Dameerto wrote:I've just been looking for images of Chambers to show what I mean't, I can't find ones from head on which is the best angle.
This is the best I can do really. This first one is taken at the 2002 European Championships where there is documentary evidence supplied by Chambers himself that he was on a 'cocktail' of seven different banned substances, it's from the side though, so doesn't really show the bulk around his chest and neck:
This second one is from the 2010 World Indoor Championships when he made his 'clean' comeback:
From the proper angle it would be more apparent - he seems to be naturally muscular around the shoulders and arms but it was the neck and head where it was really noticable that he'd lost bulk.
Having looked at a few more pictures from last year and this year I would agree with you that there doesn't seem to be much difference anymore though.
If you sat on the couch and took steroids you'd just get fat or nothing would happen at all. Unlike the old days when there was a lot of water retention, rather than actual bulk, which for a body builder rather than an athlete, is actually beneficial, steroids give you the ability to train for longer. You take them along with the hormones required to repair the muscle more quickly, the breakdown and repair is what builds muscle, and this allows you to train again sooner, so the muscle is built more quickly. This proces builds regular muscle that you use like anybody else, you just built it with assistance.
My point is that if you did this, like Chambers, you will have built the muscle this way and once you stop the muscle is still there. Regular training would maintain most of it and a top class athlete would have no problem maintaining with their intensive schedule. So before and after pics wouldn't show too much difference.
This is why letting people back in after a ban is a joke as some of the advantage is still there. I'm all for juicing them all up and letting anything go. Like someone said, that Ben Johnson race was fantastic and even though we all know he cheated, it's still a fantastic spectacle.
Biggest problem with drug testing is you can only test for what you know exists. So the athletes/doctors are always 1 step ahead. This is what screwed Armstong as they retrospectively tested some of his old samples using new tests that didn't originally exist.