Caracterización textural y evolución de la superficie

THE DRUG TEST

Although most of this book has been about using steroids, and most steroid users never compete as athletes, drug testing at athletic events is becoming increasingly common and should be discussed briefly for the benefit of the steroid using competitor who must pass a urine test. I have assisted a few athletes in achieving a negative on the urine test and none I have advised has ever tested positive. I don't think that I have a lot of secrets, I just play the 'beat the drug test game' very conservatively.

But there are a few tricks, and whether you ever have or want to use them or not, I think you should at least know about them, so if one day you are beaten at a drug tested event and think that someone cheated to beat you, at least you won't be ignorant of the methods used. So how does one go about beating a drug test?

Lets understand which test the athlete is trying to pass. The easiest test to pass is the one required right at the competition. The harder one is the random, off season testing that the female pro bodybuilders have to put up with. Since there are only about 20 women concerned with the new random testing, let's concentrate on the event test. I tend to slant the information towards women because it is mostly the women's bodybuilding contests which are tested, so I have more experience with women passing a test than with men.

The most conservative course of action (and my success rate is mainly because I am conservative) is to simply use only oral steroids during off season training. I just haven't had time to research steroid metabolite clearance times to comfortably work with injectables off season. In real world time, I've seen a competitor clear nandrolone out of her system in seven months, but have never heard of anyone even trying to use nandrolone type drugs for contest preparation. Statistically, the majority of bodybuilders have tested clean when they stopped their oral steroid use 21 days before the test. The most effective orals that women can safely take are methandrostenolone (aka Dianabol), between 2-4 tablets a day, along with Anavar, usually between 6-10 tablets a day. All the remaining oral steroids, other than perhaps Anadrol 50 (though most women are scared to use this steroid), are not potent enough to allow a 21 day abstinence before a drug tested event. Simply put, the potent steroids allow an athlete to took and perform better after being off them for three weeks as compared to using 'light steroids’ and stopping their use for the same amount of time.

As far as how close you can take steroids to the test date, I know of one competitor who tested clean by stopping 11 days before the event. She determined this cutoff point by testing herself in the off season using a private lab. Once you are off steroids, there are still lots of anabolic drugs you can take that are not tested for, at least not yet.

Synthroid (Flint), a synthetic T4 thyroid acts as an anabolic in its unconverted state (T4

mostly converts to the more active T3). A powerful anabolic recently studied is the beta

andrenergic agonist CLIENBUTEROL, an asthma medication, one not on the IOC banned substances list, available as SPIROPENT by Thomae in West Germany and Monores or Clenasma in Italy. Clenbuterol increases the T4 receptor sites in the muscle

cell. Animal studies have shown a 400% increase over a 12 week period of the cross section of Type II (fast twitch) muscle cells. Protein content of the muscle was up 13%, and the overall fat content of the body decreased 20% because of increased brown fat thermogenesis.

The estrogenic anabolic Zeranol, an isolate of resorcinol lactone has replaced many steroids in feed animals because it is considered a very safe anabolic. It is available commercially in Anwta as Ralgro cattle implant pellets and can be used by humans by grinding up the pellets and mixing the powder with injectable oil based vitamins. Dosage has been 3 (ground up) pellets per week. Zeranol is not on the IOC banned list.

Athletes might want to try taking 1 gram of L-Dopa before bed to elevate GH output. Also, the high blood pressure medicine Catapres in a .3mg amount (orange tabs) taken before bed can elevate GH output. Catapres should not be taken by athletes with low blood pressure. Catapres works better than L-Dopa, which seems not to work at all for most athletes. It is not a banned substance.

The new-to-America Co-enzyme B12 (aka Dibencozide) is used throughout the world as

a non-steroidal anabolic. It definitely gives a mood elevation to most people who use it, so may be very valuable to use while dieting and before a workout.

As far as steroids that can be taken right up to a few days before contest time, there are definitely two which can be used, as these were the predominate ones used by the track athletes that DIDN'T get tested positive at the Olympics. They are both synthetic Dihydrotestosterones (DHT). DHT derivatives are attractive for a number of reasons. DHT converts to regular testosterone metabolites, which are not tested. It clears out of the body quite rapidly. It does not upset the testosterone/epiandosterone ratio which cannot max over 6 to 1. Regular short acting testosterones upset this balance. The two popular DHT derivatives used at the Seoul games were PESOMAX by Boniscontro (Spain), which is a fast acting steroid in the Androstanolone family (as are all DHT derivatives), and the more esoteric Furazabol marketed as MIOTOLON by Daiichi Labs in Tokyo, Japan. These compounds can be used up to 3 days before the event.

Most competitors know that the blocking agent PROBENECID has been banned by the IFBB and NPC. However, the language of the IOC banned substances list reads 'PROBENECID and related compounds'. If the phrase 'related compounds' is not written into the rules of the testing procedure for your sports organization, here are some related compounds which block steroids from being excreted in the urine: the generic Benzbromarone, trade named AZUBROMARON by Azupharma in West Germany and

also available throughout Europe under the names of DESURIC, MINURIC, URICOVAC, and URINORM, Dosage is 80-160mg. In America, Ciba's ANTURANE brand of suffiripyrazone also has the same actions as PROBENECID. As far as unrelated blocking agents, the clandestinely produced CARINAMIDE is the agent routinely used to block the urinary excretion of steroids.

If we are just concerned with drug testing only the women, well, they potentially have the advantage of using any drug they want. Some women competitors in the Olympics, mostly those from the Eastern bloc countries passed the urine test this way: They use a specially made squeeze bulb/catheter device that is inserted into the vagina before testing. The rubber bulb contains clean, drug free urine. The catheter tube is short enough to be hidden from prying eyes (as yet, there are no prying fingers in the testing rooms). These women have practiced relaxing and flexing their vaginal muscles beforehand so that when called upon to urinate, a squeeze of the hidden bulb results in a clean urine sample.

So, as you may begin to realize, the drug tests, even at the IOC level, could be viewed as designed for ignorant, unsupervised athletes to fail them. Most of the top Olympic athletes had access to at least half the tricks I just outlined. Since most of the competitors at the now drug tested bodybuilding contests will cheat in some way, I thought everyone should be privvy to the list of the popular tricks.