Fitness Culture and IPEDs: Crisis, revolution, and the digital push, 1990-2020

Citation

Andreasson J & Henning A (2022) Fitness Culture and IPEDs: Crisis, revolution, and the digital push, 1990-2020. Think Steroids [Blog Post] 23.02.2022. https://thinksteroids.com/articles/fitness-culture-ipeds-crisis-revolution-1990-2020/

Abstract
First paragraph: The history of doping is also a history of modernity and the plastic and changeable body. Through ideas about performing bodies, various sports have been successfully modernized since the mid-1800s (Dimeo, 2007). Within this modernization process we also find the use of image and performance enhancing drugs (IPEDs). In the 1930s, different types of drugs were used to combat fatigue and to increase sport performance, largely done in a non-judgmental fashion. Steroids were also widely used by American bodybuilders, among others, as early as in the 1950s (Connolly, 2015). As gym culture was picking up steam in the wake of the developments in the 1970s with Arnold Schwarzenegger in the forefront, IPEDs were largely seen as part of the equation. However, this was about to change.