Not really.
But after last night I’d be lying if I said I didn’t consider it.
You see, last night I finally watched the documentary Bigger, Stronger, Faster which is all about steroids. I’d heard about it for sometime but I didn’t get around to watching it until now.
If you haven’t seen it here is a brief synopsis from Wikipedia:
The documentary examines the steroid use of the director Christopher Bell and his two brothers, Mark and Mike Bell, who all grew up idolizing Arnold Schwarzenegger, Hulk Hogan, and Sylvester Stallone, and also features professional athletes, medical experts, fitness center members, and US Congressmen talking about the issue of anabolic steroids.
Beyond the basic issue of anabolic steroid use, Bigger, Stronger, Faster examines the lack of consistency in how America views drugs, cheating, and the lengths people go to achieve success.
The film looks beyond the steroid issue to such topics as Tiger Woods’ laser eye correction to 20/15 vision, professional musicians use of anxiety reducing drugs, or athletes’ dependence on cortisone shots, which are a legal steroid. It takes a skeptical view of the health risks of steroids and is critical of the legal health supplement industry.
Some very interesting points were viewed in the film.
The Dangers of Drug Use
Steroids aren’t as dangerous as they’re made out to be and with them being mostly illegal no long term studies will be conducted. ‘Roid rage is pretty much just a myth. Not that there isn’t any side effects. As with all drugs, pharmaceutical, recreational, and otherwise, too much, too often is always dangerous.
As the one fitness model said there are no side effects. Except, wait a sec, he got a case of bitch tits and had to have his nipple removed and put back on! To him a minor surgery (as if any surgery is minor) and no big deal. To me that alone makes me hands down never want to do them.
In our pill popping culture why wouldn’t someone who wants to get bigger take drugs to do it. After all, they take drugs to sleep better, when they get a headache, for heart troubles and to get an erection. But because steroids are illegal many won’t do it.
The Healthful Side of Steroids
Except they’re not completely illegal. You can get hormone replacement therapy done with doctor. Much of anti-aging medicine is about restoring the hormones to regular if not optimal levels. Sometimes this is done more naturally, sometimes not so much.
Where is the line between someone who is taking testosterone for their health and someone who is taking it to get the edge?
For me personally I’ve gotten big into natural Chinese tonic herbs. Many of these are used to get the hormones running right. One of the precepts for the superior class of herbs is that they can do no harm even if you are one them long term. That they have an overall healthful effects not harmful even taken all the time and in large doses.
Contrast this to drugs with their list of side effects. And as was pointed out to me by George Lamoureux of Jing Herbs all those potential side effects aren’t side effects. They are effects. They simply manifest themselves in some people but stay on an unnoticeable level in others, still wreaking havoc inside the body, yet not making symptoms occur.
By doing the proper training and eating correctly you’ll naturally optimize your hormones, get lean muscle mass and the youthful effects that brings. However no matter how well you do it, it won’t give you the same effects as injecting testosterone into yourself. It simply can’t be done.
The Drive to Win
So if you need to become bigger, stronger and more injury resistant what do you do? In order to be the best you have to beat the best. If all the others are on performance enhancing drugs what chance will you have unless you join them?
As is commonly known about bodybuilders all the guys at the top are on steroids. But so are the majority of powerlifters, strongmen, and Olympic athletes in just about every field. Louie Simmons makes it pretty clear in his gym Westside Barbell it’s almost a prerequisite to train there.
And you know what? It’s understandable.
I suppose it’s not fair if you pit a “natural” athlete against one on steroids. But what about when you pit a bunch of juiced athletes against each other? Doesn’t the win and title go to the person who still worked the hardest, has the commitment and does the best?
In a drive to get to the top it’s no wonder its so prevalent. While steroids may be a shortcut there is no real shortcut when you spend every single day and years of effort to become the best. For many sports you cannot go as far as you could if you don’t take steroids.
Why I Still Say No
Yet, I’m still not going to do them. Ever. Should I give up on my plans to become one of the strongest people out there? Not at all.
Look at the oldtime strongmen. Many had the greatest physiques ever. And certainly I believe most men would rather look like John Grimek than Jay Cutler. While most records have fallen time and time again some of the oldtime strongmen still hold world records not likely to be broken.
Even with all the pharmaceutical enhancement I haven’t seen anyone come close to Arthur Saxon’s bent press.
While I may not be able to compete with powerlifters I can do the things I do and become the best in them. Would steroids help? I’m sure they would in that I could train harder and recover faster. But do I need them? No.
Just look at my friend and business partner Bud Jeffries. Drug free his whole life. Squatted 1000 lbs. without a squats suit and even from the bottom of the rack. Many steroid users couldn’t even come close to that.
(By the way Bud is having a 25% off sale on everything at his site. It’s only for a few days longer so sprint on over there and check it out.)
I’m still looking for the edge in my training. Whether that comes from the best method of training, taking natural supplements, and using mental tactics.
For me I draw the line on steroid use.
Yet that line is hazy. As is shown in the film the Tour de France winner Floyd Landis and his atmospheric chamber. By sleeping in it he is able to produce more red blood cells which aid in endurance. The same thing goes on at the Olympic training center in Colorado with the high altitude. These are legal to do.
But blood doping (which is drawing out your own blood then reinjecting it the day before the event) or taking a drug which causes you to produce more red blood cells are not legal.
To me that makes sense. But I suppose each person will have to decide for themselves where that line is at. For some the legality is the only issue. For others their own morals don’t necessarily coincide with the law. The fact that steroids are illegal or not doesn’t effect my decision.
For me the funniest part of the film was the performance enhancing drugs used by musicians to calm themselves down. Legal and generally excepted by the whole group.
Each person will have to draw their own line on what is acceptable.
If you haven’t seen it I encourage you to check out the documentary. It’ll open your eyes to the brainwashing that most people have regarding the issue. From there you can make up your own mind.
If you have seen it I’d love to get your input below.
In strength,
Logan Christopher
Filed under Health, Nutrition, Oldtime Strongmen, Recovery by on Nov 17th, 2010. 4 Comments. 
I’ve got some exciting projects in the works. More on those later. For now I wanted to share this video with you of Johann Martin in case you haven’t seen it.
To me this guy is the ultimate athlete. Basically he does many of the things I do, he’s just been doing them for over 50 years.
You have sledgehammer leveraging, kettlebell juggling, bottoms up kettlebell work, muscling out weights, big weight supports including in a bridge, various hand balancing and other bodyweight feats, Olympic and Powerlifting and more.
It appears to me this guy was a student of Valentin Dikul. I say this for several reasons. Because of all the different things he does like kettlebell and steel ball juggling. And then you have the bridge feat which is called the ‘Dikulis Pyramide’ in the video. For more on Valentin Dikul check out this post, another very strong man.
They say a jack of all trades and master of none? I think Johann proves that wrong! There is no single strength specialty here unless you call ‘Being Strong’ a specialty.
At 63 years Johann Martin can do a lot. I’m happy to say I’m on the same path. You can learn about some of what he does here at Legendary Strength. For the handstand skills check out Lost Art of Hand Balancing. And of course for Kettlebell Juggling go here.
And above all consistently train. And you too in 50 years can do some amazing things.
In strength,
Logan Christopher
Filed under Barbells and Dumbbells, Bodyweight Exercise, Feats of Strength, Kettlebells, Oldtime Strongmen, Videos by on Sep 7th, 2010. 8 Comments.
Why are we so concerned with maxing out?
I really want you to think about that for a moment. Why does your average person concern themselves with how much weight that can lift a single time?
Unless you compete in powerlifting or Olympic lifting your max attempt doesn’t really matter. So why does the average trainee concern themselves so much with this?
(Before we go further, I must tell you I am guilty of this in a big way.)
Part of it has to do with exposure. Power and Olympic lifters do that in competition. They’re strong, so we think we need to do the same. I bet if we had competitions in max weight for ten reps more people would be doing that.
Part of it has to do with ego. To lift the most amount of weight you’ll only be able to do a single. Oh, how we love to see those numbers get higher and higher. And how we enjoy comparing our numbers to those of others.
Part of it has to do with fun. And this is alright. If you enjoy singles all the more power to you, just like if you enjoy running long distance? But is that necessarily the best way to train?
Let’s say you can’t get over the ego-trip and want to be able to put up the most weight for one rep even if you don’t compete. Should you only do singles of ever increasing weight in order to increase your max? Anyone who has tried that knows that you’ll get so far in the beginning before hitting a plateau.
But the SAID principle says you need to do exactly what you want to be doing. Does that mean struggling for and even missing reps is going to get you there?
Instead let’s look at a different way. Let’s look at a little mathematical physics equation. Cast your mind back to your high school days with me.
F = MA
This is an easy formula. Force equals Mass times Acceleration.
Strength is movement against a resistance. The ability to move (accelerate) a weight (mass). How good you are at this is the force you can produce.
When you lift a max attempt you are encouraged to lift as fast as possible, however this turns out to be quite slow. Your force output is just enough to accelerate the weight barely past gravity’s hold.
Let’s take a lighter weight instead. With this weight you can just about lift it as fast as you can move. Although the mass is lighter the acceleration is much higher. Does this equal more force production?
I’ll leave the mathematically inclined to plug real numbers into that equation to find the results.
Now I’m not going to stop doing singles, cause I enjoy them and I may compete some day. But I am doing more with lighter weights were I can move as fast as possible. Seeking to accelerate those weights.
Sure there is a time for slower movements but in general faster is the way to go.
After all there is the idea that I first heard from one of the oldtime strongman’s books, though I can’t recall which one. There is a difference between an exercise and a lift. One you use to train to get stronger the other you do to demonstrate your strength.
Now I’m off to go do some fast exercises. In the words of Ricky Bobby, “I wanna go fast!”
In strength,
Logan Christopher
Filed under Barbells and Dumbbells, Lifting Technique, Oldtime Strongmen, Strength Training Concepts by on Jun 4th, 2010. Comment.
Tire Flipping Can Build Strength and Endurance
How do you know if your conditioning is getting better?
Yes its easy when you do the same workout over and over again. If you are running then you know you’ve made progress when your times go down. If you are doing a set of kettlebell snatches or bodyweight squats you know you’re better if you can do more reps.
But does it really mean your overall conditioning is better? Perhaps you’ve just increased your skill in the exercise and built up the muscular endurance that was previously holding you back.
You may not really increase your wind or cardio capabilities.
You’ve likely heard of the SAID principle in training. That is Specific Adaptation to Imposed Demands. This means your body will get better specifically to what you make it do.
And what this can mean is that even though you are training hard, you could be getting better at one specific exercise, but if you’re not careful you can really be sliding back in the grand scheme of things.
There is no great example of what conditioning is.
One concept I shoot for is to be able to go into any arena of training and perform well, if not dominate. Obviously, I won’t be winning a powerlifting meet one day and running an ultra-marathon the next. But that’s a guiding principle for my training.
Back on the SAID principle we realize that there isn’t 100% carryover from any one thing to another. Much of the time there won’t even be 50% carryover depending on how you do things.
Are you conditioning yourself hard or are you building muscular endurance?
When we step away from the cardio machines and get into bodyweight exercises, kettlebells or whatever we start doing exercises for our conditioning that have a muscular component. This is a good thing. But you have to be careful.
You want to build muscular endurance and you want to build conditioning. You can build both at the same time. However, there is ALWAYS going to be one thing that fails first.
Pushups can get you breathing hard but unless you are one of those guys that can do them non-stop your muscles are going to force you to give up way before your lungs would.
Here’s a different example. I just finished a set of kettlebell snatches with the 53 lb. bell a couple hours ago. I hit seven minutes with a 25 rep per minute pace. That’s 175 reps in 7 minutes. My goal is 250 in 10. Something stopped me.
Was it my conditioning? I was sucking wind big time but no I could have kept going. Was it my muscles burning? Nope. With swings and snatches the load is fairly well distributed so no problems here. In this case it was my hands which tend to be the weak point for most people in this exercise. They tore open and in order to preserve myself from more damage I stopped.
There’s a problem when you rely on one means of conditioning. If I only did kettlebell snatches (or swings) I could never fully push the boundaries of my conditioning. I could increase my ability but not as well as if I did something else.
Let’s use the example of a guy that lifts weights in low rep sets. He also runs long distances to get his cardio. Do you see the missing component here? Will this guy be able to apply any strength and conditioning at the same time? You throw him into an intense circuit style training and he’ll crap out fast.
My case is to use a variety of conditioning exercises and methods to eliminate this problem. Variety is good here. Yes you should have goals and regularly do the same workout trying to progress. But on top of that add more.
Also you need to work different levels of conditioning. There’s a big difference between sprint level conditioning and longer term conditioning.
Think about the difference in running a hill sprint versus flipping a large tire for two minutes non-stop. Doing a ten minute snatch test versus a bodyweight exercise circuit that lasts an hour.
I have to credit Bud Jeffries primarily to opening my eyes to this. His Twisted Conditioning 1 & 2 go into more details on these concepts and much more.
If you missed the previous announcement check out the new www.Strongerman.com where we are working together to bring you to very best training information. And if you haven’t got those books yet do it now. They’ll make you train harder and in a more complete manner.
In the near future I’ll give you more on this subject including some complete workouts.
In strength,
Logan Christopher
Filed under Bodyweight Exercise, Conditioning, Kettlebells by on Nov 7th, 2009. Comment.
