Mitchell Hooper has urged young athletes to stay away from steroids, saying most people under the age of 21 have “almost no reason” to take performance-enhancing drugs.
The reigning World’s Strongest Man made the comments while discussing his own offseason routine, explaining why he lowers his testosterone levels after competition season and why he believes being transparent about steroid use is more beneficial than pretending it doesn’t exist.
Before discussing his own protocol, Hooper stressed that he was not encouraging others to follow in his footsteps.
“I don’t have the recipe for what you should do. And for the vast majority of people, you shouldn’t do anything, especially if you have no medical intervention, indication, and monitoring to do it. But I think it’s important for me to be honest with you guys about what it takes to be at the top level, the downsides, the upsides, and some of the considerations,” he said.
Hooper explained that the demands of elite Strongman require him to carefully manage both performance and long-term health, lowering his testosterone dose during the offseason to allow his body time to recover from the stresses of competition-level performance-enhancing drugs.
However, he believes openness about those realities is essential, particularly as younger athletes are already aware that steroids exist.
“My biggest opinion is that kids know about this, and if you’re under 21, there’s almost no reason for you to be taking this unless you have a significant illness,” he said.
“We’re not hiding it from those kids. They know about it. We’re not hiding it from athletes. They know about it. We’re not hiding it from middle-aged people. In fact, I’m promoting it to middle-aged people to go get checked and get medical intervention to see if this is something that could benefit your life.”
Instead, Hooper believes the people often left out of the conversation are parents, who may not realise what young athletes are being exposed to.
“We’re hiding it from the parents of those kids who don’t know that these things exist. And if we’re shedding light on it to those people, I think it only really does good,” he said.
He also warned about some of the risks associated with taking steroids at a young age.
“If you’re taking these compounds and you’re not taking care of yourself, you’re doing it at a young age, gynecomastia, acne increase significantly. So shedding light on that is a very good thing,” he said.
Elsewhere in the video, Hooper admitted that even for elite competitors, performance-enhancing drugs come with significant drawbacks.
“My doses of everything have to come down because taking super physiological levels of performance enhancements to be able to accomplish things that you can’t do naturally, it takes a toll on your liver, on your kidneys, and on your heart,” he said.
The Canadian also revealed that he deliberately drops to a low dose of testosterone during the offseason to help his body recover, adding that chasing ever-higher doses can eventually become counterproductive.
“Frankly, I think I took a little bit too much earlier this year and that made me perform worse. I think it made me heavier and stronger, but it made me more inflamed, feeling less energetic and less powerful,” he said.
For Hooper, being open about performance-enhancing drugs isn’t about encouraging their use. Instead, he believes honest conversations help people understand both the realities of elite sport and the risks involved, particularly for those who are too young to be considering them.
Featured image credit: Mitchell Hooper / YouTube
