Steroids drove Sports Science

You might have noticed the gym has two big themes.

The two things that come up more than anything else. Steroids. Studies.

For years now I’ve heard countless stories about steroids, and countless misinterpretations of studies.

Most people don’t realise sports science is a new field.

In the past our knowledge of the human body has been called physiology. In the ~1950s bodybuilders started taking steroids and they blew up in popularity. Physiologists still exist and are who you want to learn from…

When bodybuilders became popular they started writing in magazines, what they said worked is what they enjoyed.

Little did anyone know their results were almost entirely due to two things…

• Genetics

• Steroids

• Training

You see, their training didn’t matter.

The way they trained was just the way that made them feel things, the way that motivated them.

They loved the squeeze, the stretch. They loved waking up the next day sore from super damaging workouts. They thought they had to shovel down protein and calories 😬

This is when sports scientists decided to appear.

They looked at what the bodybuilders were doing and completely ignored steroids and genetics.

There had to be something to the way these guys were training!

Muscle damage and the pump have to be good!

High volumes must be much better!

No, no, no, and no…

Sports scientists still haven’t let go of these, even though they’ve been completely disproved.

Personal Trainers are learning about all of these in their qualifications 😬

Sports science studies are framed in a way that doesn’t pay attention to physiology.

This gets rinsed and repeated over and over until the truth of what ends up making a difference is washed over with poorly conducted studies read by those who shouldn’t be reading them in the first place.

It’s hard to educate people in this space as a lot of the time you have to debunk/unlearn things before you can get to the good stuff.

Doesn’t mean I won’t give up.

Before you leave for the day here’s a funny story about bodybuilders from the 70s (likely before too).

They’d sneak in exercises they thought suck just to troll their fans and have them do it in the gym 😭

Hopefully you’re not doing the Arnold Press.

Your Hypertrophy Hero,
Fletcher

P.S. I just uploaded a video talking about bulking and maintenance for muscle growth, you don’t have to watch it if you don’t want to, but if you’re looking for a LONGER more visual explanation or want to support my channel, here’s the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKEmiI5XGFs