These HW's today are just so incredibly massive/huge. Just freaks really.

I knew a couple of kids on our high school wrestling team that were on steroids. This was in the late 80s. One wrestled at 140 and the other at 160. The 160lb kid would actually go onto become a pro heavyweight boxer.
For me personally, the Balco scandal was an eye opener regarding what PEDs were capable of; I’d just always assumed steroids were for the meathead types like weightlifters, football players and pro wrestlers. Guys who needed massive size and strength but who were not necessarily great athletes in the conventional sense. I had no idea that they had / have PEDs (including steroids) that could shred fat, increase endurance, build lean muscle etc. I had no idea that sprinters, cyclists, baseball players and the like could and would benefit so much.

 

Being the opposite of a jock, I don't even know that many athletes and I've had some mention to me in casual conversation that their high school coaches had them on steroids just to play some bull**** basketball games. That poster who says he's worked closely with elite athletes for years and never seen any drug stuff sounds like a liar. More to the point, he sounds like an enabler, one of those guys who has to lie like that to keep his job in that industry.

 

Yeah, his posts in this thread don’t really seem to comport with reality. I don’t know what his motives are but history, the present and common sense all seem to be against him. He’s right in the sense that steroids aren’t magical and that genetics do play a significant role but PEDs and genetics really take guys into the next realm and that’s what we’re witnessing in pretty much all sports now. 6’5” 245lb heavyweights with 7-8% body fat. Fighters fighting 30lbs lower than their natural weight and gaining 15-20lbs overnight and not suffering in cardio. Athletes in tennis and football dominating in their late 30s. NFL and nba players not only bigger and stronger than past greats but faster. Good times, my friend!

 

Oh I know plenty of C grade athletes and local gym junkies who take steroids. There's a reason why inferior talent that isn't going to be tested take these things. It depends on the individual and the sport but generally speaking these things aren't useful for anything other than gaining muscle mass. The amount that translates to performance is still reliant on technical ability and natural aptitude for their sport.
The culture of the sport determines how many people are taking steroids as well, obviously baseball has had a steroid culture like cycling has had an EPO culture.
The top professional and olympic athletes I have worked with have not taken steroids or any hypothetical PED, these guys are cautious enough even when taking something like protein powder or creatine. These are physiologically gifted individuals, people who are anomalies and off the chart from a young age.
You have to understand that there is no such thing as a performance enhancing drug, that's not what the WADA list of banned substances is. It is a list of substances that show a mechanistic change in physiology in clinical patients, with specific conditions. So these substances can only hypothetically make a difference, and then you have to remember that there is a world of difference between a clinical patient and an elite athlete. A clinical patient is deficient in some regard so the substance is taken to achieve homeostasis and become 'normal'. For someone who is already likely above normal in most physiological parameters... are these substances really applicable to the population we are talking about?
I understand that no one believes me and that this doesn't intuitively make sense for most, but that is what it is. My estimate is that 97% of the things on the WADA list would make no noticeable difference for performance in 100% of sports.

 

More muscle mass means a higher resting metabolic rate, being taller means greater surface area for the same weight, so big guys should really have better body composition and be leaner.
Water loading and last minute weight cutting isn't anything amazing, a really fit athlete is still going to be fit on fight night despite a decrement in performance if you objectively and quantitatively tested it.
The population is getting greater, and in our world of abundant food people are larger in general. It would be strange if this trend wasn't reflected in sports, where the anomalies rise to the top. Obviously sports training has advanced, it wasn't all that long ago when people believed in ridiculous myths like weight training slowing you down (when the evidence clearly shows the opposite to be true).

 

Believe what you want, my only motive is to give an insiders honest perspective. People tend to only remember the Balcos and the state sponsored programs and forget that the vast majority play by the rules in their day to day struggle. You have to be pretty cynical to believe that the majority of elite athletes don't have the morals or integrity to not cheat. I think a lot of people use that belief to justify their own inadequacies, and to avoid addressing the painful reality that some people are just born a certain way that they can never come close to. You see this in the domain of IQ as well, people try to undermine the most valid and reliable psychometric test that exists by claiming that there are multiple intelligences, emotional intelligence etc. (things that are not scientifically valid)
People really struggle with the idea that we aren't a blank slate, it's not fair but that is the reality of it.

 

Big dont mean sht! A prime Tyson (5`11 218 eats AJ for breakfast and craps him out by lunchtime. All that muscle needs a lot of oxygen. Id rather be built like Wilder actually. Very lean and very powerful. Like a Tommy Hearns build for a HW. If he had a 1/4 of Tommys skills he`d obliterate the rest of the division. Look at how successful hes been based on athleticsm and average skill. Scary to think what he could be if he was a higher skill level.

 

Good point,human science projects these freaks,probably been a diet of HGH and Testosterone since he was a baby,lol who knows but you’re right these freaks are a relative modern thing.

 

Not sure how we can say that,I knows it’s a common opinion and that even AJ has said as much but Douglas put away a prime Tyson did he not?

 

Fighters who box at a world class level late into their forties...

 

Wish you weren't a liar.

 

Who don’t exist, apart from freak anomalies like Hopkins who relied heavily on a technical, unathletic, spoiling, safety first style. Who lost to any athletic fighter he fought during his late thirties and in his forties (Taylor, Pascal, Dawson etc.)

 

Okay cool, when you have something to say let me know.

 

Fury does lift heavy weights. I've seen videos of him do heavy deadlifts. He just doesn't train to get lean.