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by Bob Hillman
Meet the Press is a series of articles that gives you the chance to get to know the folks who make up the T-mag crew. If you've ever been curious about who we are, what makes us tick and what gets our panties all tied up in a wad, you'll enjoy this series. If not, well then screw you, who needs you anyway! (Kidding, kidding…)
It's been a while since we've ran this feature series, and to be honest it's long over due. In fact, one of our regular readers pointed out that we haven't ran this series in over a year, so we tasked him with our latest installment. To date we've talked shop with Ian King, chewed the proverbial fat with TC and have even layed the smack down with Brock Strasser. This time we're turning the tables on Chris Shugart, the guy who usually does these "Meet the Press" articles. We wanted to get down to brass tacks with this Shugart fellow and find out what chokes his chicken, what makes him blush like a school girl, and most importantly, has his job at T-mag helped him to meet any fitness babes? In all seriousness, Chris is many things to T-mag — a writer, a teacher, a trainer, and purveyor of "tough love." Plus, we have it on good authority he can play a pretty mean banjo. Enjoy. Chris, let's start with a little background. Where are you from and what did your parents do for a living? I'm from a small town in Texas. It's one of those towns with no traffic lights, one post office, a Dairy Queen and a couple of hundred churches. My dad worked in the oil field most of his life. My mother stayed at home and took care of me and my grandmother, who lived with us while I was growing up. I was an only child and was really lucky. My parents grew up dirt poor, mostly picking cotton for a living, with little education, but they worked hard to send me to school and give me more opportunities than they had. I'm just a country boy with a little book learnin' in other words! [laughing] Before joining T-mag about three years ago, you were actually a high school teacher full time and gravedigger part time. How did you transition from these fields to assistant editor of the leading online bodybuilding magazine? I'd always wanted to be a writer. I guess I decided that when I was about twelve years old. So in college I made one of my majors English. Of course, no one pays you to try to be a writer so I had to have a real job while trying to get my writing career off the ground. I'd read where Stephen King taught high school English before he published Carrie so I decided to take that route. Education had always appealed to me anyway. In high school I'd actually called out a couple of my inept teachers and told them they sucked as educators. One of them, a coach who was trying to teach an economics class, told me if I could do better, then I should. So you did. Yep. I finished college early and taught high-school English, journalism, and psychology, plus a few other courses. I was even a powerlifting coach one year and did a stint as a sex ed teacher. That first year of teaching I was only three years older than some of my students, but it turned out I was pretty good at it. My students set records in their state test scores and I really felt I made a difference in their lives. I still get calls today from my first class of students. What made you quit? Who wants to hang around a bunch of hot 18-year-old girls all day? Not me! No, seriously, I hated the paperwork and because of my students' high test scores, I was labeled as a "test preparation expert." That meant I was pretty much going to teach kids to pass the mandatory state exam every year. That didn't appeal to me much. Plus the pay sucked. My first year as a teacher I made $18,500, and this was in the 1990's! I was thrilled at the time because that was $500 over base pay! In Texas at least, teachers get paid not by how good they are but by how many years they've been teaching. There's something fundamentally wrong with that. After a few years of teaching, I had no desire to move up to an administrative position (more paperwork), so I didn't see the point of staying in public education the rest of my life. I admit I have the attention span of a flea so I was ready for something new anyway. And the truth was I wasn't really doing what I'd wanted to for a living. Except for a couple of newspaper articles, I wasn't writing; I was teaching people how to write. Big difference. Where did the grave digging come in? [laughing] Well, I never did that. They have machines for the actual digging now. But being a teacher I had summers off so I'd always take summer jobs that were the exact opposite of teaching. I wanted to be outside, I didn't want to have to work with people or dress up, and I didn't want to have to think too much. So for three summers I worked in a cemetery, mostly mowing grass and stuff like that. It was great. I'd strap on the headphones, pop in a book-on-tape and go to work. I never had to diet those summers either; not while pushing a mower and hauling around a big industrial weed eater for eight hours a day in the Texas heat! I'll bet not! When did T-mag come into the picture? Testosterone was my favorite bodybuilding magazine. I'd been a fan of Muscle Media 2000, back before it was castrated, and had always liked TC's work. Well, we all know what happened to Muscle Media, so one day I got out all my old issues and tried to figure out what was up. I noticed that TC wasn't editor anymore and was only a contributor. Then his name disappeared altogether and he was replaced by this little gay guy. Not that there's anything wrong with that! Hey, I was about to say that! Anyway, one day I typed "TC Luoma" and "Charles Poliquin" into a search engine and Testosterone popped up! It was like issue number two or three. I started reading T-mag and even had a few letters published in Reader Mail. Then in one issue someone asked TC what it took to write for the magazine. TC said to just send him an article and some ideas. So on Sunday morning I got up early and sent TC a note about myself and threw some ideas at him. Much to my surprise he wrote me back and told me to run with one of the ideas. What was it? It was a column idea where I review a different bodybuilding book every month. The article I wrote didn't get published but later the idea evolved into the "Stuff We Like" column. I guess TC saw something because he asked me to help out with the mag. I remember him saying, "I need another me around here!" At the time, T-mag was helping Mind and Muscle Power magazine. TC would send them articles and we'd get free ad space. So after freelancing a couple of articles, my first job for T-mag was to write columns for M&M Power. I wrote three columns for them, but my name didn't appear on most of them. It was just hack work mostly, coming up with info blurbs and workout programs for busy people who said they didn't have time to train. I also answered the leftover reader mail and started editing an article or two every once in a while. TC was slowly training me. I guess he knew he'd need help someday because T-mag was growing so fast. Were you still teaching at the time? Yes, my first year at T-mag I was also teaching full time. It was a hectic year! But I was thrilled. I was not only writing and getting paid for it, I was writing about something I loved (bodybuilding) and writing for my favorite mag! A year before I'd been using Poliquin's programs and reading Charles Staley's books, and now I was editing Poliquin and talking to Staley on the phone! I was ecstatic. I felt like a Rolling Stones fan who gets pulled out of the audience and asked to come on stage and do a song with Mick. When the school year was over TC asked me to come to T-mag full time as assistant editor. It was a tough decision. I'd just become a father and I was hesitant about taking a big career risk. Then I read an Atomic Dog of TC's called "Let Go of the Rock." That pretty much convinced me, so I let go of the rock and joined T-mag full time. You once wrote that you spent the majority of your college career majoring in "lard-ass," but somehow managed to get a degree in just about everything else. Tell us, what was the defining moment that led you to re-invent yourself both physically and mentally? I'd always been a pudgy kid and in college I dove into the books and the fridge and quit working out. (I'd lifted a little in high school but nothing serious.) My freshmen and sophomore year of college I ballooned up to around 230 pounds, all of it fat. I had my body fat tested and although I've blocked out the actual number, it was somewhere in the twenties. One day I just got extremely pissed at myself. That's the best way I can explain it — it was an utter self-loathing for what I had become. I punched a lot of walls back then. I decided to lose the weight but I had no clue how to do it. This was in the early 90's and America was at the height of its "fat free" fanaticism. So I decided I would eat no fat. Now, this was back before there were so many fat-free products on the market so what I actually did was stop eating. At my worst, I was eating one bowl of fat free cereal a day, and I wouldn't drink the milk. That's it? That's it. And for exercise all I would do is run. Incredibly stupid, but back then I just didn't know any better and according to the "experts" of the time, starvation diets and aerobics were the only way to lose weight. I think I learned what I know about dieting mostly by doing everything wrong in the beginning! So what happened? I lost over sixty pounds. Of course I looked like shit at the end, too. My mother told me I looked like I had AIDS and that kind of snapped me out of it. It was then that I got interested in weight training for the first time since high school. So I started lifting with the football players during my first year of teaching. Where did you initially go for information on training and nutrition? I went to the only source I knew: bodybuilding magazines. This was a blessing and a curse. While I did learn different exercises and learned that starvation wasn't the answer, I also took what a lot of the pros said as gospel and I fell for a lot of supplement hype. Yep, I bought a Cybergenics kit and Hot Stuff! And of course I didn't have a clue about the pros' crazy steroid usage at the time. I mostly just dug up a lot of Arnold's old books and articles and followed those. I was in overtraining, under-eating hell, but at least I was lifting weights. It was a start. At the time did you ever think about a fitness career or were you really looking to meet women? Luckily, my high school sweetheart stayed with me through the fat years and the anorexic years, so I wasn't really looking to meet women out of the deal. It was a very selfish quest: I didn't want to look or feel like shit anymore. My girlfriend put up with it all and we were married my first year of teaching and still are today. When I think of the title assistant editor, I envision some geek reviewing copy with a dictionary in one hand and a thesaurus in the other. Obviously this isn't the case. In the past three years we've come to know you as a trainer, traveler, investigative reporter, smuggler, and "diet guru." You've even been on HBO's Real Sports and have been interviewed on several morning radio shows. What else do you do at T-mag that we're not aware of? I wash Tim Patterson's pick-up truck until it sparkles and TC makes me flush out his Real Doll every Monday. No, no, just kidding. I edit or rewrite a couple of articles per week, help TC review article submissions, take pictures when needed, help out with the forum and reader mail… stuff like that. I usually spend the last couple of days of every week writing my own articles, researching, and doing interviews. Every once in a while I get to travel, which is my favorite part of the job. Okay, time to bear your soul. What's the worst or most humiliating thing you've had to do since joining the staff? Truthfully, I don't have to do anything. TC just isn't that kind of boss. I think he went through enough hell with Bill Phillips that he knows exactly how not to treat the staff. I have no complaints. Okay then, who's the biggest asshole you've had to deal with either directly or indirectly within the bodybuilding community? Luckily, all the current T-mag staff is pretty cool. The wackos and ego-freaks were weeded out a long time ago, and Brock stays on his meds most of the time. (Just kidding, Brock buddy!) I've liked everyone I've ever interviewed although I may not agree with everything they have to say. There are plenty of mentally ill pricks in the bodybuilding community but I don't have to deal with any of them luckily. Did anything about the bodybuilding community surprise you when first joined? I think my biggest surprise came when I found out how many assholes there were in the bodybuilding world, and I'm not really talking about the competitive bodybuilders. I'm talking about writers, people associated in one way or another with supplements, and some of the higher ups in certain magazines. I got a few articles published and thought, "Hey, I'm part of the community now!" but it's not like that. Most want to argue and condemn, not discuss. This "community" is full of little boys who were picked on as kids and still hold grudges against the world. I've never seen so many men with low self-esteem ready to attack anyone who doesn't kiss their ass. Hey, I love bodybuilding, but the industry attracts a lot of people with "issues." That's just a fact. I remember getting into a "conversation" with a well-known diet guru once and was looking forward to picking his brain and having a good, educational debate. Within a minute he was cussing me and saying things like, "Fuck you, motherfucker! Suck my dick!" That was the first time I realized what a bunch of sad little men are involved with bodybuilding. It's almost embarrassing. What other nastiness have you encountered? Well, T-mag and I have been sued a couple of times for writing the truth. Can you give us an example? Most of it I can't talk about it, court orders, but I was once sued because I said that an ad featuring a popular natural bodybuilder was misleading. The ad said that a fat burner helped him gain a lot of muscle, which is ridiculous, and I pointed out that fact in a humorous way. I was sued for millions. Another company I can't even mention by name sued T-mag and myself for something similar. What happened? I can't say really, but it all worked out well in the end. These were just tactical lawsuits. They didn't expect to win, it was just big supplement companies picking on smaller, growing companies like T-mag and Biotest. They're afraid of us. They know just fighting the lawsuit will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars so they sue knowing they probably won't win. There's even one supplement company out there that tries to sue people who write negative things about them on public bodybuilding forums. Hello, freedom of speech anyone? It's a nasty, nasty business, but I think we do a good job keeping out of the muck. Has working for T-mag opened your eyes to any "underground" activities you were unaware of that you can share with your readers? [laughing] What, you want me to get sued again?! Yes, my eyes have been opened and TC, Tim and I could probably write a book that would shut the bodybuilding industry down. Well, maybe not sued, how about just enough to get you slapped around a little? [laughing] Come on, just a little dirt? Well, these really aren't big secrets or anything, but there have been major supplement companies that were founded with money made from steroid operations. We've written about that before, so no big deal really. There's also at least one guy I know selling an ab-training book that's had extensive "ab etching" plastic surgery. I have nothing against the surgery, but don't try to sell me an ab-training book when you got your abs from Dr. Nadler! That's about as bad as those pros who have calf implants who write calf training articles! Let me put it this way, this industry is full of sad little men behind curtains pulling levers and pretending to be the great and powerful Oz. If I didn't work for T-mag, I probably wouldn't work in the industry at all. Has being a former teacher helped you with regards to writing for a bodybuilding mag? Definitely. Bodybuilding has never been easy for me and neither were some subjects in school. But that made me a better educator because I've been there, I've struggled, and I know what it takes. A person who never struggles with algebra makes a pretty horrible algebra teacher, and a guy who's never struggled building his body usually can't teach others much about lifting. So I think I make a pretty good teacher because God knows I've struggled! You've said many times you're happy to help anyone who genuinely wants to learn, but you have a real disdain for laziness and apathy, don't you? Sure. I just don't have time for lazy people. I'll bend over backwards to help someone, but I don't bother with people who won't put forth some effort to learn. There's no reason to be ignorant about diet and training these days, especially with over 200 back issues of T-mag online. I'll help anyone, but not if they send me a letter like "How do I get big?" Do some reading and get back to me, bud! I'm playing with my kid right now! Listen, I like helping newbies, but I swear some of them are allergic to search engines and have "FAQ section phobia." It gets frustrating, but at the same time it's cool to have so many newbies discovering the mag. That means we're growing and getting new readers daily. I have to believe that one of the best things about working for T-mag is all the people you've come in contact with. You've interviewed some of the top people in bodybuilding. What do you think it is that separates this group from the mainstream? Have you seen any common parallels between this group that in some way connects them? Definitely. T-mag's regular contributors really have their acts together. They're sane in an insane field. They're open-minded, they really enjoy their work, and they love the learning process. And they're just cool people, guys you'd like to have a beer with. Plus a lot of them are like me: none of this came easy for them but that made them that much tougher and it made them better educators. Chris, I'm going to beat you to the punch here because I know how you'll answer the next question. The three most important elements in training are (and in this order) diet, diet, and diet. Don't forget about diet! Yeah, I do harp on that theme a lot. I guess it's because when I first started paying attention to my diet (and not just training) it was like I was hit by a bright light while that "Hallelujah" song played. Most people train hard and then when their progress slows down they turn to supplements or steroids. There are some damned good supplements out there these days, but diet should be taken care of first. You can't out-train a poor diet. I'd bet my dog that most guys who say they're "genetically peaked out" are just lacking somewhere in their diets. I've said that myself about a dozen times. I thought I was peaked out at 170, 180, then 200. Usually the fix was diet related. Training and supplements played a role too, but diet was the missing ingredient. Diet isn't as sexy or "fun" as a German, superset, hypertrophy specific, escalating density wave program, but it works wonders when everything else has failed. There are a lot of tough guys out there who'll train their asses off, but won't pay attention to what they eat. I call them "diet wussies." You're a huge proponent of not only eating clean, but also keeping a log of everything you eat, just as you'd keep a training log. What are the things someone will immediately notice when he starts keeping a food log? First, they'll be shocked about how all their assumptions about calories and protein intake were wrong. Happens every time. Guys eat some chicken and drink a protein shake and think that takes care of their protein needs. When they finally suck it up and log their intake they realize they're eating about enough protein to support the muscle mass of a twelve year old girl. These days if someone comes to me for help and doesn't want to keep a food log, I walk away. It's that important. I think you once wrote that you've gained about twenty pounds in the last three years through a combination of new training techniques and nutrition. What's up with that? Most of us would kill for half of that. I weighed about 180 pounds when I first started writing for T-mag. I started weight training weighing159 pounds, right after my starvation phase. I spent the first few years of training just trying to undo the damage I'd done to myself. After coming to work for T-mag I started to get really serious about trying the routines and experimenting with my diet. Tim also sends me a box of Biotest stuff every month. I know that sound like a plug, but it's just a fact. I started using these training programs, talking with all the different contributors and started really upping my protein intake and trying all the supplements. I was so busy with the new job, fatherhood, and everything else I didn't really bother weighing all that often. Then one day I stepped on the scale and was 200 pounds. I'd never weighed over 200 without being a fat ass. So I can't say it was any one thing that helped me, I just adopted what I guess you could call a "T-mag lifestyle" and started making progress again. It was a combination of diet, training and supplements that helped me break 200 without illegal steroids, something I once thought was beyond my genetics. How confident are you that an intermediate trainee, with six to ten years of lifting experience, can make unbelievable gains just through keeping a food log, studying it and manipulating their diet, assuming that he or she has never done so before? If he's never kept a food log before and never really paid attention to his diet, then I'm positive he can make near steroid-like gains when he starts to focus on these things. I've never met a person who didn't have the ability to naturally put on at least twenty pounds of solid muscle, and much more than that is possible. And by the way, training age has nothing to do with it. We all know guys who've been lifting for over ten years who still don't know shit. They won't crack a book or try anything new. They're stagnant because their level of knowledge is stagnant. The more knowledge you have, the more progress you'll make. What other diet related problems do you see? I think we overcomplicate dieting. I mean, I see guys getting into these heated arguments about carbs and meal timing and it's kinda funny when you step back and look at it. People are fat these days not because they don't know what to do, but because they choose to eat a lot of bad shit! I mean, come on, does anyone in any civilized country not know that soda, candy and fast food combined with a sedentary lifestyle is making them fat? Of course they know! Then you see these fat people scarfing down a 42-ounce Coke, a Big Mac and some super-sized fries talking about how "dangerous" low carb diets and supplements are. I think I'll write a book for these folks. It'll contain one page with one sentence: "Stop eating the crap you already know is bad for you, you dummy!" I couldn't agree more! I think what happens is that people get confused about low carbs vs. high carbs, low fat vs. high fat etc, so they just say screw it all and have pie. Many more are just lazy or in denial. I've been there so I have a right to be hard on these fat tubs. I'd rather give them a swift kick in the pants than coddle them like many experts in the fat loss industry do. That didn't work for me and it doesn't work for most people. I want to work with those who appreciate the rude awakening and are ready to make some changes. You've written about how to get the gear, reported on the local scene in Juarez and Thailand, went undercover with HBO, and even smuggled goods from Mexico back to the States. What's your opinion of steroids for personal use? Steroids are a tricky subject. I'm not against their safe and sane usage, but most people have no business using them. My guidelines for someone who wants to try steroids is to be over the age of 25 (30 is better), have at least ten years of real lifting under their belts, and have read all the back issues of T-mag. Most steroid users train poorly, leave out muscle groups, are clueless about tempo, don't squat or deadlift and have no idea how to eat to support muscle growth. Sure, they'll grow if they use roids, but they won't know how to grow without them, and since they can't be "on" all the time, they end up quitting. Listen, if a guy is too lazy or dumb to learn about proper training and dieting, do you think he'll learn how to use steroids as safely as possible? Then there are all those other "little" concerns like breaking the law, health risks, getting ripped off by dealers, buying dirty gear, getting gyno because they didn't learn enough about anti-estrogens, botched injections etc. About one percent of all steroid users I see know enough about them to be using. I just wish doctors were more free to prescribe them for non-hypogonadal men. That would clean up a big part of the black market and alleviate many of the health risks. Of course, most doctors don't know shit about steroids either so it could get scary! Tell us about your first experience with steroids. After I hit 200 I thought I "deserved" to try steroids. Anyone who stays in bodybuilding long enough will get the urge to use. I've seen the most ardent anti-steroid guys give in and try a cycle. A guy who posts on the T-mag forum that all steroid users are "clowns with small dicks" will usually be dropping us a note within a year asking for cycle advice. Happens all the time. It's a curiosity thing mostly. After I hit 200, I consulted with some of our steroid experts and tried two "baby" cycles. Truthfully, most steroid users would laugh at how tiny the cycles were, but I was playing it safe. Plus, I have no desire to look like a bloated pro anyway. So I tried a cycle and put on a few pounds. A few months later I tried another short cycle, this one a little more powerful. Again, I put on a few pounds. It's weird, but after that I didn't have much of an urge to go back on. I'd scratched that itch and my curiosity was satisfied. Still no urge to try another cycle? No. Like I said, I don't like the excessively roided-up look. I have no desire to look like a walking hard-on, all veiny and red. Besides, my first MAG-10 cycle gave me the same results in lean body mass as my last steroid cycle. So why would I want to inject myself and break the law when I can get the results I want from something safe and legal? This is the first time you've talked about your past experiments with steroids in public, isn't it? Yes, and I doubt I'll write about steroids much in the future. I had over ten years of training experience and had gained over 40 pounds naturally before I tried a cycle. Plus I consulted with the best guys in the biz before I started. But if I wrote a lot about my experience, sure enough some 19-year-old kid with a year of training under his belt would decide that he was "peaked out" and say, "Hey, I think I'll do that too!" I spend most of my time talking people out of using steroids, not advising them on how to use them. Okay, Chris, we're nearing the end of our interview so how about a lighting round? I'll throw a name or topic at you and I want you to give us your honest, unrehearsed opinion. Ready? Shoot. Tim Patterson. Probably the only honest supplement company owner in the biz. A good guy who really wants to see people make progress in the gym and really wants to bring cool new products to the supplement market. He could easily make more money by putting out some kind of creatine Kool-Aid formula or by using pro-bodybuilders or fakey "before and after" photos in his ads, but he doesn't want to take that route. Tim is really a cool guy. He's like this hyperactive idea machine. It's obvious he really loves bodybuilding. Making money is secondary to him. He probably could have cashed out for big bucks years ago, but he really loves what he does. TC. If you've read all of TC's Atomic Dogs, then you know TC. He's just like you'd think he would be from reading his work: funny, intelligent and passionate about life. He's a very down to earth person, probably the most bullshit-free guy I've ever met. I owe him a lot. Pro-bodybuilders. I think most magazines make a huge mistake by focusing on pros. Guys read the mags to get bigger and lose fat, not because they're fans of pro-bodybuilders. Plus, the pros just don't motivate people anymore, not like they did back in Arnold's heyday. Today's pros use an insane amount of drugs, they're unhealthy, and they look like giant walking hemorrhoids. No one wants to look like that. I just don't see a bloated Ecstasy addict who sucks dick for drug money as a role model. Then these guys appear in supplement ads designed to part teenagers from their money. The articles they "write" for bodybuilding mags are usually ghostwritten, meaning they don't write them, some magazine editor does. Pros have great genes and use a ton of drugs then attempt to give training and diet advice to normal, drug-free guys. Some of the worst advice ever given comes from pro-bodybuilders. It's a farce that only appeals to fetishists and people who don't know any better. To tell you the truth, Bob, I haven't opened a muscle magazine besides T-mag in over a year. And I'm not missing a damned thing. Female pro-bodybuilders They started out pretty cool. They showed how weights can enhance femininity. These days they're solely responsible for keeping most women away from weight training. They should've stayed out of their boyfriend's 'roid stash. I can't stand them and I feel really sorry for them at the same time. Thank God female bodybuilding, at the pro level at least, is nearly dead. Most of these former females have to "wrestle" schmoes just to make a living. That's sad, but it's a good sign because it means the "sport" is nearly dead, killed off by excessive steroid use. Unfortunately, I see the fitness girls headed in the same direction. They still look pretty good, but the drugs have obviously crept in. They're getting ripped to the point of being unhealthy and losing their curves (except for the fake boobs). Even the ones I used to lust after are starting to get "man face" from steroid use. The abuse of thyroid drugs alone has led to many a short career as a fitness bunny. Unfortunately, all the ones guys are drooling over today will have disappeared from the mags in five years for these reasons. I really hate to say it, but competitive bodybuilding and even fitness-style competitions are slowly self-destructing. If someone likes competitive bodybuilding, I tell them to read up on Arnold, Draper, Pearl, Reeves, Zane, Cory Everson etc. Anyone who came after that just doesn't have much to offer. Bodybuilding as a sport was pretty much over after Arnold retired. You don't ever cut today's pros a break do you? It's funny, but I've talked about this stuff with a couple of the pros and you know what? They agree with me! They would rather not have to get so drugged up but that's what it takes to win these days. And they want to win above all else. It's sad really. The judging criteria needs to change. Period. Truthfully, I think there are two types of lifters. Some typify all the negative stuff I've talked about in this interview. The other type lifts to improve himself both mentally and physically, because he loves the challenge and because it empowers him. Life isn't about bodybuilding for him, but he knows that bodybuilding will enhance life. That's the guy I write articles for. Cool. What do you think of Body for Life? Well, at least it's not "Sweatin' to the Oldies" and Slim Fast! Seriously, most of us within the industry don't like it — not because it's a bad program, but because of the guy who wrote it. (Or should I say the guy on the cover. He had an unknown co-writer do the book with him.) Those who knew him as a hardcore steroid guru just can't buy the syrupy sweet façade he puts up these days in order to sell books and supplements to housewives. Still, the program itself has gotten a lot of people into weight training and many of them discover T-mag soon after that, so it's not all bad. Do you think the winners of contests like that use steroids? I don't know. Maybe some do, some did in the past for sure. But many were in good shape before and had just let themselves go, so it didn't take long for them to get back into shape. I can tell you that we get a lot of letters from people entering these contests asking what roids to take and how to beat a lie detector. I don't know if these people are winning, but apparently some are at least trying to cheat. Also, it takes most people much longer than twelve weeks to even get started building a good body, so I worry that many are discouraged when they don't look like the previous winners after twelve weeks. The winners are exceptions to the rule. Besides, bodybuilding is a lifelong process, not a twelve week project. You're known for your motivational columns. Some of them really don't have much to do with bodybuilding, but more with life in general. Why is that? Well, as I've said, there's a lot more to life than lifting. There's a lot more to Testosterone, the magazine and the hormone, than just going to the gym. Lifting weights is an important part of my life, but it's not my main concern. I think that's healthy. If you focus on nothing else but getting big, then you end up like Gregg Valentino or end up killing yourself like Mike Mentzer and his brother. What a pathetic ending to a life. I think myself and the T-mag staff are more well-rounded than that. We could do anything we wanted; we choose this field because we enjoy it. Amen to that, brother. Chris, it's been a pleasure talking to you. Keep up the great work and thanks for your time. © 1998 — 2002 Testosterone, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
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