Okay, I am sitting in my room one day, just bored, when I decide to pick up one of my books on bodybuilding that I had been reading over the past few weeks. It seems bodybuilding books are all very long, and I choose to skip the part I am on, and just look ahead. I have a very curious mind :. Anyway, I am almost done "gazing", when I get to the very last section. It is called "Drugs in Bodybuilding", in Ironman's, "Ultimate Bodybuilding Encyclopedia ". It is an interview done with a professional who is well known, so they choose to keep his Identity a secret. They also choose to keep the drug names a secret, as not to encourage the use to people looking for drug information. It was very interesting, and very disturbing.
Expensive Supplements
This man spends $30,000 on Growth Hormone alone! He injects and orally takes steroids everyday, and the interviewer didn't even bother writing the list it was so long (Though he wouldn't have written the names anyway). He has to take anti-estrogens, as well as a number of steroids and prohormones for different causes, like one might increase muscle hardness, one might improve vascularity, etc. He goes on for a few paragraphs explaining all the drugs he uses, and for each drug name, they put a [blank]. His blood pressure and cholesterol are high. He constantly has to get them tested. He says he spends about $60,000 a year on drugs. He also makes a statement that might shock you. He says that almost every bodybuilder takes them! The top ten, he says, are all "jabbing" themselves with the same drugs. He also states that none of them has an inkling of training sense and they never train hard at all, and they are half-asleep while training. He says the drugs do all the work. He then tells about how people are going to die soon because of their prolonged use. He claims he will keep taking drugs until he wins, or they beat him. He also states that it isn't just steroids, but other drugs as well. Most bodybuilders take cocaine, because it suppresses you appetite, and they also take speed.
Prostitution
Now is where it starts to get disturbing. He claims that some of the bodybuilders are gay prostitutes! That is where I just got totally shut down. He says he is positive of it, because that is the only way they can afford all of their drugs. They make about $10,000 a month, he says. But how would he know? Well in the next line, he says, "It helps with our drug bill, and sometimes they give you drugs just for the act. Key word there is OUR. So in my opinion, there is a lot of that in the bodybuilding world, which greatly discourages me. Bodybuilders being gay prostitutes make me want to either quit, or set a different example. That is sick. He also said that carb loading is all BS. Once in a while, bodybuilders go to McDonald's or eat pizza, But rarely. The guy has to have a heart monitor and an MRI backstage every competition he goes to. It's sad. They also sell drugs on the side to help pay for their drug needs. They make almost no money, which makes it even harder to buy drugs. He claims he will die eventually (soon) if he keeps going on like this, as will other bodybuilders.
He goes to Mexico to buy drugs. He also took insulin to try and gain muscle mass, but he took too much and starved his brain and almost went into a coma. He goes on throughout the article saying how "They" want "us" to be bigger every year and "They" exploit us and make money off us while we make nothing ("They" being the judges and fans). He says he gets a lot of girls, that isn't a problem for him. He also says that he feels bad about kids always seeing protein powders that say, "Take this and you'll look like [blank]", and all the training schedules of the pros that just lead to overtraining and shattered dreams, because kids don't realize that it's all drugs.
Set a Good Example
Well, first of all, I feel no pity for the bodybuilders. It is their problem they are on all those drugs. Believe me, it is a mutual thing that they take so many steroids, because if just one took them, the rest wouldn't really be forced to. Why? If the judges saw a guy a good 70-100 pounds bigger than everyone else, with the knowledge we have about drugs today, they would pick up that one guy in a hurry. If 5 or six people start taking them, then it looks like they are the only ones who are working hard, do you follow? So I don't think they are "forced" to take the drugs, because if nobody took any drugs, everyone would relatively be in the same ballpark. As for the money, I am glad they get paid nothing, because if they got paid a lot, that would just motivate them to take more drugs. What drug addict wouldn't want to get paid to take drugs? If you don't pay them anything, that is that much less they have to spend on drugs. Remember earlier when I said I could either quit or set a different example? Well, I'm not going to quit, and what kind of an example would I set? So, I decided that bodybuilding was still for me, I will just never be as big as the pros, because I am not going to take steroids. I am going to start training going by the basics of nutrition and training, but not following in the pros' footsteps, because that is just discouraging.
Exploitation
As for the exploitation, he complained that the magazines were partly responsible, he says, "they are selling us". Well, if everyone were to do the same thing and stop taking drugs, the expectations would be different, and as for them selling you, if you don't do interviews with them and you don't let them take pictures of you for their magazines, what do they have? Which pro is going to give all the kids tips? Nothing, and nobody. That way, they have to pay you more. I think that this could be changed just as easily as it was started. There are some of you that will sympathize with him, and that is ok, but I show no sympathy. He stated that the bodybuilders have to sacrifice their pride with the drugs and prostitution. I have more pride than to go that low, why should they have any less? I do feel that it is a sad thing that they had to resort to that, but I think they could have avoided it. I do sympathize in the fact that I feel bad for what they have done to themselves, but they don't seem to be changing anything.
Well, I hope you made your own decision about this article. Whether you agree with me or not, I just wanted to write this article based on what I read. It was the painful truth of what I thought was true, and I'm discouraged. I'm discouraged and angered to think that the only way to succeed in a sport is through drugs. Well, for more info, and the complete interview, you can read it in, "Ironman's Ultimate bodybuilding Encyclopedia", by Ironman magazine, and Peter Sisco.
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