# Does muscle gained with steroids stay or does go away once the steroids stop? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 23, 2006, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-muscle-gained-with-steroids-stay-or-does-go-away-once-the-steroids-stop/353813 "2006-04-23T01:59:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2006, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-muscle-gained-with-steroids-stay-or-does-go-away-once-the-steroids-stop/353813/1 "2006-04-23T01:59:22Z")
Just curious. Re Bonds & other steroid users. Will he be able to keep his huge steroid assisted physique once the steroids stop if he continues working out or will it slowly shrink away? Does the muscle built with steroids all go away when the steroid, and other muscle enhancing drug use, is discontinued? ---
**Author:** ![Stark\_Raven\_Mad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Stark\_Raven\_Mad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stark_Raven_Mad)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2006, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-muscle-gained-with-steroids-stay-or-does-go-away-once-the-steroids-stop/353813/2 "2006-04-23T02:06:12Z")
Depends on what kind of steroid you’re on. If it’s one of the heavy aromatizers, you drop a lot of water pretty quickly. As a rule, though, steroid users do have a buit of trouble hanging on to the weight they gain from a steroid cycle, not the least from a suppressed pair of grapes, for which they have to take things like HCG, clomid and nolvadex (so as to throw the nads back into working order ASAP - testosterone - muscle). There are loads of other things you can take for more easily-maintainable mass, like growth hormone, IGF-1 LR3, and insulin. All are usually taken in conjuction with steroids anyway, though. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2006, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-muscle-gained-with-steroids-stay-or-does-go-away-once-the-steroids-stop/353813/3 "2006-04-23T03:29:39Z")
Depends. If you are beyond your genetic limit of how much muscle your frame holds then yes. However if you have never worked out before and started steroids you would probably keep alot of the muscle you built. Post cycle recovery also plays a role in how much muscle you keep. People are different, I have known people who lose much of their muscle and people who keep it for decades. ---
**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2006, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-muscle-gained-with-steroids-stay-or-does-go-away-once-the-steroids-stop/353813/4 "2006-04-23T04:49:10Z")
Steroids aren’t really my area of expertise, but I’ve seen this discussed before, and one thing that always comes up is that a lot of men who gain a lot of mass on the juice and lose it afterwards aren’t eating to support the new muscle. No surprise that they lose it. ---
**Author:** ![DougC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@DougC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DougC)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2006, 8:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-muscle-gained-with-steroids-stay-or-does-go-away-once-the-steroids-stop/353813/5 "2006-04-23T08:52:22Z")
- - - Answer: no. - The types of steroids that bodybuilders use commonly causes two things: slightly-accellerated growth of muscle, and it also causes abnormally-higher _water retention_ in the muscles, making them look larger than they actually are. When they go off the steroids, the water level goes back down to normal, and that is what is “lost”. ~