Muscle supplements

Guilt, unanswered questions haunt parents
Knowing that the story of their son’s suicide might help other parents recognize the dangers of abusing anabolic steroids has brought solace to a Middleton couple.
But it is only a drop of consolation in a sea of grief.
When they first realized that Michael’s steroid ingestion probably sparked the depression that led to his death in June, the 19-year-old’s parents no longer had to ask why he did it.
But with some questions answered, there instantly were others: Why didn’t he come to us for help? Why didn’t we notice his drug abuse? Why didn’t his friends tell us?
In the three months since Michael shot himself in his bedroom, his mother says, the pain has not lessened.
“It never goes away,” she says. “I’m still thinking he still might come home.”

In the back yard of their home near Middleton’s southern edge, Michael’s parents recall how they began quizzing their son’s friends from various gyms about his steroid use, even as they filed past the closed casket at his wake.
“Even in the state of shock I was in, I asked them if he was taking steroids,” Michael’s father says.
But their attempts to find out exactly what Michael was taking and where he got it were often met with indifference from those who knew him at local gyms.
Phone caUs were not returned. Some who were contacted said they knew Michael was taking the drugs but would not be specific about amounts and types.
Many have said steroids are easily obtainable by anyone who wants them, but the conversations always end when Michael’s mother or father asks for names of dealers.
“Nobody calls back; they don’t want to talk,” his mother says in frustration. “I just don’t think they care.”
The grief of losing their oldest child, coupled with confusion over why he took his life, at first consumed the couple and their other three children. Trying to pinpoint the blame for his death put strains on the entire family, Michael’s father says.
“This can lead to all kinds of family problems,” he says.

“If you’re trying to assess blame, it can break up a marriage.”
While noting that learning about Michael’s steroid involvement has been a “big relief” in many ways, the teen’s father says he will never be able to answer all the questions.
“There will always be a certain amount of, ‘What did I do, what didn’t I do” he says.
Each time she learns about another side effect of anabolic steroids, memories rush into the mind of Michael’s mother.
She wonders now if her son kept his hair short in the months before his death to hide the hair loss that can accompany steroid use. She recalls his nagging cough and the colds that seemed to plague him last spring and wonders what she could have done if she had suspected they were steroid-related.
But eventually the analysis yields to any mother’s instincts. “If I just could have hugged him and told him I loved him,” she says.
“He must have been torn up inside and we didn’t see it,” she continues, succumbing to one of many onslaughts of tears that come and go every day. “I guess he’s at peace now.”
Nothing will bring back their son, but Michael’s parents hope that spreading the word about the dangers of anabolic steroids might prevent other families from having to go through what they are experiencing.
As Michael’s mother clutches what was her oldest son’s most prized possession a thick blue belt worn while powerlifting his father expresses the only ray of optimism they have gleaned from
their ordeal:
“We hope that some good can come from the bad.”

Dangers, secrecy of use slow research on steroids
Anabolic steroids have made headlines in recent years for their widespread use by professional athletes, Olympians and college sports participants to increase size, strength and endurance.
But as reports citing increasing steroid use surface, reliable information about adverse side effects of the body-building drugs, especially the psychological damage they can cause, continues to flow in trickles rather than waves.
The main problem in steroid research is that, because many users take extremely high doses of steroids, scientists cannot accurately reproduce the patterns of steroid abuse without endangering test subjects.
Dr. Greg Landry, head medical team physician for sports at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says some tests have shown that steroid abusers use a minimum of 350 percent of the therapeutic doses of anabolic steroids and often as much as 10 times the prescription amount.
No doctor or scientist could ethically have human test subjects take such high doses, even in a controlled lab setting, because of the unknown health risks, according to Landry.

While researchers have tried to poll users to obtain side effect information, the results are often suspect because participants aren’t always honest in reporting their steroid use.
A 1988 study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry polled 41 steroid users from Massachusetts and California and found that five had experienced major depression after quitting steroids. Many others in the study experienced paranoia and uncontrollable impulsive behavior while taking the drugs. However, the study’s authors note that accurate results are extremely difficult to obtain voluntarily because steroid users don’t want to honestly discuss their use of the illegal substances.
Because little is known about the possible psychological harm anabolic steroids may cause.

Later, users find steroids do more than add muscle
Steroid hormones are only one class of hormones produced by the body that are essential in controlling body function. Hormones serve as chemical messengers to organs within the body. The main building block of steroid hormones is cholesterol.
Anabolic steroids are those hormones, cither natural or artificial, that enhance the development of muscle the effect sought
by athletes. This muscle-building property is one cnarac-tcristic of the male !*x hormone, testosterone. Other properties of testosterone are responsible for many of the sexual differences between men and women.
Anabolic steroids are only effective in an athlete who is actively engaged in a training program before taking the steroids and who continues the program while using the
drugs. Steroids will not transform a 150-pound weakling into a 200-pound musclcman overnight.

“In the highly conditioned, actively training athlete, anabolic steroids probably do what they want them to do. They bulk them up and increase their strength and endurance,” Schoomakcr said. “We’re talking about a real elite group of people who probably get the best effects.”
A military athlete named “Tom” who has used steroids agreed with Schoomakcr.
“Some of the athletes use steroids as a crutch, not as a training aid. They think it’s some kind of magic potion that will do the work for them, and they don’t train,” said Tom, who was interviewed in June.
“Jerome,” a former powcrliftcr in the Army, said that, when he started using steroids, he got them from other lifters, who also warned him they would not work magic.
“They told me to get to my peak, get to the best that I can, then take the tablets, and I would see the gain,” Jerome said in August.
Jerome said he increased his lifts by 40 percent while using steroids for just two weeks. Tom estimated his per-* ‘formancc in his sport increased by 20 percent after he used steroids.
“The positive effect of steroids is that it gives the athlete the ability to produce muscle mass at a much greater rate,” said Lt. Col. Bill Diehl, the USAREUR, All-Army and Intcrscrvicc record holder in the hammer throw. “It increases their endurance level in the weight room, which means they can lift more (weight) longer, and that translates into throwing the weights farther in competition.’
Earlier claims that anabolic steroids did not build body mass or increase strength and endurance caused the medical community to lose credibility among athletes, Schoomakcr said.
“They (athletes) all knew it did something. They were watching their muscles getting bigger and they were put-ling on weight instantly.
It wasn’t just the heavyweights who saw the advantages of steroids.
“Their use is certainly not restricted to the heavyweight group.” said Diehl, who was on the U.S. National Team from 1974 to 1976. “Sprinters, high-jumpers and football players have all used them for years. Some steroids are put ” on collegiate training tables under the guidance of coaches. The use is widespread and to think otherwise is contrary to what athletes know.”
Initial studies may have focused on people who were using steroids but not engaged in training programs, perhaps explaining why some people concluded the drugs were ineffective.
The medical and scientific communities lack well-designed, controlled studies to determine with certainty the harmful effects of habitual use of anabolic steroids, said Dr. (Col.) M ichael Benenson, preventive medicine consultant for 7th Medical Comd.
Minor problems such as acne occur more often than severe effects such as liver tumors.

Side effects can include:

• Development of severe acne.
• A decrease in the ratio of HDL (good cholesterol) to LDL (bad cholesterol) and a possible increase in the risk of coronary artery disease.
• Development of facial hair, a lowering of the voice.
• Baldness and a cessation of menstruation in women.

The development of liver tumors is associated with the use of oral steroids. Although it is no uncommon event. Injectable steroids do not cause tumors because the drug passes through other tissues in the body before being filtered through the liver.
The determination of some side effects associated with steroid use has been based on the subjective answers of steroid users collected in an unscientific fashion, Benenson said. There is a strong suspicion that the use of anabolic steroids leads to mood swings and increased aggressiveness termed ” ‘roid rage.” but there is no scientific evidence to prove this.
Said Schoomakcr, “You can’t tell mc that there isn’t a certain amount of rage that goes along with being paid handsomely to inflict injury.”
Steroid experts know of only one case in the United States in which a coroner has stated steroids contributed to an athlete’s death, according to an Associated Press report. That was the death of a 17-year-old high school student who suffered cardiac arrhythmia three days after a football game.
Steroid use by adolescents is of particular concern to health professionals. In teen-agers, steroids could prematurely accelerate growth, cutting short the normal growth period and leaving the teen shorter than nature intended.
Some scientists fear steroids may cause abnormal psychosexual maturation and other psychiatric problems in youths, but there is little researeh into this area. Adult athletes put themselves at risk for known and unknown side effects by using anabolic steroids in an uncontrolled fashion in large doses.
“They are using steroids in such a profoundly unmo-nitorcd and chaotic way that they are probably potentiating all these ill effects… and there have got to be ill effects from these compounds,” Schoomaker said.
Jerome stopped using steroids after two weeks when his urine became discolored, although this is not a known side effect of steroids.
“I really don’t believe people who take them are educated to know what kind of damage it can do, or they want to win so bad they just don’t care,” Jerome said.
Tom, the athlete who saw a 20 percent increase in his performance, said, “People are their own doctors right now. Nobody is going to come out and go to the doctor. That’s bad publicity.”
He added: “I think it would be better if athletes were under a doctor’s supervision. Then they would know where they stand and be belter informed.”
Most athletes use different anabolic steroids together a method called stacking that is believed to maximize the benefits of steroids while minimizing side effects. So-called “cycling” is a method where different steroids are used over six to 12 weeks in hopes of maximizing results and avoiding detection.
Tom took three to five pills per day while in a cycle. He said he took as many as 200 pills per month at a cost of 100 marks (about S55).
“1 know what steroids I want, what’s worked for me in the past,” said Tom, who refused to say what type of steroids he took. “It’s not like I was trying to cram everything I could get into my system. It doesn’t work like that.”

Body-building champs
Les Berthelette (left), won the Western Canada body-building championship at the Red River Exhibition last night. Doug Ross (centre) came in second and Ian Whitehall was third. All three are from Winnipeg.

BIG winners in a natural way
A pair of Ketchum bodybuilders are proof that drugs aren’t required to develop a physique which wins medals
KETCHUM Jerry Engelbert speaks softly, but packs a mighty pair of biceps.
Those biceps, along with the rest of his powerful physique, have made him the new “Mr. America Natural” for men over 40.
The 43-year-old Ketchum bodybuilder also placed third in the open division of the recent national contest at Los Angeles. His training partner, Mike Coolidge, who was runnerup to “Mr. Idaho” last spring captured fifth.
Unlike the “Mr. America” contest which allows the bodybuilders to take steroids, “Mr. America Natural” bans any use of the drug to muscle up the body.
“We all took a blood test prior to the competition,” said Engelbert who has never relied on the synthetic hormone in his two years of active bodybuilding competition. “This contest is held to recognize those who don’t use the drug.”
For Engelbert, it was his first national honor after a string of state awards. Two years ago, he was named “Mr. Idaho” and just last spring was acclaimed “Greater Mr. Idaho.”
It also was the first time a bodybuilding competitor from Idaho has won on the national level.
A Ketchum policeman, Engelbert talks quietly about his accomplishment.
“It’s made all of our training worthwhile,” he said. “Now all I want to do is take a few weeks off from lifting and do some fishing.”
His body is proof that “you don’t need drugs” to get somewhere in the world of bodybuilding.
Its development has come from months of strenuous, six-day a week exercise routines at The Clubhouse, just off Ketchum’s main street.
The two bodybuilders spend about two hours a day doing exercises designed to build a “symmetrical body,” one that is perfectly built from head to toe. Both started training for the contest back in November of last year.
“Mike and I push each other,” said the new title-holder. “If I’m having a bad day, then it helps me to have him urging me on.”
Though training buddies, each has concentrated on different parts of his body during their workouts. The results have begun to pay off.
Engelbert use to be known for his sleek, powerful legs, but lately his upper body has developed strength and form. On the other hand, Coolidge’s chest was getting him judges’ kudos, but his slender legs were a drawback.
Both got into bodybuilding after competing in powerlift contests throughout the state.
A former Twin Falls resident and Jerome policeman, Engelbert began lifting about 15 years ago. Two years ago, he switched to bodybuilding.
“I just wanted a change,” said Engelbert. “I had been powerlifting for about 15 years and just decided this would be something different.”
To Coolidge, a former football player at Cal State-Fullerton, bodybuilding is an art fcrm.
“You’re out there on the stage, and though it gets a little lonely at times, you’re displaying the best features of your physique. It sometimes brings on butterflies, but it’s satisfying,” he said.
Building even more pride inthe local competitors at Los Angeles was the quality of the judges. Every one of them was a former Mr. America or Mr. Universe.
“We were down there competing against some of the best around,” said Coolidge. “And though we were from Idaho, I think it may have worked to our
advantage because not many expect us to have top bodybuilders.”
The judges grade each contestant during a series of appearances on stage. Body symmetry is uppermost in the judges’minds.
“The judges are not looking for someone who has a powerful chest or arms,” Engelbert pointed out, “but rather someone whose body is proportional from chest to legs.
“That’s why it can be the most difficult sport there is from a training standpoint,” he said.
Coolidge added that in displaying your body before the panel of judges, one “learns to show what the judge wants to see.
“If you have less strength in your arms, then you concentrate on the moves that will show your strong points the chest, etc.,” Coolidge said.
Being center stage, Coolidge said, is a learning experience itself.
“You learn a lot about yourself,” he said. “When the time comes, you go out and put everything on line.”
Though thrilled by their national status, Engelbert and Coolidge haven’t let it affect their lifestyle.
“I’m still just a Ketchum policeman,” Engelbert laughed. Coolidge works at Anderson Lumber
Their accomplishment, though, has brought them repeated “congratulations” in The Clubhouse from friends and a circle of young admirers as they work
In the future, both are considering turning professional.
“When I get back to training, I’m going to give it some thought,” Engelbert said. “I’ll see what I look like.”
For Coolidge, the money and glamour of a pro career may come after improvements in muscle tone and display.
But for right now, both are savoring their most recent accomplishments Engelbert “Mr. America Natural” and Coolidge an impressive showing.

The girls get lift out of pumping iron
If there’s a last bastion of the male preserve it’s the weight room of the local Y or gymnasium.
There, amid the grunts and the groans, the dull thud of metal and the pungent odor of sweat, a man can retreat from the encroaching threat of the liberation of the fairer sex. There has never been any need for a ‘Men Only’ sign on the door.
‘ Until now.
But the times they are a-changin’, and bodybuilding has begun to draw the interest of the female of the species.
A weight-lifting class at the YWCA filled up immediately when it was offered this spring. And Earl’s Gym, a Winnipeg bodybuilding shop for women only, has a clientele of more than 250,
Why are women drawn to a sport which, according to popular myth, develops physiques like that of the Incredible Hulk?
The answer, from a number of women involved, seems to be “why not.”
“Weightlifting improves posture by strengthening the back muscles, creates better contour, streamlines the upper body and builds muscular endurance,” says Linda Meyers, the instructor and instigator of the course at the Y. “But it doesn’t make women look like Mr. Universe.”
Meyers is a living testament to tlftt statement. Petite and pretty in a way which used to be called “fresh-faced”, the University of Manitoba physical education student has been pumping iron for a number of years, with no obvious ill effects. The reason, she says, lies with the female hormonal balance.
Women can’t hypertrophy
“The estrogen women produce doesn’t allow their muscles to hypertrophy (the opposite of atrophy) the way a man’s do. And women don’t have the steroids which increase muscle.”
Gordon Earl, the man behind the women at Earl’s Gym, agrees. “Estrogen forbids the creation of big bulky muscles,” he says, “and instead creates a longer, more flowing physique than is possible for a man. Besides, most women just can’t handle the
weight a man can.”
Neither Meyers nor Earl stresses working with great weight. “The important thing is learning to lift properly,” says Meyers. “In my classes, I teach the various lifts and positions, with and without weights and the girls all work out at home. I stress doingv super sets, which are timed repetitions with a light bar or dumbells.”
Her students swear by her system. Although, they were motivated to try weightlifting for various reasons one was contemplating a long canoe trip and wanted to hold her own with a paddle against the males in the group, while another felt she needed more upper-body strength for swimming lessons she was taking they share a common enthusiasm after five weeks of classes;
Marta Kulczychyj’s reaction to the classes is typical. “I’d tried all forms of calisthenics and never found anything 1 liked well enough to keep at it. But here I’ve gained enough information to work out at home and I’ve been motivated to do it at least five times a week.
“It’s made a real difference. In just
over a month,- I’ve lost inches and all my clothes are loose, but at the same time I’ve noticed a big difference in strength. I’d take an advanced class if it were offered.”
Meyers would like to teach an advanced class, but admits her methods are somewhat trial-and-error. “This class is really my guinea pig,” she says, “I don’t know of anywhere training for teaching women weightlifting is taught. But this one has been such a success, I’d like to see it grow from here in stages.”
Growing up on a military base, Meyers gravitated to the gym and got off-thercuff instruction over the years from the base recreation director.
Men skeptical of female lifter
“I used to take some of the guys by surprise,” she admits now. “I’d wander into the weight room and they’d all give me skeptical looks. I could tell they were thinking I didn’t belong.
“But,” she chuckles, “they changed their minds fast enough when they saw what I could pump.”
Eari arrived in his instructor’s role via a similiar route.
“As far as bodybuilding for women goes, I’m completely self-taught, I used to teach male bodybuilders and, through a couple of female friends who became interested, I decided to map out a training program for women.
“It meant rethinking my training completely, without any help. To my knowledge there is nowhere you can take a course in women’s weight training. In fact, I think my place is the only women’s bodybuilding gym in North America.”
Both Meyers and Earl stress that lifting weights should be done in conjunction with other sports which promote a healthy cardiovascular system. Cycling, running and swimming are high on the list of recommended activities, They seem to have no trouble convincing their students.
“Weightlifting goes naturally with other sports, like swimming for me,” says Kulczychyj. “It builds your endurance and makes it easier and more rewarding to take part in something which brings up your heart rate.
“I think it’s great.”

Steroids: Platz votes yes, docs no
TOM Platz’ years of mental and physical dedication alone haven’t made him a champion, he said. What gave him the edge? Steroids.
“Yes, I take steroids, I don’t deny it,” Platz said. uIt means the difference between losing and six figures.
“If (the use of) steroids is the death of bodybuilding, then it will be the death of nearly all professional sports.”
The official policy of Joe Weider Olympians, whose products he represents, is that Platz does not take steroids, or synthetic male sex hormones.
“Eight years ago, we came out against steroids,” said Larry Taylor, president of JWO Japan. “We won’t have anything to do with anybody we have even the slightest suspicion is involved with that.”
The magazines Joe Weider publishes Flex, Shape and Muscle & Fitness clearly list the doctors’ warnings against steroid use. These are some of the possible side effects cited in one issue of Muscle & Fitness, for example:
“In 80 percent of regular users, steroids cause detectable liver damage
Prolonged steroid use can also decrease the size, function and sperm production of the testicles . . . Cancer may be a risk . . . Steroids can also cause the growth plates in the long bones to close prematurely. Many athletes continue to grow throughout their teens, and steroids can cut this growth short.”
CllUCk Wilson, managing director of Tokyo’s Clark Hatch Fitness Centers, said, “I really can’t in good conscience condone something that is intrinsically damaging to somebody’s health. It’s the whole mentality of winning at any cost. If these people think that winning is worth any physical, mental or moral cost, then they’re just crippling themselves to get that extra 10 percent.”
Dr. Frank Bongiorno, a vascular and general surgeon at Yokota AB, Japan, trains six days a week as a powerlifter and bodybuilder. He says the many unknowns associated with steroid use make it a risk not worth taking.
Doctors do not know how anabolic steroids actually work. Some think they increase muscle bulk, creating thicker, heftier muscles. Others think they increase endurance so an athlete can add more bulk.
A third theory is that the effect of steroids is purely psychological. This mental boost shouldn’t be underestimated, Bongiorno said. If steroids can give a builder the determination to stick with training six days a week, he will put on more bulk.
Some doctors worry about long-term risks associated with steroid use, including, cardiovascular problems, Bongiorno said.
“I think if you’ve bulked up artificially, you always pay the piper later on. If you heighten muscle response early, to me it’s reasonable that you’d deteriorate earlier.
“The effect on the liver from an overdose is irreversible,” Bongiorno said. “Plus, the steroids seem to last in an athlete’s system for three months. For three months, even if they don’t take steroids, they suppress their own male hormones. That, to me, is scary.”
When women take male hormones, they develop secondary male sex characteristics, including deeper voices, facial hair and the ability to bulk up their arms and shoulders. Their breasts shrink, they stop menstruating, and they run an increased risk of sterility or bearing defective offspring.
When asked if she uses steroids, Rachel McLish responded with as much energy as she’d shown at the peak of her posing routine.
“Absolutely not. Steroids, chemically, are the difference between men and women. Once you start using steroids, you start turning yourself chemically into a man. That’s the last thing I want to do.”

Local health club staffers say they’re worried about an apparent surge in abuse of anabolic steroids by amateur weightlift-ers.
“No matter what gym you walk into, you can find the stuff,” says Dave Constanti-neau, regional manager of Vic Tanny Health and Raquetball Clubs. A recent story in The Capital Times outlined the suicide of a 19-year-old power-lifter from Middleton who killed himself after quitting steroids.
While the case of “Michael” may have represented an extreme example of steroid induced emotional problems, it also parallels in many ways patterns of steroid abuse among teen-agers, according to Constantineau.
“They come in at 115 pounds and want to build up real fast,” he says. “A lot of times they get too wrapped up in it.”
Constantineau, who knew Michael when the teen-ager joined Vic Tanny at 16, says that some youngsters follow bad advice from other members as they strive to build their strength and bulk.
Their quest for popularity and acceptance among other lifters, coupled with the easy availability of steroids, makes drugs a convenient shortcut to results, he says. “Mike’s problem was he took everyone’s advice,” Constantineau says.
He says that as he watched Michael’s 5-foot-10 frame grow substantially from the 140 pounds he weighed when he began working out, he warned him several times that he was trying for too much too soon.
By that time, however, Michael had begun a steroid regimen, which was against the club’s rules, and did not follow Constantineau’s advice to build up gradually and to avoid steroids.
A friend of Michael Robert Mitchell says he bought Michael his first bottle of the anabolic steroid Dianabol shortly after the teen began working out. Mitchell says he took only one six-week cycle of the drug and refused to get more for Michael, but Michael continued to take steroids, eventually building his weight to 225 pounds.
Mitchell was working out with Michael at Vic Tanny and later worked for a cleaning crew under contract to the club, but was not an employee of the club.
Jeff Littman, who oversees all operations for Vic Tanny in Wisconsin, says the prevalence of steroids has forced club employees to keep a watchful eye out for any possible illegal activity.
The club’s rules prohibit possession and use of any illegal substances by employees or members.
Three weeks ago, two members at the club’s West Allis facility lost their memberships when a locker room attendant saw a hypodermic needle fall from the gym bag of one of the two, he says.
The two were “being obnoxious” about using steroids which are often injected when the needle was recovered, Littman said.
Although Vic Tanny has more than 100,000 members statewide, Littman says he could “count the number of them using steroids on my fingers and toes.”
Littman is a former competitive bodybuilder who says he quit because of growing steroid use among his competitors. Steroids “pretty much ruined that sport,” he says.
Stieg Theander, fitness director at Market Square Swim and Fitness Center, agrees with Constantineau that the search for respect and acceptance in the gym can be an incentive to take steroids, especially among young people.

Winnipeg muscle man devotes his life to becoming next Arnold Schwarzenegger
Pop artist, Andy Warhol, had it partially correct when he suggested that everyone can be a star for 15 minutes.
Warhol might have more accurately suggested that everyone would settle for being a star for 15 minutes.
There’s a difference between intent and realization.
Mark Dobrohorsky, for one, learned a little about how onerous the difference can be. But, not until after he actually accepted the notion that someone could transform him into a star.
It’s a curious notion, this deity of celebrity, this “stardom.” It’s a kind of American siren anthem. In Dobro-horsky’s instance, it wasn’t the song of the ’60s: “Hey kid, play your guitar and I’ll make you a star.” It was an ’80s refrain: “Hey kid, build that deltoid and I’ll put you on celluloid,”
Dobrohorsky was convinced by a fast-talking slick in Montreal that he was the next Arnold Schwarzenegger, now that the Teuton has forsaken the’ iron pumping, baby oil and steroids of professional bodybuilding competition for the high art of cinema,
Not that Dobrghorsky doesn’t have the requisite qualities. An inch or so over six feet tall, about as heavily muscled as it’s possible for a 215-pound person to be without turning into a Clydesdale, his open, ingenuous features even resemble Schwarzenegger’s.
But, Dobrohorsky wasn’t transformed into a star, though not for lack of trying.
Almost half of last year, while in the thrall of one Jimmy Caruso, “the Albert Einstein of bodybuilding,” as Mark refers to him, Dobrohorsky was in a Montreal gym from 9 a.m. to II p.m. daily, working himself into a state of peak physical form and near mental collapse.
And, had he hung in with his Svengali of sweat just three more weeks, for the 1981 World Cup bodybuilding competition in Atlantic City, Dobrohorsky might have known whether his ambition to succeed Schwarzenegger as the dominant figure in bodybuilding was fanciful or not,

Heavy work
“But, I was existing on 700 calories a day, about the equivalent of a normal lunch,” Dobrohorsky says. “I was training six, then eight hours every day, trying to squeeze in posing training, TV appearances, preparing for specific competitions and taking two injections in the hip a day of multi-vitamins and steroids. It was breaking me right down,”
To understand this kind of devotion to something as ostensibly narcissistic and mindless as bodybuilding is to recognize that, in a time of unquestioning personal aggrandizement, bodybuilding isn’t considered aberrant. It
is, as it were,’ a growth industry. A-billion-dollar dream-world where,appearance has been elevated to substance.
And to understand Dobrohorsky’s obsession, one has to retreat to Flin Flon in 1972, where Dobrohorsky was a 95-pound, 13-year-old, hanging around his Dad’s poolhall after school looking at glistening pictures of Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Weider empire muscle magazines. Pictures, he would learn a decade later when he struck the same poses, in the same spot, in the same Montreal studio, for the same photographer that Jimmy Caruso shot.
Arnold, as he’s known to serious bodybuilders, is a kind of doppelganger in Dobrohorsky’s life, a constant thematic presence emerging from and fading into his conversation like punctuation.
“I was this little kid drawing pictures of comicbook superheroes, the contours of their muscles, you know. I saw Arnold in one of the muscle magazines. I said, ‘God, is it possible to look like this guy?’ I was painfully skinny. So, my Dad bought me some weights. People used to laugh at me. But,” he recalls, “by 15,1 was determined to be a carbon copy of Arnold.”
Before he was 16, through a correspondence with a writer for one of the Weider magazines, Dobrohorsky was able to make a pilgrimage to southern
California, to work out with the great man himself. “I didn’t learn anything. But I worked’out with Arnold. It was like sparring with Muhammad AIL”
And, by 17, entering his first formal bodybuilding competition, Dobrohorsky won the Mr. Manitoba of 1977 title. Then, in Montreal, he finished 5th in the Mr. Canada.
“I was too.young and I couldn’t take losing so soon. I had this fixation of being able to replace Arnold. I thought someone would notice me and sponsor me the way someone had done for him. It didn’t happen.”
Returning to Winnipeg, he got a job and forsook all iron. “Then, I don’t know, I just started again in 1980, doing the same as everyone else in the weightroom at the YMCA. I still qualified for the Mr. Canada and I went down to Montreal and this time I finished 6th. I still lacked the look of each muscle flowing into the other to make that complete physique. I was really depressed.”
But, he met an executive of the International Federation of Bodybuilding, the myth-making apparatus for bodybuilding stardom.
“He said, ‘listen, Jimmy Caruso saw you in both the Mr. Canada contests and thinks you look like Arnold. He wants to offer you a contract to train in Montreal with him.’ I knew that Jimmy had trained Arnold for a while, takes photos for the Weider magazines and is big in bodybuilding. But, I didn’t know him. The guy said Jimmy had a’ revolutionary new training method, an accelerated growth program that would change everything for me.”
So, Dobrohorsky came home, quit his job, liquidated everything he had, at a loss and moved to Montreal,
“Jimmy is this little, 5 foot 2 inch Italian guy in incredible shape. Very dynamic, very convincing. We talked . and I signed his contract. It was for five years. Basically, it says that any money I earn through bodybuilding, Jimmy Caruso gets 20 per cent of. In return, he provides me with training, promotion and expenses. In fact, I’m still under contract to him for about four years.”
And, with the suspension of critical judgement that marks all acts of faith, Dobrohorsky turned himself over to Caruso, clay in the hands of his recrea-tor.

Early triumphs
“At first it was great,” he says, “As I was training, I could see myself changing almost daily. I trained down from 245 to 215. Within a month I had corrected the weaknesses in my build. His methods are very involved and contrary to everything I’d learned before. Basically, he trains the whole body as a unit instead of working separate chunks of muscle groups. And, every day, instead of alternate schedules. It takes you past genetic limitations. You actually achieve what you want twice as fast. Jimmy didn’t explain anything. He just told me what to do and I’d work my ass off, twice a day at three hours a crack.”
For several months, there was symbiotic harmony. Caruso paid Dobrohorsky’s expenses. And, Dobrohorsky simply trained. “Jimmy told me that, within a year, I’d be in Arnold’s league. It was working.”
In addition to the training program, though, there were the vitamin and steroid programs. “Everything was injected into the hip. I’d get 14 injections a week of steroids and B-complex vitamins.”
And, the fantasy realized began to fade. “It started to tax my mind so that I couldn’t think. Physically,it got to the point where I could hardly walk. I used to crawl home hurting. It wasn’t just the pain. I couldn’t comprehend anything anymore. It was staggering. Jimmy was counting on me. I was his 100 per cent investment. All he said was “train harder, train harder.’
“The steroids were making me irritable. I had no time to myself at all, the pressures began tq frighten me because Jimmy’s money was low and he had me lined up for a series of competitions, But, he wasn’t covering my basic costs. My rent was behind three months.”
Bodybuilding, which Dobrohorsky had regarded as “my sport, the sport I
cherished, I started to hate. All I knew was that I was drained, confused and Jimmy had me covered like a jailer. He couldn’t understand human emotions and anxieties. He knew how to mold a body, but he didn’t know anything about the mind,”
The star-maker and the star-gazer, their sights on the same constellation, were galaxies apart.
Finally, four months into the regimen, three weeks short of the World Cup competition, Dobrohorsky confronted Caruso with his problems.
“I laid it out for him. Everything. He just said, ‘whattya mean? You gotta do it.’ I said, ‘no, I don’t. My head’s busting apart. I’m broken down.’ He just thought I was kidding. And, it was all over. I had to quit and get a job to pay off my debts. I had to quit my dream.”
Dobrohorsky returned to Winnipeg, became a salesman for Brunswick Office Systems and Machines and consigned the entire Montreal episode to part of a childish caprice that should have been^left in a Flin Flon poolhall.
“1 became a normal person again,” he says unconvincingly.
The corollary to Warhol’s dictum about stardom, of course, is that 15 minutes is never enough. Getting close is never enough.

New methods
Dobrohorsky is star-gazing again. He gets up at 5:30 a.m. and gets home about 10 p.m., sandwiching his job between two intensive training sessions in the Y weightroom. Two hours in the morning, three at night. Just like the old days, except “that he’s using Jimmy Caruso’s arcane methods.
“I’m a salesman, now, but my bodybuilding goals are the same. I guess they just don’t fade away. I’m only 23. Arnold stayed in competition until he was 35. All I know is that the feeling is back, that butterfly feeling when it’s going well. I’m working toward the Mr. Western Canada competition Aug. 7. I’m quietly convinced I’ll do well.
“Then,” he says, his voice only slightly self-mocking, “there’s the Mr. Universe in Belgium …”

East and West nations will clash Monday in the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF) congress over the controversial reinstatement of five communist female track and field stars found guilty last year of taking the banned anabolic steroids bodybuilding drug.
Arthur Gold, British president of the European Athletic Association (EAA), will propose to about 84, nations that the IAAF council report of its March 10 and 11 meeting be rejected. If Gold gets majority support this would be a censure motion on the governing body of the world’s biggest international sports administration with 162 member countries.
But the five athletes will still be able to compete in the Games and Gold will only get support from many nations provided they can compete in the Moscow Games, congress sources said here.
The competitors – Bulgaria’s Totka Petrova, 1979 World Cup 1500 meters winner; Romanian Natalia Marasescu, the former world mile re: cord-holder; the legendary Romanian Elena Silai, 1968 Olympic silver medalist; Bulgarian hurdler Daniela Ten-eva, and Romanian long jumper Sandra Vlad all had positive tests at last year’s Balkan Games.