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Getbig Bodybuilding Boards => History - Stories - and Memories => Topic started by: Jr. Yates on July 07, 2006, 09:55:01 AM
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I was looking around on Bodybuilding.com and I stumbled open this. http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/animalpak5.htm (http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/animalpak5.htm) I've never read anything about this guy but after reading page 1, I had to read the rest. Its written by John DeFendis. This Steve was nuts! He ropes off his training area, Smashes car windows in if people dont pay their gym fees and tries to drown John as a boy who wants to train with him. Its funny shit.
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Great story, in part because he's always been a train-wreck and mentally disturbed.
The pathetic thing beyond the idiocy of doing 50 sets/muscle is that Michalik didn't even look that good. That makes it even more absurd.
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yes these stories really glued to me...I couldn't stop reading!
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My first intro to Michalik's dementia was a Village Voice cover story in the early 90s; the following story about him's similar. It was clear he was/is mentally unstable-it wasn't just the lifestyle it was him. Completely insane with an addictive persona. According to this article he was sometimes going to the gym 4 times a day:
Atlas Drugged
Maxim, June 1999
As a kid I always had this image of myself as being small. Although I was never puny, at 5’9” I felt short compared to my father and brothers, who were all over six feet. On top of that, being the youngest of four, I always felt I had to do that much more to get noticed.
Even at 14 years old, I knew that the more powerful you were, the more recognition you got. I figured that although I might be shorter, I didn’t have to be smaller, so I started Olympic weightlifting at the gym for a couple of hours after school four times a week. It was tough going at first, but I was determined and applied myself. After a while I even found that I enjoyed that lingering soreness in my developing muscles the day after a heavy workout. I knew that meant I was breaking down muscles and forcing them to grow. I was getting stronger every day.
As I grunted and grabbed, I’d stare in amazement at some of the bodybuilding guys, who looked like they’d been inflated with a bicycle pump. When I saw a centerfold of Arnold Schwarzenegger, my reaction was Yeeuchh! his physique was grotesquely, gratuitously over the top.
But the longer you hang around bodybuilders, the more you accept what’s going on. Soon I began to admire these muscle mountains. They got respect from people, and I wanted some of that for myself.
So I shifted from Olympic weightlifting to bodybuilding, which has all these exercises to develop every muscle from your eyelids down.
Right from the start I was aware that there were about five guys in the gym who dwarfed everyone else. It was an open secret they were “on the juice”—our code for taking steroids. I knew that even if I spent 24 hours a day in the gym, I’d never get as big as them. And the bigger the better—I thought.
So after graduating high school, I went up to one of the guys and asked for some juice. Looking back now, I realize it was one of those fateful decisions.
In the changing room two days later, I paid $35 for 100 white tablets. It felt no different than buying a beer when you’re underage. Sure, I’d heard the horror stories about steroids, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t wait to get home and take them.
I’d been told to take two but gulped back four. I felt different almost immediately, and within two weeks my shirt gaped at the buttons like the Incredible Hulk’s.
Every muscle got visibly bigger by the day, and my clothes looked like they’d shrunk in the wash. But soon I wasn’t wearing much anyway.
I was stripping down everywhere I could to show off. I’d walk through town in the snow in a T-shirt, thinking, Look at me! Look at my lats! I was the ultimate poser. I wanted to make people go “Whoa!” And they did.
I’d been training for nearly three years, and my arms were stuck at 141/2 inches. But within two weeks of taking steroids, they’d grown to 171/2 inches.
Those muscles felt totally different from normal muscle because they were constantly engorged, or loaded with blood. They didn’t give when you squeezed them, they were iron-hard and laced with veins. I thought I looked awesome. And like the model with outrageously oversized silicone tits, I didn’t care whether it was synthetic or not. I just loved turning heads. And man, did I ever. After a while, you couldn’t not notice me!
After six months my supplier told me to take a six-month break or I’d get liver cancer. But the very first steroid-free morning, I felt myself deflating like a burst balloon.
The muscles disappeared faster than they’d come, and no matter what I did in the gym, they wouldn’t come back. I’d gone around for six months being the Big I Am, and suddenly I was the Big I Am Not. It was crap. It was worse than when I had started out as a scrawny 14-year-old kid, because back then I hadn’t ever had a taste of the power and recognition muscles could give me. But to experience that and suddenly be forced to go without it was horrible.
After the six-month break, I thought, Screw this, I’ll just keep going. No more breaks. I’d heard that intravenous steroid injections were stronger, so I began injecting myself a couple of times a week.
By combining intravenous and oral steroids, I soon made an incredible change in my body. After only a couple of weeks, I felt totally amazing and unstoppable again.
Soon I had 28-inch thighs, bigger than Arnie, who I’d once thought looked like such a freak. Now, of course, I was every inch as big a freak myself. Good old Arnie was starting to look like family to me.
But I’d lost touch with reality by then. I was going to the gym four times a day, six days a week, but didn’t think I was obsessed. I was just dedicated.
Everything revolved around getting bigger. I’d shovel back 10,000 calories a day without thinking twice about it. My typical day’s intake would have been enough to feed some families for a week. I’d start with a 20-egg omelet for breakfast and have a whole chicken midmorning, a 12-ounce steak for lunch, another at 3 p.m., training from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m., fish and three vegetables for supper, and then another 10 eggs before bedtime. I had thought steroids were expensive, but the grocery bills were soon spiraling out of control.
At 18 I was spending up to $1,000 every couple of months on a growing cocktail of steroids. I was working as a bouncer at a nightclub, but my pay barely covered the cost. I once threw out four trash bags of drug containers I’d used in just four months.
I got married at 19, and my wife went along with my steroid consumption, although like everyone else she thought I’d be dead at 30. One gym owner called me a walking chemical reactor, but I didn’t care. I thought I was the cat’s ass. If anyone said anything about me dying, I’d just say, “Yeah, but it’ll take at least 10 men to lift the coffin.”
Taking all these steroids sent my sex drive through the roof while at the same time making me very aggressive. I once threw a 100-pound dumbbell at a guy just for looking at me the wrong way.
Getting noticed on the street was one thing, but soon my ego began demanding more attention. I began going in for bodybuilding competitions and did well.
I didn’t think twice about covering myself in a carcinogenic green fluid. It was the best fake tan you could get, and it turned my pale skin almost black overnight.
Backstage at a bodybuilding competition it’s just like a Miss World competition but without the hair spray. The competitors would spend every offstage moment eyeing each other like bitchy fashion models. I’d starve and dehydrate myself to help define my muscles. Other guys resorted to laxatives. I once saw three guys share a suppository just minutes before a competition.
There were no drug tests because competitive bodybuilding without steroids is like car racing without gasoline. In 1985 I won my first championship. Whenever I won, I’d come home feeling like God. I didn’t just think I was powerful, I had the trophies to prove it.
Then one day in 1987, when I was 29, I was lifting a 1,000-pound weight with my legs when there was a loud crack. My thigh muscle had simply ripped off the bone. But my body was so full of endorphins, I felt nothing.
“My fucking thigh came off,” I shouted. Everyone just laughed. It was only when I stuck my hand under my thigh muscle and wiggled it around under the skin that they ran in panic for the phone.
It was like being a heroin addict: Nothing hurt. On some level I was aware that I was in pain, and plenty of it, but I really didn’t feel a thing. No big deal, I thought. I’ll be back to the weights before breakfast tomorrow.
But at the hospital, they told me if I trained again, I’d kill myself. I just sat there and nodded and thought, No way. Six weeks later I was back in training, and 10 weeks after that, I won another competition.
One night soon afterward, I was walking upstairs at the nightclub where I worked when my leg gave way and my kneecap shattered into four pieces. This time I felt the pain. I managed to keep my shit together, and even then I couldn’t admit to myself that I might be damaging my health.
When they examined me, the doctors found that my ligaments were as thin as cobwebs because of the strain I was putting on them. Surgery was really the only option to save my battered joints, but there was another problem: By then I weighed just under 280 pounds, and I was so freakishly out of proportion that the doctors couldn’t be certain if I’d survive the general anesthesia.
Two days after the leg cast was removed, I tripped in exactly the same place and my knee shattered again. I discovered newer and bigger kinds of pain this time out.
The repinning operation took more than four hours, and they had to pump me with so much anesthesia that my liver just up and quit on me. I developed septicemia, my internal organs failed, and my leg started to rot. Rot! While it was still right there on my body. That’s not supposed to happen.
It was my 30th birthday, and my body had had enough. I developed a fever and spent 12 weeks in the hospital with gallons of pus being drained from my leg. It measured 32 inches when I went in. By the time they removed the cast a few weeks later, it had shrunk to a depressing 10 inches.
I had developed a condition known as necrosis, in which my toxic body was literally dying by inches. The dead flesh had darkened and turned crinkly, like the skin of a burned marshmallow. My leg was now just a wizened black stump, with maggots crawling out of the skin. I felt like a living corpse, like something out of a horror film.
I’d been trying to turn myself into a musclebound freak but ended up looking like a monster. After nearly 15 years of steroid abuse, my whole body had collapsed and every cell was toxic. I knew then the game was up. I lay there in agony and contemplated suicide. I was on morphine and still screaming in pain, and I knew I was dying.
Then one day my six-year-old son, Daniel, came to visit me. I could barely breathe, and I felt as if acid had been poured into every joint and bone in my body. But I looked at him and for the first time in my life realized there was something worth living for. If I died I wouldn’t see him grow up. I thought, Shit, that’s what this is about.
Until then it had all been about me, me, me. As he smiled at me, I thought, I’m going to beat this.
I left the hospital and was carried home to bed, and I was unable to move for nearly a year. My legs had dwindled to matchsticks. I’d been warned that if my knee broke again, they’d have to chop my leg off since the tissue was so rotten. So I lay there, hallucinating. I didn’t just see pink elephants, I fed them and walked them and offered them bodybuilding tips.
My body was so toxic, I smelled disgusting. My digestive system was completely played out, and I was too scared to eat. The morphine made me constipated, which added to the agony. After eight weeks I was so desperate, I cut my ass open with a razor to get relief. It was excruciating, but I was in such horrible pain anyway, it couldn’t get much worse.
A year later, when I could put one foot out of bed, walking was almost impossible on my shrunken legs. On one of my first ventures out, I was jumped by seven guys I’d pissed off in my bouncing days. As one of them tried to cut my throat, he sneered, “You ain’t so big now, are you?”
I ended up in intensive care with 75 stitches but didn’t want to press charges. What those guys didn’t realize was that the person they were trying to kill was already dead. The overblown bouncer, the old Rich, didn’t exist anymore. The fact that I’d changed so much meant that my marriage broke up, and I realized I had to get away and start rebuilding myself. I had one last chance.
For a while I slept outside in a tent in a friend’s backyard because my body was like a furnace. I slowly returned to a normal size as the toxins leached out of me. My weight fell to 154 pounds and everyone thought I had cancer.
I was still crippled when friends introduced me to the Chinese system of meditative exercises called t’ai chi ch’uan. In a year I could walk properly again, and now I’m a healthy 182 pounds. I teach t’ai chi, work as a masseur, and am unrecognizable as the musclebound mutant in the posing pouch.
Five of my bodybuilding buddies are now dead. When I look back on those insane years, I always remember the last time I was in a bodybuilding competition. I posed to the Alice Cooper song “Hey Stoopid.” That was me. But I was the freak who fought back. And won.
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wasn't there a story about him jumping out on the freeway and trying to stop a car?
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That is a crazy story Pumpster....who is it about.....Steve?
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About Michalike or DeFendis, unsure.
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Ya, also about Michalik.
wow man! that is aweful!
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I'm all for very intense training, but the way Michalik trained was too far even for me. The method outlined here though, is definitely something worth doing sometimes, without the tape of course! (50 total reps).
Today was the first day of Randy's life as a bodybuilder, although he didn't know it yet. It was five minutes to nine in the morning, and I was sipping away at some nasty instant coffee I had brought from home in a thermos mug because I'm too cheap to give Starbucks a five-spot every morning. The goo stained my teeth faster than any dentist could whiten them back. Here came Randy bursting through the front door, his eyes as wide and attentive as if it were the first day of school. Which, in a very real sense, it was.
"Uh, morning," he greeted me. He was obviously waiting for me to tell him if it was even okay to put his stuff away in the locker room, since he was frozen in place.
"Today is back," I informed my new protege.
"But I did back two..."
"Back," I cut him off with. "You're on my schedule now if you want me to train you. If you don't like it, nice knowing you." He frowned, not expecting such a Drill Instructor attitude. It came from having been too accommodating to past prot駩's who had in turn taken the lack of discipline to full slacker behavior and habits. I had given them an inch, and they had responded by taking a mile. If Randy failed, it wouldn't be because I was too lax.
"Put your stuff away, but bring your water bottle, wrist straps, and belt," I instructed him. "Meet me over by the chin-up bar."
A few moments later he was ready to begin, visibly shaking with anticipation. I had positioned a flat bench under the chinning bar. "Climb up there and strap in, overhand grip right where the bar bends on each side." He obeyed, and that's when I stepped up behind him and started tearing off strips of silver duct tape. Randy almost bolted when he heard the first ripping sound.
"What's that for?" he asked. I had my eye on the front desk, knowing that what I was about to do would not be considered proper gym behavior and could easily be grounds for my being expelled from this lovely facility. Luckily the girl seemed preoccupied with two tall guys in full basketball uniforms competing for her affection. The manager was hidden away in his office. So far, so good.
"That Steve Michalik guy I told you about yesterday was pretty nutty, but he did have young John DeFendis do something I thought was a good lesson in willpower and mind over matter." Now I was criss-crossing lengths of duct tape around Randy's hands, securing them to the bar. "He used to tape John to the chin-up bar and wouldn't let him loose until he had completed one hundred chin-ups."
"What?! Are you crazy, Ron? I can't do that..."
"Shhh! Keep your damn voice down. I'm a pushover, so relax. You only have to do fifty." Randy wanted to protest, but he must have realized this was an important test.
"Come on, all good reps, full range of motion." Randy set his jaw in determination, and got to work. I pulled the bench away so that there was nothing below him but air. Until he got fifty reps, he could stay up there hanging like a pinata.
His first set yielded twelve reps, which wasn't bad at all. He paused while hanging down for a minute and ground out eight more. "Right on, kid, that's forty percent right there!" From this point on the rest periods were longer and the sets were only three or four reps each. By the time he had done forty, Randy was only getting partial reps and it was clear his lats, biceps, and rear delts were all in searing agony. I knew part of him was deeply regretting asking me for guidance. He glanced over his shoulder, searching for a signal that his chin-up nightmare was over.
"Hmm." I pondered for a moment. "Ten reps to go, guess I'll have to help out." These last ten reps were brutal. I pushed up on his feet with just enough force to let him complete the reps, and truth be told, by the last four I was pretty much lifting his entire 170 pounds and he was fighting to keep from simply dropping like a brick back down. I quickly pushed the bench back under his feet and hopped up to tear the tape off. I had to move fast, because the cleaning guy was making his rounds wiping down the equipment. Even though he spoke only five or six words of English, I am fairly certain he could have communicated the bondage scenario playing out on the chinning bar to the manager.
Randy collapsed into a sitting position on the bench, trying to massage the various parts of him that seemed to have been injected with sulfuric acid but finding his arms oddly uncooperative. His breathing came in rasping hitches, and his head was bowed to the floor. As I wadded up the pieces of tape into a lumpy silver softball, I explained the purpose of what I had just put him through in his first few minutes under my tutelage.
"Great job. Nod your head if you can still hear and understand me, Randy." There was a little bobbing movement from his sweaty head.
"As you may have guessed, that wasn't just about back training. One of the most important elements to being a successful bodybuilder is training hard. Everyone thinks they train hard, but very few guys in the gym have a clue what hard training is really all about." Randy peeked up, squinting. The other eye was closed with salty sweat, but he wasn't able to wipe it just yet.
"I do," he croaked.
"You're starting to learn, but I've watched you in here and I know you've never taken a set that far, have you?" He shook his head, finally managing to get a forearm up to wipe the sweat from his eyes. "It's all about breaking through the pain barrier. Most men and women stop a set when it starts to hurt and further reps seem impossible, but a real bodybuilder knows there's still a lot more left inside him if he can only shut off that inner voice that tells him to stop. Were you hearing that voice a minute ago?"
"Oh yeah, it was screaming alright."
"And I know the pain was unbearable. But you kept going. Most guys can do chins for months and never get any growth, because they don't go to true failure. They don't push their limits enough. I guarantee you your back is going to be sore for three or four days at least, and it will grow from what you just did."
"Right on," he said, his breathing almost back to normal.
I knew the chins had knocked the crap out of Randy, so I only put him through one more tough set, a drop set of barbell rows that had him start out with 185, drop to 135, and finally just 95 for a total of about twenty-five reps. Dumbbell shrugs and hyperextensions rounded out his first back session with me.
Be sure to check out Bodybuilding.com's Huge Exercise Database for over 300 execise pictures and descriptions.
"Any questions?" I asked as I was about to send him on his way until next time.
"Just one," he hesitated, unsure of the appropriateness. "Do you ever get used to the pain?" That was a great question, one I was glad he had thought of.
"You never quite get used to it, at least it always hurts when you train hard. But I can tell you that you learn to embrace it, to seek it out and make it your friend, because it means you are forcing the muscle to adapt and grow. Once you appreciate that, the pain takes on a different meaning and isn't something you dread any more." He nodded, and I saw that the message sunk in. I had the sense that Randy wasn't going to join the long list of those I had started down the bodybuilding path that never saw it through. The kid had a lot of heart, and he was destined to be very good. He had just learned a valuable lesson, and had passed the test by not complaining or trying to quit at any point. Of course, this meant I was obligated to keep the heat turned up high.
As he staggered over to the locker room, I gave him the good news.
"Tomorrow is legs, young buck!" I saw the color drain from his face, but I knew deep down he was up to the challenge. The Force was strong in this one.
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I want to tape my hands to the chin bar now.
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That's definitely a great method to use, going for a total number of reps, really challenging.
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I've never even heard of Steve before. This guy really sounds nuts though.
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A solid second-tier BB in the 70s; publicity wasn't helped by the fact that he was in the NY area and was only featured in Dan Lurie mags.
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Man he sounds like a frickin nut. I remember Grymko telling me how he took morphine before he trained so he couldn't feel the pain so he could do more reps.
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Ya, also about Michalik.
Hey Pumpster, Steve Michaluk was born in 1949, he won the Mr America in 1972, and last competed in 1984.
The guy in your story said he won his first championship in 1985, and was 29 in 1987.
Was the guy in the story you posted someone who was trained by Michalik?
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That story with the young kid is nuts. I wish i had chin bar in my gym just so i could tape my hands to it lol.
Ant more stories from that young kid and his intense trainer??
davie
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Steve Michalik, Mr. Universe 1975, shudders to recall his bad old days as a skin-popping juice pig. Anadrol, Dianabol, and other steroids had taken him to the title, but Michalik noticed that his body had begun to plateau. Upping his dosage to Presleyan proportions, he still couldn’t pack on the meat mass he craved. So he struck out for the hardcore fringe in search of the next big thing.
He found it in a monkey’s head, drinking the hormone-rich goop that flowed out of the hypothalamus gland. (It seemed like a good idea at the time.)
Michalik is the first to admit he was pretty far gone by the time he started snacking on monkey brains. When he wasn’t throwing people through windows or bashing trucks in with 300-pound railroad ties, Michalik pimped for the physician who supplied him with his precious black-market prescriptions.
Aspiring bodybuilders “had to find out sooner or later that the road to the title went through Dr. X’s office,” Michalik told the Village Voice in 1991. With the doctor’s lock on such high-end supplements as Primobolan and Parabolin, “nobody was gonna get to be competition size unless they put out for him.” In exchange for a stack of steroid scrips, Michalik brokered love connections for the doctor with a string of title hopefuls.
The doctor’s drugs were so powerful, “you felt them immediately in your muscles,” Michalik recalled.
And then there were their sexual side effects, including almost constant erections. “One of my friends, a former Mr. America, used to get so horny on tour that he’d f**k the Coke machine in his hotel,” Michalik said. “Swear to God, he’d stick his dick right in the change slot and bang it for all he was worth.”
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al that bullshit and the guy barely had 18 inch arms.
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al that bullshit and the guy barely had 18 inch arms.
Same as i thought. some people talk like you can make every bodypart huge by training like a madman but at the end you have to deal with your genetics.
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That story with the young kid is nuts. I wish i had chin bar in my gym just so i could tape my hands to it lol.
Ant more stories from that young kid and his intense trainer??
davie
click on the link i put up there....there is some crazy stories
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he still couldn’t pack on the meat mass he craved.
:-X
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Michalik: 90% bullshit, 10% half-truth. So full of shit.
Did you guys know he is a Scientologist now? I saw this video on the net where he says "Scientology helps me build drug free bodies".
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Michalik: 90% bullshit, 10% half-truth. So full of shit.
Did you guys know he is a Scientologist now? I saw this video on the net where he says "Scientology helps me build drug free bodies".
really?
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Michalik: 90% bullshit, 10% half-truth. So full of shit.
You think these stories are not real? The roping off of his workout area, throwing dumbells at people and all that?
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Just because I am lazy, but why no pctures yet of Steve
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steve michilak
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Steve.
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not a full box of chocs ::)
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these stories sound like mostly bullshit. so exaggerated.
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these stories sound like mostly bullshit. so exaggerated.
So basically you have no idea one way or the other. Very likely they're true.
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I enjoyed reading them. i hope they are true, cuz its nuts.
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Goodphysique but whacked out ...
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the man is crazy because of a severe lack of intelligence
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the man is crazy because of a severe lack of intelligence
Many crazies are highly intelligent.
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Many crazies are highly intelligent.
if you have ever heard this man speak that is not the case ;)
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I was looking around on Bodybuilding.com and I stumbled open this. http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/animalpak5.htm (http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/animalpak5.htm) I've never read anything about this guy but after reading page 1, I had to read the rest. Its written by John DeFendis. This Steve was nuts! He ropes off his training area, Smashes car windows in if people dont pay their gym fees and tries to drown John as a boy who wants to train with him. Its funny shit.
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Quote from: pumpster on August 01, 2006, 11:36:18 AM
Many crazies are highly intelligent.
if you have ever heard this man speak that is not the case
Doesn't mean he's unintelligent; crazy definitely.
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Doesn't mean he's unintelligent; crazy definitely.
Forsure! roping off his training area, the gyms words of the day were "up the dosage"!!
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I was trained by Steve, trained with him and worked for him at his gym, Mr America's. Steve is definitely a sensationalist, but no one that knows him would question his intelligence. Aside from being a college graduate he is INCREDIBLY well read on many topics. He was WAAAY ahead of his time when it came to understanding things like nutrition and the body...not only for BB's but the general population as well. As for training, his programs were intense...no B.S. Like I will always say nothing is new and being around Steve is why I feel that way. He was outlining in detail keto genic diets over 20 years ago as well as any other diet poular today.... His training startagies were so unique...the way the exercise was done...the INCREDIBLE stretching other like Platz, Parrillo went on to do..Steve was doing it as were a lot of people Arnold included....and just because he did do some 100 rep sets don't mean the weight was light. He would incorporate many different rep schemes into his program....150 pound dumbells were commonly used...leg presses were fully loaded and 75 pound single arm preacher curls (holding the bell a certain way, twisting a certain way) were all included. One thing real fast, when no body was doing cardio...including Steve he understood things like core temp well before anyone in BB made talking about it popular. He would laugh when he saw a fat male or female running away with bundles and bundles of clothing on to FALSLY increase the temp....knowing full well that the surface temp would rise without much in the way of core temp...knowing that with out the clothing the body would increase core temp natuarlly and effectively. Just because he didn't do much stationary cardio didn't mean he didn't include it in his program...his workouts were NON stop for hours and you would be gasping for air...very anaerobic to say the least but as you got in better shape you would adapt, obvioulsy. One thing Steves training did do is create quality dense muscles......sure if you didn't take enough stuff and eat enough you would not rebuild as much as you could have, but slight tweeks to that formula would do the trick. Also...the pics above are good but do Steve no justice size wise...he got MUCH bigger than that. Who ever said his arms weren't over 18 is sadly mistaken....they were over 20 inches and that's quality with incredible saparation not just a block of fat free mass. Steve had something not many guys his size had in the 70's....balance! I think that Steves incredible vast knowledge in other areas made it difficult for some to understand him. This guy knows his stuff and was a great BB for the time. If the big picture of Steve is still on the wall of past Mr. Americas in Golds venice then you can see an AMAZING physique that people would love to have today.
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this guy sounds incredable and I have never really read about him in any mags or anything.
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Jr.Yates...yeah, Steve would have been alot more well known if he had moved out to Cali when Joe Weider wanted him too. Joe was willing to work with Steve after the America and Universe just the way he did with Arnold. Arnold mentioned Steve as his top competition in mags back then after those wins because, like I said earlier, he had a balance physique at that size and that was not too common. He did write articles and question answer columns in some mags...One mag had a GREAT concept (maybe someone reading this today will use the idea again), they had Steve talk through his training, what he was doing, sets etc and recorded it on a small record..not sure of the name of those small records back then. Then they attached the record to his layout in the mag...pretty cool stuff. Watch someone do it again....what's old is new and nothing is new. If you can find the Pumping Iron book he has a GREAT chapter in there(steve was suppossed to be in the movie and got hurt then was in the second movie for women). Also, if anyone can get the book by George Snyder, three more reps, he is in the second I believe and has a great chapter as well. great books by the way.
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Steve had an auto accident in the late 70's or early 80's that pretty much scrambled up his lumbar vertebrae. He got back into amazing shape and guest posed at the '82 NPC Nationals, the year Lee Haney won.
If anyone has pics of Steve from that guest posing, that was the best I'd ever seen him look in his career.
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Jr.Yates...yeah, Steve would have been alot more well known if he had moved out to Cali when Joe Weider wanted him too. Joe was willing to work with Steve after the America and Universe just the way he did with Arnold. Arnold mentioned Steve as his top competition in mags back then after those wins because, like I said earlier, he had a balance physique at that size and that was not too common. He did write articles and question answer columns in some mags...One mag had a GREAT concept (maybe someone reading this today will use the idea again), they had Steve talk through his training, what he was doing, sets etc and recorded it on a small record..not sure of the name of those small records back then. Then they attached the record to his layout in the mag...pretty cool stuff. Watch someone do it again....what's old is new and nothing is new. If you can find the Pumping Iron book he has a GREAT chapter in there(steve was suppossed to be in the movie and got hurt then was in the second movie for women). Also, if anyone can get the book by George Snyder, three more reps, he is in the second I believe and has a great chapter as well. great books by the way.
I'll have to check those books out, thanks.
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I also trained at Steve's gym,, Mr. america's. Steve also had a very small waist for a man his size. It was around 27 inches. His arms we're much larger than 18 inches. It was cool training there when the Night Of The Champions contest drew closer I remember Albert Beckles and several other guys coming in. Steve also trained Bev Francis. No Bullshit you would sign you're name in a book when you came in and the pen would be a syringe.
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Steve had an auto accident in the late 70's or early 80's that pretty much scrambled up his lumbar vertebrae. He got back into amazing shape and guest posed at the '82 NPC Nationals, the year Lee Haney won.
Who knows what the truth was with his "accident". I've read so many different accounts of what happened. Michalik did some infomercial for some type of plastic ab training contraption (illustrates his sense of morals) where he said he was hit by a truck when out jogging. Anyone know what really happened?
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You think these stories are not real? The roping off of his workout area, throwing dumbells at people and all that?
Yeah so he roped off a his workout area. I'm not talking about that but shit like buying monkey brains on the black market and squeezing growth hormone out of them and drinking it. What a bunch bullshit.
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I heard those stories often around the gym. Deep down I think he may have been an alright guy but the drugs made him an asshole..
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With the doctor’s lock on such high-end supplements as Primobolan and Parabolin, “nobody was gonna get to be competition size unless they put out for him.” In exchange for a stack of steroid scrips, Michalik brokered love connections for the doctor with a string of title hopefuls.
Too funny that guys like Defendis were man-whores pimped by Michalik.
Who else did he have in his stable?
YIP
Zack
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That statement by Steve is B.S. and very misleading. Primo was coming over by the THOUSANDS by a certain guy in the gym and obviously had NOTHING to do with this doctor esepcially because it wasn't an american steroid. The doc he refers to was a NYC endocrinologist and was married. Lots of guys went to him for scripts and no one ever did any gay stuff. It was SPECULATED by many that he was gay simply because he would ask how big the guys arms were and bs like that. B.S. That's the sensationalist speaking.
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Steve was by no means gay or bi. He was banging a young girl that he tried setting up with Paulie his brother. Steve was married at the time.
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I also trained at Steve's gym,, Mr. america's. Steve also had a very small waist for a man his size. It was around 27 inches. His arms we're much larger than 18 inches. It was cool training there when the Night Of The Champions contest drew closer I remember Albert Beckles and several other guys coming in. Steve also trained Bev Francis. No Bullshit you would sign you're name in a book when you came in and the pen would be a syringe.
Was it really all red and black? from what i read in that link at the beginning of this thread his gym really sounded like a dungeon.
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Yes it was red and black but it wasn't like a dungeon. Allot of the equipment was homemade to Steve's specs. He was insane no question about it.
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Yes it was red and black but it wasn't like a dungeon. Allot of the equipment was homemade to Steve's specs. He was insane no question about it.
thats very cool. I don't usually buy "FLEX" magazine but i did the other day and there is page about Steve and his gym as well. I think a Shawn Peranine wrote it (not sure how to spell his name) but it seems Steve and his Gym impacted alot of people.
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No B.S. there would be at least 30 syringes in the bathroom wastebasket. One time this gay guy tried hitting on one of Steve's training partner's while the guy was in the shower they hid his clothes and when he came out they threw him out of the gym into the back alley. This was during the winter. Another time this little 12 year old kid was caught taking the little valve covers where you put the air into the tires off of Steve's Corvette. A gym member caught the kid and brought him into Steve. Steve was really cool about it he was going on and on to the kid about how America is a great country and you can be whatever you want to be etc. etc. Steve must have lectured the kid for about 15 minutes. Looking back it was pretty funny the kid must have been scared shit.
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No B.S. there would be at least 30 syringes in the bathroom wastebasket. One time this gay guy tried hitting on one of Steve's training partner's while the guy was in the shower they hid his clothes and when he came out they threw him out of the gym into the back alley. This was during the winter. Another time this little 12 year old kid was caught taking the little valve covers where you put the air into the tires off of Steve's Corvette. A gym member caught the kid and brought him into Steve. Steve was really cool about it he was going on and on to the kid about how America is a great country and you can be whatever you want to be etc. etc. Steve must have lectured the kid for about 15 minutes. Looking back it was pretty funny the kid must have been scared shit.
:o wow! you don't hear cool stories like that anymore. thats pretty funny. gyms are too "family oriented" now. they cateor to older women and fitness. its sad.
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Steve would do these insane workouts. 50 sets for biceps, 75 sets for chest, very high volume but he also pushed a decent amount of weight. No way in hell could anyone do this type of training unless you we're on massive amounts of juice.
One time I was watching him train and he bent over to pick up a set of dumpbells and his nose started bleeding just like that. I guess that was a side effect of the juice. I over heard one guy telling a gym buddy how when he got up in the morning his nose was bleeding and their was blood all over his pillow. Crazy shit you would think they would stop but they didn't.
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:o :o holy fuck!
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Tell us the story of how Steve got ran over by the garbage truck.
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Tell us the story of how Steve got ran over by the garbage truck.
:o
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I started woring out at Mr. America's in about 1982-1983. I heard several versions of the garbage truck incident. One I heard he did get run over and was very badly hurt. When I asked Pauly his brother if he received allot of money in a lawsuit because of his injuries he was very vaugue.
Another version I heard was he was in fact very badly injured. Steve was a very violent man at times and he was married to Toni a small petite Italion woman. He also had a little squeeze on the side. In this other version I heard that because of his physical violence toward Toni, her family which was connected had a couple of goodfellas really do a number on Steve.
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Gary, do you know both Tommy's, Tomasina's nephews? A tractor trailer did actually hit Steve's car and he busted his back...was not even walking for a while then came back to compete.
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has he talked about any of this in a book or interview? I havn't found anything.
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One time I was watching him train and he bent over to pick up a set of dumpbells and his nose started bleeding just like that. I guess that was a side effect of the juice. I over heard one guy telling a gym buddy how when he got up in the morning his nose was bleeding and their was blood all over his pillow. Crazy shit you would think they would stop but they didn't.
sounds like a problem with snort, not juice.
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Gary, do you know both Tommy's, Tomasina's nephews? A tractor trailer did actually hit Steve's car and he busted his back...was not even walking for a while then came back to compete.
No I don't know any nephews. I know his back was busted but Paulie was vague then I heard the other version. Do you know that Paulie died??? remember the girl Steve tried setting up Paulie with then Steve started hanging out with her??? Steve was by far not bi or gay so if anyone knew him they would come to this conclusion right away.
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sounds like a problem with snort, not juice.
I really don't think so. Some guys at Mr. America's we're on a tremendous amount of stuff. They just didn't take a cycle of something. Steve would use some of his training partners as lab rats to see what drugs worked and what didn't. Some guys we're just kids 16, 17,18 years old. Very impressionable and under Steve they would be on the sauce. I guess in that regard Steve was an ass. I think the selling of steriods made Mr. America's Gym a good deal of money in the day.
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Steve would do these insane workouts. 50 sets for biceps, 75 sets for chest, very high volume but he also pushed a decent amount of weight. No way in hell could anyone do this type of training unless you we're on massive amounts of juice.
One time I was watching him train and he bent over to pick up a set of dumpbells and his nose started bleeding just like that.
Quite obviously he was mentally disturbed; there are too many reliable sources of these stories. All those extra sets added very little IMO, proved only that he was a maniac.
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Gary, yeah I knew Paulie had passed away. Real good guy to me and I liked him alot. Are you refering to Eileen? If so I know her well, she's married and has two kids. Steve trained me for my third show at 16 years old. Julie Levine took a look at me and thought he had me on thyroid because I had striated quads and was so lean...that was just Steve's diet and training, though.
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Stevie's gym was red, white and blue to coordiate with the Mr. Amerca's theme. Michalik is the correct spelling.
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The doctor’s drugs were so powerful, “you felt them immediately in your muscles,” Michalik recalled.
And then there were their sexual side effects, including almost constant erections. “One of my friends, a former Mr. America, used to get so horny on tour that he’d f**k the Coke machine in his hotel,” Michalik said. “Swear to God, he’d stick his dick right in the change slot and bang it for all he was worth.”
Actually "it" was stuck in the part where the ice fell on top of "it". I could never ask for ice after the above mentioned incident at a hotel.
::)