Bodybuilding or building new lean muscles is nothing more than an equation that needs to be balanced. Several areas are pivotal to becoming the champion you aim to be! To become the best, you must account for every area that contributes to your success, not just the surface stuff (i.e. tanning, posing, doing the workout, stretching, etc.) You need to balance the equation completely in order to realize this dream!

A balanced equation accounts for many different things:

1.) Knowing your musculo-skeletal structure and what exercises are 'best' for your structure.

2.) Understanding your somatype (endo-,meso-,etco-morph) and then, more specifically, your dominant fiber type and training consistent with that type.

3.) Training progressively and consistently enough to advance your size and strength.

4.) Utilizing the most ideal nutritional strategy to promote new tissue growth and keep total bodyfat to a manageable minimum.

5.) Supplementing the diet with the proper nutrients to deal with potential deficiencies.

6.) Getting enough rest to recover.

7.) And finally, balancing your life with sound emotional and extrinsic things that make you feel "happy”. An omission of any of these ingredients could hamper or even destroy your opportunity to fulfill your body's athletic potential.

In my continued promotional and daily work effort(s) to guide my athletes and help them to become champions, I constantly look for new ways to help them to become better. Enter Dr. Richard Sollazzo. Despite any of the aforementioned details that outline a successful equation, Dr. Sollazzo pointed out to me one very important issue! We all may be missing a key ingredient despite all our efforts. That one thing we all strive for in order to build massive pounds of hard, dense, championship muscle: TESTOSTERONE!

We want it! Very simple, increased testosterone means increased ability to recover and hopefully, build new lean tissue. Those "other” bodybuilders put it into their bodies and look what happens, BAM! Pounds of Rock hard muscle! Not to mention liver damage, kidney damage, decreased testes, compromised pituitary function, potential damage to aortic valves and pulmonary arteries, and the list goes on. Not to mention that putting a foreign substance into the body tells your body that it has one less job to do. That means that if you stop, BAM! No more muscle and a lot less testosterone production. Why put a foreign testosterone into your system that will potentially hurt you when your body can do it all on its own with much less risk? (All for a $35 trophy? $60 if you win the trophy on the bigger base. Drugs make you do weird things, huh? But that's not the point!)

Our bodies will produce all of these things by itself provided we give the body what it needs to produce these wondrous compounds. Now, as we age or, dependent upon what we do to our bodies, our body's ability to produce testosterone decreases as well as our ability to produce IGF-1 (insulin like growth factors), DHEA, and (drum roll please), Growth Hormone! Our body produces all of these things on its own. What would be helpful? TO KNOW! To know WHAT the levels of these vital bodybuilding magic bullets are if we are going to work out in an environment that's best suited for new tissue growth.

After 30, the body's ability to produce testosterone and its related compounds begins to DECREASE. This means that the challenge to your body's ability to build new, lean tissue INCREASES. So in my conversation with Dr. Sollazzo, I stated, "Think of all the ads you see telling you how badly you need their products if you're going to remain a 'stallion' of a man. As that might be true, how do you know WHAT it is that you need?” Dr. Sollazzo's reply, "Well, the best way is an assay.”

An assay is an analysis of your blood that tells us what your body is producing and what it is not. Hormone abnormalities begin to occur with age and show up as muscular weaknesses, fatigue, loss of libido, and decreased ambition and productivity. In women, there are increases in 'good' and 'bad' estrogens (16-alphahdroxyestrone and 2 -hydroxyestrone respectively for you biochem buffs). In men, there are increases in estrogen or conversion of testosterone into estrogen. Not good if your goal is to claim the top spot at your next bodybuilding endeavor.

During the aging process (guys listen up) the body produces excess aromatase enzymes that convert testosterone into estrogen. Additionally, cholesterol (the precursor to all of the body's steroids) increases and testosterone decreases. The supplement companies brainwash you to believe that if you simply supplement with DHEA and the ANDRO groups, your low testosterone problems will be solved. BUT, adding these exogenous substances may only add to the problem of INCREASING estrogen in the body and not increasing TEST. The problem lies in the conversion pathways between Cholesterol and Testosterone. That is where you must fix your anabolic issues. DHEA and ANDRO are steps along the conversion pathway of Cholesterol to Testosterone and have nothing to do with the actual mechanisms of conversion.

And if you even tampered with the idea that androstenedione was going to increase your testosterone, think again. In separate studies to determine if ANDRO supplementation would increase levels of serum testosterone levels and skeletal muscle fiber and strength, you're wallet will be happy to know that strength and muscle fiber size were both unaffected by its use and actually were outperformed by the placebo group.(1) Furthermore, the additional androstenedione increased the blood's level of androstenedione, but had no effect on testosterone levels, and showed an increase of estradiol levels of 83%. This increase in estradiol level was most likely due to the increased aromatase enzymes. So, the only benefit was increased estrogen.(2)

So if your goal is to be the best natural you can be, or if you desire to compete as a natural bodybuilder, you better know what you need, what you don't, and in what quantities you need supplements, or whatever else, to best support your anabolic desires. NOT what just any ol' muscle magazine tries to sell you. To truly solve the low testosterone issues, you must understand WHERE the problem is along this cholesterol to testosterone conversion pathway. You could take banned substances like DHEA and ANDRO 'til the cows come mooooing home, and still may not make your body more anabolic. If your body doesn't need additional DHEA or ANDRO, you're wasting your money.

SO to wrap it up, just because a supplement company says to take their 'magic potion' so many times per day, doesn't mean YOU personally need that much (or that little) to bring your potential up to the level to be the new 'King of Natural Bodybuilding' or the next 'Italian Stallion'. An assay will delineate what balances of vital compounds need to be brought up to a standard that will establish your 'Anabolic Eden': Each athlete's profile of Eden is different, as is the configuration of supplements that will bring about the ideal anabolic environment.

(1)king, et al, JAMA 281:2020-2028,1999 (2) ballantyne et al, Can J. Appl. Physiol., 25: 65-78, 2000