Donte Franklin: Steroids or Natural?

Donte Franklin is one of those bodybuilders whom Generation Iron named as the greatest natural bodybuilder. Obviously, this created a lot of buzz because people didn’t know whether it is true or not.

In this article, we will find out the truth. Does Donte Franklin take steroids or is he natural?

Donte Franklin: Steroids or Natural

Donte Franklin is a professional bodybuilder from Missouri, USA. He was born on March 31, 1991. As of 2020, he is 29 years old.

He has a very strong online presence with almost 80,000 followers on Instagram. Donte regularly updates about his workout routines, fitness tips, and diet to his online followers.

Now when you are a bodybuilder, people are going to think that you are not natural and you are juicing. Similar, Donte has also been under the scanner of people as they want to know the real truth.

Donte Franklin has always maintained that he is a natural bodybuilder. Even on his Instagram profile, he has written “Lifetime Natural”.

In fact, he always mentions in all his Insta posts that he is “drug-free”. It seems like he is desperate to tell the whole world that he is natty. Despite all these efforts, haters still hate and never forget trolling him.

This is something all fitness enthusiasts and bodybuilders should learn from him. If you are natural, brag about it… let the whole world know.

Don’t sit quietly and let people accuse you of something that you have not done. Spread the word, tell the truth. Be vocal!

Donte Franklin’s Stats

• Height – 6 ft
• Weight – 226 lbs

He is very tall and muscular and his overall body proportions look aesthetical. Sometimes, if you are juicing, your body does not look very proportionate. While, if you are natural, your weight, height, muscles, everything correlates with each other. But, we still need to know more…

Donte Franklin – Steroids Reality

Is it possible for a bodybuilder to be 100% natural and achieve that size?

There is no doubt that you can get muscular and big like Donte Franklin without taking steroids. It is possible to be a natural bodybuilder and also maintain your size for a long time.

So, blaming Franklin for juicing just because he is muscular doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t prove anything.

There are many other bodybuilders who were huge and muscular even without taking any steroids, for example – Phil Heath, IFBB professional bodybuilder.

Check out this picture of Phil Heath from his younger years when he was 100% natty.

Similarly, Kai Greene looked like a mass monster even after being natty. The credit goes to his amazing genetics. So, why can’t Donte have similar bodybuilding effects naturally?

Donte Franklin – Gains Timeline

To know the real truth about juicing, it is important to check the bodybuilder’s gains timeline.

When you look at the progress of the transformation of a bodybuilder then you can easily find whether steroids were involved or not.

According to Donte, he first started weight lifting when he was just 12 years old. That means he has been working out for a long time and he is really focused and serious about it.

The interesting thing here is that he starting lifting weight even before turning 13, so technically, he was not even a teenager when he started.

It was obviously his growth phase so, his body responded well to his workout efforts. As a result, he grew tall and started packing in those muscles.

In natural bodybuilders, it is very common to gain muscle mass quickly in the initial phase but after some time, you experience a plateau. After that their size doesn’t change much because their body kind of achieves its full capacity.

If you want to keep on growing big even after that then you will need the help of steroids because they can give you that extra boost to become gigantically huge.

We already know that Donte Franklin wants the whole world to know that he is natural, so he has uploaded many of his before and after pictures on Instagram so that people can compare them and know that he is natty.

Below, you can see a picture of his progress over the years.

Just by looking at this picture, you can get the doubt that he is on steroids… because he looks so muscular.

However, if you look closely, then you will notice that his size hasn’t changed a lot. He looks very similar in both the pictures, but he does look a little bulkier now. So, it looks like he has naturally gained all those muscles.

His gains over time do not look unnatural. Also, it looks like he has slowly increased in size and there was never a sudden increase.

If he would have taken steroids then he would have easily gained 60 to 80 lbs of muscle mass. However, it doesn’t look like he has gained more than 20 lbs in his after picture.

Only a natural bodybuilder would have that kind of growth. It looks like he must have gained a very small amount of muscle mass every year. That is normal and achievable for natural bodybuilders, especially, if you want to bulk up.

Donte Franklin – Drug Tested

Now, this is the biggest proof that cannot be overlooked. Donte Franklin has passed several drug tests over the years.

Also, these tests were performed by federations that have the credibility of being 100% natural. These federations are the NANBF and the INBA.

These federations are always on the look-out to find the bodybuilders who are juicing in secret. That is why they conduct various strict tests randomly throughout the year.

In addition, these tests are accurate and genuine so, a bodybuilder who lies to be natural would never be in the correct state of mind to participate in them.

Only a bodybuilder who takes steroids and wants to ruin his carrier and reputation would participate in these federations.

This means that both these federations are genuine and only 100% natural bodybuilders participate in them.

Keep in mind, many bodybuilders who claim to be natty participate in other “natural shows”. These types of shows give a heads-up about the dates of the tests and that can actually work in the favor of bodybuilders. They can easily stop consuming certain substances and easily get themself a clean-chit.

But… Donte specifically participated in the NANBF and the INBA because they never reveal the dates for their tests. They always do random testing so that the bodybuilder cannot hide his reality.

These are the tests performed by INBA and NANBF. The bodybuilder has to pass any or all of these tests:

• Lie detector test.
• Urine analysis.
• Stress test (using voice).
• Blood test.
• Saliva test.

When Donte became the Novice Champion of NANBF, at that time he passed all of these tests without any problems.

It seemed as if he just wanted to prove to the world that he is telling the truth about being natural. This shows how dedicated he is to bodybuilding and clean living.

Verdict – Natural

Donte Franklin is a natural bodybuilder and there is no doubt about it.

We truly appreciate his hard work over the years. Also, we feel that other newbie bodybuilders and fitness enthusiasts can learn a lot from him.

As he started lifting weights at an early age and continued doing it, so, his genetics helped him become more jacked even from a young age.

If he would have taken steroids, he would have become more swollen and big than what he is now. He would have packed in a lot more muscle mass.

If you look closely at Franklin then you will notice that he looks exactly like how Mr. Olympia pros look prior to taking steroids. They look huge and massive natty bodybuilders.

The biggest evidence to prove that he is natty is the fact that he competed in the NANBF and INBA federations.

Best Steroid Alternative

If you are an aspiring bodybuilder or just a fitness enthusiast and you want to increase muscle mass without steroids then you can try out a steroid alternative.

The best steroid alternative available in the market for the last 6 years is Crazybulk D-bal.

Crazybulk D-bal is a legal and natural alternative to Dianabol.

Dianabol is an anabolic steroid that helps in building muscles like a beast. However, it is dangerous for health and can cause long-term damage.

It can give serious side effects and that is why you should never use it. With Crazybulk D-bal you can get the muscle-building effects like Dianabol but without any side effects.

It is clinically proven as the safest alternative that gives rapid results and does not cause problems with drug-tests.

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