you answered your own concern. there are more teens using steroids now than ever, yet none have Bob's quad development. the reason is work ethic. everyone trained so much harder back then. now it is a bunch of lazy kids trying to find the perfect cycle. i've actually had guys ask me what drug to take for outer thigh thickness, lol. i don't know Bob, but would bet he spent more time squatting by 17 than most guys nowadays will do their whole careers. drugs have always been effective, but in the 80's they were part of a formula, now they are a replacement for hard work and good eating.
AMEN!!!
Ronnie Coleman has a saying, "Everybody want to be a bodybuilder, but don't nobody want to lift no heavy-@$$ weight". I'd say a similar principle applies to diet and nutrition. They don't want to eat no heavy-@$$ food or take heavy-@$$ supplements. All they want to do is inject their way to a bodybuilder's physique.
What I learned in the mid-90s from the pros was that, drugs or no drugs, these guys were ingesting calories like no tomorrow. Either they were eating them, drinking them, or (in many cases) BOTH!!! Lots of chicken, beef, eggs, whole milk, and tons of protein powder (i.e. 8 packs of MET-Rx per day).
Of course, I couldn't afford MET-Rx. In fact, the only think I could afford was Mega Mass 2000 and GNC Challenge Milk and Egg protein powder (buy one; get one 50% off). I would go through nearly 2 lbs of Mega Mass powder a day. So a bag of Mega Mass would last me a week. Later I would switch to N-Large (which got upgraded to N-Large
2). End result: I got bigger and I got stronger.
The strangest part of all was that, even though my development was nowhere near that of Chick, people started accusing ME of using anabolics. One guy even asked me at Bally where he could get steroids and looked shocked when I told him I didn't use them (Here I am thinking,
"I can barely afford weight gainer; how on Earth can I be taking 'roids?").
As for the all the whining about supplements and feeding the evil consordium of supplement companies and magazine companies, GIVE ME A BREAK!!!! Price is hardly an excuse these days, especially since all you have to do is WAIT for store like GNC to start marking down supplements for clearance (courtesy of one government law that actually helps bodybuilders) and start cleaning house.
I have a shelf full of RTDs that I just picked up for $0.99 each or less. Not to mention there are the two 5-lb jugs of GNC's Mega Whey, each marked down to $10. Last month, I even got some Anator P-70, marked down to $17. In fact, thanks to the 40% off promotion MuscleTech has, I ended up buying a second one for about $9 (actually those prices don't factor in my Gold Card discount

).