The Viral Steroid Trend Targeting Teens

THE TEXT MESSAGES fly back and forth almost daily. Frank, a teenager in Massachusetts, will see a TikTok post from somebody like @vici.togi. Togi’s post starts with him discussing how he took “a little” of an anabolic steroid called trenbolone, then cuts to him injecting himself just above his hip, followed by clips of his muscle-building progress.

Frank will immediately send it to his gym buddy, Jesse. Then one of them will make the joke, says Frank, about “taking tren and turning into an animal and just lifting as much as I could and getting really big because of the tren.” When the two high schoolers hit the gym, it’s more of the same. Often, when either gym bro fails to set a bench-press personal best, Jesse calls out the fix: “Fuck it, time to hop on tren.”

Not anabolic steroids. Not testosterone. Not creatine or multivitamins or a high-protein diet. No, Frank and Jesse (who both spoke on condition of anonymity because trenbolone is deemed illegal) immediately jump to trenbolone, which has quickly developed a rep for increasing muscularity and decreasing body fat all at once. Among bodybuilders it’s known as the “god of all steroids” for its potency. To teens and young men, it’s simply tren, a ticket to the prototypical social-media-friendly physique. Why? Frank, who’s now 18, explains tren’s growing popularity with all the confidence and expertise of someone who Googled tren once (mostly to see how jacked it made cows), watched hundreds of hours of tren content on TikTok, and made a ton of tren jokes. “If the only thing you care about is putting on muscle,” he says, “it really does seem like tren is the thing to take.”

Need proof? Head to TikTok, where there’s a “30 day tren challenge,” which, as @FinnOnTren explains, requires you to “take tren for 30 days and see how much progress you can actually make.” Over on Instagram, @bodybuildingbs promises to teach you how to use “you’re cutting PEDs correctly” if you “comment ‘Tren.’ ” On YouTube, Chris Raynor, M.D.’s video titled “What the Hell is TREN? And Why Is Everyone Taking It” has more than 1.3 million views and more than 2,500 comments.

Meanwhile, a host of fitfluencers (um, “trenfluencers”?) have a symbiotic relationship with the drug, letting its name enhance their street cred as their conversations normalize its use for the social-media masses. Bodybuilder Nyle Nayga hosts the Trensparent podcast; influencer Jon Skywalker sells shirts and sweatpants with tren setter emblazoned on them. So trendy is it to talk about tren that several herbal products (Tren-Max, anyone?), easily sourced online, tout tren-like effects.

Then there are the Tren Twins, Mike and Chris Gaiera, who’ve become perhaps the biggest walking YouTube billboards for the drug that’s part of their identities. The Tren Twins, who use a Dragon Ball Z image as their YouTube logo, are stereotypical musclehead influencers, with stocky frames and ostrich-egg biceps. (And yes, they have admitted to using steroids in several of their videos.) They adopted their moniker after being accused of being “fake natty” (aka on steroids) when they broke into fitfluencing two years ago, figuring they’d lean into the accusations by tying themselves to the trendiest steroid around. The branding is working: The Gaieras now have 1.31 million YouTube subscribers. Frank and Jesse are fans. “I’m not even sure if they take tren. It’s just other steroids,” says Frank. “But that’s their social-media name, so that gains a lot of attention, and as a teenager you’re seeing these super-jacked dudes, they’re showing off their manliness and their masculinity, and you want to achieve that.”

That’s especially true because of how social media can warp body expectations for young men in Generation Z. “People don’t recognize how common body-image issues and pressures are for boys, but nearly a third of teenage boys are trying to gain weight now,” says Jason Nagata, M.D., an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, who researches steroids, image-enhancing drugs, and eating disorders in adolescent boys and young men. Those teens and young men can’t help considering steroids, because despite their side effects, they work. “The reality is that anabolic steroids and trenbolone are very effective in developing muscle mass.”

But there’s a dark side to all of this: Those who take tren stress that it’s not a beginner PED. “No one,” said one Reddit poster in the r/steroids forum, which has 249,000 members, “should be really doing tren unless you are massive and in a [bodybuilding] contest prep.” That’s because it may be the most neurotoxic of all anabolic steroids, according to a recent paper cowritten by Timothy M. Piatkowski, Ph.D., a researcher and lecturer at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia. That neurotoxicity can have especially disastrous effects on teenagers and young men, because their brains are still developing.

Oliver, 26, a 225-pound mountain of a man with dark-brown hair and a well-groomed beard, knows this well. He began taking tren seven years ago and got so jacked that he compared it to “using Photoshop in real life.” But using tren put a strain on his relationships and eventually landed him in trouble with the law. His story, which you’ll learn more about later, provides a glimpse into the actual dangers of tren.

Mike Israetel, Ph.D., a sports scientist, fitfluencer, competitive bodybuilder, and cofounder of Renaissance Periodization, understands how the drug ruined Oliver’s life. “Tren is fucking toxic garbage,” says Israetel. “What you’re emphasizing with tren is extreme sexuality, extreme dominance-­hierarchy awareness, extreme violent thoughts and behaviors. . . . If they could just see the whole truth, most teens would be like, ‘Dude, fuck that.’ ”

To be clear: Most tren-obsessed teens (like Frank and Jesse) and many fitfluencers don’t actually take it. Neither do the Tren Twins (or so they say). They just watch (or make) the TrenToks, gradually growing tren into a modern muscle myth and social-media flex even though they know it’s way too dangerous to use. But not all boys are holding back. Not even close.

THE TREND AND the hype are new. Trenbolone is not. It was first synthesized way back in 1963 and approved for use in livestock in the 1980s to promote weight gain in cattle. Around the same time, bodybuilders realized that its tissue-building properties would grow human muscles, too. Tren possesses three times the androgen-binding effect of testosterone (which is also often used as a performance enhancer), so it more effectively attaches itself to your androgen receptors. This allows you to pack on increased muscle mass and strength. It also helps you preserve muscle tissue by inhibiting catabolic (muscle-wasting) hormones like cortisol.

The great tren beef-up wouldn’t last long—at least out in the open. The Anabolic Steroid Control Act of 1990 added 25 compounds, including trenbolone, as “anabolic steroids” under Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act, making their distribution a felony and first-time possession for personal use a misdemeanor in the U. S. (Several states also created stricter regulations.) Teenagers were part of the motivation for the regulations, says Rick Collins, a defense lawyer and legal expert in the area of performance-­enhancing drugs. “The intent of the law was to stop cheating in sports, diminish the black market, and protect the public, especially young people, from using these substances outside of medical supervision,” he says.

The law didn’t work. The black market “boomed,” says Collins, with PEDs flourishing in gym locker rooms. Then, in the early 2000s, the Internet became a haven for steroid distribution. Tren, though, stayed reserved for only the most hardcore muscleheads, and in a way this kept it from youngsters. You were most likely to score some tren if you were a regular gymgoer who knew a more hardcore regular gymgoer.

Social media and influencer culture changed all that, eliminating the gym as a barrier to entry for tren (and other PEDs). And the pressure for teens and young men to look jacked drives them toward PEDs more quickly, says Dr. Nagata. “Social media put steroids on steroids, because social media dramatically escalated the culture that values the effects of image-enhancing drugs like steroids,” Collins says. “Social-media platforms invite a culture of comparison. Whose life is better? Whose car is better? And for many, whose body is better?”

Part of tren’s mystique lies in how effectively it helps users win those comparisons. But its greater potency and binding effectiveness come with a higher risk of side effects than other steroids have, including insomnia, high blood pressure, and a cough that can make speaking or breathing difficult. The cough is so well-known in steroid culture it’s called the “tren cough.” Even worse are tren’s mental effects: Bodybuilders associate it with “increased anxiety, paranoia and aggression,” and the drug may “exacerbate existing issues such as anxiety, obsessive compulsive tendencies and body image issues,” according to a 2023 study in Research in the Sociology of Sport.

Surviving those side effects almost always gets you the body you want. That same study suggested that tren could “facilitate muscular gains despite flaws in training or diet.” It’s known for building hard, dense, “dry” muscles, essentially helping users develop the thick, striated muscles you see on horses and livestock. “The hallmarks of the tren body are increased muscularity, reduction of body fat, a couple of veins here and there,” says YouTuber Vigorous Steve, who is vocal about his steroid use and delivers fitness and steroid advice. (He has taken tren before, he says, but is not doing so now.)

This hype combines with social-media pressures and puberty to push teenagers toward the drug, says Dr. Nagata. “Social media can exacerbate body comparisons and lead to muscle dissatisfaction and the increased use of tren or other anabolic steroids in boys.”

That’s especially true in an era when social media increasingly normalizes PED use among bodybuilders and gym rats alike, especially testosterone replacement therapy. And sure, TRT is different from supplemental testosterone use for muscle building, but it’s becoming increasingly easy to view all PEDs as a unified spectrum, with some options that are quasi-legal and well studied and others that are . . . not. Bodybuilders no longer hide their testosterone use, either. Bodybuilder Jeremy Buendia (3.7 million Instagram followers) routinely posts about his hormone replacement therapy, spotlighting his partnership with Transcend, a telehealth company specializing in athletic performance. Ultra-strong powerlifter and bodybuilder Larry Wheels (5.3 million IG followers) announced in 2022 that he was quitting steroids for TRT and has posted about how steroids changed his body.

For about two decades, the stigma of steroids kept tren in the shadows, and that lack of exposure protected teens from its temptation. But the social-media exposure has started to normalize steroid use in fitness circles, making tren more acceptable, says Todd, a 39-year-old who has taken it on and off for nearly 20 years and spoke on condition of anonymity. “People around where I live, younger kids are doing it,” he says. “They’re seeing so many of their heroes on social media doing it. They see that they’re fine, they’re using it, nothing’s happening to them. And they probably feel like it’s okay to do it.”

WHOEVER WANTS TRENBOLONE now has few problems acquiring it. As the Internet has facilitated the popularity of tren, it’s also transformed its trade, according to Timothy Mackey, Ph.D., an adjunct professor at the University of California, San Diego who studies the drug trade and social media.

The process is frighteningly uncomplicated. Anyone who is looking for the drug simply has to poke around X or Instagram through the right influencer. The user is then rerouted to a messaging platform such as Telegram or WhatsApp. There a seller connects directly with the user to exchange contact information, iron out the details of the transaction, and finalize things on Venmo or PayPal.

“What sellers are doing is they’re leveraging all the benefits of all these different platforms to create an ecosystem,” Mackey says. “One place to maximize the marketing, one place to maximize the consumer interaction, one place to do the transactions. We see it as a whole Internet-­ecosystem problem.”

The tren trade extends beyond basic channels, and it includes “tren” impostors sold to capitalize on the hype around the real thing. Earlier this year, Mackey demonstrated how one could find tren purportedly offered for sale on the online music-community platform SoundCloud.

He typed “trenbolone buy” into the search bar and several playlists appeared. Among those playlists was one 13-­second clip titled “Where to Get Tren – Where to Buy Trenbolone Online.” The corresponding image was a shirtless muscular man, along with text about tren. After the user selected the playlist, the next page revealed a description that included an official-looking link, naspcenter.org/Get-Trenbolone.

Click on that link and you are re­directed to a company called Crazy Bulk, which sells steroid alternatives that it claims are safe and legal, including Trenorol (also known as Tren-Max), an herbal alternative to trenbolone. Trenorol is also sold on several online marketplaces, including Amazon and eBay. “A lot of times in this market, you’re gonna see places that are claiming to be research labs or chemical providers, but you wouldn’t see a legitimate provider selling on SoundCloud,” Mackey says.

Teens who might want to experiment with tren also feel increasingly empowered by message boards that detail how others have used it. In one early-2024 Reddit thread that had 225 comments, users candidly broke down tren’s good and bad points. They talked of amped appetites (“I turn into a black hole, I could eat for DAYS,” wrote BaetrixReloaded), sex drives (“Horniness skyrockets to a problematic level,” according to non-squitr), and mood swings.

They also openly discussed exactly how much you need in order to get jacked, with some advising 100mg a day. Others cautioned about side effects when taking more than 200mg a week. The variance in dosing patterns serves as a reminder that tren was originally approved in the U. S. for use in . . . cows. “There is no human dosing recommendation for tren,” says Israetel, the sports scientist and bodybuilder, “as it has no formal therapeutic use.”

That makes it especially dangerous for teens and first-time users taking large doses. Those come with a “very high risk of psychosis and rage,” says Israetel. Research has long backed the notion that anabolic-steroid use can adversely affect mental health.

The easy-to-access channels for tren (and other steroids) are tough to eliminate. Libby Baney, senior advisor for the Alliance for Safe Online Pharmacies, suggests legislation that would regulate what websites promote and sell. But even Baney admits that such legislation and enforcement require a variety of financial and technological resources—to monitor the platforms—as well as manpower.

Israetel has a simpler strategy to keep teens from using tren: Talk about it with them honestly. Acknowledge tren’s appeal and explain its consequences. Despite tren’s potential side effects, says Israetel, just blasting it isn’t the best way to dissuade teens from considering it. “If you give young men that balanced perspective and say real things to them,” he says, “that’s probably the best realistic way to go about it.”

THE ULTIMATE CAUTIONARY tale just may be Oliver, who asked to be identified only by his first name. He started taking tren in 2017. For as much as he raves about his results when on tren, he’s also experienced its darker effects. “[Tren] is not some kind of magic,” he says. “I wish I would have known that, and I also wish I would’ve known it would affect my behavior by taking risks, because it actually caused some problems for my life.”

He started lifting weights at 15, and two years later he jumped on a cycle of testosterone propionate, dosing 100mg every other day. He gained 20 pounds and got “freakishly strong,” he says, but then he wanted more. One year after that—and several years before tren reached social-­media-challenge status—a gym bro asked him if he wanted to try something stronger. “If your friends are doing it, it can’t be that dangerous, right?” Oliver says. “That’s how we think.” At 18, he started doing 50mg of tren a day.

His parents noticed his behavioral changes, but he doesn’t think they were ever aware of his tren use. Oliver compares their understanding of what was happening to seeing “a person on the street overdosing. You clearly can see that they aren’t well, but you don’t know quite why.” He did experience the symptoms, though, sweating through his shirts while eating carbs. And the “trensomnia” was brutal; he would toss and turn for hours and spent many nights barely sleeping.

Even worse, Oliver’s personality shifted. His aggressiveness, anger, and selfishness made him so unbearable to be around that his mom often didn’t want him in the house. Oliver alternated between six-week cycles of tren and rounds of testosterone replacement for five years. During those tren cycles, he says, he partied harder and more often. And if he had a girlfriend, he would be tempted to cheat on her because “it makes you [want to] seek out other partners.” Between cycles, he’d notice all these changes in his behavior, but each time he hopped back on he’d tell himself that he had learned to control it.

All of this echoes the Research in the Sociology of Sport study, which quoted one tren user as saying, “If you’re going to use [trenbolone], make sure you’ve got all your ducks in a row, financially, relationship wise, everything is like spot on, like nothing is like in the middle of being fucked up, because if you throw tren in when you are like in the middle of a financial hardship or your relationship is iffy, the tren is going to make it much worse.”

That’s exactly what happened to Oliver. Less than two years after he started using tren, his behavior drove his girlfriend to break up with him. That wasn’t his first relationship that ended on a tren cycle, he says, and it wouldn’t be the last. According to Oliver, most of his breakups happened during tren cycles. But when this ex began dating a new guy, Oliver says he felt jealous. He blamed a lack of money for his misery and started dealing cocaine. “The high-risk behavior made me think, I have to get to the top of this world, and that’s cocaine,” he says.

In 2018, Oliver was arrested for dealing cocaine. After receiving a light sentence, he says, he realized he needed to make some changes. Sort of. “I started to clean up my act in other areas,” he says, “but I would still use trenbolone.” That’s illustrative of the potentially psychologically addictive properties the drug has, Israetel says, which are especially problematic for anyone who starts at a young age. “If you grow up on tren, so to speak,” he says, “there is some kind of concern that you just might be more tren-like as an adult than you would have otherwise been.” The brain, Israetel says, responds to behavioral and thought patterns as it develops, and over time those patterns grow stronger if they’re reinforced. Dr. Nagata echoes that: “When individuals with muscle concerns stop using tren, they may become anxious about their muscularity and subsequently resume tren use. This can lead to tren dependence.”

This has been Oliver’s experience. For as much as he says he’s increasingly concerned with tren’s negative consequences, he also just completed a tren cycle last summer. He continues to take other steroids, too, or he does TRT, since his body has stopped producing testosterone on its own. He claims he’ll never use tren again—unless he can compete in a bodybuilding show. “I actually have this thought that if I could do well, maybe get the gold, then I wouldn’t have anything more to prove.”

Oliver’s story, of course, doesn’t show up on any TikTok or Instagram feed, but it may be a game changer in the parental battles to keep kids off tren. When Frank and Jesse make their jokes, they view the drug as only a mythic muscle maker. But as more information about its side effects emerges, the teens are starting to view trenbolone as something else: a dangerous drug. “I’ve heard about the effects physically, but the mental ones are far more scary to me,” says Jesse. “I never really thought about how steroids are as addictive as recreational drugs.”

You won’t hear that on Steroid TikTok.

Tren’s True Toxicity

Not sure how to tell whether someone close to you is just making big gym gains or whether they might be getting a boost from trenbolone? For all the hype around this era’s steroid du jour, it has some very real (and very noticeable) side effects. Watch for these.

Tren Cough

This well-known side effect is a cough so bad that users may struggle to breathe or speak. It usually occurs shortly after a tren injection, likely because part of it was accidentally introduced into the circulatory system, making its way into your lungs.

Zit Attack

You’ll wind up with pimples—but not just an ordinary breakout. “Purple, giant, puffy pimples all over your face,” says Israetel. “All over your back. I had a friend who started tren; he got pimples so bad on his back that legitimately every square inch had like a dozen pimples on it.”

Over-the-Top Anxiety

Think of whatever makes you most anxious, whether that’s public speaking or serious traffic. Be prepared to experience that long-term, says Israetel. “That feeling—permanently—for as long as you use tren,” he says. “Weeks. And just when you think it’s okay . . . you get a mini panic attack.”

Other Side Effects to Watch For:

Extreme sweating; insomnia; liver and kidney trouble; high blood pressure and cardiovascular problems; increased libido, aggression, and emotional dysregulation; decreased natural testosterone production.

This story appears in the September-October 2024 issue of Men’s Health.

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