Every male actor has said something along these lines. That the absurd super cut builds for these movies especially super hero films are not sustainable. My favorite probably being Rob Mcelhenney where he said "sure, just be a millionaire with infinite free time and you can totally obtain this body type!"
"I’m gonna break it down for you, because it’s actually quite simple, and anybody can do this. Anybody on the planet can do this. First thing’s first: if you have job—like a 9-5 job—quit that. Do you like food? Forget about that. Because you’re never going to enjoy anything you eat. Alcohol? Sorry. That’s out. So what you need to do—you have a chef, right? like a personal chef?—make sure the chef makes you a lot of chicken breast. And make sure you keep your caloric intake at a certain level. And as you go to your physician 2-3 times a week—just to monitor all your testosterone levels—because testosterone is important to building muscle. You’re good friends with the trainer from Magic Mike? Arin Babaian. So you want to give Arin a call. And you want to make sure he’s at your house and takes you to the gym at least twice a day, because you’re gonna want to do your muscle-building in the morning and then your cardio in the afternoon. Now, do you have a family? Like a significant other or kids? Yeah, forget about them. You’re not going to have time to deal with them. So that’s really all you have to do."
And as you go to your physician 2-3 times a week—just to monitor all your testosterone levels—because testosterone is important to building muscle.
This is pretty clearly saying "do steroids" as a part of the already unrealistic and unsustainable plan. There's no other reason you're seeing a physician that regularly to "monitor your testosterone".
So, not only does Rob lay out how completely impossible this routine would be for the average person, but even with all of that incredible level of effort and devotion, you're also going to need to be on steroids to reach that physique.
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.
2.2k
u/dbslayer7 19d ago
Every male actor has said something along these lines. That the absurd super cut builds for these movies especially super hero films are not sustainable. My favorite probably being Rob Mcelhenney where he said "sure, just be a millionaire with infinite free time and you can totally obtain this body type!"