Did they have access to testosterone back then? Also how the hell did arnold get so lean do you think he was using some sort of fat burner like t3 or maybe even some form of speed. Also I wonder how these guys felt they must have had low testosterone most the time if they had no PCT and no TRT.
testosterone was around of course, nobody used it because of the side effects. Apparently millennial bodybuilders just love acne, hair loss, bloat and gyno.
plenty of sources from people around and competing during that era have stated over and over that the main drugs of choice were deca and dbol. Anavar was also common. Very few people used testosterone. Dr Robert Kerr (allegedly also Arnold's doctor for a time or so the rumor goes) stated in his book as much, and he only ever prescribed testosterone to someone who was adamant about putting on scale weight as fast as possible, usually people like footballers.
how did he get so lean? the same way everyone did and does: reduce calories. It works, shocking i know. Works even better when you're running boatloads of deca. You'll notice over time that the gym rats that go and on about using DNP and clen and shit like that never actually get truly lean, just temporarily less chubby before they balloon back up again. DNP is fucking trash.
As for rumors about primobolan, I never understood this one. To the best of my knowledge, primobolan was, and is, primarily a drug that was marketed in europe, not the US. You dont see many people from that era talking about it, and Kerr only briefly mentions it under the miscellaneous drugs section of his book, reiterating what i just wrote about it here, that it was a drug primarily circulating european markets not US ones, and that he saw no reason for anyone to go out of their way to get it when deca did the exact same stuff much more cheaply.
so what we know of the golden era for sure:
deca
dbol
anavar
stuff that was around and used but probably not that popular:
anadrol
winny
methandriol
maxibolin
also contrary to popular belief, GH was around then, it was called Somatotropic hormone or "STH" back then. Harvested from rhesus monkeys or human cadavers as the synthetic version hadn't yet been developed. Expensive, and not widely available. Probably not in use until very late 70s, but thats just a guess on my part. Someone on the internet who allegedly spoke to
Casey Viator relayed that Viator said they were using Crescormin (in the same post he also claims Mike Mentzer would use as much as 2.5 grams of deca every week) , sounds plausible, but i also take it with a grain of salt since anybody can fucking write anything on the internet, and they frequently do, forums attract bullshit artists like lights attract insects.