The Work of the Liver King's Steroid Stack

A conversation with steroid expert Anthony Roberts about the ancestral manlet's regimen

What the Liver King allegedly takes (besides your money!)

As many of you have undoubtedly seen, the More Plates More Dates YouTube channel — operated by “Derek from Vancouver” — recently stumbled onto an unsurprising scoop related to “ancestral fitness” homunculus Brian “Liver King” Johnson. A year after releasing a video calling into question the Liver King’s “natty” status, Derek MPMD came into possession of emails detailing Brian Johnson’s¹ attempts to perfect his steroid stack in preparation for the launch of his ancestral fitness marketing operation.²

I wanted a second opinion on all of this, so I turned to my friend Anthony Roberts, a long-time fitness journalist and steroid expert who has been assessing steroid stacks and calling out bureaucratic overreach since I was climbing the peg board in middle school.³ Part of our discussion is behind the paywall, though you’ll see bits and pieces of it in forthcoming articles as well.

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Oliver Bateman: What do you make of his stack?

Anthony Roberts: Let’s break down the anabolic steroids first. These are the drugs he’s allegedly taking (and on a “cruise cycle” which indicates that he’s trying to maintain, but not build — this indicates that his “blast cycles” utilize considerably higher doses):

• 350mgs/week of Winstrol (stanozolol) but he doesn’t say if it’s injectable or oral (this is one of the few steroids where the identical form may be injected or consumed orally). That’s 350mgs/week of a single steroid, and it’s a reasonable dose to see pretty good results. But those would be minimal gains of solid and lean muscle. Nobody is getting huge on that kind of dose, unless he’s taking it orally, in which case only his liver is getting huge.

• He’s taking .6cc* of testosterone cypionate (a typical low-moderate dose for hormone replacement, not suited for extreme lean body mass gains). That’s going to result in a few pounds of muscle for most people on their first cycle, but not much for an experienced user. I’m presuming a full cc to be 200mgs — the volume of the dose isn’t the dose, the amount of milligrams contained in the volume is the dose. I’m not sure why he’s listing volumes for dose. It’s like saying you take three aspirin per day, but not telling me how many milligrams are in each tablet.

• He’s taking the same amount of “decca” (sic), meaning Deca-Durabolin (nandrolone decanoate), which is actually weaker than testosterone. Again, at this dose, I wouldn’t expect huge gains.

So all up, we are looking at approximately half a gram (490 milligrams) of anabolic steroids per week. A typical testosterone replacement dose is about 100-200mgs, so he’s taking 2.5-4x the accepted therapeutic dose, in terms of anabolic/androgenic hormone replacement, and that’s a “cruising” or maintenance dose. In terms of milligrams per week, it’s more than a lot of guys who look better are taking.

Breaking down the rest of his cruise cycle, we see human growth hormone and some other assorted peptides (Ibutamoren, CJC, and IGF). These aren’t big muscle gainers per se, as alone they’re not the kinds of drugs that produce outlandish results. Maybe some body fat loss, improved appetite and sleep, but alone they’re not producing the cartoonish physiques that win the Mr. Olympia. Overall, he’s taking enough PEDs to produce the physique he’s got, but if that’s a maintenance cycle, I can’t say it’s overly impressive.