Is Mike Thurston Taking Steroids or is Natural?

Mike Thurston is a 26 years old English bodybuilder and also a personal trainer from Leeds who started to become popular back in 2013 – the year when his Instagram account started to get more and more followers and that’s because it was the year when this guy started to upload photos of his ripped physique which attracted more people. All of this has handed him an EHP labs sponsorship and started to promote the same supplements as Josef Rakish and Jaco De Bruyn. This guy is super big and is super ripped, for this reason a lot of people started to speculate either is he taking steroids or not. We would try to find it out using some real evidences and not only opinions as we often can see “I think he’s on steroids because he’s big”. Here are Mike Thurston’s stats: standing at the height of 6 ft he weights anywhere between 205 to 215 lbs.

Mike has an amazing physique, nonetheless I think he is a little bit different to the average bodybuilder that I have written an article about on this website, and the reason is because he is openly admitting to have consumed a lot of alcohol in his early lifting years while he was at university. Even if he was consuming lots of alcohol during his early lifting years, his body still responded immensely and this is what makes me think that he is having amazing genetics and I guess this great response was the reason why he continue with the bodybuilding part.

I can say that the only similarity is Anton Antipov, the only other bodybuilder that I’ve seen so far who also had great “drunken” gains – gaining a lot of muscles whilst drinking a lot. With all of this being said, do you think that it is possible for a bodybuilder to get jacked in the time he’s consuming large amounts of alcohol? Or this greatly influenced his muscles and that’s why he had to take anabolic steroids on order to build such a physique? We would try to find it out and determine if Mike has used something.

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No Signs of Steroids

As we have seen, Mike Thurston is having a big and thick build, nonetheless, there’s nothing that is standing out as an artificial look. Usually, those bodybuilders who are taking steroids are having an unnatural look and although that’s not something that surely happens if you take steroids, that’s important to take in consideration.

Plus, usually, a steroid user should have at least a few symptoms on their body of taking steroids. That’s very and very hard to avoid getting any steroid signs if you do take it. Some of the usual side effects of steroids include: red flushed skin; acne; bloating; thick/ blocky midsection; 3D traps; vascularity and some others. Those who use steroids get at least a few of these side effects but Mike does not seem to have any. Again, not having any symptoms of steroids is not a 100% fact that he’s not on steroids, but that’s something we should take in consideration.

I have also checked a lot of his photos where I noticed that his traps and shoulders are in proportion to other muscles and it does not seem to be overly dry/ shredded, except for when he is prepping for a competition which is something usual for all bodybuilders to be very shredded when in a competition.

Plus, when he is very shredded he has a very good level of vascularity, but that’s something normal for anyone who is very shredded. Plus to that, although he’s having a good level of vascularity, I wouldn’t say that it has an excessive level of it to the point where the veins are horribly spiraling all over through his body. I would say that those are perfectly reasonable veins for a natural guy, especially who loses a lot of body fat preparing for a competition.

Mike’s Genetics

Very often it is pretty hard to distinguish if there’s a guy who has got some great genetics or they are only juicing. It is very important to take in consideration the genetic factor because in bodybuilding, it plays an essential role.

However, it is very easy to decipher how good a bodybuilder genetics are and we can do it if checking them during their puberty when they were not lifting weights, based on this we can understand their bodybuilding genetics. Well, if they are looking fairly average during their adolescent years and after that, they are getting extremely huge at 25 years old then most likely those guys are on the juice. That’s because a person with amazing bodybuilding genetics is already jacked even before starting to lift weights. That’s why, if you can see a person who seem to be jacked a long time before they have ever touched a weight, it is quite a clear thing that they did have got some amazing muscle building genetics that are running through their veins.

For those who are wondering, an amazing example of this is Mike O’Hearn, a bodybuilder which I found pictures of him at 14 years old and he literally looked like a monster for a teenage boy in that age. There are 24 years old guys that are much less in size than Mike O’Hearn at 14 years old.

So, Mike Thurston has shared a video on YouTube where he is posting a few pics of him where you can see how he has developed over the years, that’s really helpful in determining his genetics and therefore – if he took steroids or not. The oldest photo that I have ever found of Mike Thurston is when he was only… well… 10 years old. Here’s how Mike Thurston was looking like 19 years ago when he was only 10:

As much as I have noticed, Mike Thurston seems to be more ripped at that age than most of the grown ass men in your local gym and you know… Mike didn’t even lifted weights at that time. He was looking that way only thanks to his genetics. In fact, I think that if you’re having calves that are severely lagging because they are ridiculously stubborn – you shouldn’t look at Mike’s Thurston as there’s a good chance his calves are bigger even though he is 10 year old only in that photo. It is very clear that a boy who is 10 years old looking like that is having first class genetics.

Mike’s Gains Timeline

Mike Thurston has confessed that he firstly started to lift weights regularly in his first year of University while he has been aged 18 years old. Doing a bit of research you can see what Mike has been looking like after only one year of training when he was 19 years old.

But by doing a bit of more research I have found out he is mentioning the fact that he was still drinking like 3 to 4 times per week and was partying hard during the first year of training. So, Mike just started to lift weights and was drinking a lot, nonetheless, we can still notice that his arms and shoulders are still amazingly big for a guy in his age and having such a lifestyle, his muscles responded exceptionally well… that’s taking on consideration that Mike has had less than optimal nutrition.

In the second year of his training, Mike has admitted that he was still drinking, but he said he was drinking much less and said that he was lifting even more than before. With this being said, here is the progress seen in the photo that I am going to share below:

As much as we can see, Mike has added quite a good amount of thickness and size as he is having arms that are a lot much more jacked compared to how it used to be in the previous year. That’s the result of his quitting drinking and having a better nutrition while working out much more. So, to my observations, these gains do look like all natural gains to my opinion. First of all because that’s nothing unusual for a natural guy, secondly because if Mike had been taking steroids during that time, then his arms would have blown up a lot much more than that and he would have arms twice as much. I honestly think that those gradual gains are absolutely normal for a natural bodybuilder to experience, and that’s especially if taking in consideration Mike’s situation when he was still new to the gym scene and you have cut out the detrimental substances for your muscles such as alcohol.

Here is a photo that I have found of Mike Thurston at 24 years old when he was preparing for a competition – quite some good years later when he wasn’t a newbie anymore.

It is obvious to say that Mike did had quite a good progress in the way he is looking as he is having a considerably better look in the second photo (since he is preparing for a competition, as it was earlier mention), nonetheless, I guess it is easily notices that in terms of muscle mass (arms size) he’s stayed more or less the same. I doubt you could say that he has gained a lot of muscles. The fact that he managed to keep his muscle mass while losing body fat might give you the impression of bigger arms – which is not true. It is all a very common thing for the natural guys to experience a little bit of growth after their initial newbie gains (but only a very little gain over a big period of time) and it does looks like this is the exact case for Mike. What I am trying to say is that this very little and very gradual gain does look natural.

If Mike would have used steroid in between those 2 photos, he would look MUCH bigger because such a little gain is not common when taking steroids. instead, he would have easily gained around 50 lbs of lean muscles with steroids which we can see he hasn’t.

This is a transformation photo that we can see up there being a perfect example of how much better your muscles can look if you are going to be more shredded. That’s always the case for a lot of bodybuilders. Getting much shredded while keeping the same amount of muscles are making you look a lot much better.

Competition History

It is very important to check if Mike Thurston (or any other bodybuilding that I’m writing about) has any competition history. So, Mike Thurston has competed in the WBFF in the past, but unfortunately, this is not very helpful in giving us any further evidence as to whether Mike has ever used steroids or not. The reason why this doesn’t really helps us is because the WBFF is not having a drug testing page or drug testing policy shared on their official website and as a result of this, we can assume that there is no drug testing that takes place with this federation.

But, as a result of this, I do understand that a lot of people might have the following question when hearing that he only competed in WBFF where they have no drug testing policy:

“If Mike is indeed all natural they why he doesn’t compete in such federations as the BNBF or UKBFF – the strictest drug policies which means the actual natural UK based federations”

Well, I might be wrong here, but the first thing that comes in my mind is: only a fraction of the bodybuilding community is trolling Mike saying that he is on steroids, which is like nothing in comparison to the trolling and hate that such big names as Simeon Panda or Donte Franklin is getting. This is the reason why the motivation for him to prove his natural status is going to be really small to my opinion. There’s just nothing which might make him want to prove it.

Second thought is – a lot of bodybuilders are choosing in which federation to compete mostly based on the exposure and on the financial gains that they are going to be receiving as a result of entering certain competitions. Well, as you might have guessed it – the WBFF, for example, it is one of the most popular federations in the world for fitness models and it is no wonder why many guys decide to go the WBFF path. By taking part in this federation there are opening up a lot of the possibilities of gaining new sponsors which is therefore going to be increasing your fan base and ultimately, it is going to make you get more money from doing what you love. So, by competing in WBFF you get more fans, more sponsorships and more money. I doubt that Mike has ever regretted in competing in WBFF.

What’s the Conclusion?

Based on the fact that I have found no evidence which could prove Mike Thurston has ever taken steroids my verdict is: Mike is all natural! In fact, I think that it is pretty clear that Mike Thurston has been destined to be jacked up and that’s clear by checking his photo at only 10 years old where we can see a really young kid who looks better than a lot of gym rats.

Due to the fact that Mike is having some first class genetics which he has definitely fully taken advantage of by fulfilling his genetic potential when he quit his partying and drinking days while turning his passion into a full time profession. He is now having online personal training business, he has great sponsorships and big amounts of fans. I definitely think that quitting drinking and working out was worth it.

I found nothing at all which I could give him the verdict of steroid use. Usually, those who are using steroids have abnormal gains timeline; or at least a few symptoms of steroids on their body or anything at all which can indicate he’s taking steroids. Mike Thurston doesn’t have any of those symptoms!

Tell us in the comments below what do you think about Mike Thurston, has his online personal training ever helped you out? A lot of thanks to the following sources:

https://www.google.com/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzGLDaTu81nJDtWK10MniGg

https://fitnessonsteroids.com/category/bodybuilders/

https://www.instagram.com/mikethurston/?hl=en

https://www.greatestphysiques.com/male-physiques/mike-thurston/

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