As the use of anabolic steroids is prohibited by most sporting organizations, not to mention controlled strictly by U.S. law many athletes share a common question; what are the detection times of steroids? Of course, you might be asking why any athlete would want to know the detection times of steroids when they are banned by the athletes sporting organization, and the answer to this question is very simple. While anabolic androgenic steroids are classified as Schedule III controlled substances under U.S. law founded by the Steroid Control Acts of 1990 and 2004, and while they are banned by most governing bodies in most sports a hosts of athletes still supplement with anabolic steroids. How many athletes are supplementing? This is difficult to answer with an exact number or percentage, but rest assured it is a lot.

Anyone who has been around performance enhancing drugs for a decent amount of time knows strong portions of athletes are still supplementing with anabolic steroids. Of course, this obviously includes competitive bodybuilders and power lifters, but it includes numerous baseball and football players as well; not to mention the many other sports. For this reason, many athletes need to know what the detection times of steroids are so that they can beat steroid testing, and you can bet they’re beating the test every single day. Of course, some fail the test, and in many cases as eluded to in Chris Bell’s documentary “Bigger Stronger Faster” often the failed test are swept under the rug. While most sporting organizations openly support the prohibition of anabolic steroids, behind closed doors it is a very different story. In most sports, the athletes, coaches and the trainers understand the use of anabolic steroids is as natural to sports as the sheer sport itself and has been for nearly a century. As athletes are rewarded based on their performance, as they should be the use of anabolic steroids in sports will reign supreme.

Steroid Testing

There are several tests that may be administered to determine if an athlete is supplementing with anabolic steroids, and in most cases, these test are quite expensive, especially when we compare them to recreational drug testing. The most common method of testing through history is a straightforward test that measures testosterone levels. In this test, the athlete’s testosterone levels will be measured against his epitestosterone levels, and if there is a greater than 5 to 1 ratio testosterone:epitestosterone the athlete will fail the test. However, in the modern era of sports, while this method is a decent indicator it has largely been deemed incompetent as skewing testosterone to epitestosterone levels is easy to accomplish as made evident by many designer steroids; especially those manufactured by the now infamous BALCO. For this reason, most testing now test for specific anabolic steroids and for this reason the detection times of steroids is needed information by a strong majority of athletes.

Steroid Detection Times – Orals

Oral anabolic steroids are very popular among performance enhancers for several reasons. To begin, the mode of administration is extremely convenient as all you need to do is swallow a simple pill. While this makes oral steroids convenient what truly makes them special is their rapid acting nature; oral steroids are usually faster acting than injectable steroids and provide a significant boost in a quick manner, although their total active duration is usually short lived due to typical short half-lives. Many oral steroids are far more common place for many athletes than injectable steroids as by their nature the detection times of steroids in this class are often much shorter than their injectable counterparts; not always but in many cases. The following table provides the most common oral steroids by trade name and active hormone, the steroids half-life and the detection times of steroids in this class:

Steroid Detection Times – Injectable

Injectable steroids make up the largest group of anabolic steroids and as such, the detection times of steroids in this class will be the most important. While oral steroids provide fast and amazing gains the gains made through injectable use are far more stable, and often easier to maintain. This is not to say you cannot hold gains made through oral use, but you will keep those gains to a stronger degree if injectable steroids are part of the total plan. For the majority of performance enhancers, oral steroids are simply an addition to an injectable based cycle; we can make an exception with many women as many women will find oral use only to be tremendously beneficial. We have listed the most commonly used injectable steroids in the performance enhancing world again by steroid name, hormone and ester, half-life and the steroid detection times in the class:

Avoiding the Test

Depending on the sport, testing will vary making in some instances the detection times of steroids somewhat meaningless. For example, many sporting organizations cannot afford to test their athletes constantly and will generally only screen every so often. Most athletes have a pretty good idea as to when this will occur and simply supplement accordingly. Of course in some instances, the testing won’t be known, and a random test can occur at any time. While this is true, as testing is so expensive in many cases testing will only be done if suspicion is aroused. For this reason, many athletes will only supplement with low doses of steroids that do not readily promote large buildups in mass yet give them a nice boost in strength and performance. Even so, while this can be useful it’s still vital to understand the steroid detection times because more and more various sporting organizations are being forced to test their athletes far more often.

Beating the Test

NapsGear Review feels by understanding the detection times of steroids we greatly improve our odds in beating a steroid test but there are also other things to consider. Steroid testing has over the years become more comprehensive, but the manufactures of anabolic hormones seem to stay a step ahead of testing, and year after year new compounds and mixtures come out that allow the athlete to beat the test; again, recall BALCO from the early to mid-2000’s. While these designer steroids continue to pop up, eventually steroid testing catches up too only to find a new designer steroid has taken its place. Then of course we have performance enhancing drugs of a non-steroidal nature that are undetectable to such testing; most notably Human Growth Hormone (HGH) a peptide hormone that is undetectable. More and more athletes are now supplementing with many of these undetectable performance enhancing drugs and beating the fight against them each and every day.