“Aging is tough. The hardest part for me has been coming to grips with the fact that some of the physical abilities I took for granted when I was younger deteriorated before I really had the chance to appreciate them. I thought I would be fit and healthy forever, and then it’s like I woke up one day and suddenly I couldn’t see as well, my hearing was bad, and when I went to pull a 40-ton timber truck 110 feet, I could barely get the thing moving.”
I wonder when’s the last time Jack LaLane towed a barge to Catalina Island? altho’ he can still do fingertip pushups at 90. Truly tho’ getting old is not for sissies
“Am I of no use to society unless I can squat a platform of eight women dressed in bathing suits?”
OK Columbo, please explain how you can justify saying that “all of those guys are on steroids…” That is a pretty broad statement…
Ask anyone in the know in bodybuilding or powerlifting circles. In fact, ask the competitors themselves, I’m sure off the record they will tell you whats up. It isn’t a secret except when sponors are on the line.
If you are hoping I have photographic evidence that they are all on steroids, I do not.
Its simply not against the rules to use them, not illegal to use them in many of the countries those guys are from, and they don’t test for them, and nobody I know of ever got as big and strong as those guys without them.
Look to the pre steroid strongmen of old for what is possible under natural conditions. their training and nutrition is not substantively different than today.
jack lalane is a good example of what to aspire for as a strongman who doesn’t wish to use steroids.
Checkout the size and body composition of verified - non steroid using bodybuilders http://www.naturalbodybuilding.com/. They look a hell of lot larger than Jack Lalane. So are ALL olympic weightlifters also on steroids? What about a typical 6’6 350# offensive lineman - all these guys on steroids as well?
my trainer just did strongman louisville and pretty much agrees to that fact, namely that most bodybuilders and strong men are on the juice. its not fair for those that aren;t.
It’s easy to “pass” a urine test. Quite a few of them get jacked with gear and cycle off about six months out. That way, in their minds, they feel that they’re natty at the time of competition.
So are ALL olympic weightlifters also on steroids?
Yes
What about a typical 6’6 350# offensive lineman - all these guys on steroids as well?
Yes
I’m glad we cleared that one up.
Anyone else you want to cover under your blanket of ignorance? How about the entire pro peloton? Everyone under 8:30 for an IM, sub 10 second 100m sprinters, Phelps (for sure right?). After all in a world of 6 billion people when you are talking about the top handful of folks in any discipline say the top .0000001 % we could never explain that with a combination of simple genetic variation, hard work, good coaching and determination. It must be cheating right an all cases right?
I’ve never understood why guys do that to themselves. The only women that find that attractive are the ones that look as scary as them, and they look like men! So what the hell is the point? I’ll take a hockey player any day
I’ve never understood why guys do that to themselves. The only women that find that attractive are the ones that look as scary as them, and they look like men! So what the hell is the point? I’ll take a hockey player any day
I’m guessing they aren’t too concerned about what girls think, if you catch my drift.
OK Columbo, please explain how you can justify saying that “all of those guys are on steroids…” That is a pretty broad statement…
Happened to be at the same hotel with those guys recently. The guy who won last year was from WV so this year they had it in his hometown. Had a chance to talk to a few of the current guys as well as extensively with some of the no longer competing guys who are now involved with the various organizations who put it on. Yeah, those guys are all on the juice. If they guys were clean enough they would all play in the NFL and make about 50 times more money.
This is from ESPN:
Wilhelm admits that he and many other strength athletes used steroids in the old days and that things haven’t gotten any cleaner. “Guys today are doing 10 times what I did,” he says. “If we were doing eight milligrams of Dianabol daily, they’re doing 80. The steroid programs these guys are on cost in the neighborhood of $75,000 annually.” This does not, by all indications, seem to be the neighborhood in which MacDonald lives. “It doesn’t make sense to poison myself to win $3,000 or $4,000 when I can make that in a month, 12 months a year at Doubleday’s,” he says. The sport’s various circuits have drug-testing policies, but strongmen say those rules do little more than buff the sport’s image.
“They don’t find what they’re not looking for,” says one competitor who prefers to remain anonymous. “And there’s always a story behind a positive test. When Mariusz Pudzianowski was suspended a few years ago, it was really over a contract dispute. They hold testing over your head to keep you in line.”
Fans of strongman say testing is beside the point. Strength-building drugs are simply part of the culture, and the idea that the sport has a steroids dragnet requires a suspension of disbelief. Ignoring juicers seems more honest than bragging about efforts to keep the sport clean. That sentiment is echoed on Irongodz and strength websites such as Intense Muscle and Chasing Kaz (named for Bill Kazmaier, World’s Strongest Man from 1980 to 1982), where strength geeks call steroids cops nazis and claim testing “is screwing up” the sport. Posters wish in the strongest terms for out-in-the- open, whatever-gets-you-through-the-lift events.
