Captain Ahab’s BodyBlog

With all of the latest “buzz” about Chris Benoit and the death of his wife and son brought on by his supposed use of steroids I got to thinking about steroids and other supposed mass inducing supplements and who is using them and why.
The main clientele of steroid distributors aside from pro bodybuilders and pro wrestlers today are younger people, males mostly but surprisingly the stats on younger females and steroid use show that it is a number that is growing also. These younger folks use steroids and mass inducing supplements to get stronger, to look and be bigger along with being faster and doing better in their chosen sport and to look better. I have read one study that said that a number of younger males are taking testosterone to assist them in their sexual performance (they also are using Viagra) and that to me is incredible and I can’t imagine anything more testosterone filled and fueled than a teenage boy, so when you add additional testosterone who knows what awaits that unsuspecting youth.
Today’s youth are abusing steroids and supplements at a fairly high rate all in the name of vanity and of course they all want the quick fix, so to speak. The average male who wants to be a bodybuilder and look like Jay, Ronnie, Heath or any of the hundreds of pros who grace the covers and pages of bodybuilding magazines do not want to put in the time. They want it yesterday and they want it bigger and freakier than ever before.
All of the pros I read about have put in their time, paid there dues by which I mean they built a solid framework of natural muscle spending years ripping their muscle fibers and having them repair only to rip and repair again and again and grow stronger and larger centimeter by centimeter year after sweat filled year, and only adding supplements that were tested and time proven and then when they ran that road to completion, then and only then they added the juice that took them to the next level. But today little Johnnie goes to the gym and curls a set of dumbbells for a month and when he doesn’t have a set of 20 inch bis, he then goes to his local supplement store or possibly has a credit card and orders on line one of everything that his favorite pro has been paid to endorse. He then goes home and doubles, triples or even quadruples the dose because we all know that if one is good then four is better and returns to the gym for another month of curls. When once again he doesn’t wake up with Ronnie Coleman sized arms he starts asking the older guys at the gym with the big arms how they got them and of course one of them just happens to either know some one or he himself has the “magic in a bottle” that will surely send the lads biceps into the professional size range.
All of this is a recipe for disaster and we are all partially to blame. We not only allow the fraudulent advertising of unobtainable result inducing supplements to continue, but some of us (probably more than I can imagine) actually buy the hype and the products, sure some are honest and do produce results but you still have to work for them. You can’t just swallow something and do one or two sets and expect to be bigger, faster, thinner, stronger or a whole litany of impossibilities. The magazines won’t balk at it because without the BS dealers spending the big bucks the magazine wouldn’t exist. The pharmaceutical companies that are making truckloads of cash have professionals that lobby the government so there is no hope coming from Washington and so it really falls to us to educate our children and other youth we see in the gyms. Impress on them that there is not one pill or powder or combination of either or both that takes the place of basic, old school hard work. Nothing that can be swallowed or injected can take the place of sweat built, pure natural muscle and no amount of money can buy a substitute for rep upon rep upon rep of muscle pumping to build a real body that anyone could and should be proud of.
I could be wrong, but I don’t think so. 

I was reading in Time magazine about the TV show The Biggest Loser and the fact that most of the contestants on the show after losing the weight ended up putting it back on again.
This comes as no real surprise to me as most people who crash diet and lose a lot of weight in a short time manage to regain most of, if not even more in a very short time after.  Crash dieting and a lot of the so called “Fad” diets end up having the person actually dehydrate themselves and only lose water weight rather than actual fat, and they by no means do anything to assist you in getting into any kind of decent physical condition. Without losing the weight in what I call the right way the majority of people are doomed to failure even before they begin.
On the show The Biggest Loser the runner up one season ate nothing but jello for a week before the final weigh in and said that she spent the night before hoping in and out of a sauna trying to sweat off as much extra weight as she could. Some contestants even worked out 4 or more hours a day which in reality is not going to last.
The US National Weight Control Registry (did you know that there as such a thing?) tracked 5000 successful weight loss “maintainers” and lo and behold found out that the ones that kept the weight from coming back were those who were doing the most physical activity. To which I say as Homer Simpson would say, “Doh!”
It has been proven that an exercise regime consisting of weight lifting and cardio combined with a clean, healthy diet where you are consuming less calories than you are putting out works the best for weight loss and toning the body rather than the standard cigarettes and coffee diet that so many people (and skinny models) lean towards or any of the many other 4 week wonder diets.
With over 66% of Americans overweight and bordering on being classified as obese we the personal trainers, gym personnel, fitness industry professionals and others that deal with those wishing to lose weight better start speaking up and out and doing something about showing people how to lose weight correctly or else many of those who really want to make the effort to lose weight but don’t know the correct way are doomed to yo-yo back and forth until they like millions of others give up in frustration.
I may be wrong but I don’t think so!
 
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I have a problem with one of the words that we who struggle in the gym lifting weights and trying to eat healthy and clean and or dieting use and that word is cheat.
We use it in sentences like I tried so hard to stay on my nutrition plan but I just had to cheat or I cheated on my diet today along with my favorite which is I have been working so bloody hard in the gym and the dieting was driving me crazy so I ended up cheating and ate a big ole slice of strawberry cheesecake.
It is not only the fact that the word congers up all sorts of quilt feelings along with the fact that I am not a cheater. I do not cheat at sports, I do not cheat my business clients and I sure do not cheat on my lovely wife. So to alleviate all of the problems I feel with that word and to put another and what I think is a more appropriate word in its place, I use the word EARN.
I say that when it comes to working out hard and eating clean and then one day having a jumbo Dairy Queen Blizzard I have earned the right to have that Blizzard and I would surly know if I hadn’t and would not even consider entering that establishment. I tell my clients that rather than feel as if they are doing something wrong, reward yourself for a job well done. You earn the right to have that treat with all of your hard work and stop this talking about cheating crap.
Of course if you are a short time out from a contest that would become a different set of circumstances and your earned meal could come after your time on stage.
Sure, if you aren’t working out very hard and not doing cardio the way you know it should be done then you are the one getting hurt, not anyone else so in that case you wouldn’t have earned anything and you would be cheating yourself. But for the majority of people who are working their proverbial buns off trying to change their shape the occasional earned meal or treat is a nice reward for days and even weeks of strict discipline, it won’t hurt anything and I know that after I have my earned treat I am more focused than ever to get right back at it.
 

Seeing as I have been sticking to the subject of getting started I will continue the theme with this edition of my blog.
What I would like to emphasize to people beginning a workout regime where they use weights is to not let the scale dictate whether you are getting into better shape or not and to not let that machine be the end all be all in determining if you are reaching your goals. In fact you might just have to rethink your overall approach to determining your goals.
I say this because there are many factors to take into consideration other than just the almighty scale.
In my own case for example I was actually gaining weight instead of losing but yet my wife kept telling me I was looking great and in the mirror I thought I was losing a bit here and a bit there but I was afraid I was only seeing what I wanted to see. It turned out that I was losing inches and gaining muscle but instead of seeing a decline on the scale I was seeing an increase, which was confusing except I was doing a good job of changing my shape.
My last client was a 58 years old lady who lost 17 ½ inches to her overall body measurements in just 6 weeks but on the scale she only went down about 5 lbs, but overall she had changed her shape dramatically.
What was happening was that fat was being lost in certain areas and in other areas or even in the same areas muscle was being grown and replacing the fat and inch for inch muscle weighs more than fat so the end result was that she was altering her shape but the scale showed she was still close to her starting weight.
That is why I recommend a series of things to determine if your hard work is being rewarded. First, have all of your strategic measurements taken (you can find out the specific areas to measure by looking on Bodybuilding.com as they have at least one article in their archives that points that out), then measure your body fat percentage (once again check with Bodybuilding.com if you need reference) and by all means weigh yourself on a scale and then I recommend taking photos of yourself, from the front, back and each side with you standing naturally (a bathing suit or shorts and top for women and shorts for men will show the future changes best). It might even be a good idea to hold a newspaper in one hand to show that you can verify the day you took the pictures in case you wish to enter one of the many body transformation contests. Chart these measurements in your workout log or somewhere where you won’t lose them and every 4 to 6 weeks measure yourself again and take another set of pictures standing in the exact same place and I suggest wearing the same clothes.
If you are working out hard enough along with eating right and doing cardio you will most likely see a large difference in the overall numbers and in the pictures but if the weight hasn’t changed drastically don’t let that damn scale dictate if you have been doing a good job or not. The numbers will tell the true story; as well, the camera doesn’t lie.

My last couple of blogs have been about the need to workout and why we can’t seem to get it together to do it, so it is only fitting that I put something together on my ideas of how to get started.
Getting started may be the hardest thing of all to do because most people become so fixated on the end result of what their hard work will bring that they kind of lose focus on the basics. We forget that before we learned to run we had to learn to walk, but before that we had to figure out how to crawl and even before that fantastic accomplishment we had to work out how to turn over from our backs onto our stomachs so that this whole process could begin. I feel that putting together the plan is like learning how to turn over and going to get the gym membership is the crawling and being there to workout is the walking stage and after that depending on how hard we work and what we want to achieve comes the running.
The very first thing a person must do is to make the commitment to do it. They need to put all the negative crap that is going around in their heads aside and say, “I am going to do it!” From there everything can start to fall into place. I also believe that telling other people like family and friends is a good thing to do at this time because it is a little harder to not keep going if you have people who know what you are doing, also in a lot of cases its great to have those people as a support system and motivators.
Next set up long and short-term goals. A long-term goal could be to compete in a bodybuilding or fitness competition or in some cases, as one person I know did was to say I am going to lose 500 lbs. Those are definitely long term goals because if you have never worked out before or for a number of years you are not going to pump a little iron and hit the stage at the Olympia in just a few months. Also, in the case where a person is very overweight he or she is not going to lose 500 lbs in just a few months either.
A short-term goal could be to go out and get a pair of new runners or a new pair of gym shorts.
Put together a full body workout plan and do those exercises every other day giving you a complete day of rest in between workouts. If you have never worked out before and the gym is an alien environment for you the best thing you could do would be to hire a personal trainer to walk you through the various machines and weights that are there and to put together a workout plan for you. You don’t have to hire the trainer for long, in fact in the beginning you might hire the person to show you the machines and the weights, put together a workout routine and to show you how to do the exercises using correct form. This may just be for the first week and then you could be on your own for the next month until you are ready to move forward.
Put together an eating plan or nutrition plan if you will. Plan out your 6 meals a day and make sure that you get protein, carbs and some essential fat with each meal. Once again here is where your personal trainer can assist you or the gym may have a nutritionist that it recommends or you can research the Internet with places like Bodybuilding.com housing excellent information on all of your fitness requirements.
When you first start out take baby steps. By this I mean don’t throw yourself into your first few workouts and cause yourself an injury or become so sore that you can not even walk the next day.  Take your time, learn and practice correct form and remember that this is not a sprint it is a marathon and you need to work with that in mind.
You can add to your workouts by mixing in cardio 3 times a week starting at 20 minutes per session. You may need that personal trainer to also show you how the various machines work and one of the things I have my clients do is switch up on the machines. You might do 20 minutes on a treadmill one day, the next it’s the elliptical or the bike or the recumbent bike and sometimes, especially when they start to up their cardio minutes I have them do 10 minutes on the treadmill, 10 minutes on the bike and then another 10 on the elliptical or any variation of the three. This helps break up the monotony of the cardio while still giving them a very good workout.
Some things to be careful of:
No matter what we endeavor to do we always run into hurdles and working out is not without its own particular ones. Feeling overwhelmed the first time in the gym environment and saying “I won’t be able do it.” That is where a personal trainer comes in as that person can walk you through everything the first few times and after a couple of times it all won’t seem so foreign to you.
Giving up or not maintaining motivation. Most people forget that it has taken them years to get out of shape or into the shape they are in today and it is going to take a while to get back into the swing of exercising.
Using the scale to judge your performance. Too many people hold the scale up, as the end all be all to judge their progress in the gym. They get discouraged if the weight doesn’t come off fast enough or in a lot of cases they don’t understand that after a while they are actually putting on muscle along with losing bodyfat and the scale may be staying at the same spot while this is occurring. Everyone should give it at least 60 full days, 90 would be better but I find that after about 30 times of hitting the gym which at every other day will take 60 days of working out it then becomes a habit, yes a very good habit but still a habit and they actually look forward to going.
Cheating. Everyone who is trying to eat clean and using only nutritional foods cheats or falls of the wagon. I don’t mean going out and getting blitzed but rather falling off the clean eating wagon and eating a Crispy Crème donut or more than one or any other not so good food. So OK you blew it today but that doesn’t mean that all of your hard work is gone down the tubes. Think of it as a one-day problem and its over and move on.
Leaving your ego at the door. This applies to men especially because they will see someone lifting 50 lb dumbbells and they will want to try it and if they can’t do it they feel that they aren’t good enough and quit. In the gym you should never compare yourself to anyone else as everyone not only is different but is also at a different stage in his or her fitness.
Give yourself credit. Don’t sell yourself short. Even if you have hired a personal trainer and that person puts you through a lot of hard workouts and you see the changes in the mirror and on the scale, they did not do it, you did. You as an individual lifted the weights, pedaled the bike and passed up sugar loaded goodies so that you could change the way your body looks and now pat yourself on the back. Give yourself the credit. You deserve it and you need to recognize that and it will continue to help motivate you towards more and better changes.
 

 
How do we get people to look at exercise as fun, instead of work?
One of the things that we need to figure out not so much for those of us here on Bodybuilding.com but basically for the 66% of North Americans who are overweight and who are not doing anything about it is how to go about making exercise fun, not work. We all know how important it is to exercise but sadly this is not enough to get most people to do it. Everyone from Oprah to the Surgeon General has long lauded the need for us to exercise or else we are subject to a myriad of ailments that will conspire to either shorten our lifespan or take the joy out of it and yet like the proverbial mule we dig our feet in and will not for love nor money make the effort to save our own lives.
Some people say that maybe if your spouse was nagging you about it you would go but today more than likely your spouse is in as bad or maybe even worse physical condition than you are so that ain’t going to work.
All of us as children ran, jumped, played and invented all sorts of a game where we had to use physically energy and we did it willingly and with joy but today that’s a different story. I for one would love to be able to figure out a way to get people to enjoy exercising as we all did as children and the way I do especially now. I look forward with anticipation to my workouts and feel bad and even deprived when I have to miss one or even when I am having a scheduled day off from the gym I would rather be no place else than in there pumping iron. I refer to it as having an iron deficiency.
I put the question out to all of you who may read this blog; what do you feel that it would take to get the general public to accept exercise as a way of enjoying life more and longer and what will it take to make it fun instead of work?

Fountain of Youth Found at the Gym!
A recent study released by McMaster University in my old hometown of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada showed that seniors who performed a basic weight training routine not only got stronger, but that by lifting weights they were able to reverse some of the effects of aging in certain muscles at the cellular level.
The study’s co-author Mark Tarnopolosky stated in a Canadian Press article published last month that “ the main, novel finding is that we could bring that aging mitochondria (muscle cells) pattern back toward that of a younger person, almost reversing the aging signature, pretty much by 40, 45years with 6 months of weight training.”
This is just one of a number of recent studies that are showing that the lifting of weights can actually counter the effects of aging something that me at the age of 58 has believed for many years. I have seen not only in person but in too many photos to list people who had and were still lifting weights look to be in their early to mid forties actually be in their late 60’s and sometimes into their 70’s.
Even here at Bodybuilding.com in the BodySpace section I have encountered numerous photos of people whom I thought were much younger only to see their actual age posted as 20 to 30 years older than I thought.
Maybe Ponce de Leon had to trek through the all of those bug and gator infested swamps of Florida in his quest to find his Fountain of Youth but all of us now only have to walk the smooth sidewalks or at worst stroll across the well manicured lawns leading up to the various gyms situated around the world and we can all have access to the real Fountain of Youth.

Wow! Things just keep getting better and better. I finally take a small holiday and go out to the Oregon Coast to get a little R & R and I get a phone call telling me that I need another surgery and that it will be happening this Wednesday.
I will be laid up about 3 to 6 weeks so the doctors say and during that time I will not be able to get to the gym or do any training whatsoever.
This happens when I finally get my supplements from Beverly International and I am chomping at the bit to try them.
What a bummer.
Anyway, what will be will be and I will be able to get to try the supplements later but my wife will have her chance to try some of them right away and see what changes she feels.
I hope that I don’t lose all of my hard worked for muscle while I am recuperating but I will be in the gym the first day that I can working just as hard as always.