Entries from August 2007 ↓

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. or simply subscribe by e-mail over on the right-hand column. Thanks for visiting!

The second bodybuilding lie is believing that there are magic pills to build muscle. The reason for this belief is because people always apply the law of the minimum effort or the law of the least effort. This principle states that a person, in our case a bodybuilder,will tend to use the most convenient method or tool, in the least exacting mode available. Bodybuilders usually follow the path of least resistance. This path is also used to describe certain human behaviors. In these cases, resistance is often used as a metaphor for personal effort or confrontation; a person taking the path of least resistance avoids these.

Now read my lips, although you can not see me:

THERE ARE NOT MAGIC PILLS !

Even anabolic steroids can not be considered as magic pills.

Muscle building is a process, simple to understand, but it requires effort and consistency to achieve results. This process is like a chain. A chain formed by several links. All these links are important, in fact they are crucial and indispensable parts, because if you miss only one of these links you will obtain no results. Yes; zero, nothing, nada. This is as hard as it sounds. All the links or components of this muscle building chain must be present to achieve results with this process.

After more than 20 years coaching bodybuilders from various levels, the harsh reality appears crisp clear: You need to cover all the bases to achieve results. This is not a sport of home runs. In bodybuilding you can not train like a Mr. Olympia, take anabolic steroids and forget a proper nutritional plan. I have seen many bodybuilders training like a monsters and with their muscles pumped up with high doses of anabolic steroids and getting only negative side effects and without any substantial increase of their muscular mass. They followed the path of least resistance and applied the law of the minimum effort. And this laws are completely futile in bodybuilding. Remember no 1-hit runs in this sport!

On the other hand many of my apprentices follow a very different path. I design for them a specific plan to cover all the bases. Each of the crucial components of the muscle building process are covered. These parts are:

1. Proper muscular stimulation
2. Adequate nutrition
3. Achieve full recovery from strenuous training

Only if all these bases are covered you will obtain results. Period.

“Nutritional supplements can be as powerful as drugs”

Oh, My Gosh! This is probably the biggest fallacy you can find amongst hundreds of different advertisements in bodybuilding magazines. Here you have some examples picked from the last issues of well known bodybuilding magazines:

• Next generation in anabolic supplementation…
• Made from compounds that have the same molecular structure of testosterone…
• Nobody boost testosterone more than we do…
• This is hardcore; the most powerful stimulant ever…
• As close molecularly to anabolic steroids as we seen in a legal product…
• Raise your testosterone up to 154% with your first dose…

Notice the same manipulation pattern? They try to convince us that nutritional supplements work like drugs. The whole concept is completely nonsense. Consider the following idea: FDA approves any nutritional supplement because they have tested the products as innocuous. These products receive the label of nutritional supplements. Drugs, on the other hand, receive their specific label that complies with drugs regulations and requirements.

I’ll always remember when Dan Duchaine (the first and only true steroid guru) stated some years ago:

“Anabolic steroids are drugs and nutritional supplements are just food”

This is the epitome, the quintessence of bodybuilding common sense. This simple phrase ends with numerous false myths, fallacies and half truths so common in the nutritional supplement industry. Always remember the wisdom of Dan Duchaine!

PS. I must admit that food by itself has not the same effects of the drugs, but I also admit that food causes an hormonal response in the human body. But this hormone response is very limited and absolutely not comparable with the effects exerted by drugs.

Probably you know this phrase or maybe have read this statement before:

“Common sense is the least common of all the senses”

You can notice that this concept is completely accurate when you analyze in detail the current bodybuilding situation. It is a very well known fact that this sport is absolutely dominated by one industry; the industry of the nutritional supplements. Although you can find some honest and ethical companies, most of the companies in this industrial sector lead their businesses using the latest techniques and strategies of manipulation.

According to American Heritage Dictionary definition of manipulation is “shrewd or devious management, especially for one’s own advantage” All the marketing efforts can be guided to manipulation or persuasion. The difference is that persuasion is: “to induce to undertake a course of action or embrace a point of view by means of argument, reasoning, or entreaty.” By persuading, there is an opportunity for two people to come together on an opinion that is mutually beneficial. Manipulation, on the other hand, is inwardly focused, exclusively, on the person who is manipulating.

My declaration can be crude but it is very clear; in fact pristine clear. Nutritional supplement uses manipulation to sell their products. And it is manipulative because they use many different fallacies and half-truths in their selling process. Truth can be elastic, but when your main source of information is designed for manipulation purposes, this truth breaks down and changes its own nature.

This is the main problem of bodybuilding; 99% of the information you receive about bodybuilding is slanted, incomplete and often completely wrong. This situation is caused because the nutritional supplement industry creates, controls or influences the information you receive via magazines, Internet or any other media.

Nowadays there are many lies and fallacies converted to dogma in the bodybuilding world. It’s time to apply an appropriate dosage of common sense to get rid of these lies.

In future posts I will explain the 4 biggest bodybuilding myths and lies.