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BOTTOMLINE BODYBUILDINGSETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHTThis is the part where I'm supposed to have a disclaimer of some sort. It should be writtenin the third person and have some legalese type wording and basically state that all theinformation herein is for entertainment purposes only and isn't meant as medical adviceand all that. In other words, if you misinterpret the information and mess yourself up,DON'T BLAME ME. I assume no responsibility. As a matter of fact, consider everythingfrom here on in as fiction.Now for all you fiction fans, here goes.In The Bodybuilding Truth, I spoke sparsely on the topic of drugs, for several reasons.Although I feel they can be a viable tool for those who choose to use them wisely (i.e.judiciously), I don't really see drug use as the main focus of bodybuilding. I've alwaysthought that they should be a "last resort" to be considered only after many years oftraining when appreciable gains can no longer be achieved through natural methods. Ialso believe that anyone who considers using them should first become educated in theapplication and precautions.But I can't instill my opinions on everyone. Mandating when the right time to use drugsmight be is like mandating good judgment or good taste. It must be left to the individual.And a lot of individuals will make poor decisions, regardless of what I have to say. Moredisturbing, they will make erroneous decisions based on a misunderstanding of what Ihave to say. That upsets me greatly. But I realize there's little I can do about it.Oddly enough, I have more respect for someone who chooses not to use steroids, mostlyfor the fact that those who do use them tend to overuse them. The natural athlete has tofight and struggle for every ounce of muscle earned, and in doing so, he learns how to bea better bodybuilder. Any fool can take a gram of juice and grow. Unfortunately, he'llusually look like a formless blob. That's a personal observation. The amount some guysare taking today are ten times greater than what guys like Arnold and Sergio ever took,and they look like crap. But again, I can't make other people's decisions for them.As much as I admire someone who takes the drug free route, if their reasoning is becausethey believe drug usage is "cheating," I must respectfully question their philosophy. Whoare they cheating against? Is it cheating to take an antibiotic if you have a seriousinfection? Is it cheating to have your Polio vaccine? Or even a flu shot? How aboutsupplements? Cheating? Unless you're Amish, you've probably taken aspirin at somepoint in your life. You may use caffeine if you're tired or a glass of wine if you want toget a buzz. None of these things are inherently evil. It's their misuse which presents a hostof potential catastrophes.Nelson Montana for Elite Fitness9

BOTTOMLINE BODYBUILDINGSteroids are fascinating -- to me at least. They unquestionably can enhance what we workso hard to achieve. Maybe the most equitable comparison would be to ask; if a drugenhanced intelligence or talent, would you take it? I admit, I would.The psychological aspects of steroid use are also complex. Dan Duchaine put it perfectlywhen he made this statement:"Once you use steroids, your whole outlook on your sport changes, usually irrevocably.You will find a pessimism, a cynicism about the sport and its athletes that you probablydidn't have before. This negativism has a way of sometimes creeping into your view ofother things in your day to day life. Granted, this changed outlook is probably closer toactual reality than your previous mental state but I've not seen athletes happier because ofit."Allow that to sink in. Knowing Dan as well as I did, this statement is truly profound andmore than a little morose. Knowledge, leads not only to a better understanding but oftento a loss of innocence. Once you know how the magic trick is done, much of the magic isgone.I've decided to begin this book with a challenge to many of the current opinions on theuse of anabolics. Since the advent of the internet, there is an abundance of accessibleinformation and the neophyte can learn more in a matter of hours than what took manyof us who've written about it in the past years to compile from text books, personalexperience, observation, and underground information. But along with this wealth ofinformation comes an abundance of misinformation. It's to the point where there is anepidemic of rumors, myths, half truths and untruths about steroid use, and it isn't comingfrom uninformed zealots, it's coming from the so called "experts." Many of these neogurus are far more knowledgeable of anabolic pharmacology than me or Dan Duchaine oranyone who wrote about them just a short time ago. But just because they have thetechnical knowledge doesn't mean they offer the best advice in their application. In fact,their advice, more often than not, is ill conceived and irresponsible. They're also, in myopinion, way off base on a lot of issues.Time will bear out who is right and who is wrong and who promoted caution and whoencouraged recklessness. Until then, I offer this bit of advice; The preachings of most oftoday's steroid gurus should be viewed with suspicion, not adulation.I should preface my remarks by reiterating that I am not a scientist. My viewpoints comenot so much from the textbooks but from the "trenches." And those trenches aren't justat my local gym. As an industry insider, I have access to information that would beimpossible for the average bodybuilder to acquire. I want to share that information andchallenge it when necessary.Nelson Montana for Elite Fitness10

BOTTOMLINE BODYBUILDINGThe following comments are an often contrarian viewpoint on the topic of performanceenhancement drugs. They are designed and presented to evoke an alternative outlook onwhat has been accepted as truth by too many for too long. Prepare to look at things alittle differently from here on in.Note: If you have no interest whatsoever in anabolics you can jump forward to the nextsection. There's plenty of information that applies to you.Nelson Montana for Elite Fitness11

BOTTOMLINE BODYBUILDINGCLOMID - THE BIG LIELike everyone else who has ever read a single book (or every book for that matter) on theproper use of anabolics, I usually included a course of Clomid after each cycle. It was theresponsible thing to do. So they say. There was just one little problem with thisprocedure. It seemed to make the recovery and the return of libido, testicular size, spermcount, seminal volume and normal testosterone levels worse. How can this be? Maybe Iwas just a weird exception to the rule. One doctor suggested I might have some bizarrefeedback loop that gave the drug its negative effects. Maybe I was crazy. Maybe not.The simple truth of the matter is this: the thinking on Clomid is based on some verysketchy evidence which has been parroted endlessly among the bodybuilding community.In a way, I'm at fault myself. Allow me to explain.A few years back, I co-wrote an article with Brock Strasser called "The Steroid Summit."In that piece, I mentioned Clomid and ejaculate volume. Where I was going with this wasthe fact that I noticed a definite decrease in ejaculate volume and this would indicate thatClomid wasn't doing what it was supposed to do. Brock replied "Oh yeah, Clomid willdefinitely increase ejaculate" and he went on to say how male porn stars are using it toenhance their "bursts of drama" so to speak. We were tackling a lot of topics and I didn'twant to dispute his contention so I let it go. At any rate, wouldn't you know. the rumorabout porn stars and Clomid ran rampant. I started hearing it everywhere, even in placesunassociated with bodybuilding.I knew I couldn't be the only person experiencing negative effects from Clomid so I did alittle personal survey. It turns out I wasn't as weird as I thought. Out of over 100bodybuilders I questioned, about 1 in 4 experienced in the use of steroids and aromataseblockers admitted that Clomid didn't have the effects they were hoping for. Many alsoclaimed that Nolvadex, which has a very similar structure to Clomid, caused a loss inlibido and a weak ejaculation. Even among those who felt it helped them, there werecomplaints about "emotional distress" and "weepiness", both of which suggest anincrease in estrogen. So how can anyone be sure Clomid is actually beneficial?Still, the rumors persist.I was on a popular internet message board recently and someone was claiming that theyweren't getting back their atrophied testicles even after using 50mgs of Clomid for twoweeks. The resident "guru" suggested taking 100mgs for another two weeks. This line ofthinking is straight from the middle ages when doctors prescribed leeches to cure adisease -- if the patient got sicker from the treatment the solution was; more leeches!Ridiculous? Of course. Some things never change.Nelson Montana for Elite Fitness12

BOTTOMLINE BODYBUILDINGThere are several major problems associated with Clomid, as well as Arimidex,Nolvadex, Teslac or any other estrogen blocker. For one thing, all these compounds areindiscriminate in how much estrogen they block. So what's bad about that? Well, thewhole point of using an anti-estrogen is to protect against the spillover of estrogen thatcomes with the excessive use of androgens. If the body can't metabolize all thattestosterone, it aromatizes into estrogens. What the experts fail to address is the fact thatthe amount of aromatization varies greatly from individual to individual. If the steroiddosages are moderate, there might not be any aromatization of any consequence, and theanti-estrogens may lower levels below what they were normally! And keep one veryimportant fact in mind. A little estrogen in men is necessary for a healthy libido. (It'salso necessary for other things such as bone density, skin tone, etc., but I can't think ofanything more important to most men than their dicks.)More recently, it's even been suggested that estrogen may play a role in the proliferationof androgen receptors. This may explain why some experienced steroid users claim thatthey get decreased results when adding an anti-estrogen to their stack. It was oncethought that anti-estrogens such as Nolvadex decreased IGF-1, but this has not beenvalidated with any concrete evidence. Nevertheless, studies done on rats found thatandrogen receptor binding was dramatically increased after the administration ofestradiol, increasing the anabolic potency of the androgenic steroid. If nothing else, thisshows that estrogen is, on some level, directly or indirectly involved in the process ofpromoting muscle growth. There's also the added element of strength and size gains dueto the water retention that estrogen inflicts. And just as a kicker, anti- estrogens may alsoincrease sex hormone binding globulin which is the last thing you want when coming offa cycle.In the case of Clomid, the effects may be even worse than other anti-estrogens sinceClomid is a mild estrogen itself. The basic theory behind its use (which is sounding moreand more stupid every day) is essentially that the Clomid will occupy the estrogenreceptor sites thus disallowing the formation of more estrogen. Maybe. What's morelikely in cases where estrogen levels are normal, the Clomid will simply add moreestrogen. This may the reason for some people's apparent aversion to Clomid and itsestrogen-like side effects.Even if Clomid did lower estrogen, there's no evidence that lower estrogen willnecessarily lead to increased testosterone, yet this is the premise which everyone follows.Clomid has also been known to produce a decrease in the LH response to LH releasinghormone. This is something that has been known for a while, (findings on this date as farback as 1978) yet curiously ignored. Naturally, studies aren't conducted to benefit thebodybuilder on steroids, so we must learn to read between the line sometimes. In doingso, conclusions can be drawn. All too often steroid gurus draw them incorrectly.Nelson Montana for Elite Fitness13

BOTTOMLINE BODYBUILDINGThe notion of increased sperm count is also one of contention. Allow me to get technicalfor a moment and break my own rule about references for a second while I cite thisquote from a study done on Clomid."Treatments with idiopathic oligospermia for six to nine months resulted in a significantincrease in gonadotropin testosterone and estradiol levels. A significant increase insperm density was observed only in subjects with low sperm count below normal basalFSH levels. In cases where sperm density increased, FSH levels decreased, suggesting aninhibitory effect."What this suggests in plain English is that not everyone reacts to Clomid treatment in thesame way and sperm levels must be abnormally suppressed for the drug to be of anybenefit. And even in situations where that is the case, the side effect was lowered FollicleStimulating Hormone, which as you may know, controls the amount of LeutinizingHormone we release which in turn regulates how much testosterone we have. This is whyso many bodybuilders claim to crash after coming off of the Clomid.Judging from this information it's clear that Clomid, at best, is a crap shoot and itsbenefits, if any, are temporary. So why is everyone still taking it?Of course, this is hypothesis on my part and a lot of the pedants and pundits will refuse toacknowledge it. After all, all the pros use Clomid. Why should anyone listen to me?They don't have to, but they should.I was speaking with Jerry Brainum on this very subject. I should mention, Jerry, unlikesome of the self-appointed experts that abound on the internet and the world ofunderground newsletters, is one of the most knowledgeable people in the business on thesubject of nutrition and pharmacology. He's been writing on the subject before most ofthese pseudo whiz kids were born. He knows everybody who is anybody in the world ofbodybuilding. When I mentioned my theories about Clomid he said to me;"You're not alone. I don't know a single pro who still uses Clomid."This in itself speaks volumes. Of course, it may not be the best validation for myargument since there are plenty of pro bodybuilders who are complete jackasses when itcomes to knowledge and application of anabolics. He or she usually hires someone whoknows something, or more likely, can get something. The protocol is then to load thesyringe to the top and keep shooting until the stash is gone. Nevertheless, the fact thatClomid has lost its allure among the higher echelon on the bodybuilding ranks is a suresign it isn't working well. If it did, they'd all use it, even if they stayed on 365 days ayear. Who wouldn't want to maintain testicular size and increase natural production whilekeeping estrogen low? If Clomid was effective in doing so, there'd be no reason to stop.They know what works and what doesn't. And they know that Clomid sucks. (Of course,there's always some lunkhead who doesn't catch on right away.)Nelson Montana for Elite Fitness14

BOTTOMLINE BODYBUILDINGOne last thing to keep in mind: Back in the 60's and early 70's no one used antiestrogens. Look at the pictures of the stars of that time and you'd be hard pressed to find acase of gyno anywhere. Food for thought.The bottom line: If dosages are kept sane, Clomid wouldn't be needed -- even if it workedwell, which it doesn't.Forget Clomid. For more effective methods of keeping excess estrogen in check, read on.Nelson Montana for Elite Fitness15

BOTTOMLINE BODYBUILDINGIF YOU MUST.When it comes to anti-estrogens, the best bet may be not in occupying the receptor sites,as does Clomid, but to compete with the testosterone/estrogen balance. At one time,Proviron was deemed a valid choice as an anti-estrogen agent until some of thesophomoric steroid students argued that it didn't have any direct anti-estrogenicproperties. True, but it still looks as if it's the best choice if you feel the need to guardagainst estrogen build up. It does so because DHT acts as a gyno antagonist. (Yetanother thing that has been oddly overlo

Bodybuilding Truth was scathingly honest in regard to misinformation about training, the fallacies concerning nutrition and the slimy side of the supplement industry, then hold on! If you're looking for more, no nonsense methods of training, you've come to the right place. And if you want more honest in