Q ] To be a great professional bodybuilder does require immense discipline and sacrifice. In your opinion are the rewards worth the sacrifice?
I have contemplated that question often, especially when I did not succeed on the contest stage to the point I would have liked. Independent of being cheated by the judges from my point of view or just being in poorer shape because I did not do all the necessary work to be up there. Or whether it was the frustration about not having the certain knowledge to get in the ultimate shape.
Here again, I would like to first give a general answer. It is very good, important and essential to get your children into any sports where they can perform and can be kept busy. Too many teens nowadays do not have any goals in life, so keep them at least busy with sports - otherwise a lot of them end up being greatly dysfunctional. They do become drug addicts, alcoholics, gang members and a lot of unhealthy behavioral patterns will be the result.
I my case, I played soccer and started working out in my teens. For sure I continued going to school. And this is a fantastic combination: education and sports. This definitely keeps most teens out of trouble and out of jail. And to keep your kid(s) in sports is even more important if you are a single parent.
I made the transition from working out to becoming a pro bodybuilder. A hobby became a profession. As I said, it was never planned. But because of bodybuilding I have traveled the world, met lots of different people and cultures and made friends and I could make a living out of that what I liked doing. I was stable before bodybuilding but because of the discipline and sacrifice I had to make I became even more stable.
In my case, bodybuilding gives me personal satisfaction because I am known in my field around the world and bodybuilding gave me a physical look a lot of people would kill for. And again, you can't buy it regardless how much money you have it or you can offer. We pro bodybuilders belong to the most muscular humans in human history who ever walked the planet earth. This is not something special for everyone but it definitely is for us. And even if I was less bulky in the future with progressing time, it makes me feel great to be muscular and it affects my personal and psychological well being immensely.
Also in my case I did not have major injuries or imminent health issues solely resulting out of bodybuilding but I do wish that bodybuilding were a much higher paid sport.
I just would have liked it if pro bodybuilders would be paid way higher. It does not make sense to me that someone like pro footballer like Michael Vick could have/had a contract of over $100 million US Dollars in approximately 10 years in his field of work. And I do not even want to talk about the money that average pro baseball players and basketball players are receiving.
Almost any other sport is, in relation to pro bodybuilding, way higher paid.
Regardless of how much the IFBB is announcing every year "how much more prize money this year is being paid" for the Olympia or Arnold Classic - this is nothing compared to the blood, sweat, tears and sacrifice all the pros put in, both male and female bodybuilders.
The sport of bodybuilding does need more money for the athletes who are the seed of the sport. The pro bodybuilders do not need more talk but more action. Action means again more money in all areas for the athletes and just and fair judging. This is the best way to promote the sport. And if there is way more money the pro bodybuilders will also have no problems competing in slaughterhouses with bloody meat hooks and portable toilets on bare uneven stony, stinky ground - unbelievable.
[ Q ] How to you reconcile that fact that professional bodybuilding is a potentially dangerous sport in light of the quantities of steroids that need to be taken, and that you have willingly taken this risk throughout your career?
In this interview the mistake should not be made in thinking that bodybuilding is the most or only steroid induced sport in the world. 99% percent of all people who are taking steroids do not even show any major muscle development. So, visually you would never expect that some of these guys are using any anabolics. And this is the truth.
I do know so many people who tell me that "the steroids aren't working... maybe it is a fake." Yes it can be fake drugs but it is mostly the belief that steroids just create a complete different human being out of you. With the intake of anabolics you have to train harder and much more intense to see concrete, long lasting results.
You can't just take them and wait and expect that you will grow muscles. If was that easy I would just order a truck load of steroids and even take them over night via an IV drip and expect to look bulky, proportioned, symmetrical, hard and huge and have a low body fat percentage. So why then would anybody still be working out if this were the case? Why then are they spending all these years and decades in the gym if the steroids do it all? Steroids are just a smaller part of all the sports. Do not forget that we all do have different body types and genetics.
I like to make it clear here in this interview that I do think and believe that all athletes are taking anabolic steroids. The question is, if there is a question: how long are they on or off in order to maintain proper health. Everything can be taken for too long, even if it is just vitamins, minerals, coffee or antibiotics.
I like to make the statement that even 95 % of all Olympic athletes (that is to me: ALL athletes) do take or took performing enhancing drugs, even if it was any stimulants, or any (short) acting steroids, or Human Growth Hormone, or...at one or the other point of their performance and career.
To be not caught in a drug test, you basically have to use short acting drugs and to stop them at a certain point of time before the sports event is on. There are experts/scientists who try to create new not (yet) detectable drugs and other experts who are trying to find them. The drug testing in a lot of sports are mostly done to avoid potential health risks if too much is taken for too long but also to satisfy the naive population who thinks that with plenty of milk, steaks, chicken and eggs you can solely achieve world class results in any field of sports.
So it is very important to consult a qualified physician if you decide to use anabolic steroids which primarily reduce the needed recuperation time for an athlete, give him more endurance and strength and put the protein faster and more efficiently into the cells.
By the way, soccer is one of the most anabolic-induced sports. Most recently a couple of pro golfers (!) have been tested positive for anabolics as well. Even some of the so-called beach volleyball players are taking anabolics. As I mentioned in another part of our last interview, unhealthy fragile and sick individuals are also receiving steroids during or after surgeries, or in general, in order to help these patients in the healing process.
I am not making all these statements to promote anabolic steroids or to make them look completely harmless but to make it clear that not only bodybuilders are using steroids.
Steroids can have side effects also, depending on how the person's body handles it.
And I won't start talking now about the use of steroids in wrestling, (Olympic) weight lifting, American football, baseball, ice hockey... track-and-field competitions, bicycling and swimming and on and on. In my case, I am, so far as I am aware of it, pretty healthy. But again, everyone is different and it is up to you what you are doing with your life and body.
Also steroids are less dangerous to my knowledge than all sorts of painkillers, amphetamines, and the real drugs a lot of people are using like ecstasy and cocaine.
Also I do recommend steroids for all depressed males, and not anti depressants.
