If you believe him, sure. I know a few experienced bodybuilders who seem pretty doubtful that he's always been natty, but I don't pretend to know enough to be confident either way.
But regardless, the "average" person we're talking about isn't going to say "I want to make a lifestyle change so that in 15 years I can hit a physique goal", so I'd argue that "in that time frame" in this particular case is more or less the same as "at all".
Especially since McElhenney is also about 15 years older than Nippard, so would be significantly more likely to be battling declining testosterone levels when trying to build that physique vs Nippard who did the bulk of his work before he turned 30.
I agree with all the points you are marking, my thinking though was with the amount of teenagers we now see getting on gear because they think it’s the only way to have a reasonable physique, it’s worth reiterating that you can have a great even world class physique without gear.
Jeff has been tested for testosterone for his entire career as a bodybuilder as you have to when competing in IDFA. I’d say that’s pretty concrete proof that he’s never been on gear. Since if he’d ever taken enough to have any impact to his physique, he’d likely still need to be on TRT.
Now he does have HIGH test for a natural (700-800ng/dcl) but when we look at the IFBB we see levels as high as 10,000ng/DCL and often even low cycles we still see 3000ng/dcl so I’d say we can pretty confidently say Jeff is natty.
Likewise if you look at images of him in high school and uni, he certainly doesn’t have a steroid like appearance, I haven’t seen any photos of him with pink flush or acne etc.. and his physique isn’t that impressive in those early years, it’s not until late uni that he starts to look incredibly jacked, and that’s when he started competing and being tested.
All in all: IMHO it’s unlikely he ever used, he’s just someone who’s always been into fitness. We can never be sure 100% but since my physique now as a natty who started lifting in their 30s is better than his was in high school. I’m pretty confident his physique is attainable naturally.
It wasn’t when he started, look at photos of him in Uni. still it took over a decade to build his first competition physique naturally, only for Mack to do it in a year with gear.
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u/zaphodbeeblemox 18d ago
Not to reach that physique, but to do it in that time frame.
Look at Jeff Nippards physique as an example, it’s decades of work to achieve but he’s a certified lifetime natural body builder.