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PEDs in rugby

Don't Skip Leg Day said:
Change my mind:

PEDs are state sponsored In South Africa for rugby players.
Click to expand...
I'm surprised this is news to anyone. I've known several guys who played in relevant rugby clubs in SA and would become springbocks (one of them knew Brian Habana for a long time), and they all tell the same story: when they were 16-17, they came back with super natural strenght after a summer. After that, they had become unreachable to any normal kid.
Same story I heard from a guy who played in the stormers' academy and shared team with many current bokke

I am personally very pro PEDs, especially the using them the smart way like SA: they help selected players reach a certain bodyweight when they're young and then keep it, which I would think requires having a good response to anabolic steroids but any gifted kid in his late twins is going to be bursting with testosterone so... I also don't think they use very agressive steroids, I don't think they use anavar or deca or GH, and of course tren, probably peptides or something else
today, thre's such a wide arrange of stuff you can get which is mind-boggling. I would prefer it to be regulated instead of what they have in England ATM, where everyone is cruising and pumping insane amounts of steroids at 17

steroid epidemic in england

I think SA probably does a small base of test and over that they add some other stuff, probably mild, and when they reach a certain muscularity and their body gets used to it, they get them off forever, suplementing mildly for most of their careers. Thatt should be immmensely helpful to big guys who need muscle, loads of it, to maintain their bone and connective tissue healthy well into their 30's

in other words, I really admire their program, every SA player has a great body and they are super athletes

long live the bokke

I would also think most of the top unions run similar programs
hell, in England they don't even need to tell the kids to get started, they do it on their own hahahaha
anyway, peace
 
Horacito said:
I'm surprised this is news to anyone. I've known several guys who played in relevant rugby clubs in SA and would become springbocks (one of them knew Brian Habana for a long time), and they all tell the same story: when they were 16-17, they came back with super natural strenght after a summer. After that, they had become unreachable to any normal kid.
Same story I heard from a guy who played in the stormers' academy and shared team with many current bokke

I am personally very pro PEDs, especially the using them the smart way like SA: they help selected players reach a certain bodyweight when they're young and then keep it, which I would think requires having a good response to anabolic steroids but any gifted kid in his late twins is going to be bursting with testosterone so... I also don't think they use very agressive steroids, I don't think they use anavar or deca or GH, and of course tren, probably peptides or something else
today, thre's such a wide arrange of stuff you can get which is mind-boggling. I would prefer it to be regulated instead of what they have in England ATM, where everyone is cruising and pumping insane amounts of steroids at 17

steroid epidemic in england

I think SA probably does a small base of test and over that they add some other stuff, probably mild, and when they reach a certain muscularity and their body gets used to it, they get them off forever, suplementing mildly for most of their careers. Thatt should be immmensely helpful to big guys who need muscle, loads of it, to maintain their bone and connective tissue healthy well into their 30's

in other words, I really admire their program, every SA player has a great body and they are super athletes

long live the bokke

I would also think most of the top unions run similar programs
hell, in England they don't even need to tell the kids to get started, they do it on their own hahahaha
anyway, peace
Click to expand...
So the argument for using PEDs in certain circumstances is that it actually helps the health of the athlete? Not heard that argument before but I suppose it might have traction. I remember talking to a cyclist friend about Lance Armstrong and he said that if you don't juice in the tour de France you will do yourself more harm than if do.
 
I do wonder sometimes whether people are on the roids or they are just naturally blessed. (Or some combination of both).
The runner Harry Aikines claimed he developed pecks as young as 13, and look at him now:
 
McTallshort said:
So the argument for using PEDs in certain circumstances is that it actually helps the health of the athlete? Not heard that argument before but I suppose it might have traction. I remember talking to a cyclist friend about Lance Armstrong and he said that if you don't juice in the tour de France you will do yourself more harm than if do.
Click to expand...
Well, I think it's supposed to be a cluster of circumstances/reasons rather than one single argument:
-on one hand, PED's today are very easy to get, and if used smartly, almost impossible to track , everyone knows most of top athletes use it some form or another. This is simply the reality of things
-on the other, rugby requires a heavy and welll trained muscle-structure to protect the vital organs of the body (obviously head, which muscle has nothing to do with, and vital organs=, so it is necessary for young guys to be really developed and well built
-on top of that, no rugby union or organization runs a bodibuilding program, which means that you don't have guys blasting thousands of mgs of test+ some more stuff like professional bodybuilders do, they use one or two cycles tops really early and then just maintain their weight
-also, we don't know exactly what they take, so speculation on the possible outcome regarding organs is fruitless, we don't have enough information
-obviously, there's not a single completely safe way to use: if they take them when they're under 25, their brain is not yet fully formed and steroids are proven to affect hormonal functions and so on

the question of peds in cycling is entirely different: what cyclists do is completely unnatural. No human body is ready to blast bodyfat percentages lower than 6% while cycling 300km+ and burning 4000 kcal, so previious generations of pros used to die at 40, while many of them developed serious ilness, and they also doped like crazy. Cocaine diluted in water for the eyes, they rubbed their joints with crazy painkillers to complete queen stages (yes, they used to be longer), they ran a literal drugstore while eating cold chicken as a source of protein (Bartali's generation and even 20 years after). PED's have improved the life of many cyclists and legends of the sport while killing some lesser known . It is undeniably true that ped's have improved their life after cycling (some of them used to get osteoporosis to the point of walking like 80 year olds and also die of heart failure due to enlarged hearts )

it's a terribly nuanced and complicated debate for which our society is not ready, in my opinion
 
Rugbyfan564 said:
When will England be awarded the 2019 trophy with how tainted South Africa's win is.
Click to expand...
That sort of assumes the english team and union is clean, which is hard to believe seeing how freely their youth uses steroids
500k of users right now, non of them play rugby?
 

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