Fitness superstar extraordinaire Larry Wheels opens up about his health and PED usage in a recent YouTube video titled “My Heart After 10 Years Of PEDs”. There’s been more open talk of PED (performance enhancing drugs) usage in the world of strength sports in recent years which will hopefully help educate people on the potential risks of using them. Let’s dig into Larry Wheel’s health update.
Larry Wheels Talks About PED Usage & Heart Health
Larry Wheels is one of the most visible personalities in the fitness space these days, with a massive following on social media. He’s a businessman with his own brand Personal Record, he set multiple powerlifting records, competed in arm-wrestling, and stepped into the sport of strongman. Let’s just say Wheels seems to excel at everything he does. It was a breath of fresh air to see him address an often taboo topic such as PED usage and medical testing.
Larry opens the video directly, talking about many bodybuilders in recent years having heart issues and dying early in part due to PED usage. Larry Wheels said he started using PEDs at the age of 17 and has used them without a break for the past ten years.
He said he’d checked all his major organs, excluding his heart, and that it was time to have an ECG (Electrocardiogram) test and ECHO (Echocardiogram) test while hooked up to the treadmill. The ECG test will identify potential heart problems by measuring the heartbeat while looking for irregularities. The ECHO test is done to check for blockages in the arteries or an abnormal size of the heart.
Surprisingly the results from Wheels’ tests didn’t reveal any major issues as one would assume after ten years of using PEDs. The doctors said the actual heart muscle was thicker than average, but that could be due to him being an athlete and that he had a perfectly normal healthy heart for a man of his age.
Wheels said he has a peace of mind as the tests went well. He said he had thought a lot about his heart health after seeing multiple bodybuilders die at a young age including former Arnold champ Cedric McMillan at 44 years old and Bostin Loyd at 29 years old.
Larry opened up and said he was putting off these medical tests because he feared the worst. Plus, he didn’t have much in his family history regarding heart problems.
He implores everyone to get their heart health checked, especially if they use PEDs. He said, “don’t wait until you have symptoms of heart issues before getting checked out.”
CLOSING THOUGHTS
It was great to see Larry Wheels use his platform to shine the spotlight on PEDs and preventative medical testing. Wheels asked everyone to share his video and experience with the hopes that it can save someone out there who has been avoiding getting their heart health tested. We hope that this public service announcement can help save more lives before it’s too late.
Kiel DiGiovanni
Author