The transcript below is from the video “Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Steroid Cycle – What I Think He Took For Bloodsport & Kickboxer” by More Plates More Dates.

Interviewer:

Now tell me this, most martial art specialists, they are not strong. I mean they need flexibility but yet, you’re a bodybuilder, how does that all work?

Jean-Claude Van Damme (Actor, Filmmaker, Fight Choreographer & Retired Martial Artist):

It is because I train a different way. I used to train in the morning stretching, karate sparring and at night I train in gym like here, with weights to mix both of them.

Derek (More Plates More Dates):

Sup guys, it’s Derek (moreplatesmoredates.com), today we’re gonna be talking about Jean-Claude Van Damme’s body transformation for “Bloodsport” and “Kickboxer” in particular. Those are the two most highly requested movies in which he displayed an awesome physique that people want to know about. So I wanted to dive into those specifically and kind of outline what I think he took in particular to prepare for those roles.

Jean-Claude Van Damme is probably one of the most notable action stars from the late 80s and really rose to popularity I think with “Bloodsport” and some of those movies in the later 80s.

His physique isn’t known for being, you know, massive or have tons of volume like Arnold or some of the action stars of, you know, the 70s. He sort of brought in a more streamlined and achievable look that I think is more geared towards what the average male would actually want to look like and strive for a physique that most people would deem as the ideal male form exactly. So almost like the difference between men’s physique and bodybuilders nowadays. This is sort of like that compared to Arnold who was a bodybuilder I think. Jean-Claude Van Damme represents the ideal male physique essentially. He’s athletic, he’s lean, he’s dry, he’s not massive but he’s definitely jacked.

Derek (More Plates More Dates):

And looking at his progress, interestingly enough apparently, he did a bodybuilding competition in 1978 for Mr. Belgium and supposedly he won. The thing is though, this is 1978 and supposedly, if this is even him, I don’t know for sure if it is, purportedly it is but that would have made him 18 years old or something, which to me, seems kind of far fetched that he would have looked this good at 18 when at 21 years old, he was a lot smaller. So, I don’t know if he cycled heavily for the, you know, obviously I’m pretty sure he used something, if that was him from that bodybuilding competition but he did get smaller thereafter. So if he cycled off after that point or if that was even him to begin with, that remains up for speculation. But the roles in a time frame where we have a better gage on what he probably actually did, is later in his 20 when he actually started gaining a lot of popularity. So at 21 like he said, he’s not that big but he’s in great shape. Moving to 26,27,28, that’s when his physique really took on the form that people are, you know, remember him for, like in “Bloodsport”, “Kickboxer”. And in those roles he’s probably weighing, you know, he looks like that 1978 picture where he was supposedly 18 but at 28 he looks great and he has pretty much peaked for his career. I think in these two roles, at 27 years old in “Bloodsport”, he looked awesome. He is athletic and he is close to single digit as far as body fat percentage but he’s not something unachievable big that you would think that I need to sauce my face off in order to look like this.

Derek (More Plates More Dates):

What he did in particular to achieve that look though. He’s not incredibly lean but he’s lean enough and he has enough muscle separation that he looks extremely athletic. And the amount of muscle he has is well represented on his frame. He probably only weighs like 185 kg or something. I don’t know how tall he is, I never actually looked at his statistics online for what he weighs but he looks about, you know, 180, 185, 189 depending on his height. And he’s not shredded to the point where you would need to malnourish yourself to look like this. This is actually what I would speculate to be a relatively sustainable body composition year round where you can actually like look this damn good while still maintaining athletic ability, not, you know, running yourself into the ground to pick for a role like Hollywood actors do nowadays.

Derek (More Plates More Dates):

And this is largely what a lot of people draw inspiration from nowadays when they’re trying to, you know, pick their physique, they look at Jean-Claude Van Damme’s “Bloodsport”, “Kickboxer”, stuff like that, as what they would wanna look at the peak of their, you know, bodybuilding progression, uhm we’re going to the gym or whatever. And what I think he took in particular, I think the best way to gage in. First off, we’re looking at his body composition. He has, you know, some strayed, dealt almost, you know, he’s pretty lean, he is not massive like I said but he is still very muscular. And this, I don’t think he would need a crazy amount of gear to look like this especially with the half decent foundation which he seemed to have, with what I speculate to be probably natural at 21 or just in the beginnings of his performance enhancing drug use and this is all speculation of course. But I think based on the fact that he was doing action roles and around action stars like Arnold, Stallone, all these guys that are, you know, heavily influencing the bodybuilding world and essentially brought using gear to the mainstream for achieving a physique that is admired by the general public.

Derek (More Plates More Dates):

I think likelihood is overwhelmingly high just by association. That era with, you know, the stigma being a bit different around hormone use and stuff like that. And being, you know, a prominent actor, in a role you’re supposed to be like representing the top of the top, la crème de la crème athletes. It’s extremely unlikely that he didn’t use something. You know, what he used in particular, we have to look at what compounds were actually approved for human use in that era and what was most commonly used in the golden era as well as pushing forward to the 80s. In the 70s, we know that the usual suspects were Dianabol, Primobolan, Winstrol, stuff like that but more so Dianabol and Primobolan were the things that were leveraged heavily by the guys in the golden era in the gold’s gym days with the Arnold, the Franco’s and you know that crew, the right reasons, all that kind of stuff.

Derek (More Plates More Dates):

Moving forward into the 80s, we had people starting to utilise things like Deca a bit more and of what was also commonly used, growth hormone from Cadaver started to come on to the scene apparently in the mid-late 80s. I think that Jean-Claude Van Damme used all those. No, I think that the body composition is probably representative of somebody, you know, I assumed DHT derivatives or something that was probably leveraged highly by him throughout his career due to the dry body composition that he tried to, you know, obviously portray. He would try to come in lean, and tight, and athletic looking that is not something that you would necessarily deploy 19 orders in order to achieve. I think he would be going for something that’s less water-intensive, something more dry, something that drives high force production with low body weight.

If you’re somebody who’s a fighter, you don’t want to drag down your endurance by spiking your body weight with high doses of gear that are very potent substrates for aroma taste and flog you with water weight. He probably kept his, maybe used it to saucer on base and kept it light. But I assume he probably used stuff like Primo pretty heavily. Things like Winstrol. Maybe things like Anavar those were probably the choice compounds. The likelihood that he used GH. I don’t really know how common it was to use that stuff back in the 80s, based on where the origin of where it was coming from or the access I’m sure if anyone would have access, it would have been him. Blood. Do I think that the overwhelming likelihood?

Derek (More Plates More Dates):

I don’t think his body composition really represents that intramuscular fullness, you’ll usually see from guys on pharma grade HGH. Of course, that varies from person to person. But just in general, I think the bloody composition he achieved was likely supported by combinations of maybe, like mild doses of testosterone with Winstrol and Primobolan here and there, depending on what he was trying to do. But in general, it doesn’t take a lot to maintain that look for some people, extremely genetically gifted. They might be able to do that naturally, you know, arguably. But I think the likelihood is 99.9% of people are going to take gear to look like this, and I think he did as well, and I think he probably levers the DHT derivative family pretty heavily to achieve the body compositions he did in the majority of his roles.

In general, though I think that’s likely the approach he took to peaking for roles to maintain that really athletic look. I don’t think you need a whole lot more than what I detailed. So let me know what you guys think down below. Do you think he was natural? If not, where do you think you know was indicative of him really changing up his protocol on getting on something. What do you think you took in particular? Any and all comments are appreciated as they helped push the video to a new audience. Help me get on the recommended, grow the brand, etc. So much appreciated when you guys do that. Please, like, subscribe. Hit the notification bell. Follow me on Instagram @moreplates_moredates, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Tik Tok, Apple podcast, wherever I am.

Derek (More Plates More Dates):

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Thank you guys for watching, talk to you soon.