Steroids in the 60s ?

Yes.
Anabolic steroids basically allow an athlete to recovery quicker from training, or improve faster. Whatever way you want to look at it.
But they will also provide weight and strength gain without any training stimulus.
Some of them produce more strength and minimal weight gain. But the most "classic" ones (testosterone, dianabol) tended to produce a lot of mass.

 

Bob Hazleton who fought Foreman and lost both legs to steroid abuse started juicing right after losing to Foreman. He said it was rife even then.

"Bob Hazelton had both his legs amputated after his career ended, due to steroid abuse which started in 1971, and continued after his boxing career ended in 1980, as his went into weightlifting and bodybuilding. Doctors believed that Hazelton had taken a steroid, that contained the female hormone estrogen, which caused phlebitis, an inflammation of a vein that affects blood flow in the legs."

There's quite a lot of articles about Bob where he talks all about the advantages of steroid use in boxing if you Google them.

 

Already widespread in the Olympics throughout the 1960s. The heavy throw field events especially.
In weightlifting since the 1952 Olympics.

 

"Roid rage" is a term used to describe the symptoms of aggression sometimes prompted by steroid use. In addition to their physical side effects, steroids can cause manic symptoms including aggression, euphoria, reckless behaviour, decreased need for sleep and, when taken in high doses, even violence. There is still scientific debate about the existence of such symptoms, due in part to the ethical problems posed by giving high doses of steroids in experiments."

I was thinking about Ike Ibeabuchi and Mike Tyson after reading this.

 

I think Foreman was just naturally big, it does happen, I once had a mate who never trained in anything smoked and drank and he had an amazing body was ripped, big and muscular and he could run faster than anyone else I knew. Sadly he got into drugs and was shot dead.

There were steroids around in the 60's and 70's as I know body builders that were using them, but they were hellish expensive and only the top athletes were using them then. Not like today were most people in any gym in the country are on them, or could obtain them.

 

Thank you. Was going to say the exact same.

If you consider the lengths to which boxers and trainers in earlier generations went, to think that steroids were not used as soon as they hit the gyms is an exercise in deliberate naivete. I'm sure some trainers were superstitious but like most sports, boxing is a copycat affair and once word got around...

In regards to George, you can't simply use the eye test. Look at James Toney. He was hardly Frank Bruno but was busted.

 

I've read that in a 10 week experiment a group of people were given steroids and didn't train at all, the other group received no steroids whatsoever whilst on a weight training programme. The group who took steroids and didn't train gained 7lb of muscle, the group who trained naturally only gained 4lb of muscle, remarkable the effects they have.

 

Having been invented in 1935, synthetic testosterone was first believed to have made its Olympic appearance in the Helsinki games of 1952. Steroids were entrenched by the 60's in the Olympics. Dr. Tom Wadell, a decathlete, estimates 1/3 of the U.S. track team were using them. In the Munich 1972 games, U.S. discus thrower and world record holder Jay Silvester took an unofficial poll among the other athletes from the USA, USSR, Egypt, Great Britain, and other countries, and 68% of the athletes said they had used them, the vast majority within the last 6 months.

It's important to note that the stigma we attach to steroids now simply wasn't there for decades of their existence. They weren't even banned by the IOC until 1975, with the first basic testing taking place in '76 for the Montreal games. The banned list (and testing) prior to that was primarily for amphetamines/stimulants. The first guy testing caught in Olympic testing was in 1968, a pentathlete, and the dude tested positive for beer.

Steroids were, by and large, popular with athletes, coaches, and governments at the time, and the stigma for using just wasn't there. They weren't even banned before alcohol was.

 

Yeah totally remarkable, I read this as well, there is, or was something on youtube about it. the ones on steroids that did not train gained more muscle that the ones that did train without.

I have seen the transformation in people I know, and it can be amazing

 

Toney gained a lot of muscle in the late 90's early 00's. Look at him at CW against McCallum in (when he weighed in at 181 lbs, 9 lbs below the limit) and against Jirov (where he was 196 lbs in the ring, if memory serves, without being fat). My guess is that he bulked up some 20 lbs of muscle with the help of steroids when he went to HW. That he then put some 30-40 lbs of fat on that doesn't mean it wasn't there.

I don't see a similar change in Foreman during his first career. Wouldn't rule it out at all for his second, though.

 

All this bull**** you hear from roid heads my cousin included, that you have to work harder when on gear is laughable..... they are a wonder drug that's for sure.....

 

Yeah that's not the case- you don't have to work harder, you get to work harder.

Picture it like a limiter remover. Anything that allows you to train harder and bounce back better will give you an edge if you put the work in in because you can put more time and energy into developing your skills, and you'll have more strength, power, and endurance to apply them. I see it brought up from people who don't like acknowledging that that steroids/PED's don't make you a good fighter; that's true, but it's not the half of the story that matters. What they do is allow you to develop into the best one you can be if done properly. You need the right dosages of the right combinations, and you need to put the work in to maximize them. That's why the experts make the big bucks.

 

[url]http://i.stack.imgur.com/362r1.jpg[/url]

Image of the study with the results.

Steroids already work even if you don't do ****, though if you don't do **** I doubt it's worth the possible side effects.


The positive effects of steroid use also remain for years so an athlete can easily take a "break" from pro sports, cycle and then come back with new foundstrength.

 

Steroid era was prevalent in 50's.

 

Whether George Foreman ever took steroids, i don't know, but regardless I'd still class him as a perfect example of "natural strength". The man was phenomenal, even in the 1990s when some of the men he was fighting were certainly on steroids and sometimes as big as him.