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The dosages of anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS) that athletes take greatly exceed the normal therapeutic amounts and typically several different types of AAS are taken together (stacked) or used at different times (cycled). Most athletes use AAS as training aids for recovery and discontinue use before an event so that they can later pass the competition drug test. During a typical steroid cycle, it is common for athletes to use other drugs such as diuretics to reduce fluid retention, thyroxine to promote weight loss, and tamoxifen to prevent gynecomastia. In the US and other countries, these agents are freely available in gyms and fitness clubs, regardless of their legal status.
Athletes with access to the right resources can beat the drug tests. Other athletes can not. The whole idea behind drug testing is to have a level playing field. Yet, in reality, this system is inherently unfair. If one athlete has the money and appropriate support personnel around them, they could certainly challenge a test. If another athlete has little money and knowledge, they will be at a serious disadvantage.
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Anecdotal Stories
NCAA
About 2-3 years before working as a drug test official, I was at a party being thrown by some collegiate athletes. People were lighting up joints everywhere and drinking alcohol like crazy. I knew my one buddy was going to get drug tested, because he was a big guy (almost 300 pounds) and he was always tested. Even though he wasn’t smoking anything (at least at that party) he wasn’t worried. He said he never tested positive for marijuana even though he got stoned plenty of times the night before a drug test. He figured that because he was so big he just got rid of any residues really fast. While that didn’t make that much sense to me, the fact was that he still had negative lab results. Based on the formal proceedings this didn’t seem possible. This became clear to me years later.
If you ever saw the movie "The Program," then you were treated to the various non-chemical means by which athletes have tried to beat the drug tests. I have seen or heard of athletes getting caught trying to use someone else’s urine by planting hidden vials in the bathroom, keeping a plastic bag and a catheter down their pants, etc. I have never seen or heard of collegiate athletes infusing someone else’s urine into their own bladder in order to beat the drug test. I have heard of this at the professional and elite levels of competition, though. To get around all the mechanical methods that athletes used to beat AAS tests, several key checks were done on every urine sample, as it was produced. By 1995, the procedure had evolved to the following: an athlete goes into his locker room and sees a notice on his locker to show up for drug testing. The notices were supposed to be put out right before practice, so the athlete knows not to use the bathroom. After practice the athlete shows up to the drug test site, which was usually in or near the locker room. From that point on the athlete has a monitor assigned to him. The athlete selects his own container to urinate in. ID labels are placed on the cup and on other documents. The athlete and monitor go to the bathroom where the athlete urinates in front of the monitor. The monitor must witness the flow of urine into the specimen container. After the appropriate volume is collected and capped, the athlete and monitor return to the drug-testing site where documentation is completed and signed by the athlete. At this time, the pH, temperature, and specific gravity of the urine are measured using indicator strips on the sample container. (This would serve to eliminate the use of vials of urine and prevent tampering with the actual urine sample.) If all of the three measurements are within the appropriate range, then the athlete can sign off and leave. If even one is off, then another sample must be collected.
That was the routine stuff that the athlete saw. Now let’s talk about what really happens with the urine results. NCAA athletes are told that they will be tested for cocaine, marijuana, AAS, and amphetamines. They are led to believe that each sample will be tested for each and every drug. Remember my big buddy who never tested positive for marijuana? The reason is simple: they never tested his urine for marijuana. The rule of thumb that I learned years later was as follows: Since drug testing costs so much, the big guys like linemen, fullbacks, and shot putters would be tested for steroids, while smaller guys would be tested for other drugs, like marijuana. So to spell it out, it was totally possible that a wide receiver, light-weight wrestler, or some other small or thin looking athletes could use steroids and never get caught ,even though he was drug tested. On the other hand, a lineman could get stoned all the time and theoretically not test positive for marijuana or cocaine because they always tested his urine for steroids.
Weightlifting
If you’ve followed weightlifting for years then you know how dominant the Bulgarian weightlifting team once was. How were they able to compete at the international level so successfully? I’ll say it for you: DRUGS. Never mind all of the bulls*** with training and restorative means. Today they still have access to the same type of training and recovery methods, yet they are not nearly as dominant as they once were. The reason that the Bulgarians were able to train six times per day at very high intensities and make consistent progress is that they had figured out how to hide their drug use. While they used a variety of tricks, here are some of the methods we have been able to verify. The Bulgarian weightlifting team would fast about 2-3 days before a competition. Fasting lowers the amplitude and pulsatility of luteinizing hormone. This, in turn, would lower endogenous production of testosterone (T). In addition, fasting also causes an increase in the excretion of steroids. As a result, their urine samples would show lower levels of T and other steroids because by the time they were tested, they virtually excreted most of the evidence away. Now this trick was not the only one the Bulgarians were known for. Their real ace in the hole was the use of diuretics. They would use the diuretics to urinate out lots of fluid. By ingesting an abundance of water, the diuretics would just accelerate the clearance of steroids or other banned substances from the blood. This offered two advantages: the first was that now the athlete would avoid detection for a banned substance and the second was that the athlete could lose weight and compete at a lighter weight class. But the diuretics proved to be their downfall, as this is how they got caught. At one Olympics, the whole team was forced to withdraw from competition because every member of the lighter weight classes had tested positive for diuretics. To avoid further embarrassment, the rest of the team was withdrawn. So next time someone tells you about what the Bulgarian’s do for training, slap them in the face and wake them up. Then remind them that Bulgaria is not the dominant power it once was in weightlifting. The only thing that changed was that the drug testing got better.
So how about the boys from the US? Are they clean? Clean is such an ambiguous term, so let’s be more precise: Are they taking anabolic-androgenic steroids? I have never seen or heard about first-hand any athlete on the Olympic team using AAS (we all know about the 1976 athletes and subsequent athletes testing positive). However, I have heard of AAS, growth hormone, and other agents, being used by lower caliber athletes. I also know of athletes that took prohormones and tested negative. The tests, as far as I could tell, were complete and nothing like the "insurance policy or sink-test" type tests Dr. Voy has written about in his book (where athletes’ urine samples are dumped down a drain and then the results are reported as negative). These athletes did not use any type of strategies to avoid detection. There can be several reasons for the negative results. Perhaps the athletes ingested pills that did not contain sufficient quantities of DHEA or androstenedione (A). Perhaps the amounts of DHEA or A in the pills were not enough to result in a positive test. Lastly, maybe the conversion of androgens to estrogens is so rapid that the current tests can not detect the androgens (elevated urinary estrogen levels would not matter since these were not tested for). Typically athletes would take 100-200 mg of A before a workout. The rationalization was that the sudden elevation of T from the conversion of A would result in a more aggressiveness and a better workout. While we may ponder whether or not these tactics work, consider what one athlete did with access to more sophisticated means. He simply designed his own "study" using himself as the sole subject. On different days he would take increasing dosages of DHEA, A or some combination. So one day he might take 100 mg of A, another day he might take 100 mg of DHEA and 100 mg of A, then another day he would take 200 mg of A, etc. He would have his blood hormone levels measured and his urine analyzed. He found that at around 800-1000 mg of A by itself, he could get enough of an increase in T to increase his training performance. If he was ever drug tested, the conversion of A to estrone (and T to estradiol) would also serve to lower his A and T levels, thus offering a "negative" urine sample. This may have worked for him, but other athletes should not be gullible and follow the same strategy. Unless they undergo the same type of self-study, they have no way of knowing if the androgen elevations and conversions will be the same for them. In short, you can not rely on another athlete’s hormonal and urinary data and adopt it as your own.
The less sophisticated athletes simply make use of the loop hole in USA Weightlifting’s drug testing policy. An athlete has to be enrolled in their no-notice drug-testing program for at least six months prior to the local, regional, or national competition that would qualify the athlete for international competition. So you could take AAS for three years, get stronger and lift more, then enroll in the program after you come off, test negative, post a qualifying total, and then go on to international competition (providing of course you earn that right by lifting some big weights). This is not a slight against USA Weightlifting in any way, obviously there is no way you can know who to test before they tell you they wish to be considered for international competition. It merely points out that athletes can, and always will, maintain a few paces ahead of drug-testing efforts.
Athletes with access to the right resources can beat the drug tests. Other athletes can not. The whole idea behind drug testing is to have a level playing field. Yet, in reality, this system is inherently unfair. If one athlete has the money and appropriate support personnel around them, they could certainly challenge a test. If another athlete has little money and knowledge, they will be at a serious disadvantage.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anecdotal Stories
NCAA
About 2-3 years before working as a drug test official, I was at a party being thrown by some collegiate athletes. People were lighting up joints everywhere and drinking alcohol like crazy. I knew my one buddy was going to get drug tested, because he was a big guy (almost 300 pounds) and he was always tested. Even though he wasn’t smoking anything (at least at that party) he wasn’t worried. He said he never tested positive for marijuana even though he got stoned plenty of times the night before a drug test. He figured that because he was so big he just got rid of any residues really fast. While that didn’t make that much sense to me, the fact was that he still had negative lab results. Based on the formal proceedings this didn’t seem possible. This became clear to me years later.
If you ever saw the movie "The Program," then you were treated to the various non-chemical means by which athletes have tried to beat the drug tests. I have seen or heard of athletes getting caught trying to use someone else’s urine by planting hidden vials in the bathroom, keeping a plastic bag and a catheter down their pants, etc. I have never seen or heard of collegiate athletes infusing someone else’s urine into their own bladder in order to beat the drug test. I have heard of this at the professional and elite levels of competition, though. To get around all the mechanical methods that athletes used to beat AAS tests, several key checks were done on every urine sample, as it was produced. By 1995, the procedure had evolved to the following: an athlete goes into his locker room and sees a notice on his locker to show up for drug testing. The notices were supposed to be put out right before practice, so the athlete knows not to use the bathroom. After practice the athlete shows up to the drug test site, which was usually in or near the locker room. From that point on the athlete has a monitor assigned to him. The athlete selects his own container to urinate in. ID labels are placed on the cup and on other documents. The athlete and monitor go to the bathroom where the athlete urinates in front of the monitor. The monitor must witness the flow of urine into the specimen container. After the appropriate volume is collected and capped, the athlete and monitor return to the drug-testing site where documentation is completed and signed by the athlete. At this time, the pH, temperature, and specific gravity of the urine are measured using indicator strips on the sample container. (This would serve to eliminate the use of vials of urine and prevent tampering with the actual urine sample.) If all of the three measurements are within the appropriate range, then the athlete can sign off and leave. If even one is off, then another sample must be collected.
That was the routine stuff that the athlete saw. Now let’s talk about what really happens with the urine results. NCAA athletes are told that they will be tested for cocaine, marijuana, AAS, and amphetamines. They are led to believe that each sample will be tested for each and every drug. Remember my big buddy who never tested positive for marijuana? The reason is simple: they never tested his urine for marijuana. The rule of thumb that I learned years later was as follows: Since drug testing costs so much, the big guys like linemen, fullbacks, and shot putters would be tested for steroids, while smaller guys would be tested for other drugs, like marijuana. So to spell it out, it was totally possible that a wide receiver, light-weight wrestler, or some other small or thin looking athletes could use steroids and never get caught ,even though he was drug tested. On the other hand, a lineman could get stoned all the time and theoretically not test positive for marijuana or cocaine because they always tested his urine for steroids.
Weightlifting
If you’ve followed weightlifting for years then you know how dominant the Bulgarian weightlifting team once was. How were they able to compete at the international level so successfully? I’ll say it for you: DRUGS. Never mind all of the bulls*** with training and restorative means. Today they still have access to the same type of training and recovery methods, yet they are not nearly as dominant as they once were. The reason that the Bulgarians were able to train six times per day at very high intensities and make consistent progress is that they had figured out how to hide their drug use. While they used a variety of tricks, here are some of the methods we have been able to verify. The Bulgarian weightlifting team would fast about 2-3 days before a competition. Fasting lowers the amplitude and pulsatility of luteinizing hormone. This, in turn, would lower endogenous production of testosterone (T). In addition, fasting also causes an increase in the excretion of steroids. As a result, their urine samples would show lower levels of T and other steroids because by the time they were tested, they virtually excreted most of the evidence away. Now this trick was not the only one the Bulgarians were known for. Their real ace in the hole was the use of diuretics. They would use the diuretics to urinate out lots of fluid. By ingesting an abundance of water, the diuretics would just accelerate the clearance of steroids or other banned substances from the blood. This offered two advantages: the first was that now the athlete would avoid detection for a banned substance and the second was that the athlete could lose weight and compete at a lighter weight class. But the diuretics proved to be their downfall, as this is how they got caught. At one Olympics, the whole team was forced to withdraw from competition because every member of the lighter weight classes had tested positive for diuretics. To avoid further embarrassment, the rest of the team was withdrawn. So next time someone tells you about what the Bulgarian’s do for training, slap them in the face and wake them up. Then remind them that Bulgaria is not the dominant power it once was in weightlifting. The only thing that changed was that the drug testing got better.
So how about the boys from the US? Are they clean? Clean is such an ambiguous term, so let’s be more precise: Are they taking anabolic-androgenic steroids? I have never seen or heard about first-hand any athlete on the Olympic team using AAS (we all know about the 1976 athletes and subsequent athletes testing positive). However, I have heard of AAS, growth hormone, and other agents, being used by lower caliber athletes. I also know of athletes that took prohormones and tested negative. The tests, as far as I could tell, were complete and nothing like the "insurance policy or sink-test" type tests Dr. Voy has written about in his book (where athletes’ urine samples are dumped down a drain and then the results are reported as negative). These athletes did not use any type of strategies to avoid detection. There can be several reasons for the negative results. Perhaps the athletes ingested pills that did not contain sufficient quantities of DHEA or androstenedione (A). Perhaps the amounts of DHEA or A in the pills were not enough to result in a positive test. Lastly, maybe the conversion of androgens to estrogens is so rapid that the current tests can not detect the androgens (elevated urinary estrogen levels would not matter since these were not tested for). Typically athletes would take 100-200 mg of A before a workout. The rationalization was that the sudden elevation of T from the conversion of A would result in a more aggressiveness and a better workout. While we may ponder whether or not these tactics work, consider what one athlete did with access to more sophisticated means. He simply designed his own "study" using himself as the sole subject. On different days he would take increasing dosages of DHEA, A or some combination. So one day he might take 100 mg of A, another day he might take 100 mg of DHEA and 100 mg of A, then another day he would take 200 mg of A, etc. He would have his blood hormone levels measured and his urine analyzed. He found that at around 800-1000 mg of A by itself, he could get enough of an increase in T to increase his training performance. If he was ever drug tested, the conversion of A to estrone (and T to estradiol) would also serve to lower his A and T levels, thus offering a "negative" urine sample. This may have worked for him, but other athletes should not be gullible and follow the same strategy. Unless they undergo the same type of self-study, they have no way of knowing if the androgen elevations and conversions will be the same for them. In short, you can not rely on another athlete’s hormonal and urinary data and adopt it as your own.
The less sophisticated athletes simply make use of the loop hole in USA Weightlifting’s drug testing policy. An athlete has to be enrolled in their no-notice drug-testing program for at least six months prior to the local, regional, or national competition that would qualify the athlete for international competition. So you could take AAS for three years, get stronger and lift more, then enroll in the program after you come off, test negative, post a qualifying total, and then go on to international competition (providing of course you earn that right by lifting some big weights). This is not a slight against USA Weightlifting in any way, obviously there is no way you can know who to test before they tell you they wish to be considered for international competition. It merely points out that athletes can, and always will, maintain a few paces ahead of drug-testing efforts.
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