Hello and thank you for being a DL contributor. We are changing the login scheme for contributors for simpler login and to better support using multiple devices. Please click here to update your account with a username and password.

Hello. Some features on this site require registration. Please click here to register for free.

Hello and thank you for registering. Please complete the process by verifying your email address. If you can't find the email you can resend it here.

Hello. Some features on this site require a subscription. Please click here to get full access and no ads for $1.99 or less per month.

What bodybuilders do to their bodies — and brains

Creating a physique that can win at the highest level of professional bodybuilding requires superhuman self-discipline, intense training and genetic good fortune. Increasingly, say the people familiar with the culture and its consequences, it cannot be done without illicit drugs and a willingness to push a body to — or past — its limits.

More than a dozen scientists, trainers, judges and competitors interviewed for this report said that just earning a pro card, an amateur’s ticket to the pro ranks, is very difficult without anabolic steroids. Winning a marquee title drug-free? Several people laughed at the question.

“Impossible,” said Harrison Pope, one of the country’s leading anabolic-steroid researchers.

The behemoths who win the best-known and most lucrative titles barely resemble the iconic, classically muscled champions of the past, such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, who won the sport’s premiere title, Mr. Olympia, seven times between 1970 and 1980.

“Arnold Schwarzenegger would not win today,” said Brad Schoenfeld, a professor at Lehman College in New York and author of several books on bodybuilding and muscle growth. “He would not even get a pro card.”

Offsite Link
by Anonymousreply 5December 9, 2022 12:51 AM

They look so gross

by Anonymousreply 1December 8, 2022 6:06 PM

Hotness

by Anonymousreply 2December 8, 2022 6:30 PM

The thoroughly corrupt International Olympic Committee will sanction just about anything as a "sport" just to make a buck.

That the IOC refuses to sanction bodybuilding as a sport shows the IOC knows a fucking freak show when it sees one.

by Anonymousreply 3December 8, 2022 6:47 PM

This steroid trend with guys is turning me asexual.

by Anonymousreply 4December 9, 2022 12:28 AM

I love ‘‘em big and buff

by Anonymousreply 5December 9, 2022 12:51 AM
Loading
Need more help? Click Here.

Yes indeed, we too use "cookies." Take a look at our privacy/terms or if you just want to see the damn site without all this bureaucratic nonsense, click ACCEPT. Otherwise, you'll just have to find some other site for your pointless bitchery needs.

×

Become a contributor - post when you want with no ads!