You’re way out of your league here.
“No shit, trust me, you can work hard without steroids”
Of course you can work out hard, that is not the point. Problem is, times have changed big time. Steroids are a tremendous help when it comes to regeneration (of course also in preserving muscle when cutting down) and healing injuries.
Keep in mind also, that modern MMA training is along the most stressful and Racing, Football, even Boxing pales in comparison. Why is that, you may ask.
The body is good in adapting to a certain kind of training/strain. That is the reason some trainers advocate to fatties to mix up their training (I consider this wrong, but this is for another thread) frequently , in order to keep the body guessing and the stress high.
In Boxing, some time ago, even champs went only to the boxing gym and did roadwork on top of that. Nowadays their training has diversified, but not much.
An MMA champ like GSP does Wrestling, BJJ, Swimming and other more traditional forms of cardio, Boxing, Muay Thay or Kickboxing, MMA classes concentrating on Clinchfighting, on avoiding takedowns etc. and visits the weightroom.
The deliberately seek out a very stressful training environment to be prepared for the ultimate form of chaotic melee where everything is possible.
Michael Schumacher also trained hard for hours, as does Phelps, but they actually train to get into a high pitched alpha state, a heavy duty comfort zone from where you reflexes automatically kick in fly-by-wire style. They want to have the sharpest form of routine, they want to function like a machine.
This is not possible in Martial Arts, least of all MMA.
Now steroids are all common in these sports but surely you will understand that a Formula One driver could have a bad knee, a soccer player trouble with his neck etc. MMA requires your whole body to be in spectacular condition to be able to both train and fight.
Compared to most other athletes, there isn’t a much of a favourable genetic setup to hope for. A soccer player with bad knees get weeded out long before he has a shot at earning millions. In MMA every joint will be punished, every faulty movement pattern will be mercilessly exposed. Guys even try to break your bones in training!
And then you throw the cheat argument before you as a last resort.
Yep, it’s cheating, but then you’re playing with words here so let me play, too. Normally, cheating means a foul in the actual game, like a low blow.
When they discovered that steroids can be used to make you harder, faster, better they disallowed them.
The again, who actually did that and enforced it efficiently? Officially they are forbidden, yes, but usually you get away with it if you play smart.
Officially, it’s forbidden to ellbow check in waterball or knee somebody in the groin, but who gives a crap. You’re a fool if you don’t learn how to foul in that sport or to pass while getting punched.
Officially, it’s forbidden in soccer to pretend getting hurt. Yet they do it all the time, perfecting it to a form of art.
I could go on for hours.
I’ll tell you something that’s been true for ages:
A law that’s not enforced concerns only the imbecile.
Anyway, the weak of mind perceive steroids as cheating because they think carrying more muscle than you “ought” to have is wrong, that you somehow break the “natural” (or god-given) limits while they cannot.
Even Royce Gracie tried to defend himself in an interview with playing the muscle-card. “Look at me”, he said to the interviewer, “do you think I’m on Steroids”.
Society doesn’t care if he’s on steroids because he wants to train in spite of injuries,while feeding millions of women steroids without losing sleep.
Steroids are bad, m’kay.
Trickling down through the anti aging clinics, they will be legal nayway someday in the future.
Perhaps you can sleep better now?
p.s.
As a bonus question, you can tell me why a fighter who’s gotten ill is allowed to get a doctor. Isn’t that unfair, after all, wasn’t his immune system just too weak?