Hi Lee
Say hi to Dave for me, I wish his heart explodes
Dave puts so much focus into his health / reversing damage caused by his competitive bodybuilding career, that I wonder how it was possible for him to take bodybuilding so seriously, and bulk up to 318-lb [in 1996] to begin with.
It seems like he is well aware of the risks now, and if it's true that Dave was in med school for a point when he was younger, I would think Dave would be smart enough to have known that he was taking risks at the time - risks that he regrets now, it seems. Even if the med school history isn't true, Dave is a smart man - and he seems to be so extremely worried about his health now that I wonder why he took the risks he did to begin with.
I think someone [Nasser?] said that Dave Palumbo took more drugs than anyone else in the bodybuilding industry, including recreational drugs. I'm not sure how true that statement was, but if he was simultaneously abusing both steroids and recreational drugs, that might explain why Dave's last "real" cycle [or ANY cycle, I would say] was in 2011, if I recall correctly, when he was at a Bros Vs. Pros, one where Ronnie attended and couldn't remember how many kids he had when Dave asked ["Eight or nine, I think", LOL]. That would have been just around the time that Art Atwood died, and maybe that had an impact on him, as Art was said to have been using recreational drugs too - being a mass monster who was something like 345-lb in the offseason at 5'11.5" at 345-lb while also using recreational drugs is not exactly a recipe for good heart health. Art looked amazing here, and I never understood the comments about his conditioning being poor - he had a wide waist, and his physique may not have had the aesthetics of a Flex Wheler by any means, but I don't think Art's conditioning was off, yet that is what Art said to Special Ed, in the interview they did at the 2007 Arnold Classic. Art looks great here, and I would have never known that Art was in the last ten years of his life here - and Art most likely had no idea either:
Also, Art seemed to disappear off the IFBB pro circuit in 2006, and what he did in the next five years, I have no idea. It's possible that he was using recreational drugs during that time, and it was just a matter of still being massive - likely over 260-lb, if not much heavier than that - while using certain drugs [stimulants, I would say...not so much downers], could have caused his heart troubles, even if he wasn't using them in crazy quantities. I can't recall if Art's autopsy mentioned any drugs in his system. If there were no drugs in his system, we can probably assume he wasn't a daily user. When Jonah Hill's brother died, they said there were "small amounts" of cocaine in his system, but the thing about cocaine is that it burns up so quickly that a person could use on a Saturday night, and only have "small amounts" show up on a test taken 24 hours later, and probably nothing show up on a test two days later. So Jonah Hill's brother's test doesn't prove much. As for Art Atwood - if no drugs were found to be in his system, it could mean that he was only using on weekends or something. Art's death was just so young [37] that I really don't understand it - mass monster or not. At least with Dallas McCarver, we know he was abusing steroids to an extent literally unheard of, even among IFBB pro bodybuilders.
I think it was in response to a Chris Farley video on YouTube where I read someone saying "Either be fat or use/abuse drugs - but not both."
I think that's probably accurate. I like that what Mark Bell said about drugs in this recent interview with Dave [all drugs, be it steroids, recreational drugs, or even alcohol or nicotine] - essentially that many celebrities simply wouldn't have been who they were, how we knew them on screen, had it not been for their drug use:
I just wonder how many drugs Dave did for him to be so worried about his health now. He is one of the most health conscious people there is, at least based on his videos, and it just seems a little strange for someone who had an "ALL IN" bodybuilder's mentality or so many years.
I could be wrong about the date when Dave was last huge - it may have been 2012, and not 2011. That would rule out my theory about Art Atwood's death making Dave stop using steroids once and for all.
It must suck to have had to use fertility drugs to have all three of his kids. Good for Dave for even being able to have children, but whatever children I have, I want to have them naturally, without the use of any fertility drugs, and while being in my most healthy state. As I think for men, our sperm are sort of mini-versions of us, and whatever state we are in at the time, including state of mind. I'm happy that all my kids were born at a time where I was in a good head space. Good for Dave for even being able to have kids though, given how low his fertility was.
PS - you may not have to wish for Dave to have a heart explosion, depending on why he is being so cautious with respect to his health these days. Maybe something serious happened, and he had no choice but to be as careful as possible about his health moving forward, without risking serious health problems down the road.
/long winded post.
