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. 

This entry was posted on Friday, June 29th, 2007 at 11:39 am and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.