Tell me about the history of PEDs in boxing

Sorry there are a bunch of illogical jumps & unsupported premises in your claims & suppositions.
The seemingly disdainful "FFs" emotionalism hints at it-if just good-natured "-100%" hyperbole that would be OK.

You set up false comparisons or analogies when you not only just list reasons to use, not any ethical, practical, health or being caught concerns, but make an absurd contrast with surfers knowing how to swim, which is not remotely sensible.

A small point; PEDs do not necessarily "massively" increase all of those capacities, certainly not some like eyesight-but even small advantages are significant to gain an edge. But ironically you massively overstate your case.

More importantly, you should know that citing individual cases of use across history proves absolutely nothing about how common it is.
I can show endless examples of serious violence & murders-does that mean everyone is secretly gratuitosuly brutal or homicidal?
I can argue say that all great fighters are under OR over 6' by cherry-picking numerous examples.

Most athletes take days off, some do not even work out multiple times a day.
No PEDs are not the only way to do this-but true it is likely to be easier, more efficient & productive if you have more than massages heat hydrotherapy etc...

Your conclusions are as extreme & irrational as if I did NOT have a very moderate position-which accomodates the possibility that many OR most use regularly or have dabbled in PEDs.
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". This is a truism often used to debunk insane conspiracy theories & pseudoscience.
And it is the definition of extreme to even imply that everyone uses PEDs, all professional athletes have long been cheaters & liars & massive hypocrites in denying it.

Your position is as naive & faith-based as if I insisted very few ever touched the stuff!
Or ballpark as ridiculous as asserting that everyone who ever was foiund guilty? They were framed, or it was a mistake or false positive.


Your agenda is driving your conclusion.
I am not saying you are being dishonest, but your psychological *

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*-for whatever reason-to draw the most extreme conclusion possible is compelling you to grimly insist on the most damning interpretations of the actions & intentions of literally everyone in all serious sports.

That a priori conviction in the court of public opinion is neither fair nor reasonable.

 

Gonna address the last parts of your message first as its arguably the most important thing as it's revealing of your mindset.

"It is the definition of extreme to even imply that everyone uses PEDs, all professional athletes have long been cheaters & liars & massive hypocrites in denying it".
"As ridiculous as asserting that everyone who ever was found guilty?
"Compelling you to grimly insist on the most damning interpretations of the actions & intentions of literally everyone in all serious sports.

For whatever reason a lot of people project their own perceptions on the morality of doping onto athletes (and in this case me lol), assuming that we all assume it's immoral, and that anyone who accuses other people of doping is "damning them" or "accusing them of guilt or hypocrisy". I'm telling you right now, I don't think that doping is immoral in the slightest. Not only do I not care about it, not only do I not have negative opinions on people that do it, but I actually think that it should legalized and permitted. It's ironic that you'd use such emotionally charged language as shown above and then accuse me of "emotionalism". You need to get it out of your head that:

A. I, and people like I are on some sort of witch hunt to tear down anyone we say is using PED's. Again, it's a morally neutral act to me.
B. That ultra, ultra competitive high level athletes give a damn about being "moral" and care about the same things you do. My man, there was an anonymous poll that asked Olympic athletes the question "If I had a magic drug that was so fantastic that if you took it once you would win every competition you would enter from the Olympic Decathlon to the Mr Universe, for the next five years but it had one minor drawback, it would kill you five years after you took it, would you still take the drug?" Guess how many of them said yes? 55%. Professional sports selects for the most competitive, pathology driven human beings in the human population. They don't care about the same things you do. Don't project your morals onto them. (Worth noting though that tbf subsequent studies found a lower percentage than 55%).

Now, to address your post line at a time.

"The seemingly disdainful "FFs" emotionalism hints at it-if just good-natured "-100%" hyperbole that would be OK".

I say "FFs" because believing that athletes as a population take less PED's than non athletes as a population is ridiculous. Hell, caffeine was a prohibited substance between 1984 and 2004 for athletic competition. It's quite literally a PED. Do you believe that the average American consumed more PED's on a daily basis in order to wake up for work than the average athlete did in order to win millions of dollars, gold medals and championships, between 1984 and 2004? I don't. THAT, is the extra-ordinary claim in this instance. "Athletes took less performance enhancing drugs than the average person" is an extraordinary claim.

"You set up false comparisons or analogies when you not only just list reasons to use, not any ethical, practical, health or being caught concerns, but make an absurd contrast with surfers knowing how to swim, which is not remotely sensible".

Ethcal - Ethical reasons don't exist for them, that's your projection.
Practical -There are no "practical" issues, PED's are extremely easy to come by, and we know the exact biological limit of how much you can take of what without dying.
Health - There are health issues, but again, top level athletes don't care. I can expand more on this part if you want.
Being caught - It's things like this that make me wonder if you've ever watched a documentary or read an article on PEDs in sports. In athletics "being caught concerns" do exist, but 99% of athletes are willing to take the risk. We know this by looking at finalists on the world stage and the regional stage, again I can go into more detail if you want. But even for them, sometimes entire countries are immune to drug testing on account of political means. We know this for a fact. For non-olympic athletes however, there is no risk. Most sports have zero off season drug testing, and the only in season drug testing they have is literally put on a calendar. Athletes themselves have said that they're not drug tests, but IQ tests haha, there is no risk. Furthermore, the "punishment" is being suspended for like a month and then coming back. Again there is no little to no "risk" for them.

"A small point; PEDs do not necessarily "massively" increase all of those capacities, certainly not some like eyesight-but even small advantages are significant to gain an edge. But ironically you massively overstate your case".

I mean it depends on the PED. No single one improves ALL of those things simultaneously, there's no magic pill, but can they be taken as prescribed to massively improve those things? Absolutely. This "small advantage" thing is a myth that I hear too often. Again man, you just plain don't know enough about the effects of PED's if you say things like this. There are people that have went from 150lbs 8% bodyfat to 200lbs 8% bodyfat in months, and then stayed that weight for years with zero fluctuation on body composition. That's impossible to do naturally. Not "difficult", physically impossible. Androgen, when taken in LOWER doses than is taken by athletes, can increase maximum strength from 5% to 20%. A low dose of a singular drug improving your strength by 5% to 20% is not "a small advantage", that's absolutely huge, and athletes take higher doses of this single drug, + multiple drugs at a time.

"More importantly, you should know that citing individual cases of use across history proves absolutely nothing about how common it is."

If we know for a fact that the tallest person in history ever is 9ft, then a drug comes out that makes people 20 ft tall and all of a sudden, loads of people suddenly becomes 20ft but they swear they never took the drug, we don't need anything more than individual cases. We know that everyone who is over 20ft is by default taking the drug, as this being a coincidence would be unlikely to the point of possiblity. Likewise, 7 of the 8 people in the 2012 Olympic Final tested positive for PED's in their career. Usain Bolt is much, MUCH faster than the person that came 2nd behind him. I therefore know that Usain Bolt is on PED's, as I know that it's unlikely to the point of impossibility that Usain Bolt, the fastest human being in history by far, could without PED's, be faster than everyone behind him who we know took PED's. The only way someone would believe this if, like you, they for some reason believe that PED's only give a "small" advantage, so can rationalize the extreme statistical outlier and bell curve destruction that would involve top level athletes sans PED's being better than other top level athletes with PEDs use. But we know this isn't close to true. Furthermore, we know that multiple athletes that have never failed a drug test, have been caught using PED's or were never caught buy just admitted to it regardless, and that drug tests are very easy to beat, so the statement "they've never failed a drug test, therefore they're clean" is again, based on a lack of knowledge.

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". This is a truism often used to debunk insane conspiracy theories & pseudoscience.
And it is the definition of extreme to even imply that everyone uses PEDs, all professional athletes have long been cheaters & liars & massive hypocrites in denying it.

"Athletes take PED's" is only an extraordinary claim to people that have a very strange idea on what natural biological limits are, how bell curves work, and moral projections. For example. we know for a fact that HGH was undetectable until 2004. Therefore, I as a rational human being knows that if an athlete had access to it, they'd take it, by definition. You would project your morals onto them and say "just because they could use a PED with ZERO repercussions doesn't mean they would", when again, on account of being professional athletes, they would. Furthermore, drug testing wasn't a thing in the Olympics until 1972. When drug tested started being a thing, what happened to the progression of sports and times? Nothing. Nothing changed at all. Surely if people were using PED's, and then testing for PED's became available, you'd expect times and measures to go down, but nope. This means 3 things:

A. Olympic athletes didn't take PED's prior to 1972. We know this is false, because they tell us that they did lol, they have no shame on the matter either because like I said, they don't have your moral code. So we know they took them.

B. Performance enhancing drugs don't enhance performance. This is a silly notion, not to mention biology impossible. So we know they work.

C. Athletes never stopped taking PED's even after drug testing became available, hence records and times progressed linearly even after PED's became prohibited.

It's C.

"Your agenda is driving your conclusion."
I don't have an agenda. Again you're projecting your feelings onto me, i'm just a dude who's very interested in sports and sports science who's done an awful lot of reading / listened to an awful lot of interviews on this topic. I have no dog in the race. You're the one who's letting your moral bias cloud your judgement, I have no moral bias.

 

You seem to know quite a bit about PEDs in sports. I don't know much about PEDs beyond, "they work." From my experience, if a group of 10 people of roughly equal athletic ability are competing in a sport and one takes PEDs, soon the other 9 will be left behind and won't be competitive with the one who takes PEDs if they don't also take PEDs. If the other 9 want to be competitive they will start taking PEDs, if one doesn't he will be replaced by someone who will.

That is how I look at all sports at the top level. I don't believe that _______, fill in the blank is able to compete naturally (no PEDs) with PED users at the top levels. If one top athlete uses PEDs, they all have to, or they will be left behind. From what you know about PEDs, am I right?

 

Yes, PEDs of course come in all forms and is much more than just steroids, but I specifically discussed steroids and don't think I've mentioned anything else in this thread.

 

I could be mistaken but I don't think that was directed at you? I'd likely reply to you directly like I did the other person if I wanted to address a point you made. Meant no offense. I'm not a subtweeter lol, I enjoy direct conversation. Wasn't tryna accuse you of anything.

 

Yes, it was a reply to a post I made. I did respond to your reply twice, though, (mistook it for two different ones) so I'll delete my second respons.

 

This is 100% correct yes! PED's are taken in cycles. People have the odd notion that if an athlete takes a PED's, they got caught taking a pill one day. Uh, no. It means they've been taking several different drugs in accordance with several different macrocycles, mesosycles and microcycles, before their competition starts, which can last from years to months to weeks respectively.

The nature of PED's is multifactoral. If it was JUST, Athlete A took a pill that increased his strength by 1%-5%, then you could rationalize athletes not taking them, but that's not the case.

Let's say you have Mike Tyson A and Mike Tyson B who, whilst not currently close to their natural potential, are already experienced and so won't benefit from newbie gains. We'll give them both Power Levels of 1000. These are the two most genetically giften human beings in history, and people with power levels of 1000 are 1 in a trillion.

Tyson A, will take Drug A, like an androgenic steroid to improve his maximum muscle mass and thus potential maximum strength by 50%-100%. After a few months he will now surpass his natural genetic limits for muscle mass and strength. His power level is now at 2000. Tyson B will not, and only ever increases his muscle mass and strength potential by 10%. His power level is 1100.

Tyson A also takes Drugs B, like EPO to improve his aerobic capacity, meaning he can train longer without getting tired and C, like HGH, meaning he can recover from muscle soreness much much faster. Tyson A can now do on average, 10/10 quality intensity workouts for 8-10 hours a day, 6-7 days a week for months at a time with no issues. His power level is now 3000.

Tyson B does not, and can on average do 7-8/10 quality workouts 3-5 hours a day, 5-6 days a week for weeks at a time before having to rest. He makes marginal improvements to his workout capacity and gains a power level of 1200.

Tyson is now stronger. Because he's stronger, he can lift heavier weights, which will break town muscle tissue even more effectively and make progressive overload much easier, again making him even stronger. His power level is now 4000. He can lift these even heavier weights with more intensity, which will make him EVEN stronger. 5000. He'll be able to lift these heavier weights with more intensity, more often, and recover from them much faster, meaning he can repeat this entire cycle again faster and with less rest, making him even stronger. He's also more resistance to injury and can recover from injuries faster, increasing his strength potential even more. 6000.

Tyson B never does any of the above, so makes very slow improvements at the rate a natural would. 1500.

Furthermore, Tyson A could take Drug D, to improve his coordination and muscle memory. He's now capable of learning skills faster and retaining the muscle memory for those skills for longer. Even if he weren't to take any of Drugs A-C, this drug will literally make Mike Tyson more fundamentally skilled at boxing just by virtue of taking them whilst training boxing. Baring in mind Tyson A can now already workout for several hours and days longer than Tyson B, he's also now capable of learning exponentially more in an even shorter amount of time. His power level is now 7000.

Tyson A, a month before competition reduces his intake of taking Drugs A-C and starts taking Drugs E and F, a peptide that massively increases force production and a stimulant that massively increases reaction speed. He's now much faster and more powerful than he was previously both in body and mind. 9000


Tyson B's reaction speed and force production is basically the same as it was in his training block, but is now improved slightly due to peaking towards competition. 1600.

The two Tyson's who both started off with equal amounts of natural genetic potential are now world's apart in terms of both skill and athleticism, and consequently their fighting abilities. This is not a "slight advantage", this is monumental.

Also if this sounds conspiratorial or "crazy " to anyone, I basically just quoted word for word an average periodization block for a PED using combat sports athlete and said Tyson A and Tyson B. This isn't some esoteric hidden knowledge.

 

In that case, I apologize. This is a topic that admittedly annoys me, especially when I hear someone say something dumb af like "Lebron is definitely on PED's cuz he's big and muscular, Steph Curry definitely isn't on PED's cuz he's smol skinny". Might have seen your comment and jumped the gun, assuming you were one of those people.

 

That’s false. It can be taken orally.

 

I will give you part of what you objected to.
I DID think you were making a damning moral judgement.
I now see-that unlike so many others who condemn them-you are not at all doing that. Sorry for my misunderstanding.

Still the crux of what I said is true.
You make extreme, unsupported judgements about the prevalence of PEDs & law breaking in sports.

Also it is not "emotional" language to make a moral judgement. Nor does having an opinion, say that killing, robbing, assault OR drug cheating to steal the fame, money, dreams of honest men & woman & set a horrible example for everyone + impressionable kids + contribute to the destruction of health by supporting it...remotely show it is clusing my judgement!

Or to say it is absurd that all athletes are cheatin' lying hypocrites etc-that is just the cold hard fact of what you are claiming absent any tangible evidence.
Even your example-I have HEARD about that 55% argument-& to your credit you admit later it showed a lower %...but that very survey

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support your argument.
In point of fact it shows many athletes would NOT do PEDs, even with the Greatest rewards that nobody taking PEDs can expect, only dream of!
And it phrases it as a practical question re: only if the cost-benefit for them personally is appealing enough to indulge.
SO in no way does it address ethical questions, OR prove how important those judgements are to athletes.
But it is false & dehumaizing to assume that athletes are unique in not having any moral standards-or that they all feel like you do: which would make many of them LIARS & hypocrites-again very unfair to assume.

+++++++++++++++
Now where do you see me assuming athletes took less PEDs than the average person?
DId you confuse me with another (to use a wrongly defamed neutral term) interlocutor?
That would be an extreme claim if I believed it.
But yoyu gave zero indication that the vast majority, let alone ALL athletes use PEDs.

Tons of guys who are superb-best in their fields are within what is very plausible to be natural.
Of course anyone COULD use anything. ANybody could be a secret axe-murderer. We cannot prove a negative; nor is it rational & just to assume guilt.

Examples are innumerable: Usyk is amongst the most dominant guys around, incliding in a 350 + amateur career.
Nothing about his physical progress nor capacities necessitated drugs.
In baseball, Aaron Judge-6'7" 285 lbs.
Now maybe like Bonds, Sosa, Clemens, McGuire...He's a complete fraud.
But unlike the specific investigations, evidence (& growth rate when already strong, including head) of most all of those, there is no cause to think he is guilty.
And if you research it or know folks in ma ny gyms for years like me, you would know that there is overlap between natural & fakes/enhanced. Some guys take 'roids/HGH & do not get too big-due to efficacy, intention/what they take, genetics...
Others get Judge size without great efforts.

In B-Ball, LeBron could be juicing but is WITHIN what some easily have the genetics for.
He-L-L-to return your (fair I accept your started intentions), passion re: "FFs"...
Just being 6'7" is 1 in 1000 men in general society-but AVERAGE for the NBA.
Meaning outliers in freakish stats or capacities are routine; no justification to assume cheating.
Hero of the moment Stephen Curry is the best shooter in Human History-his endurance certainly strength & all else is not all suspicious.

I say "agenda" because when you make a highly radical conclusion that everybody (or anything near that) is using/cheating/lying with absolutely no credible or specific evidence...
You do have aa psychological & practical agenda.
To push a wholly unsupported conclusion, for whatever reason.
It is more scien-terrific to withhold judgement when statistical facts are not at all in evidence.

So I debunked that ethical considerations are not either real things OR that it is at all sensible to say top athletes do not care.
Showing some do not care is like showing great athletes under OR over 6': individual examples do nothing to show what is even most common.
"Practical": you are mistaken that practical must mean difficulty in attanting them.
You should have thought of what are the big risks-exposure, hu8miliation, legacy, punishment, bans, etc.

I may well ave read more than you &/or watched more documentaries-concluding otherwise based upon some of what you say in irrational.
You again say unsupported 99% of athletes are willing to "take the risk".
You have absolutely no idea how many even USE, let alone how many are deterred by what concerns in what proportions!

Also some sports like in the Olympics give YEARS long bans. You cannot cherry-pick highly variable rules & efficacy in testing & detection & assume ALL are corrupt or using.
Sure some whole nations are much more corrupt.
Just like in politics. That does not show that everyone everywhere-or even nearly most-are cheatin' liars in Government OR PEDs.

Also you present a MASSIVE error that I am sure you will apologize for.
It's so extreme that I could be forgiven if assuming such a seemingly intelligent person created an intentional distortion & STraw Man---> but it was probably just carelessness.

You quoted me "athletes take PEDs" as an extreme conclusion.
I never said anything remotely like this.
If I ever typed those words accidentally-& review the evidence-it would be very clear that all I said was that saying ALL take PEDs (or nearly so, or knowing what % or even if MOST do (although they may, & in some more corrupt sports like Tour de France it is more likely) is WRONG.

You also are inaccurate in thinking I said there are not large advantages to be had by PEDs.
I said that it is not true that all the advantages given are massive-& specifically used an example that there is no evidence of massive improvements in eyesight.
The confusion is in part semantic: even a small improvement can have a massive effect on standing & accomplishment.
5-20% increase in strength is significant, NOT anywhere near massive: but just being a % better-like in sprinting a MINISCULE % faster-can make all the difference.

It is NOT rational to assume every athlete who could gain an advantage DOES take it.
And your premise is faulty: I did not say that they can take anything with zero repercussions; there are many risks, health, discovery, disgrace, side effects...
It would also be loopy for me to claim no athletes take them because of potential problems. But I make no such untenable, extreme conclusions.
And please stop saying I am projecting my morals on athletes.
I am saying SOME athletes have morals of all kinds, some will reason like you assume-but to automatically think they share YOUR cold cost-benefit calculation is as crazy as if I said nope; since I would not do 'em for many reasons, most or all do not!

Your "A B C" points are more sober.
Sure PEDs work, overwhelmingly.
Yes many cheated before 1972.
And that rates of improvement did not change after that time is suggestive that the rate of usage MIGHT have not been very different!

But we still do not KNOW how many of those records were due to PEDs, or how many ever used what.
But you try to be fair within whatever paradigm you are committed to, so I will return the favor.
You likely heard that 9 of the top 10 100 meter sprint times were by guys who at one time popped for PEDs.
You provided a variant of said fact...So it is very possible that MOST who set sprint records take PEDs.

However it is a terrible analogy to compare 9' tall people to those 20' to this situation, for several reasons that are very obvious.
The % increase is TINY compared to the well over double increase you postulate becoming common.
I agree that with all the cheats we can *wonder* about Bolt: but there ARE such natural outliars in sports.
Both Babe Ruth & Steve Dalkowsli likely hit & threw the ball further than ANYONE ever, without even modern training.

You also need to apply intellectual rigor re: the specific skill set & how much variation there IS, & how much PEDs can improve performance.
With STRENGTH or extreme endurance it is MUCH less likely a natural guy/gal can dominate a cheatin; field-because of brute facts like how much muscle you can attach, how many red blood cells/how kuch oxygen drugs & transfusions can give.
But throwing & running speed, hitting a ball a great distance is overwhlemingly a genetic blessing or quirk.
Bolt is ALSO an outlier in being so tall for his sport, like say Randy Johnson in pitching.

Therefor it is reasonable to say he MAY have drugged up...But also these guys may happen to be ones who were able to master the coordination, turn over speed etc more difficult for their height...And it took both a while to conquer those challenges, which easily could be natural.
Bolt's best time 9.58 is a tiny % more than the next best 9.69.
Granted that is still a significant advantage, but not some wild amount that is highly unlikely to be undrugged.
ALTHOUGH like Flo-Jo's 9.49, & Marion Jones, he COULD WELL just be a massive cheater!

It is just that without specific evidence OR highly suggestive circumstantial ones like Ben Johnson's sudden improvements with big increases in muscle mass & definition...
We cannot know how common it is, or in soooo many cases...or who is cheating.

 

There is some truth to what you are citing re: that PED athletes can gain those systematic advantages.
However it is greatly exaggerated: sure druggin' Tyson can potentially do much better than natural Tyson in combat, but that is because a % increase-even say 5-20% has a huge effect on who wins!

But you have a matrix where one guy has approaching six TIMES the absolute capacity of another, & that is pure science fiction.
It would be like a robot vs. a man.
It would be like the strongest lifetime natural man bench pressing not too much over 600 lbs. (with no B.S. bench shirts or back arching or supplental clothing or equipment, a reasonable suppostion)-& the juicer pressing 3000!
When even t6hough muscle mass & strength is amongst the MOST effected by PEDs, & they allow some arching & guys with massive strenth & stomachs have a small ROM...The world record, presumably juiced, is still under 800 lbs.

Furthermore there are diminishing returns for some things; even if drugs let you train more & better, there are limits to how much or if you get advantages after a certain point.
And PHYSICAL limits: you are absolutely correct that druggin', stackin', Tyson can significantly increase his muscle mass.
BUT speed & flexibility is *always* lost at a certain point.
And if you lose punching speed, even if you can say curl or shoulder press or whatsver relevant muscles lift much more...
You may punch with *less* force if you are slower-& it will get harder to land due to that slowness.
AND even if you dose for endurance, carrying say not 214-221 lbs. of muscle at average height & fairly low body fat, but 250 or an insane Mr. Olympia-like up to 300 lbs...

You will have less endurance than if you take nothing & just come in at a reasonable, still heavily muscled weight.
Since it takes so much oxygenation to fuel said muscles.
So yeah many can & some do cheat to gain advantages.
But the degree of help is

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less than the ~ 6X example you postulated.
And developing some capacities to the max can have limited benefit, or can be counter-productive to the particular sport's overall needs.
So real-life Tyson likely had the most effective combination of speed, agility & physical strength.

 

Imagine a boxer on old school peds like heroine or cocaine or boose VS todays peds of everthing that exist now.. theres no comparison.

 

Thanks for the well thought out response. enjoying this back and forth. I read all of it, but for the sake of brevity i'm going to try to not go to go line by line and only focus on the big picture. Also I think there's a small error in communication (probably on my part) in that you say I accuse YOU of making X statements, when it was actually me making X statements in the first place, not accusing you of making it. My bad for any carelessness on that end. I'll also say, that you said I have to apply intellectual rigor for the specific activity and sport, I do, just a matter of word limit. I could go very much into specific bio-mechanical and psychological quirks of how PED's affect certain athletes and sports.

Anyhoo, funnily enough I assume that we'd both argue we're accurately employing Occam's Razor, which illustrates just how different our perspectives are. Most important thing is though it's clear that fundamentally - i'd argue on the basis of underestimating the effects of pharmaceuticals and the probability of statistical outliers - you have a higher standard of proof for PED use than I do, and a higher standard then most people would deem reasonable.

Lets use sprinting and Jamaican sprinting as an example. If I know sprinters #2-#10 all time are the most talented and gifted athletes in history and have all used PED's (which outside of DB is true btw), i'd say there's no doubt that #1 in Usain Bolt is using PED's solely on account of the biological improbability of him naturally being faster than everyone else. This is massive, and would be enough for me in and of itself.

Likewise, if I knew that Jamaica never had a history of dominating at sprinting and had all of a sudden, with no national changes in coaching, training or technology, suddenly produced 5 of the top 10 fastest male sprinters in the sport ever in just a 3 year span, and it JUST so happened that this explosion in record breaking times from Jamaica coincided with a new hyper effective PED entering the market, i'd say all 5 of these athletes were using PED's, especially number #1 in Bolt.

If it came out that Jamaica's drug testing agency was for all intents and purposes non-existent whilst all these records were being set, and that things were so bad that the entire board of the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission retired after an investigation in 2013, that it was being rumored at the time that Jamaica might not even be allowed to compete in the 2016 Olympics due to the extent of their antics, and that AFTER this investigation and an increase in drug testing, there was a monumental drop off in Jamaican male sprinting, then i'd say yeah there's a 0% chance that Usain Bolt was not doping. If I then told you than Usain Bolt was training with one of the most notorious doping strength and conditioning coaches in sports, Angel Hernandez, who himself happened to make very accurate predictions years in advance about who was doping and was proven to be correct, a (prediction that also included Usain Bolt mind you, you'd think you'd avoid working with a coach who accused you of using PED's and who YOU KNEW SPECIALIZED IN THEM), from my perspective it'd be an extraordinary claim to say Usain Bolt is not doping. Occam's Razor would be on my side in this instance.

That's the essence of it l. You say "Tons of guys who are superb-best in their fields are within what is very plausible to be natural", but I fundamentally, vehemently disagree on this. You say that because you've been given an extremely warped idea of what's natural on account of athletes lying. Funnily enough, Barry Bonds is an excellent example you bring up. People think Barry Bonds was natural then starting taking PED's and saw a massive increase in performance, but this isn't true. Barry Bonds was already taking PED's lmao. He went from taking PED's to taking different PED's, as is usually the case when athletes get popped. So we know for a fact that people's perception of "natural" Barry Bonds performance is false, yet they'd use that as their anchor for all natural performances and say "50 homeruns isn't unlikely natural because Barry Bonds got 49 homeruns the year before he took PED's". Hell people thought that Lance Armstrong was clean until he was busted. Most people don't know this but every single Tour de France from 1999 to 2005 were officially declared without winners because several people that finished behind Armstrong also got busted, they just weren't made into scapegoats like him. Think about that. Entire competitions from people all over the world so dirty that they didn't even bother to have a winner.

If I were to conclude "I now know that 100% that anyone who beats Lance Armstrongs record is by definition, not natural", you'd probably once again say that's unreasonable, but that's just the scientific fact. You're confusing sound logical principles with sound scientific principles, but they're not synonymous. A lot of the foundations of your claims whilst logically sound, are based on scientific misconceptions. Thor Bjornsonn is one of the, if not the most talented strongman in human history and he takes a ridiculous amount of drugs to be able to deadlift 1000lbs, therefore if someone deadlifts anything close to or anything more than 1000lbs they're not natural, by default. That's not a leap in logic, that's a scientific reality. You can't say "It's not reasonable to assume x / that's faulty logic" as a counter to that statement because it's physically impossible for it to be incorrect. This is also true of running a 9.58. Speaking of which, why do you think Flo-Jo is a massive cheater? She was never caught doping, and the difference between her 10.49 and the next non-doping associated time of 10.64 is SMALLER than Bolt's 9.58 and the next non-doping associated time of 9.84. You've just given credence to my belief you have a warped idea of what is "reasonable" undrugged. The female time 10.49 in your head = massive cheater, but the male time of 9.58 = reasonable, when we know it's even more egregious lol.

You show another example of a misconception here.
"5-20% increase in strength is significant, NOT anywhere near massive: but just being a % better-like in sprinting a MINISCULE % faster-can make all the difference."

Again, that's just not an accurate statement. A 20% increase in strength for a well trained athlete is f****** insane. A veteran natty going from 600lb squat to a 720lb is very much massive. I forget the PED, i'm checking my search history now and will edit it in later but bodybuilders have reported to have gained a 30% increase in strength without even adding extra muscle mass after taking this thing, perfect for performance sports. Imagine a 200lbs person squatting 600lbs now squatting 780lbs without even moving weight class. That disparity in weight is the difference between winning a gold medal at a world championship and not even qualifying for the event. They went from being able to lift 3x their bodyweight being able to lift damn near 4x their bodyweight, whilst staying just as light as they were previously.

Also you said
"It is NOT rational to assume every athlete who could gain an advantage DOES take it."

I don't assume that every athlete that can gain an advantage does. I assume that the incredible majority of top level athletes that can improve their performance with zero risk of being caught or punished, do take it. Especially when it wasn't even considered cheating prior to 1967. Thinking that PED's are cheating isn't a human thing, it's a modern attitude that's a result of our social climate. There's a reason why older athletes talk about their drug use with zero issues, there was no social stigma. There is literally an ESPN clip up right now of Steve Kerr and Isiah Thomas talking about their drug use lmao. Shaq has openly said he took PED's, so has Schwarzanegger.

Anyway, the sentiment "If athletes that had a good chance to medal in the Olympics had very easy access to PED's, no practical risks and no ethical concerns on account of it literally being allowed in the rulebook at the time, over 90% would take them" is not irrational. It's rational and consistent with everything we know about sports psychology, and also was literally the case for every Olympics ever prior to 1967 before ban substances were even a thing. If you're not willing to maximize every advantage you're given, you wouldn't be a high level professional athlete in the first place. This is core to their very being. I know for a fact that there's not a single high level surfer that's scared of water. That's self evident. Likewise, there's no high level athlete that exists that's unwilling to take risk, we know this because they're 100's of people that are just as talented as them that are willing to take risks, and do end up overtaking them, thereby making them the top level athletes.

Finally - "Even if you dose for endurance, carrying say not 214-221 lbs. of muscle at average height & fairly low body fat, but 250 or an insane Mr. Olympia-like up to 300 lbs...You will have less endurance than if you take nothing & just come in at a reasonable, still heavily muscled weight." This is false, and is very telling in regards to how much you underestimate drugs. Just, JUST by taking EPO and nothing else I can increase my red blood cell count by 50%. So 250lbs-300lbs EPO man already beats 214-221lbs EPO man before we even get into PED's that dispose of lactic acid more efficiently, and then PED's which on top of disposing lactic acid more efficiently, reduce the pain and soreness that's associated with now reduced amount of lactic acid build up. These advantages are too massive to be overcome by just losing 30+ pounds.

 

Also Babe Ruth injected himself with sheep testicle extract in an attempt to increase his power and overall virility, not sure why you'd use him as an example of a not likely to be doping athlete. Just gave me another example of a top athlete who's practical, medical or ethical concerns clearly weren't enough to stop them attempting to unnaturally enhance their performance.

I wonder if the person who was so competitive and such a risk taker that he didn't care about the practical concerns of sourcing a sheep testicle, the ethical concerns of being called a cheater or the medical concerns of injecting himself with gyad damn sheep juice would ever be willing to use steroids, the things that weren't banned from his sport until 1991 and weren't tested for in his sport until 2004, hmmmmmm. Nah, I'm sure Babe just injected himself with sheep testicles once and never any other point in his career experiment with PED's.

 

Excellent post. Effectively explains why I suspect the majority of elite athletes today take PEDs.