In this episode of “Oliver Bateman Does the Work,” I talked to my friend Anthony Roberts, a long-time fitness journalist with whom I’ve partnered on a variety of projects. We discussed steroid coaching, steroid-using fitness influencers, peer-reviewed steroid research, "professional" bodybuilding, and much more.
There’s a lot of great content in this free-wheeling conversation, and if you’d like to learn more, here are some links you can visit.
Anthony talking about prohormones, tren, and more on Mark Bell’s podcast:
Oliver’s VQR article about steroid culture, to which Anthony lent his expertise: https://www.vqronline.org/reporting-articles/2017/07/steroid-solidarity
The Dallas McCarver autopsy report, which was originally requested and then posted by Anthony: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/4311416-Dallas-McCarver-autopsy-report.html
The entire archive of articles by Anthony Roberts posted at Think Steroids, which includes deep dives into USADA investigative procedures, bodybuilding precontest “coaches” practicing medicine without a license, the flawed sentencing guidelines for anabolic steroids, and more: https://thinksteroids.com/author/anthony-roberts/
An article suggested by Anthony that Oliver later wrote for MEL Magazine regarding the proper use of the term “bodybuilder”: https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/why-are-the-bad-guys-always-bodybuilders1
Anthony has also contemplated submitting specific guidelines to the Associated Press Stylebook related to this term and a few others (powerlifter, weightlifter, &c.). I’ll be preparing a revised version of this MEL article for the Substack that lays out his suggestions in a more concrete way.
The Work of Steroids