Another dipshit Bolts fan who can't read.

Is his steroid abuse 100% of the cause? Absolutely not, and I've never claimed it to be.

However, as pointed out, and backed up by medical professionals - steroid use puts undue strain and stress on ligaments and tendons, because the create muscle mass that the ligament/tendon isn't designed to support.

There are also studies that show that steroid use causes tendons and ligaments to become brittle, causing weakness, tears and ruptures.

In MLB, during the "steroid era" of 1994-present, large joint injuries have risen by almost 60%, while all other injuries have risen by 5%. Wonder why that is?

Feel free to be naive enough to think that Merriman is squeaky clean, and that this steroid use had NOTHING to do with it...

It's a rough game at that level. The steroids probably did have something to do with it. That stuff will usually only happen to guys with genetic weakness, or who never trained natural. Juice may well have played a roll in this, but bad luck most likely did also. His whole situation is just a mess. Watch this all be blown out of the water hype and he has a great year. We as football fans just don't know.

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There are also studies that show that steroid use causes tendons and ligaments to become brittle, causing weakness, tears and ruptures.

QUOTE]

Absolutely correct. I studied steroids thoroughly after I met a guy who offered them to me. I was too scared that I would go bald before my time to do it. Thank god.

Look at the rate of ACL tears in women vs men. Women tear there's something like 2-3 x as often. If testosterone levels had anything to do with it men would be tearing their ACLs at a rate greater than women. Also by your logic lineman would have a lot more ligament tears than any other athletes since they are by far the biggest and put a lot more relative stress on their joints. Androgens affect tendon and muscular health, ligaments are entirely different.

Once again, someone that doesn't bother to read.

It's not all about stress, it's about stress relative to the expectations of the individual's tendons and ligaments.

A guy like Jonathan Odgen has been huge his entire life. His tendons/ligaments have ALWAYS been expected to handle the load of his huge frame.

Then you take a guy like Merriman, who is a certain size most of his adult life - who then ADDS 30 pounds or more of muscle mass, and the ligaments and tendons aren't in a position to support that extra mass.

It's like a weight limit for a bridge. When the bridge was built, it was built with the expectation of supporting up to a certain weight.

Now, unexpectedly, the bridge starts seeing a disproportionate increase in not only the traffic, but the weight of that traffic - the bridge is not going to be as structurally sound as it was before. It wasn't built to take that kind of abuse.

Not the greatest analogy, but it gets the point across.

Well, maybe not, considering who I'm dealing with...

Dude you plain and simply don't know what you're talking about. I am very familiar with steroid related injures. Bodybuilders (who use 50 times as many steroids per capita than any other athletes) don't have any higher incidence of ligament tears than normal. All your analogies are relevant with muscular and tendon trauma, but ligaments simply aren't affected by the same mechanisms.

Conversely, the weaker the athlete, the more likelihood of ligament trauma.