There's a lot of really fkn great natty Bodybuilders out there. Where do you draw the line for what's acceptable to Be considered a natural physique? There's always someone with naturally better genetics who's showing up at these natty shows and pissing clean and passing lie detector tests. there's freaks out there...just look at some "prison yard" physiques that black inmates have. All about genetics!
There's also some really ugly fat f***'s out there on grams of gear who are just bad Bodybuilders. I train with a kid on occasion here at my gym whos on a gram of test and 600mg NPP a week and he still can't break past 16" (not shredded) arms. Point here is that based on Bodybuilders I've known personally, Johns physique and claims are believable. Theres some pics of some really great natties on this site (Krank, meso) who understand that some people are just gifted at building lean muscle without drugs. You can't lump everyone into a box and say "impossible without drugs!" The man is 185 lbs FFS
And he's smaller than what he used to be, when he competed in the low 200s. Hansen has never been a monster (relatively speaking).
The idea, however, that it's impossible for him (or someone like him) to bulk up to 230 (as he did in those pics shown) without anabolics is downright ludicrous.
Again, the problem is that many of the "whiners", as I call them, are so obsessed with being "lean", that they don't eat and drink calories needed for overall size and mass.
Wasn't Arnold quoted as saying that "
You don't sculpt a pebble; you can only sculpt a big piece of granite." (or something to that effect)?
Granted, you're not trying to be a sumo wrestler. But, if abs are the only muscles you possess, you have major problems, if you want to be a bodybuilder.
To borrow from a certain 8-time Mr. Olympia,
"Everybody wanna be a bodybuilder; but don't nobody want to eat no heavy-@$$ food." And by 'eat', I don't mean just literally chewing and swallowing regular food. When I was in college, about half of my calories came from weight-gainer shakes (either commercial brands, when I could afford them; or ones make from milk and eggs, when I couldn't afford the commercial ones).