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Da Big Boyz

© Matt Danielson

I remember when I was a kid, and the first time I saw Arnold Schwarzenegger I was literally blasted away. I was a small pencil-neck back then, who wasn't into sports at all except for an occasional game of soccer with the neighbor kids, and I had never SEEN anyone so huge before in my life! Right there, I knew I wanted to be BIG! Alright, now raise a hand everybody who's heard this story before..?

Yeah, I thought so. We've all been there. Eventually you picked up a barbell yourself, and off you were into the world of bodybuilding. But still, even after many years, I believe all of us can remember that first picture of an awesome bodybuilder that so thoroughly rocked our little world.

However, insane as it may sound, our heroes of yesterday wouldn't even place top-10 in a pro competition nowadays. A guy who raked home about every trophy there was 20 years ago would be booed off stage today, and for every passing year we see the giants grow even larger, even more ripped and even more unhealthy. Not saying ALL are, but of the pros, most have obtained a rather unhealthy look by enlarged intestines, "bitch tits" and acne. Between competitions, they swell to huge, moon-faced balloons and nearly kill themselves to get in shape for, perhaps two competitions a year.

And why do these professionals do it? Because they need to win! A guy preparing for a contest can easily blow tens of thousands of dollars on drugs! There's a "winner takes all" attitude in professional Bodybuilding, meaning the lot of the competitors leave with nothing but defeat and the memory of lost money. Only the top-guys get endorsement-contracts, and unlike football, pro Bodybuilding doesn't have a big TV audience so the sums are usually pretty meager. The competitions are won by the biggest, heaviest and most ripped guys (there ARE exceptions where smaller guys surpass the giants thanks to perfect symmetry, but it's rare).

The result? Of course, everybody tries to become bigger, leaner, and meaner than the next guy! And they succeed, as the guys with less than ideal genetics are weeded out right away, and the rest are involved in a death-spiral of ever-increasing drug use. There just doesn't seem to be any physical limits any more...

What these guys are into is, like I said, a spiral of death. They stack several drugs together, increase the dosages, experiment with substances which have side effects virtually unknown to man and follow the principle of "whatever the next guy is taking, I gotta take twice as much so I don't get behind!". With a few exceptions, they can't hold ordinary jobs.

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