Miranda Oldroyd is a female Crossfit competitor. She displays a well-developed musculature, strength and explosiveness. Question is, can you match her without using performance-enhancing drugs (PED) and steroids? Is Miranda Oldroyd a natural competitor? Let’s see.
How big is Miranda Oldroyd?
Miranda Oldroyd is very big for a female, isn’t she? According to her profile on crossfit.com, she is 5’5″-165 cm @ 143lbs – 65kg. That puts her 6.5lbs above nattyornot.com’s guide for natural bodybuilders which is actually designed for males only.
In a lean condition, males have lower body fat levels than females. I am not suggesting that Miranda Oldroyd has more muscle mass than a male weighing 135lbs at 5% BF (the estimation in the guide for a person who is natural and 5’5″ tall). However, she is very close. And that’s why I have a very hard time accepting the claims suggesting that a female can build a similar physique naturally.
How strong is Miranda Oldroyd
According to Miranda Oldroyd’s stats on crossfit.com, she can do 50 pull-ups, squat 290lbs (2 times bodyweight), deadlift 335lbs (2.3 times bodyweight), clean & jerk 205lbs and snatch 170 lbs.
When you add her other achievements such as sprinting 400m in 1:10, you know that Miranda Oldroyd is not joking around.
What about the steroid 3D delts, the developed upper chest and the huge traps?
In many photos, such as the one below, Miranda Oldroyd presents a spectacular trap, shoulder and upper chest development – characteristics of females using anabolic substances.
image source: www.roguefitness.com;
Females, in general, have a really hard time developing big upper bodies, especially the chest and shoulders. Just look around in the gym and tell me how many females have a developed upper chest and 3D delts.
When we compare Miranda Oldroyd to a known steroid user such as Ariella Palumbo, it becomes obvious that Miranda Oldroyd actually looks bigger than Palumbo. For those of you who don’t know, Ariella Palumbo is a young physique competitor known for openly talking about the drugs used by female competitors.
Ariella Palumbo is about 5’3″ @ 145 lbs and openly talks about her usage of anabolic steroids
Why would CrossFit athletes remain natural?
The top CrossFit competitors get paid more than bodybuilders who compete in Mr. Olympia. As a result, the competition is incredibly dense. That’s when PED come into play. You have to understand that nobody in this world acts by the rules, except those who finish last. The smile, the natural talk, the clichés are only a smoke screen.
image via: femalemusclenews.com;
Should Miranda Oldroyd change her name to OldRoid?
I am sorry, but it’s not natural for a woman to be more muscular than a man. Truth be told, 90% of the average men look smaller than Miranda.
In other words, nattyornot.com has a really hard time accepting the statement that a woman can achieve a similar physical development without the usage of synthetic hormones. Mutation of that kind is not characteristic of females who rely solely on training and nutrition.
Damn where are all the comments?
Too many generic and baseless assumptions are made in this article. Her build (and her hard work) makes sense on any distribution curve for Caucasion females in America – she’d just be on an extreme end. Saying things like “It’s not natural for her to be more muscular than a guy of the same weight” are silly. It’s not that it’s not “natural”, rather, it’s just extremely unlikely.
In other words, evolutionary probability has no problem with her. I don’t know whether she’s natural or not, but as far as statistics is concerned, she is. You could likewise make a curve for men in all countries and find that a small % of them will never even half as much muscle she has. Heck, there’s even a small % of men that lactate sometimes. Does that mean they’re on estrogen? No, it’s just probability and how evolutionary mutations works (and no, evolution isn’t some linear B to A thing).
Think of it this way: take 100 buff females who look like they might be on steroids. A curve would show that 98 of them are (just as an example).
It also makes more sense when you consider that ancestral human females had a lot more average muscle mass than modern day ones. Once in awhile, those genetics return to the curve (or, new genetics can arise just out of the curve itself, even if they were never present).
You have to be blind or stupid if you think thos girl is not on steroids
In the previous post Pieter is correct, you have to be blind, stupid, or have a vested interest in the sport to even debate this. Since I’m none of these, it’s easy to spot PED users.
My personal example is that I have a few business clients that actually own, and many others that work out at cross fit gyms.
I see them often enough that I can tell at first glance whether they are on a cycle or not (don’t know if that’s correct terminology, I’m not a PED user).
On cycle, they look, and act, like jacked versions of their real selves. They tend to be a bit boisterous, with a confidence that is obviously attached to their current physique.
When they are off cycle, they are deflated physically and mentally. They have their normal guy look, and aren’t nearly so intense. They also almost seem like they have a cold, just run down. I’m sure it’s due to their hormones and testosterone levels being all over the spectrum.
Anyone who has been around these type of people, know exactly what I’m talking about.
IMO, misrepresentation by the athletes, promoters, (and dummies that believe that these performers are clean) will continue to perpetuate this sport though.
Unlike MMA, and other contact sports, there probably won’t be much change in PED rules (doubt we’ll see #thegoldensnitch in crossfit) since this sport is like bodybuilding, where no one gets hurt during competition due to physical contact with each other.
400m in 1:10? Any athletic individual could run it in 60-65 sec. An untrained individual could easily run it in 1:20. But yeah she ain’t Natty!
400m in 1:10 is a joke! I ran 400m in 59s in junior high without any track training, played b-ball and did martial arts. Being male, a boy certainly helps, but still… it was a display of good altheticism, but nothing super special.