I need some input from YOU!

Let me explain…

I have been busy writing an e-book for my new-to-be-set-up mailing list on the GIANT! site on do-it-yourself workout program design. It will be a short(ish) book with no pictures – I am saving that for the ‘big book’ I am planning to write soon – but with a step by step guide to designing your own personal workout program.

The writing is almost finished and mostly needs some ‘beautifying’, and I am sure it will be of great value to both beginning and advanced athletes in fitness and bodybuilding.

But… I have this nagging voice in the back of my head that I might be overlooking aspects of program design that I take for granted but that might be an invaluable addition to the book for the beginning athletes in our midst.

I want to keep the outline of the book to myself for now (sorry, there are quite some copycats our there), but I still really would like to know!

Could you tell me what YOU would expect to read in a book on do-it-yourself workout program design?

Just post a comment and I will work on making the book the best value I can give!

Thanks in advance!

Robin

Furthermore, one in twenty uses some sort of pills – often amphetamine and ephedrine-like substances –  to lose body fat.

Most fitness enthusiasts seem to be happy with themselves for going to the gym. They feel healthy. Two-third of them also use supplements and extra vitamins and minerals.

The government is worried about the use of steroid and the like in fitness centers, but does not perceive this to be on a large enough scale to become uncontrollable. They do want to force gyms and fitness centers to add a doping rule in their customer rules.

Yeah, right!

Look, ever since the days of ancient Greece, athletes have been using foreign substances to allow them to perform better than the next guy. The Greek athletes used to eat the balls from a bull to enhance their performance (talking about getting your stuff ‘straight from the source’)!

In just about any performance sport, athletes are looking for anything that will give them an edge over the other athletes. Let me just mention bicycle racing; most scandals you hear on blood doping, steroids and other substances happen in bicycle racing. Lance Armstrong may say he is clean, but let’s be honest, who believes him?!

Performance sports are so advanced nowadays, it is virtually impossible to meet the requirements without some sort of drug. Or do you really think it is possible to race through France for twenty-one days straight on just a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a banana? Let’s get real!

In football and baseball, coaches encourage their athletes to put on muscle mass to make them more of a threat in the field. When you see a 300 pound linebacker, who is not fat, do you really believe that he got that way just living the healthy lifestyle?

In the bodybuilding sport, we are mostly knowledgeable enough to know it is impossible to win even a state level contest without using some sort of anabolic steroids. I know, some bodybuilders pride themselves on being drug-free, but how drug-free are you really when you take pro-hormones and every supplement known to man but the real deal, just to be able to say you don’t use steroids?

And be honest, who really cares? The public wants to see freaks, and the sport delivers. If the public is naïve enough to believe that these guys and girls have achieved this all just by training hard and eating their veggies, who’s problem is that? The general public that visits a bodybuilding show are in the sport themselves, and they know the deal.

I have no problem with steroid usage myself. I have used some stuff myself when I got stuck in a training rut a few years ago, and yes, it works (I know there are physicians that say that this stuff doesn’t work, but that’s just plain bollocks). So who am I to judge the people that give it their all to compete in a contest and, yes, also use steroid to get that far?

My problem is those athletes that use anabolic substances and publicly say they are drug-free! I can remember a television show with a Miss Olympia winner, who, when asked about steroids, says with a deep voice she isn’t using anything… I don’t say they have to admit using steroids, that will most likely get you into trouble, but if you do not want to admit using, just say you don’t want to talk about steroid usage. Just don’t lie!

And don’t enter drug-free contests when you are a user… that’s just plain cheating. What is the value of a title when you had to lie to get it? Just something to ponder about…

The fitness lifestyle is real, whether it is drug-enhanced or not. Many people feel great working out, eating right, and – yes – maybe take some substances to enhance their performance and feeling of well-being.

What I would like to see, is that the governments everywhere accept that they cannot ban these substances, and start controlling the correct usage.

Start educating sports physicians to enable them to coach those athletes that want to further their performance by using drugs, and have them legally provide the drugs as well. That way, the athletes can get the real stuff straight from the proper pharmaceutical companies that produce them at a good price, without having to resort to back-alley dealers that may sell them nothing but olive oil at a ridiculous price and tell them it is the real deal.

Steroids will not go anywhere soon, so why not regulate its usage instead of treating athletes that use them like criminals?

Robin

If you want to give me your own take on steroid usage in sports, just leave your comment!

Welcome to the Muscleaneous blog!

On this blog, I will write about my own thoughts, experiences and opinions on training, nutrition and the latest news. I will take a – sometimes harsh – stand on issues, and will not keep my mouth shut. I hope you will appreciate my style! Don’t be afraid to comment on my posts.

For all who don’t know me, my name is Robin Roelofsen. I live in the Netherlands, am married and have three kids.

When I was fifteen, a neighborhood guy got me into contact with bodybuilding. I can remember skimming through his magazines and seeing my first pictures of the like of Tom Platz, Berry DeMey and Arnold Schwarzenegger. I purchased the latter’s book – ‘Education of a Bodybuilder’ – and started working out myself.

My first gym was a tiny gym run by a guy who used to play water polo at a high level and had the shoulders to boot. He eventually went on competing in the Mr Holland, the highest title in the country. He however moved his gym to a place that was a bit too far for me to travel, so I joined another gym in the nearby city of Utrecht. That gym turned out to be a breeding ground for competitive bodybuilders, and I met and worked out alongside well-known Dutch bodybuilders like Glen Gravenbeek and Hans Bolkenstein.

The trouble was, I was still in school and my grades started to deteriorate because of all the time I spent in the gym. So, after one and a half years of training, I quit the gym, finished my school, and did not start again until years later.

In 2001, I had a problem at work – I almost beat the crap out of my boss’s boss – and started working out again to release the aggression in the gym. I really got into it again, and signed up to get my fitness trainer’s certificate. I did finish that education, but I did not like to teach groups, so I started trying to sell my services as a personal trainer.

In 2002, I started a Dutch language website to promote my services. The website was called GIANT!, after the company I started for my personal training services. I am 6′7", so GIANT! seemed appropriate… However, the personal training business did not run too well at that point in time, due to the low level of fitness awareness there still was in the Netherlands at that time. I had some issues with customers not paying, and decided to call it quits.

My website however started to get more and more attention. Next to the sales pages for my personal training business, I had started to write articles and put these up, and it all got out of hand from there.

At the moment, the Dutch website is one of the best visited fitness and bodybuilding websites in the Netherlands, and I keep expanding on it as much as I can. I also take a lot of photographs at the various contests in the Netherlands, and show these on my website.

This year, the NAC World Championships were staged in the Netherlands, and I was invited to take pictures. Since I also sell my pictures, I finally had the drive to start translating my website into English, so foreign competitors could actually read my website! The website – called GIANT! Fitness & Bodybuilding – is still a long way from finished, but I am slowly making progress and it will become a top notch English bodybuilding website soon.

‘Till next time!

Robin