Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Last Act

He is born with a perfect physique and the will to work on it extensively

Meh, his biggest body-building claims to fame were multiple Mr. Olympia titles. Is there any other Hollywood A-list type (current or former) of which that title has been the make or break factor? Schwarzenegger's peer at the time for the same title(s) was Lou Ferrigno, and he never did better than runner up at a time in which that competition had the most cultural cache within Hollywood; he even he had his own success in Hollywood as The Hulk (and 36 other movie/TV credits per wikipedia.)

Some of Schwarzeneggar's success comes down to "sheer will" as the GP posited. Some of it is also luck (right place/right time, the right "look" for a given role, etc...) And some of it is help from others, which he seems to readily acknowledge and pass on as a message to others[1]

To say Schwarzenegger is who he is only because of steroids is as shallow of an assessment as to say it's all "sheer will".

1. https://www.reddit.com/r/MadeMeSmile/comments/o9infd/not_a_s...

edit: cleaned up a sentence.

All that is to say that the comparison to Lance isn’t valid in my view. The equivalent would be saying that Lance Armstrong cheated because he used a fancier bike than everyone else and didn’t win on a cheap Walmart bike. (I’d replace Lance here with another cyclist but I can’t think of any who don’t have steroid doubts on them so let’s just stick with him).

I don't think steroids were illegal when he was winning his Mr. Olympia titles. His last win was 1980, and steroids were explicitly made illegal in the US in 1990.

Also, when he was winning Mr. Olympias everyone was using steroids. It was a level playing field. Very different from a sport like cycling where steroids or blood doping is banned.

He was taking steroids under a doctor’s supervision. True. So is everyone else in body building.

This is like saying “Bill Gates accomplished nothing because he was born rich”. Funny how the many others born rich didn’t become among the wealthiest in the world.

Lance’s career couldn’t be different. He went through great lengths to hide what he was doing at a time when they had pretty sophisticated tests going on. How many of his peers used steroids? What percentage? Compare Arnold’s reaction to Lance’s to their steroid using becoming discovered by the masses. They couldn’t be more different.

Steroids help. No one can deny that. The average person might get into pretty good shape using steroids without much effort. You can gain muscle by taking steroids and not training as your body processes protein better.

None of these people taking steroids will ever look like a pro bodybuilder as they don't have the dedication, mental mindset, determination, or work ethic to get there. Pro bodybuilders are a special kind. It's all built on consistency, day in and day out, every day, every week, every month, every year. Every meal is calculated, and every training session is calculated, logged and analysed.

Steroids certainly helped in his bodybuilding, but his single-mindedness made him the best bodybuilder of his time. The same single-mindedness got him a film career and then a political career.

The difference with Lance Armstrong is that pro bodybuilding competitions have never had rules banning performance enhancing drugs. Cycling isn't judge on your body being the biggest unnatural freaks on stage where performance-enhancing-drugs is a given unless you are competing in a completely natural class.

Steroids can make you more muscular. But making sure that every muscle in your body is equally muscular, proportionate, and vascular isn't something everyone can do.

Not everyone who takes steroids ends up like Arnold, so your comment adds no value.

Necessary but not sufficient. https://www.txst.edu/philosophy/resources/fallacy-definition....

For Arnold to win and get famous, steroids were a necessary (but not sufficient) condition. Arnold can be as wondrous, beautiful, tall, wise and shrewd as possibly imaginable but he doesn't win body building comps without them. From there no toe-hold of fame to get to hollywood and beyond. Same for Dwayne Johnson, no way he's in hollywood if not already famous. Are we sensible enough to mention pro-wrestling's steroid issues without going silly about it? This non-acting fame achievement coming first is not so much true for Judy Dench, Brad Pitt, Meryl Streep or Bruce Willis, for example. No idea of their drug habits or lack thereof but hard to see them as necessary whatever they are or aren't.

Just like Lance Armstrong. Every cyclist you have ever met (and indeed every cyclist you haven't) doesn't win like he did even if they took the same drugs, blood doping and whatever else, with teams of doctors and pharmacologists to make it all world standard. Like his teammates didn't win. Like all the other Tour de France entrants didn't win. Lance doesn't win you've never heard of him. Lance didn't take all those performance enhancing drugs he isn't even hired as a domestique at the Tour - as amazing as his abilities are.

Necessary, but not sufficient. It's a thing really worth knowing whether you venerate Arnold S. or Lance A. or both or neither or not.

Separate to that. Working out your answer for why you think Arnold and Lance should be thought of differently is instructive and I stand by that recommendation.

2. All bodybuilders used them so it was a level playing field.

People should strive to be informed before commenting. There’s so much noise in the world, I feel like so much time is wasted on these little conversations.

Now if the competitive leagues make it against their own policies, I have no problem with that.

Football players and boxers do a lot of harm to their bodies to participate in their chosen sports. As long as they are informed about the dangers, that’s their choice.