Editor’s note: The below article is not intended to make a moral claim regarding the athlete’s actions. We’re reporting on a video Williams made publicly available to his followers. BarBend does not endorse the use of performance-enhancing drugs.
Athletes rarely discuss their steroid routine because, well, they’re usually illegal, against the rules of their federation, or both. But now and then an athlete will, for whatever reason, openly discuss their clandestine performance-enhancing drug routine, and this week Larry “Wheels” Williams has posted his second ever video on the topic.
The first time he publicly spoke about his steroid cycle he eventually took the video down from his YouTube channel, but he’s once again gone public. We’ve embedded the video below but note that the majority of it is spent discussing his childhood.
After talking about his time in foster care he describes his time living in Saint Martin, where being a target of bullies led him to take up weight training to build confidence. Then he returned to the United States, picked up a recreational drug habit, and eventually the same friend who introduced him to drugs suggested he try anabolic steroids.
That part of the story starts at the 10:43 mark.
We’ll transcribe the relevant section in case this one is taken down as well.
When he introduced me to steroids, I was like, shit. I was already hooked to working out. I already was dedicated to getting bigger and stronger because getting bigger and stronger was the only thing that I thought I was good at. (…)
I was craving the feeling of being good at something so bad that I was like let’s do it. Let’s go. At that moment, I knew the risk. I was ready to die for it. I just wanted to be good at something so bad.
(…)
It may have been the light at the time but that doesn’t make it good. And for those of you who are watching and considering using steroids — I know many of you are, I know many of you think you’re not getting to your goals fast enough, I know many of you think you’re not getting big enough, I know many of you look at pro bodybuilders and social media influencers and think ‘Damn, I want to get there, but I can use steroids to get there.’
You need to understand that I can’t sit here and tell you not to do it, but what I can tell you to do is educate yourselves. And educate yourselves on the risk because there are serious risks with steroids and it’s not talked about enough. Educate yourselves on the risk. And then realize that that if that is something you’re going to do that you need to dedicate your life – you need to be willing to die for it. Because that’s the kind of drive and passion you need to have before you can think about using.
Looking back now to when I was 17 and decided to pin for the first time. There were other good things, there was other light forming, but I wasn’t far enough in my personal development to see it. So now I encourage everybody watching this video that no matter how dark it may seem now, you look for the light.
He closes by saying he knows some people will be mad about the video, but that he made it so people would know the truth.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BngyWWlDwLx/
The last time he discussed his steroid usage he spoke of a time when he was taking pro hormones, trenbolone, dianabol, and a “clone” of superdrol all in the same 16-week cycle, saying, “I felt miserable, my stomach felt like there was a living rat eating away at my intestines.” When he was taking two kinds of trenbolone, he said he experienced severe muscle cramps, depression, lethargy, loss of appetite, and low libido.
At the time he uploaded that video in March 2017 he said he had reduced his usage to 500 milligrams of testosterone a week and 150 milligrams of anadrol per day.
Featured image via Larry Wheels on YouTube.
