Interesting post. I like how candid he is. However it seems like it is implied that what he is doing is now is practicly nothing, which it is not. It's still a lot and it's still drugs. It's just not an insane amount, like he did before.
Yeah with PL, I mean in strenght sports where steroid use is much closer related to performance than say, using steroids in MMA(which still gives an advantage). Better recovery and increased arousel are also very important when it comes to building and performing.
See this is a very good attempt and a very interesting article. I like Greg Nucklos, he tries to put together real science.
A few glaring holes in this piece though, as he admits.
1. He is assuming that the drug tested lifters are indeed drug free, which we know some of them are not. The basis for his 10% relative performance gain is flawed. In that regard, I did not know it was out of the system so quickly:
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They got two samples from Pat Mendes that were positive for human growth hormone, which is remarkable because hGH has a half life of only 10-20 minutes."
2. The studies he uses are too few and not big enough sample sizes. Also the Yu study is pretty much worthless, as he mentions. Also, very importantly, the absolute strenght gains and so forth are much bigger than 10%, as he clarifies:
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You can see the difference in the Bashin studies – 100-700% greater total mass gain, 50-1,000% greater increases in muscle thickness or muscle area, and 100-200% greater absolute strength gains in the same time period."..... "If you simply care about absolute gains in muscle or absolute gains in strength, the difference is much larger than 10%. However, this article was written for strength athletes competing in sports with weight classes. In that context, increases in relative performance (Wilks or Sinclair score) are what matter. And for relative performance, steroids seem to give you a roughly 10% advantage."
3. The studies he cites only used Test, and not the vast array of other substances avaliable. This is a problem. He counters this by using the tested/untested records, but again, it's conjecture. I do feel like it's well explained and he is probably not too far off.
4. He narrows it down to 5-15% relative performance improvement in strenght sports. Let's assume that it is 10%, at the highest level, as he theorizes. 10% on the highest level is massive! A poster in the comment section explained it pretty well:
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Just as an example, I’ve looked at the weightlifing totals from the last Olympic Games for a few weight classes, and those 10% make the difference between the Olympic Champion and someone who wouldn’t have placed in the top 10."
Well thought out though!
