Is Chris Bumstead on Steroids? We Investigated and found out!

DOES CHRIS BUMSTEAD USE STEROIDS?

Building quality muscle is not exactly the easiest thing feat to accomplish. By quality muscle, we mean muscle without blemish, aka lean muscle. After seeing how much time and effort it takes, it is no wonder that most people are fast to put anyone with a decent physique under the ‘juicer’ category.

However, calling someone a steroid user just because you think that might be the case is not only wrong but is also ignorant. This is because, unless you have sufficient proof that someone uses steroids, calling them a cheat is not only damaging to their reputation but might also compromise your gains as well since you might stop going hard at your physique goals since you already think that a good physique is not achievable without using steroids.

Moreover, and unfortunately, we are not as equal as the PC era purports us to be. Some people just have superior genetics that allows them to be more athletic and accumulate muscle mass faster than others. These are the guys who look like they lift even though they have never stepped their foot inside a weight room. They are the same guys who get better than you at the game you play after only a few days of practice while you have been at it for months or years. That’s just life.

In the case of guys with superior genetics, there has been an influx of individuals on the ‘internet fitness’ scene calling themselves fitness models. They are the complete package, tall, good looking, and built like a brick shit house but chiseled like a Michelangelo statue. What’s more, they claim to be natty (natural). Some are so young that you wonder why you have been wasting all that time at the gym.

One of those guys is Chris Bumstead. Bumstead has one of the most stellar combinations of mass and aesthetics the bodybuilding community has ever seen, which has left a lot of people wondering whether he could have possibly achieved that kind of physique naturally.

So, is Chris Bumstead on steroids? This article will try and determine the likelihood of this bodybuilder being on anabolic exogenous hormones (steroids).

Who is Chris Bumstead?

Chris Bumstead is a 24-year-old who, in recent years, has taken over the bodybuilding world by storm and is quickly cementing himself as one of the best to ever do it. What’s more, most veterans think that he is yet to reach his full potential. One can only imagine what the future holds for this young man considering guys like Dexter Jackson are still actively competing at 50 years old!

Hailing from Canada, Chris stands at 6’1” and weighs between 225 and 250 pounds depending on whether he’s cutting or bulking. Despite all that mass, Chris has one of the tiniest waists you have ever seen in addition to having his body fat levels between 5 and 8 percent all year round.

Chris’s physique has garnered him a lot of attention and admirers since it pays homage to the Golden Era of Bodybuilding, which is when Arnold Schwarzenegger competed. That era is a stark contrast to today’s bodybuilding in which the ‘top guys’ are absolute mass monsters complete with a beer belly.

Chris’s physique, however, is absolutely beautiful, and this has allowed the young bodybuilder to amass hundreds of thousands of fans across his social media accounts.

It is no surprise, therefore, that Chris competes in the IFBB’s classic physique category, which is a division that was created to mirror the mass and aesthetics that the Golden Era bodybuilders brought to the stage.

Surprisingly, however, Chris made his bodybuilding debut in the men’s open category (the mass monster division), which he won! Nonetheless, Bumstead has found his new home and came in second during his first-ever Olympia.

So, could someone achieve such a high ranking at the Olympia stage without being on steroids?

Is Chris Bumstead on Steroids?

There is no way of truly saying whether an individual is on steroids or not without personally taking their blood sample and having it tested for enhancers. And since that might not be possible, the best we can do is determine their likelihood of having used anabolic steroids by seeing how they compare against the most common indicators of steroid use, which include:

• Massive Gains within a Short Period

As you are already painfully aware, lean muscle growth is painstakingly slow. This is why it’s always surprising, and like an insult to yourself, when a dude that was small just a few months ago suddenly shows up looking like a mini Hulk. If their new bulk doesn’t have a lot of fat in it, you can bet your last dollar that they are on the juice.

Anabolic steroids have been known to increase lean muscle mass by as much as 30 pounds or more within the first year of use. Comparatively, it shouldn’t take you any less than three years to achieve the same amount of lean mass naturally, irrespective of how good your genetics are, or how good your workout and diet plan is.

This is because the body has a cap on how much lean muscle you can accumulate within a certain period. Muscle growth is usually regulated by androgenic hormones such as testosterone and growth hormone. During puberty, the body releases these hormones in large amounts to facilitate the change from childhood into adulthood. Essentially, it is like you are on steroids when you are a teenager. This is why teens who train usually grow at such a fast rate.

However, once you reach your twenties and the body has grown into its final form, it drastically reduces the number of androgenic hormones that it produces. Consequently, muscle building becomes a much more difficult endeavor. This is why it is almost impossible to gain more than 10 pounds of lean muscle in a year naturally.

When using this parameter to determine if Chris uses or has used steroids, it is vital to consider a couple of things. First off, Chris started training when he was 14. This means that he got into training when his body was raging with growth hormone and testosterone.

Secondly, when still a teenager, a guy who was dating his sister took him under his wing and started training him. The guy, Iain Valliere, just happens to be a professional IFBB bodybuilder. Imagine a teenager training under the tutorage of one of the best bodybuilders on the planet. This means he got access to the best training and diet programs at a very young age. Steroids or not, Chris was bound to grow at a much faster rate than ordinary people. Couple that with Chris’s insane genetics, it is no wonder that the kid is the phenom he is today.

As such, it can be difficult to determine whether steroids might have played a role in his fast growth rate in light of the above revelations. Additionally, would his brother-in-law allow the kid to use steroids?

• Insane Delts and Traps

The more spectacular someone’s delts (deltoid) and traps (trapezius) muscles are, the higher their likelihood of someone being on the sauce. Now, hear us out; we are not saying that you cannot build an impressive set of shoulders naturally. All we are saying is, designing a set of 3D boulder shoulders with small hills for traps is almost impossible naturally. You have tried, and you know how slow those muscles grow.

In steroid users, however, it is almost the exact opposite. This is because the shoulder region contains the largest portion of androgen receptors in the body. Androgen receptors are nuclear factors that stimulate muscle protein synthesis when in the presence of androgenic hormones, such as testosterone.

Anabolic steroids, on the other hand, are synthetic versions of testosterone. Thus, using these androgenic substances increases the amount of testosterone coursing through your body, and the muscles that feel their effects the most are those in your shoulder region.

Chris’s shoulders are beyond spectacular. After all, they are better than virtually every bodybuilder he has competed against. The tremendous development in his shoulders makes Chris Bumstead highly suspect of using anabolic substances.

The Verdict

While there are many other indications of steroid use, most of them can easily occur to people who do not use steroids. These include flushed skin, the presence of acne, and gynecomastia. However, if most of these signs occur concurrently in a ripped individual, they are more than likely on steroids.

Fast muscle growth and tremendous shoulder development, however, are the hallmarks of steroid use. Chris not only grew at an incredible rate but also has massive shoulders as well as flushed skin and body acne. Moreover, he competes in the IFBB where it is common knowledge that anyone who competes there juices.

We cannot say that Chris definitely juices; however, we wouldn’t be surprised if he does. If he isn’t on anabolic steroids, he’s definitely on legal steroids. Legal steroids are anabolic steroids alternatives that mimic the muscle-building properties of anabolic steroids but without the side effects. Legal steroids, however, are derived from plants, thus making them safe to use, and would be an effective muscle-building solution for someone looking to take their gains to the next level.