Here is a list of reasons as to why HGH – right now – is the ideal drug for athletes.  With the latest edition of the steroids in sport scandal that involves professional athletes from Major League Baseball, as well as other sports, people need to understand why these supplements are desirable to pro athletes.

And you won’t get this kind of info if you depend on the mainstream media and sports news outlets…

Body builders have enjoyed the benefits of human growth hormone, used in conjunction with a variety of other anabolic agents, for over 20 years but only in recent years have legit athletes started to catch on to this “better” kind of performance enhancing drugs.

1)       Human growth hormone provides a potent anabolic effect; it builds muscle.  Without turning this into a biochem lesson – especially since that’s way over my head – suffice to say that HGH increases the body’s ability to synthesize protein, and that this allows for muscle tissue to be built.  Human growth hormone use produces the holy grail of all anabolic benefits, hyperplasia.  Hyperplasia is the permanent increase in the amount of muscle cells.  Over the years there have been many steroids that were alleged to result in creating new muscle cells, but HGH is the substance that actually delivers this incredible benefit. HGH also increases the size of existing muscle cells.

So with HGH you have a situation where the size of existing muscle cells are increased AND a permanent creation of new muscle cells.  So a person could go on a cycle of human growth hormone therapy, which would create new muscle cells that remain after HGH therapy stops.  The longer the person remains on this regimen the more new muscle cells will be produced.  This person would then have more muscle than he did before the therapy and reap all of the performance benefits that come with increased muscle even after the end of therapy.

Additionally, human growth hormone has a positive strengthening affect on connective tissues such as ligaments, tendons and cartilage and at an accelerated rate. Old injuries will heal and these tissues will be strengthened which can potentially minimize future injuries as well.  There is no doubt that human growth hormone therapy is being used in conjunction with the surgery and rehab of professional athletes, which has had the effect of getting athletes back on the field quicker than ever. These connective tissue benefits make HGH much more attractive than the use of old school steroids, as steroids only positively affect muscle tissue, while having a negative effect on connective tissue.

2)      HGH provides metabolic benefits such as helping the body burn more fat than usual, and serves as a protein-sparing agent as well.   HGH administration triggers the release of fatty acids from fat stores and the body winds up burning more fat than carbohydrates to meet energy requirements.  This is why athletes on human growth hormone can have extremely low levels of body fat while maintaining extremely high levels of muscle mass.

Without drugs, there is a kind of equilibrium between body fat and muscle mass.  If body fat is too low a person’s muscle mass will decrease as well.  HGH also has an anti-catabolic effect (protein sparing), which means that muscle protein isn’t broken down during periods of intense exercise or in the case of calorie restriction.  This anti-catabolic effect means that athletes can recovery quicker from competition and training.

3)      HGH is legal and can be acquired and administered by a physician, and as a result, the intelligent athlete can use medical privacy regulations to avoid the spotlight. The dose at which HGH is effective is small, which minimizes risk and – in most cases – allows the physician to avoid breaking any laws or breaching any ethical standards.

Additionally, due to the stresses of professional sports there is a very good chance that most – if not all athletes – would test for low hormonal levels during their season.  This means HGH can be administered in order to normalize an athlete’s levels.  This kind of therapeutic dose can provide enormous benefits to an athlete during their season. This is an important distinction to make.  If an athlete does test for low HGH levels – which most would or could – this is a case of using HGH as it is intended and not abusing it.

There are doctors all across the country that are openly practicing this kind of medicine.  One could argue that these doctors are incorrect in their uses of HGH, but this argument doesn’t seem to hold any more weight than the counter argument that there are no appropriate “off-label” uses of HGH. These are the major reasons as to why HGH is so popular among athletes.

There are other reasons as well, but this is enough for now.  And it is worth noting that testosterone when used in similarly appropriate doses, in conjunction with HGH is an extremely potent supplement cocktail from which all athletes would benefit greatly.

Remember, this isn’t an effort to rationalize or justify the use of HGH and testosterone.  I am simply recognizing and pointing out reasons why athletes – or anybody who works out for that matter – would find these substances so desirable.   What I will say is that when you understand what these drugs can do for athletes, and understand the nature of risks involved with playing professional sports – especially football – the case can be made that some supplementation may be appropriate and even necessary.

Bodybuilding has been responsible for creating an almost endless list of ridiculous fitness and nutritional myths, and an exercise called Zottman curls serves as a great example of this. Some may consider Zottman curls to be a “bodybuilding secret,” when in reality it’s just bodybuilding nonsense.

Thanks to guys who used prodigious amounts of anabolic steroids, human growth hormone, insulin and a variety of other pharmaceuticals, the bodybuilding philosophy became synonymous with health and fitness. The bodybuilding secret is that drugs are responsible for the impressive physiques that dominate bodybuilding.  For decades this ineffective and inefficient method of training has served as the basis for the diet and exercise programs for gym rats and competitive athletes alike.

The flawed premise was (and for some still “is”) that a 225-pound guy with 3-percent body fat knew what he was doing and everyone should follow his program simply because he looked good.  Bodybuilding, or “reductionist” training, breaks the body down into parts and is all about appearance over performance.

Zottman curls are a great example of how obsession with appearance combined with a faulty philosophy spawns an exercise that becomes known as a “bodybuilding secret.”

Zottman curls are performed with dumbbells.

• The dumbbells are curled to the shoulders
• At the top position dumbbells are rotated outward so palms are facing forward
• Dumbbells are lowered to starting position and returned to original position

Google “Zottman curls” and you’ll find the usual nonsense that this exercise will give your arms “new age gains,” will “build bigger biceps,” and the classic “works the biceps and the forearms.”  There’s even a demonstration of seated Zottman curls that are a lazy man’s bodybuilding secret.

The “benefit” that Zottman curls work forearms is laughable because any exercise done holding any kind of weight works forearms. Also, bodybuilders use wrist straps for pulling exercises, and these straps actually remove the forearms from the equation. But that’s the nonsense behind all of the bodybuilding secrets.

Arm strength, and the concomitant size of biceps and triceps, is developed by performing heavy pulling and pushing exercises and not by doing Zottman curls.  Muscular development occurs as a result of lifting (and holding) heavy weights without the aid of wrist wraps or straps.  The bodybuilding secrets that deal with exercises for biceps and triceps are a waste of time and effort.

So, Manny Ramirez allegedly tests positive for Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG). What a meathead. I’d love to know who his personal trainer is.

This represents sports doping at its worst. I’ve never used, never seen these drugs, but for God’s sake if someone asked me what to do I’d know better. For all of the money, and the privilege opportunity to work with the best and brightest, Manny has obviously worked with the worst and dumbest.

Just a little lowdown on the female hormone that Manny said a doctor gave him for his personal health issue. One word, “crap.” But since one word answers like “crap” make for short careers as successful bloggers, I’ll give you a little more grist.

While HCG influences ovulation in women, it also produces androgens such as testosterone, that nice hormone that makes big strong muscles and helps with recovery.  It also will give a guy erections that are known as “Purple Steel.” Sorry about that, but it’s the truth.

HCG injections – not pills, injections – can increase testosterone levels by as much as 300% over normal. So while HCG is used to help guys on heavy steroids cycles kick start their natural testosterone production, used alone it can raise ”test” levels enough to make a huge difference for an otherwise healthy competitive athlete.

By the way, “natural” bodybuilders use this scam to claim that they are natural.  Since they aren’t injecting testosterone to increase their levels, they can say they are natural because the increase in testosterone levels is not from a direct, external injection of testosterone, but from a naturally occurring substance that stimulates testosterone production.  You can never believe bodybuilders.

I’ll be on XM channel142, Fox Sports Radio, Friday morning May 8 at around 8:30AM on the Steve Czaban Show, Fox’s national morning sports talk show. The show repeats and the segment will be replayed at around 2:30PM. Check in with the show if you can.

Thirty-five years ago the term “body building “ was synonymous with fitness.  But in 2008 these terms are mutually exclusive.  If your personal trainer is a bodybuilder, you should move on.

Back in the halcyon days of the mid-1970s bodybuilding rode into the public eye on the muscular back of Arnold Schwarzenegger in the movie “Pumping Iron.”  Filmmaker George Butler followed Arnold and his fellow competitors as they prepared for the 1975 Mr. Olympia and Mr. Universe contests, and this half-documentary, half-scripted movie is largely responsible for bringing bodybuilding to the masses.  Thanks to Arnold’s personality and physical presence, and the interesting mix of characters that comprised the supporting cast of “Pumping Iron,” bodybuilding single-handedly kicked off a fitness craze, the effects of which are still being felt today.

The problem with this is that bodybuilding has nothing to do with fitness.  In the mid-70s people saw these massive guys lifting massive weights (ignorant of the fact that steroids were producing the massive physiques) and living this Spartan life-style and figured that this was the way to be fit.  Without anything to compare to these guys and their lifestyle, it seemed obvious that lifting weights, following a strict diet and hanging out at the beach was the way to go.  At the time, these guys were living a healthier life-style than most people, even with using steroids.

In 2008 – and really for the past 25 years – bodybuilding has moved farther and farther away from the ideals that guys lived by back in the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s.  Since at least the ‘60s body builders have relied on steroids to create the physiques that have set them apart from the guy on the street.  As time passed guys started using more drugs, higher doses and new substances that helped them get bigger, stronger and freakier.  The workouts and diets became less important as the drugs took on more of a role in the development of muscular men and women.

Bodybuilders were using human growth hormone back in the mid-‘80s, almost 20 years before most people ever realized that HGH could be used to enhance performance.

Bodybuilding is based on a fatally flawed training philosophy, a philosophy that places importance on appearance rather than function and breaks down natural, multiple muscle group movements into less-efficient and less-effective component parts.  Personal trainers who fancy themselves bodybuilders are doing their clients a disservice as they implement training programs that rely on machines that work single joints and single muscle groups.

Working on equipment that affects a single muscle group is a waste of time.  Exercising while sitting down or lying down is foolish and for older members of the population is dangerous and potentially injurious.  Yet many personal trainers will tell you that people who have trouble with balance and stability need to use equipment.   This misinformation is based in bodybuilding-style thinking.

And at the root of the matter, bodybuilding would not exist if not for the steroids and human growth hormone that are responsible for the physiques that are featured in advertisements and articles that appear in just about every fitness publication.

Unfortunately, bodybuilding-based personal trainers are the last to know that their methods are obsolete and counter-productive.  There are actually “nationally recognized” personal training certifying organizations that use bodybuilders as poster boys and girls.  One of these organizations advertises their program in all of the major fitness magazines, and their ads actually feature 15-year old pictures of a male body builder doing biceps curls wearing only cut-off overalls and work boots.

In 2008 this kind of nonsense should not be recognized as legitimate personal training/fitness education, or as a worthwhile way to exercise.

Bodybuilding is the least effective method of training.  The only thing that bodybuilding is better than is inactivity, and there’s more than enough evidence that even the most sedentary of folks – both young and old – can benefit from training by doing total body, ground-based exercises.  The protestations come from the devotees that bodybuilding has helped so many people, when the reality is that people would be even that much better off if they had followed a valid training philosophy.

Rather than accept reality, move on and progress, bodybuilders continue to cling to the antiquated, out-dated methods of the past and ignore the reality that surrounds them.  Check out any current bodybuilding or fitness magazine and you’ll find routines that feature nothing but machine-based exercises.  And really, you don’t need to know how to do 5 different biceps exercises.  The biceps are just about the smallest muscle group and you don’t need to spend any real time working on them.  Bodybuilders have never understood that using total-body, multi-joint, ground-based exercises are the best way to develop strength and, by extension, a person’s physique.

If you want your arms to get bigger – and get super strong in the process – learn how to do pull-ups the right way, without wrist straps.  Learn how to do hang-cleans and dead lifts and the snatch.  Performance over appearance.

Before people knew any better it was understandable that bodybuilding was equated with fitness.  Now people know a lot better.

Professional certifying organizations such as the National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) and the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) support and publish research that has advanced the field of conditioning and personal training to the point where real fitness pros know that performance-based methods of training are the most efficient and effective ways for all segments of our population to train.

Bodybuilding personal trainers want their clients to believe that biceps curls, triceps extensions, squats done in a Smith machine and leg extensions and leg curls are the best use of their time and effort.  The thought process goes that if it works for John the Juicer, it’ll work for John Doe.  Nothing could be further from the truth or reality.

As a matter of fact, the rest of us should ignore anything and everything that bodybuilders do.  From the obsession with appearance – and appearance as the main marker of success – to reliance on nutritional supplements with dubious pedigrees, and the core philosophy of the training methods, it’s time for bodybuilding to be put in the scrap heap of history.

Despite current research that points to the positive role that strength training can play in the preparation of endurance athletes, there is still a misconception among triathletes – and runners and cyclists – that traditional strength training does not address the needs of these athletes.  The belief that strength training somehow doesn’t work for triathletes is due to body buildings’ undue influence on what passes for athletic preparation.  Any good personal trainer or strength coach can show you how to improve performance and design an appropriate strength training regimen.

Body building became a popular cultural phenomenon over 30 years ago thanks to the dynamic persona of Arnold Schwarzenegger and the movie “Pumping Iron.”  Arnold was – and still is – such a powerful figure that his reign as champion is the reason that body building became synonymous with everything related to fitness, including strength training and athletic preparation.  By the way, to get an idea for the kind of impact the governor of California still has on the fitness world, Google “Arnold” and see what you get.  Anyway…

As time has passed and people have studied the role of different forms of weight lifting and strength training as it pertains to athletes, it is clear that body building programs are inferior when it comes to preparation for athletic endeavors, and that personal trainers need to expand their knowledge base.  Endurance athletes intuitively knew that the body building-based version of strength training, that featured emphasis on form over function, quantity over quality and increased muscle growth at all costs, wasn’t for them.

A lot has changed since the days when body building was considered a legitimate form of training for athletes.  Today the best strength coaches and personal trainers don’t view body building as a method of strength training.

Today – actually for the past 20+ years – the best strength coaches and personal trainers have incorporated a functional style of strength training for all athletes.  This functional training can be adapted to all athletes, including triathletes and other endurance athletes.

Functional training differs depending on the activity that a person is training for, as you have to look at the specific demands of the activity when designing an effective program.   While the demands placed on endurance athletes can vary depending on a bunch of variables, it’s safe to say that all triathletes need to train certain movements and not get hung up on the idea of training specific muscles.

Triathletes – all athletes – need to have a strong core. And by core I mean the muscles that attach to the pelvis and are located between the sternum and the knees.  The common misconception is that the core is limited to the muscles of the abdomen and lower back, but as you can see, this above definition of the core includes many more muscles and muscle groups.  Performing crunches on a balance ball is not core training and cannot be considered a serious exercise for athletes.

A strong core is vital to being able to swim properly, as the core and the ability to rotate properly are responsible for producing movement in the water.  Remember that swimming is not a ground-based activity and therefore requires the muscles of the body to work differently than they do while walking, biking and running.  And speaking of biking and running, these events require significant rotational strength and range of motion, and are single-leg activities.

In addition to having a strong core and being able to handle the physical demand of producing movement through powerful rotational movements, swimming, running and biking are activities that require balance and stability as well.  Performing exercises on machines – sitting or standing – simply will not cut it.

Strength training for triathletes needs to incorporate dynamic movements that allow the body to create powerful movements while stabilizing the body in a 360-degree manner. Exercises used in a triathletes’ strength training program must train the nervous system to communicate with the rest of the body and improve balance and stability.  You can probably figure out that balance drills and one-legged exercises are a big part of a triathletes strength training program.

Strength training programs for athletes need to be specific, in that the training needs to mimic the activity that you’re training for.  Remember that you are training movements and not muscles.  The exercises used in this kind of strength training program should be pulled from the pages of Muscle and Fitness, and shouldn’t be done sitting down or in a machine.  Any machine.

Functional training will help triathletes and all endurance athletes – hell all people, athletic or not – get the most out of their program while improving their performance.

Lost amongst the hoopla surrounding Marion Jones’ semi-admission of guilt with regard to her taking illegal performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) were reports that Jones was on a Balco Labs drug regimen that had her using insulin and testosterone cream.  Body builders, and athletes have long used – are still using – insulin because it is the most potent muscle building substance available.

In the current era of the “advanced” performance-enhancing drugs, athletes are still using insulin to get bigger and stronger.  Insulin is the “old school” hormone that athletes use to assist steroids, the modern designer steroids and hormones. Without getting into the details of the science, insulin is responsible for kicking off a series of cellular events that are ultimately responsible for insulin’s anabolic effect (development of muscle).

If you delve into the world of the body builders – the real world lab where anabolic agents are studied – you will find that for years these guinea pigs have found that the proper combination of diet and insulin administration can be quite effective in building muscle.  Of course using insulin for non-medical purposes is incredibly dangerous, but risk has never been a deterrent to those folks who are looking to get an edge, or to just get bigger.

Google “insulin” and “body builders” and you will find ample evidence that people are – and have been – using this hormone to “improve” their physique.

You need to remember that these kinds of people will believe anything, and try anything, when it comes to getting bigger, so the warnings issued by scientists in lab coats fall on deaf ears.  When the legit scientific community says that steroids or insulin or human growth hormone doesn’t work, the chemical underground laughs and continues to experiment.  These walking lab rats have used these drugs in ways that members of the legit scientific community can’t even dream about, and due to ethical constraints couldn’t study.

And before we go any further, let’s all agree that non-medical insulin use is extremely risky and that anyone who uses it to improve performance or to just get bigger is most likely insane.  The purpose of this piece certainly isn’t to endorse performance-enhancing insulin use; recognition and discussion of this situation is simply an attempt to educate. Unlike the articles on body building sites that actually reveal how these substances can be used illicitly, this item deals with the issue in broad strokes.

Body builders’ contribution to the world of real sport has been to determine what drugs to use and for what purpose.  They have figured out dosages and combinations.  In the case of insulin, body builders have determined the proper diet to use in conjunction with non-medical insulin administration, as well as figuring out what drugs – specifically testosterone – and supplements to use with insulin.  Those who are expert at this dangerous dosage dance are able to keep their insulin levels from rising too high and result in increased body fat from excess glucose, which would not be a good thing for body builders or most athletes.

Even though insulin is a banned substance, there isn’t a drug test that can detect insulin supplementation, and in many states there are not laws against the use of insulin by non-diabetics.  Since traditional syringes aren’t needed to administer this hormone, you don’t need a prescription in many states and its relative low cost it’s no wonder insulin is a popular PED.

And if anyone thinks I’m crazy or making any of this up, just check the Internet and not only will you find that I speak truth, you’ll also likely be amazed at what you find out.

Before the issue of PEDs can be discussed in a rational manner people need to understand the depth of the problem and the extreme behaviors that people are willing to engage in to get an edge.