By Ray Ender
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With all the talk of steroids, human growth hormones, EPO and other performance enhancing drugs surrounding the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao fight, it makes me wonder if Olympic style blood testing or drug tests be mandatory for all championship fights in UFC, MMA and boxing events.
I decided to ask someone I know who has taken steroids and performance enhancing drugs in the past about the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao steroid controversy. I asked him if he thinks Pacquiao refusing the blood tests is suspicious he said of course, but he believes Manny Pacquiao is clean of steroids and gave me his reason why.
He told me that a guy with a super fast metabolism will burn up a lot of calories and Manny Pacquiao eating 7,000 calories a day seems extreme but for a guy who trains that hard it’s a requirement to maintain any type of muscle if you burn calories fast.
He calls them hardgainers they have a difficult time maintaining size and are urged to lower cardio exercises and eat high calorie diets to maintain size and put on muscle. An example of a hardgainer is Olympic gold medalist swimmer Michael Phelps who also eats an insane amount of calories a day just to maintain energy levels because of his intense training.
Michael Phelps who is tall and skinny eats 12,000 calories a day just to maintain his energy and his lean muscular build and has never tested positive for steroids either.
He did say it could be one or the other but not both, he is either eating the 7,000 calories a day and not taking steroids or taking performance enhancing drugs and not eating the 7,000 calories a day, because if he did both he would be putting on way more muscle size and not be fighting at 147 pounds.
What he did tell me was stimulants should be of more concern because it would give a fighter like Pacquiao more intensity in the ring and a urine test would be sufficient enough test for stimulants.
I asked him about cycling steroids and growth hormone and what he told me was it’s complex and doubts Pacquiao or Alex Ariza know how to stack the drugs. You must stack certain drugs and cycle off at a certain time and understand PCT or (post cycle therapy).
Many times the guys who get caught have no idea on how to cycle off or what types of performance enhancing drugs to take, this is why those guys get caught.
When I asked him about steroid use in other sports he said MMA or mixed martial arts right now especially in smaller shows have a high amount of steroid users and people who take pain killers.
I see what he means because if Pacquiao was eating over 7,000 calories a day like his conditioning coach Alex Ariza claims and taking in steroids, Pacquiao would be really muscular and fighting as a light heavyweight rather then a welterweight.
I think the concern over stimulants and any type of drug that increase your intensity or get you amped in a fight would be of more concern and urine testing should be good enough to catch stimulants in your system.
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