# Why do the veins in weightlifters’ arms get so bulgy? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 27, 2025, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-veins-in-weightlifters-arms-get-so-bulgy/1021410 "2025-07-27T23:47:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2025, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-veins-in-weightlifters-arms-get-so-bulgy/1021410/41 "2025-07-29T14:42:22Z")
> [@md-2000](#): > > Is it a coincidence that the two males who come to mind that have that unusual physique, Schwarznegger and Hulk Hogan, both seem to have had heart issues? Hogan took a lot of steroids. By many accounts he also took all of the cocaine (or at least as much of it as he could grab). Cocaine use was rampant in the wrestling world in the 80s and beyond. He was also wracked with injuries and had major surgeries on his back, neck, knees and hips. The amount of punishment he put his body through wears on the whole body. A lot more than a typical bodybuilder. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2025, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-veins-in-weightlifters-arms-get-so-bulgy/1021410/42 "2025-07-29T14:52:30Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > Vascularity in bodybuilders is a function of having low body fat. > > It is enhanced temporarily during and immediately after a workout, since lifting weights will engorge the targeted muscles with blood. Additionally, during contests, bodybuilders will become dehydrated to increase definition > > When you see a bodybuilder in a picture with “freaky” vascularity, it’s a temporary look; that person doesn’t usually look like that all the time. Personally I know two former competitive bodybuilders. The women was more on the fitness/natural side. The male won some big competitions and appeared in some magazines but never made the big time. For both when they weren’t in the couple of weeks leading up to competition in street clothes you would not be able to tell they were competing at that level. She looked fit and he looked big but if you saw the pictures of them on stage you would be surprised. Especially with him he was in a constant state of bulking or cutting. In the bulk phase he was more like Mac in _Its always Sunny_ when he got fat. I won’t pretend I know him but back in the day I was in the same gym a couple times as Rich Gaspari in his prime. While wearing a lose fitting sweatshirt he did not stand out. Until he went to the corner and pulled back his sleeve and snuck a flex in the mirror. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2025, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-veins-in-weightlifters-arms-get-so-bulgy/1021410/43 "2025-07-30T00:14:51Z")
> [@Moriarty](#): > > Amphetamines aren’t steroids. I’m not aware of any chronic amphetamine use by Schwarzenegger (not to say he never tried them, just that it wasn’t part of his typical training regimen, nor was it something bodybuilders of his era used to any wide degree) ?? He won Mr Universe in 1967 \>Retrospective epidemiology indicates that the absolute prevalence of both nonmedical stimulant use and stimulant dependence or abuse have reached nearly the same levels today as at the epidemic’s peak around 1969. [America’s First Amphetamine Epidemic 1929–1971](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2377281/) It’s not that he has never denied diet-pill use: it’s that it would be absolutely amazing if he wasn’t using at the time. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2025, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-veins-in-weightlifters-arms-get-so-bulgy/1021410/44 "2025-07-30T00:56:48Z")
“Lots of people used amphetamines” in no way implies that Schwarzenegger specifically used them. And if one does assume that everyone at the time was using them, then that wouldn’t lead to Schwarzenegger’s health being any different from that of any other man of his age. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2025, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-veins-in-weightlifters-arms-get-so-bulgy/1021410/45 "2025-07-30T03:22:13Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > “Lots of people used amphetamines” in no way implies that Schwarzenegger specifically used them. No, it’s only well known that body builders, bicycle racers, and track/field _specifically_ used them. Society only _generally_ used diet pills, and apart from sport and for endurance, they were, of course, very popular with women. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2025, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-veins-in-weightlifters-arms-get-so-bulgy/1021410/46 "2025-07-30T13:00:38Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > No, it’s only well known that body builders, bicycle racers, and track/field _specifically_ used them. Cite for that, then? ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2025, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-veins-in-weightlifters-arms-get-so-bulgy/1021410/47 "2025-07-30T14:41:14Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > it’s only well known that body builders, bicycle racers, and track/field _specifically_ used them. Society only _generally_ used diet pills I dispute that diet pills were used in large quantities by bodybuilders. Those other athletes used them as performance enhancers during their sport, and that wouldn’t make sense for bodybuilders (who would want to keep their heart rate low, and their body still like a statue, when posing in competition). As for burning fat - that’s why Arnold worked out 4 hours a day (something not usually recommended today, but which old school lifters did instead of cardio). Regardless, the topic was raised in discussing heart problems. As with steroids, I don’t think it’s credible to say that the use of speed by athletes has caused a rash of early deaths. Willie Mays was known to use “greenies”, or speed pills, as were many other baseball players of his era. > **[Mays' Locker Was Source of Amphetamines--Milner](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1985-09-13-sp-22701-story.html)** > > The locker of baseball Hall of Fame member Willie Mays was a source of amphetamines when Mays played with the New York Mets in 1973, retired outfielder John Milner testified Thursday in a federal cocaine trafficking trial. Mays Mays lived to 93. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-the-veins-in-weightlifters-arms-get-so-bulgy/1021410.md?page=2)