ABSTRACT
Clinicians have claimed multiple drug use patterns create ‘successful’ bodybuilding training programmes, rendering bodybuilders at significant risk for use (Augé and Augé 1999: 217). However, the imposed risk of social stigmatisation, rather than the intrinsic risk of self-administering potentially harmful drugs, may be more topically relevant for bodybuilders:
... we have to beat this drug rap that it [bodybuilding] has. That’s one of the most unfortunate things. I’m not crazy about people knowing I’m a bodybuilder because one of the questions I get asked right away is, ‘What about steroids? Do you use steroids?’ On and on ... They think that’s all bodybuilding is.
