With Sam Sulek reaching the masses on social media, bodybuilding veterans Lee Priest and Milos Sarcev were the latest to discuss the budding 21-year-old star. In a recent Bro Chat podcast published on October 1, 2023, Priest and Sarcev assessed the quality of performance-enhancing drugs used today and Sulek’s potential as a bodybuilder.
In addition to boasting a memorable IFBB Pro League career, Lee Priest is known in the bodybuilding community for his outspoken nature and never holding back, especially when the matter is controversial. Still sporting a ripped physique at 51, his passion for the sport is as strong as it was the last time he stepped on stage in first place at the 2013 NABBA Mr. Universe.
Priest admits he’s witnessed the sport change for better or worse lately. Like many other bodybuilding veterans, he worries that performance-enhancing drug use has become glorified, specifically with younger audiences.
Lee Priest and Milos Sarcev Talk Today’s PEDs in Bodybuilding: “You Don’t Know What You’re Getting”
Sarcev believes the main problem lies in younger people wanting gains immediately with no care for the potential ramifications of heavy anabolic drug use.
“Now, now, now, 20 years old and I need to do this,” said Milos Sarcev. “That’s the problem, I want it all and I want it now and I don’t care what it takes. This is the problem. Lee you just mentioned you were on steroids and then off completely. When I talked to Dennis James, Chris Cormier, Flex [Wheeler] we all did on and off and off means off. It’s not cruising, it means off,” said Milos Sarcev.
“If you stimulate and feed it and have some little anabolic enhancement and you go off and on, off and on, especially when you’re young, you can maintain health. If you decide okay, for next for year’s I’m not going to stop anything, I’m going to be on and I’m going to be Nick Walker in 2024, then you’re going to maybe run into the troubles. This is how all this starts. Then, you have all these health issues and now you have the alarms and you have to put the breaks on,” Sarcev said.
Priest discussed an interaction he had with an 18-year-old about using steroids.
“I was having an argument with an 18-year-old just before I came on here. ‘Lee, as a teenager do you think I should take steroids?’ I’m like no. He wrote back ‘Why not?’ I said because you’re a teenager how old are you? He says, ‘I’m 18.’ I said just be patient it takes years and years and years just keep training. He wrote back, ‘I’ve been training two years I’ve hit a plateau, I want to get big.’ I’m like, but don’t ask me, I told you no so whatever,” explained Lee Priest.
As for his own use of PEDs, Priest said they became a necessity when he started to compete against competitors with “great genetics” who were already taking them. He added that nowadays “you don’t know what you’re getting.”
“I’m competing with other guys who have great genetics and they’re on them, so for me to keep up with them sadly I’m going to have to go on them too, so,” Priest added. “Well the deca I did then too was pharmaceutical, so if you had a sore shoulder or whatever you could take it and it would help.
Now I’ve had injuries now and that car accident, my neck, someone gave me a deca, I took it, and it didn’t do shit.”
“You don’t know what’s it in anymore, you don’t know what you’re getting. I think the quality was better back then so you could actually use less.”
Priest and Sarcev on Sam Sulek: “Unbelievable Genetic Freak”
Sarcev was impressed with Sulek’s physique and potential but warned Fouad Abiad, his sponsor, against rushing him, stressing, “Do it carefully, smartly.”
“He’s an unbelievable genetic freak, he has all the potential right? It’s just one of those things you want to rush him into do it? No. I love the fact that he wants to satisfy himself with a vision of what he wants to bring on the stage.
There’s obvious potential that’s going to flourish into something great. Rushing him… and what we were talking about, okay, don’t take a break, don’t take a break, push the level they are doing it… No. Do it carefully, smartly, if you are sponsoring him I hope you have some influence on him. I would most definitely have cycles and PCTs and off and in between,” Milos Sarcev said.
For steroid use, Sarcev underlined his golden rule:
“My golden rule of thumb was always as much time as I was on, I would have to be at least half time off,” added Sarcev.
Above all else, Sarcev says having enough protein is key to not just a great physique but longevity.
“You’ve got to have enough protein period. Obviously, if he’s lean enough he’s getting away with whatever macros in whichever form he is taking. I’m not going to say necessarily you have to be strict as me. I just had shitload of good foods that I love eating. My diet was not suffering. My diet was always I loved it. Right now, 40 years later I still eat my egg whites in the morning.”
Given Sulek’s rising popularity among the fitness and bodybuilding niches, many continue to debate his potential. Recently, Priest called out bitter fans who have taken issue with Sam’s unconventional diet and way of living.
While his methods may differ from the status quo of chicken and white rice, Priest and Sarcev agree Sam Sulek is doing right by the bodybuilding community by just being his authentic self.
Watch the full video from the Fouad Abiad Media YouTube channel below:
RELATED: Seth Feroce Praises Sam Sulek’s ‘Don’t Give a Fu** Attitude’: “It’s Working for Him”
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