Golden era of bodybuilding (seventies) vs Today

[RonnyT Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close RonnyT]

It always amuses me when someone claims that "Arnold just got big using steroids". Steroids 50 years ago were nothing compared to what they are today. Compare Arnold to today's champion, Ronnie Coleman...
Both guys could deadlift over 700lbs, both guys are "genetic freaks", both guys won the Mr Olympia competition several times. Yet Ronnie competed at 305lbs (at 5'11") while Arnold was only 235lbs (at 6'2"). Why the 70lbs difference?
The answer is drugs. Arnold Schwarzenegger did use steroids, but in much smaller doses than today and only 2 months per year. Coleman is from the new eara and uses slin/growth and AAS and most probably other means. That's why Arnold was 70lbs lighter. Fact is, you could never become like Coleman without drugs, no matter how hard you train.
Anyone who dismisses Arnold's achievements because he used steroids is nuts. Do you really believe that a guy who became successful as a powerlifter, bodybuilder, entrepreneur, actor and now politician ... who did all of that from scratch ... who started as a 15y old 150lbs skinny guy ... who had a lousy german accent as bad as my french one ... who became a millionaire by his 30s...
Do you really believe that a guy like this got big "just using steroids"?
And I'm NOT saying that he didn't use steroids. But you don't get to a 710lbs Deadlift by sitting in your couch all day, no matter how much steroids you use. Jay Cutler is full of steroids and he struggles with 400lbs on the Deadlift... at 300lbs body-weight. I only weigh 170lbs and I pull 400lbs anytime with ease.
Yet this is the world that we live in today. If a guy accomplishes extraordinary results, many people will be quick to tarnish his success by claiming that he must have cheated - it must be genetics, it must be talent, it must be steroids.
OR maybe ... it's just good old fashioned HARD WORK.
There's a certain mindset that Arnold Schwarzenegger has, a mindset that you should diligently be looking for, a mindset that I ought you to develop, a mindset that is revealed in quotes like these:
“The mind is the only limit. As long as the mind can envision something, you can do it.”
Arnold got big because he thought that way.

Not all about arnold, but many guys on the forums speak about the Golden Era of bodybuilding or Old School when they refer to the seventies. Some claim that after the seventies bodybuilding got lost and turned to drugs and created mass-monsterzz. Some rave about Old school nutrition, Old school supplements, Old school work-outs dumbells vs machines etc etc.
What we forget is the BEFORE the seventies an other generation of bodybuilders grew up, the real Natural Bodybuilders. And they also thought They did it the only way and the best way. And they surely considdered Arnold, Lou, Sergio etc as steroidmade mass-monsters.
Plan a blogpost about and would like to hear if you would like it or have comments or input..

[Shrek Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Shrek]

Think that would make an excellent post, I love the talk about good old days vs mass monsters and this and that

[AIRBORNE Member Find all posts View Profile Close AIRBORNE]

Ronny, any place I can find more old school photos of the guys back then? I hate to say it but im much more impressed of the physiques of the 60's & 70's as compaired to today.

[Rodneyl Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Rodneyl]

If you are looking for some history in bodybuilding her is an excellent site: http://musclememory.com/. Just copy and paste. I think it is one of the best,

[RonnyT Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close RonnyT]

fifties

most of us know Arnold was a great admirer of Reg Park ..more of those guys here
http://classicphysiquebuilder.blogspot.com/

[AIRBORNE Member Find all posts View Profile Close AIRBORNE]

RonnyT, I do appreicate it man.

[ODB Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close ODB]

I enjoy flashing back to the Old days.
and sometimes it is amazing how intuitive and spot on some of the ideas where with little to no scientific research.

But steroid use goes back much further... to the late 40's.

The First Injectable Anabolic Steroid Product

The testes have been known to be responsible for male-typical characteristics and behaviors since ancient times but it was not until 1849 that scientists learned how this happened. German scientist Arnold Adolf Berthold discovered that the testes influenced masculine behavior by secreting an unknown substance into the bloodstream.

A few decades later, French physiologist Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard, the father of modern-day hormone research, sought to capture this essence of masculinity with a concentrated extract derived from guinea pig and dog testicles. He claimed that injecting the extract would increase physical strength and intellectual ability in humans.
The First Athlete to Use Steroids

Athletes looking for an edge have often looked to science as a means to improve their athletic abilities. Brown-Séquard’s hormone research intrigued future Major League Baseball pitcher and Hall of Famer “Pud” Galvin. Galvin wondered if injections of the Brown-Séquard Elixir would enhance baseball performance.

Since the extract undoubtedly contained trace amounts of as-of-yet-unidentified androgenic steroids, Galvin became the first known athlete to inject a steroid-based product when he became a regular user of the rejuvenating Brown-Sequard Elixir. The year was 1889. Galvin’s use of “steroids” preceded the recent steroids in baseball scandal by over 100 years.

Brown-Séquard’s research inspired several scientists to build on his research with testicular extracts.

The Popularization of Testosterone Among West Coast Bodybuilders

In 1945, writer Paul de Kruif celebrated the anabolic properties of testosterone, testosterone propionate and methyltestosterone in the book entitled “The Male Hormone”. This widely-read book was rumored to have helped popularize the potential of testosterone (and future anabolic steroids) to increase muscle mass among West Coast bodybuilders in the late 1940s and early 1950s. This was only the beginning of bodybuilding’s fascination with anabolic steroids.

The bodybuilding community as a whole would soon start widely experimenting with anabolic steroids in the 1950s and become pioneers in steroid use. They would remain on the cutting edge of performance-enhancement drugs well into the next century.

IFBB Mr. Olympia Larry Scott admitted that he, and practically all of the top competitive bodybuilders, were also using anabolic steroids by 1960.

[RonnyT Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close RonnyT]

blog

I posted 2 posts
http://juicedmuscle.com/jmblog/conte...a-bodybuilding
http://juicedmuscle.com/jmblog/conte...c-testosterone

[AIRBORNE Member Find all posts View Profile Close AIRBORNE]

I posted 2 posts
http://juicedmuscle.com/jmblog/conte...a-bodybuilding
http://juicedmuscle.com/jmblog/conte...c-testosterone

Ronny, I love reading this stuff man. So much knowlege is compressed into every artical.

[RonnyT Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close RonnyT]

Adolf Hitler

some more historical facts for those that like to know about the first users
(by the JF Kennedy also injected roids and used speed)

Hitler injected Testoviron (JR Coll Physicians Edinb 2005 Feb;.. 35 (1) :75-82)

Historical-medical article about Hitler's drug use. Since the thirties, Hitler was addicted to pills and sinjections from his personal physician Theodor Morell, which injected the Fuehrer daily - with glucose, estradiol, corticohormones, extracts, vitamins, amphetamines and testosterone.
The article relies heavily on the research of the controversial historian David Irving: a respected investigator of archives with an unprecedented knowledge of Nazi Germany, which at one point, howeverbecame disordered, and claimed that there was no evidence of the Holocaust. Anyway - the quality of his scientific work is indisputable.

Here http://www.fpp.co.uk/books/Morell/index.html you can download a free copy from Irving's book “The Secret Diaries of Hitler's Doctor’
.
Morell did not inject mega doses of testosterone, as you can read in the book. How often he administerd androgens to Hitler we do not know, but each time it was an ampoule Testoviron of 25 milligrams of testosterone enanthate. Made by Schering, just like now. This product was already on the market in the forties.
Morells injections probably demolished Hitler both mentally and physically. The Parkinson-like symptoms that Hitler had developed where due to the amphetamines that Morell gave him, and that Hitler became addicted ro.
One of the amphetamine-like agents that Hitler got was Coramin of Ciba. Also Coramin is still on the market. The active substance, Nikethamide or pyridine-3-carboxydiethylamide or Nikethamide recently surfaced during doping controls. In 2004 Torri Edwards, a pupil of John Smith, appeared to have swallowed glucose tabswhere someone secretly had added Nikethamide