” I also have it on good authority that lifters of the day were using anabolics (keep in mind that the first steroid was synthesized in the 40’s and it would be naive to think that athletes weren’t using them pretty damn early) although I can’t provide my source for what should be obvious reasons.”

Or, are you saying that you can’t recall the specifics which your source shared with you because of how long ago it was?

Sorry, I wrote this too many years ago to know which statement you’re asking about.

LYLE…”using them pretty damn early” meaning pre-1959/Ziegler/York?

I ask (as a 59-yr-old lifelong-drug-free bodybuilder who has no issues with those who use PEDs aside from the issue of honesty) out of a desire to be accurate as possible in my own discussions regarding when steroid use affected bodybuilding. I realize it’s impossible to inerrantly, infallibly, omnisciently know “when and where” on that question, but I try to be as as informed as possible about the history.

According to anything I’ve read to date, including Roach (“Muscle Smoke Mirrors”, Vol 1, especially p. 329-333, 2008 printing) and Hoberman (“Testosterone Dreams”, especially chapter 1); although the research was well underway and the groundwork laid between ’35 and ’45…and, although testosterone propionate as an injectable was commercially manufactured and methyl test as tablets were available around 1940; the evidence is that no prime-aged weight trainer nor bodybuilder in the USA is known to have actually tried (then LEGAL) testosterone for strength gains until Ziegler’s initial but disappointing 1954 experiment with Grimek, Jim Park, and Yas Kuzuhara (Roach, p.332, 333). Ziegler returned in 1959 with Dianabol, and from that point, the usage which became what we know today began.

Hoberman’s “Testosterone Dreams” evidences similarly: in all his exhaustive research, Hoberman found no evidence of any prime-aged bodybuilders nor weight trainers using testosterone for gaining strength/muscle before 1954 (in a private correspondence with him, he says he specifically looked for such evidence but found zero.)

So, I’m interested in an actual approximate dating from your anonymous source. Did that source specify a year, and if so, what was it? Was that source a primary or a secondary, as in “did personally witness/use or heard from a witness/user”?

All of which is exactly what I said. Motivation, incentives, coaching, availability, etc. All you did was summarize what I wrote endlessly about.

Well, no. Motivation is a big part of it but there are a dozen other factors that have to be in place too. All discussed in the article.

Americans aren’t interested because socio-economic prospects are much higher in other sports, from american football to bodybuilding.