Bodybuilding vs powerlifting PED usage and mortality

[narta]

I have been watching the scene for a few decades now. In the recent years, we have seen sadly, more and more bodybuilders dropping dead or facing severe health problems even at younger ages.

We know that PED usage and lack of proper monitoring have significant role to those outcomes, but we rarely see top powerlifters suffering the same outcomes. Usually powerlifters are heavier, round and with higher bf levels and we know they use hefty doses of PEDs.

What's your opinion on this?

 

[Nilatac]

I say that the number is similar but we don't see in the news when a powerlifter have kidney damage because no one cares about powerlifting.
I saw the documentary "west side story" and 2 guys that was top powerlifers have kidney damage but is not a news because is no interest in powerlifting as a sport or not near as much as bodybuilding. No ons know their names,no one cares about them.
Nick Best who was doing powerlifting many years then was doing strongman has kidney problems but if you don't look at videos with him or about him you will not know.
Gavin Bilton is a strongman who had a heart attack
Eddie Hall had heart problems when competing.
But those guys aren't that popular and people will not know but if a ex Olympia have problems everyone knows

Other thing is the weight that fluctuate is not healthy at all.
And the number of bodybuilders wannabes is higher than powerlifters. Having a bigger number of people will lead to more cases but % wise it will be the same.

 

[Blange89]

I wonder if the extreme weight manipulation has any part in it.

 

[narta]

My take is the weight fluctuations, heavy diuretic usage and experimenting with extreme dosages.

Powerlifters usually are test/deca/eq off-season adding tren orals towards the meeting and test/tren suspension with chequedrops/halo on meet day and diuretics if they need to make weight class. Maybe gh...

But bodybuilders add a fuckton of drugs off-season, and ramp to ridiculous things towards contest time, heavy diuretics and peptides etc in the mix. And the worst is the ballooning after the contest some gaining 30-40lbs in a span of 5days. And that's not healthy, heart is stressing big time with the contest prep and then the sudden added weight makes it a living hell.

 

[olrak]

I have been watching the scene for a few decades now. In the recent years, we have seen sadly, more and more bodybuilders dropping dead or facing severe health problems even at younger ages.

We know that PED usage and lack of proper monitoring have significant role to those outcomes, but we rarely see top powerlifters suffering the same outcomes. Usually powerlifters are heavier, round and with higher bf levels and we know they use hefty doses of PEDs.

What's your opinion on this?

I think modern bodybuilding places a huge emphasis on steroid use compared to previous bodybuilding generations, it's given the same level of consideration as food and training, a few grams a week is normal now. I generally find in the powerlifting community it's training and food first followed by drugs, and dosages tend to be lower compared to bodybuilding. This is just my observation and I'm speaking generally but clearly there's plenty of cases that would go against this

 

[psauce]

One of the most dangerous activities in all of sports is extreme weight cutting. In particular, dehydration is almost uniquely risky: in the course of a few hours, you can do permanent damage to *every organ* in your body. More people in MMA have died trying to make weight than they have actually fighting.

When that one component is so dangerous, and you add the extreme drug burden on top of it, you’ve really got to thread a needle to maintain some semblance of health.

 

[pornlando]

One of the most dangerous activities in all of sports is extreme weight cutting. In particular, dehydration is almost uniquely risky: in the course of a few hours, you can do permanent damage to *every organ* in your body. More people in MMA have died trying to make weight than they have actually fighting.

When that one component is so dangerous, and you add the extreme drug burden on top of it, you’ve really got to thread a needle to maintain some semblance of health.

I’m glad you mentioned that about “more people have died in MMA making weight then fighting”

Very true … same with boxing …the major fluctuations and being super dehydrated whilst pushing your body to the absolute limit is super dangerous …

There are many examples of this …I haven’t followed combat sports in a loooong time but google “baby Joe mesi brain damage” if your interested ….that a great example thou the fellow didn’t die …he was right on deaths door thou …the last couple of knock downs In his last fight with Jirov were unsettling and you could see something was not quite right …

He’s a heavyweight too so it’s not like he had to “make weight” in a sense but apparently he showed up very out of shape for training camp so they weight lose was extreme ….
lots of sad examples in the lower weight class where they do have to make weights…