Dancefloor massive: Are more ravers taking steroids to make themselves big?

Anyone who's been out clubbing recently in the UK will have noticed that many male ravers are bigger and more muscular than ever before. A culture that's long been more 'elegantly wasted' has become absolutely ripped. And it's not just on the floor – DJs used to look and act like the biggest caners in the party. But now they are healthier and buffer than ever before, the likes of Calvin Harris posing in his pants with a perfect six-pack in an Armani campaign, and DJ Fresh revealing that he works out every other day. "When you're standing up there with your arms in the air, it's a bit shit if you look like a twig," he told Men's Health magazine.

With gruelling tour schedules and a carefully constructed image, it's understandable that DJs want to stay and look healthy – but what about the punters? Karenza Moore, a sociologist at Lancaster University who specialises in drug and club culture, says men today are subject to the same scrutiny and body image pressure that women have long suffered, and that ideal body shapes for men have shifted towards a musclier look.

"We used to go clubbing in jeans and trainers," she says. "Now, straight lads are going out in tight T-shirts, dressed to impress, and part of that look is being big and muscled," she says. "There's huge pressure on young people nowadays to look good, and to present yourself well on social media."

Where sex, drugs and acid house once ruled, now it's all creatine and cross trainers. Gym memberships hit 8m in the UK for the first time last summer in an industry now worth £4bn, and this year, the Office for National Statistics included protein powder – used by many gym-goers to build muscle – as a staple item in its basket of goods used to track inflation.

While there's no suggestion that any of the DJs mentioned above have achieved peak physique with anything other than healthy lifestyles and personal trainers, is there more to some clubland muscle-men than meets the eye? Is it just a casual insult from those who 'don't even lift bro', or are more clubbers taking steroids to make themselves big?

Stewart Who? used to work on the door of legendary London gay club Trade at Turnmills, is convinced the recent growth spurt among straight male clubbers is down to steroid use, and says many are emulating their gay counterparts in pursuit of the body beautiful – by any means necessary.

"The straight boys have taken to steroids with gusto," he says. "It's the TOWIE syndrome. They get the sleeve tattoos and the slicked-over hair and the big bodies. It was just gay men and body-builders before. That Men's Health, body beautiful thing is mainstream now. It's a shift in masculinity."

Stewart says the muscle tone, definition and scale of a steroid users' pumped-up parts stand out as they tend not match the rest of their bodies. The look is fake and, to the trained eye, he says, plain to see. And he should know. As the ex-boyfriend, many years ago, of a man who dealt steroids to London's gay male strippers, he has seen dozens of guys go from standard gym-pimped physiques to looking like superheroes.

"You can tell when someone has done steroids. You can sense the exaggeration – even if it's the first time you've seen them," he says. "You can go to the gym but you reach a plateau, even if you're dedicated. That's what leads people to steroids."

Key workers in frontline drug services such as needle exchanges agree. Steroid injectors far outnumber any other needle-using group in the UK, and so needle exchange services, where drug users can obtain free sterile injecting kits, offer valuable insights into this secretive world. Some clinics report that there has been a 600 per cent increase in the number of users in the last 10 years. The British Crime Survey last year found 60,000 people in the UK use the drugs, but experts and drug workers say the figure is far higher.

"Injectors of AAS are outstripping injectors of heroin, cocaine and crack right across the UK," says Jim McVeigh of Liverpool John Moores University. "It's the predominant drug that is being injected. It's certainly in the hundreds of thousands of people in the UK using these drugs right now."

David Rourke of the Arundel street drugs project in Sheffield, which helps injecting drug users in and around the South Yorkshire city, says that since around 2010, the numbers of steroid users seeking clean syringes has rocketed. Even as recently as five years ago, he saw barely a handful of injecting steroid users; now he says steroid use is "completely mainstream". His unit sees dozens of clients weekly.

The first warm weekend of every year is always one of his clinic's busiest. "You always know, when it's sunny, that we'll get dozens of guys coming in to get needles," he says. "As soon as the sun comes out they're all thinking of how they can look their best. Young guys want to look good in clubs. Part of the look is being big now. When they go out on the pull it gives them a bit of a boost if they're looking muscular. Steroids do that for them."

Gary Beeny, a needle exchange worker in Manchester, agrees that the steroid season peaks in spring as young men get ready to go on holiday. "A lot of the lads use steroids when they're getting ready to go to Ibiza, Ayia Napa, Magaluf, all that. They know they're gonna have their tops off, so around March and April we always get loads busier."

McVeigh confirms that the profile of users has changed in recent years. "It's a lot of lads in their late teens and twenties now. When I first started working with these groups 25 years ago it was either bodybuilders or doormen. Now it's more casual users, lads who want to put a bit more bulk on, and they often do it just to fall in line with their mates. For these lads, it goes hand-in-hand with going to clubs and bars, drinking and doing cocaine."

Drug workers confirm that the numbers are skewed, as many users deny they use chemical assistance due to the stigma around needles – and because they would lose respect from those who do not use steroids to bulk up.

How do the drugs work? Anabolic-androgenic steroids, to give them their full title (AAS) are synthetic versions of testosterone, the male hormone released naturally into the body when boys hit puberty and which causes a growth spurt, increased muscle mass, and greater sex drive.

Steroids work by helping the body repair the damage that weight-lifting naturally causes. They're typically injected into the muscle that users want to grow. When gym-users lift progressively heavier weights over a few months, they create small tears in their muscle fibres, which the body repairs naturally, using protein from your diet. It then adds bigger cells to build a stronger fibre in a process known as muscular hypertrophy, which makes muscles bigger and stronger. Natural testosterone is the body's main ingredient for this process, but anabolic steroids speed it up.

AAS are legally prescribed for people suffering from body-wasting diseases such as cancer, or complications from AIDS. In fact, their original use on the gay scene was, says Stewart, linked to a wider fear of the disease: "Back in the nineties no-one wanted to look skinny, or like they were losing weight. Getting big was part of a drive to present a healthy and HIV-free image."

There was a corresponding increase in legal and off-label steroid use in the mid-1990s as doctors began prescribing drugs such as androlone and oxandrolone, as well as human growth hormone, in a bid to combat life-threatening wasting in people with AIDS. From there, the drugs' use spread, first into gay clubs, and then into today's straight male clubbing scene.

Andrew, a 26-year-old ex-user from the West Midlands, began using steroids when he was 24. He stopped after a year when his family complained about mood swings. "At first I just liked getting bigger. It made me feel confident. But I found myself behaving more aggressively than normal. I'd get pissed off over the smallest thing. I liked the way I looked, but not the way I felt. It just wasn't worth it."

Other evidence for of the growth in steroid use can be found by analysing seizure data. Steroid seizures have increased by 70 per cent from 1.5 million doses in 2012/13 to 2.5 million in 2013/14, according to the most recent Home Office report.

These drugs are illegal – class C, the same as sleeping pills and tranquilisers – but unlike the latter, their use and possession is not a criminal offence. Supply or produce them, though, and you're looking at up to 14 years in prison, an unlimited fine, or both – which explains the huge secrecy around the trade, which tends to be run by older gym-goers, says McVeigh. "You can't just go into a gym and buy them," he says. "The guys who supply them tend to be cautious, and that's as it should be."

They are, however, available online as pills and powders, or ready-injectable vials, but are mainly sold in informal dealing networks with supply chains spreading back to Thailand and China, where the drugs are produced on an industrial scale. A typical course can cost £150 a week, and most users use them intermittently, allowing the body's natural hormone production to recuperate in between punishing drug and gym binges.

But the dark sides to getting big easily outnumber the benefits of flexing in the club. From baldness, shrunken testicles and man-boobs (the effect of the body no longer producing its own testosterone) to cardiovascular problems, acne and aggression, the side effects of steroids are serious. The market is also riddled with impure and counterfeit products, meaning some users are paying for inactive or potentially dangerous substances.

Drugs such as cocaine, MDMA and amphetamines can also combine with steroids to place huge demands upon the body. By enlarging the muscles and gaining weight, the heart is put under greater strain. Take a stimulant, such as cocaine, and that heart beats faster. A final danger is added by cocaine's potent vasoconstrictor properties, which means it narrows your veins.

"It's triple jeopardy, really," says Professor Julien Baker, director of research at the School of Science and Sport at the University of the West of Scotland. "It's the whole lifestyle: partying, gyms, drugs, steroids. It can be very dangerous."

Stewart says that few clubbers will heed those words of warning. "You can look really healthy when you're on steroids. You're big, you're ripped, looking good and probably tanned – but inside you might be totally fucked."

In a recent study McVeigh found that 46 per cent of steroid users had also used cocaine in the previous year. The use of other image-enhancing drugs, such as injected Melanotan for a permanent tanned look, are also common among many users, as well as sex-enhancing drugs such as Viagra.

"There's a widespread belief that you're entitled to have it all, and a belief that you can achieve everything you want pharmaceutically," says McVeigh. "It used to be that the body was a temple. Now, it's more like a test tube."

Mike Power is a freelance journalist and regular contributor to Mixmag, follow him on Twitter here