What is ephedrine?
Ephedrine is one of the most effective and controversial substances used for weight loss. It is a potent fat loss agent and CNS stimulant (especially when combined with caffeine) and also effective in the treatment of asthma. However, there are also many reports of adverse events that are possibly associated with ephedrine use that have prompted many people to call for further regulation of the compound.

Chemically, ephedrine is a phenylpropanolamine, a class of stimulant compounds that include ephedrine, psuedoephedrine, norephedrine, and cathine. Ephedra (also known as Ma Huang), a traditional Chinese herb, contains varying concentrations of phenylpropanolamines and other alkaloids and is the primary source of ephedrine sold in most over the counter preparations. Ephedra has been in use for over 5000 years for its stimulant and antiasthmatic properties.
 

Aromasin (and other aromatase inhibitors)

Doctors give anti-estrogens in cancer patients with tumors that grow faster by estradiol.

Chemical athletes use anti-estrogens because they want to prevent their synthetic hormones to convert into estradiol, with all its unpleasant side effects. The side effects that users of anti-estrogens experience, are an increased risk of bone fractures and pain in muscles and joints, are due to the drop in estrogen levels. This increases after years of use. The anti-estrogen on itself are only toxic in idioticly high doses.

The anti-estrogen Exemestane is not suitable to restore the natural production of testosterone after a steroids cycle. According to a molecular study of U.S. cancer researchers (13).

 “Abs are made in the kitchen, not in the gym!

No amount of weird exercises or machines will magically reveal your abs. The ONLY way to reveal your abs is to lose that layer of fat covering them. Now, the only way to lose the abdominal fat is by consistent dieting and cardiovascular exercise. Period. All those odd hanging, leg twisting, body contorting exercises are no better than simple crunches.

The big problem is that intellectually, many people totally agree. However, emotionally it does not click. I know this because day after day I see people doing marathon abdominal work. They do four or five different exercises. They think the more they do, the more defined their abs will become. They try to target the upper, lower, inner and outer, left, right, etc. Give me a break. They do tons of weighted side bends trying to get rid of the love handles.

Marijuana and the Bodybuilder!

Nowedays many people use recreational drugs for various reasons. Most bodybuilders also use drugs. Some take them to relieve muscle soreness (DOMS). But there are many other reasons . Some use them to relax or to sleep, to eat, against joint  - tendon and musclepains. And many just to get a high, most bodybuilders and top-athletes don’t use alcohol, but use marijuana, GHB, cocaine or XTC to join the happy drinkers during week-ends or parties.

Don’t be mistaken, its not one drug, Most bodybuilders are polypharmacists, they stack all kinds of steroids, anti-estrogens, diuretics, growthhormones, insuline and mostly use additional drugs for above discribed reasons. Some became addicted to painkillers like Nubain. They started to take them to be able to work-out harder.

But this article is meant to cover marijuna usage amoung us bodybuilders. I merged a few articles and some of my own expiriences.

If you’ve been around bodybuilding for any amount of time, at some point you’ve probably come to the realization that drugs and bodybuilding go hand in hand, like a pair of 50 pound dumbbells. I’m not talking about “growing drugs” (or as bodybuilding champion Flex Wheeler calls them, “Sport technology drugs”), but so-called recreational drugs.

Smoking pot

For years, the therapeutic benefits of cannabinoids for a variety of indications have been studied all over the world. Key drawbacks inhibiting wide clinical use of the active ingredients used to be smoking as the primary form of application, dosage issues (leading to side effects), low bioavailability, variations in quality due to unknown origin of the plants, purity of extracts (plant extracts can hold numerous other compounds other than the active ingredient itself) and limited shelf life of extracts at room temperatures. Namisol® is the world’s first oral tablet that contains pure, natural Δ9-THC (dronabinol) in fixed dosages with high, predictable bioavailability and a long, stable shelf life at room temperature. In a few years it will probably be possible to take a pil and have all the benefits of  marihuanan without smoking it, some will like it, but most of us will miss the romance of preparing the joint and then enjoying the smoke

In the Netherlands patients can get a medical prescription to buy Marihuana in the coffeshops at reduced prices or receive medical quality marihuana for medical purposes, mostly pain releif and to enable them a good sleep.

Echo Pharmaceuticals, has joined forces with the University Medical Center (UMC) St. Radboud in a consortium to expand and pursue further development of the cannabinoid-based tablet Namisol®. 

Wendy the whippet  …

So I’ve been thinking a bit lately about individual genetic profiles, determinism, and sporting prowess; the specific genetic hand we’re dealt, and how best to play that hand within the limitations of the real world.  First off, how about a little visual representation of what a mutation to a single gene (actually, the non-presence of the GDF-8 gene) can cause in an otherwise similar breed of dog.  GDF-8, by the way, is responsible for signaling the production of myostatin, which, in turn, is responsible for limiting the amount of muscle production in an animal.  Myostatin works the same way in humans as it does in these whippets.  GDF-8, while being yet another stroke of evolutionary genius (muscle mass past a certain point is an unnecessary metabolic drag, i.e., survival limiting), is an area of obvious interest within the physical culture community.

No PhotoShop here, folks; just a dramatic demonstration of the effects genes can have upon muscling and athletic prowess.  And this is a representation of what affects a single gene mutation can signal.  What I find interesting is that if Wendy were a human, we’d just assume that she was much more dedicated in following her (fill in the blank) workout regimen; being that she’s a dog, though, we’re ok with the fact that she’s come by her appearance the old fashioned way — i.e., via inheritance.  By the way, here’s an interesting video from Wendy, the defacto spokes-pooch of bully whippets.  A normal whippet in every way, except in skeletal musculature.  I find it very sad that appearantly these animals are normally euthanized at birth (I’m assuming because they are not charactoristic of the AKC whippet?).

Beautiful buttock sheep and the legacy of Solid Gold 

Comparing human and sheep genomic sequences reveals six imprinted genes at the callipyge locus 

  The mutation appeared to be a miracle. Sheep breeders in Oklahoma had been selecting for increased muscle in their flock, and in 1983 a lamb was born that developed an overly muscular rump. The breeders named the ram Solid Gold and saved him from slaughter. He went on to sire offspring with the pronounced hindquarters, some of which also passed on the mutation. These sheep became known as callipyge, the name callipyge comes from the Greek for 'beautiful buttocks'. All born since are his descendants.They're Arnold Schwarzenegger-shaped, and their meat's tougher than hell.

 

T-3 for fat loss

Listen closely because this article is going to reveal some little-known, almost secret facts about thyroid hormone, a piece of the fat-burning puzzle so overlooked that even many pro bodybuilders have trouble putting it in place at showtime. In fact, coming in “soft” is the number-one fear of every bodybuilder who’s ever carried armor-plated muscle onstage. Being called smooth is like someone talkin’ trash about your mom—you just don’t want to hear it. Thanks to ground-breaking research on a new thyroid-hormone-stimulating compound called T-3, however, the fear of being smooth will vanish. That’s because T-3 takes the fat-burning process to a level well beyond standard thermogenics.

 Before we go into detail on how T-3 was scientifically formulated, though, you need to know more about the thyroid gland so you can understand how thyroid hormones work. It is one of several endocrine glands in the body that function primarily to secrete metabolism-regulating hormones. The word hormone in Greek means “to arouse.” For example, the hormones testosterone and growth hormone arouse muscle growth by rapidly increasing the protein-turnover rate, or protein synthesis. And as every hard-training bodybuilder knows, the more abundant those hormones are (within reasonable limits), the more abundant the increases in muscle size.

Underneath you'll find a scheme that is used by a Dutch bodybuilder. I also provide the dosage time as he sent it to me. Lets be realistic this is not meant for everybody, it was used by an advanced 110 kg plus bodybuilder.

 

Bodybuilding and Sex,

 

Are these two connected, then? Yes, and this decisively. Our sexual impulses are directly steered by our sex hormones  the same hormones that are commonly used in bodybuilding, have a massive influence on our body and mind and our lust,  this is also characterized by changes on our sex organs, something that women a suffer more, but more on that later.

Disproportionately muscular men and women generally attract more attention from both men and women. Not to long ago, bodybuilding was the sport of gay men. "Real men do not do such thing" and "they are not strong, their muscles are not real". In many gay magazines were and are naked bodybuilders depicted, especially in U.S. where this topic is much more controversial and these topics are not nearly as open as Europe . Olympian Tony P. was a very popular model, mostly because he was heavy shaped, also from Arnold Schw. You can effortlessly find nude pictures on the internet. Not long ago, a Dutch bodybuilding magazine published an article about "Arnold prostitute". Yet it was Arnold who made our sport widely accepted, right? Many wealthy American gays sponsor bodybuilders and are accompanied by them and have sex with them and pay them, of course, a lot of money, because all these hormones are very expensive. The murdered Gianni Versace, was such an example. Many of us remember that television commercial equivalent, with Ed van Amsterdam ... "a little strange, but nice" ...