For some reason unbeknownst to me or probably anyone else (with the possible exception of those TV psychics who, for a small fee, will tell you that your wife is cheating on you with the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker), back training is an enigma.

Atomic Dog Bring me a figgy pudding By TC So Christmas is just a few hours away and, being a sentimental bastard, I find myself reflecting back on previous Christmases. For the most part, all the more recent ones seem to blend together in one big messy ball of wrapping paper and figgy pudding, but the ones I had as a kid truly stand out in my supplement-clouded memory. I can remember several outstanding gifts, and I think my favorite was one of those tabletop hockey games with the sheet meta...

Julia Child on the Juice Or, how not to do kitchen chemistry By Bill Roberts So, you don't know where to get nice, genuine pharmaceutical steroids? Concerned about "sting" operations by pesky DEA agents? Worried about the local zit-riddled gym freak selling you bad stuff? Is that what's troubling you, Bunky? Faced by these problems, you might have a brainstorm: "I know! I'll do it myself, in my kitchen! After all, if you want something done right, ya' gotta' do it yo...

Dawg School Basic training for beginners By Chris Shugart We've all been there. No matter how big and educated we think we are now, at one time or another we were small, ignorant, and out in our garages trying desperately to push up 100 pounds of plastic-wrapped weights we had just brought home from Kmart. Through magazines and books, but mostly through trial and error, we learned how to build muscle and lose fat. We were burned by boron and suckered by Cybergenics, but ple...

Atomic Dog The Master Blaster's fallen and he can't get up! By TC The Atomic Dog is on vacation this week because he believes that the holidays just don't "feel right" unless he flies back home and creates hate and dissension among his family members. Therefore, in the grand tradition of Flex and Muscle and Fitness, we've decided to let a professional bodybuilder write his own column — this column — and pinch-hit for TC while he's away for Christmas. (Although some people are skept...

If Supplement Ads Said It All... By Ron Harris The pages of mainstream magazines are filled with advertisements for such widely consumed pharmaceuticals as Claritin, Retin-A, Viagra, and Prozac. Along with soft-focus photos of smiling people enjoying the benefits of lives suddenly free from the discomfort and shame of allergies, zits, limp dicks, and the blues, you'll notice that the bottom of the page, or often an entire separate page, is chock-full of the specifications a...

Atomic Dog It made me feel so... dirty By TC First-time visitors to this site are often puzzled, and understandably so. They'll click on the "current issue" button, and the first thing that they'll see is this column which, admittedly, is a little different from the standard fare that you might see in mainstream bodybuilding publications. On any given week, they might read about infidelity, love dolls, or this-here writer's personal experiences, which often times have nothing to do with bodyb...

Limping Into the New Millennium, Part II The final chapter By Ian King In case you've just stumbled onto this site, put some ice on your head while I do a quick recap of what's happening here. Australian Wunder Coach Ian King has devised a 12-week leg program that's among the most unique — and the most effective — that I've ever experienced. The first seven workouts were posted in previous issues: • "Limping Into October" Part I and Part II ...

Fuel For Thought Are you on the wrong diet? By James Wilson, Assistant Director Educational and Technical Support, ISSA With all the hoopla about the Anabolic diet and the High-Protein diet, it's a wonder that we're not all eating bacon morning, noon, and night. However, one important fact concerning the rash of high-fat diets has been swept under the rug: they're not necessarily the best diets for alread y lean bodybuilders or competitive athletes . If you fall...

The real Master Blaster reveals the science behind building muscle.

Limping Into the New Millennium, Part I Twelve weeks of pain By Ian King In case you've just stumbled onto this site, put some ice on your head while I do a quick recap of what's happening here. Australian Wunder Coach Ian King has devised a 12-week leg program that's among the most unique — and the most effective — that I've ever experienced. The first six workouts were posted in previous issues: • "Limping Into October" Part I and Part II ...

Preparing for the Ultimate Workout By Charles Poliquin Most trainees have the habit of waking up, shoveling down some Fruit Loops, and heading off to the gym before they've truly awakened. In other words, given the amount of prep work they've put into that particular workout, they might as well have left their Fozzie Bear jammies on and stayed in bed. Sorry, but most dedicated, sincere athletes, especially when peaking on a given program, want to achieve the ultimate work...

Atomic Dog The recommended dosage By TC I'm pissed. I've got a bronchial infection, complete with hacking, coughing, and monster-movie phlegm. I know how I got it, too. My friend is in the process of buying a 36-foot boat (a Grand Banks, for those of you who know something about boats), and he took it on a "sea trial" to make sure that it's ship-shape for sailing the seven seas (more likely for hauling around bikini-clad women and their compulsory margaritas). Only trouble was, we did it o...

Atomic Dog The shorts of Lithuanian women By TC I had Thanksgiving dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Steinberg yesterday. Mr. Steinberg is 91 years old and his wife is 85. And, despite their advanced age, they weren't comatose and they didn't have to be force-fed through a tube. Really. They're vivacious, energetic, lucid, and all that stuff. They drove over, sat at the table, had a little wine, told a few jokes, and acted like normal people in every way. They didn't drool and food didn't fall out of t...

Atomic Dog Fancy damn ham By TC Of all holidays, Thanksgiving is the one most feared by people who give a shit about how they look. Why? Because we know that one single meal — albeit a huge, single meal — can transform us from svelte, underwear ad-ready Kramers to Hindenburg blimp-sized Newmans. And since I'm on the subject of things that float, you know those big balloons they float down 34th Street at the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade? They're not balloons; they're people w...

Question of Strength The real Master Blaster reveals the science behind building muscle By Charles Poliquin Q: What are your thoughts on the frequency of squatting? I've seen lifters squat as infrequently as once every ten days, while national team weightlifters squat as often as nine times a week. A: I can understand how being exposed to such a variance in training could be rather confusing for the reader. Let me put it this way. One shouldn't be concerned with the maxi...

Atomic Dog Aroo! Aroo! By TC My wife left me yesterday. Okay, so it's only for three days while she's out of town to take care of some business, but for the first time in a long time, I'm single (sort of, anyhow). And when any man is left alone for more than, say, three or four minutes, he starts to think about the "I" word, or the "A" word. You know, infidelity, or having an affair, or whatever you call banging some slut with wild abandon in the back seat of your Chevy Suburban while yo...

Limping Into December, Part II Twelve weeks of pain By Ian King In case you've just stumbled onto this site, put some ice on your head while I do a quick recap of what's happening here. Australian Wunder Coach Ian King has devised a 12-week leg program that's among the most unique — and the most effective — that I've ever experienced. The first five workouts were posted in "Limping Into October" Part I and Part II , "Limping Into November" Part I and Pa...

Naturally Occurring Aromatase Inhibitors By Thomas Incledon Ever since TC and Dan Duchaine mentioned aromatase in the pages of Muscle Media, lots of copycat, no-brain writers have talked about how to inhibit this enzyme. Here in Florida, where I live, we have a couple of local muscle rags put out by guys trying to sell supplements. You see page after page of BS about how to inhibit the aromatase enzyme written by these clowns with no education or brains. They actually re...