Tuesday, 23 August 2011

Fight For Fair Play


Recently every channel in the media was covering the controversial doping saga that some of the best schools in our country are struggling to deal with.  This infuriated me beyond measures.  I blame the media.  The media portrays these Goliath type figures on the cover of their 'health' and 'fitness' magazines through the promoting of supplements to achieve the physiques of Greek Gods.

I can guarantee you the models and bodybuilders on those covers do not look the way they do because they had a 'shake' for breakfast.  Steroids have been in our gyms and part of our society since the early 1930's when a German chemist started fiddling with hormones. Thank you very much!

Anabolic steroids, growth hormones, testosterone variants and various others were developed for weak minded people who cannot adjust to the heat of their game.  The most disappointing fact is how little one educates themselves on the effects of steroids prior to injecting it into their lives.

When next in the weight section of your local gym take a good look around.  You should notice lifters wrapping their knees, their wrists, their elbows and strapping their backs with belts.  Ensuring their joints are strapped with stabilizers. Their joints become inflamed, the scar tissue tears and builds up making their joints weaker and stiffer than ever. The change rooms reek of heat rubs and menthol and this is all applied to keep the pain at bay .

Joint pain is a steroid abusers best friend and by the time they reach their mid thirties, torment is a way of life. The damage has long been done, whether they stop training or not. Steroids cause muscles to develop at an astonishingly accelerated rate, faster than the joints can keep up.

The personality changes experienced by a user are the very least of their problems, in South Africa we are all pretty adjusted to a little aggression and violent behaviour by a random passer buyer.  The bigger problems lie in the fact that not only are steroids causing the muscles to grow but also the stomach wall and the internal organs to swell in size.  Nothing like a serving of heart failure with a side of septic shock to bring in the weekend.

These pretty boys with their juiced pecs can get away with 'pansie ass' exercises on their big machines and still get pumped up like balloons.  Not strong - just pumped up.

Do me a favour, give us a real challenge, your biceps don't scare me.