Steroids vs natural bodybuilding: separating gym myth from data

What did @astrudyyz_ actually say?

Honestly? Nothing. The entire transcript is a repeated sequence of "oh" sounds, likely synced to a trending audio clip. The video pairs a "steroid" label with one physique and a "natural" label with another, but no verbal claims are made. The messaging lives entirely in the visual comparison and the hashtags, including #ramondinopro and #steroid.

That framing still communicates something, though. Side-by-side physique comparisons like this implicitly argue that steroids produce a dramatically superior body, and that the gap between steroid and natural is immediately visible to the naked eye. That's the claim we need to examine, even if it was never spoken aloud.

Does the science back this up?

Partially, but the story is more complicated than a single viral clip can tell. Exogenous testosterone and anabolic steroids do produce measurable, significant gains in lean mass and strength beyond what's achievable naturally, but the visual "obvious" gap people assume exists is harder to pin down than most think.

Kouri et al. (1995, Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine) established a fat-free mass index (FFMI) ceiling of roughly 25 for natural athletes, a figure widely cited since. Men using anabolic steroids can push well above that. But FFMI isn't visible to the eye, and elite natural bodybuilders, particularly those with favorable genetics, long training histories, and aggressive cuts, can look nearly indistinguishable from enhanced athletes in photographs.

More recent work by Bjornsson et al. (2021, Drug and Alcohol Dependence) found that the magnitude of anabolic steroid effects varies enormously by compound, dose, duration, training status, and diet. A single before-and-after frame tells you almost nothing about the actual pharmacology involved.

What did they get wrong (or right)?

The implicit argument, that you can eyeball who is "on" and who isn't, is misleading more often than people acknowledge. Getting this wrong has real consequences. It leads natural lifters to believe their progress is inadequate, and it leads people curious about TRT or performance-enhancing drugs to assume the results are guaranteed and obvious.

What the video gets right, in a backhanded way, is that exogenous androgens do change body composition. That part isn't controversial. Testosterone supplementation in hypogonadal men consistently improves lean mass and reduces fat mass (Bhasin et al., 2001, New England Journal of Medicine). The problem is the leap from "steroids work" to "you can always tell who uses them," which the visual format of this video strongly implies.

Lighting, body fat percentage, pump, posing experience, and camera angle account for enormous variation in how a physique photographs. Two athletes at the same FFMI can look radically different in a still frame. Presenting one image as definitively "steroid" and one as definitively "natural" without any verified lab data is, frankly, guesswork dressed up as fact.

What should you actually know?

If you're watching this video and drawing conclusions about your own body or your interest in hormone therapy, slow down. A few things worth knowing:

• TRT for clinically diagnosed hypogonadism is a legitimate, well-studied intervention. It is not the same as supraphysiologic anabolic steroid use, and conflating the two distorts both conversations.
• Testosterone levels decline with age, and low testosterone is associated with fatigue, reduced muscle mass, and metabolic changes (Travison et al., 2007, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism). A physician-supervised evaluation is how you find out if you're actually deficient, not a TikTok comparison.
• Anabolic steroid use outside medical supervision carries documented cardiovascular risks, including left ventricular hypertrophy and dyslipidemia (Baggish et al., 2017, Circulation).
• The physique you see in a viral video reflects genetics, years of training, diet, timing, and photography conditions, not just what someone is or isn't taking.

No one should adjust their hormone therapy, start a new compound, or abandon a treatment plan based on a physique comparison video. Talk to a licensed clinician who can actually order labs.