Why Kinobody’s Natty Verified Challenge Will Not Work

Kinobody's Natty Verified Movement

There's a lot of buzz on Gregory O'Gallagher, or Kinobody's Natty Verified Challenge, where he's basically going to grant official “Natty Verified” status to those who pass a carbon isotope ratio test to detect exogenous androgens in their system.

This test is of the highest standard of testing for exogenous versus endogenous androgens, and ratios of hormones, as well as a variety of really sensitive details that would be able to detect naturals versus non-naturals.

First of all, the very obvious limitation is the fact that you can only detect the use of up to X amount of months, or X amount of years, depending on what you're testing for.

Even if you have somebody who took steroids 20 years ago, that person is still not natural and has a performance enhancing advantage relative to somebody who's never taken anything in their life, despite being able to pass a carbon isotope ratio test.

Retaining Muscle Myonuclei After Steroid Use

For a long time we've understood the premise behind muscle memory and retaining muscle myonuclei after a break from training [R].

If you stop working out, getting back to where you were is easier than it was to gain that muscle initially in the first place.

I'm sure you've experienced this.

You take a bit of time off, you hop back on a strict regimen, and boom, you get everything back very quickly.

This is muscle memory.

We've understood for a long time this premise, but we didn't know how far it extended.

There's a new data released in a study published in January 2019 that suggests that a muscle can gain myonuclei and never loses it, ever, for the entirety of your life.

The new data states, “The discovery that myonuclei are retained indefinitely emphasizes the importance of exercise in early life during adolescence. Muscle growth is enhanced by hormones, nutrition, and a robust pool of stem cells, making it an ideal period for individuals to bank myonuclei that can be drawn upon to remain active in old age.”

Essentially, what it means is that if you take advantage of high endogenous androgen levels in your youth you can create a bank of myonuclei that you can then draw off of later in life; when gaining muscle would be harder than it would be otherwise when you were 21 years old and had peaking natural testosterone levels.

The same principle extends to exogenous steroid/androgen use, as a user could create a bank of myonuclei that would otherwise be impossible to produce naturally, and then reap performance enhancing benefits from that myonuclei bank throughout their life, even years after they've discontinued performance enhancing drug use.

Fake Nattys Vs Real Nattys

What does this mean for an enhanced athlete though?

If you take steroids in the past, you can retain that increase in myonuclei in the muscle for life, even if you come off of steroids.

Even if you took something 20 years ago, remnant performance enhancing effects of that cycle likely still remain in the muscle fibers themselves to some degree.

As a result, even if you pass a carbon isotope ratio test 20 years later, if you took a cycle when you were 19 years old, that cycle still has some level of performance-enhancing benefit in your current natural physique, whether you want to believe it or not.

Somebody like Julian Smith, who claims he only took a prohormone cycle when he was younger, is not a natural, even if he passes a carbon isotope ratio test.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bxpxfs3HZdU/

It doesn't exempt him from the fact that he took a cycle when he was younger, that's going to impact his performance and his overall musculature at his current age.

Regardless, if he's walking around with only endogenous androgens in his body currently, it doesn't matter because he took something when he was younger, which very likely has some degree of long-term performance-enhancing benefits.

Androgen use creates a bank of myonuclei that your body can draw upon and gain an advantage over somebody else who was never in a state of supraphysiological androgens, regardless of how long ago it was.

While I do believe the movement itself is a positive one, it creates a situation where you can have guys who further solidify their Natty status to uneducated and inept young kids who don't understand the science behind this stuff, and can irresponsibly grant certain guys a Natty Verified badge when they are in fact not Natty.

They are still gaining some sort of performance-enhancing benefit from something they're currently using, used a few months ago, or used 20 years ago.

It doesn't really matter.

A lot of these guys touched something at one point or another.

Even when I was in high school, it was incredibly common for guys my age to accidentally take Steroids.

You could literally go get M1T's, Dymethazine and Superdrol from your local supplement store when prohormones were legal and over the counter, because everyone thought they were just supplements.

Realistically, most people in the fitness industry have taken something at one point or another.

Passing a carbon isotope ratio test, while it may confirm that you're natural at the moment, it doesn't disqualify the years prior that you could have taken something that's now out of your system, or the bank of myonuclei you built up in your past via however many years of exogenous hormone use.

The Natty Verified Movement Could Make Things Even Worse

 

Again, I do think the whole movement is positive.

I just think it could create a negative outcome after everything is said and done.

Because you're going to have a few guys who'll slip through the cracks who gets this “Natty status.”

They actually have unrealistic physiques that can't be achieved, and the carbon isotope ratio test isn't going to be able to pick it up.

Keep that in mind, take everything with a grain of salt.

I'm not sure if the guys running Kinobody's Natty Verified movement are taking that into account.

Hopefully, they are, and they have some sort of loophole in place for that.

I don't think guys who have taken steroids in the past should be allowed to compete or be tested in this Natty Verified movement.

Like Julian Smith, for example.

Not to put him on blast, but he's very open about how he's taken something when he was younger, regardless if he is on something now or not.

The point is, he said he's done something and he's going to be doing this Natty Verified challenge.

Even if he passes the test and gets this badge of honor saying he's a “Natty,” he's actually not.

This fact doesn't disqualify the fact that you took something when you were younger and you have this Myonuclei bank build up that no one else could have built
via exogenous prohormone use.