make drastic dietary changes without fear of losing muscle.
For a natural lifter, bulking makes little sense because your body is limited in its
capacity to use nutrients to fuel growth by its own natural biochemistry. Once you've
reached your maximum rate of growth (nutrient utilization) you won't be able to speed
up muscle growth further simply by eating more.
You'll just retain more water, maybe store more intramuscular glycogen and
triglycerides, which will make you feel bigger. But you might also gain fat, which will
make you look thicker with clothes on. Both of these can help you lift more weight in
some exercises (better leverage, joint stability, and fiber-pennation angle) which can
make you believe that you're gaining more muscle. But in reality, you're not.
Adding more fat will make it harder for you to look good naked, since it's harder to get
lean without losing muscle for a natural.
7 – Who Should Try to Decrease Cortisol Levels?
Natural lifters need to minimize excess cortisol if they want to grow. Ingesting some
fast absorbed carbs like highly-branched cyclic dextrins (https://biotest.t-
nation.com/products/plazma) before and during workouts will go a long way in
preventing excessive cortisol output.
If you have carbs readily available for fuel while you train there's less need to mobilize
your reserves. If you don't need to mobilize as much fuel, you don't release as much
cortisol. Plazma™ (https://biotest.t-nation.com/products/plazma) is the best product for
that purpose.
You can also use other strategies like using vitamin C pre or post workout (around
2000mg) as well as glycine post workout. Something like Z-12™ (https://biotest.t-
nation.com/products/z-12) which will increase GABA levels (a neurotransmitter that
helps fight stress and anxiety) and magnesium (https://biotest.t-
nation.com/products/zma) in the evening can keep your cortisol levels low at night,
which will help you sleep better, recover, and grow.
Rhodiola (https://biotest.t-nation.com/products/rhodiola) is a great adaptogen that

improves your overall capacity to handle stress and might reduce your daily average
cortisol output, which will improve your immune system and muscle growth.
8 – Who Needs to Supplement the Most?
Everybody should use health-boosting supplements, but they're even more important
for enhanced lifters. Life or death important.
Many enhanced lifters love to say that steroids and growth hormone are safe when
used intelligently. But any foreign substance that changes your physiology can't NOT
have potentially harmful effects. The ironic problem with "smart" use is that the
problems may arise more subtly and lead to long term issues that could've been
prevented early on.
Unless you get frequent blood work done, you don't have any idea how your blood
lipids are, how your cholesterol is, or the amount of liver and kidney stress you're
experiencing. The vast majority of enhanced lifters don't even measure their blood
pressure. These things don't really have obvious symptoms. That's why high blood
pressure is often called "the silent killer."
Pretty much all oral PEDs will mess up your lipid profile and cholesterol. And while
liver problems aren't as likely as some people think, most oral steroids really do put a
strain on your liver. Heck, even an oral that seems safer, like Anavar, can increase
kidney stress, which is much worse than liver stress.
All steroids that cause water retention – Dianabol, Anadrol, testosterone, nandrolone,
etc. – will increase blood pressure. This is also true of several SARMs, peptides, and
growth hormone. Anything that increases water retention will increase blood pressure.
Uncontrolled blood pressure is the most dangerous thing for steroid users.
Most steroids also thicken the blood. This is especially true of Equipoise and Anadrol,
but testosterone in "bodybuilding" amounts will also do it. Thicker blood increases
blood pressure too, but it also makes the heart work a lot harder to push the blood
through the system. This can lead to left ventricle hypertrophy, another potential cause
of heart problems.
This isn't a scare tactic. But if you decide to go the enhanced route, instead of
investing your money on supplements that will trigger more muscle growth (you will
already get a maximum amount of growth from anabolics) you should invest it in
supplements that will help your health. So what should the enhanced user take?
Fish oil (https://biotest.t-nation.com/products/flameout) , which can reduce blood

pressure, decrease blood thickening, and reduce inflammation. Or Curcumin
(https://biotest.t-nation.com/products/curcumin) , which reduces inflammation and can
inhibit and even reverse left ventricle hypertrophy. Another option is ubiquinone, which
drastically improves cardiac health and function. There are other supplements which
can help reduce blood pressure, like celery extracts for example.
And if you're enhanced, the worst thing for you to use are stimulants. Think about it.
Your blood pressure might be elevated, your blood might be thicker, and you're taking
a product that spikes blood pressure even more and increases heart rate. That's a
recipe for long term disaster.
9 – Who Can Eat Fewer Calories When Dieting?

The main culprit for muscle loss while dieting is chronically elevated cortisol levels.
Cortisol has many functions, but here are two important ones: mobilizing stored energy
to provide fuel, and increasing blood glucose levels.
Your body wants to maintain a stable blood glucose levels. Around 4.0 - 5.0mmol/L
and up to 7.0mmol/L after a meal. If it dips down below that (hypoglycemia) you
normally get cravings, which compel you to eat and elevate blood sugar, or you'll
release stored glucose into the bloodstream. The hormones that increase blood
glucose levels are cortisol, glucagon, and (to some extent) growth hormone. All three
of these will tend to be more elevated during periods of caloric restriction.
And things can get even more problematic when you're on a low-carb diet because
you could increase protein breakdown (breakdown of muscle tissue) into amino acids
to produce glucose (gluconeogenesis) from these aminos to maintain stable blood
sugar levels.
This means that the more restrictive your diet, and the longer the dieting period is, the
more likely you are to have chronically elevated cortisol levels (https://www.t-
nation.com/diet-fat-loss/two-faces-of-cortisol) because you constantly need to mobilize
more fuel and elevate blood glucose levels. This is especially true when carbs are very
low and fats aren't high enough to compensate.
And since chronically elevated cortisol levels can be destructive for natural individuals,
it makes it almost impossible to build more muscle, and even harder to prevent muscle
loss.
When you're using steroids you're inhibiting the negative action that cortisol can have
on muscle – both by reducing its action at the cellular level and by increasing the
protein synthesis rate to compensate for the increased rate of protein breakdown.
If someone is using growth hormone, the need to produce cortisol might be reduced
because GH also increases blood glucose levels and mobilizes stored energy. If
growth hormone is taking care of that, there's less need to release cortisol.
Because of that, enhanced athletes have much less risk of losing muscle while dieting
and can use a much stricter diet. They can even build muscle while losing fat.
10 – Who Needs to Stop Majoring in the Minors?

This is goes along with avoiding too much volume per workout. The most enlightened
natural lifters avoid this. They focus their training around the most effective exercises.
But every time I train in a commercial gym, I'm reminded that enlightened lifters are
few and far between. I see tons of people doing an endless array of minor exercises.
It's not uncommon to see guys doing 6-8 exercises for pecs, back, biceps, triceps,
delts and 1-2 for legs, if that. And when you look at their exercise selection it rarely
includes movements that you or I would prioritize.
There are very few "worthless" exercises, but there's such a thing as prioritizing. When
you're natural and can't grow from as much volume per session, you must carefully
select your exercises to get the maximum return from your investment. Doing six types
of curls is not a good investment. I'm not saying to avoid curls, just avoid redundancy
and go with the biggest-yielding exercises.
You don't have to only use big compound lifts. But avoid doing garbage volume by
doing too many variations of the same simple movement pattern. If you're a natural
lifter, you just can't afford it.
Related: The Best Damn Workout Plan for Natural Lifters

(https://www.t-nation.com/training/the-best-damn-workout-plan-for-
natural-lifters)
Related: The Effects of Mild Cycles
(https://www.t-nation.com/pharma/the-eﬀects-of-mild-cycles)
Christian Thibaudeau
Christian Thibaudeau specializes in building bodies that perform as well as they

look. He is one of the most sought-after coaches by the world's top athletes and
bodybuilders.
Follow Christian Thibaudeau on Facebook

(https://facebook.com/christian.thibaudeau)
02/16/18

Natural vs. Enhanced Lifters - T Nation PDF

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Natural vs. Enhanced Lifters - T Nation PDF

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

07. 01. 2020. Natural vs.

Enhanced Lifters | T Nation

1 – Who Needs to Train More Often?

2 – Who Should Do More Cardio?

3 – Who Needs to Limit Volume?

4 – Who Needs to Push Harder During Each Set?

Scale of Neurological Demands

Level 1 – Complex gymnastic exercises, Olympic lift variations

Level 4 – Multi-joint exercises on pulley/cable

Level 5 – Multi-joint exercises on machines

Level 6 – Isolation exercises with free weights

Level 7 – Isolation exercises on pulley/cable or machines

5 – Who Needs to Eat More Protein?

6 – Who Needs More Calories?

7 – Who Should Try to Decrease Cortisol Levels?

Answer – Natural lifters.

Rhodiola (https://biotest.t-nation.com/products/rhodiola) is a great adaptogen that

8 – Who Needs to Supplement the Most?

Answer – Enhanced lifters.

Fish oil (https://biotest.t-nation.com/products/flameout) , which can reduce blood

9 – Who Can Eat Fewer Calories When Dieting?

10 – Who Needs to Stop Majoring in the Minors?

Related: The Best Damn Workout Plan for Natural Lifters

Christian Thibaudeau specializes in building bodies that perform as well as they

Follow Christian Thibaudeau on Facebook

You might also like