r/exercisescience

Steroid use is much more prevalent in the US than people think.

A conservative estimate is 1 in 10 serious male gym goers are on steroids or have used it in the past. That's just based on a survey of steroid users in the US from 2010s and the number of male serious strength training gym goers. It is probably even higher today due to social media pressures.

There is only maybe 1 in 10,000 are naturally gifted. There was all this business about FFMI less than 25 or something "to prove" that people can achieve peak male physique naturally, but that is very very very rare statistically. It is more likely the case they just use performance enhancing drugs to get to that level and quit to maintain fake natty status. Like people would point to Eugen Sandow, but you have to remember that he was a CIRCUS FREAK, and I don't say that to be mean, but I mean to emphasize that he was so out of the normal that people would pay money to see him. Would you pay money to see regular people? These days, I don't even think that guy would be in the top 5% of muscularity or strength compared with what you see in the average gym.

If you apply Bayes probability on these numbers, its 99.9% certain anyone you see at the natty limit is on steroids. And so if it looks like they take steroids or PEDs then they probably do. If you want to have an idea what is actually achievable natty, look at the people who are 80-90th percentile strongest or biggest or leanest at the gym. They are more likely natty.

P( uses or used steroids | looks like natty limit ) = P( looks like natty limit | uses or used steroids ) * P( uses or used steroids ) / [P( looks like natty limit | uses or used steroids )P( uses or used steroids ) + P( looks like natty limit | never used steroids )*P( never used steroids )]

(0.65 * 0.1)/(0.65 * 0.1 + 0.0001 * 0.9) = 99.86%

* edit for typos, new to reddit sorry

Hello! I currently work as an exercise physiologist right now graduated with my bachelors and have my acsm certification it’s been about a year and started out I make about 50k a year. This is with internship in cardiac rehab as my prior experience. I want to pursue my masters but a lot of clinical EPs say there’s not much of a pay difference and I don’t want to be in debt from a grad program and not make enough if that makes sense? Anybody with their masters with any input? I’m genuinely thinking of switching career paths at this point.

Dr. Ekberg, a Chiropractic doctor, made a YouTube video citing several studies related to the benefits of regularly doing pushups.

Long story short, one study referenced how pushups done regularly improve the hearts ability to operate more efficiently over time. So technically a stronger heart would improve performance in every other physical task, which could technically mean that routinely doing pushups daily could be an important factor for competitive athletes.

Interesting stuff, here is the link to the video he made:

https://youtu.be/0XFH6Hv3BTc?si=N66nk-FdHB5jZMB-

Hello! Can someone recommend me a book about why exercise is important? I’m in the middle of Why we sleep by Matthew Walker and enjoying it so far. I don’t have sleeping problems but I found the data interesting. On the other hand, I find very difficult to establish the exercise habit, and thought some reading about the effects on the body and so on.

Thank you for your time !

I’m 18F, 4’6, 78 lbs. about how many calories would I burn doing this twice a day?

For almost 20 years, I've been developing and refining an unusual body mind strength training method called ICOBOMB.

Over those years, the method has evolved through extensive experimentation with slow controlled muscular contractions, segmented micro movements, breathing patterns, internal concentration and increasingly sophisticated forms of multisensory stimulation.

One of the most interesting observations to emerge from this process is what appears to be a synergistic interaction between muscular contraction and internally generated sensory stimulation.

ICOBOMB combines extremely slow, controlled muscular contractions with internal multisensory stimulation involving imagined sensations of movement, pressure, texture, temperature and other sensory experiences.

During a contraction, internal sensory imagination appears to increase awareness and control of the working muscle, potentially creating a stronger mind muscle connection and more deliberate muscular engagement.

But it seems to work in the opposite direction too.

The physical intensity of a sustained muscular contraction appears to make those internally generated sensory experiences more vivid and easier to concentrate on.

The result is a training system designed to pursue two objectives simultaneously:

Build the body: muscle, strength, tendons, connective tissue and physical control.

Train the mind: concentration, cognitive engagement and the ability to quiet mental noise.

ICOBOMB is now being practiced by several hundred students internationally, and some of the feedback we've received has raised some very interesting questions.

Students have reported that the method has helped them train around, prevent or recover from certain injuries. Others have described improvements in their ability to control anxiety and stress, and some have reported improvements in depressive symptoms.

We've also received interesting feedback about muscular development. One student, for example, had been strength training for approximately 23 years but had always struggled to develop his chest and calves. After around eight months of ICOBOMB training, he reported finally being able to strongly stimulate these areas and seeing noticeable development.

We've also had armwrestlers report that the method seems to help them train with fewer injuries. We suspect this could potentially be related to the extremely slow loading and controlled micro movements strengthening or conditioning the tendons and connective tissues, but this is something we'd really like to understand better.

Of course, these are observations and individual reports, not scientific conclusions.

And that's exactly why I'm posting this.

I'd love to see people actually test ICOBOMB and investigate what's happening.

That could mean a formal study by an Honours, Master's or PhD student, a university researcher or a research group.

But it doesn't necessarily have to be a large academic study.

I'd also be very interested in hearing from personal trainers, strength coaches, physiotherapists, exercise physiologists, psychologists, armwrestling coaches or other professionals who might want to conduct smaller practical investigations with their clients, athletes or patients and document what they observe.

There are lots of interesting questions that could be explored.

Does the multisensory component change muscular recruitment or the ability to activate difficult muscle groups? Does this type of slow micro movement training affect tendons and connective tissue differently? Could it have applications for people returning from certain injuries? Does combining sustained muscular tension with intense internal concentration affect stress, anxiety, attention or mind wandering? Could there really be a measurable interaction between the physical and cognitive sides of the method?

I'm open to ideas.

If someone has an interesting way of testing part of the ICOBOMB system, I'd be genuinely interested in collaborating and providing access to the method and instructional materials.

You can learn more about ICOBOMB here:

icobomb.com

And I've put together a page explaining the research opportunity and some of the possible areas of investigation here:

icobomb.com/research-collaboration-opportunity/

Whether you're a university researcher, student, personal trainer, physiotherapist, coach or simply someone with experience conducting this kind of research, I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts.

I’m 25, graduated in May 2024 with a B.S. in Exercise Science, and hold the ACSM-EP. I’m also pursuing the CSCS and planning to retake it after coming close on my first attempt.

I currently work two fitness/wellness jobs.

I’ve worked part-time at a large recreation/wellness center since August 2024, so about 2 years. I average roughly 13–17 hours/week doing 1-on-1 personal training and teaching small-group training 3x/week.

I work with a broad adult population, from people in their 30s/40s through their 70s, 80s and 90s. Goals include strength, muscle gain, weight loss, endurance, balance, mobility and maintaining independence, and I regularly modify exercise around orthopedic/chronic-health considerations.

The facility also partners with a regional healthcare system and has medical-exercise programming, although I work on the recreation/wellness side rather than the healthcare-system side.

I make $25/hr for 1-on-1 PT and $27/hr for small group. Most of my clients/classes are mornings. Cancellations happen, but after 2 years I have a fairly established client base and schedule.

In February 2026, I also started working PRN at a regional health system. I average around 10–12 hours/week at $24.21/hr.

There I do 1-on-1 PT and assist with Rock Steady Boxing for people with Parkinson’s disease. Starting in November, I’m also supposed to teach small-group bootcamp twice per week in the evenings, which fits my current schedule well.

Now the health system wants to involve me in Corporate Wellness on an as-needed basis. I was told roughly 95% of that work happens in the mornings, and they recently asked me to provide my availability.

That’s the conflict: those are the same mornings I’ve spent 2 years building at my other job.
For context, the recreation/wellness job is in a larger regional city of 100,000+ people, while the health-system job is in a smaller town of roughly 10,000–15,000. They’re also about 30–40 minutes apart, so switching between both workplaces during the same morning isn’t always practical.
Between both jobs I currently average around 23–29 hours/week.

I want the Corporate Wellness experience because it could broaden my background into employee wellness, health promotion and more health-system experience. However, income stability matters too.
The hourly rates are close. My bigger concern is established paid work vs. PRN/as-needed availability. I don’t want to give up several reliable morning hours and then find out the Corporate Wellness work only happens occasionally.

I also turn 26 next year, so health insurance and benefits are becoming an important part of my career planning. I’d eventually like to move toward a benefits-eligible part-time or full-time role while continuing to develop professionally.

So my immediate question is:
Would you protect the established mornings and take Corporate Wellness only when it fits, open one morning per week as a trial, or wait until the health-system opportunities become consistent enough to replace whatever income/hours I’d give up?

And longer-term:
If you were in my position at 25, would you start specifically targeting benefits-eligible positions before turning 26? How would you balance that with the experience and income I’m already building at these two jobs while becoming more marketable over the next 1–2 years?

Please can eligible people complete my questionnaire for my master’s. It should take 5 minutes to complete.

Eligibility
- You need to be 18-29 (part of the Gen Z cohort).
- You need to be residing in the UK.
- You need to be following at least one UK fitness influencer with 10k to 1m followers on any social media platform.

Link to questionnaire - https://forms.gle/Nc9ze2AiLMgVazGX8