Alex Rodriguez is just one of many athletes who have faced great media and legal scrutiny because of alleged steroid use. The Ugly Truth of Steroids is that it is more about Cheating in Sports and big money than it is about medical dangers.

The Ugly Politics of Steroids

It is politics, not science or research that has created the common image of Steroids in our society today.

Before we get into the politics of steroids first you should know what they are how they have been used, read Steroids, The Good. Also read Steroids, The Bad if you want to know about their side effects and legal ramifications of using them.

It is hard to believe that in the seventies AAS were completely legal, nor were they demonized. People just saw steroids as a supplement that helped you put on muscle. The image of Steroids now is completely bankrupt. People either think cheating athletes or disgustingly freakishly over-muscled men with insecurity complexes. How this happened in less than thirty years is where real truth about Androgenic Anabolic Steroids is. To understand how this happened we must look at the timeline of events.

The Political Time Line of Steroids

• 1958 – Physician John Ziegler gives some moral steroids to a group of weight lifters. It wasn’t long before word spread throughout the athletic and fitness community about the incredible muscle building power of Androgenic Anabolic Steroids.
• 1975 – The International Olympic Committee bans steroids from being used by any of its competitive athletes.
• 1977 – The sports establishment concerned that certain athletes who decided to use steroids would have an unfair advantage over other athletes asks the American College of Sports Medicine to do something to stop athletes from using AAS. The American College of Sports Medicine tried to “reeducate” athletes by announcing the results from a study they commissioned on AAS and muscle building. The study was intentionally flawed to produce the results they wanted. For proof of this bogus study see Anabolic Steroids and the Athlete by WN Taylor. They pushed this party line hard, despite massive anecdotal and real living evidence to the contrary. The bodybuilding community ignored it and grew bigger. Athletes of all kinds began using AAS more and more.
• 1983 – NFL commissioner Pete Rozelle issues a letter to every player warning them about the dangers of steroid use and threatens disciplinarian action for players caught using them without legitimate medical reasons.
• 1984 -The American College of Sports Medicine came out and finally admitted they were wrong and that AAS was extremely effective at building muscle. Their “reeducation” tactic had failed so now they switched to fear tactics such as “steroids can kill” and they began to focus more and more on younger athletes.
• 1984-1987 – During the next few years there was a dramatic rise in anti-steroid media coverage. The media is always looking for negative and fear inducing news to spike ratings.  One California physician who had strong ties to the NFL even stated that “young athletes who take heavy doses of anabolic steroids for 60 to 90 days can expect to die in their 30′s and 40′s” This totally unsubstantiated claim started a media feeding frenzy. It got more intense as the Sports Illustrated story called “The Nightmare of Steroids” by a South Carolina lineman Tommy Chaikin and Rick Telander detailed Chaikins medical and psychological ails after steroid abuse. As the pressure built, Congress began to get more involved.
• 1987 – Doctors, in an effort to keep big Pharmaceutical companies honest start calling for controlled substance status of steroids, not because of any health issues, but to prevent the drug companies from over-producing steroids and allowing those supplies to find their way to the black market so they could secretly profit from AAS. The new bills being proposed to control the distribution of steroids still placed no controls on the manufacturing of steroids by the pharmaceutical companies and of course the drug companies took advantage of that to sell more drugs. See W.D. Taylor M.D’s “Synthetic Anabolic Androgenic Steroids: a Plea for controlled substance status” The Physician and Sports Medicine ( Volume 15, Num 5, May 1987 )
• 1988 – September, amidst a media frenzy Canadian Ben Johnson was stripped of his Gold Medal after testing positive for Anabolic Androgenic steroid use.
• 1988 – November 18 Ronald Regan signs a bill into law as part of the Anti Drug Abuse Act. While this bill did not classify steroids as controlled substances it still called for 3 years prison time for distribution of AAS, up to six years if sold to minors. This law allowed for the arrest of distributors without authorizing the arrest of personal users.
• 1989 – An old man in New Mexico gets a mail order catalog for AAS in his mailbox. The media frenzy around steroids was such that this incident was enough to spurn on a new bill.  Bill H.R. 995 proposed to create an “Anabolic Steroid Restriction Act.” Carl Lewis testified on behalf of the bill and even though it did not pass into law it foreshadows how the amateur user of AAS would be treated as felons just for getting AAS via the mail.
• 1990 – Bill HR 4658, The Anabolic Steroid Control Act, gets signed into legislation and adds Anabolic Androgenic Steroids to the Controlled Substances Act by inserting them into 21 U.S.C 802. HGH was also added to the Controlled Substances Act. AAS and HGH were now right up there with Cocaine, heroin and the most addictive psychoactive narcotics in the world.

How Androgenic Anabolic Steroids became as Illegal as Narcotics

As we can see from the timeline above, AAS had a very dramatic thirty year run as a legal supplement. How then did they just become as illegal as cocaine or heroine? A closer look at the details that lead up to the 1990 Anabolic Steroid Control Act holds the answer.

Before a drug can be put into Schedules of Controlled Substances, it must meet the following requirements of 21 USC 811. They are:

1. Its actual or relative potential for abuse
2. Scientific evidence of its pharmalogical effect
3. Current scientific knowledge regarding the drug
4. It’s history and current pattern of abuse
5. The scoop, duration and seriousness of abuse
6. Risks, if any to public health
7. Psychic or physiological dependence liability
8. Whether the substance is an immediate precursor of a currently controlled substance

Only the Attorney General has the authority to add new substances to the controlled substances schedules. The attorney general is supposed to request an evaluation and the official recommendation from the Secretary of Health and Humans Services. The acting Attorney General at the time was Edwin Meese. He went right by the book and asked the Secretary of Health and Humans Services as well as the DEA for their views on adding AAS to the controlled substances schedules.

The Drug Enforcement Agency and the Secretary of Health and Humans Services both evaluated AAS on the basis of the above eight factors. On October 1, 1987, John Lawn Administor of the DEA concluded that Anabolic Androgenic Steroids should NOT be made controlled substances. On March 15, 1988 Secrtary of Health and Humans Services Otis Bowen also agreed that AAS should not be made controlled substances. Both the DEA and Secrtary of Health and Human Services both believed that AAS should not be controlled sustances and made that clear to the Attorney General who in turn made it clear to congress. As you can see by the timeline above congress did not listen as they forced AAS into the controlled substances schedule via the Anti Drug Abuse Act of November 18.

Why did our government ignore the official recommendations of the Attorney General, DEA and the Secretary of Health and Humans Services?

It is up to you to decide why they decided to ignore their own laws.

The amazing thing is how our government officials went on to ask the leading doctors, scientist and experts on steroids to offer their official recommendations and ignore, ridicule and humiliate them for doing so.

What the Doctors had to say

• Dr. Charles Yesalis, Sc.D professor of Health and Human Development at Penn State University, probably the world’s foremost expert on AAS at the time had this to offer for his testimony to the House Subcommittee “Steroids do have a medical use. From an epidemiological point of view of the health dangers, I am much more concerned about cigarettes than anabolic steroids. This is not to say steroids are not potentially dangerous; rather from what we know currently, I am more concerned about the other drugs – and you could likely add the abuse of alcohol to that list than anabolic steroids.”
• Dr. David Bever, an associate professor of Health education at George Mason University had recently concluded a study about AAS use among bodybuilders and power lifters in the D.C. are had this to offer “We did not find that it was as habituating from the standpoint of when the supplies ran out as it was also a financial situation. ‘Geez, that was all the money I had for this cycle. Now I’m going to have to go a number of months without.’ They did, with no problems. Now, there were changes in certain amounts of body mass and the size of people, and they were disappointed, but was not something that they craved uncontrollably again – like psychologically addictive drugs”
• The Deputy Assistant Administrator of the DEA’s Office of Diversion Control, Gene Haislip was asked to give his testimony to the committee. It was the hope of those politicians on the committee that the DEA would back down from it’s initial stance and Haislip was chosen to give testimony. Instead Mr. Haislip stood his ground and flat out opposed the committee’s proposed bill. “The controlled Substances Act is built entirely and exclusively around drugs which are principally psychoactive and are abused almost exclusively by virtue and because of that property. All of these drugs can be described either as narcotics, stimulants, depressants or hallucinogens.It appears that the motivations is somewhat different from that which is involved in most kinds of drug abuse. It is to develop muscles, to increase physical performance and perhaps simply to look good and appear to be more attractive to members of the opposite sex.”  Mr. Gene Haislip of the DEA made it clear that the DEA’s position would be to oppose the bill and that the DEA was not “the appropriate body to enforce any measures of this kind”
• Dr. Edward Langston of the American Medial Association (AMA) was next to testify at the Senate’s Committee.  Dr. Langston made clear the offical AMA position. The AMA and Dr. Langston resented how these legislators refused to heed the offical counsel of the Attorney General, DEA and the Secretary of Healh and Human Services. Dr. Langston pointed out that “abuse of steroids does not lead to the physical or psychological dependence as is required for schedulin..”  The American Medial Association refused to support the scheduling of Anabolic Androgenic Steroids as controlled substances.

The Politicians Strike Back

You would think that our politicians would humbly accept the advice of the Attorney General, Drug Enforcement Agency, Secretary of Health and Human Services, American Medical Association and the advice of the foremost medical experts. They did not. They were not content just to dismiss this expert testimony but they actually took every opportunity to ridicule and humiliate not just their ideas but they themselves as well.

At a later committee Dr. Yesalis was again called to testify. He warned against using scare tactics saying “The other potential loss of credibility is we are telling people that they are going to be dropping over dead and the athletes are looking at the longtime user and not seeing people dropping like flies. Now, increased death, probability of death, or morbidity could be taking place, but people apparently are not dropping like flies. And I think we have to be careful not to lease further credibility.” Dr. Yesalis also dismissed the notion, as stated by other witnesses, that the effects of AAS could be achieved simply by hard work. Dr. Yesalis stated ” It is almost incomprehensible to think that you could even compete at the high level without these drugs.” Dr. Yesalis also addressed the liver toxicity issue stating, “If you stay away from the oral versions of these drugs, the issue of liver toxicity is really not a great one at all.”

Rep. Daniel Lungren Of California’s 3rd district, who had introduced one of the first anti-bills took it upon himself to push the agenda of the Sports Associations and to bolster his image as a public defender by attacking Dr Yesalis. Rep. Lungren accused Dr. Yesalis of downplaying the side effects. When Dr. Yesalis continued to stand his ground Rep. Lungren then told an anecdote about a friend of his who contracted liver tumors after using AAS and “lost his house trying to pay the medical bills” ( it was later revealed that the patient in question was exposed to Agent Orange in Vietnam). Dr. Yesalis calmly prevented the facts about liver toxicity and AAS. Rep. Lungren not pleased with how this testimony was turning out switched to “roid rage” Dr. Yesalis again took the stand and condemned a questionable study by two psychatrists, DRs. Harrison Pope and David Katz. The committee had quoted this study often and Dr. Yesalis called them out on it. This was seen as personal defiance by Rep. Lungren’s and he continuted to attack Dr. Yesalis with insults, condescending tones and accusations until Dr. Yesalis finally consented to adding AAS to the very lowest tier of controled substances, Schedule 5 as opposed to Class Three along with narcotics, etc… The reason Dr. Yesalis agreed to this was to stop the black market AAS diversion issue that the Drug Companies were allowing and in fact encouraging for profit. Dr. Yesalis stated that scheduling AAS as class five “would apply pressure to manufacturers of these drugs to stem the apparently high level of diversion of their products to black markets” and that this was “not to interfere with the physician/patient relationship but simply to make the drug companies and wholesalers keep records”

Rep. Daniel was not satisfied so he turned to Dr. Bever. Rep. Daniel assailed him with accusations about covering up the negative social characteristics of AAS. Rep. Lungren bellowed on about Roid Rage and criminal aggression. Dr. Bever responded by citing studies that documented the positive social characteristics of AAS and high testosterone levels, particularly when given to older men. Rep Lungren responded repeatedly with inane comments like “I don’t know what I should get out of that except that I should avoid people with bald heads and beards” The sheer disrespect and ego at play here by politicians who knew next to nothing about the topic was casting a nasty cloud of suspicion upon these committees. It was becoming clear to all impartial observes present that the political agenda far eclipsed the medical one.

What Rep. Daniel did to Dr. Yesalis and Dr. Bever was nothing compared to the clustered onslaught that Dr. Langston of the American Medical Association received. You would think that the chosen representative of the association that represents all the doctors in America would have commanded some respect, but Senator Joseph Biden choose mockery, ridicule and what seemed to many present to be outright harassment. Dr. Langston stood his ground against the addled and resolute senator, but it was ultimately painful just to read the transcript.

Perhaps the Congressmen were seeing this image in their nightmares. If so then I understand their behavior

Fairness in Sports

It was all about fairness in sports, not medical dangers.

The disrespectful and downright unprofessional attitudes of the politicians against the medical experts who were too honest becomes clearer once we see their personal motivations.

Rep. Richard H. Baker from Louisiana testified that his son was “an Olympic hopeful. Committed to winning the right way.” Rep. Lungren’s son, a new entrant into the Notre Dame football program, had “implored his dad” to pass legislation on steroids because he didn’t want his refusal to use steroids to be a “disadvantage.”

While I do believe these politicians were friendly with the top brass of the sports Associations I do not believe they were on their payroll because I have no facts to support that.

More Steroid Facts

1. The General Attorney
2. The Secretary of Health and Human Services
3. The American Medical Association
4. The Drug Enforcement Agency
5. The foremost medical experts at the time

Were all against making anabolic androgenic  steroids a controlled substance.

A few  more facts about Androgenic Anabolic Steroids

• They are now prescribed by doctors more than ever
• Anabolic Androgenic Steroids have never been conclusively linked to a single death. The same cannot be said for the nations most popular high blood pressure medication, which kills thousands of people a year.

The politicians went on their own tangent in support of big business and the media, happy to have more scary news for better ratings helped push it through. Thirty years of this and the public perception of Steroids has completely shifted. It would take a miracle of awareness for it to be balanced again.

There are three articles. The introduction Steroids The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

• Steroids: The Good -
• Steroids: The Bad – Previous
• Steroids: The Ugly Truth -This Article

Sources

• Legal Muscle by Rick Collins JD
• Anabolic Steroids and the Athlete by WN Taylor

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This Anabolic Steroid user has seen the bad side of Steroid use. Notice his grotesuqe arms. While this person obviously uses steroids they acheived that amazing size by using sythol. Synthol is not a steroid but an oil you can inject into your muscles like a do it yourself implant.

The physical side effects of Steroids can be bad but going to jail is far worse.

Steroids has become a dirty black market business since 1990 when The Steroid Control Act made having Androgenic Anabolic Steroids the equiavalent of having a kilo of Cocaine. If you ever get busted or fear doing so first consider if it is worth the risk and if you deem it so then get the best possible Legal council, Rick Collins the best steroid legal expert in the USA.

Rick Collins J.D. is a man you want on your side if you ever get targted by the FEDS for Anabolic Steroids.

Side Effects of Steroids

Anabolic Androgenic Steroids ( AAS ) do indeed have side effects. This is why proponents of steroids demand that at least three months of research be done on AASs before someone tries them.

The good news is nearly all the side effects of steroids can be controlled with ancillary drugs, which cannot be said for alcohol or tobacco. It might sound silly to take a drug and then have to take other drugs to control the side effects but when you consider this is what the whole pharmaceutical industry is built on it doesn’t seem so unusual.

1. Gynomastia aka “Bitch Tits” – Long time AAS users who take far too much and do not control their estrogen levels can indeed have pronounced breast tissue.  The reason why this happens is because the more testosterone and AAS’s in your blood the more estrogen your body will make. The male body does not make estrogen from scratch like females do in their ovaries. Instead the male body gets the little estrogen it needs by using the enzyme aromatase to convert used up testosterone molecules into estrogen. Normally it would only make the little estrogen your body needs from the normal testosterone levels produced by your testes. When synthetic AAS’s are used in great proportion so too does the estrogen your body converts from these AA’s rise. The estrogen will signal your breast tissue to grow, just as it does for teenage girls. The good news is that it happens slowly and can be easily controlled by taking estrogen inhibitors. Bodybuilders normally use Nolvadex or Aromasin to control this. They simply take an Aromasin pill if their nipples ever feel itchy. The Aromasin will kill off all the estrogen in your system and prevent any breast tissue growth. A little known fact about Gynomastia is that it also happens naturally to teenage boys whose hormonal levels get out of whack. There is surgery to correct it which costs about $5000-$7000 dollars.
2. Acne - Extreme Steroid use can result in acne, especially if you are genetically predisposed to acne. It can be just an occasional zit or massive acne all over the back and to a lesser extent the chest and face. Treatments include lowering your AAS dosage, better hygiene or reforming your diet.
3. Male Pattern Baldness - Androgenic Steroids will indeed accelerate the rate of Male pattern Baldness only if you have a genetic predisposition to Male Pattern Baldness. If you do not have this genetic trait then Androgenic Steroids won’t cost you a single hair. To know if you do have genetic Male Pattern Baldness look at the men on your moms side of the family. If you are pre disposed then the only thing that I have been told works is Rogaine.
4. Shrinking Testicles - As stated above in the Benefits section under Male Birth Control, AAS when used in quantities that exceed your body’s natural production will cause your brain to signal your testes to stop making testosterone, as it believes you have more than enough already. The result is your testicles shrinking. This is only temporary as you can use HCG to jump start your testicles again and having them start producing their own testosterone. Naturally they will grow back to normal size. Bodybuilders do this after they finish a AAS cycle to ensure they retain their muscle mass while their testes get back into the groove of natural testosterone production.
5. Stunts Long Bone Growth - This is a major one and the number one reason why teenagers, anyone under 22 or still growing should never even consider AAS. As mentioned in the explanation for Gynomastia above, very high testosterone and AAS levels can lead to more estrogen production in the male body. Estrogen inhibits lone bone growth, this is why females who have more estrogen naturally are not as tall as men on average. This is why Teenagers or anyone still growing should not even consider Anabolic Androgenic Steroids use!
6. High Blood Pressure - This I am not certain about. The studies here are split 50/50. certain men seem to be far more relaxed when on AAS and others have an initial rise of blood pressure. It may be a mostly mental issue.

Anabolic Androgenic Steroid side effects can be controlled pretty easily. The problems arise when teenagers or uneducated people start meddling with powerful drugs thinking they can just make a biological system that has evolved over a million years do whatever they want. Education and respect are the keys, as with anything else.

This picture has been parading around the internet as a steroid freakshow. While this fellow is indeed on Androgenic Anabolic Steroids, there is no ways steroids alone could cause this kind of size. He is using Synthol which is an oil based implant bodybuilders inject into their muscles to make them appear larger. Synthol is just an oil not a steroid it is more like a do it yourself implant kit, purely cosmetic. Not respectable and quite sad actually.

Steroid Myths

• Shrinks Penis – As stated above AAS use shrinks your testicles and can make your erect phallus thicker and harder as it boosts your sex drive.
• “Roid Rage” – These is no truth to this. The guys that act like jerks on steroids were always jerks. The AAS just brought out the jerk in them a bit more. People have reported  paranoid jealousy, extreme irritability, delusions, and impaired judgment stemming from feelings of invincibility as other side effects from their AAS using mates. I have witnessed some of this personally among friends and again I observed that these guys were the exact same way before the AAS use. The AAS just gave them a more open window to feel they could act like this. My friends who were always chill and cool got even more chill and cool after AAS use. I would actualy say that testosterone and most AAS make you more mellow and sexually hungry at the same time. Ladies love that combination.
• Just taking steroids will make anyone muscle bound – Absolutely not. Even if you did all your research and got on the best combination of AAS you would not see a single pound of muscle added to your frame unless your nutrition was peak. The training is the easiest part. Pro bodybuilders must eat seven to eight monstrous meals a day. Their training is heavyweights infrequently. You get big in the kitchen, not the gym and not with AAS, they just play a small part.
• Heart Disease – There have been no reputable studies that have shown any link between AAS and Heart disease. Rather, studies have shown that men with higher testosterone levels usually have superior heart and circulatory health.
• Damages Liver – Only oral steroids, pills, have the potential to harm your liver and not by much. Taking a steroid pill does less damage to your liver than taking an aspirin pill. It is not the actual steroids that do it but rather the chemical process that the pill makers use. The reason why they use this process called, c-17 Alpha Alkanization is to make the steroids more orally available. The liver will process and destroy most of the steroids on the first pass through the GI tract. This process lets the steroid bypass the livers defenses and go into the blood. Aspirin and many other medicine pills use the same process, except that their quantities are usually much higher milligram per milligram, thus they do far more liver damage than AAS ever could.
• Damages Kidneys – Absolutely no truth to this at all. These and other false claims against steroids come from a time when American legislators were confused and desperate to show the public they were doing something to handle the Cheating in sports issue. They did this even if it meant spreading false information and refuting the medical authorities at the time. The entire kidney damage claims come from a study on AAS and the eldery that was done almost twenty years ago. The study concluded that the patients did indeed have kidney damage after being given AAS. What they fail to mention is that all the patients already had serious kidney damage before the study began and the actual damage was never tracked before or after the study. Bogus
• Stop using steroids your muscles will turn to flab and you will get fat – Muscles do not turn into flab, fat or anything else. Muscles just grow bigger or smaller. Most bodybuilders keep about 80% of their muscle gains once they go off cycle. The Keys are to restart your natural testosterone production as soon as you stop using AAS and to keep your calorie and protein intake high.
• Potentially Fatal - There has never been one recorded death from Androgenic Anabolic Steroids. Compare that to how many people have died off popularly prescribed blood pressure medication, thousands a year.

How come Athletes are still using Steroids? Don’t They test?

The short answer is that testing does not work.

Every time you use a steroid, whether synthetic AAS or your naturally made testosterone, a trace is left in your body. These traces are called metabolites and they can be found in your blood or urine. The issues with detecting AAS are economic and logistical. Rich athletes rarely get caught because they can afford the best, newest and undetectable drugs.

Why testing for steroids does not work

• Every different kind of steroid has a different metabolite
• There are hundreds of different steroids with new ones being designed daily
• Every metabolite requires it’s own seperate drug test to detect
• The drug tests for steroids cost several hundred dollars at a lab EACH! (testing for marijuana or cocaine etc costs about five dollars)

As you can see testing for every kind of steroid would cost about a quarter million dollars per athlete even with the bulk discounts sports organizations get. Also it is nearly impossible for these labs to stay ahead of the new designed steroids being produced for wealthy athtletes. Think Barry Bonds and Balco. Bonds acquired a designer steroid Tetrahydrogestrinone or THG  created by the owner of Balco and used it without detection for years. When the AAS was leaked to the sports missions labs by a rival coach they could finally detect it’s metabolites. Bonds did not come back until the drug left his system and he could pass a drug test.

The Politics of Steroid Testing

As with most things, the richer you are the more you can get away with.

The only way for wealthy athletes to be busted is if they piss off a high standing Sports executive or if they get turned in by rivals as was the case with Bonds. Poorer athletes can only get the most common drugs which are easy to detect with tests but rich ones walk away smiling nearly every time. The Sports Associates of the MLB and NHL know most of their athletes are using AAS. They allow it because it means more home-runs, touchdowns and more profit for them. They use drug testing as a political tool to control their athletes. If one of them tries to defy the brass they simply ask their lab to test for everything on their next drug test.

There are three articles. The introduction Steroids The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

• Steroids: The Good – Previous
• Steroids: The Bad – This Article
• Steroids: The Ugly – Next

Sources

• Molecular Nutrition Anabolics by William Llewellyn
• Mooradian AD, Morley JE, Korenman SG (February 1987). “Biological actions of androgens”. Endocr. Rev. 8 (1): 1–28. doi:10.1210/edrv-8-1-1. PMID 3549275.
• Bassil N, Alkaade S, Morley JE (June 2009). “The benefits and risks of testosterone replacement therapy: a review”. Ther Clin Risk Manag 5 (3): 427–48. PMID 19707253.
• Tuck SP, Francis RM (2009). “Testosterone, bone and osteoporosis”. Front Horm Res 37: 123–32. doi:10.1159/000176049. PMID 19011293.
• Dabbs M, Dabbs JM (2000). Heroes, rogues, and lovers: testosterone and behavior. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-135739-4.
• Bhasin S, Storer TW, Berman N, Callegari C, Clevenger B, Phillips J, Bunnell TJ, Tricker R, Shirazi A, Casaburi R (July 1996). “The effects of supraphysiologic doses of testosterone on muscle size and strength in normal men”. N. Engl. J. Med. 335 (1): 1–7. doi:10.1056/NEJM199607043350101. PMID 8637535.
• Haddad RM, Kennedy CC, Caples SM, Tracz MJ, Boloña ER, Sideras K, Uraga MV, Erwin PJ, Montori VM (January 2007). “Testosterone and cardiovascular risk in men: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized placebo-controlled trials”. Mayo Clin. Proc. 82 (1): 29–39. doi:10.4065/82.1.29. PMID 17285783.
• Stanworth RD, Jones TH (2008). “Testosterone for the aging male; current evidence and recommended practice”. Clin Interv Aging 3 (1): 25–44. PMID 18488876.
• Mehta PH, Josephs RA (December 2006). “Testosterone change after losing predicts the decision to compete again”. Horm Behav 50 (5): 684–92. doi:10.1016/j.yhbeh.2006.07.001. PMID 16928375.
• Wilson JD (September 2001). “Androgens, androgen receptors, and male gender role behavior”. Horm Behav 40 (2): 358–66. doi:10.1006/hbeh.2001.1684. PMID 11534997.
• Payne AH, O’Shaughnessy P (1996). “Structure, function, and regulation of steroidogenic enzymes in the Leydig cell”. in Payne AH, Hardy MP, Russell LD. Leydig Cell. Vienna [Il]: Cache River Press. pp. 260–285. ISBN 0-9627422-7-9.
• Schultheiss OC, Campbell KL, McClelland DC (December 1999). “Implicit power motivation moderates men’s testosterone responses to imagined and real dominance success”. Horm Behav 36 (3): 234–41. doi:10.1006/hbeh.1999.1542.
• Marin DP, Figueira AJ Junior, Pinto LG. “One session of resistance training may increase serum testosterone and triiodetironine in young men”. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise 38 (5): S285.

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This is one of my pet peeves, I used to find it hilarious but I have heard it so many times it is now just tiresome.

We have all heard people claim that if they lift weights at all they will get too muscular and that they would hate that. Amazingly enough it is women who say this most.

Putting on Lean Dry Muscle Mass Is Without Question the HARDEST Thing to do in all The Health World.

Losing weight is child’s play compared to putting on muscle. You do not end up looking like Ronnie Coleman by accident. This man eats about 10 huge meals a day. His breakfast is two huge pizza pies. He is on so many steroids and other hormones it could kill a horse. He squats 800lbs and it still took him over 20 years to do this. Also he has amazing genetics which about .00001% of the population has. If he wanted to look normal all he would have to do is stop eating 10 huge meals a day for a week and he is a normal guy.

Even if by some miracle of God, you awoke one morning and you were a huge muscle head, it would take you about a week to lose everything, just eat as your normally do. Gaining that kind of muscle is a combination of strict Dieting, training and drugs; maintaining it is just as hard.

I do not lift weights for other reasons, but not getting to huge is not one of them. It took me YEARS of perfect eating and hard lifting to get my current muscle weight. I must work even harder now to maintain it now that I no longer lift weights.

Why do people believe this myth?

It is like most things a product of ignorance about how the human body works. The body resists building lean muscle mass more than anything else, by comparison lose weight is almost too easy. Body Builders study nutrition, sports medicine and endocrinology for years before they have enough knowledge to be an elite bodybuilder.

When you gain weight, what Looks like muscle mass is really mostly water and fat. It has been proven in studies that the most lean dry muscle mass a human male can put on, with a perfect diet and a hard lifting routine, is 6-7 lbs in a year. For women this number drops to less than half, maybe 2 lbs of lean dry muscle a year if they kill themselves.

They might have gained about 30 lbs in that year and look like a different person, but only about 6lbs of it is actual muscle.

The point of all this is that the very last thing on earth you or anyone else, especially women, is getting too buff.  Women should try to get as muscular as they possibly can, especially the smaller ones. It helps to strengthen their bones and raises their testosterone levels which will improve their mood, sex drive and help to burn fat. Do not worry ladies, even if you work your whole life to gain muscle your testosterone levels will never rise by more than 3-5% and it would take a rise of about 9000%-2000% before you noticed any masculine traits.

I once had a young lady try and convince me that if she did anything with weights she would gain 30lbs of muscle in a month and she was horrified. I spent over an hour patiently outlining to her how this is not possible with the way the human body has evolved. She refused to beleive me. This type of thinking is all ego and ignorance and is the biggest hurdle to weight loss and having the body you want.

I mention this myth not because I want to make fun of some silly beliefs but because I want to show by example that the hardest thing about change is letting your pride go and moving forward with what works.

Humility and Faith. With them, anything is possible and a lifetime of obesity can be conquered in a few months.

Praise God.

Sources

• http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/06/health/06real.html

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Will Sit-ups give me abs?

No.

Sit ups and crunches will NOT give you a sick pack abs or a washboard stomach. Why then does the entire weight loss industry talk about doing situps and crunches to get a six pack? Why do they keep trying to sell us silly ab rolling machines and all kinds of other weird gadgets like the thigh master etc..

The Lie Of Spot Fat Reduction.

What is spot fat reduction? It is the idea that working out a particular area will cause the fat to be burned away at that area.

For example

1. Sit ups and crunches to remove belly fat MYTH
2. Thigh exercises to remove fat around the thighs MYTH

This has wasted so much of peoples time and money it is tragic. The human body does not burn away fat in  any one area faster than another area. Otherwise you would see men walking around with a six pack and big sagging man boobs. Ever see that?

Truth: The human body burns fat away at an equal rate all over the body.

Thus the only way to get a six pack is to stop the sit ups and learn how to burn away all the fat by EATING RIGHT.

You should only workout your stomach if

• You already have a lean stomach/ six pack from eating properly and want to make it look sharper
• You want a stronger midsection, which is a good thing as core power makes you very strong in general
• You are a fighter and want to withstand taking punches to the midsection

What they will do is make your abdominal muscles stronger. They might also make them bigger and your waist will get a little bigger.
Yes, crunches and sit ups might actually make your waist a bit bigger. Sounds crazy huh?

It’s the truth and you won’t ever see your abs unless you eliminate your stomach fat.

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For many people, exercising actually makes it harder for them to lose weight.

Sound CRAZY?

Ask yourself these questions

1. Have you ever finished a grueling tormenting workout and decided to “reward” yourself with desert, french fries etc… ?
2. Have you ever labored for what seemed like hours on a treadmill or bike and wondered “Is this what we were put here on earth to do?”
3. Have you ever committed to an intense exercise routine only to see little to no results and just gave up totally only to start all over again months later?
4. Ever felt even hungrier after a workout?

Now the picture starts to get clearer. Exercise is good but when it is misdirected towards the wrong goal it does more harm than good. Time Magazine seems to agree with me. Now lets really figure out why.

WILL POWER

Any change of our habits requires will power. Losing weight means changing our habits and thus this taxes our will power.

We all have a limited amount of will power each and every day.

• Waking up in the morning requires will power.
• Making sure we eat breakfast requires will power (assuming we do not eat it usually)
• Going to work requires will power
• Tolerating all the nuisances we suffer through at work or at home requires will power
• Exercising after a hard day of work requires will power
• Not eating those chocolate cookies on the counter requires will power

The more we use the less we have, until we run out and just give in. When we use our will power to force ourselves to exercise we might at that point run out of will power and give in to bad eating habits, thus taking us two steps back.

You burn 300 calories at the gym but then eat a 400 calories muffin right afterward, all of which is stored as fat because it is late at night. Then two weeks later we wonder why all that exercise has done nothing and we get demoralized and give up, only to start again later and do the same thing. Sound familiar? We have all been there.

How do we fix this? It’s simple.

Stop exercising so you conserve your will power. Then use your willpower in the most effective way possible for losing weight!

LEARNING HOW TO EAT RIGHT!

But Wait,  lets say you want to be buff and toned and have a sharp six pack, you’ve got to workout for that right? Yes, Yes you do need to work out for those things. You will begin exercising but first you must Learn how to eat properly. It is the foundation of all health and fitness. Once you see those abs popping out with the right nutrition alone, then you will naturally get excited to train and get them sharp and chiseled. The beautiful thing about this is, it won’t drain your will power.

What should exercise really be for?

My personal ideology is that training should only be to make you strong. That is the right mindset for a human being to have. It is a warrior mindset and it gets results. Men especially must have this mindset to lose weight because we have far less tolerance for boring activities that do not build physical image equity.

The Warrior Mindset

What I mean by “physical image equity” is this; tell a man he must do something each and every day just to maintain his current state, a state he is not happy with, and he will not be excited about it. Now give him an image of his best self, well toned and defined with more muscle, that excites a man! All men can testify to this, creating a new them, building up to it and seeing the results, being stronger! We guys love this.

Men, unlike women do not spend hours a day on just maintaining their appearance and beauty, thus we have less tolerance for this mode of thinking. Thus we guys must adopt the warrior mindset about exercise. It works for ladies as well.

The beautiful thing about all this is how it all works together.

1. Learn how to eat right, see the weight disappear,
2. Get excited about building a stronger more toned body with muscles you can actually see!
3. Then watch as your nutrition gets even better out of sheer excitement for seeing those muscles more and more
4. Then you begin to train even harder and maybe get into martial arts
5. Then you begin to grow spiritually.

WOW. It took me over ten years to figure this all out. Have faith and just believe it and I swear to you, you will have the body you always dreamed of and it will be EASY!

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