what male athletes in most fields looked like before widespread steroids/testosterone use. https://t.co/Qz3ng20DpE

— Ian Welsh (@iwelsh) May 17, 2019

Yes, testosterone had something to do with it, for some athletes, but that’s not nearly the whole story.

Weight training also mattered. Up until even the late 1980s, the conventional wisdom was that athletes should not weight train as it reduced their performance in their chosen sport. Thus, almost no athlete touched a weight.

As that changed, and as training techniques improved, many athletes started lifting weights in the off season and this made them much bigger and more competitive (stronger, faster, better endurance). When a few started doing it and winning because of it, most everyone else had to as well to continue to compete.

Thus, even athletes who never touch steroids are much bigger and stronger than those from the 1960s-1980s.