Alx

There was broader discussion with @Lihu and @sharpljp. Then you should probably call out the person who originally threw out the question. I never used Zuback as an example of someone that was a clear cut case. Pretty obvious != definite. Stop twisting everything Ive said.

We as In other people in this thread. You werent is not that same as no one was. You jumped along in the last few messages. I just gave you an example where you can clearly see use. IFBB heavyweights - google it if you dont know what it means. As far as Zuback goes as I said before there are some obvious signs but sure its not definitive proof.

At this point were having a much broader discussion. This is what I said on where you can clearly see steroid use"Look at any ifbb pro. Any pro strongman". Again I was pointing out where you can definitely 100% see use. I did not say Zuback was a slam dunk. What I have said and pointed out is that he does show some obvious signs.

No one can obviously know for sure. Im just pointing out the facts. People can make their own mind based on good info. I dont think using gear takes anything away from what anyone does in any sport. Please. There are physiological limits to size and ffmi. For some cases its obvious: edit. For the ifbb i was referring to the hw competitors.

If a roid gut was the determining factor you could rule out most of even the heavy juicers. It takes years to develop and a combo of gear at heavy doses. It really isnt much of a concern unless youre going for hw bb size. In that video he looks much more normal. Less dense and has that natural deflated look. Its very different from the era I posted. A blood test doesnt really work unless you catch them before stuff has cleared their system. Passing a drug test is nothing but an IQ test. You think Eastern europeans and Russians started using last year and just got caught? Hell no. Theyve been at it for years but theyve been clean for when it mattered and they had to pass the test. Theres a lot of interesting reading on this that you can find but you wont find it in menshealth.

Oh. Over here you can use any score unless youre below a 4 imo. People rarely pick up even at 8+.

Im confused. Are we talking tournament or just regular play? Huh?

They stay where they are but they just have more relaxed rom . Stretching can change posture and adjust orientation of a joint.

Well the thing is most users are cycling so their size varies considerably. Veins showing is not the same as having the permanent pump and veins the size of fingers you get from a lot of steroids from the increased blood volume(side of many anabolics). Steroids dont kill you by the time youre 50 unless youve really gone crazy with the doses... Plenty of old bbers out there in their 50s and 60s whove been on gear since their 20s. The ones who do die are usually the extreme users such as Muntzer, Kovacs, Rich Piana or Sonbaty. Lee Priest is still kicking nearing 50(?) having been on it since his teens by his own admission. Obvious bait is obvious but hey Ill bite . Look at any ifbb pro. Any pro strongman. You can tell by looking. You gotta turn it the other way around. You cant tell just by looking that someone isnt using. Plenty of long distance runners have been caught using test and those guys are skinny af. But when someone is obviously pushing far beyond the ffmi considered possible for a natural... Look up ffmi for starters.

People disagree. All good. A lot of good reads out there for sure. If you take a 20yo and throw them on a heavy cycle theyll get that raspier look faster but the "aging" pace doesnt really keep up. They get small if they get off. Feedback loop messes up the natural test production. Pretty obvious imo:

Youre just plain wrong. Steroids DO make you bigger by just sticking a needle in your arm. Its just that simple. There are plenty of studies where the group that was on gear and not training gained more mass than the group training and not on gear. The beliefs youre spreading have long been proven wrong. Read up on the studies and stop spreading old myths and bs. You get more for less/same amount of work. Fact. No one is denying that steroids help with recovery but theres no point to belittle the performance boost you can get. If you wanna take shots at what I say go ahead but your anecdoctal evidence doesnt really go far.

Steroids will make you bigger even without actually doing anything. With a workout regime and you will blow past any natural. They dont just help with recovery so you can do more work. They allow you to do way less to achieve the same thing. Its naive to belive these guys were using "just to recover". Come on now. McGwires dealer had a thing to say about it http://m.mlb.com/news/article/7955290 Then you should know that 450*10 at 170 bw does not happen all the time. If Im a smartass for calling out your bs then sure. What ever.

Yes! Words are hard.

"Not really" followed by "maybe not" isnt very convincing . Anyways... Youre right in that its more complex when it comes to health but overweight regardless of how you get it is bad which was the point I was trying to make. If youre a strict vegan weighing 300lb youre still dangerously heavy regardless of a "healthy" diet. The new stuff seems to show that eating puts the body in a similar state as an infection would. I dont recall the specifics or terminology so dont quote me on that. The problem also nowadays is that everyone has a voice. Harsh but we have people promoting ridicilous nonsense all over the internet and people are lazy and tend to jump on a bandwagon without vetting the stuff they take in. That on top of the fact that studying these things on a big enough scale while still controlling the parameters is almost impossible. The most realiable data seems to come from places where the circumstances dictate and control them effectively.

Erhm. Thats from 2012. Theres more recent work on this. Ill see if I can find it in my bookmarks.

As a disclaimer I wont bother with techinal terms for this. Exessive stretching puts the muscle in an elongated or "full rom" state. Basically its as long as the muscle can get without tearing. More rom sounds pretty good eh? What could go wrong? The problem is that when the muscle is stretched to this point it doesnt have the same ability to stretch anymore. So that tightness people are so keen to get rid of is actually the muscles inherent stretch reflex that protects the muscle, tendons and ligaments from tearing. The muscle is designed to stretch first to protect everything else. If you live a sedentery lifestyle and that stretch reflex isnt used it can tighten up too much but even then youre best off doing dynamic stretching because thats how the muscle is supposed to work in the first place. This principle is why it isnt recommended to do static stretching before a workout. So really you shouldnt attempt to increase the static rom as much as the dynamic rom.

It is and it isnt. For the most part Id say it isnt. At the end of the day it really is as simple as calories in and calories out BUT because that piece of cake is not particularly nutritious nor does it take very long to digest you tend to need to eat more cake to say full which tends to promote overeating. You pretty much have to decide to stay hungry for a while to compensate.

When did I ever say I was talking about them using to RUN FASTER. Never. If the ball flies further guess what. The club was moving faster. THEY GOT FASTER. Yes steroids have a multitude of benefits for an athlete but for the sake of this discussion I didint think it was relevant to list every one of them. For sure they benefitted from the faster recovery aswell as the increased performance. Dont tell me about my logic when its obvious you havent even read what Ive said. To quote myself: "Also keep in mind were not talking about going from Bubba to Arnold here. Theres a healthy middle point for optimal performance. Tour players just do not look like athletes(on average)." "Youre always going to find exceptions" You are uninformed to put it nicely. 450*10 does not happen all the time outside of powerlifting gyms. Especially not for a guy weighing 165. His estimated max is around 600-640 lb. Please dont get started on the way estimations work. The american record is like 700 for the 165. Either way he is very strong both in relative and absolute terms and its a very impressive lift. Ofcourse there comes a point where if he bulks up too much it wont help thats exactly what Ive said. At no point have is said tour players should look like bodybuilders. Infact to quote myself again: "Strength = speed potential. Speed athletes are not inherently going for size its just a byproduct of getting stronger and faster. If it was we would have meat balls like IFBB pros breaking records at everything speed related. The whole bulking up too much is pretty much a myth for natural athletes anyways."

Well... It takes atleast 6 hours for the food to metabolize and then it is stored into the bodies short term energy storages and then eventually it turns to fat if theres enough excess. The whole process takes way longer than 1 night. The whole thing pretty much resets the next day if you dont overeat. You can find singular studies saying pretty much anything. The big picture is calories in calories in. The body wont store energy that isnt excess. But then again when you dont eat during that time the body uses the reserves. Again +-0.

Ive read a lot of these studies and they all seem to conclude that the most important thing is to limit your food intake. Wether its through eating in a 12 hour window, limiting overeating to 2 days a week(5/2 diet) or portion control they all achieve the same thing. People eat less.

+1. It never has been. People just dont like to take responsibility is what it comes down to. Its easier to blame something that sort of isnt in your control be it the price of food, genes or w/e excuse.

It isnt really a matter of opinion? Stretching does lenghten the muscle if you do it often enough. For most people who only do it as a warmup youre not lengthening the muscle but rather loosening up.

They still have >20lb on your avg tour pro. Sadlowski is very strong and a poor example for your case. Guy benches 220+ and deadlifts 500+. As I said its not inherently about getting bigger. Also his mobility is exceptional. A low bf will fool the eye especially with a comparatively small upper body. For a natural the size gains are always going to be subtle. They arent. Even the research is pretty clear on this. Look you believe what you want. Youre always going to find exceptions. The mass adds more performance than what you lose in the weight gain. Why do you think baseball players started using anabolics? To get bigger, stronger and thus faster. Sadlowski deadlifting 480 for 10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uLKEP9MYHo Asafa Powell box squatting 585 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvzWB9EDZkA I wonder how fast these guys would be if someone told them to stop strength training since its slowing them down . Come on now... I do. Every sport(exc maybe snooker etc.) goes through the same development as they become more competitive and players seek to gain an edge. The same myths about strength training have been perpetuated for years and they slowly dissipate as more and more players pop up that break the "rule".

Take a look at practically any top level sprinter. Long drive guys? Javelin? Strength = speed potential. Speed athletes are not inherently going for size its just a byproduct of getting stronger and faster. If it was we would have meat balls like IFBB pros breaking records at everything speed related. The whole bulking up too much is pretty much a myth for natural athletes anyways. "Developing muscles the wrong way" is a myth atleast for the part that it would be a permanent hindrance to performance. Compared to an average non gym trained human? Golf pros on average dont stand out as athletes based on their physique. BMI is such a poor measurement when applied outside the general population. Top tier football players are in the 10% bf range while the general population sits at around 20 on avg. A 170lb pro footballer and a 170lb avg joe have wildly different body comps. To clarify: Im not saying golfers need to be bigger for the sake of being big and jacked. All Im saying is pro golfers are leaving "free" performance on the table by having an avg Joes physique. Looking like an athlete is again just a byproduct not the the main goal.

For producing speed? Definitely. Speed is essentially refined strength so the cross sectional area of a muscle makes a big difference. Untrained individuals have greater variance in cross section vs strength. Also keep in mind were not talking about going from Bubba to Arnold here. Theres a healthy middle point for optimal performance. Tour players just do not look like athletes(on average). ps. Arms getting heavier has an insignificant effect on speed. If you think about how the arm works in the golf swing its basically a lever. The mass is mainly built in the upper 40cm down from your shoulder. Forearm mass doesnt increase significantly. The added mass is at the end of such a short lever it doesnt really add resistance. I dont think theres value in being bigger for the sake of being big. Added size comes as a byproduct.