Topic: How spread is drug usage in weightlifting?

[movmasty]

all i know is that i recently read an article by a top russian coach who was saying its entirely possible for a superheavy lifter to do 400lbs/500lbs-or 182/225kg for the 2 lifts without using drugs-at a time when world records were 213/263kg,so without actually saying it-he said it! top guys use drugs!!

Olympic sports are mostly drugfree todays, after 1988, and wl is the less doped.
Recall the history of wl,
182kg in 1951
200 in 1959
217.5 in 1964
237.5 in 1972
255 in 1976
265 in 1984
266 in 1988
263 in 2012......
We should be at 300 today with steroids, simply untolerable for human phisique.

After 1988 the CIO began a serious fight against doping, but Pisarenko got injuried soon after his record in 1984,
and the record raised only 1kg in 4 years even with roids.
We hit the limit.
Doping is still present in powerlifting and BB, but the staticity of weights makes it still tolerable.

Drug testing is an unnecessary evil. Voluntary self-declaration enforced by an honor system will be far more effective.

Drug testing is I N D I S P E N S A B L E

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

Indespensible eh? So, without drug testing there would be no sport? How did sport survive for so many centuries without it?

[Andy Dick]

I think this site gets less attention because the man doing the snatch at the top of the page looks like he's putting his heart into it, yes, but he's hardly the scene of beauty and appeal... you'd do better to have pictures of Helena Wong or someone.

True to the common person they have no idea who this dude is.  But to lifters he is money, he did great things in the sport.
 
I would agree, it does seem there is much less discussion on the board.  I won't lie I stopped frequenting the boards as much as I used to when some of my own technique questions or ask for advice on lifts were being ignored.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

Blame the USAW for that one Andy. When they screwed me over, I lost all interest in coaching. This site will survive and prosper, or it won't. It makes no real difference to me. If it helps people, wonderful. If it doesn't, then it should disappear. I think the main reason this site gets less posts is I am unpopular in the extreme inside the community. I speak my mind bluntly and will never change. America is not used to this anymore IMO and hates radical individualists. Amerika loves conformity and worship of the status quo. That isn't me.

[Andy Dick]

I became more of a lurker now.  I understand your situation Chris and I have gotten a great deal of info from the site.  I was just commenting on how in the past you could put a video or a problem and you would get all kinds of help from many members it no longer like that it seems.  Could be people's situations have changed I know mine has giving me less time to get on here.

[TheRedReaper]

Indespensible eh? So, without drug testing there would be no sport? How did sport survive for so many centuries without it?

You're just too pro drug users to get it. For guys who are massively annoyed by it and want a clean sport, they think as whatshisface does.
 
But I'm not so confident that drug use has been brought down so far. As for his example of the amount of weight lifted - I think it is the training that improved, and now has been mastered. Not so much the drugs. Drugs or no, it is not going to be easy for anyone to clean and jerk over 260k. The training has now maximized potential, but the ability of the human body to perform is in the end limited. 270k does not sound much heavier than 260k, but I'm sure you all know it is. What was Hossein's first lift in Sydney? 260? And in 4 years training, he was only able to get it better by 3.5 kilo. There's something to be said for that - is that all the training in the world could not make him much better. Though he failed his second lift, I believe if he had have got them all, he might have tried for 267.5 or so. Guess we'll never know. I'd like to see someone break that record. Even if they used more steroids than a race horse, it's still just too close to max human potential.

[Chris Ⓐ LeRoux]

I am NOT pro-doper. I am pro-freedom and anti-violence, against coercion. Drug testing is a complete failure. Anyone who thinks it is working is naive in the extreme.

[TheRedReaper]

But how does giving up on drug testing help? People know it's illegal, against the rules and cheating, but they do it anyway. They deserve to be checked.
 
It's like the same as going through the airport. I don't like the idea of being pulled aside and patted down to check for vampire slaying wooden stakes or whatever no more than anyone. But it's better that than having to deal with a crazy mother focker running around stabbing people on a plane saying he wants to have sex with virgin sluts in heaven but has to kill everybody elser to get them.
 
I know it's not working to well, the testing, but I can never agree it should be scrapped./