Creating a physique that can win at the highest level of professional bodybuilding requires superhuman self-discipline, intense training and genetic good fortune. Increasingly, say the people familiar with the culture and its consequences, it cannot be done without illicit drugs and a willingness to push a body to — or past — its limits.

More than a dozen scientists, trainers, judges and competitors interviewed for this report said that just earning a pro card, an amateur’s ticket to the pro ranks, is very difficult without anabolic steroids. Winning a marquee title drug-free? Several people laughed at the question.

“Impossible,” said Harrison Pope, one of the country’s leading anabolic-steroid researchers.

See Also:

Exploring Mount Penteli – Beautiful caves, waterfalls and trails a hop away from Athens

The behemoths who win the best-known and most lucrative titles barely resemble the iconic, classically muscled champions of the past, such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, who won the sport’s premiere title, Mr. Olympia, seven times between 1970 and 1980.

“Arnold Schwarzenegger would not win today,” said Brad Schoenfeld, a professor at Lehman College in New York and author of several books on bodybuilding and muscle growth. “He would not even get a pro card.”

Read more: Washington Post