Mike Israetel
speaker
1,094 appearances
5 recordings
5 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard May 2025
Mike Israetel’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
At this body fat, I would probably weigh about 200 pounds.
Versus 230, 235. Okay. Now, 35 pounds. I know, that's a lot. That's a lot of muscle. Yeah. But I would still be very jacked. I mean, before I had ever started taking anabolic steroids, I was already an elite power lifter. I weighed 270 pounds at probably 30 something odd percent body fat.
But I've dexed myself in a master's program when I had been totally drug-free, and I had somewhere between 175 and towards the end of my drug-free era, close to 185 pounds of fat-free mass. For someone who's 5'6", like myself, though, if anyone asks, I'm 5'9". So your FFMI would have been north of 30? Not quite, but up there.
I have very elite genetics, not swagger. It's just stating a fact. Anyone who sees this on video will notice that my head is curiously shaped like my... mastication muscles are absurd. I looked like this before I ever took any steroids. I have a picture of myself on Facebook from the side before for sure I took anything. And I was like, holy crap.
I usually wasn't bald back then, but I shaved bald. And I was like, yep, there they were, those weird masticating muscles. And so, yeah, I was kind of built for the shit. But also, I got plenty out of steroids, but not as much as some other people. Some people without steroids are not overly jacked, but with steroids, it's a total transformative event.
And then when they retire and they come off of steroids, they're like, holy shit, did your back to mortal sized? How? Whereas other people come off of steroids and like they keep most of their muscle mass and they're on TRT and they just look so jacked for forever. huge, huge variation. But for me, steroids did a lot, but nothing crazy.
I didn't gain 70 pounds of muscle, but I gained, yeah, 30-ish, something like that for 13 years.
I don't have to be. My testicular shrinkage has been zero. My spermatogenesis is seemingly zero. Some people just don't suppress.
13.
Hugely genetically variable. And in addition to that, even if I'm not making any now, within several weeks, my testosterone production would likely resume. Now, if I had balls the size of capers, yeah, you'd be like, what's the uphill battle? Most people can resume normal testosterone production after the cessation of anabolic androgenic steroids. But not all. Maybe like 90-10.
You don't want to be that 10, which is why it's a huge thing for me to say. Don't just start steroids or TRT without a real long hard think about what the hell you want out of life, especially if you have yet to have children but want children. Because I know people, personally, who've done one of two things.
I know people who, on full steroid cycles, during that time, fathered children I now call my friends. They're real humans I can point to and be like, you're a steroid baby. They're freaky. They're getting pissed. I'm kidding. Obviously doesn't go into the germline cells. The other thing is I know some people who you blasted for a long time cannot have children, tried everything.
It's just not in the cards. Their spermatogenesis is just gone.
I would look into it. I think that most of the stuff you hear about how the comeback is difficult is from people for whom the comeback is difficult. And having been in the bodybuilding powerlifting space for a long time, most people come off and they're just normal after. Almost everyone I know that's come off completely is just normal after.
Which is why if you have a natural bodybuilding federation that allows you to compete. After you've used steroids. It's a crock of shit. Yeah.
Now, let me back that up. If that's the explicit rule of the federation, I don't like that I call it a natural federation. I respect every athlete and I think it's wonderful that they're doing what they're doing. And in a sense, it's a very different category. So it's cool.
If I was making a natural bodybuilding federation myself, you would have to sign paperwork that says I've never used anabolic steroids because the literature we have now on how much muscle you gain and keep forever is unequivocal. We even have mechanistic data on how it happens.
Your satellite cells that are incorporated into your musculature, which are kind of dormant and then they get in and then they grow big. We have no reason to believe they ever leave. It's like letting your aunt come live with you for a few weeks and like, where's Aunt Linda's here for forever? Here's our children. It's like that.
So having done higher doses of androgens ever for weeks or longer on end can give you a higher level of muscularity, especially only if you've gone beyond your natural limit. People generally can gain only so much naturally and only so much on steroids. Steroids are not unlimited for gains.
If you were going to ever have 160 pounds of fat-free mass and you went from 150 to 160 with steroids, but you could have gotten there and would take you three times longer without steroids, then the inherent advantage you don't have because you just got there faster. But if you got to 180 on steroids...
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