Train to Failure
I took an experimental CRISPR drug to prep for a bodybuilding competition. I should have quit when my friend died.
I met Lee at the gym, the same place I met all my friends. We’d both won spots to compete in the NPC Masters. We were in the middle of our contest prep, working out every day, trying to put on as much size as we could before cutting weight.
Lee had quit the Marine Corps to focus on bodybuilding full time.
“I just turned thirty,” he told me. “It’s now or never. I go pro or I don’t.”
I felt the same way. I’d dropped all my personal training clients, so I could focus on my prep. I wanted to walk on stage at The Masters looking as big and dry and hard as I could look.
Lee and I got along well, and we started training together. He was also 5’11”, so we didn’t need to worry about constantly readjusting the equipment.
At first, I’d been a little bigger than him, but within a month, he was mogging me in the posing room.
I didn’t understand it. We followed the same workout plan, ate the same food. I thought maybe it was the drugs.
“How much HGH are you using?” I asked him.
“8 IU a day.”
The same as me. “How much tren?”
“700 mg a week.”
The same as me, too.
I thought it must just be genetics.
The next week, though, when we measured our biceps, Lee had added another inch to his arms. It didn’t make sense.
“Are you using Synthol?” I asked him.
“I’ve never touched that shit.”
“You’re taking something. Just tell me what it is.”
“I don’t want to get you in trouble, Aaron.”
“How are you going to get me in trouble? I thought we were bros? We promised we’d help each other win, didn’t we?”
“It’s just…” He trailed off for a second. “There’s a doctor on the base, Dr. Mercer, who’s been testing a new CRISPR drug as part of some kind of super soldier program. The drug’s called MYO-CAS9. It shuts off your myostatin, upregulates your muscle growth. You should see some of the guys walking around base. Last year, they were twigs. Now, they’re fucking monsters.”
“Aren’t bigger soldiers just bigger targets to shoot at?”
“It doesn’t really matter if it takes fifty bullets to take them down. And these guys on base packing on muscles aren’t even bodybuilders. I kept thinking, what if a real bodybuilder took this drug?” He looked over his shoulder. “My friend managed to smuggle some MYO-CAS9 out of the base. We’ve been experimenting with it.”
“Do you have any left?”
“A little, but we can get in a lot of trouble if the Marine Corps finds out we have it. You could get in a lot of trouble if you get caught using it, too.”
“I need my pro card, Lee. If this drug works, I want it. As long as I get bigger, I don’t give a shit what else happens to me.”
The next day, Lee called me into the locker room. He opened his duffel bag and took out a frosted-over metal thermos. Inside were six vials of thick, milky-white fluid packed in ice packs.
“You need to inject every single muscle belly,” he told me. “Half a CC in each one.”
“We have six hundred muscles, though.”
“I didn’t say this was going to be easy.” He handed the thermos to me. “Do you want it or don’t you?”
I put the thermos in my locker.
For the next seven days, every morning I sat naked on my toilet and injected myself.
I started with my quads and then moved on to my calves, my glutes, my biceps, my triceps, my delts. I got Lee to help me with the muscles I couldn’t reach myself.
The injections hurt like hell. A hundred times worse than tren. My muscles burned as the drug spread through my muscle fibers, like someone had poured acid under my skin. But before long, the injections were done, and I was already feeling crazy strong.
Within two weeks, I added an inch to my biceps, two inches to my chest, and an inch to my quads. My traps popped out from my shoulders. My delts grew to the size of bowling balls.
“This is fucking incredible,” I told Lee, while I hit a double bicep pose in the gym’s posing room.
“When we get on stage at The Masters, we’re going to blow people’s minds,” he said.
For the next three months, we were absolute beasts in the gym, adding more weight to our lifts while our muscles exploded. We packed on more muscle in those three months than most bodybuilders do in a decade.
I’d been worried MYO-CAS9 would have side effects, but it seemed completely harmless. It literally just made us fucking huge.
But then going into Lee’s and my fourth month on MYO-CAS9, while we were warming up on bench press, Lee started rubbing his left pec.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I feel like I tore my pec.”
He’d only been benching 225 lbs., which was light weight for him. He took off his shirt and went to the mirror. A dark purple bruise had spread around his left nipple.
“Could we just do legs today instead?” he asked.
“Sure.”
When we were done working out, I had Lee record a few videos of me posing in the posing room. I posted one of the videos on social media when I got home. It was my first video to go viral. I woke up to two million views and thousands of comments.
“You’re a freak, bro.”
“You’re a monster.’
“You don’t even look real.”
I responded to as many comments as I could. I thanked everybody. I told them they hadn’t seen anything yet. To just wait until I got on stage at The Masters.
The next day, I met Lee at the gym. For cardio, we walked on the treadmills.
“Is your chest feeling better?” I asked him.
“A little bit. I still don’t know what happened. I must have turned wrong or something. Flexed too hard while I was pushing the weight up.”
We went over to a bench press and warmed up with 225 lbs. on the bar again. Lee did 18 reps and then sat up, wincing.
“It still hurts?” I asked.
“It feels even worse than yesterday.”
He took his shirt off. The bruising had spread across his chest. His pectoral muscles were twitching, too.
He swallowed a few muscle relaxants, hoping that would help, but it didn’t. He never took a day off, but he decided he had to.
“This better not fuck up my prep,” he said. “Otherwise, I’m going to fucking lose it.”
I told him he just needed to rest. To go home, eat, and get some sleep.
I finished working out by myself, and then I changed and went home.
The next day, Lee didn’t show up for back day. I called him, but he didn’t answer. He didn’t answer my texts, either.
Friday, he still wasn’t back at the gym.
“You okay, bro?” I texted him. “I’m worried about you. Write me back.”
After I finished working out, I drove to his apartment building. I buzzed his apartment, but he didn’t answer.
I shouted at his window. “Lee? You okay?”
His lights were off. He didn’t seem like he was home.
His friend from the Marines went by TacticalMass443 on social media. I messaged him and asked if he knew where Lee was. He said he hadn’t heard from him for a few days, either.
Sunday, Lee still hadn’t responded to my messages. I started to get paranoid. Did the Marine Corps find out about the stolen drugs and arrest him? Was I next?
Or had something else happened? A bad MYO-CAS9 side effect?
I stood naked in front of the mirror, staring at my body, searching for signs that something was wrong. Lump or tumors. Strange bruises or white spots.
Then later that day, I was scrolling through TikTok videos when I saw a crime scene photo that had gone viral on GymTok. The photo showed an enormous bodybuilder whose muscles had burst through his skin, spilling his organs onto the floor, practically turning him inside out.
I zoomed in on the bodybuilder’s face.
It was Lee.
I put my phone down and thought about all of Lee and my workouts together. All those times posing with him in the posing room, going to In-N-Out or Chipotle afterward to stuff our faces with food. Going to the beach and walking around in speedos to make all the other guys feel small.
He’d been my best friend. The best bro I’d ever had. And now he was dead. Not even a pro card to show for it.
I forwarded TacticalMass443 the crime scene photo.
“Have you seen this yet?” I asked him.
He saw my message, but he didn’t reply.
“I’m part of this experiment, too,” I wrote. “If this drug did something to Lee, I need to know what happened. I’m starting to freak out. Should I go to the hospital?”
“Meet me at my gym tonight.”
I met him at the gym near the base. He was waiting outside for me in his truck. He had a shaved head, arms covered in tattoos, and a neck as thick as my quads.
I got into his passenger seat.
“The Marine Corps knows Lee was taking MYO-CAS9,” he said. “They’re trying to figure out how he got it out of the lab. If anybody from the military reaches out to you, you better keep your mouth shut.”
“I’m not an idiot. I know how to keep quiet. But what happened to Lee?”
“He triple dosed.”
“What do you mean?”
“He wasn’t happy with his progress. He didn’t think he looked big enough yet, but he was struggling to put on more size. He wanted to take more MYO-CAS9 and see what happened. I told him not to risk it, but he didn’t want to listen to me. He spent two weeks injecting a CC into every one of his muscles on top of the half CC he’d already injected.”
“Fuck.”
“Then last Tuesday, he called me, screaming. His entire body had cramped up, and he could barely move. He didn’t want to go to the hospital, though. He was scared the military would find out about us stealing the drug. So, he just asked me to drive over with some valium. When I got to his apartment, he was in so much pain, he could barely talk. He said it felt like all his muscles were splitting apart. I injected him with the valium and that seemed to help. He fell asleep on his couch. But then about an hour later, he woke up screaming and then his stomach and his chest just kind of opened up.”
“You were there when it happened?”
He nodded. “I’m not sure how much the Marine Corps already knows, but I’m getting out of California for a while. Like I said, if anybody comes to talk to you, you’ve never heard of MYO-CAS9. You have no idea Lee was on.”
I promised I wouldn’t say anything.
I got out of his truck, and then he drove off.
Three AM, I woke up to the sound of someone kicking in my apartment door.
I took the combat knife out of my dresser drawer and then jumped out of my bed, completely naked.
Three soldiers ran into my bedroom, screaming at me with their guns raised.
“Hands in the air!”
I did what they said. They cuffed me, put a cloth bag over my head, and then brought me outside to their vehicle.
We drove for about an hour. They brought me into a building, sat me in a chair, and took the bag off my head.
I was in a small concrete room. A mirror covered one of the walls. An older man sat across from me wearing a lab coat over his uniform.
Dr. Mercer.
“How much have you taken?” he asked me.
“How much of what?”
“MYO-CAS9.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I want to talk to my lawyer.”
“Your lawyer?” He laughed. “You’ve stolen military technology. Did Lee give you the drug?”
I looked over my shoulder at the two soldiers behind me, standing in front of the door. I needed to get back to the gym. I thought I’d get back faster if I just admitted it.
“Yes, Lee gave it to me.”
“How much MYO-CAS9 have you injected?”
“Half a CC into each of my muscles.”
“How long ago did you do the injections?”
“Four months ago.”
He stood and walked over to me. He squeezed my delt, poked my quads, ran his hands across my lats.
“What else are you taking?” he asked.
I told him about all the other drugs I was using. He wrote my cycle down in his notepad, and then he brought me into a lab filled with exercise equipment.
“I need to run a few tests to see how your body is adapting to the drug,” he said.
He strapped an oxygen mask on my face, connected some sensors to my chest, and then had me run on a treadmill for a few hours. After that, he tested my strength with a few Olympic lifts, and then he brought me to his office.
“When can I go home?” I asked him. “I’m in the middle of prepping for a bodybuilding competition. I need to eat.”
“I’m going to let you leave soon, but from now on, we’ll be watching you,” he said. “You’ve made yourself part of this experiment. Next month, I’ll need you to come back here for more tests.” Then he said something else under his breath. It sounded like, “We don’t have much data on failures yet,” but I let it go.
I just told him, “I’ll come back whenever you need me to. Just not while The Masters is going on.”
He handed me a contract and told me to sign it. I didn’t read it. I just signed it and gave it back to him. I needed to get back home.
I ate everything left in my fridge and then went to bed. The next morning, I woke up early and went right to the gym.
It was Monday and Monday was chest day.
I’d already missed one day of training. I couldn’t miss another one.
I started with bench press. I loaded 225 lbs. onto the barbell and then warmed up with 30 reps.
My chest burned, but I pushed through the pain. I added 90 lbs. and then another pair of 45s.
Afterward, I flexed my pecs in the mirror. I had a pretty good pump already. The veins in my chest filled with blood, bulging like worms under my skin.
I did incline bench next, and then dumbbell flyes, forcing more blood into my pecs.
The pump felt incredible. My chest looked huge. But then I noticed a bit of blood on my shirt.
I took my shirt off. A small, purple bruise had formed on my left pec. The skin near my nipple had split open, too, and started bleeding. I went to the locker room and put a bandage on the cut.
Then I did thirty minutes of cardio before going back home.
The next day, I was back at the gym for leg day. Then, the day after that was back day, then arms and shoulders, then abs and calves.
Saturday, I did three hours of cardio.
I only had one more month left to prep. I’d put on a crazy amount of muscle. Now, I just needed to cut weight. Get as lean as I possibly could before I walked on stage.
Monday, for chest day, my pec burned while I warmed up on bench. I took my shirt off and looked in the mirror. The bruises on my chest had become even darker.
I told myself it was nothing, though.
I only did half a CC in each muscle. Lee did one and a half CCs.
If anything was wrong, Dr. Mercer would have told me.
A few more weeks, and I’d step on stage at The Masters 360 lbs. lean. An absolute fucking freakshow.
An absolute legend.
My entire life would change.
Wednesday, for back day, I warmed up with light deadlifts before moving on to heavier deadlifts and then barbell rows.
For the rows, I loaded 405 lbs. onto the barbell and pulled it toward my chest, squeezing my back for each rep, forcing blood into my muscles until I felt them burn.
After each set, I couldn’t help looking at myself in the mirror. I looked so good, but still, I knew I could look better.
Leaner. Harder. More vascularity.
I loaded another 90 lbs. on the barbell. 495 lbs. Then I did another set of rows, squeezing my back muscles, feeling the burn.
The first five reps were easy.
The sixth rep, I felt a sharp pain in my left shoulder, but I ignored it.
Then on the tenth rep, as I pulled the barbell toward my chest, I heard the rubber plates hit the ground.
I didn’t understand the sound. I could still feel myself gripping the barbell tightly in my hands. But then horrible pain shot through my body.
I looked down and saw my left arm lying on the floor, my fingers still wrapped around the barbell, my tendons completely severed from my shoulder.
Blood sprayed across the gym mats. People behind me started screaming.
I don’t remember much after that.
I picked up my arm and tried to re-attach it to the chunk of bone sticking out from my shoulder.
I fell onto the mats, into a big puddle of blood.
Two paramedics carried me outside to an ambulance and brought me to the hospital.
The doctor just came by my room to tell me I’ll probably live, but I’m definitely going to lose my arm.
I asked him about The Masters. He told me there’s no way in hell I’m ever competing in a bodybuilding show again.
But what does he know?
There’s nothing in the rules that says you can’t compete with one arm missing. That’d be discrimination.
I just need to figure out how to do a one-armed lat spread.
Then hitting side chest might be a little hard, too.