5 ms·

>Achieved all that he did through sheer will. Including the will to take illegal steroids without which he wins nothing and has no fame or career in public lif

by harry8 4y ago

>Achieved all that he did through sheer will. Including the will to take illegal steroids without which he wins nothing and has no fame or career in public life. If you think that differs from Lance Armstrong it's probably informative to know why you think that way. (And i do fwiw)

jokowueu 4y ago
Every body uses steroids in the Mr Olympia competitions comparing it to cycling competitions is wrong . He is born with a perfect physique and the will to work on it extensively
- Traubenfuchs 4y ago
  …and everyone in the cycling community is pumping themselves full of legal and illegal substances, disregarding their health, at the precise border of appearing clean during testing times/days. https://www.velonews.com/news/road/circ-report-20-90-percent-modern-peloton-still-doping/ https://www.velonews.com/news/road/circ-report-20-90-percent...
  - j7f3 4y ago
    Can you tell the difference between hearsay and reliable news?
  - jokowueu 4y ago
    You don't seem to understand. In the Olympia completions its a grey area and every one knows that they have to do it . Being illegal doesn't matter they don't have to appear clean . With cycling competitions it's very regulated and they try to do substances that don't appear in the tests
jbigelow76 4y ago
Including the will to take illegal steroids without which he wins nothing and has no fame or career in public life. Meh, his biggest body-building claims to fame were multiple Mr. Olympia titles. Is there any other Hollywood A-list type (current or former) of which that title has been the make or break factor? Schwarzenegger's peer at the time for the same title(s) was Lou Ferrigno, and he never did better than runner up at a time in which that competition had the most cultural cache within Hollywood; he even he had his own success in Hollywood as The Hulk (and 36 other movie/TV credits per wikipedia.) Some of Schwarzeneggar's success comes down to "sheer will" as the GP posited. Some of it is also luck (right place/right time, the right "look" for a given role, etc...) And some of it is help from others, which he seems to readily acknowledge and pass on as a message to others[1] To say Schwarzenegger is who he is only because of steroids is as shallow of an assessment as to say it's all "sheer will". 1. https://www.reddit.com/r/MadeMeSmile/comments/o9infd/not_a_selfmade_man/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MadeMeSmile/comments/o9infd/not_a_s... edit: cleaned up a sentence.
- harry8 4y ago
  > To say Schwarzenegger is who he is only because of steroids Who said that? Not me. To say he could have had all the other necessary parts, will, drive, luck and not made it without them is a different and true proposition. You don't win his body building titles and achieve fame without them, regardless of what else goes into that success and how impressive we find it (or not).
simonbarker87 4y ago
Bodybuilding is an untested “sport”. There are federations that test and that is called natural bodybuilding and the physiques are noticeably smaller. Everyone Arnold competed against and train with used steroids so the playing field was fair. I put sport in quotes above as it really isn’t a sport in my view, even though if asked what sport I do I would say body building (I don’t take steroids and don’t compete so it’s a hobby for me). It’s halfway between sport and art with a sprinkle of something else I can’t articulate. All that is to say that the comparison to Lance isn’t valid in my view. The equivalent would be saying that Lance Armstrong cheated because he used a fancier bike than everyone else and didn’t win on a cheap Walmart bike. (I’d replace Lance here with another cyclist but I can’t think of any who don’t have steroid doubts on them so let’s just stick with him).
matwood 4y ago
> Including the will to take illegal steroids I don't think steroids were illegal when he was winning his Mr. Olympia titles. His last win was 1980, and steroids were explicitly made illegal in the US in 1990. Also, when he was winning Mr. Olympias everyone was using steroids. It was a level playing field. Very different from a sport like cycling where steroids or blood doping is banned.
- barry-cotter 4y ago
  Everyone in body building posture tested leagues is still using steroids. Probably the winners in the tested leagues are using steroids too, just like everyone in cycling is, even though they don’t have untested leagues.
david38 4y ago
If you think his use is steroids is what got him there you are sorely mistaken. He was taking steroids under a doctor’s supervision. True. So is everyone else in body building. This is like saying “Bill Gates accomplished nothing because he was born rich”. Funny how the many others born rich didn’t become among the wealthiest in the world. Lance’s career couldn’t be different. He went through great lengths to hide what he was doing at a time when they had pretty sophisticated tests going on. How many of his peers used steroids? What percentage? Compare Arnold’s reaction to Lance’s to their steroid using becoming discovered by the masses. They couldn’t be more different.
- aww_dang 4y ago
  Professional road racing has a long history of doping.
vore 4y ago
The open secret is that everyone in the IFBB is on steroids. But if you were to just start taking steroids, it’s not going to send you to the top of the IFBB since, you know, everyone else is also taking steroids.
tiew9Vii 4y ago
There are hundreds of thousands of people taking steroids who go to the gym at far larger dosages than the pros to try and look like a pro. None of them looks anywhere near pro bodybuilders. Steroids help. No one can deny that. The average person might get into pretty good shape using steroids without much effort. You can gain muscle by taking steroids and not training as your body processes protein better. None of these people taking steroids will ever look like a pro bodybuilder as they don't have the dedication, mental mindset, determination, or work ethic to get there. Pro bodybuilders are a special kind. It's all built on consistency, day in and day out, every day, every week, every month, every year. Every meal is calculated, and every training session is calculated, logged and analysed. Steroids certainly helped in his bodybuilding, but his single-mindedness made him the best bodybuilder of his time. The same single-mindedness got him a film career and then a political career. The difference with Lance Armstrong is that pro bodybuilding competitions have never had rules banning performance enhancing drugs. Cycling isn't judge on your body being the biggest unnatural freaks on stage where performance-enhancing-drugs is a given unless you are competing in a completely natural class.
- keymon-o 4y ago
  I find your arguments on point, but his will, determination and sacrifice are just like steroids - means that enabled him to be competitive. It’s unfair not to mention his genetics as the most significant factor in his entire jouney. Arnold‘s story is amazing, but he was surrounded with like minded people at least as much determined to achieve what he did, yet they never did come close to his heights. There are examples of genetically predispositioned individuals in a lot of sports or competitive activities, and though amazing, we ought to differentiate pure will with blessings of nature, and celebrate the qualities that should be celebrated. Arnold was a literal and figurative beast, no doubt in that.
  - Kye 4y ago
    I always hear genetics this, genetics that. Who is going around sequencing the DNA of athletes?
    - 4y ago
spaceman_2020 4y ago
Even if you're anti-steroids (which most of the bodybuilding world is not), sculpting a physique like his doesn't happen without tremendous hard work and dedication. Steroids can make you more muscular. But making sure that every muscle in your body is equally muscular, proportionate, and vascular isn't something everyone can do.
- kevviiinn 4y ago
  Steroids don't make anyone more muscular, all they do is increase the capacity for recovery. You still have to put in the work lifting weights and progressing, steroids just helps it go a bit faster and increases the ceiling. That's all
ekianjo 4y ago
> Including the will to take illegal steroids Not everyone who takes steroids ends up like Arnold, so your comment adds no value.
harry8 4y ago
Wow, massive logic failures on show in replies here. Necessary but not sufficient. https://www.txst.edu/philosophy/resources/fallacy-definitions/Confusion-of-Necessary.html#:~:text=A%20necessary%20condition%20is%20a,the%20occurrence%20of%20the%20event https://www.txst.edu/philosophy/resources/fallacy-definition.... For Arnold to win and get famous, steroids were a necessary (but not sufficient) condition. Arnold can be as wondrous, beautiful, tall, wise and shrewd as possibly imaginable but he doesn't win body building comps without them. From there no toe-hold of fame to get to hollywood and beyond. Same for Dwayne Johnson, no way he's in hollywood if not already famous. Are we sensible enough to mention pro-wrestling's steroid issues without going silly about it? This non-acting fame achievement coming first is not so much true for Judy Dench, Brad Pitt, Meryl Streep or Bruce Willis, for example. No idea of their drug habits or lack thereof but hard to see them as necessary whatever they are or aren't. Just like Lance Armstrong. Every cyclist you have ever met (and indeed every cyclist you haven't) doesn't win like he did even if they took the same drugs, blood doping and whatever else, with teams of doctors and pharmacologists to make it all world standard. Like his teammates didn't win. Like all the other Tour de France entrants didn't win. Lance doesn't win you've never heard of him. Lance didn't take all those performance enhancing drugs he isn't even hired as a domestique at the Tour - as amazing as his abilities are. Necessary, but not sufficient. It's a thing really worth knowing whether you venerate Arnold S. or Lance A. or both or neither or not. Separate to that. Working out your answer for why you think Arnold and Lance should be thought of differently is instructive and I stand by that recommendation.
melling 4y ago
1. They weren’t illegal in the 1970’s. 2. All bodybuilders used them so it was a level playing field. People should strive to be informed before commenting. There’s so much noise in the world, I feel like so much time is wasted on these little conversations.
scarface74 4y ago
What’s sad is that we have a culture that accepts a government telling adults what to do with their own body. Now if the competitive leagues make it against their own policies, I have no problem with that. Football players and boxers do a lot of harm to their bodies to participate in their chosen sports. As long as they are informed about the dangers, that’s their choice.

by harry8 4y ago

jokowueu 4y ago

Every body uses steroids in the Mr Olympia competitions comparing it to cycling competitions is wrong . He is born with a perfect physique and the will to work on it extensively

Traubenfuchs 4y ago
…and everyone in the cycling community is pumping themselves full of legal and illegal substances, disregarding their health, at the precise border of appearing clean during testing times/days. https://www.velonews.com/news/road/circ-report-20-90-percent-modern-peloton-still-doping/ https://www.velonews.com/news/road/circ-report-20-90-percent...
- j7f3 4y ago
  Can you tell the difference between hearsay and reliable news?
- jokowueu 4y ago
  You don't seem to understand. In the Olympia completions its a grey area and every one knows that they have to do it . Being illegal doesn't matter they don't have to appear clean . With cycling competitions it's very regulated and they try to do substances that don't appear in the tests

jbigelow76 4y ago

Including the will to take illegal steroids without which he wins nothing and has no fame or career in public life. Meh, his biggest body-building claims to fame were multiple Mr. Olympia titles. Is there any other Hollywood A-list type (current or former) of which that title has been the make or break factor? Schwarzenegger's peer at the time for the same title(s) was Lou Ferrigno, and he never did better than runner up at a time in which that competition had the most cultural cache within Hollywood; he even he had his own success in Hollywood as The Hulk (and 36 other movie/TV credits per wikipedia.) Some of Schwarzeneggar's success comes down to "sheer will" as the GP posited. Some of it is also luck (right place/right time, the right "look" for a given role, etc...) And some of it is help from others, which he seems to readily acknowledge and pass on as a message to others[1] To say Schwarzenegger is who he is only because of steroids is as shallow of an assessment as to say it's all "sheer will". 1. https://www.reddit.com/r/MadeMeSmile/comments/o9infd/not_a_selfmade_man/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MadeMeSmile/comments/o9infd/not_a_s... edit: cleaned up a sentence.

harry8 4y ago
> To say Schwarzenegger is who he is only because of steroids Who said that? Not me. To say he could have had all the other necessary parts, will, drive, luck and not made it without them is a different and true proposition. You don't win his body building titles and achieve fame without them, regardless of what else goes into that success and how impressive we find it (or not).

simonbarker87 4y ago

Bodybuilding is an untested “sport”. There are federations that test and that is called natural bodybuilding and the physiques are noticeably smaller. Everyone Arnold competed against and train with used steroids so the playing field was fair. I put sport in quotes above as it really isn’t a sport in my view, even though if asked what sport I do I would say body building (I don’t take steroids and don’t compete so it’s a hobby for me). It’s halfway between sport and art with a sprinkle of something else I can’t articulate. All that is to say that the comparison to Lance isn’t valid in my view. The equivalent would be saying that Lance Armstrong cheated because he used a fancier bike than everyone else and didn’t win on a cheap Walmart bike. (I’d replace Lance here with another cyclist but I can’t think of any who don’t have steroid doubts on them so let’s just stick with him).

matwood 4y ago

> Including the will to take illegal steroids I don't think steroids were illegal when he was winning his Mr. Olympia titles. His last win was 1980, and steroids were explicitly made illegal in the US in 1990. Also, when he was winning Mr. Olympias everyone was using steroids. It was a level playing field. Very different from a sport like cycling where steroids or blood doping is banned.

barry-cotter 4y ago
Everyone in body building posture tested leagues is still using steroids. Probably the winners in the tested leagues are using steroids too, just like everyone in cycling is, even though they don’t have untested leagues.

david38 4y ago

If you think his use is steroids is what got him there you are sorely mistaken. He was taking steroids under a doctor’s supervision. True. So is everyone else in body building. This is like saying “Bill Gates accomplished nothing because he was born rich”. Funny how the many others born rich didn’t become among the wealthiest in the world. Lance’s career couldn’t be different. He went through great lengths to hide what he was doing at a time when they had pretty sophisticated tests going on. How many of his peers used steroids? What percentage? Compare Arnold’s reaction to Lance’s to their steroid using becoming discovered by the masses. They couldn’t be more different.

aww_dang 4y ago
Professional road racing has a long history of doping.

vore 4y ago

The open secret is that everyone in the IFBB is on steroids. But if you were to just start taking steroids, it’s not going to send you to the top of the IFBB since, you know, everyone else is also taking steroids.

tiew9Vii 4y ago

There are hundreds of thousands of people taking steroids who go to the gym at far larger dosages than the pros to try and look like a pro. None of them looks anywhere near pro bodybuilders. Steroids help. No one can deny that. The average person might get into pretty good shape using steroids without much effort. You can gain muscle by taking steroids and not training as your body processes protein better. None of these people taking steroids will ever look like a pro bodybuilder as they don't have the dedication, mental mindset, determination, or work ethic to get there. Pro bodybuilders are a special kind. It's all built on consistency, day in and day out, every day, every week, every month, every year. Every meal is calculated, and every training session is calculated, logged and analysed. Steroids certainly helped in his bodybuilding, but his single-mindedness made him the best bodybuilder of his time. The same single-mindedness got him a film career and then a political career. The difference with Lance Armstrong is that pro bodybuilding competitions have never had rules banning performance enhancing drugs. Cycling isn't judge on your body being the biggest unnatural freaks on stage where performance-enhancing-drugs is a given unless you are competing in a completely natural class.

keymon-o 4y ago
I find your arguments on point, but his will, determination and sacrifice are just like steroids - means that enabled him to be competitive. It’s unfair not to mention his genetics as the most significant factor in his entire jouney. Arnold‘s story is amazing, but he was surrounded with like minded people at least as much determined to achieve what he did, yet they never did come close to his heights. There are examples of genetically predispositioned individuals in a lot of sports or competitive activities, and though amazing, we ought to differentiate pure will with blessings of nature, and celebrate the qualities that should be celebrated. Arnold was a literal and figurative beast, no doubt in that.
- Kye 4y ago
  I always hear genetics this, genetics that. Who is going around sequencing the DNA of athletes?
  - 4y ago

spaceman_2020 4y ago

Even if you're anti-steroids (which most of the bodybuilding world is not), sculpting a physique like his doesn't happen without tremendous hard work and dedication. Steroids can make you more muscular. But making sure that every muscle in your body is equally muscular, proportionate, and vascular isn't something everyone can do.

kevviiinn 4y ago
Steroids don't make anyone more muscular, all they do is increase the capacity for recovery. You still have to put in the work lifting weights and progressing, steroids just helps it go a bit faster and increases the ceiling. That's all

ekianjo 4y ago

> Including the will to take illegal steroids Not everyone who takes steroids ends up like Arnold, so your comment adds no value.

harry8 4y ago

Wow, massive logic failures on show in replies here. Necessary but not sufficient. https://www.txst.edu/philosophy/resources/fallacy-definitions/Confusion-of-Necessary.html#:~:text=A%20necessary%20condition%20is%20a,the%20occurrence%20of%20the%20event https://www.txst.edu/philosophy/resources/fallacy-definition.... For Arnold to win and get famous, steroids were a necessary (but not sufficient) condition. Arnold can be as wondrous, beautiful, tall, wise and shrewd as possibly imaginable but he doesn't win body building comps without them. From there no toe-hold of fame to get to hollywood and beyond. Same for Dwayne Johnson, no way he's in hollywood if not already famous. Are we sensible enough to mention pro-wrestling's steroid issues without going silly about it? This non-acting fame achievement coming first is not so much true for Judy Dench, Brad Pitt, Meryl Streep or Bruce Willis, for example. No idea of their drug habits or lack thereof but hard to see them as necessary whatever they are or aren't. Just like Lance Armstrong. Every cyclist you have ever met (and indeed every cyclist you haven't) doesn't win like he did even if they took the same drugs, blood doping and whatever else, with teams of doctors and pharmacologists to make it all world standard. Like his teammates didn't win. Like all the other Tour de France entrants didn't win. Lance doesn't win you've never heard of him. Lance didn't take all those performance enhancing drugs he isn't even hired as a domestique at the Tour - as amazing as his abilities are. Necessary, but not sufficient. It's a thing really worth knowing whether you venerate Arnold S. or Lance A. or both or neither or not. Separate to that. Working out your answer for why you think Arnold and Lance should be thought of differently is instructive and I stand by that recommendation.

melling 4y ago

1. They weren’t illegal in the 1970’s. 2. All bodybuilders used them so it was a level playing field. People should strive to be informed before commenting. There’s so much noise in the world, I feel like so much time is wasted on these little conversations.

scarface74 4y ago

What’s sad is that we have a culture that accepts a government telling adults what to do with their own body. Now if the competitive leagues make it against their own policies, I have no problem with that. Football players and boxers do a lot of harm to their bodies to participate in their chosen sports. As long as they are informed about the dangers, that’s their choice.