Clemens Worked Hard. So What?

It's not impossible. You do it with hard work. Ask any of my teammates. Ask anybody that's come here and done the work with me.

This is a great excuse for Roger Clemens, but unfortunately, I don't see how he can use hard work as proof that he never used steroids. See, anybody who knows anything about what steroids actually do to the body probably had extreme doubts when anybody uses the hard work excuse. Below is an excerpt from Will Carroll's book The Juice, undoubtedly the best of the books released in the past few years on steroids.

Testosterone, which is the primary active ingredient – in synthetic form – in any anabolic steroid, acts directly in muscle tissue. It increases the speed at which muscle cells are produced and repaired. This same action that stimulates protein synthesis also serves to inhibit protein degradation. This inhibition is known as the anti-catabolic effect (catabolism is a destructive metabolic process by which organisms convert substances into excreted compounds) and plays a major role in allowing the anabolic steroid user to train more often with heavy resistance. The user must also maintain a high-protein and fairly high-calorie diet during the training regimen.

A necessary component in the use of steroids, in order to realize gains in strength, muscle growth, and lean body mass, is heavy resistance training. Because of the anti-catabolic effect, the steroid user does not have to wait 48 hours for the muscles to recover from a previous bout of heavy resistance training. Instead of having to work the upper body one day and the lower body the next, the steroid user can work the full body every day with heavy resistance, without having to worry about the effects of muscle breakdown.

Mr. Clemens, if you were a hard worker and were able to work out more frequently, it is very possible it is steroids that enabled you to do that. That is what they are designed to do!!!