- Joined
- Feb 3, 2014
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- 10
Hello all, I wanted to open up an honest and non-flaming discussion about the general use of TRT/ Steroids / HGH, etc and how it applies to MMA.
I'll start with a small personal introduction. 10 years ago, I played college basketball, and at that time I assumed that almost everyone was clean and that there were a small percentage of people who actually juiced in competitive sports. While I was in college my strength & conditioning coach had me on a massive protein diet and heavy lifting to try and add weight because I was skinny for college basketball standards. My insane metabolism prevented me from gaining much more than 5-10 pounds of muscle, even though my strength doubled with the daily workouts. Halfway through the year, I made friends with some guys from the baseball team while I was doing my workouts and trying to gain mass. As I grew closer with some, they mentioned that they were juicing along with all their teammates and that I should try it if I wanted to gain. Being a goody-two shoes at the time, I respectfully declined and stayed on my path, thinking that it was an unfair advantage and possibly long-term health threatening. But it at least made me think about it.
Years later, the documentary "Bigger, Stronger, Faster" came out, and I was told by some friends to watch it. It completely changed my opinion of PED's, and I began to realize that almost every pro athlete is on it and just hides it because of the huge social stigma surrounding it. As far as pro sports go, I presume that almost all (I'd say about 90+%) of the top level athletes in the entire world are using PED's and intelligently cycling so as not to get caught. I mean, do you really think guys like Russell Westbrook / Lebron James and other athletic NBA players can be running full speed all over the court, jump hundreds of times a day and train for hours every day without their bodies breaking down at some point over a massively-long 100+ (with playoffs) game season? I played college ball, and during the only 22 game season I saw countless people go down with major injuries (knee, ankle, shoulder, etc) in addition to generalized minor injuries that end up nagging throughout the whole season. In all pro sports, these guys are training insanely hard almost every day, and the human body is just not made for that level of activity over a long period of time (some pros are actively competing into their 40's).
I've never done steroids before, but many of my friends have done cycles for various reasons, and it was all carefully monitored and cycled intelligently. None of them have had any health problems due to it, some have healed up major injuries much faster than they would have before, and others use it to keep the minor nagging injuries away so they can continue their high intensity training.
Either way, is it something that we should be so violently against? In a sport such as MMA, where they literally are taking daily beatings, why are we not allowing fighters to get some help with recovery? Is the social stigma to strong, and will it ever be broken? Now, I'm not for all pro athletes being juiced to the gills for the purposes of entertainment, but why not have some doctor recommended and monitored PED's, so that we can see guys fighting to the best of their abilities... rather than have constantly injured athletes that are not able to be at 100%? I think at this point there's been enough research to know that there are not many long-term health risks if PED's are carefully done and monitored by professionals who have experience in such things.
To further illustrate my point, here is a picture of Vince McMahon who is currently 70 years old. I would gander to say that he is healthier than the average 70 year old, and could probably even run and do physical activities that most other senior citizens can't even dream of. Are PED's really that bad? Or does society just have a social agenda that prevents the good things about it to be highlighted? Why do we so villify those who get caught, when in reality almost all of them are on it anyways?
I'll start with a small personal introduction. 10 years ago, I played college basketball, and at that time I assumed that almost everyone was clean and that there were a small percentage of people who actually juiced in competitive sports. While I was in college my strength & conditioning coach had me on a massive protein diet and heavy lifting to try and add weight because I was skinny for college basketball standards. My insane metabolism prevented me from gaining much more than 5-10 pounds of muscle, even though my strength doubled with the daily workouts. Halfway through the year, I made friends with some guys from the baseball team while I was doing my workouts and trying to gain mass. As I grew closer with some, they mentioned that they were juicing along with all their teammates and that I should try it if I wanted to gain. Being a goody-two shoes at the time, I respectfully declined and stayed on my path, thinking that it was an unfair advantage and possibly long-term health threatening. But it at least made me think about it.
Years later, the documentary "Bigger, Stronger, Faster" came out, and I was told by some friends to watch it. It completely changed my opinion of PED's, and I began to realize that almost every pro athlete is on it and just hides it because of the huge social stigma surrounding it. As far as pro sports go, I presume that almost all (I'd say about 90+%) of the top level athletes in the entire world are using PED's and intelligently cycling so as not to get caught. I mean, do you really think guys like Russell Westbrook / Lebron James and other athletic NBA players can be running full speed all over the court, jump hundreds of times a day and train for hours every day without their bodies breaking down at some point over a massively-long 100+ (with playoffs) game season? I played college ball, and during the only 22 game season I saw countless people go down with major injuries (knee, ankle, shoulder, etc) in addition to generalized minor injuries that end up nagging throughout the whole season. In all pro sports, these guys are training insanely hard almost every day, and the human body is just not made for that level of activity over a long period of time (some pros are actively competing into their 40's).
I've never done steroids before, but many of my friends have done cycles for various reasons, and it was all carefully monitored and cycled intelligently. None of them have had any health problems due to it, some have healed up major injuries much faster than they would have before, and others use it to keep the minor nagging injuries away so they can continue their high intensity training.
Either way, is it something that we should be so violently against? In a sport such as MMA, where they literally are taking daily beatings, why are we not allowing fighters to get some help with recovery? Is the social stigma to strong, and will it ever be broken? Now, I'm not for all pro athletes being juiced to the gills for the purposes of entertainment, but why not have some doctor recommended and monitored PED's, so that we can see guys fighting to the best of their abilities... rather than have constantly injured athletes that are not able to be at 100%? I think at this point there's been enough research to know that there are not many long-term health risks if PED's are carefully done and monitored by professionals who have experience in such things.
To further illustrate my point, here is a picture of Vince McMahon who is currently 70 years old. I would gander to say that he is healthier than the average 70 year old, and could probably even run and do physical activities that most other senior citizens can't even dream of. Are PED's really that bad? Or does society just have a social agenda that prevents the good things about it to be highlighted? Why do we so villify those who get caught, when in reality almost all of them are on it anyways?
