The health and fitness industry has experienced a meteoric rise over the past two decades, yet its slick exterior conceals a darker side. Using ethnographic data from gyms, interviews, and social media platforms, this book investigates the growing consumption of image and performance enhancing drugs (IPEDs), the motivations behind their use, and their role in masculine body image.

Addressing a gap in the literature, Nick Gibbs also interrogates both the offline and digital drug supply chains with important insights for IPED harm reduction practitioners, law makers and policy advisors.

“This brilliant ethnography offers much-needed insight into the underpinnings of contemporary gym cultures and enhancement drug consumption from a theoretically informed and extensively researched perspective. An essential text.” Luke Turnock, University of Lincoln

"Nick Gibbs injects himself into the underbelly of the UK's booming health and fitness industry - 'The Muscle Trade' takes readers on a journey through the consumption and supply of IPEDs, shedding light on the darker aspects of bodily modification culture." Timothy Piatkowski, Griffith University

Nick Gibbs is Lecturer of Criminology in the Department of Social Sciences at Northumbria University.

1. Introduction

2. Situating the Research

3. Reimagining the Health and Fitness Industry as a Site of Deviant Leisure

Part 1 – Consumption

4. Desire and Dissatisfaction in the Gym

5. Instrumentality, Competitiveness, and Hyper-conformity

6. The Pleasures of Consumption: The Curious Case of Phillip

7. #Ripped: Social Media, Prosumption, and Bodily Desire

Part 2 – Supply-side

8. Production

9. The Offline IPED Marketplace