Today I have a true story about how I almost broke down and took anabolic steroids. I think a lot of you will relate to this and it could even be something that you’re going through yourself.

Why in the world (after all my years of all-natural training) did I take anabolic steroids?

Curiosity?

Lack of patience?

Frustration?

First I’m going to dive into my story, and then I’ll share a new strategy I’m using to “force muscle growth.”

Why Did I Almost Take Steroids?

The last month was a very stressful and challenging one for me on many levels. Work demands were through the roof and I had a lot more “personal stress” than what I am accustomed too.

As a result of all of this my cortisol levels were through the roof and my workouts suffered. I imagine a lot of you guys have felt like this at various times through your life… When school gets stressful, relationship problems occur, or even increased work demands.

For the last 6-8 weeks my workouts have been awful. I’d go in the gym and give it my all but it actually felt like I was going backwards and not forward.

I don’t know about you but when I’m really stressed out and have a lot of things on my mind it’s really hard for me to get in a good workout.

They say that working out is a great stress reliever but for me playing sports like basketball and tennis is a lot more rewarding when I am super stressed.

The thing about the last few months is these are the “prime months” for lean bulking season and making epic gains in the gym. It frustrated me beyond belief to waste a few months of training without any strength or size gains in the middle of bulking season, so I did what a lot of guys who are frustrated with their results do and looked to the Internet for anabolic steroid information.

I spent a good 2-3 weeks on the forums and doing a ton of research on steroids and anabolic hormones. There is a ton of things to know about steroids and this isn’t something that you should just “jump into” as you can mess up your testosterone and estrogen levels, which will cause major side effects.

Did I mention buying steroids is illegal, dangerous and very shady? (especially from the Dark Web!)

So after 2 weeks I knew exactly what I was going to take, and then I searched the forums for a reliable “source” for getting them.

BOOM! I had everything ready to roll… I was going to purchase my Test-E cycle and I bought my estrogen blockers.

I was about to send the steroid dealer my money and then I was on my iCloud going through some old pictures of myself.

I landed on this picture from a trip to Barbados about 2 years ago when I was eating really clean, training hard, and going “all in” on my fitness with 100 percent dedication.

I looked at that picture and I really liked how I looked. I looked big, athletic, ripped, and like an athlete.

2 years have gone by and although I have a little more body fat than what I had in the picture, I’m actually way stronger on all the compound lifts and have more lean muscle mass.

I realized that with a proper diet and training plan for 2-3 months I could actually look way better than I did in that picture!

Believe it or not, simply seeing this old picture of myself is what caused me to abandon the steroids and dedicate myself back to training.

I decided that steroids, with the massive acne, potential hair loss, and emotional side effects associated with it just aren’t worth it to me.

I’ve put 10 years of all natural training in so far and I’m not about to ruin that just because I had a few months of stress that caused me to lose some gym progress.

Do you guys have a similar story? Let me know in the YouTube comments!

Now that I’ve shared my “close call” with steroids, I want to show you a natural way to jump-start your muscle gains if you’ve been struggling for a while.

How To Force Muscle Growth

This sounds gimmicky but I have a really interesting growth strategy that I want you to do in each workout for a lagging muscle group.

Say for example your chest grows really slow and you want to bring up those pecs.

You will have 3 workout strategies in each workout:

1. Heavy Eccentric Overload Training

2. High Rep Lactic Acid Training

3. Fatigued Isometric Holds

Heavy eccentric overload training means you are going very heavy sets in the 4-6 rep range and you are going down for a count of 3 seconds on each repetition.

This helps to break down more muscle fibers, as the “lowering portion” of the movement is where the magic happens with micro tears.

Try to do 3-4 heavy eccentric overload sets, especially on a compound exercise.

The second component to your workout should incorporate a shaper exercise for 20-25 repetitions per set to unleash the “lactic acid” portion of the training, which releases more growth hormone and helps you get shredded.

Try doing 3-4 sets of a chest shaper like a low cable fly, pectoral fly, or even weighted push-ups!

The third workout strategy is isometrics when you are fatigued! This means you are tensing and holding a muscle group between sets, or immediately following a workout.

Tense and hold whatever muscle you are training for a minimum of 30 seconds when fatigued and you will incorporate the third growth factor to your training.

The combination of all 3 of these elements in each workout will force muscle growth into whatever muscle group you are training!

Try it out on your next workout and I promise you will be very sore. Let me know what you think in the YouTube comments and I look forward to making gains with you in 2017!