In the end, possibly all we may have is our character.
Back in the mid-nineties, I was in my late twenties and had been training for nearly a decade. I went to a small local gym that probably had somewhere between forty to sixty members at any given time give or take.
I would often train in the early afternoon and it was generally the same crowd most days.
This was right about the time period when I halted my perpetual bulking cycle and started to realize the importance of diet and nutrition.
If you spend any amount of time in the commercial gym setting, you meet all sorts of colorful and interesting characters.
One that I will never forget was an obviously “accentuated” individual we will call “Stewart.”
Stewart was an anabolically-enhanced forty-something.
Huge, very strong, but in my opinion kind of had an odd physique that to me seemed almost frog-like (his voice was a bit froggy too.)
When he arrived at our gym (this was one of probably 5 or 6 that he was a member of), it was somewhat of an event.
The gym had double glass doors and windows that you could see directly out to the parking lot and I would often wince if I saw Stewart pulling in.
Stewart always made an entrance.
The parking lot was maybe twenty feet from the door, but it seemed like it would take him a half hour to get from his car to the entrance.
He would walk in, toss his gym bag down, gaze around the perimeter, exchange a few pleasantries, walk to the gym office and talk to whoever was there and eventually make his way to the training area.
He would then perform a very extensive warm-up, with a heavy emphasis on the rotator-cuffs, having recovered from several shoulder surgeries.
Inevitably, often there would be a couple younger guys training and I would often hear them discussing Stewart.
“Wow! That dude is huge!”
Stewart seemed to notice those that noticed him the most and he would often approach them and ask “what are you working today?”
Usually they were honored that a guy on Stewart’s level would want to train with them, so they jumped at the chance.
He would then put them through the session of a lifetime.
Heavy weights, all sorts of volume and an infinity of forced reps.
These guys were beginners or at best intermediates, but Stewart trained them like they were ultra-advanced.
After a short while, you could see these guys were fading fast.
Slumped over, breathing heavy, looking like they were going to be sick.
Some of them I never saw again at the gym.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like Stewart, not that at all, over the period of time we shared at the gym we had quite a few laughs and interesting conversations, but looking back I think it was one of my first experiences with the absurd side of this lifestyle/business.
Stewart like so many that choose to take the short-cut of anabolics, had an almost “hypertensive” look to him.
Flushed skin, especially around the neck area, acne, very odd symmetry that was not aesthetic by any standard and a a wide tortoise-shell like mid-section.
Internally, these chemicals place tremendous stress upon the heart and liver and other organs.
Psychologically, nearly every person that I have encountered that I suspected was using seemed to have a lot of up & down mood-swings and a propensity for paranoia.
Personally, I don’t see any benefit.
In closing this out, I would like to say for all his obvious demons and issues, at the very least Stewart was forthcoming about what he took and never denied it.
That is way more than I can say for a whole bunch that always seem to avoid the big pink elephant in the room.
People that enjoy this fitness lifestyle are becoming more and more educated and the whole “I work harder and have great genetics” facade is becoming laughable, if not insulting to the masses that are natural and often work harder and diet more intelligently than their counterparts.
In the end, possibly all we may have is our character.
