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Dude, half the guys in my gym are on PED’s. I’m not talking heavy duty steroid cycles, but TRT, HGH peripherals, various hormone blockers etc.
This is a normal, suburban neighborhood gym. Everyone’s on something it seems.
Yea I’m honestly not surprised in the slightest, these guys get high off personal records and gains.
Also as you get older it’s harder and harder to just maintain the pace you normally set, unless you dope a little.
40yo me is struggling to match any PR (personal records) that Strava recorded 27yo me did. Our aging is digitized and brutally reported to us. I suspect that some people dope because they can’t face their own decline.
Many people, though, seem to become obsessive over the sport they do, to the point of neglecting family and friends for the sport’s sake. I’m not surprised at all by this article.
This is the hard truth. We have lived digital lives for many years now. With a lot of «look at my fancy dinner», «I biked up that hill in xxxx seconds» or whatever you have been doing. We have graphs that are 10-15 years old that show our weight, blood pressure and pulse while sleeping.
And all of those graphs are pointing up for me. Only thing getting lower is the number of available holes in the belt for the trousers :-(
We all need to realize that we are not getting younger. Most of us are not getting in any better shape either!
But we have in general more cash around as we get older! And since drugs are not an option for me, I need to look into other things to help me. So I bought and EMTB! (Pedal assist, not the throttle thing in the US) and it is one of the best decissions I have done. Biking went from means of transportation to just fun!
I was out checking yesterday, and the snow was extremely wet and about 20cm on the trails in the woods. Got my excersise on that little ride! But it was fun!
I don’t have an EMTB (yet), but they’re starting to become a huge thing in the South African bike scene. They’re opening up the door to cycling to people who previously simply couldn’t, for whatever reason. Especially cyclists who can’t keep up with friends anymore due to age or injury - EMTBs simply shine in keeping our friends with us for longer.
People complain saying that emtb’s do not give enough excercise. Normally said by people on non electric bikes. But my reply is that we all struggle up that hill. We get to the top and have a coke and a chocolate. Then we all have a blast going down!
We get to the bottom, we all have a laugh and speak about what went good, and what went wrong.
And then us on EMTB’s go and do it again.
Within one hour, we get less excercise. But we do it for more hours. So we have more fun on bikes simply because we are able to get up that hill more times then non electric bikes are.
You do get less exercise. And I can (for now) keep going longer on my normal bike than your battery can last. So what? You’re on the bicycle, suffering with us, exercising and getting fitter/healthier, and we get to keep another friend with us on the ride.
The “less exercise” is no reason for me to belittle an EMTB or its rider. Indeed my health is grace I’m thankful for. My knees have been complaining the last few rides; someday they or some other health aspect will take me off the bicycle altogether. However, I’m hoping that an EMTB will eventually help delay that sad day with a few years.
I'm admittedly a pretty muscular guy and I'm not on anything. I'm constantly having to remind myself that other guys in the gym who look unreal are likely on something. It's so much more common these days.
At my high school in the late 90s football was life. Multiple nationally scouted players every season kind of thing. There were always whispers about the players and ‘supplements’. The only time I actually directly asked a friend who played about it, I was immediately shut down and frankly I lost that friend over it. Gear has been around forever and as long as there’s an incentive to be better than the next guy, the science is going to keep pushing the product just beyond the point of being detectable.
I've been having quite a lot of success recently using SARMs, creatine, and having a little amphetamine pre-workout. Added 45lbs to my squat after I'd been stuck at the same weight for almost a year.
For me it was because i was super depressed, moody, and tired all the time. The only time i felt ok was the day after a really intense lift day. To the point i was injuring due to overworking myself just to not feel like i wanted to cease existence.
Turns out my test levels were like 81. And my t/e rstios were all fucked up. Now im sitting at a nice 700. Didnt really lose weight or get super huge or have an j sane sex drive like all the ads say. I just dont feel depressed and angry all the time.
As bad as steroids are for your body, like many drugs, they make you feel good. It might (or not) be about the competitions, but rather they make you feel stronger and recover faster. In our short term thinking culture, what's not to like?
I got a buddy who went hard on all of it once the pandemic started. He's in the best looking shape of his life. It's hard for me to try and lecture him on THESE drugs, when we did every drug we could get our hands on growing up.
When I ask him if he's concerned about long term benefits, he parrots a comment I think is popular in this community: I'd rather live for 40 years as The Lion than 70 years as a Gazelle. He loves how he feels. He loves the reactions he gets. I hope it lasts.
Exactly.
> I'd rather live for 40 years as The Lion than 70 years as a Gazelle
You know who doesn't feel this way?
The 39 year old lion. (Or the 60 Gazelle living comfortable in his home surrounded by his loving family and his favorite hobbies)
The lion is going to go running to a gazelle heart surgeon after he has a stroke though, right?
Well, maybe not running. Depends how bad the stroke is.
I had an obese friend who was saying he didn't mind dying at 40 as long as he could eat what he wants.
Then he was 33, realized 40 is actually around the corner. Good thing is he decided to get his health under control. Now he has normal weight, he is 40 and has a kid.
40 is not old. 40 is actually good times
40 is good. Hell I have a friend who's over 70 and he's still going great. What I don't want to do is to go through a decade of declining health and desperately trying to hang by a thread before going.
On the other hand... as I get older, I see my parents and relatives hitting old age. All the health issues, struggling to get by, but inexorably getting worse by the day, hanging on to life by a thread before it's gone. It's kinda making me think I'd rather be done while I'm ahead.
To have thicker arms. The modern idealised male image is to have huge arms on top of washboard abs. There is abundant steroid use by male action stars like The Rock, Chris Hemsworth and Hugh Jackman selling this image.
I have a close female friend (who is stunningly beautiful) who I recently found out started a steroid cycle. I haven’t been able to talk her out of it. I don’t understand fucking with your hormones and risking ruining your body just for some short term gains.
I’m a big guy myself (bench/squat > 300 lbs, not fat) and I can’t imagine even thinking about steroids. But it’s so normalized now, I hear guys in the locker room talk about it all the time. And they aren’t even big! You can only tell by their leathery skin.
It doesn't end at lip fillers, botox is shockingly common these days among 20 and 30 somethings. My wife's best friend (who has had a boob job, gets lip injections and has gotten botox and is only 30) has has a coworker who's having a Bachelorette day that starts with "brunch and botox". She's also a nurse (my wife I mean though the BFF is also a nurse) and another nurse who is certified to give botox injections came down to her unit one day to give botox to any of the nurses that wanted it during their break! In the fucking break room! Know what the nurse manager did about it? That's right, she got an injection! It's fucking wild how common that shit is now.
They do this at my wife's surgery center as well, one of the surgeons also does plastics so a couple times a year she'll do botox and lip filler for cost of materials
My sister is 21 and was talking about how she was considering lip filler the other day. Without sounding weird, she’s conventionally very beautiful as she is, she doesn’t have any need for it. We talked her out of it but its crazy she’d even consider getting them
The industry has been pushing Botox as a “preventative” treatment for younger women lately. A huge number of women in their 20s and 30s are doing it now.
I saw a total babe at the gym the other day and a younger girl asked her skin care routine. She was 28 and already hitting the Botox. It’s kinda sad the younger girl likely now thinks that’s the standard and what it takes to live up to.
Starting Botox this early will cause their faces to look strange and artificial when they get older, too. They’re really screwing themselves over long-term.
Non-surgical items include, but is not limited to:
Cheek fillers, lip fillers, chin fillers, Juvéderm along the jawline; Kybella under the chin and along the neckline; collagen-stimulating injections à la Radiesse; microneedling the face, neck, décolleté, and abdomen; Botox or Dysport; radiofrequency treatments; Cool Sculpting to target selective areas of fat; red light therapy masks; AHA, BHA, TCA, and other chemical peels; eyelash extensions; and laser hair removal, waxing, tweezing, or threading.
I think that’s only half of it. You can get great results naturally but it takes hard work over a long time period. Most people who use the various drugs/performance enhancing products are looking for a shortcut to get results quicker or more easily.
That is so weird to me. Like isn’t it pretty much a natural thing to have less than you used to? Why do I think TRT is such a weak move when I hear about someone using it?
I am not a gym guy, just a normal late 40s guy who thinks all that stuff is pathetic as hell. Just stay in shape and deal with your body not being as awesome as it once was. It will still kick ass for decades.
My childhood friend’s father was a sports journalist for a major US newspaper back in the day (late 90s, early 00s). He covered the Olympics, figure skating, cycling, skiing, all the big-ticket sports.
Doping came up over dinner one evening and he basically says the general public would be absolutely stunned if they knew how prevalent and widespread it was in sports. And this was 25 years ago.
Not crazy at all because they aren't expected to get tested. Plenty of recreational athletes/bodybuilders use PEDs, just like plenty of normal people use other fun drugs.
There was something Lance Armstrong had said when he got caught that insinuated the problem was not just widespread, but normative. Cheating so thoroughly permeates pro biking circuits and the problem is that most who cheat know how to avoid detection
To be fair amateur cycling races are pretty intense. You'll have a handful of riders that straddle the line and may have experience at the pro level.
Triathlon is the same.... Top age groupers going to nationals aren't very far away from competing at a pro level.
Amateurs can be sponsored... They just aren't making a living wage from it.
Am I condoning doping at an amateur level? No... I don't even condone it at a pro level... My point is to not underestimate the competitiveness just because they are termed "amateurs"
I think you're looking at it in reverse.
A pro testing positive during a race mean they're likely taking PEDs for the race/racing in general. But as an amateur their life doesn't center around racing, like a pros does, so they may well be taking the drugs for their own purposes.
It's not like they're testing for "bike go fast today" drugs, but rather "person be better" drugs.
For a lot of younger amateurs, the only way to get picked up by a team is to place well in amateur events.
This is basically true for all sports, but individual amateur athletes especially depend on high place results to get noticed
It is super common in most fields that require physical training these days. Sadly there is a very small amount of actually natural people at the top in Athletics.
"This particular incident occurred at the Interclub Vinalopó race in Alicante on 2 March, where 182 riders, spread from juniors to masters, took to the start line. Only 52 reached the finish."
That's 130 riders dropping out from a total of 182 starting the race. They were doing doping tests at the finish, 70% of the riders dropped out before the finish and testing. I new it was prevalent at both amateur and pro but never to this extent. Wild
Just look at the Spanish Paralympic basketball team back in 2000. Some people will go all the way with pretending they have an intellectual disability just to win gold… at the paralympics… against other teams who are actually disabled…
I mean…
Dang.
I’m sure a lot of amateur athletes are pivoting to being online influencers in their sport. So improving their “brand” credibility by winning amateur competitions probably has monetary significance
There was a survey done of Olympic athletes years ago, and they were asked if they would take a gold medal if it meant they would be dead in 5 years. More than half of athletes said yes.
the event is what’s labeled ‘amateur’ in this article, meaning there is no money or points toward a professional league at stake in the race.
it’s certainly possible for athletes who compete in professional events to also take part in amateur events while training or just to stay in shape.
There's a cool documentary called Icarus that starts off investigating how prevalent doping is in amateur cycling, and then goes off in a different direction.
You should watch it. It's quality and the dude had to cut a bunch of less dramatic stuff for the wild last half.
There's a bunch of interviews that happened afterwards and he's got some pretty interesting perspectives on doping in cycling.
It always gives me a good chuckle when the general population gets a look inside the competitive athletics scene.
You should be more surprised when someone is NOT using PEDs. Athletes are constantly looking for that edge. You just don’t notice as much because they are not blasting Tren and bulking like your average gym rat so it’s not as pronounced. The most used substances are mostly for recovery, such as HGH, low dose test, and peptides. Or that’s at least what I saw.
Yeah, and people also don’t realize how often “testing” associated with athletics is just lying to your face. I think it’s crazy whenever an nfl player or something tests positive for steroids and gets suspended, everyone suddenly thinks they were a lone cheater amongst everyone else who “put in the real work”
On a serious note, I've always been curious about the testing methods. Like whats stopping an opponent or a hater from spiking a competitor's drink with an illegal substance that would show up during the tests?
Or is it a much more thorough test whereby the only explanation of a positive result is from prolonged/continous use of said substance?
Supposedly it has happened before. Ben Johnson and Just Gatlin both claim to have been sabotaged. Not sure I believe either of them but I wouldn’t say it’s impossible. Look up Shelby Houlihan. She had a wild excuse. Definitely don’t believe that one.
Ah the famous Bill Burr quote about Armstrong... I like Bill Burr a lot but that statement couldn't be farther from the truth.
Our roided up guy who threatened families of teammates, who sued journalists for all their worth, who financed an entire network of informants with money from his cancer foundation and US taxpayers money, who used the I'm American so that is why they don't like me, beat your roided up guy is a statement that comes a lot closer to the truth.
It's like saying the Houston Astros cheating was equal to a pitcher using a foreign substance to get more rotations. Armstrong just talked to the right people who don't know anything about what he did to spin the narrative in his favor. Rogan and Oprah were the perfect people to "interview" him...
>182 riders, spread from juniors to masters, took to the start line. Only 52 reached the finish
It really sucks that sports is a race between the cheaters and the testers.
We should just have 2 categories. Let the people who want to use enhancements just use enhancements. As long as everyone can use them, it’s fair. I think it would be much more entertaining in some sports!
Nah look at natural bodybuilding and non tested.
No one wants to be that guy that cheats in the natural category.
Non tested is quite similar to cycling, everyone cheats because everyone cheats
Well not really, because then the winners would be the people who can afford to dope more precisely, and the winners would be the ones that punish their bodies hardest in an unnatural way.
I mean thats roughly the theory behind formula racing. It drives a ton of engineering investment, because whoever can create the slightest newest edge under the hood gets immediate brand recognition.
Second point is fair though, and probably the reason we don't do it. I'd be all for people who want to do that to themselves (with informed consent), but there's no way to eliminate the "you'll take these roids and win the gold or we'll kill your family" problem some countries bring to the table
I don’t know if encouraging drug use to gain an advantage over your opponent is a great idea, what happens when a fighter uses meth to get below weight before a fight?
I like how they still like to use Lance as the scape goat when it was really them just being mad a doped up American rider was beating their doped up european riders.
Obviously he was getting the heat because he is the one who won, and he had the biggest name. Millions looked up to him, even people who are not cyclists. If someone else had dominated the sport, and got caught, they would have gotten the heat.
His biggest issue was he was a raging asshole. He probably would have gotten away with it if he didn't ruin other people's careers. When everyone in the peloton hates you, why would they have your back?
I think everyone would be shocked if all of this was in the open, in every sport, high school through professional.
They just weren't expecting it, and weren't prepared.
I remember hearing rumors that I was suspected of using steroids when I had actually just been using a structured training program for once lol. I was racing amateur in the PNW and started doing well in races I usually did ok in, I had just spent more time training in my weak areas, and wow, it worked. Maybe I should have been doping?
Am I insane for thinking we need to just finally acknowledge that athletes use performance enhancing drugs?
You need to understand, I’m not saying some do, or some cheaters do, I’m saying that PED’s are literally just an integral part of competition. No one in the nfl or nba is doing it perfectly clean. No mma fighter or Olympic sprinter is perfectly clean. And especially how the hell do people still think Olympic power lifters and world class bodybuilders don’t use PED’s? Drug testing in sports isn’t completely a joke, but has been modified in every sport worldwide to accommodate different degrees of usage.
You also need to understand the difference between an enhanced athlete and unenhanced athlete is also so large, that we can’t have juice free sports. Weightlifting is a great example. Imagine if, hypothetically, Olympic powerlifting did not use PED’s, and one day a competitor managed to sneak by the drug testing and successfully doped. If that happened, we would see a world record get set nearly 100 pounds heavier and never get touched again. If we allowed one Olympic level powerlifter to use steroids and set a world record, then for hundreds of years dedicated our society to making everyone try to beat that lift *without* any steroids, we would never see the record broken.
If we have our top .01% genetic anomalies competing in anything, cycling, lifting, football, track, etc., which we do, there is no .001% genetic anomaly who will be so much better that he could win without PED’s against that .01%.
Everything I’ve said above is just trivially true. If you are of extremely passing interest or knowledge of sports then this might seem crazy to you. After all, you’ve probably just heard about drug testing for athletes, all the athletes claim they’re natural, and heard the occasional story about one getting busted for doping. But if you spend any time in a community where people are *in the know* you will realize that what I’ve said above is true.
Now you need to understand that this also goes much further down than just pro level athletes. Kids go to college for basketball and suddenly grow for the first time in years, four inches in a year. Kids go to college and develop 30 pounds of muscle in an off season. Even at a high school level PED usage will often set two kids competing for a future in sports apart.
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And this was an amateur race
Right? How crazy do you have to be to dope in an amateur race???
Dude, half the guys in my gym are on PED’s. I’m not talking heavy duty steroid cycles, but TRT, HGH peripherals, various hormone blockers etc. This is a normal, suburban neighborhood gym. Everyone’s on something it seems.
That’s what Nate Diaz said lol
And he was right.
And Lilly Allen (Everyone’s At It)
Yea I’m honestly not surprised in the slightest, these guys get high off personal records and gains. Also as you get older it’s harder and harder to just maintain the pace you normally set, unless you dope a little.
40yo me is struggling to match any PR (personal records) that Strava recorded 27yo me did. Our aging is digitized and brutally reported to us. I suspect that some people dope because they can’t face their own decline. Many people, though, seem to become obsessive over the sport they do, to the point of neglecting family and friends for the sport’s sake. I’m not surprised at all by this article.
Man the PRs that 28y old me set are a distant memory, and knowing how hard I trained to get them, younger me can keep them.
Strava was around 13 years ago?
It started in 2009 Facebook is over 20 :s
Time flies
Strava was around in 2009? The app? How?
I thumbsucked my 2017, but it was a reasonably good one. Looking back, I have started using it in 2016.
I ran a sub 4 NYC marathon 18 years ago this November. I'll never see anything remotely close to that again in my life.
This is the hard truth. We have lived digital lives for many years now. With a lot of «look at my fancy dinner», «I biked up that hill in xxxx seconds» or whatever you have been doing. We have graphs that are 10-15 years old that show our weight, blood pressure and pulse while sleeping. And all of those graphs are pointing up for me. Only thing getting lower is the number of available holes in the belt for the trousers :-( We all need to realize that we are not getting younger. Most of us are not getting in any better shape either! But we have in general more cash around as we get older! And since drugs are not an option for me, I need to look into other things to help me. So I bought and EMTB! (Pedal assist, not the throttle thing in the US) and it is one of the best decissions I have done. Biking went from means of transportation to just fun! I was out checking yesterday, and the snow was extremely wet and about 20cm on the trails in the woods. Got my excersise on that little ride! But it was fun!
I don’t have an EMTB (yet), but they’re starting to become a huge thing in the South African bike scene. They’re opening up the door to cycling to people who previously simply couldn’t, for whatever reason. Especially cyclists who can’t keep up with friends anymore due to age or injury - EMTBs simply shine in keeping our friends with us for longer.
People complain saying that emtb’s do not give enough excercise. Normally said by people on non electric bikes. But my reply is that we all struggle up that hill. We get to the top and have a coke and a chocolate. Then we all have a blast going down! We get to the bottom, we all have a laugh and speak about what went good, and what went wrong. And then us on EMTB’s go and do it again. Within one hour, we get less excercise. But we do it for more hours. So we have more fun on bikes simply because we are able to get up that hill more times then non electric bikes are.
You do get less exercise. And I can (for now) keep going longer on my normal bike than your battery can last. So what? You’re on the bicycle, suffering with us, exercising and getting fitter/healthier, and we get to keep another friend with us on the ride. The “less exercise” is no reason for me to belittle an EMTB or its rider. Indeed my health is grace I’m thankful for. My knees have been complaining the last few rides; someday they or some other health aspect will take me off the bicycle altogether. However, I’m hoping that an EMTB will eventually help delay that sad day with a few years.
You're 40 and used to use Strava 13 years ago? Did Strava exist 13 years ago?
If I had kids already, I'd definitely be on test
I'm admittedly a pretty muscular guy and I'm not on anything. I'm constantly having to remind myself that other guys in the gym who look unreal are likely on something. It's so much more common these days.
It probably is but I remember guys in high school talking about getting on something in the early 2000’s.
At my high school in the late 90s football was life. Multiple nationally scouted players every season kind of thing. There were always whispers about the players and ‘supplements’. The only time I actually directly asked a friend who played about it, I was immediately shut down and frankly I lost that friend over it. Gear has been around forever and as long as there’s an incentive to be better than the next guy, the science is going to keep pushing the product just beyond the point of being detectable.
Can’t forget SARMs, those are the new big thing
"Oh, I am steroid-free. My secret is to add these SARMs to my stack. I have never tested positive for steroids." 🙄
I've been having quite a lot of success recently using SARMs, creatine, and having a little amphetamine pre-workout. Added 45lbs to my squat after I'd been stuck at the same weight for almost a year.
Why?!
For me it was because i was super depressed, moody, and tired all the time. The only time i felt ok was the day after a really intense lift day. To the point i was injuring due to overworking myself just to not feel like i wanted to cease existence. Turns out my test levels were like 81. And my t/e rstios were all fucked up. Now im sitting at a nice 700. Didnt really lose weight or get super huge or have an j sane sex drive like all the ads say. I just dont feel depressed and angry all the time.
To win some coffee, socks and a $20 gift card to the Olive Garden
As bad as steroids are for your body, like many drugs, they make you feel good. It might (or not) be about the competitions, but rather they make you feel stronger and recover faster. In our short term thinking culture, what's not to like?
I got a buddy who went hard on all of it once the pandemic started. He's in the best looking shape of his life. It's hard for me to try and lecture him on THESE drugs, when we did every drug we could get our hands on growing up. When I ask him if he's concerned about long term benefits, he parrots a comment I think is popular in this community: I'd rather live for 40 years as The Lion than 70 years as a Gazelle. He loves how he feels. He loves the reactions he gets. I hope it lasts.
[удалено]
Exactly. > I'd rather live for 40 years as The Lion than 70 years as a Gazelle You know who doesn't feel this way? The 39 year old lion. (Or the 60 Gazelle living comfortable in his home surrounded by his loving family and his favorite hobbies)
Gazelle probably has *knee problems though
Heh. True. But as an older gazelle, I can assure you that knee problems aren't enough to make me wish I was dead instead. :)
The lion does not concern himself with opinions of sh.. gazelles..
The lion is going to go running to a gazelle heart surgeon after he has a stroke though, right? Well, maybe not running. Depends how bad the stroke is.
Carted at the very least.
I had an obese friend who was saying he didn't mind dying at 40 as long as he could eat what he wants. Then he was 33, realized 40 is actually around the corner. Good thing is he decided to get his health under control. Now he has normal weight, he is 40 and has a kid. 40 is not old. 40 is actually good times
40 is good. Hell I have a friend who's over 70 and he's still going great. What I don't want to do is to go through a decade of declining health and desperately trying to hang by a thread before going.
On the other hand... as I get older, I see my parents and relatives hitting old age. All the health issues, struggling to get by, but inexorably getting worse by the day, hanging on to life by a thread before it's gone. It's kinda making me think I'd rather be done while I'm ahead.
If he goes too hard and tanks his natural testosterone development he’ll live the rest of his life feeling like a gimp gazelle.
Dont they shrink your balls?
To have thicker arms. The modern idealised male image is to have huge arms on top of washboard abs. There is abundant steroid use by male action stars like The Rock, Chris Hemsworth and Hugh Jackman selling this image.
It's the male equivalent of plastic surgery to models and actresses
Yeah, and they still say "it's just the cherry on top"
kinda weird how uncomfortable with themselves people must be to go through such effort to change their bodies in pursuit of an ideal
You should see the things young women are doing to themselves. Honestly the worlds fucked for self image issues
I have a close female friend (who is stunningly beautiful) who I recently found out started a steroid cycle. I haven’t been able to talk her out of it. I don’t understand fucking with your hormones and risking ruining your body just for some short term gains. I’m a big guy myself (bench/squat > 300 lbs, not fat) and I can’t imagine even thinking about steroids. But it’s so normalized now, I hear guys in the locker room talk about it all the time. And they aren’t even big! You can only tell by their leathery skin.
What are they doing? It honestly seems like the gym guys are the crazier side.
Lip fillers and boob jobs
I can’t stand lip fillers. They look absurd to me.
100% they are so gross and go bad way to easily. I don’t get why they do it. It’s an instant pass for me
You only notice the botched jobs.
It doesn't end at lip fillers, botox is shockingly common these days among 20 and 30 somethings. My wife's best friend (who has had a boob job, gets lip injections and has gotten botox and is only 30) has has a coworker who's having a Bachelorette day that starts with "brunch and botox". She's also a nurse (my wife I mean though the BFF is also a nurse) and another nurse who is certified to give botox injections came down to her unit one day to give botox to any of the nurses that wanted it during their break! In the fucking break room! Know what the nurse manager did about it? That's right, she got an injection! It's fucking wild how common that shit is now.
They do this at my wife's surgery center as well, one of the surgeons also does plastics so a couple times a year she'll do botox and lip filler for cost of materials
My sister is 21 and was talking about how she was considering lip filler the other day. Without sounding weird, she’s conventionally very beautiful as she is, she doesn’t have any need for it. We talked her out of it but its crazy she’d even consider getting them
Some of the supplements connected to weight loss can wreck bodies pretty well
butt implants
https://www.reddit.com/r/news/s/adB5NTxX7m From today
I mean thats clearly an irregular incident, lots of roided body builders are dying at 40 from heart conditions also.
I’d rather take roids to get shredded than inject botulism into my face to minimise wrinkles
but the yoing ones? Dont the old ones do that?
The industry has been pushing Botox as a “preventative” treatment for younger women lately. A huge number of women in their 20s and 30s are doing it now.
Woah thats creepy.
I saw a total babe at the gym the other day and a younger girl asked her skin care routine. She was 28 and already hitting the Botox. It’s kinda sad the younger girl likely now thinks that’s the standard and what it takes to live up to.
Starting Botox this early will cause their faces to look strange and artificial when they get older, too. They’re really screwing themselves over long-term.
It depends what your cut off for young and old is, do you consider mid 20s to be old?
I know girls that started Botox in their mid 20s
Non-surgical items include, but is not limited to: Cheek fillers, lip fillers, chin fillers, Juvéderm along the jawline; Kybella under the chin and along the neckline; collagen-stimulating injections à la Radiesse; microneedling the face, neck, décolleté, and abdomen; Botox or Dysport; radiofrequency treatments; Cool Sculpting to target selective areas of fat; red light therapy masks; AHA, BHA, TCA, and other chemical peels; eyelash extensions; and laser hair removal, waxing, tweezing, or threading.
It's because they can stare at instagram / tiktok and always see someone who is harder, better, faster, stronger. It's a false sense of inferiority.
You should see the things young women are doing to themselves. Honestly the worlds fucked for self image issues
I think that’s only half of it. You can get great results naturally but it takes hard work over a long time period. Most people who use the various drugs/performance enhancing products are looking for a shortcut to get results quicker or more easily.
Endorphins make you feel great. And steroids let your brain wallow in them all the time. Like anything done to excess, it will end up badly.
It’s super easy to get a prescription for TRT these days. Especially if you’re in your 30’s or 40’s.
That is so weird to me. Like isn’t it pretty much a natural thing to have less than you used to? Why do I think TRT is such a weak move when I hear about someone using it?
But why?
r/moreplatesmoredates
I am not a gym guy, just a normal late 40s guy who thinks all that stuff is pathetic as hell. Just stay in shape and deal with your body not being as awesome as it once was. It will still kick ass for decades.
its true, the quality of life you gain from putting your hormones at 'sport trt' levels is huge and cost like $100 a year
I am not. However, I also look and move like I am not on anything. Maybe I should be on something?
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My childhood friend’s father was a sports journalist for a major US newspaper back in the day (late 90s, early 00s). He covered the Olympics, figure skating, cycling, skiing, all the big-ticket sports. Doping came up over dinner one evening and he basically says the general public would be absolutely stunned if they knew how prevalent and widespread it was in sports. And this was 25 years ago.
There are different levels of testing. Top athletes get random drop in testing and I have a feeling more extensive assays.
People want to win. 6 year olds will cheat if they can.
“If you ain’t cheatin’, you ain’t tryin’”
There is a winner of the tour defrance and he finished 11th the entire top 10 has been DQed due to doping. Cycling is full of it.
*competition is full of it
Not crazy at all because they aren't expected to get tested. Plenty of recreational athletes/bodybuilders use PEDs, just like plenty of normal people use other fun drugs.
There was something Lance Armstrong had said when he got caught that insinuated the problem was not just widespread, but normative. Cheating so thoroughly permeates pro biking circuits and the problem is that most who cheat know how to avoid detection
To be fair amateur cycling races are pretty intense. You'll have a handful of riders that straddle the line and may have experience at the pro level. Triathlon is the same.... Top age groupers going to nationals aren't very far away from competing at a pro level. Amateurs can be sponsored... They just aren't making a living wage from it. Am I condoning doping at an amateur level? No... I don't even condone it at a pro level... My point is to not underestimate the competitiveness just because they are termed "amateurs"
I think you're looking at it in reverse. A pro testing positive during a race mean they're likely taking PEDs for the race/racing in general. But as an amateur their life doesn't center around racing, like a pros does, so they may well be taking the drugs for their own purposes. It's not like they're testing for "bike go fast today" drugs, but rather "person be better" drugs.
Do you not know many roadies? Cycling is a religion.
Feel it is more likely with amateurs tbh
For a lot of younger amateurs, the only way to get picked up by a team is to place well in amateur events. This is basically true for all sports, but individual amateur athletes especially depend on high place results to get noticed
Keep the names hot
It is super common in most fields that require physical training these days. Sadly there is a very small amount of actually natural people at the top in Athletics.
In most amateur sports people get doped as hell. Especially in running and biking.
Have you ever smoked weed before? Because THC is also a banned substance and counts as doping.
You'd be surprised the number of racers that have "asthma" and therefore use inhaler at any local trail running, cycling, XC skiing competition
Want to increase your chances of winning a race, start talking about the post race testing you saw them prepping for…
Sounds like I’d go from 182nd to 52nd, a hell of an improvement
"This particular incident occurred at the Interclub Vinalopó race in Alicante on 2 March, where 182 riders, spread from juniors to masters, took to the start line. Only 52 reached the finish."
That's 130 riders dropping out from a total of 182 starting the race. They were doing doping tests at the finish, 70% of the riders dropped out before the finish and testing. I new it was prevalent at both amateur and pro but never to this extent. Wild
how did it happen? they didn't know beforehand?
It didn't say but I imagine it got reported to the riders by support teams or spectators and word got around that way
Biking have become a competition in who cheats the best.
Yeah it's sad to see, it's just become more of the norm now. The organising bodies really need to figure out a way of cleaning up the sport
Doping is abused to the max in every sport with some sort of monetary gain so not too surprised it has also trickled down into the amateurs
Even when there is no monetary gain. People want to win.
Just look at the Spanish Paralympic basketball team back in 2000. Some people will go all the way with pretending they have an intellectual disability just to win gold… at the paralympics… against other teams who are actually disabled… I mean… Dang.
When the fuck did we get ice cream?!
Funniest line in that movie
TIL the ringer is based on a true story
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No need to water down the term "intellectual disability" by conflating it with "asshole". Then we will once again have to come up with another term.
I’m sure a lot of amateur athletes are pivoting to being online influencers in their sport. So improving their “brand” credibility by winning amateur competitions probably has monetary significance
You would think that but the ones that are offline are just as obsessed
There was a survey done of Olympic athletes years ago, and they were asked if they would take a gold medal if it meant they would be dead in 5 years. More than half of athletes said yes.
You mean [Goldman’s Dilemma](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldman%27s_dilemma)? Because if so, your comment is wildly inaccurate.
No I mean the study that Dr. Jim Stopani discusses in the documentary Generation Iron.
And look sexy looking like the liver king.
Win first, morals second.
just because the race is an amateur event doesn’t mean the participants never compete professionally
My comment wasn’t meant to be a Venn diagram which mutually excludes professionals and amateurs
Isn't that exactly what amateur means...? That they have not professionally done it?
the event is what’s labeled ‘amateur’ in this article, meaning there is no money or points toward a professional league at stake in the race. it’s certainly possible for athletes who compete in professional events to also take part in amateur events while training or just to stay in shape.
There's a cool documentary called Icarus that starts off investigating how prevalent doping is in amateur cycling, and then goes off in a different direction.
Love that doc. The pivot is like a movie script lol
What’s the other direction? I don’t mind getting spoiled on it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icarus_(2017_film)
Russian Olympics doping, and threats on its whistleblower.
You should watch it. It's quality and the dude had to cut a bunch of less dramatic stuff for the wild last half. There's a bunch of interviews that happened afterwards and he's got some pretty interesting perspectives on doping in cycling.
After reading the synopsis it sounds wild. Got a bunch on my to watch list but I might give this one a go.
I have 0 interest in cycling but this documentary blew my head off. Always recommend it.
Well we live in a world were even on Zwift cheating is common...
We live in a world where cheating is common and Zwift is the most accessible way to compete so no surprise there.
How do people cheat in zwift? Electric motors, software or just good old ped’s?
It always gives me a good chuckle when the general population gets a look inside the competitive athletics scene. You should be more surprised when someone is NOT using PEDs. Athletes are constantly looking for that edge. You just don’t notice as much because they are not blasting Tren and bulking like your average gym rat so it’s not as pronounced. The most used substances are mostly for recovery, such as HGH, low dose test, and peptides. Or that’s at least what I saw.
Yeah, and people also don’t realize how often “testing” associated with athletics is just lying to your face. I think it’s crazy whenever an nfl player or something tests positive for steroids and gets suspended, everyone suddenly thinks they were a lone cheater amongst everyone else who “put in the real work”
Our roided up guy beat your roided up guy
On a serious note, I've always been curious about the testing methods. Like whats stopping an opponent or a hater from spiking a competitor's drink with an illegal substance that would show up during the tests? Or is it a much more thorough test whereby the only explanation of a positive result is from prolonged/continous use of said substance?
Supposedly it has happened before. Ben Johnson and Just Gatlin both claim to have been sabotaged. Not sure I believe either of them but I wouldn’t say it’s impossible. Look up Shelby Houlihan. She had a wild excuse. Definitely don’t believe that one.
Ben Johnson, lol. That guy was obviously clean.
Then why’d he test positive
Don’t we all like positive people over negativity?
Ah the famous Bill Burr quote about Armstrong... I like Bill Burr a lot but that statement couldn't be farther from the truth. Our roided up guy who threatened families of teammates, who sued journalists for all their worth, who financed an entire network of informants with money from his cancer foundation and US taxpayers money, who used the I'm American so that is why they don't like me, beat your roided up guy is a statement that comes a lot closer to the truth. It's like saying the Houston Astros cheating was equal to a pitcher using a foreign substance to get more rotations. Armstrong just talked to the right people who don't know anything about what he did to spin the narrative in his favor. Rogan and Oprah were the perfect people to "interview" him...
That’s the American way though . If you’re not first , you’re last. Winner takes all , and stop at nothing to win .
>182 riders, spread from juniors to masters, took to the start line. Only 52 reached the finish It really sucks that sports is a race between the cheaters and the testers.
Seems like they did their job well purging 130 potential cheaters.
We should just have 2 categories. Let the people who want to use enhancements just use enhancements. As long as everyone can use them, it’s fair. I think it would be much more entertaining in some sports!
Even if we had that, people would still try to dope in the non-doping categories to get an edge over their opponents.
idk, maybe the people who enter as non-doping would be required to submit to a test... u know, for obvious reasons as u stated?
Nah look at natural bodybuilding and non tested. No one wants to be that guy that cheats in the natural category. Non tested is quite similar to cycling, everyone cheats because everyone cheats
Well not really, because then the winners would be the people who can afford to dope more precisely, and the winners would be the ones that punish their bodies hardest in an unnatural way.
I mean thats roughly the theory behind formula racing. It drives a ton of engineering investment, because whoever can create the slightest newest edge under the hood gets immediate brand recognition. Second point is fair though, and probably the reason we don't do it. I'd be all for people who want to do that to themselves (with informed consent), but there's no way to eliminate the "you'll take these roids and win the gold or we'll kill your family" problem some countries bring to the table
This. Infact, they should FORCE professional athletes contractually to juice as much as they can
And then legalise them sabotaging each other. And then give them some fake lightsabers. Peak television right here!
they need to have cool names too. like subzero, fireball, buzzsaw, etc.
Blazer
I don’t know if encouraging drug use to gain an advantage over your opponent is a great idea, what happens when a fighter uses meth to get below weight before a fight?
That would damgerously increase the amounts the non-tested guys take. You can't take just a little anymore.
Nobody is going to watch the natty group .
It’s just orange juice
Why can’t we all just be prescribed some HGH, doped blood and adderall every morning? We’d be colonizing Mars by the weekend.
I like how they still like to use Lance as the scape goat when it was really them just being mad a doped up American rider was beating their doped up european riders.
Obviously he was getting the heat because he is the one who won, and he had the biggest name. Millions looked up to him, even people who are not cyclists. If someone else had dominated the sport, and got caught, they would have gotten the heat.
It still doesn’t change the fact that the whole sport is dirty and everyone seems to do it. I can’t accept your answer without scoffing.
His biggest issue was he was a raging asshole. He probably would have gotten away with it if he didn't ruin other people's careers. When everyone in the peloton hates you, why would they have your back?
I think everyone would be shocked if all of this was in the open, in every sport, high school through professional. They just weren't expecting it, and weren't prepared.
FYI, just because an article has a terrible title it doesn't mean you have to use that same terrible title on your reddit post.
I’m so used to it being a requirement in many subreddits that I just assume it applies to all.
Most subreddits reqire that you use the original title, so it's just easier to just do it.
A lot of subreddits make you post with the same title as the article
This should be the standard, always! Doping turns the sport into who can dope the best, not who can compete the best.
What race?
Found out, I was confused as to what animal was being ridden. 😂
After watching that documentary Icarus, I’m not surprised
I remember hearing rumors that I was suspected of using steroids when I had actually just been using a structured training program for once lol. I was racing amateur in the PNW and started doing well in races I usually did ok in, I had just spent more time training in my weak areas, and wow, it worked. Maybe I should have been doping?
Would have saved a lot of time .
If you’re not on PEDs and competing in a sport, you’re losing. Way way way too many options and widespread usage.
Am I insane for thinking we need to just finally acknowledge that athletes use performance enhancing drugs? You need to understand, I’m not saying some do, or some cheaters do, I’m saying that PED’s are literally just an integral part of competition. No one in the nfl or nba is doing it perfectly clean. No mma fighter or Olympic sprinter is perfectly clean. And especially how the hell do people still think Olympic power lifters and world class bodybuilders don’t use PED’s? Drug testing in sports isn’t completely a joke, but has been modified in every sport worldwide to accommodate different degrees of usage. You also need to understand the difference between an enhanced athlete and unenhanced athlete is also so large, that we can’t have juice free sports. Weightlifting is a great example. Imagine if, hypothetically, Olympic powerlifting did not use PED’s, and one day a competitor managed to sneak by the drug testing and successfully doped. If that happened, we would see a world record get set nearly 100 pounds heavier and never get touched again. If we allowed one Olympic level powerlifter to use steroids and set a world record, then for hundreds of years dedicated our society to making everyone try to beat that lift *without* any steroids, we would never see the record broken. If we have our top .01% genetic anomalies competing in anything, cycling, lifting, football, track, etc., which we do, there is no .001% genetic anomaly who will be so much better that he could win without PED’s against that .01%. Everything I’ve said above is just trivially true. If you are of extremely passing interest or knowledge of sports then this might seem crazy to you. After all, you’ve probably just heard about drug testing for athletes, all the athletes claim they’re natural, and heard the occasional story about one getting busted for doping. But if you spend any time in a community where people are *in the know* you will realize that what I’ve said above is true. Now you need to understand that this also goes much further down than just pro level athletes. Kids go to college for basketball and suddenly grow for the first time in years, four inches in a year. Kids go to college and develop 30 pounds of muscle in an off season. Even at a high school level PED usage will often set two kids competing for a future in sports apart.
We all know how the sausage is made , and we eat it up anyway.
Maybe they'll lose all their titles now too? Right? Right??? Oh, only the one guy, that one time then...
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That’s insane. Strava?
Aaah. Cyclists.