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Other/Mixed The Liver King Steroid 'Controversy'

Other strength modalities (e.g., Clubs), mixed strength modalities (e.g., combined kettlebell and barbell), other goals (flexibility)
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watchnerd

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So it turns out that The Liver King isn't natty after all.

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There are so many stories trending in social media and on YouTube in the fitness space that I can't keep track of how many influencers are "shocked" and expressing moral outrage.

In what can only be described as “The Worst Day in American History”, The Liver King has been busted for using steroids after SHOCKING emails were leaked, exposing him for taking crazy amounts of PEDs.

Let’s all just take a minute and breathe. I know this a hard time for everyone, but the King, who is known for promoting his brand of a holistic lifestyle, ancestral tenants, and eating raw meat on camera, is nothing more than a steroid user.

But.....really?

Are any of these fitness experts actually surprised?

Anybody with half a brain cell suspected he was saucing.

And I would expect the "natty or not" crowd to be able to pick up on the typical tell-tale signs.

So if everyone suspected he was juicing to begin with, what's the actual controversy?
 
So it turns out that The Liver King isn't natty after all.

WordPress-Featured-Image-Sizing-34-1.jpg




There are so many stories trending in social media and on YouTube in the fitness space that I can't keep track of how many influencers are "shocked" and expressing moral outrage.



But.....really?

Are any of these fitness experts actually surprised?

Anybody with half a brain cell suspected he was saucing.

And I would expect the "natty or not" crowd to be able to pick up on the typical tell-tale signs.

So if everyone suspected he was juicing to begin with, what's the actual controversy?
The way I view liver king is like a WWE character. I think he’s probably a decent guy. I think he’s hilarious and entertaining and some of what he says is a positive message especially when it comes to cutting out processed foods and junk, getting into nature, doing cold plunges, sleeping enough. These are all things we know he just packaged them and profited off them. It’s been obvious from day 1 this guy is on something, anyone who thought they were going to eat a raw bull testicle and get huge like him deserves to get got lol. People are acting like he killed someone. The crazy thing to me is seeing other fitness gurus pointing fingers, when it’s clear they too are likely on something. I never thought his steroid use would be such a huge deal to people. His workouts are so damn extreme there’s no way a 45 year old can even recover the way he was without some help.

And I looked at his Liver King Bar and it’s nothing different than any other protein bar on the market but it cost 50 bucks for a box. It’s just a glorified chocolate bar.
 
Not really much different to anyone who is prepared to be outrageous/controversial for cash. I think it’s ridiculous , but then I’m not living in a million dollar estate.

Think about it, he’s been around a few years? Probably made millions. He can disappear into obscurity and never work again. Meanwhile I’m turning up at work day in day out.

Hmmm, maybe I can be the beer drinking fitness freak. Take steroids and anything and everything to get shredded and then claim it’s my proprietary beer? Sold exclusively at ridiculous prices?! I can beat the raspberry chocolate oyster stout hipster brewers at their own game

Be right back !
 
I found the More Plates More Dates video on this topic super interesting. From the leaked emails it showed:
  • He actually did live by what he preaches (mainly) including eating raw liver daily.
  • He lives very well and doesn’t venture out of his own ranch which is “500 acres of paradise” - worth noting this was before he got famous as Liver King, he was already rich.
  • He actually reached out to Derek from More Plates More Dates to do a video back in 2021 on why he was a HGH non-responder despite taking quadruple the dose - presumably means it wasn’t his original plan to claim natty. (This particular point is hilarious as Derek has had a lot of videos on trying to show Liver King is not natural and has proof in his own inbox - unread from over a year ago)
  • He was sending emails including his alias Liver King from an official email of his now famous brand before he even started YouTube. He stated his plan was to get over a million followers in the year which he did.
  • He struggles to do without training, he does Westside Conjugate 6x a week with CrossFit Olympic lifting metcons in the afternoon. He has one day off a week where he walks 10-12 miles and still does tabata push ups on this off day or he doesn’t feel right in the head.
Very strange guy, who had a plan and executed it well but didn’t clear his tracks.
 
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I think part of the outrage is he's been vehemently claiming natty this whole time even though it's obvious he's not. People like this get more controversy than those who just admit it when asked. Not sure about these folks who claimed not to be able to tell.
 
So it turns out that The Liver King isn't natty after all.

WordPress-Featured-Image-Sizing-34-1.jpg




There are so many stories trending in social media and on YouTube in the fitness space that I can't keep track of how many influencers are "shocked" and expressing moral outrage.



But.....really?

Are any of these fitness experts actually surprised?

Anybody with half a brain cell suspected he was saucing.

And I would expect the "natty or not" crowd to be able to pick up on the typical tell-tale signs.

So if everyone suspected he was juicing to begin with, what's the actual controversy?
You’d be surprised how unaware people are off steroids in the outside world (not in the online fitness space).

In this space, I don’t think anyone is surprised at the fact he’s not natural. People would be more surprised if he was. But it is nice to have evidence as a lot of these snake oil sales men get away with it forever.
 
The only person I know who's definitely not on anabolic steroids is me and I might be lying. The rule of thumb is that if you look like you're on steroids then you probably are and if you claim on the internet that you're not but don't post your bloodwork then you're almost certainly lying. People who don't have anything to do with steroids think that steroid use is exceptional but they're cheap and super easy to get such that steroid use can reliably be assumed amongst those with hyper-muscular physiques.
 
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don't post your bloodwork

This is the part I find really funny.

If you're a pro athlete, you hire experts who not only help you figure out what PEDs to take and how to cycle them, but also how to cheat the drug tests.

Broderick Chavez is one such expert that comes to mind.


With all the money Liver King was making, I don't know why he just didn't spend more to hire real doping experts.

Liver King could have gamed the tests the same way a pro athlete would and shown 'clean' tests.

But instead of managing his image the way a pro athlete with endorsement contracts and PED tests to worry about would, he just did it like a bro.
 
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I think it is a bit like Lance Armstrong. Vehemently deny use of peds. He didn't just take them and automatically be at the front of the pack though . So much training and proper diet goes into being that elite. Liver King at the moment is accused of peds but a ridiculous amount of effort and commitment has gone into achieving that physique. Give me all that chemical enhancement and I don't think I could achieve what Lance or Liver King has. I'm not endorsing what either has done to make millions BTW. I would like to give his "barbarian" challenge a go though. Right up my street, I just don't have the equipment.
 
Liver King at the moment is accused of peds but a ridiculous amount of effort and commitment has gone into achieving that physique.
I don't deny that he's worked very very hard for that physique, and I don't even care if someone uses PEDs to get there in general, but when your brand is "be as natural as possible to get as fit as possible" and you are decidedly not even a little bit natty (see Derek from More Plates More Dates' youtube video for instance), I think it tarnishes the brand irreparably.
 
I don't deny that he's worked very very hard for that physique, and I don't even care if someone uses PEDs to get there in general, but when your brand is "be as natural as possible to get as fit as possible" and you are decidedly not even a little bit natty (see Derek from More Plates More Dates' youtube video for instance), I think it tarnishes the brand irreparably.

But who actually believed he was living naturally?
 
But who actually believed he was living naturally?
The populaiton of people I talk to about this is highly filtered, so I can't find any. You'd have to survey people who actually buy his stuff. I can say that when I get out of my little bubble and talk to people outside of it, I am surprised in general at how different people's conceptions of reality are. There are people who think the Earth is flat, and that lizard aliens are running the illuminati. I wouldn't be surprised if there are a significant number of casual exercisers who just don't know the difference.

That said, I can't point to any population of people that I know worship the liver king and all that he says as gospel.I think trying to go find that cult might be investing a bit too much on my end.
 
I totally believed he is natty vegan doing yoga and running marathons, just by looking at him.


But really, even his most naive fans must have at least suspected he is not that "clean".
 
I totally believed he is natty vegan doing yoga and running marathons, just by looking at him.


But really, even his most naive fans must have at least suspected he is not that "clean".
I'm just asking this for fun, and am not seriously defending any real point here, but:

Do you know who his most naive fans are? How do you know they are his most naive fans?
 
I'm just asking this for fun, and am not seriously defending any real point here, but:

Do you know who his most naive fans are? How do you know they are his most naive fans?
I have no idea how does his average fan look like, but when I first saw him and his claims, I asked myself this question - is he telling us the whole truth?
Of course, it requires huge effort and commitment to achieve such physique, even with PEDs. I am not going to be the one who screams because he takes PEDs and judge him - it's just not that big surprise for me.
 
I have no idea how does his average fan look like, but when I first saw him and his claims, I asked myself this question - is he telling us the whole truth?
Of course, it requires huge effort and commitment to achieve such physique, even with PEDs. I am not going to be the one who screams because he takes PEDs and judge him - it's just not that big surprise for me.
I'm in agreement with you here.

But I also think there might be people who are so casual about the whole thing they don't even think to ask "is this the whole truth?" They just buy into his crap because he's ripped.

The question we then have to ask is, is that even a problem? Suppose someone goes down the whole liver king rabbit hole, eats bull nuts thrice a day, the whole nine yards. Was there any harm? I don't know, maybe not physically if they were sourcing their bull nuts properly. (Edit: but maybe so, if it turns out this person didn't implement it in such a way as to get their micronutrients). But what does any of that have to do with him taking PEDs? Maybe that person would have bought in anyway, because they love eating bull nuts and this is the perfect excuse.

Maybe him doing PEDs is totally irrelevant, except that in this instance it points out that he is a liar, and his whole message is probably not founded on truth, and there is often a cost to listening to liars. The real cost is, when you have a liar on your hands, you then have to spend energy figuring out what the hell they're trustworthy about, on top of trying to figure out what they're even expert in. Liars waste your time and energy.

For me, personally, I just like seeing liars get taken down, so I got a certain satisfaction out of this.
 
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This is the part I find really funny.

If you're a pro athlete, you hire experts who not only help you figure out what PEDs to take and how to cycle them, but also how to cheat the drug tests.

Broderick Chavez is one such expert that comes to mind.


With all the money Liver King was making, I don't know why he just didn't spend more to hire real doping experts.

Liver King could have gamed the tests the same way a pro athlete would and shown 'clean' tests.

But instead of managing his image the way a pro athlete with endorsement contracts and PED tests to worry about would, he just did it like a bro.
The problem is the stuff that works best is hardest to hide and celebrities who don't have to dodge WADA just use the good stuff and lie about it. But if you see their bloodwork there will not only be the altered steroid markers but red numbers all over the place as the anabolic steroids also interfere with lipids, blood sugar, liver enzymes, kidneys etc. They can't show their bloodwork because you'll not only know they're juicing but you'll think they're sick too. The Rock can't show you his bloodwork because you'll think he's pre-diabetic, with fatty liver and desperately needing statins. His healthy lifestyle credentials will be over but it will just be the steroids
 
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I have no idea how does his average fan look like, but when I first saw him and his claims, I asked myself this question - is he telling us the whole truth?
Of course, it requires huge effort and commitment to achieve such physique, even with PEDs. I am not going to be the one who screams because he takes PEDs and judge him - it's just not that big surprise for me.
It shouldn't be a surprise to anyone and the only issue should be the fact that he lied, which was assumedly because the lie assisted his commercial objectives. I think he was more than a hypocrite, espousing a lifestyle that he wasn't living. He was lying because he thought he would make more money by fooling people
 
Is the use of steroids illegal in the US and can you be arrested for such a trifle. I ask because the article says he was arrested. Or maybe he was arrested not because of the use, but because he was a fraud and lied to people that he was not taking steroids and thereby fraudulently made money.
In fact, anyone who is familiar with training and nutrition knows that such a body cannot be achieved and especially maintained naturally and especially at this age.
 
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