How muscular can a woman get without steroids?

[ProudRyu]

Forgive my ignorance, but this is a question I seriously am curious about. I really like the look of some of the female bodybuilding competitors, but I know that most of them are using steroids. It seems that many of the fitness girls use them as well.

I'd like to hear from people who know much more about this than me. Is there really a limit to how much muscle a woman can develop naturally? Can you give/show some examples of the most muscular women we can be reasonably certain have never used steroids?

Any insights would be appreciated. Thanks.

[MrB1g]

That's really dependent on the individual - it's not really possible for either men or women to post a picture and say that this is the limit of natural development.

It is a lot easier to determine if someone is natural or not based on their development if you post a picture, which may help you.

[ProudRyu]

Hmm, true there would be tons of natural variation. But I get the sense that women's bodybuilding as it looks today would be essentially impossible without steroids. My guess is it would look much more like it did in the mid 80's or so, like a slightly beefed up fitness competition, but without any women who had comparable muscularity to the men.

It seems I need a post count of 50 to post a picture, so apologies for the broken link, but here is a random picture showing purportedly natural vs. steroid female bodybuilders. It's pretty easy to believe. I can image women today getting maybe half way between the two at best with optimal training techniques and nutrition, but not being able to reach those lofty, freaky massive levels.

naturallyintense.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/female_bodybuilders. jpg

[MrB1g]

Yes well that's a very extreme example.

Look, in all honesty at ANY very high level competition there IS and will always be usage of performance enhancing drugs. I've had a lot of debates with people about this but my argument is simply that at the top level, each individual is genetically elite, therefore if even ONE person is using any form of PED's, then the vast majority of the competition MUST also be using them or else there would be a vast differential in performance levels which is rarely seen at the top level of any sport.


If you mean women's bodybuilding as in the 'woman' (I use this term loosely because her hormonal profile is probably equivalent to that of a man) on the right, then it is 100% impossible without considerable AAS (and other) usage.

[ProudRyu]

How easy is it for people to cheat the testing system? I always hear about this when the Olympics roll around for example. One wouldn't think that most athletes would want to risk getting caught and have their entire rep trashed, for starters. There can't be that many cheaters in a drug tested system can there? I would think the substances that really make a difference are the most known and the most aggressively tested. Or is it really that easy to get around things?

[latebloomingmom]

I would just take a look around this site at some of these women and what kind of lifts they are doing..
some of it may be genetics but a lot of it is hard work and determination.