[RedlineTriad]

You may already know this but Dwayne Johnson is pretty obviously on steroids or some other kind of anabolic agent.

In Hollywood anabolics are quite common, since preparing for a role can be a very short term thing, testosterone decreases with age, and very low body fat but large physiques are seen as normal.

Also, shorter people generally have it easier to have a muscular looking physique because of how the muscle mass limit scales with size.

[0xcde4c3db]

> You may already know this but Dwayne Johnson is pretty obviously on steroids or some other kind of anabolic agent.

People typically know this, but the social script is to ignore and deflect because we're culturally invested in the story of transformation through personal virtue. It's like pointing out that Santa Claus isn't real.

[FredPret]

You can still have transformation through personal virtue, just read the comments above. You just can't have the same magnitude of results without the steroids.

[IncreasePosts]

You can have that transformation, but the issue is a person who goes on steroids and barely works out will realize bigger gains than a natural lifter who structures their entire life around optimizing their gains. Obviously the dedicated lifter on steroids will have the biggest gains, but it is a situation where anyone can get jacked by merely injecting themselves with stuff and not having an ounce of dedication.

[anigbrowl]

Sadly for the casual roid user, all that bulk will fall off within a couple of months of stopping the drugs (along with other issues like elevated estrogen which can have unwanted side effects, unless they planned out a drug cycle carefully).

[poulsbohemian]

>It's like pointing out that Santa Claus isn't real.

Say what now?

[oceanplexian]

It’s a shame that there is such a stigma around anabolics for training, or even as a medical intervention. If you want to transition to another gender doctors will hand steroids out no problem; I believe you can even get then from Planned Parenthood these days. But if you simply want to take steroids to address low testosterone (Which is a societal crisis), most physicians will treat you like a drug addict. They will say it’s normal if a healthy 30 year old male has the T levels of an 80 year old.

[mewpmewp2]

But aren't those anabolics with a very significant trade off and health implications?

I'm not sure if stigma should exist, but if something gives someone a huge advantage over a natural, but at the same time at the cost of life or health and other things, without telling they are doing it, it gives a false impression to everyone who may be comparing themselves to these people.

Not to mention the issues some young people get into when they work out a lot and compare themselves to those people and think they are never big enough, and then they get into this state of big, that is only appealing to the very same community, but not average person being misled by groups of celebrities, influencers and other people.

And also if you do go on TRT I think there's no good coming back, so usually it would be much better to try to achieve normal test with natural means first, because otherwise you are going a path with side effects and dependence for life.

Also young people wanting higher test don't understand life very well yet, they will tunnel vision on their single insecurity and think this is the golden path to solve it, while with a little perspective this understanding can change a whole lot.

[Earw0rm]

Like the gender drugs don't have trade offs?

In my limited understanding - as with many drugs - they're the best (or least worst) available option for people with a condition that's affecting their wellbeing. Untreated gender dysphoria can have terrible outcomes for mental health, and so therapies have been developed which are medicine's best solution so far.

And, as with T, this is where "normal for you", "normal for other people", "normal for the person you think you should be", "normal for the person society thinks you should be" overlap and interact with all sorts of potentially destructive interference patterns - especially if you're young.

Because "normal" varies from individual to individual by a factor of at least 2. But there's no harm IMO in getting tested (2x) so you know where you stand, and have a baseline against which to measure if natural interventions are effective for you.

[SketchySeaBeast]

Though I've never heard of there being a stigma for treating low T, I agree that there shouldn't be. But that's not the point. Dwayne Johnson isn't taking anabolics to treat low T levels. You've built a straw-man by conflating the uses. Steroid abuse can cause long term damage.

[Earw0rm]

There's no stigma for treating clinically low T. But as with most things in life, there's a spectrum. And strength / resistance exercise / ability to build & retain muscle will be impaired way before you hit the clinical threshold. There's a fairly solid correlation across the normal range.

Having said that, if there's no medical reason, what we're really talking about is people taking medication that they'd be, on balance, physically healthier without, in order to better fit in with society's expectations (endurance exercise, triathlons and so on, is associated with good long-term health outcomes, being jacked is not). And while I don't think artificially boosting T within the normal range is necessarily any worse for your body than, say, being on hormonal birth control long-term is for women, it's still pretty messed up that people feel like they have to.

[foobarian]

This is the first I hear of this stigma. If people want to take steroids to bulk up they are free to do it, it's just not fair to do it in the context of competitive sports.

[hondo77]

Societal crisis? Say what?

[SketchySeaBeast]

As I understand it there has been a noticeable dip (~25%) in the last few decades. I don't know if that's a crisis, but it's been theorized to be caused by any number of things, including a less active lifestyle, stress, and endocrine disruptors in the environment. Given the range of possible causes, "Just throw more Testosterone at it" seems like a poor initial solution.

[nradov]

Higher body fat also causes low testosterone, which contributes to gaining more fat in a vicious cycle.

[fuzzfactor]

Well when a 30-year old finds out that it's not that rare for a 70-year old to have "higher T" naturally compared to younger men on average, I guess that could trigger their own personal "crisis" ;)

Plenty who are 70 are not in the Viagra generation yet either.