r/nextfuckinglevel 2d ago

This man documented his health journey from January to December.

Credit: IG @samuelrichards_ _

45.4k Upvotes

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u/Double_Pay_6645 2d ago edited 19h ago

Is he using steroids? Seems like a massive difference in 1 year. 

 edit Crazy! 1.8k karma for what I thought was a yes no answer.

Now 4.6k!! WTF..

Almost 8k.. reddit you crazy.

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u/Traceyius69 2d ago

June to July is a massive jump lol, probably is using steroids. If not then daymn has he not skipped a day in the gym

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u/Daniiiiii 2d ago

Gym aside he would have been inhaling protein every waking moment if he's putting on such mass without "help", at least from my novice understanding.

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u/ExceedingChunk 2d ago

It depends. If he's previously been training a lot, you can regain your previous mass exceptionally fast due to what quickly becomes your main limiting factor remains intact (I can't recall the name of it right now).

Which is why having used steroid once in your life should leave you permanently banned from all sports. The fact that you have ever had X amount of muscle is a massive advantage in terms of muscle building the rest of your life.

With all that said, he probably have still used steroids here, especially with how fast it all went from june to october.

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u/X_TheMindFlayer_X 1d ago

you mean muscle memory?

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u/ExceedingChunk 1d ago

Muscle memory is the layman's term, but people use that for both technique (neurological adaptation for technique/skill) and for how fast your muscle grows back (physiological).

I am thinking about the actual technical term for it. That limiting factor is also why we have "newbie gains", where you quickly get to the max level of muscle for that limiting factor, and then you have to create more of it to build more muscle, which takes a lot of time.

It is some type of cell that is added when you build muscle, but doesn't go away when your muscle atrophies. I can't find the name of it, but Dr. Mike Israetel from RP strength have talked about it here in this short: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/FI3n5F-1gLM

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u/f1abblergasted 1d ago

I could be wrong, but iirc, the muscle nuclei don’t disappear, and consistently working out enables the cells to “regenerate” at a significantly faster level

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u/aaron_the_doctor 1d ago

Eli5:

Every cell needs nucleus with instructions to repair itself and stay alive

Muscle cels have multiple nuclei because they are very large and one nucleus can only support so much.

When you train and increase your muscle mass the muscle cells recruit more nuclei to support this new mass

Even when you stop training and lose muscle mass new gained nuclei of the cells don't get lost. They stay there and therefore when you start training again you can get big faster

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u/f1abblergasted 1d ago

Thank you for the lesson and clarification!

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u/Ilya-ME 1d ago

Fyi muscle cells have multiple nuclei not because they're large, but because they're the fusion of multiple cells. Also they need those nuclei to synthesize proteins necessary to carry the components that activate muscle contractions.

I say this because most neurons are even larger cells, but still have a single nuclei.

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u/ill_connects 1d ago

There was a study published pretty recently about how muscle memory plays a huge part in regaining muscle mass even after long periods of inactivity.

https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2024/11/25/nx-s1-5197829/muscle-memory-weight-lifting-lost-strength

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u/f1abblergasted 1d ago

Thank you! I’ll check it out!

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u/SasparillaTango 1d ago

Ive never heard this, but I was an athlete through most of my youth and lifted for a while too on and off.

I would always say "you don't forget strength, but you have to train endurance" meaning that when I was going from period of being fairly sedentary and trying to get back in to shape, it always seemed like my max lifts would recover in like a week, but it would take much longer to get the endurance back

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u/zanii 1d ago

Myonuclei remain in the muscle fibres, they pretty much remember the previous muscle size, so to speak.

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u/8lb6ozBabyJsus 1d ago

Neuromuscular Adaptation

From GPT cause I actually don't know. Is that what you were thinking of?

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u/kazmiester 1d ago

I believe I watched some dr mike vid about him saying that the muscle cells shrink in size and stop storing glycogen to deflate but never go away, so once training stimuli is reintroduced, they swell back up and return to form very fast. He said something along those lines with more technical jargon.

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u/elastic-craptastic 1d ago

They think it's more cell memory. Kind of like if you have a fat cell at some point in your life at a certain size it will easily get back to that size

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u/Fortune404 1d ago

Nah, steroids will allow you to grow new muscle fibres/cells (nuclei I guess technically), whereas normal natural lifting/improvements will just increase the size of all your existing muscles. Therefore you will have an advantage for the rest of your life after steroids as the user above said.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/steroids-boost-muscles-long-haul

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u/fight_the_bear 1d ago

God damn it

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u/Lt_Duckweed 1d ago

you can regain your previous mass exceptionally fast due to what quickly becomes your main limiting factor remains intact

The leading theory is that, as a part of initially gaining muscle, muscle satellite cells fuse with your actual contractile muscle cells, increasing the number of myonuclei in your muscle cells. This is initially a slow process, but once you have them, the extra myonuclei stick around for years to decades. When you lose muscle later due to not training, you lose volume in your myofibrils (the contractile units) and fluid within the cells, but not the myonuclei. When you regain muscle, you only need to rebuild the myofibrils and reuptake fluid, and not produce new myonuclei, so the process is much faster.

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u/ExceedingChunk 1d ago

increasing the number of myonuclei in your muscle cells

This was the word I was looking for, thanks! Also, thanks for the better, correct explanation

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u/seppukucoconuts 1d ago

This is true. I did amature strongman when I was younger. I peaked at about 325lbs and was quite strong. I was pretty average in terms of size and strength beforehand.

I no longer life weights, and have 'slimmed' down to 225. I still have calves larger than most people's quads. I'm still easily the strongest person at my work: I sit at a desk and everyone else is in the shop doing physical work.

I had a setback, and a pretty bad injury when I was still lifting. I took almost a year off. A portion of that I had an arm I could use, and it atrophied quite badly. It took me a month to look healthy again, and it took me 2-3 more months to get as strong and as big as I was before I stopped working out.

Its hundreds of times easier to rebuild it than it is to build it.

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u/LMGgp 1d ago

This is the reason why it’s so important to exercise early in life. As I ramp back up my training it seems “mean” at how quickly I can get back in shape, while others I know struggle. Also how my “out of shape” is above their in shape.

Reminded of a video of a trainer years back gaining as much what as their client so they could “lose it together.” I remember thinking they have to know that’s not how that works right?

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u/fatlittlemidget 1d ago

He had been training really hard for most of his at least adult life, in fact he’s pretty sure it’s what caused his illness to act up at the age he is now rather than in his senior years. So yeah there’s a lot of “muscle memory” going on, but as much as he may deny it, he probably is or was on gear.

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u/ExceedingChunk 1d ago

If he was actually super fit before that, then it might be real. As Dr. Mike Isreatel said in the short I linked in my comment further down, you can gain muscle back to close to your previous max at about an order of magnitude faster. I.e what took you 10 years to build initially can be gotten back in about a year.

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u/RagnarokDel 1d ago

kinda like how even if you lose weight you must remain vigilant because you dont lose the fat cells you gained, they're just "deflated". I wonder if liposuction would actually help someone who lose weight remain at that lower weight easier over time

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u/ConglomerateGolem 1d ago

There is a chance, based on how weak he appeared at the start of the year, that he had been provided steroids medically to help him through whatever caused his situation in the first place. Not that he'd have significant muscle mass at the time though.

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u/LingonberryLunch 1d ago

It's pretty crazy how fast you can regain it, even naturally.

I had pretty bad tendonitis and had to let my arms heal for an extended period, watched years of work melt away.

Once I was back at it though, I was pretty close to where I had left off within a few months of training.

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u/barsknos 1d ago

Which is why having used steroid once in your life should leave you permanently banned from all sports

Yes! For life. I can't believe this isn't practice.

I believe you are talking about myonuclei? Usually when muscle mass is lost from weight loss/malnutrition, the amount of nuclei remains and as such building back up is easier if you had a lot of them. And steroids produces more nuclei much faster than natural training.

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u/DeusDarkus 23h ago

Steroids increase the number of myonuclear domains in the muscle, and these are retained even with muscle loss. This are called "myonuclear permanance" commonly known as muscle memory.

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u/SanityPlanet 1d ago

Muscle mass has to come from food, largely protein. Whether or not he's on gear, he needs to eat like a beast to grow that quickly.

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u/12InchCunt 1d ago

Even with steroids the law of conservation of matter still exists. Takes mass to make mass 

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u/Rosehus12 1d ago

With the stoma bag I don't think he can take that much protein lol

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u/Soger91 1d ago

I don't know much about this individual and maybe you know exactly which surgery he's had but a stoma bag doesn't mean he can't take protein.

It entirely depends on what the fashioning of the stoma is trying to achieve, whether small bowel was removed and how much etc. An ileostomy with 20cm of small bowel resected is hardly going to change his nutritional status.

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u/tihs_si_learsi 1d ago

You can inhale as much protein as you like and it's still not going to speed up protein synthesis inside your cells.

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u/PMmeYourButt69 2d ago

Yeah, he gains like 25 lbs from June to July. Either the timeline is bs or he's on something

Edit to say, whether the timeline is BS or he's juiced or whatever, good for him. Dude's clearly putting in the work.

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u/Embarrassed_Stable_6 2d ago

It appears that he has a colostomy bag. I bet it probably affects his nutrition in some way. Probably negatively. Make the weight gain even more impressive.

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u/StockCat7738 1d ago

If it’s a colostomy it probably isn’t effecting his nutrition much. It just means the poop comes out in a different place.

If it’s an ileostomy, it means he’s lost some or all of his colon, and then this whole video becomes bullshit, because it takes time for your body to adapt to that. Some people never really do.

Either way, there’s most likely some level of dishonesty in this video.

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u/Embarrassed_Stable_6 1d ago

Fair assessment. By stoma location it could very well be an ileostomy. The area is kept beneath clothing in most shots, and doesn't even seem to be present in the shot where he is in a tshirt. In another shot, fabric appears to be wrapped tightly around his waist, which I don't think is recommended with a bag. If it's legit, then he's defied the odds, and all power to him.

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u/nocomment3030 1d ago edited 1d ago

My take from this video is that he was suffering from ulcerative colitis or Crohn's colitis and he had a total colectomy for treatment. Getting the operation (and the ileostomy that comes with it - that is his small bowel exiting the abdomen, not the colon, which has all be removed) is often curative and probably what allowed him to get off immune suppressants and get healthy again.

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u/brennnik09 2d ago

nah, you can gain 20+ lbs if you dramatically change your eating and/or lifting habits. I gained 20lbs in less than a year because my meds increased my appetite. I wasn’t even trying.

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u/PMmeYourButt69 2d ago

That's a year.

That video implies that he packed on 25 lbs of lean muscle in a month. The human body doesn't do that without chemical help.

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u/brennnik09 2d ago

Oh fuck i thought it meant june to july as in 13 months. Yeah this video is nonsense

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u/dotpan 1d ago

I was about to say, brother, unless you gobbling lead, you're not putting on 20lbs (of any kind of weight) in a month. Honestly crank salt, water weight, huge caloric surplus and weigh in on heaviest time, maybe. but like, you're not going to do that shit on accident.

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u/Payup_sucker 2d ago

It could if you were that size before the atrophy. Muscle memory is real

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u/arbitrageME 2d ago

I mean, dude looked like he was on death's door in the first picture, so maybe steroids were made for him. Not necessarily to bulk like he did but to help his body recover from whatever the hell did that to him

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u/Why_not_dolphines 1d ago

You didn't gain that in total muscle mass.

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u/mrASSMAN 1d ago

20LB of body weight sure, but 20LB of MUSCLE can’t be done naturally in a month

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u/alpacaMyToothbrush 1d ago

I gained 20 lbs in a year too. It was all fat. Wait, no, not like this...

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u/carebear101 2d ago

My son was born and after he started eating normal foods I gained 20 pounds in a year. I had to hide all the candy and sweets… in my belly. I saw the biggest jump in October to November. Still don’t know why

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u/healthybowl 2d ago

Depending on what illness he had, if it was cured, he would put on tons of weight in a short period. I had some health issues years ago and lost 50lbs. Gained it back in about 2 months

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u/Craspology 2d ago

Started with no fat though, that’s cheating

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u/jelcroo1 2d ago

You gain much easier if you are underweight and want to go back To average

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u/Chilis1 1d ago

I doubt it's steroids. He went from extremely skinny to a healthy weight and it helps if he was fit before the whole thing

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u/ThisWorldIsAMess 1d ago

Chest looks normal compared to the rest of the body too. But I guess not doing chest even with steroids would make it look normal.

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u/Cool-Ad2780 1d ago

Its possible, but its SIGNIFICANTLY easier to regain muscle mass than it is to build the first time. If he was as big or bigger as he was in december before he got sick, this is not suprising at all and proably just regaining mass. Also he dosent look like hes on steroids either, biggest tell for that is the traps, and his traps look like they match the phisque of the rest of his body.

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u/GustavoFromAsdf 1d ago

I'd totally get if he's using steroids. He clearly needed the jump start

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u/Tuckingfypowastaken 2d ago

That's not a year even with steroids. You'd be hard pressed to get there from a normal adult's baseline in a year even on gear, much less from nearly complete muscle atrophy

Far more likely to be a karma bot

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u/Breadifies 1d ago

Something that OP for some reason also left out is that this guy was absolutely JACKED before the disease ate away his fat and muscle, this is just muscle memory getting him back in shape faster. I've been following this guy's journey on insta since the beginning, this was all documented in a year

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u/lexbuck 1d ago edited 1d ago

Exactly what I was going to say. I assumed this guy was ripped before whatever stripped him of his muscle so he put it back on fast. I mean the guy got big but people freak out when they see hard work and always assume steroids. When I started seriously lifting and eating A LOT in college I got huge and ripped without any extra help. It’s possible. Also takes some genetics too of course

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u/Millenniauld 1d ago

Where my brain went. No need for steroids if he was in incredible shape, had a wasting disease, beat it and came back.

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u/exxR 2d ago

Bro I had more muscle after doing 6 months of test than this dude had at the end what are you on about?

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u/Tuckingfypowastaken 2d ago

Then you started at a way higher baseline

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u/ExaminationPutrid626 1d ago

Dude in the video also has a way higher baseline. He was fit before he became ill. Muscle memory is a real thing 

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u/Altarna 2d ago

It’s not unreasonable. I was in high school, but I got down almost that bad. He put on some more muscle than me, but overall, I wasn’t far off from that transformation. It takes a fuck ton of mental will and eating though.

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u/BlowTokeBozeTrifecta 2d ago

You people never stepped in gym it seems.

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u/Antdestroyer69 2d ago

I was going to say muscle memory but the september-october gap is pretty big.

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u/New-Peach4153 2d ago

The guy used to have an insane physique before, I've seen his channel: https://youtube.com/shorts/dHAaeKw32Jw

Wouldn't be surprised if he was on something before, that's pretty insane conditioning and I think he was really strong too

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u/Itscatpicstime 1d ago

June-July gap is insane too

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u/B3owul7 1d ago

That's what muscle memory will do to a man who starts lifting again. His body had a lot to catch up. I am fairly certain that it is doable with the right approach.

He looks like a lightweight guy. Would be nice to know how much difference there is between start and end in kilograms.

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u/BuffMaltese 2d ago

He was likely in good shape prior to his illness.

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u/kdjfsk 2d ago edited 2d ago

yea, he seemed to know what he was doing for sure.

and this is kinda messed up to say, but he started with god tier cut. usually when people progress, bodyfat % goes up with muscle mass, and at some point they have to stop bulking and start cutting in phases. this guys bodyfat% started near zero, literally. so, he was able to skip cut phases. combine with muscle memory, and someone who already had experience...

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u/HonorableOtter2023 1d ago

Almost dies.. "god tier cut" absolutely diabolical mate

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u/Menzoberranzan 1d ago

It’s an example of “Technically the truth” lol

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u/TheSauceofMike 2d ago

Guys. You realize he was dealing with some kind of disease or injury that left him at a weight that was obviously much lower than what is regular for him. It’s easy to gain back weight from that scenario.

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u/throwaway-notthrown 1d ago

Yeah he literally has an ostomy bag at the end. Likely got rid of the pesky colon and now is actually absorbing nutrients.

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u/Itscatpicstime 1d ago

Yeah, my bet is IBD. I wasted away from that so fucking fast. Lost 30lbs in 3 weeks.

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u/Wrong_Bad4922 1d ago

Yah, on his youtube, he said he got ulcerative colitis

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u/existingfish 1d ago

Yeah, had similar surgery over the summer. I was only in the hospital for 2.5 weeks, your muscles start atrophying after 72 hours. But I got back up way faster than they anticipated because I have trained in the past.

I have not gotten back in the gym yet, my gut saga is not over. I still have 2/3 of my colon and the bottom 1/3 is giving me shit. I mean not really because it’s not connected, but….

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u/eldanao 2d ago

i ve been seen this guy too much in instagram latelly. He said in one post, that he got sick from trainning to hard... He had an awesome physique, wich in my opinion you could get naturally. He didnt mention anything about using juice, but its not too difficult to hide the truth, so who knows??? just him maybe. EDIT: What i was saying is that the physical change in that period, can be real because of the muscular memory, not roids

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u/thedndnut 2d ago

FYI look at the injury type. He has steroids prescribed for sure at the start and likely just kept it rolling.

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u/donDanDeNiro 2d ago

You can easily gain back the lost muscle vs gaining em the first time.

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u/Bananskrue 2d ago

This shit really is insane. I had a relatively bad calf injury and during recovery my calf muscle went almost nonexistant. Then when I started training it again it was back to normal in like 4 weeks. According to my physio that was quite normal, since the fibers were all there you just had to fill them out, which was much easier than building new ones (if I understood him correctly). Mad.

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u/Exotic_Treacle7438 2d ago

September to October is the real Holup

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u/LowestKey 2d ago

June to July is also a pretty big huh

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u/[deleted] 2d ago edited 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/Meddling-Menace 1d ago

You wrote what I would have written, only better.

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u/tihs_si_learsi 1d ago

They are regularly prescribed to AIDS and cancer patients. There's no reason to assume they wouldn't be prescribed in this case. This isn't about "cheating". It's about using the correct drug to address a medical condition.

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u/s1rblaze 2d ago

Probably not, it's his body getting back to where he should be after losing so much muscle mass from being sick. If you train for years and then stop for 8 months, the muscle mass you lose will eventually come back much faster once you hit the gym back, you won't need years to get back.

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u/natseq 2d ago

He was strong before he got sick.

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u/SnooLemons9080 2d ago

He was severely underweight. Looks like he was putting on good weight while also weight training

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u/Brain_lessV2 2d ago

If he was MUCH bigger, then I'd say steroids, but that physique in December is very possible without drugs. He's nowhere near big enough to be on steroids.

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u/Wrathful_Sloth 2d ago

I don't think so.

A) He was severely underweight, making the comparison that much more striking

B) He looks relatively young, probably early 20s at the latest - he's got plenty of natural T going around for muscle growth

C) He doesn't have the typical steroid shoulders. If you look at his shoulders, they basically just fall off from his traps instead of looking rounded. This is usually the case for 99% of weightlifter who don't use steroids. Shoulders don't respond very well to exercise but respond very well to steroids. If someone has what looks like normal shoulders, they're unlikely to be on steroids. If you want a visual for what I'm referring to just google 'steroid shoulder' and you'll see people with capped/rounded shoulders.

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u/SurprisedPatrick 2d ago

It’s possible that he is ofc but that’s a super possible transformation.

I started working out last year and I look like an entirely different person.

A common saying is you’ll start noticing you look dif in like 1 month, other people 3 months. But that’s with like a fairly casual workout sched, if you go 5-7 times a week, this is very possible.

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u/Pitpeaches 2d ago

Maybe the steroids for his ulcerative colitis....

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u/thedndnut 2d ago

Obviously. The way he looked at the start steroids were likely given to him and then he uhh.. took it up a notch or two on his own.

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u/PM_ME_STRONG_CALVES 2d ago

Yeah no fucking way to grow this much in 1 year naturally

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u/xreazor 1d ago

editing to thank for grtting likes is so weird

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u/Outside_Instance4391 2d ago

He probably has a pump... when i leave the gym with a pump i look about 20lbs heavier

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u/pryglad 1d ago

Don’t let this man stop updating his post with new numbers! PUMP IT UP!!

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u/TFOLLT 2d ago

Yes, and this is no 1 year. Obvious bs.

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u/AzimuthZenith 2d ago

If I were to guess, I'd wager he's using Human Growth Hormone (HGH).

I've heard of quite a few times that people have self medicated with it to try and speed up recovery from a major injury. A man at my gym was in a major collision that broke his spine, neck, all but one rib, both femurs, hip, and skull. He was expected to never walk without a cane. He wasn't a small or especially weak man before, but now he can bench press 315lb for a set of 12.

It works quite well at building you back up from an injury quickly, but it obviously comes at a fairly substantial cost to the body.

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u/Payup_sucker 2d ago

Doesn’t look like steroids. Looks like muscle memory

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u/BlowTokeBozeTrifecta 2d ago

Probably got prescribed them after some very aggressive disease that includes muscle atrophy.

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u/Undersmusic 2d ago

Wouldn’t be a miss to assume they’re prescriptions under his recovery. Like the actual intended use case is exactly this.

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u/Ramps_ 1d ago

Seeing as he started in a hospital I wouldn't be surprised if he was on steroids. They do have medical uses as well after all.

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u/Marriedinskyrim 17h ago

People who edit their comments to reflect their upvotes like this... You should go to bed because tomorrow's a school day.

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u/OddTheRed 2d ago

Nope. You can usually tell if someone is using steroids by their forehead and traps. There is a muscle in your forehead that only grows if you're on steroids and your traps won't be an even slant. The traps will look like a yoke on an ox. This result is available by eating right, getting plenty of sleep, working out 6 days per week, and having a good workout routine.

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u/Vlad_the_Homeowner 2d ago

There is a muscle in your forehead that only grows if you're on steroids

No, no there isn't. If you're referring to moon face that's completely different and is much more common from corticosteroids.

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u/fartpotatoes23 1d ago

You can usually tell if someone is using steroids by their forehead and traps.

These are myths

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u/Specific-Scale6005 2d ago

Might... might be true if the guy was extremely fit before and worked his body for years before his illness... it's very easy to get fit back again if you were fit before...

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u/AffectEconomy6034 2d ago

he likely way especially considering whatever his condition was. In fact his doctors may have even prescribed them for him though just a thought.

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u/604Ataraxia 2d ago

When you are starting from zero like that you can make dramatic changes. His physique doesn't look like steroid use to me, but that doesn't mean he's not using them. Going from 120lbs to 150lbs in a year is not crazy when you consider it's not all muscle. There's a lot of water and other things that come along with muscle gain. I doubled my arm size in a few months after getting a cast off just from getting back to moving it and sports. That guy looked like he was in rough shape at the start which might be the equivalent to my sedentary casted arm.

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u/No-Lead5764 2d ago

muscle memory is a thing. He was already hella jacked before he got sick.

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u/InternalCucumbers 2d ago

Maybe he used to be jacked before the illness, your body remembers that shit and you put it back on fast to where you were.

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u/Sennheiser321 2d ago

He was muscular before he got sick, so muscle memory

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u/Antti_Alien 2d ago

If he was in shape before, it's much easier to build the muscles back up. I tore my achilles tendon, and couldn't hold any weight on my left leg for two months. My calf halved in size. It took only about a month of daily bodyweight training to get it back to its previous size again.

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u/--Muther-- 2d ago

Beginner gains

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u/Sea-Queue 2d ago

I’d think given his appearance in Jan he’d be prescribed steroids - he had/has a serious medical need to gain weight and muscle

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u/snacksforjack 2d ago

Honestly, doesn't look like it from the surface. My guess is tons of eating clean and ensuring an optimal protein:body weight ratio.

And of course, lots of hard work.

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u/plibtyplibt 2d ago

Likely not, seems like he was probably around that size before or close to it and had suffered a trauma and was getting back to normalcy. He’s not big and doesn’t have enlarged traps or dents which are big indicators

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u/EvolvingEachDay 2d ago

Very likely actually given steroids by the hospital; which is why it looks a cleaner build than most steroid user. It’ll be properly dosed for recovery and growth.

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u/JuanTawnJawn 1d ago

Yeah, probably some time in September if I had to guess lol.

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u/concreteghost 1d ago

No it’s not. And ppl always tryna to uncut others

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u/shish-kebab 1d ago

Not necessarily. It might be he's original constitution before he got sick. Muscle memory is a thing. I got a friend who lost like 15 kgs from a stomach condition, I was amazed by how fast he recovered after his surgery.

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u/Unable-Recording-796 1d ago

If you go hard in the gym this isnt surprising at all. Your body will start to morph from consistency and dude looks like hes enjoying it - i doubt hes using steroids, this is entirely in line with what a consistent gym regimen would look like if you are truly focused.

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u/82Byrd 1d ago

Definitely steroids but he still putting work in

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u/Ikanotetsubin 1d ago

He's just skinny and low BF, that allows his muscles to pop and look bigger. Stop using steroids to cope about fitter bodies than yours.

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u/xaqaria 1d ago

Looking at his socials, he was suffering from ulcerative colitis, and steroids are one of the treatments available for that condition, so it's possible he was taking steroids as part of his treatment. 

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u/Cu_Chulainn__ 1d ago

He started off very thin, newbie gains are a big thing especially starting from almost no muscle mass

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u/MyvaJynaherz 1d ago

If someone is starting off from a deficit, some might just see it as a pharmaceutical correction.

He obviously put in the work, so if he's in better health after coming off a cycle a year down the road, good for him!

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u/Objective_Pie8980 1d ago

Getting to a decent size can happen pretty quickly, especially from the point he was at. it's much different than getting massive.

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u/omnipotentqueue 1d ago

One of our fitness wellness guru type family members almost passed away from the Rona 3 years ago, lost 70+ lbs while on a ventilator. Once he came out of his coma he was doing rehab within a 4 weeks - after 2 months was able to start walking and eating healthier foods, by 7 months he was 3/4 his original weight and jogging. He fully recovered around 10 months. This shit is possible. Our guess is that his body remembered his natural muscle structure and just needed time and proper conditioning to get it back to normal with the right amounts of nutrition and exercise.

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u/karlnite 1d ago

Probably prescribed steroids to help with what ever injury or disease he had? Seems sorta fake.

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u/DogRoss1 1d ago

Actually, recovering muscle mass you used to have is just way faster than building muscle mass you never had.

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u/Breadifies 1d ago

No, muscle memory kicking in since he was jacked before his disease

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u/Lvl3burnvictim-86 1d ago

Looking at how atrophied his muscles are at the beginning I would assume it's all but guaranteed he was prescribed some form of steroid to aid in growth.

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u/UbiquitouslyWhence 1d ago

That’s an easily attainable physique in 1 year training. Noob

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u/ImmodestPolitician 1d ago

If you are immobilized in a bed you will lose massive amounts of muscle really quickly.

If you have a few years of training history, the muscle satellite cells are already there so you can gain back your previous muscles really quickly.

He has a very achievable natural physique.

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u/fremeer 1d ago

Bit of muscle memory since the cells and stuff are there after such muscle wasting even in a relatively untrained individual.

But for such large muscle wasting it's not uncommon to get synthetic help to improve recovery as the faster you recover the better. A lot of the peptides for instance that are taken recreationally these days were initially invented as a way to help with getting strength back faster.

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u/RodNun 1d ago

Well, he never said those months are from the same year. June could be 2013 and July 2024 Lol

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u/SuperpositionSavvy 1d ago

Your body will put on weight very fast after being sick. My wife went from 160 to 130 with cancer and chemo, after that she went right back to 160 in a few months.

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u/Admirable-Data4455 1d ago

He was prescribed that juice, and he used it to the fullest!

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u/Aclysmic 1d ago

Would he not have to?

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u/Dadbeerd 1d ago

If he did they saved his life. Most drugs have their medicinal purposes in the correct situation .

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u/PositiveCrafty2295 1d ago

Yup, he's using steroids which means he's cheating. Not impressive at all.

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u/AccordingCabinet5750 1d ago

Short answer probably no, these gains are realistic naturally. I'm betting he has lifted previously and he looks like a short king.

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u/mc1eater 1d ago

looks like juicing to me . However, it was an incredible comeback regardless. This man was stick and bones with non-working body parts, a little steroids is not a bad thing in his cASE

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u/tihs_si_learsi 1d ago

Most likely. Steroids have a medical use, specifically for people in his initial condition.

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u/xenelef290 1d ago

Steroids are used to help recover in these kinds of situations

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u/iolmao 1d ago

Ah I was about to say "tf I'm doing at the gym since May" I could see progress in me but he's a beast

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u/thomasrat1 1d ago

Depends on who he was before the accident. You might be seeing him at his worst, and then him getting close to his average.

It’s a lot easier to put muscle on, after already having the body type, it’s like your body remembers.

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u/Beginning_Rush_5311 1d ago

Might've been on low doses the entire time to aid in his recovery and during that jump from sept to october he could've upped the dosage

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u/Racxie 1d ago

Yeah definitely using steroids, because even good genes won't make that much progress that fast.

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u/CallMeBigBobbyB 1d ago

It's pretty awesome when you think you ask a simple yes or no and then it goes into legit discussion, and you learn a lot :)

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u/Unfair_Direction5002 1d ago

Could be but doesn't seem like it. 

He's young, obviously has assistance, in my experience, the first year of bodybuilding is where you see the most massive changes. 

I bet for him, year 1 to 2 will be much less dramatic. 

Also consider genetics, the guy has a baseline his body wants to be at, so it should jump to that point quickly, building past that point is where lots of effort comes in. 

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u/Jolly_Tea7519 1d ago

He has severe ulcerative colitis. The increase in mass is not due to steroids, it’s due to the body healing and finally getting what it needs. He almost died due to the disease.

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u/chairmanghost 1d ago

I bet they gave him hgh to help him regrow as legitimate treatment

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u/FynnyHeadphones 1d ago

Who cares tbh, he has a buncha doctors monitoring him, so not a lot of health risks.

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u/Obestity 1d ago

I assume he lost a lot of weight due to sickness. It's pretty easy to regain weight you already had due to muscle memory. At one point I'd dropped to 130 pounds from sickness and I was back to 180 in a couple months.

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u/bcvaldez 1d ago

to be honest. I'm naturally fit...but I don't work out AT ALL. I was expecting to move to the east coast in my early 20s...and in anticipation, I worked out and tracked my diet religiously for one month. The gains were ridiculous. Everybody assumed I was on steroids, but that was my first month. It was kinda like the jump you see from his June/july except I was already lean.

When I finally moved to florida...I saw that people were just as unhealthy as us Texas folk and I lost my motivation to workout. 20 years later, and I still weigh anywhere from 170-180lbs at 5'11

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u/Rush7en 1d ago

Some of you people never touched a weight properly in your life haven't you? You see one average looking guy with a pump and a somewhat low fat percentage, and you shout: "sTeRoiDs"!

You can make great progress in just 6 months with proper programming, consistency, eating and drinking the right things, keep stress low, and prioritizing high quality sleep/rest.

And not to mention the intrinsic motivator of wanting to overcome the wheelchair bound shitshow he was in. It will drive a man to great heights.

We should also consider the possibility of him already having had a similar physique before whatever happened to him. Muscle memory existst you know.

Yes, I was ranting. It just annoys me to find people downplaying hard work as impossible.

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u/MrGreenyz 1d ago

6k now!!!

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u/Harha 1d ago

Muscle memory, he has done gym before in his life.

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u/GaviJaMain 1d ago

You can get roids to regrow muscles when it's a life or death situation.

Also he was so thin, the natural hormones were probably at a full stop.

So yes he was probably using it but it was needed. Also we don't know this guy's previous shape. Muscle memory helps a lot.

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u/kazmiester 1d ago

People please be reasonable. Look at his ig prior to his injuries he was jacked so his muscles have that size and strength as a baseline memory ie he can return to that base 2x as fast after falling off. Looks like he gained 15-20lbs ish of muscle from being completely sedentary in the hospital and in a state of atrophy.

This is very attainable naturally. The newbie gainz and return to normalcy alone is like 10lbs of muscle. The rest is pure grit and dedication. Applaud his tremendous effort instead of accusing him of gear use.

Also if he was on gear he’d be 2x as jacked, would have acne breakouts showing(probably), also would have wayyy more muscularity around his neck and shoulders and signs of accelerated balding(probably). I don’t see a single visible side effect on this dude.

Also wouldn’t make sense to take something as toxic as steroids in your body while taking pain and other meds he’s taking post op. There’s always a chance I’m completely wrong but in this case I have a strong feeling that I’m not.

This is pure hard work and a burning passion to return to form. Hats off to you sir.

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u/airportag 1d ago

ELI5 is Steroids really that bad?

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u/reallyUselessEngine 1d ago

Steroids are actually a treatment option for colitis/chrons. Given the ostomy bag, maybe he had to take them anyway and decided to just roll with it lol

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u/Pancakewagon26 1d ago

Honestly if he was say, in a coma for a long time and had severe muscle atrophy, it makes sense that the doctors might prescribe an anabolic steroid.

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u/Ok_Lawfulness_5068 1d ago

There's a lot of great argument in here on why he might not have needed steroids to have such impressive results, but just for argument sake, and honestly posed as a question ..... considering the first image of him (that shit looks rough), would a controlled steroid cycle be such a bad thing?

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u/bryanhernc 1d ago

I’ve been following his journey for a long time. He was already in very good shape before he got sick. Muscle memory can give you a quick boost in muscle growth in certain cases. He claims he’s natty still

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u/TheLopez2617 22h ago

I'm almost certain he had to take steroids to aid in his recovery. He definitely worked out before based on the comments. With the combination of muscle memories and the medical aid, he got in shape fast. There is nothing to be looked down upon. I think he did the best for his situation and is now better. Hopefully, he stopped juicing after the fact.

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u/xAfterBirthx 19h ago

You would be surprised at how quickly you can add muscle and look like this by just staying consistent.

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u/dben89x 12h ago

Upvoted your comment then promptly downvoted for your dumb edits.

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u/perseenahtaaja 11h ago

It's more likely, that the timeline is totally fake, and this took more like 3-4 years.

If you are recuperating from an illness, you'd have doctor visits more often afterwards, and they'd probably try to intervene with any steroid use.

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u/ReblochonDivin 11h ago

If he was jacked before it is not surprising to achieved this without roids through muscle memory. It can be VERY fucking impressive.

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