[quote]wrathchild wrote:
Bill Roberts wrote:
Okay, now on to a new subject: the bringing up of Casey Butt to supposedly prove that CT is on steroids.
…
Yeah, to people who like pretending they are armchair scientists.
Mr. Roberts, I would like your opinion on this study:
Specifically, I would like to know what you see as flaws in the methodology.
Oddly enough, the results of this research are very much congruent with Casey Butt’s analysis.
Of course, I’m not sure if anyone was claiming that there won’t be genetically gifted individuals a few standard deviations from the mean; nor can we assume that a sample drawn from a largely American populace will be representative of everyone, everywhere.
Yet, which is more prudent: assuming you are the outlier, or assuming that you are not unless you have reason to believe otherwise?
As far as real limits, I’ve not seen anyone in this thread actually present math to dispute the claims of either Casey’s analysis, nor this research study.
Why not run numbers and see what happens? [/quote]
Well, I don’t now have access to the study itself, but only the abstract, which reads:
[quote]Clin J Sport Med. 1995 Oct;5(4):223-8
Fat-free mass index in users and nonusers of anabolic-androgenic steroids.
Kouri EM, Pope HG Jr, Katz DL, Oliva P.
We calculated fat-free mass index (FFMI) in a sample of 157 male athletes, comprising 83 users of anabolic-androgenic steroids and 74 nonusers. FFMI is defined by the formula (fat-free body mass in kg) x (height in meters)-2. We then added a slight correction of 6.3 x (1.80 m - height) to normalize these values to the height of a 1.8-m man. The normalized FFMI values of athletes who had not used steroids extended up to a well-defined limit of 25.0. Similarly, a sample of 20 Mr. America winners from the presteroid era (1939-1959), for whom we estimated the normalized FFMI, had a mean FFMI of 25.4. By contrast, the FFMI of many of the steroid users in our sample easily exceeded 25.0, and that of some even exceeded 30. Thus, although these findings must be regarded as preliminary, it appears that FFMI may represent a useful initial measure to screen for possible steroid abuse, especially in athletic, medical, or forensic situations in which individuals may attempt to deny such behavior.[/quote]
Point 1: The authors themselves state that such a calculation “may represent” (they did not chose to say does represent, but may) a “useful initial measure to screen,” rather than, as the “Butt’s Ceiling” folk have things, a be-all end-all conclusion to supposedly prove any given individual to be a drug user.
Point 2: In a nation of over 100 million adult men, just as you suggest, the fact that an extent of a thing was not found in a sample of 74 non-drug-using athletes does not mean that a rather marked departure from the greatest extent found in those individuals may not be found multiple times, even thousands of times or more, in the nation.
Take Mark Henry for example. Could anyone seriously doubt that without drugs, Mark Henry would still have far more LBM for height, if he cut to moderately lean condition, than the above figure? If he is 6’1", to have his lean-mass BMI down to the 25.0 figure would have him supposedly limited to 189 lb LBM. Can anyone believe this? Have they seen the man’s frame?
Coming to this next example simply because Mark Henry is a professional wrestler these days, let’s take Jack Swagger. While I have no proof, personally I doubt that Swagger lifts weights beyond general conditioning for his profession, which doesn’t require maximum size or strength. He very clearly (IMO) does not train like a bodybuilder or powerlifter. With his frame and natural build, could anyone really think that at 6’4", that man’s natural limit if he were actually to train for size would be 205 lb lean body mass? He’s well beyond that now without, as my personal guess, training hard with the weights. Of course, he’s gifted in a way that 9,999 out of 10,000, let’s say, are not.
Furthermore, as I mentioned above I don’t think the “Butt’s Ceiling” crowd are taking into account what Butt himself said, in his above reply to me.
There are many individuals who – very sadly IMO – have a bug up their ass about accusing anyone who does markedly better than they could ever achieve of using drugs to do it. We see this right here with the remarks from the people who came here only to tear down where they bring up “Butt’s Ceiling” with regards to Christian Thibaudeau. I guess they don’t have the balls to directly accuse him of drug use but think they are clever by doing it indirectly by claiming a “scientific” argument that he can’t be natural.
Frankly I find it disgusting and ignorant when applied to specific individuals.
Apply it to populations and then it is science. It would be accurate to say that most individuals – if deriving the group randomly among lifters in general – with lean body mass index much over 25 are steroid users. But pointing to a given individual about whom one has no basis but this and accusing them is the act of, frankly, an ignorant individual who IMO has earned nothing but disrespect for themselves, and certainly for their intellect and character, for doing so.
