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GeriatricZergling t1_isxychx wrote

Some of it is probably just natural variation - slight differences of 1% that are utterly inconsequential to most of us become tremendously important when enduring very high loads, especially repeatedly. My ACL could be 1% weaker than usual and I'd never know, because I don't do anything to puts extreme loads on it the way tackle football does. But if I was a pro athlete getting tackled constantly in practice and games, that tiny difference might be what ends my career.

Another possibility is steroids. Steroids increase your muscle size and force very fast, but tendons and ligaments take much longer to accommodate those forces because they have very few cells (they're mostly just collagen molecules), so can't remodel easily (they also take much longer to heal from injury for the same reason). Consequently, steroid use is a risk factor for many tendon and ligament injuries. But of course, they're never going to say "well, Smith got injured a lot this season because he's juicing", so he's just "injury prone".

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JawnBewty t1_isz83w7 wrote

I agree with all of the above, although any major sport has a pretty solid testing regimen at this point and I don't imagine there is too much anabolic steroid use.

I think there is lots of cheating and near-cheating, I'm just saying steroids in particular seem pretty obvious to spot both with testing and with the naked eye.

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makesomemonsters t1_it22vli wrote

Regarding anabolic steroid use, if tests typically indicate whether the person has used PEDs in recent weeks, but not whether they used any months ago, then I wonder what proportion of pro athletes juiced before going pro and only stopped once they had turned pro and were likely to get tested.

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JawnBewty t1_it2lzx3 wrote

There was this guy, who was absolutely dominant in college (thanks in part to anabolics) and then couldn't compete at the pro level once he was off the juice.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Mandarich

He was the most egregious example - I mean, the guy just looked like he was on steroids, lol.

https://roidvisor.com/tony-mandarich-stopped-using-steroids-starting-abusing-painkillers/

But it's not like amateur athletes aren't tested. In America, the NCAA tests for steroids and such.

https://www.ncaa.org/sports/2016/7/20/ncaa-drug-testing-program.aspx

I think nearly all steroid-enhanced amateur athletes get filtered out, quite honestly. It's pretty obvious when a guy is juicing, quite honestly, especially to his coach and teammates. They know each others' bodies and they know who is putting in time in the weight room and who is showing gains that are totally unrealistic.

NOBODY wants them on their team. First of all, nobody wants to compete for jobs against those guys. And guys like that on your team are a huge risk. You don't want to build a team around a guy who is one test away from getting a lengthy suspension. Pro teams don't want to invest money in a guy like that. Etc.

There's also the fact that only a few sports even benefit from bulked dudes. You never really hear about steroids in basketball, hockey, or soccer because those aren't sports where you would benefit from looking like the Incredible Hulk and in fact carrying extra bulk would be a detriment. Only certain football positions and certain baseball positions.

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EBtwopoint3 t1_it5l3te wrote

I think this is a little naive. Anabolics may have fallen out of favor for athletes but that’s because better stuff was created. PEDs, which is what people colloquially mean by steroids, are caught in the systems of athletes every year. For example in 2022 alone DeAndre Hopkins and Fernando Tatis both served long suspensions for PEDs. Yes, they both used the old fall back of a banned substance was contained in a legal workout supplement but that’s a really thin excuse. They aren’t using them to get huge anymore, they are using them for improved energy, endurance, and the key for football: recovery.

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