Another Bodybuilder Just Died a Horrible Death
After quitting the bizarre injections that puffed up his muscles, a Russian bodybuilder has become the latest in a long and unfortunate line of pro weightlifters to meet untimely demises.
As The Sun reports, 35-year-old Nikita Tkachuk hadn't injected synthol — a so-called "site enhancement oil" primarily made up of oils like paraffin or sesame alongside a local anesthetic and benzoyl alcohol that makes muscles appear bulkier without actually causing any strength or fitness benefits — before he died of a heart attack in a St. Petersburg hospital last week.
The story of how he got there is tragic, even for the morbid world of weightlifting.
After winning "Master of Sports" in Russia at 21, Tkachuk began injecting synthol to appear beefier. That practice is known as "fluffing," and it produces muscles that appear, as Iron Man magazine put it back in 2013, "comically inflated."
Eventually, Tkachuk signed a deal with a pharmaceutical company that contractually obligated him to keep taking the shots — a deal that turned out to be deadly.
After initially being diagnosed with sarcoidosis, a disorder involving tiny granules of immune cells forming on his organs, the strain from all that "fluffing" ultimately led to kidney and lung failure, and then a heart attack, his widow, Maria Tkachuk, said, per The Sun.
"There were many trials over the years," said the widow Tkachuk, who is also a bodybuilder. "[His] resources ran out."
Though a lot remains unclear about the man's death, including why he finally succumbed years after quitting the injections, his regret over the use of synthol — which in a 2022 video he called his "biggest mistake" — is plain as day.
"If your arm is 18 inches or 20 inches, what will it change in your life?" Tkachuk said ahead of his death, per The Sun. "You're going to lose a lot of health. It's not worth it."
"If I could back to 2015-2016, I would not do it," he continued. "I basically ruined my whole sporting career."
Though he's joined in death by a long line of young bodybuilders who died too soon after taking various substances to either lose weight or get swole, Tkachuk's story is especially tragic because he spoke out against the injections that ultimately killed him.
Now, his wife is left to pick up the pieces.
"There are no other words for now," his widow said. "Only shock."
More on bodybuilder deaths: If You Still Think Bodybuilding Is Healthy, This Woman Just Died at Age 20
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