The Ultimate Guide to Identifying a Fake Natty
A lot of people visit r/nattyorjuice to get their take on whether's someone's on gear or not. But it's often said by those people that our identification criteria aren't clear enough. So as a public service, I've put together the Ultimate Guide to Identifying a Fake Natty.
Without further ado, let's get into it.
Step 1 - FFMI
The Fat-Free Mass Index was invented by scientists as a rough guide to whether a physique is attainable naturally. It was created by looking at physiques from the pre-steroid era (roughly pre-1950). Then they compared the tool with modern bodybuilders, and found similar results.
The tool rates people on a scale from about 16-35. A man with an FFMI of 19 would probably look feeble. At an FFMI of 23, most people would be considered visibly muscular. An FFMI of 30+ is Ronnie Coleman territory.
An FFMI of 25 was observed to be the rough cutoff of what is possible without steroids.
The Fat-Free Mass Index measures how much lean mass a person is holding. Our muscle-building potential is inextricably linked to our testosterone levels, which is why kids (and most women) aren't as muscular as most men.
As a rule, human beings with normal levels of testosterone can only hold so much muscle at low bodyfat. A person can however go over an FFMI of 25 if their bodyfat is higher than about 15%. Think sumo wrestlers and 6' 6'', 320 pound NFL linemen. These guys can go as high as 28-29 FFMI--provided they are fat enough.
(I would just note here that lifting culture online vastly overestimates bodyfat percentages. I've seen people calling guys with abs 20% bodyfat. If a guy has visible abs, *he is almost certainly under 15% bodyfat--*and probably lower. And no, that 6' 0'' guy at 220 lbs lean is not 15% bodyfat).
Summary: If a man has an FFMI above 25, and is below 15% bodyfat, he is probably on steroids.
Step 2 - The Body's Shape
"What if a steroid user has an FFMI of 23?" you might ask. Good question. As it turns out, most steroid-using lifters don't have FFMIs over 25. So, how can you tell from looking?
Lifting weights without drugs over several years makes muscles bigger, modestly more vascular, and adds some tonus.
Take Harrison Ford in Temple of Doom:
Harrison Ford in Temple of Doom
This is a man that obviously lifts weights. What do you notice? Observe the broad clavicles, the correctly proportioned muscles. The modest delts and traps. The defined, but relatively tame pectoralis.
Now compare to Michael B. Jordan:
Michael B. Jordan's Steroid Transformation
Notice how naturally slender Michael B. Jordan suddenly sprouts deltoids that pop off his shoulders, and large full pecs, at low bodyfat. His muscles are visibly bigger than Harrison Ford's, but Ford is clearly a bigger man than Jordan is. And Jordan looks weirdly disproportionate, as though he borrowed someone else's muscles. So how did the waifish Jordan get bigger than Ford?
Take a wild guess.
Note that Jordan here is probably running an FFMI of 24-25, so we couldn't rule him out based on FFMI alone. But it still doesn't take more than a few seconds to clock him.
Summary: If a guy has 3D delts that pop off his shoulders, an inflated chest, and traps that look flexed even when he isn't flexing them, he's almost certainly on steroids.
3 - Side Effects
Steroids do all kinds of things to the face, skin, and sometimes the skeletal structure that have nothing to do with weights. While not the most common, a hypertrophied masseter is the deadest giveaway.
Look at the chipmunk cheeks on Arnold's mouth.
Arnold's Hypertrophied Masseter
Steroid use in mammals causes the chewing muscles to grow. It can also cause jaw growth.
You probably never noticed it before. But look at most hardcore lifters, and they'll have it. This is a classic symptom of using large doses of steroids over years. Arnold was said to have required plastic surgery to reverse the growth and fix his jawline.
It even happens to mice treated with testosterone:
Left - a normal mouse, Right - a mouse that's receiving testosterone
Not every steroid user will end up with this particular side-effect. And if they do, it's not uncommon for them to grow facial hair to cover it.
Other obvious signs?
-Dry, grainy skin.
-Adult onset acne, especially in the shoulders/back
-Gyno (glandular enlargement in the nipple--look for enlarged/stretched nipples)
-Excess vascularity (especially temples, forehead, traps, delts, pecs, abs)
Summary: If a man has the above signs, he's probably on steroids.
4. They Grew Too Fast/Don't Train Well
Perhaps the best illustration of this is Hollywood transformations (see Michael B. Jordan).
Actors frequently bulk up abruptly for a role, and then lose it all in the blink of an eye. They mention their chicken and broccoli, the personal chef, 6 days a week in the gym for 2-3 hours, etc. They might even sell their workout routine or market a shitty app *coughHemsworthcough*. What they never mention is their use of drugs. The result is a worldwide cultural shift in our perception of muscularity and what is possible naturally.
To say Hollywood transformations have affected our perception of how lifting weights works is an understatement. You will find no shortage of people saying “If I wanted muscles, I’d just lift weights,” or, for example, “I don’t wanna get too big,” or, my favorite, “Of course he’s big - he had to train for months!”
Within 6 months of (post-pubescent), top-notch, drug-free training, you’ll be lucky if anyone in the wild so much as notices that you lift. And you will never get “too big” as a natural lifter. To attain an even halfway respectable physique (by modern standards), genetically gifted natural lifters have to dedicate at least the better part of a decade to almost flawless, uninterrupted diet and exercise; it is quite necessarily a lifestyle. Gains also peak after 5 or so years of optimal training, and basically go to zilch annually after that (a pound of muscle per year, or less), and maxes out at about 30 lean pounds, lifetime--in a genetic freak.
Moreover, training matters. If bro got big and ripped doing light cable cross-overs, using half the nautilus stacks, and making every newbie mistake in the book, he's on drugs. The only way to grow naturally slowly, over many years, by getting strong--and you don't get strong lifting light (nor will you look it) without drugs.
Any guy who has spent a good amount of time in the gym has seen enough peoples’ starting points, watched as those neophyte lifters graduated from newbie status and advanced through their intermediate phases as the years passed, to know what natural progression looks like. They also have seen someone, or a few someones, or had a friend or two that, after years of looking the same, suddenly exploded in size and reached an unfamiliar level. When that happens, it’s not a mystery what changed.
Summary: If a guy didn't establish a natural base using freeweights and a progressive overload routine, but just kinda explodes out of nowhere doing random shit, he's on steroids. If he's been training for years and suddenly gets even bigger, he's on steroids.
5. Notes on "Genetic Freaks"
"Maybe he's just a genetic freak."
No.
A genetic freak is a person with big bones, a broad frame, short muscle insertions, who was bigger than normal *before* they ever lifted weights, and would never be average-sized even if they stopped lifting.
Just as Harrison Ford could never be as scrawny as Michael B. Jordan, Jordan has no business being bigger than Ford...without drugs, anyway.
A genetic freak is knowable before he lifts. His father is probably big. His cousins are probably big. His grandfather was probably big. If he has a son, his son is probably big.
No size medium guy with 6 inch wrists that's finished puberty is going to suddenly become physically extraordinary just because they put in a couple years in the gym.
And genetic freaks don't have 3D delts, hypertrophied masseter muscls, adult-onset acne, forehead veins, gyno, and so on. They just look like big guys.
They look like this guy:
This is a genetic freak.
Then, there's this guy:
Some douchebag. I don't know who.
This a steroid user.
6. Conclusion (For Now)
- If a guy has an FFMI above 25 at less than 15% bodyfat, he's on steroids.
- If a guy has 3D delts, and/or inflated traps and upper pecs (especially if these are his biggest muscles), he's on steroids.
- If a guy has known steroid-specific side-effects, he's on steroids.
- If a guy is big, but trains like a noob (or isn't as strong as he looks), he's on steroids.
- If a guy gets too big too fast, or regularly gains/loses muscle mass, he's on steroids.
- If bro's "after" photo doesn't look possible based on his starting point, he's on steroids.
If you wondered how we can tell, wonder no longer.