Is Connor Murphy Natural or On Steroids?

Connor Murphy is a guy that is not just known for his physique but is also famous for his prank videos on Youtube and Instagram. If you are not aware of who Connor is that I must tell you that he is someone who has been raking in millions (mostly earnings from Youtube) by pranking girls. I must say that he has a unique style that has caught the fancy of many girls who just adore and love him for his great body. That he is a natural or on steroids, is what we are going to see in this article.

Not just this, Connor seems to have inspired many college dudes to get ripped and shredded with good muscle mass as he himself is.

If I can speak of his fan following on Youtube, he has a highly impressive subscriber count of 2.4 million and the number seems to grow with each passing day!

He has a massive fan following on Instagram too with 451K followers!

Is Connor Murphy Natural or on Steroids?

Before I get into any details, let’s see what he has to say about himself (whether he has been using gear or not):

I already like this guy!

It’s good that he went live to address accusations if he is natural or not. Even though there are a couple of other guys who seem to have gone live on camera addressing similar accusations, most of them tend to deflect the question and try to lie about their taking steroids.

Connor, on the other hand, openly comes out and says, “I am natural, I have never taken anything” and he does so without the least bit of hesitation. I think he gains a plus point for this!

It goes without saying that genetics play a massive role in building big muscles, even more than what steroids can do!

Good genetics can help guys that are natural build bigger muscles as compared to some guys who keep juicing for years and are still not able to get as big as these natural ones!

Connor’s Body Composition

Typical steroid users show a couple of signs that they have been juicing. Flushed skin, boulder shoulders, and paper-thin skin with veins all over are some of the signs of using steroids in a big and massive way.

Connor does not show any of these signs.

There’s hardly any evidence to suggest that he is on steroids. One of the most interesting things that you are likely to observe is that his shoulders seem weak in comparison to his biceps/triceps which tends to happen only in natural bodybuilders.

I would like to highlight the fact that steroid users have massive shoulders because androgen receptors in the shoulders are more responsive to steroids. This is the precise reason why bodybuilders who start using bulking steroids such as Dianabol, Deca, or Anadrol have shoulders that look like cannonballs.

Apart from this, his muscles look smooth which is really a sign of someone who is natty. However, they don’t look too smooth which means he is not retaining a lot of water but they are certainly not dry. If someone has been using cutting steroids such as Trenbolone or Winstrol, then he is prone to look excessively dry, which obviously is not the case with Connor here.

Timeline of Gains

Let’s have a look at his body transformation over the years:

As you can make out from the video, Connor started training at a young age and by the time he was 17 he was already tipping the scales at 185 pounds. According to him, this is when he plateaued for a period of almost 3 years before he started putting in effort and hard work again and within a year he gained 10 lbs to reach 205 lbs.

I think this rapid muscle gain is what seems to have started doubts about having him used steroids.

Since I have been training for many years myself, what I know for sure is that after an initial phase of gaining muscle all natural bodybuilders go through a period when they make little or negligible muscle gains.

As far as his gaining 20 lbs in just a year, he says that:

• It wasn’t all muscle mass. He put on a lot of body fat too since he was trying hard to bulk up. At the same time, he got taller too as he was still growing up.
• He also changed his training routine from a 45-minute-a-day full-body workout to a 3-day split, which greatly helped him up his volume.

I think with changes in his routine and at his age, gaining 20 lbs of muscle in a year does not sound so strange!

As a matter of fact, 5-10 lbs of this weight gain might have nothing to do with muscle at all. Not just this, if you triple your training volume as he did, you are likely to get jacked very soon.

Besides this, it doesn’t make sense to think that Connor would have taken steroids at the age of 17 because with that he wouldn’t have gained 20 but 65lbs considering the fact that he was bulking and growing simultaneously at that age.

Competition History/Drug Testing

As far as testing for competition is concerned, it is known that Connor Murphy once competed in the Men’s Physique category with the NPC.

Sadly, NPC does test for steroids but it is not a legit natty federation. As a matter of fact, competitors can easily pass the test and prove themselves to be natural since the tests are conducted on specified dates. In other words, the competitors are already aware of when they have to stop a steroid cycle to have the steroid cleared from their system in order to pass the steroid test on a specified date.

Legit natty federations, on the other hand, go for random checks and never give you the date when they are going to test you for using steroids. Moreso, they do so throughout the year to keep a tab on you.

Having said that, just because Connor competed in NPC doesn’t mean that he has been using gear. It could simply imply that he was competing against guys most of whom have been juicing and maybe doing that for years. Since there aren’t many natty federations where all bodybuilders are 100% natural, it is common for natural bodybuilders to compete in non-natty events. Even though there are some legit natty organizations, there happen to be few and far in between.

Verdict

So, is Connor a natty?

Well, there is no evidence to suggest that he has taken steroids, and neither does his body bear any signs of steroid usage.

I think it is safe to say that Connor Murphy is a natural just like Terry Crews is. What is certain is that he has some great genetics and that he has built a great body with years of hard work in the gym. Like most other natural bodybuilders, I would assume that he has used natural supplements including whey, etc.

References:

(1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-FMucM0kaY