Chapter 14
THE DRUG SCENE IN BODY BUILDING
A few years ago, bodybuilders on the west coast were beating-up hippies -- today, many thousands of bodybuilders have adopted the hippie style of life, drugs and all. Steroids -- the so-called "growth drugs" -- have become an almost universal fact of life in the weight-training world; and stupid as such utilization of these dangerous drugs may be, it is at least understandable. But drugs are no longer restricted to the steroid category -- at a recent lifting meet, one of the heavyweight lifters was so stoned he literally didn't know where he was or what he was doing.
There is no rational excuse for the use of nay kind of drugs by healthy individuals -- but since it is apparently not in the realm of possibility for me to say anything that might influence people already involved in such practices, I will limit my remarks to a simple statement of the facts as they exist.
Large numbers of young men are attracted to the field of weight training every year -- and under the circumstances, it is inevitable that many of them will be influenced by common attitudes and habits that will literally destroy no small numbers of them; in the present state of affairs, the parents of young men attracted to weight training would be well advised to do everything possible to channel this interest into another direction -- and if that is not possible, then extreme care should be used in selecting a training environment. If possible, training should be restricted to the home; and for the benefit of those readers who may assume that this is an attempt on my part to sell more equipment, I will add that absolutely nothing in the way of special equipment is required. Very good results can be quickly produced by the use of a barbell, a chinning bar, a pair of parallel bars, and a squat rack -- none of which items are manufactured or sold by myself.
The above is not meant to imply that there are literally no decent commercial training environments -- there are many; but they do not exist in proportion to the need.
To the young trainee still in doubt on the subject of drugs, I can only say that the use of drugs WILL NOT help your progress -- regardless of what you may hear or read to the contrary; during the last few months alone, we have observed several cases of very serious effects from the use of drugs by bodybuilders -- and no slightest sign of any worthwhile results from their use.