Indeed, your narrow mindedness and failure to see beyond the pale is glaringly obvious: "it is a testament to your lack of time in the gym that you have never noticed this.[/color"
I train exclusively at home, hence your comment is weak in substance.
Considering your comment/argument concerning the 'average joe' gym goer who takes a cocktail of hormones but still remains aesthetically displeasing, the reason why the original poster looks 'better' is, yes, partly, due to genetics, but also substantially due to being 'educated' in which specific hormones to use, with doses etc, as opposed to the aforementioned 'average joe' that just administers any old rubbish in ignorant combinations/amounts.
I agree, i suppose that my wrong doing is that, unlike yourself, i am not in awe of what are essentially drug addicts. You may be. Your choice.
Steroids aren't physically addictive.
Having trained a few years now and put on 60lb of muscle clean, I feel I've learned a little about how hard it is to keep bodyparts in balance/proportion, something the big guys in my gym who are obviously on the gear, with their big chests and arms and small legs and backs must also have realised by now. None of these guys could compete nationally or anything like that just because they had taken gear.
I knew 2 guys at uni who took oral anabolics for a while and put on like 3 pounds of muscle, which they could have gained naturally, and looked bloated cos they knew nothing about lifting and didn't have the work ethic to make proper gains.
I don't want to juice myself, but I also know if no-one ever juiced we'd never have seen the awesome physiques of Arnold, Sergio, Haney, Ronnie et al. They were up against other juicers and beat them, not because they took more juice, but because they trained smarter and harder, ate better and had better genetics. I take your point about being educated about what to take, but that doesn't get you balanced development, or the dedication to make consistent gains, the kind you need to reach 250 ripped at 5'10, or 300lb ripped at 6', that's a few years work right there. You're right to an extent, anyone can take a concoction and balloon up and put on size, but the refinement you need to get in the top 20 in the world in a field of millions of guys who take 'roids, is not to be underestimated. I don't think so anyway.
I am not in awe so much as I think it's cool what people can get their body's to look like. I wouldn't go through the shit it takes to run 100m in 9 point whatever seconds either, but it's cool that it's possible. Even though runners are obviously on gear, it's not like it's possible without gear, so either settle for shitty world records like 100m in 10+ seconds, and 200lb super-heavyweight bodybuilders, or accept that these extremes can be pretty cool. If you choose the former what on earth drew you to this board?
Loosely banding bodybuilders together as 'addicts' is plain silly, as I'm under the impression scientifically it's only addictive in the same way as going to the gym itself is addictive, the element of mental dependency because it feels cool to be big and strong, but not physically. So it's not like heroine, coke or whatever, as you imply with your choice of terminology.
