The Eternal #FitMyth

 

Wake up fitfam, we've never been just about fitness.

Another day, another social media fitness celebrity exposed as being nothing more than a photo-shopped fraud. With every unmasking of a new fiternet’s detox tea-toting ‘30 days to a new you’ program pusher, it seems like people become more vocal about the lack of morals present in today’s booming fitness industry. But the reality is, we're just another new chapter in the never ending story of fitness quackery.

Truth be told, the selling of overpriced gimmicks by muscular profiteers is nothing new. Well-marketed quick fixes sold by charlatans and pseudo-scientific methods of muscle building are merely a persistent continuum of deception and delusion.

Don’t believe me?

Turn to the pages of history, and you’ll find countless examples of fit myths from the past being resold in contemporary culture. In fact, I was overwhelmed with what choices to pull as evidence to demonstrate the reselling of stupidity that exists in contemporary fitness culture.

Without further ado, welcome to the never ending story of fitness quackery. It’s just like in the 80’s classic film - except for here people continue to voluntarily leap into an abyss of lies and gimmicks thanks to the irresistible pull of the destructive fitness phenomenon.

Exhibit A: Centuries of Corseting Controversy.

Spanning over 400 years, the history of ‘waist training’ is long and tumultuous. Just open up Instagram and you’ll find anyone from fitness pros and D-list celebrities ‘praising’ the tummy-toning abilities of corset. From instruments of torture to a device used to control women and exploit their sexuality, wearers have been warned of corseting’s potential harm from the beginning.

Throughout the mid-1700s and 1800s, women wore corsets as a way to protect themselves from the potential harm of everyday life. During this period women were assumed to be the ‘weaker sex’ and that their bodies needed the additional support. Regardless of medical authorities associating corset use with women becoming physically harmed or disfigured, women continued to wear them. Talk about vanity insanity.

Herrick Corset Ad, 1915.

By the turn of the 1900s an emphasis on female health was in vogue, and fitness helped to perpetuate the idea that without exercise a woman could not be beautiful… oh ‘strong is the new skinny’ discourse you are the bane of me! As a result, women were urged by tighten up their corsets, go on diets, and weight train in order for them to achieve the popular “hourglass” body ideal. To help women participate in exercise and sports… you know without passing out from a lack of oxygen due to overly tight corset, a new ‘healthier’ more comfortable flexible elastic sport corset was introduced in the 1920s.

During the next decade other fantastical products were paired with the corset for ‘optimum results’. For example, a 1930’s fitness publication titled ‘Stay Slim’ promoted women using herbal and iodine compresses to spot-reduce while wearing “very tight corsets in the daytime and an elastic belt around the stomach at night.” Even with mountains of evidence in support of exercise and diet as far better and healthier alternatives to achieving a ‘tight and tiny’ midsection, to this day women continue to squeeze into corsets in pursuit of quick-fixes and an unrealistic beauty ideal.

Warner Bro's Health Corset, 1878.

Over the last five years or so, there has been a resurgence in corset use within the fitness industry – which, unfortunately was swallowed by popular culture without hesitation. From #fitchicks to pro bodybuilders, the Kardashians to middle-aged housewives, ‘waist training’ by way of corsets and other torture-devices are back with vengeance.

Keep in mind, it’s not all bad when it comes garments that tighten the torso. There are specific medical purposes where corsets are believed by some practitioners to have a profound effect on an individual’s quality of life, or as a clinical recovery tool. Not included in the therapeutic uses of a corset: (i) aide in creating big booty:waist ratio, (ii) become an illusionist.

Exhibit B: Pills, Potions and Profits.

Flip open a magazine or scroll through your social media newsfeed, and you’ll probably find a wide arrange of products that can miraculously help you to achieve just about anything in weeks, with little effort, and with a hefty cost for both your bank account and body.

To say that dietary supplements have an extensive history is a bit of an understatement. Indeed, ergogenic aid use goes all the way back to the 6th century. Although athletes are often associated with the use of performance enhancing substances, at the turn of the 20th century everyday people were starting to use a wide array of crockery to cure just any body concern.

From monkey glands to bags of sugary sweets, oxygen elixirs to cocaine-brandy tablets, and even rat poison – for every ailment, there were brilliantly marketed quick fix ‘products’, that were backed by pseudo-science and supported by an “expert.”

One of my favorites from this era was a thyroid-based mail-order treatment for obesity sold by Frank J. Kellogg.

Like many obesity exploiters of this era, his weight reduction “anti-fat” tablets helped him to become a millionaire by claiming to cure ‘fat’ without diet or exercise. What set Kellogg apart was the admiration he earned for his business and self-promoting skills.

The “King of Anti-Fat” turned product into profit by taking advantage of his well-known last name (although not related to the famed family) and escaping investigation by the American Medical Association for years by labeling his obesity-remedy as a food product and not medication… sneaky, sneaky! As a result, Kellogg’s fame and fortune didn’t last long at all. In 1921 he was ordered to cease marketing and destroy his inventory after it was found that his anti-fat ingredients were dangerous and highly toxic.

Unfortunately, there are still countless supplement companies who are following in Kellogg’s footsteps. Except for, their reach, tactics, and destruction are far greater than those used by former King of Anti-Fat. Today the industry is like the Wild West, with more bank robbers than sheriffs. To survive the heist, spend less money on delusional and dangerous products, and more time looking into specific ingredients from legitimate research resources.

Money vs. Morals?

Hidden amongst wooden weights, classic physiques and zubaz pants, inside the former days of fitness there are curious cures and expensive devices that are no different than those sold by today’s social media charlatans and swole-bodied swindlers. Fitness quackery isn’t anything new. It’s a bunch of old recycled remedies and repackaged gimmicks that have been paired with the right buzz word, praised by a pro or ‘expert’ and used to prey upon a very body-conscious and gullible #fitfam.

Will morals ever come before money?

Doubtful.

Just like those fantastical “before and after” pictures that bombard us every Tuesday, the industry will never actually transform. It will simply keep presenting an illusion of healthy bodies and a fit living façade, as it keeps yo-yoing along a continuum of deception and delusion. The never ending story of fitness quackery continues as it "is another story and shall be told another time."

What do you think. Can the #fitmyth ever be stopped? Or are we going to simply keep turning pages in the never ending story of fitness quackery.

SARMs: Golden Goose or Sitting Duck?

SELECTIVE ANDROGEN RECEPTOR MODULATORS: 

A GOLDEN GOOSE OF GAINS, OR JUST ANOTHER SITTING DUCK FOR YOUR LIVER?

 

Have you ever heard the story of the golden goose?

It’s an old incredibly old fable, literally about a goose that one day lays a golden egg. Rather than waiting to see if the goose would lay more gold, it was killed by its impatient owner who wanted all of the riches immediately.

On the surface this may not seem like anything more than a foolish children’s tale, the tale of the golden goose serves as vivid reminder that ‘greed loses all by striving all to gain.’  You’d probably never guess, but there’s a similar story behind the mythical substance, known as SARMs.

Originally developed as a 'big-pharma' ticket item since the late 1990’s, in recent years, selective androgen receptor modulator or SARMs have gained a cult-like following as the new magical-anabolic substance within the fitness industry. However, outlandish claims together with the exploitation of pharmaceutical patents, abuse of legal-loopholes, and booming black-market business, have the potential to destroy SARMs before they can even turn a legitimate profit or be used to treat some of the most vulnerable clinical populations.

What exactly are SARMs? Believe it or not, that’s not actually the simplest question to answer. For the purposes of this article we’ll be looking at a novel class of nonsteroidal selective androgen receptor modulators that fall under the popular umbrella-name of SARMs.
 

Before we go any further, let me clarify something about SARMs – they are drugs. They have medical, ethical and legal implications associated with them. Yet, many recreational users probably don’t have a clue what they are or how they work. To be honest, with so much misinformation about them out there, I can’t entirely blame them for that either.

Unlike many other popular-fitness articles about these drugs, you won’t get any advice on how to take SARMs here. Not only would that be totally unethical and illegal, but in my opinion, the trend of the blind leading the blind has only fueled the unsubstantiated worship of these compounds by bro-pharmacists and guru-prep coaches.

Don’t let the fact that until a couple years ago you could readily and legally purchase SARMs from various pseudo-supplement retailers, and often voluntarily be sold false claims about the effectiveness, safety or purity of these drugs.

As it stands today, there’s a lot still to be uncovered about the newest kid on the anabolic block. Indeed, SARMs are steroidal millennials. They haven’t even been a ‘thing’ for 20 years, yet have a reputation that far precedes the research, data and efficacy of these drugs.

With so much bad, incorrect and misleading information on SARMs, we’ve literally got to start at the very beginning. Let’s talk about androgens.

LAYING ANABOLIC GOLD

I’ll try to keep this as simple as possible, but in order to better understand how these drugs work it’s important to know a little about the biochemical properties and physiological processes of androgens and SARMs.

Even though they are dubbed ‘male’ hormones, each of us produce varying degrees of androgens naturally throughout the life course. They are complex molecules that act as ‘chemical messengers’ for numerous processes essential to bodily function. Made at different locations throughout the body including the ovaries or testies, adrenal glands and fat cells, androgens all share a 4-ringed cholesterol structure.

Regardless of the job at hand, many androgens act on - or send messages inside specific target cells known as “androgen receptors” or “AR”. As a member of the steroid receptor superfamily, the androgen receptor is an incredibly important target for numerous pharmaceutical interventions, including in, for example, cases androgen deficiency, osteoporosis, and muscle wasting. There are many drugs that interact with androgen receptors, and promote androgenic or anti-androgenic effects. These compounds are known as “androgen receptor ligands” and typically are thought of as either causing: (a) androgenic results (“agonists”); or (b) anti-androgenic results (“antagonists”).

Another way, and possibly simpler way to understand this process is by thinking of lock and key: only certain keys can unlock certain doors.

Here’s an example of what I mean. You have a house that has a front door, back door, side door, and a door that provides entrance to a basement suite. It’s likely that you would have a master key – a skeleton key of sorts that can open all four doors. This “key” represents substances like testosterone and other anabolic-androgenic steroids. These drugs “unlock” androgenic receptors, which results in various androgenic effects.

But, what happens if you want to provide limited entrance to your house only through the basement door?

Thanks to SARMs, you can now do that too.

The ability to only “unlock” some or selective androgen receptors is the main reason behind the development of SARMs. By doing so, researchers thought that it would be able to minimize undesirable side-effects normally associated with anabolic-androgenic steroids. At the same time, it was believed that by opening some ‘doors’ and not others would allow users to exploit desirable effects - aka. the gains. And, all it would take would be to swallow a pill or two, once a day. I’ll let you decide for yourself if maybe that sound a little to good to be true.

While it took a few decades, a lot of money and numerous failed experiments, by the late 1990’s pharmaceutical companies believed they finally had created the perfect oral-anabolic drug for use in clinical populations. To do so, they developed a nonsteroidal substance that could do the job of a steroid by acting on specific androgen receptor sites. It also had simply dosing, little side effects and all the anabolic benefits desired. Hopefully it goes without saying that this was no easy feat – and arguably came with some issues for both researchers and trial users.

How exactly do you create a substance that can act on androgen receptors and provide all the tuff’ with none of the fluff?

Completely change the way it looks.

Let’s go back to our house analogy. Is there a way to unlock a door without having the key? Sure, grab yourself a hair pin and pick the lock. Now, if you’ve ever tried picking a lock with a hair pin, you’ll know this is a skill that requires mastery. While it’s not impossible to do, you must have the right combinations to be successful.

Does a hair pin and a key look anything alike? Heck no.

Guess what?

Neither do steroids and SARMs.

As I mentioned above, as a steroid, androgens share a 4-ring cholesterol structure. Guess what? SARMs don’t. Just by nature of them being a nonsteroidal compound they can’t and don’t have this same signature structure. Instead, there are 8 different chemical structures or “scaffolds”, that make-up the SARMs family – and each family has a host of different SARMs nested within it. As a result, the total number of specific SARMs structures are endless.

Unlike steroids, SARMs shouldn't metabolize into DHT (dihydrotestosterone by 5-[alpha]-reductase) or aromatise to estrogen – which means there shouldn’t be the same side effects such a male patterned hair loss, or gynecomastia.

In theory, SARMs may sound like a pretty golden product to try… all gains and only glory. Think again. This goose needs a lot more time, before it can safely take flight.

THE DUCK TEST

Have you ever heard of the duck test? You know the one I mean … "if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck."

What happens if it doesn’t look like a duck?

What happens if we change one of the crucial identifying components? If it doesn’t look like a duck, but it swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, is it probably a duck? I’ll let you be the judge of that one.

The reason I bring this up, is that this premise underlines the popular opinion of SARMs safety.

If it looks like a steroid because of a specific 4-ring structure, works on an androgen receptor, and can promote muscle growth and strength, then it must be an anabolic steroid… and those come with some hefty side-effects. So, what happens if it doesn’t look like a steroid? There aren’t any side-effects, duh.

Just like that, we have the foundation for one of the biggest myths surrounding SARMs. That they are somehow ‘safe’ to use - a ‘healthy’ steroid alternative that doesn’t have any side-effects. Sure, SARMs many not ‘look’ structurally like steroids, but they still share a lot in common with anabolic steroids, including similar associated health risks.

Before I go any further I also want to make something else clear – contrary to what many in the industry are saying about SARMs, they are not “100% anabolic.” While a major selling point of these compounds is that they are drugs that can provide only the anabolic effects of anabolic-androgenic steroids, and that’s just not the case - at least not yet. Plus, many of the popular SARMs used within the industry still have androgenic components – thus, opening the door for androgenic side effects. And these go beyond potential visual changes, and suppression of testosterone and sperm development through suspending the hypothalamus-pituitary-gonadal axis.

SARMs have many of the same side-effects of oral anabolic steroids, including influencing a rapid breakdown to levels of HDL or high-density-lipoprotein cholesterol (the good stuff) and inflammation-induced rise in liver enzymes. While it’s possible these could be rectified by using an injectable form of SARMs, the reality is, that probably won’t be manufactured anytime soon. Keep in mind, these drugs were almost exclusively designed for oral use in therapeutic populations.

Many of negative sides of SARMs are exaggerated by supraphysiological dosages … you know, the “higher than suggested” standard doses used by athletes and bros alike.

Clinical studies on SARMs have only been done in vitro, isolated cells or in either animal studies (aka on rats) - or like many steroids, on the sick or old within clinical population settings. They have not been tested on healthy, young active males and females, and the doses within the research on SARMs are significantly lower than those required for performance enhancing effects. Even those lower doses have been seen to result in negative side-effects!

I think this is a good time to remind you that we’re dealing with the millennial anabolic. If after over 75 years we don’t know the full extent of AAS side effects, how do we know the health consequences of SARMs? We don’t.

We do not know the health consequences of SARMs.

Not only that, but by the time that we learn about a new SARM, it’s often already been re-configured by researchers. Currently pharmaceutical companies are testing “second-generation” non-steroidal SARMs (maybe even third by the time you read time) – leaving an entire flock of first-generation SARMs behind.

Why didn’t those ones go to clinical trial? Simple, they didn’t work like they were supposed too. Many first-gen SARMs had far too many risky side effects to ever get ‘stamp of approval’ required for their use.

No stamp = no approved used = no profit for drug companies.

And so, first gen-SARMs got scrapped by the pharmaceutical world. But you know what they say. One man’s trash, is another man’s treasure.

KILLING THE GOOSE

First-gen SARMs were found by researchers to dangerous and not actually effective, but that didn’t stop our industry’s serial snake-oil supplement gurus from manufacturing, propagating and making millions off sales. Unfortunately, this is one of many shortcomings associated with mainstream SARMs use.

The propaganda surrounding SARMs are plentiful. Much of it is nothing more than a myth – it holds small fragment of reality, and a whole lot of bs.  

For example, SARMs do build muscle. I can’t deny that. In some of the early studies on first-gen SARMs, there were ‘modest gains’ in lean mass – 1.0 to 1.5kg over the course of 4 to 6 weeks. Here’s the kicker – studies on injectable testosterone resulted in 5 to 7kg of lean mass gains over the same period. Plus, the modest SARMs gains came with nasty side effects!

If you’re familiar with SARMs you’ve probably noticed that many of them have code names, usually being made from a combination of letters followed by numbers. The reason for this is rather simple. SARMs are patented products that have not been approved for use, and are either still in – or never made it out of trial phases. They are experimental drugs that have not been offered for commercial sale by legitimate companies. Nevertheless, this hasn’t stopped the World Anti-doping Agency (WADA) or recent law changes from tightening the iron anti-doping grip on the sale and use of SARMs.

In early 2008, SARMs were added to WADA’s prohibited list, becoming one of the many substances banned for use in athletic competition. Mainstream use continued to fly under the radar. But in May 2016 that would come to an end when the FDA reportedly explored complaints of specific SARMs being marketed and sold by supplement companies.

Basically, a pharmaceutical company caught wind that one of the drugs they had been studying in clinical drug trials for nearly a decade was being reproduced by sport supplements companies and marketed to the masses. Under the guise of calling this drug a “dietary supplement”, these companies almost got away with it too! Obviously, there’s more than one legal issue here. One of these include that under US federal law, dietary supplements can’t include a substance being investigated as a new drug. Which as you’ve just read, many SARMs most definitely are!

There’s also been recent (and growing numbers of) reports discussing SARMs being found in various products that they shouldn’t have been included in… buyers beware: tainted supplements do exist!

As I mentioned earlier, SARMs are patented – that means any company manufacturing them without the consent of the founding pharmaceutical, is doing so illegally. While it’s recorded that at least one pharmaceutical company has begun sending cease-and-desist letters to stop the illegal manufacturing of a specific SARM, there remains numerous other SARMs still readily available for purchase.

How did supplement companies get away with selling SARMs illegally for so long?

Through the lovely legal loophole known as “research chemicals.” Discussing it is out of the scope of this article, but I’ll say this – at this time, SARMs are not available for resale under any circumstances in both United States and Canada. Yes, Canada too… contrary to popular belief SARMs are not licensed or permitted for medical or therapeutic use in here either. If you doubt this, just take a look at the numerous cases against athletes who have been caught using SARMs through the Sport Dispute Resolution Center of Canada.

There are also major questions being raised about the purity of SARMs currently being sold. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Those backyard black market labs who make dirty gear, are now also in the SARMs game too. Underground SARMs tested by academic researchers found that instead of containing a pharmaceutical-grade drug as claimed, the products were more like a D.I.Y. disaster – containing at least 15% impurities.

So, what does all this mean? Although SARMs can’t be legally defined as ‘anabolic steroids’ (since they don’t have structurally resemble testosterone), that doesn’t mean they are free game.

Thought to be the “future of androgen therapy,” SARMs were truly believed to be an alternative to steroids – a Utopian drug that would revolutionize the pharmacological world. It’s been nearly 20 years since their inception, and there has yet to be an approved drug in this category yet. Few have been close, and while there are a few hopefuls currently in trial stages, at this point in time the golden egg hasn’t had time to hatch. Ultimately, the golden goose of gains hasn’t even been laid yet.

Thankfully, this hasn’t killed the SARM dream yet. Researchers are continuing to reconfigure molecular structures at an astronomical pace, and the newest generation of drugs may be available for clinical use within the next few years. Presently, both the side-effects and suspicious claims are alive and causing a lot of potential harm for the future of these drugs.

For now, it looks like SARMs may be nothing more than a sitting duck.

© Victoria Felkar. All rights reserved. For informational purposes only, not to be construed as legal or medical advice.

SWIS 2016 Clip: The Prep Myth

A clip from my talk at SWIS 2016 on Muscle Hypertrophy & Fat Loss Nutritional Strategies for Female Competitors. 

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How Muscle Became Bad.

Maybe being muscular isn’t all it’s built up to be.

You’ve been mugged.

Late one night under the cover of darkness you found yourself blindly cowering at hands of an attacker. You didn’t see the guy who attacked you but the police still call you in to view a line-up of possible suspects. From right to left your eyes scan over 4 men. Too old … too skinny … too short ... eureka! Standing in front of you is a complete monster with arms so big that they could burst through his shirt at any second. Even without ever laying eyes on your mugger, you don’t have a single doubt in your mind that this jacked-up animal is him. That’s the criminal who attacked you.

Although the above is simply a fictional story it represents a powerful and inescapable stereotype that for decades has haunted those with muscles.

Got muscle? Welcome to a lifetime of typecasting as a violent, mentally-ill, unintelligent, steroid using criminal – and if you’re a female then you can add the fact that somehow you’ve suddenly grown balls and have dreams of becoming a man.

But how can this be? We’ve all got muscle to some extend or another. So, why is a muscular body ridiculed, criminalized and condemned? Since when did muscle become bad?

To answer this we must to turn back the clock to the late-1800s. Here in the shadows of a time known for many great discoveries, is the start of a long and disturbing history that continues to promote what a criminal body looks like.   

Emerging as a product of Darwinism, the field of criminology started as a way to help society identify and get rid of anyone that they perceived to be ‘bad’. For example, in Italy a physician and psychiatrist named Cesare Lombroso began to make claims that all criminals had similar physical features. How could a crooked nose and anchor tattoo on the arm of a sailor automatically condemn a man as criminal?

Such ideas quickly found their way across the Atlantic and with America’s growing prison system more theories of what it meant to look like a criminal erupted. Here’s when muscle first got added into the mix.  

By the turn of the 19th century the notion of muscular Christianity gained popularity throughout the United States - which linked muscle building to improving morality. This movement inspired prison officials at New York’s Elmira Reformatory to use physical activity and sport as a way to fight the physical decay that had become associated with criminality. That’s right, being muscular was thought to make a man less criminal.

The support for men to build muscular bodies continued into the turn of the 20th century. A growing sport movement was taking Western nations by storm and event such as the first modern Olympics of 1896 helped to show the world what being physical fit could do for a man’s body and mind. Clear boundaries of how much muscle was socially tolerable was set by the same field that has brought to us the science of body composition testing – the field of anthropometry.

For the average man some muscle and strength was desired … but if you went too far … got too big and too strong then you were literally forced to run off and join the circus. As traveling performers, strongmen and women helped to build popular opinion of the muscular body – often one of curiosity and mystery. Muscle had now been made into another sideshow act of the Freak show.                                   

The arrival of Prussian strongman and founder of bodybuilding, Eugen Sandow to the United States further developed public interest in a heavily muscled physique. Sandow’s vaudeville acts were closely followed by the launch of Bernarr MacFadden Physical Culture magazine in 1899. Headed by the motto “Weakness is a crime; don't be a criminal!” the magazine revealed to the average man all the fitness and diet strategies needed to develop a mainstream muscular physique.

And so another element is added into the muscular myth. Too much muscle will turn you into a one-man circus freak show … but too little muscle makes you a criminal.

Even after the horrific Nazi eugenics movement defined the muscular male body as god-like there was little judgement against muscle within popular culture – that was until in the 1950’s the father of somatotyping, William Sheldon, suddenly defined muscle as bad.

Funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, his work was a melting pot of pseudo-science, power struggles and dirty money. To say it nicely, Sheldon was a bit of a crock – and unfortunately a very resilient one.

Here’s what Sheldon preached. All male bodies can fit into 3 basic body types – endomorph, mesomorph and ectomorph - an idea that many of us in the fitness industry know well.

BUT here’s something most don’t know about somatotyping theory. Sheldon specifically promoted that men with muscular mesomorphic bodies are more prone to criminal activity, violence and aggressive acts.  

Exploring the merits of body typing theory is beyond the scope of this article. It’s one that we can have another day, but regardless of if you agree with the disillusion of somatotyping or not there is one very important take away message here.

Sheldon’s work and those who followed in his theoretical footprints have created an incredibly stigmatizing message about the muscular body:

Muscularity = Deviance.

Muscularity = Aggression.

Deviance + Aggression = Criminality.

It would be easy for me to end the story there but unfortunately there is a lot more to this dangerous equation. And so we continue in the 1970s. Thanks to Arnold Schwarzenegger something really interesting happen that would for better or worse rebuilt muscles reputation.

In bodybuilding circles Arnold and Pumping Iron have been regarded for bringing bodybuilding into the mainstream but they did much more than just that – they helped to change what it meant to look like a man… muscles! Suddenly muscle became the standard for American manhood. That’s right muscularity = masculinity.

Size now mattered when it came to muscle, and it was nowhere more apparent than in the media. By the early 1980s the hard-bodied action star dominated the silver screen and made a place for heavily-muscled bodies within popular culture. Pair this with an enormous in spike in films suddenly showing jacked-up inmates pumping iron in the pen and we can start to see a highly visible - yet completely false - representation of exactly what Sheldon’s research stated… the big bad bodies of muscular criminals.  

Back behind the gates of academia, researchers continued to pump-out studies focusing on how muscularity was responsible for criminal behaviour. As if being muscular wasn’t bad enough, during the early 90s researchers had started to explore the relationship of testosterone to criminal behaviour. One study went as far to state a “well-established relationship” between testosterone’s effects on the brain and body build – but get this. The researchers state that testosterone only enhances upper body muscle. Unfortunately, this particular study became the media’s go-to source to try to explain everyday acts of criminal behaviour.

Fast forward to today. Where does having a muscular physique get you in 2015? For both men and women this remains a conversation full of complex contradictions.

While there continues to be an open disrespect for bodybuilding and the culture of muscle it represents, there is also a sense of admiration and respect for those who have average or “good” levels of muscularity.

Rigid social norms require men to have some muscle in order to be considered masculine, and it is necessary for female and male athletes to have heightened levels of musculature in order to achieve sporting excellence.

Furthermore, when female muscle serves a functional purpose such as when a Xfit athlete flings her body over a chin up bar in a convulsing motion society seems to be a-ok with her shredded six-pack but when this same body is posed on stage in front double bicep wearing a sparkly bikini her body suddenly becomes grotesque and “manly.”

Don’t forget about the absolutely absurd pathologization of muscle as a mental illness, such as Dr. Harrison Pope’s psychological diagnosis of “muscle dysmorphia” or bigeroxia. Pope and his colleagues have such strong ideas on what is are ‘appropriate’ levels of muscle and the wrongful desire to work out that they have created a mathematical formula (the Fat Free Mass Index) to determine the level of musculature a person can achieve without anabolic steroid use. How’s that for science!

And if it wasn’t complex enough, the condemnation of muscle has morphed into an all-out war against performance enhancing agents and the ridiculous automatic vilification of anabolic steroids and those who use them. Regardless of their rich and vast cultural history, the discussion of anabolic steroids revolves around a combination of legal, ethical and medical arguments that steroid use is unfair, unethical, medically dangerous but above all criminal.

Furthermore, most popular discourse around anabolic steroid use pertains to only one user, and one user alone – the muscular male. This is nowhere more clearly exemplified than in Sweden’s recent law changes which now allow police officers to search, arrest, and conduct mandatory drug testing based “anabolic steroids physical characteristics” such as “puffy and bloated body” and “swaying walk.”

How do the police get away with blatant acts of stereotyping in the 21st century? It’s a little something the legal system calls “probable cause” based on a person’s physical appearance. Like skin color or ethnic background, muscularity should not provide the grounds for violating someone’s basic human rights and personal privacy.

Let’s get something straight here.

Muscle itself is neutral in biology.

It is neither male or female – nor is it wicked, immoral or evil. Having varying degrees of muscularity does not produce more or less intelligence, aggression, mental illness or criminal behaviour.

In its most pure form, muscle is simply a grouping of muscle fiber cells surrounded by some connective tissue - yet, overtime society has and continues to constructed particular meanings and definitions of what it means to be muscular ... we have made muscle bad.

Simply put, being muscular isn’t all that it is built-up to be.

Originally Published: Feature, Muscle Insider Magazine, 24: Aug/Sept 2015

Clearing Up Clenbuterol

A Dopers Delight or Misused Stimulant?

Following the Olympics in 1992, a new breed of stimulant gained global recognition. Hailed as the “dopers delight”, this anti-asthma medication was special. Not only could it be used as a stimulant but many believed it could also enhance muscle growth. Only 4 years earlier, steroid guru Dan Duchaine introduced the bodybuilding world to this same drug - which to this day remains one of our sports most misunderstood and misused compounds: Clenbuterol Hydrochloride.

Targeting specific receptor sites in the body’s sympathetic nervous system (SNS), Clen is a selective beta-2 sympathomimetic… wait, a what?

A car backfires and subconsciously you jump off your couch - this is an automatic physiological response initiated by our SNS in response to a perceived threat. Known as fight-or-flight, this response is the result of the release of a hormone called norepinephrine (NE). To work, NE has to bind and activate a specific receptor in your body called a beta-2 receptor. Think of this like a lock and key. Only one key (NE) can both fit (bind) and unlock (activate) one lock (beta-2 receptor).

This is where Clen comes in. Clen acts as a “fake” key that can unlock only some beta-2 receptors (why it’s called “selective”).  

Although its labeled use is an anti-asthma medication, Clen is able to unlock fat and muscle tissue cells throughout the body. Like other beta-2 agonists, clen is a “thermogenic” = Clen-sweats. This is caused by an increase in body temperature and metabolic rate, as well as its ability to directly target fat cell breakdown of triglycerides to free fatty acids is what makes Clen such as popular “fat loss” drug.

Its anabolic capabilities however are still up for debate. Although since the early 90s bros have been using clen as a part of post-cycle therapy or as an alternative to steroids to get “lean-gains”, there remains no human research (animal studies only) that provide evidence to support an increase in lean muscle mass as a result of clen. Regardless, Clen has become a stable drug for many athletes both inside and out of bodybuilding. While Clen-shreds may sound enticing, they certainly don’t come without controversy and concern. It doesn’t matter how Clen gets into your body – inhaled, pill or liquid form, or injected, remember this: Clen is dangerous.

Keep in mind that clen is different than other beta-2 agonists or stimulants based off: specificity, potency, and duration of effect. This makes for steady, strong blood levels of Clen, which often are easy to achieve with just a single or twice-daily dose (thanks to its 35-hour half-life). After a few weeks (usually 4-6 weeks) the body’s beta-2 receptors slowly stop responding due to a process called “down regulation” … simply put, they stop responding and require rest (aka. stop the drug).

However, like other performance enhancers, Clen is great at turning users into complete idiots by tempting them with magical everlasting results. What follows is the “more is better, longer is better” complex.       

From developing a psychological dependency based off ill-informed perceptions that Clen can be used long term, to the fact that users gauge the effectiveness of the drug based off the presence initial side effects such as shaky hands, insomnia, sweating and nausea – it appears that we have a growing Clenhead epidemic on our hands.  

Yes, initial side effects should dissipate after a few days and this does NOT mean that the drug has stopped working, so please stop boosting the dose to supersonic levels and somehow believe that stacking it with other stimulants will results in “better results” and not a cardiac arrest. Wake up and education yourself on drug dependency and the long term effects of Clen that happen even after beta-2 receptors stop “responding.”

Not only that, due to its strength, long half-life, and perceived effectiveness, there is such thing as Clen toxicity – which is why in Canada it’s not available for human use even with a prescription, and within veterinary practice has dramatically declined over the past few years.

Clen has never been made available for human or animal use in the US, and within sport clen it is completely banned regardless of the fact that some countries around the world (Bulgaria, Russia and China) continuing to prescribe it as a therapeutic drug. (… cough cough, the IOC wonders why there has been an increase of athletes with “asthma”).

Since the mid-90’s, it’s even illegal to use Clen to bulk-up livestock. Not only were the animals questionable, but those who ate Clen’d meat suffered symptoms of Clen overdose, such as fever, vomiting and diarrhea. Just an FYI to athletes who travel - be mindful that not all countries have banned its use in livestock. Anti-doping agencies have reported a number of cases where athletes tested positive for Clen after eating contaminated meat … or at least that’s what the athlete told officials after being caught Clen-handed.

Regardless of the fact that Clen is pretty much illegal for ALL consumption, it continues to be widely available on the black market and used for performance enhancement. From the consumption of cocaine in 18th century, amphetamine use during cold-war and now to today’s Clenheads – even though athletes have been using stimulants for centuries it doesn’t make it safe or smart. 

Originally Published: Insider Controversy, Muscle Insider Magazine, 29: June/July 2016

The most popular drug...

FACT: Caffeine is one of the most widely consumed drugs in the world.

When you think a warm delicious cup of caffeinated coffee, an addictive drug comparable to an amphetamine, cocaine, or heroin isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. However, caffeine uses the same biochemical mechanisms as these drugs in order to stimulate your brain and nervous system and fight fatigue. Unlike these other drugs, caffeine remains cheap and easy to find. I bet many of you don’t need to look any further than the bottom of your gym bag to find various free sample packs of caffeinated pre-workout mixes and fat burners.

Although many countries around the world have their own story and source of caffeine, this psychoactive substance has been a part of global history for thousands of years. Anthropologists have traced caffeine back all the way to the Stone Age. These prehistoric people found that if they chewed on the seeds, bark or leaves of certain plants their mood would elevate, energy and focus would increase, and hunger would vanish. How’s that for some broscience!  

From being used as a natural pesticide to paralyze and kill many insect species, to being linked to religious ceremonies in order to let worshipers stay up and pray the night away, caffeine is one substance that has truly stood the test of time. In fact, caffeine is so good giving the human body a ‘boost’ that most of the world’s population continues to consume this psychoactive stimulant daily. For many consumers, caffeine is caffeine, but in reality there are two different types: 1. Synthetic caffeine which man-made and found in many sport supplements, foods, drinks, and medications; 2. Natural caffeine that is harvested from over 60 different plants such as coffee, yerba mate, and guarana.

FACT: Caffeine is the drug of choice for most athletes.

While it doesn’t seem as criminal as the usual PED suspects of growth hormone, testosterone and blood doping do, caffeine has become one of the most popular performance enhancing drugs of the 21st century. In response to an increase in caffeine use by athletes, many sport governing bodies have started to pay more attention to caffeine. Although in 2004 the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) downgraded caffeine from their prohibited to monitoring list, it still remains classified as a banned substance in many sport organizations around the world.

But can caffeine really enhance athletic performance?

After much debate, sport scientists have finally proven what most of us already know – yes caffeine does enhance performance. It does so by stimulating the central nervous system (brain, spindle cord) – in order to create many of the same effects that amphetamines do, such as increasing heart and respiration rates, decreasing perception of fatigue, and improving athletes sense of performance. In a study by Costill, Ivy and colleagues, caffeine was found to lower an athlete’s perception of effort at any given rate of work. Essentially, caffeine consumption made the athletes in this study perform at higher intensities without realizing that they were putting in more effort to do so.

Now that we’ve established that caffeine is an effective performance enhancing drug, let’s chat about when it’s best to get your buzz on. Although ongoing research is still trying to pinpoint the exact time to ingest caffeine for general athletic performance, studies have concluded that 1 hour prior to cardiovascular endurance training and up to 20 minutes before performing high-intensity exercise will provide the most optimal results. 

How much should you consume? The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics recommends that enhanced athletic performance only requires 2 to 3 mg of caffeine per kilogram of body weight a day. That means that a 200lb athlete would only need to take around 180g to 275mg caffeine each day in order to improve performance. Let’s think about that for a second … hmm … some pre-workout supplements currently on the market contain well over 400g of caffeine per scoop! And no, more is not better!

Research suggests that higher doses of caffeine do not produce any additional benefits. At higher levels, caffeine has the potential to impair fine motor skills and athletic technique, in addition to causing nervousness, restlessness, insomnia and headaches. If you happen to exceed the recommended daily dose, make sure you are close to a bathroom as gastrointestinal distress will follow fast! Caffeine can also increase the risk of dehydration when combined with exercise because of its diuretic properties. And if you drink caffeine to stay awake, be careful as sometimes the reverse effect can occur. Take it from me, caffeine is also very addictive. After discontinuing use headaches, fatigue, and irritability can leave you craving just ‘one more hit’ of caffeine.

Due to its popular use and easy availability, caffeine’s more harmful properties’ are often underestimated or forgotten all together. Although lethal caffeine overdoses are rare, they do happen. Recently the bodybuilding scene has been home to a few cases of caffeine toxicity. Symptoms of caffeine toxicity include tremors, chest pain, vomiting, seizures or convulsions, heart attack, coma, and even death.

Wake up and smell the coffee, caffeine is a powerful performance enhancing drug. It’s time to start treating it as such.

Originally Published: Drug Zone, Muscle Insider Magazine, 26: Dec/Jan 2016

Too Big to be Natural?

Debunking the Gospels of Dr. Harrison Pope

Are you male? Do you lift weights or participate in bodybuilding? Do you want to change your physique … maybe add some muscle or decrease your body fat? Do you lift weights for more than a few hours a week? Do you pay attention to your diet? If you said yes to any of the above questions then you could have a psychological illness – one that the field of psychology believes is a growing ‘secret crisis’ and epidemic among men who workout. 

A variant of Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD), Muscle Dysmorphia (MD) - also known as bigorexia, megarexia or reverse anorexia nervosa - is formally defined as a pathological preoccupation or obsession with muscularity and leanness. In other words, it is that constant drive to get jacked. The official list of criteria includes a range of characteristics such as feelings of guilt or shame when having to miss a workout, constantly checking one’s reflection to see if they have added size, training “past the pain” or while injured, an “excessively controlled” dietary regime, and anabolic steroid use.

Hold on… from the sounds of it, it seems nearly every bodybuilder that I have ever crossed paths with is considered by psychology to be a little unhinged. My goal is not to debate whether or not muscle dysmorphia is a legitimate mental illness or not. As a teen and former competitive ballet dancer I personally struggled and overcame severe anorexia nervosa – a disease that to this day still has lingering physiological health effects. Needless to say, I am the last person who will argue the legitimacy of what defines a mental illness. But I digress. Let us get back to the topic at hand.

Yes, the concept of muscle dysmorphia has some validity BUT there are some big problems with the methodology and theories of the mastermind behind the bigorexia phenomenon. Ladies and gentlemen, I let me introduce you to Dr. Harrison “Skip” Pope. 

Published in 2000, Pope and colleagues introduced the world to muscle dysmorphia (MD) in their book, The Adonis Complex: The Secret Crisis of Male Body Obsessions. Like with any new sexy scientific finding, the media quickly swallowed up Pope’s new diagnosis of MD without much criticism. In fact, during the firestorm of the Major League Baseball drug scandals in the early years of the new millennium Pope became the media’s go-to ‘steroid expert’ tasked with explaining why anyone would ever go to such dangerous lengths to improve their sporting performance.

For Pope, the motives behind anabolic steroid use are not about a desire to achieve athletic excellence but rather are solely fueled by a culturally induced desire to improve personal appearance. In other words, Pope claims that (and I’m not exaggerating here) men take steroids to get bigger. Performance enhancing drug use is less about becoming a better athlete and more about achieving the ultimate muscular appearance.

Pope links this relentless desire for size through AAS use back to the Adonis Complex that he declares “afflicts millions in our society” and has been brought on by “modern society’s and the media’s powerful and unrealistic messages emphasizing an ever more muscular, ever more fit, and often unattainable male body ideal.” Said best by former powerlifting world record holder and Sport Historian at the University of Texas, Dr. Jan Todd, if that is truly the case then “perhaps we should rename gyms – if there are truly millions of such folks – Body Dysmorphic Centers.”

I agree that there has been a sort of steroid driven metamorphosis since the 1940s in how the male body is depicted within popular culture. Whether it is in action figures and comic books, professional wrestling and bodybuilding, in magazines and movies or even just in advertisements, there has been a remarkable transformation of the muscular male body over the past 75 years. But can we really boil a supposed male need for anabolic steroids and automatic diagnosis of a MD down to this? Could the development of new techniques of athletics and strength training have anything to do with this unquestionable growth in muscularity and strength? What about the countless new findings within the fields of kinesiology, sport science, nutrition and medicine? Are women immune to developing muscle dysmorphia? What about athletes? Where do you draw the line between obsessive behaviour and doing simply what is needed in order to excel in elite sport?

Due to an overwhelming lack of scientific detail, the complete absence of a bibliography, questionable research methods and overall weak scholarship, there remain countless questions that could be further discussed regarding Pope’s Adonis Complex – however the most problematic of his claims we haven’t even got to yet.

Measuring Steroid Use.

Possibly the boldest and most absurd of Pope’s claims is not only the discovery of a “natural limit” of muscular development without steroids but also that a simple formula could be used to detect anabolic-steroid use. The formula, called the Fat Free Mass Index (FFMI), can “predict” steroid use by combining a series of mathematical calculations to determine a person’s lean muscle mass determined from height, weight and body fat percentage. Pope believes that the higher your FFMI is, the more likely it is that you are using anabolic drugs.

Wait a second. Could the FFMI really be a new cheap and non-invasive alternative to drug testing? Think about it. Natural bodybuilding federations can just weigh and measure competitors, throw some numbers into a free online body composition calculator and within minutes know exactly who is juiced up. To some this may sound like a promising development, however the reality is the FFMI is not only dangerous but pretty darn idiotic.

First, let us look at exactly how Pope and his colleagues have come to find this “sharp upper limit to how muscular you can get by natural means.”

The FFMI uses a subject’s height, weight and body-fat percent to gauge overall muscularity. This score is then compared to a scale in order to determine anabolic steroid use. Sound simple enough?

To create this scale the researcher took data from 84 AAS users and 74 non-users. In this same study, FFMI estimates were derived from photographs of Mr. America winners (1939-1959) from the “pre-steroid era” and compared to estimates obtained from pictures of modern bodybuilders featured in bodybuilding magazines from 1989 to 1994. It was found that the average Mr. America had the FFMI average of 25.4 but the modern bodybuilders had much higher FFMI results. 

What does this all mean?

From these two data sets the researchers created a score to represent the highest level of muscularity that one could potentially achieve naturally. With an estimated FFMI score of 25.7, former Mr. America Steve Reeves was cited to exemplify this new natural limit of muscularity.

Pope was so confident about this natural limit that he stated “any male scoring 26 or higher who is not visibly fat, and claims that he has achieved this physical condition without the use of drugs … is almost certainly lying.”

While there are many different issues with the FFMI, for the sake of brevity, let us focus on three:

1. The issue of using young male amateur bodybuilders to further demonstrate this ‘upper limit of muscularity’ that can be achieved naturally.

Is it not just a little problematic to be classifying young males who have yet to finish puberty and only have a few years of lifting experience as recreational bodybuilders? Or what about the fact that to obtain the subject’s FFMI score Pope used skinfold caliper measures – a method that has many sources of error, not only with the technique of ‘pinching’ but also with the formula that is used to predict body density. When it comes to tracking change over time skinfolds testing can do a pretty good job – but when it comes to predicting body composition there can be as much as a 5% or more range in results even when computed by the same person. Sounds like a great method to me… NOT!

2. Using photographs to predict FFMI in bodybuilders.

There are some major discrepancies in the methodology used by Pope and colleagues to obtain the FFMI results. Furthermore, although Pope cites Steve Reeves with a FFMI of 25.6 as the upper limit, he fails to recognize that two-time Mr. America John Grimek (1940, 1941) has an estimated FFMI of 31.99. Why wasn’t Grimek used then to demonstrate the highest level of muscularity that could be achieved naturally? Your guess is as good as mine.

3. Pope’s lack of understanding of the history of physical culture and development of sport training over the past century is appalling.

Pope selected his sample of Mr. America winners from the 1939-1959 timeframe simply because he believed that they competed in a time before steroids were used by athletes and bodybuilders. Hmm… really?  

Before WWII bodybuilders didn’t specifically train for physique competitions. In 1939, the sport of bodybuilding was still in its early years. During this time, competitors were most often weight lifters who would strip down after a meet to have their physiques judged. This was a time before specific machines were used to isolate set muscle groups – before specific bodybuilding resistance training techniques were invented, or knowledge of how diet and proper supplementation could help ‘build’ a body. Needless to say, the use of bodybuilders from this era as exemplary of the ‘natural’ ideal or a steroid-free maximum is utterly misleading and a prime example of poor research. If Pope had had a more thorough understanding of the iron game might he have been able to develop a more accurate measure of muscle mass?

Overall, it saddens me deeply that an unsupported claim such as this can be made and disguised as ‘science’, distributed to the general public and accepted without any critical thought. It is because of this and more that I fear the FFMI has and will continue to fall into the wrong hands. I fear we will see the false naming of individuals as steroid users and the continued profiling of those with hyper-muscular bodies.

Yes, anabolic steroids have been a contributing factor to the development of bigger bodies over the past 100 years but there have also been astronomical advances in medicine, sports science, nutrition and coaching. Such advances have forever changed not only bodybuilding but all of sport more broadly.

For some, all of this may seem irrelevant. Why should we even care about some silly formula used to estimate anabolic steroid use? The answer is simple. Pope’s work has become embedded in contemporary physical culture. Within recent years, Pope’s FFMI has already made media headlines and the Adonis Complex has become a go-to theory in the field of psychology. Pope is hailed as one of the foremost leading experts on steroid use and has even testified before Congress on the issue - all of this without any critique or inquiring into his methods. Rather than question his research or explore the impact of his unproven claims, Pope continues to receive attention and funding, recently receiving a grant of nearly 2.5 million dollars to study the long-term dangers of steroids.

It is no wonder that popular perception of anabolic steroids is not one of fact but rather a fictional story of mentally disturbed mass monsters. As one of the most cited psychiatrists of the 20th century, the impact of Dr. Pope approaches the “biblical proportions” range. In a world where there is a preoccupation for athletes to continue to push the limits of athletic performance, Pope’s will to set ‘natural’ limits to muscular development is more than just problematic, it is an example of literal ‘natural’ selection. Except rather than allowing the big, strong and fast to excel, an overly simplistic math equation and psychological diagnosis may have the power to undermine the evolution of human potential.

Originally Published: Feature, Muscle Insider Magazine, 26: Dec/Jan 2016

The Good, the Bad and the Juiced: A Critical Conversation about Muscle

SWIS OZZIE TALK2016

From booming numbers of new dietary supplements to the rising celebrity status of social media’s fit-bodies, the popularity of today’s fitness industry is unquestionable. While current fitness trends provide for a greater social tolerance of muscle, there remains continued cultural condemnation of bodies that are arbitrarily deemed as ‘overly’ muscular. The boundary between what is defined as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ muscle is further complicated by problematic perceptions of anabolic steroids. In fact, the automatic vilification of the drugs has shaped popular representations and misconceptions of the hyper-muscular body with devastating results. Regardless of the lack of academically sound and clinically applicable information on anabolic steroids, suspected users are often viewed as social sinners, demonized, and in some countries arrested and prosecuted based solely on a muscular physique.

Guided by a critical socio-cultural historical perspective, this project explores how, overtime, the muscular body has become ridiculed, condemned and criminalized. Through the use of several examples, including the rise of criminal anthropology in the late-1800s and the evolution of the ‘evils’ of anabolic steroids use, within this project I challenged popular perceptions of muscle and identify the impact of these powerful and inescapable stereotypes for contemporary fitness culture. 

Want more? Watch the full video here.