I LOVE STEROIDS AND GEAR

I LOVE STEROIDS AND GEAR
By Shane Robert

I remember the day I fell in love with Powerlifting. 

It was summer in San Francisco and I was stuck inside trying to avoid the cold and fog. To delude myself into thinking I was being productive despite not doing my homework, I was reading through a stack of training/muscle magazines, as people still did in 2006. After the usual articles about gaining 20 pounds in 30 days or adding 50 pounds to my deadlift in 6 weeks, I came across the Muscle and Fitness that would change my life forever. What would normally have been a forgettable middle article caught my eye with a picture of an enormous-headed bald white man standing in front of a brick wall. He was wearing some kind of black smock and couldn’t seem to put his arms all the way down to his side. The picture was dark and dingy and said, in simple text: A Visit to Westside Barbell. 

As I continued to read I learned of a gym in Columbus, Ohio called Westside Barbell and saw pictures of some of the largest human beings doing crazy things like benching to boards, attaching chains to barbells and dragging sleds. One guy was squatting so heavy he got a bloody nose! 

I learned that this was the strongest gym on earth and they specialized in Powerlifting. 

My training experience at that time was very limited and my strength level was so low it wouldn’t even qualify me as weak. That didn’t stop me from reading everything I could and watching all of the videos I could find on this new website called YouTube. I was astounded seeing giant goateed men squatting over 1000 pounds, benching 700+ and deadlifting as much as a small car. I hated knowing it was possible for a human being to be that strong and yet I wasn’t. I would go to the gym so fired up and motivated that I would lift for hours until I was barely able to walk out. 

It would be a few years before I learned what supportive gear was. It would be another year or so that I learned about the role that steroids (also sometimes called “gear") undoubtedly had in what I was watching. 

These two aspects of Powerlifting have become a real thorn in the side of the sport in the years since raw lifting, and specifically raw-tested lifting,has become the dominant force in the sport. The internet is full of people who deride lifters on social media for their use of either type of gear, calling both types cheating. I suppose I can see why they might have that perspective. If you compete in raw and tested contests, you don’t want your numbers compared to those who don’t. The thing is, though, they aren’t. 

Sure, someone might compete in a tested federation and be using steroids. If they are in the top 2-3 lifters then they will almost certainly be drug tested and caught, assuming they aren’t backed by a government organization or are independently wealthy enough to beat the tests. You can imagine how likely that scenario is. It’s even less likely that they are going to sneak some supportive gear into the meet and get away with it. 

Given that the chances of an untested, geared lifter competing against a tested, raw lifter are essentially zero, why the divide? You don’t see softball players decrying baseball players because they get to pitch overhand or use a smaller ball. Geared versus raw powerlifting is essentially softball and baseball - they look basically the same but are two different sports. 

Despite the fact that I am a raw, drug-free lifter, I love steroids and gear. It goes back to those early days of first being introduced to powerlifting when I didn’t know there was a difference. I just thought these people were doing this au-natural. I found it infuriating and inspiring and it made me want to do the same. Steroids or not, gear or not, there are humans out there doing incredible things. If they can do it with assistance, it’s only a matter of time before someone does it without. 

Tony Hawk, of skateboarding fame, has expressed awe at the tricks that young skateboarders are accomplishing today. Tricks that were considered impossible until recently when kids, who grew up playing skateboarding video games, started skating and didn’t know that the tricks they had done in the game weren’t meant to be done in real life. Now they are impossible no more. Once someone sees that a thing can be done, even in a video game, they are more likely to achieve it. For this reason, I love steroids and gear. Some genetic freak of kid is out there, watching a gassed-up lifter perform otherworldly feats of strength, and getting inspired to do it themselves.