by Christian Duque
On a recent program Bob Cicherillo, who by this point in time we can all agree is one of the most outspoken retired bodybuilders on the planet, went out to say that old school bodybuilders have a bad habit of lying about what they ran back in the day. That’s actually a very good point. And he does make good points from time to time. Some people will say a rubber clock is right twice a day but that is not what I am saying here. Bob has a tendency to offend people and ruffle feathers very easily. He doesn’t make any apologies for what he has to say and sometimes people can’t deal with that. Nothing that he has ever said has ever really made my blood boil but it’s more like an annoyance every so often when he says things that maybe make me raise an eyebrow. That said, nothing that he says truly offends me.
Well in any event, this next comment that Bob made has sent shock waves throughout the fitness industry, particularly in old school bodybuilding message boards and Facebook groups. I’m not really sure why so many people are alarmed by his statement because it isn’t exactly anything that I would consider groundbreaking or necessarily overly offensive, but it’s not been well-taken by many of the old school guys.
Bodybuilding is a sport where everything gets exaggerated – to a point. from transformation challenges, to strength gains, too in this case, lying about what dosages top legends ran back in the day. Even that concept, top legend, is funny because if you’re a legend, what does being a top legend encompass? Well, put plainly, it means that you are a legend among legends. and if you reach that pinnacle of success you would think that transparency would be your calling card. Sadly, that’s the case.
Before delving any further into this article, let’s at least analyze why someone would lie about what they ran a million years ago. For starters, many old school bodybuilders didn’t like talking about anabolic steroid use when they competed. Many of them deflected the question, while other guys deflected it but also would show a great deal of indignation. They were actually offended. And this is because in the 1980s there was a whole marketing campaign behind amino acids, multivitamins, and the advent of protein powder as a supplement. Top athletes that were signed to the biggest companies wanted consumers to believe that their bodies were attainable. And maybe back then where you didn’t have mass monsters and genetic freaks it looked far less crazy than today, but it never looked natural. I would say that bodybuilding stopped looking natural in the late 1960s. Even by the 70’s, which is probably the Golden Era of bodybuilding, the physiques were (still) far too advanced to be obtained naturally. Nobody could look like Lou Ferrigno without dabbling in the sauce. But in any event, nobody talked about this in the media and fans did not ask these types of questions. Even in the 1980’s, no one asked top guys if they used steroids and at what doses. Today is a totally different story.
Today things are totally different. People talk about anabolic steroid use openly because anabolic steroids are no longer the exotic taboo drugs of the 80s and early ’90s. Now you have SARM’s, you have insulin, you have all sorts of fillers and exotic compounds that nobody has ever heard of. So you used steroids? Who cares? The bigger question is, who hasn’t at this point? So because everyone’s guard is down, everyone speaks about PED usage a lot more freely. But that does not mean that they are speaking honestly. They may be speaking freely, but they’re lying through their teeth. So if the taboo of the 80s and 90s is gone, then why are legends lying about gear doses today?
They’re lying because they still believe that fans on some level think that their physiques were attainable, because it is a rebuke to where the sport has gone today. But even still, they are not totally giving up on the fact that natural food-based supplements and sensible training can take the body to great lengths. This is not a lie. This is a fact. What is not a fact is that no matter how hard you train naturally and no matter how great supplements you may take are, if you’re not taking steroids, you’re not going to look like the greats of the 70s, ’80s, and definitely not of the 90s and beyond.
So the fact remains these guys do not want to give up that steroids were a large part of their career. They have always been about the food, the training, the nutrition, but they don’t want to admit that without steroids they never would have been anything. And that’s not to say that if you take steroids you’re going to be a Mr Universe or a Mr World, it just means that if you have the ability to be a Mr Universe or Mr world, and you don’t take steroids, you’re not going to win shit. Sorry Not Sorry.
At the end of the day, pride is a very big catalyst for lying. The old school guys, seemingly, don’t have anything left to prove. Many of them have already made their financial fortune, they have enjoyed all the accolades and all the titles you can imagine, and now they’re along for the ride. Sadly, some of them get a little cranky and may throw shade at future eras. Nonetheless, the fans and the media are happy to have them around because it creates continuity between the different eras. That’s a good thing because sport needs to have a foundation and need to have the ability to discern how things were then and how things are now. It’s not a competition of which era is better, It’s simply just part of the fabric of the sport.
That being said, some of the old school cats have a tendency to embellish in the other direction. Usually, fitness people embellish in terms of how much muscle they gain, or how much more ripped they are, but generally people don’t downplay anabolic steroid use unless they’re trying to make a point. Usually people are not going to lie about what they’re taking unless they’re trying to create an alternate narrative. And what could that be exactly?
I think where a lot of people who get it twisted, is the whole natty or not argument. They think that once somebody admits to gear use, that they are suddenly going to be as transparent as water. In other words, they think that once the cat is out of the bag, there’s no longer a reason to lie any further. Makes sense, doesn’t it? Well, to a certain extent it makes sense but it is also a very naive approach to the fitness industry.
A lot of old school guys have a lot of pride on the table. And they’re going to lie for the reasons we mentioned earlier, but they’re also going to lie because they want to shame the current generation. There is a certain level of crankiness with pretty much every past generation because as much as they love the sport and as cool as it is to have them around, they’re no longer the guys on top. So maybe they make these remarks largely to flex their muscles or beat their chest. They like to point to ridiculously low dosages as what they actually ran. And that is where somebody like Bob Cicherillo comes in. Bob is from that generation, he also knows how old school guys like to lie, and he’s calling them out for it.
And guess what? They don’t like it.
I think one of the things that separates Bob Cicherillo from a lot of the other commentators in his category is that he will actually name drop. He will actually point to legends that are very much alive and who are very much part of the sport and say “you did not run what you said you ran.” And that is because he’s calling bullshit. The same way Eric Kanevsky walks around with a scale and a tape measure to see if bodybuilders are lying about what they weigh or how tall they are, Bob Cicherillo is pointing out that many of them that are giving out these suspiciously low gear numbers, are full of shit. That said, it’s a lot harder for Bob to prove that a legend is lying than it is for Eric to do so with a scale and a tape measure, but in the end if you know anything about gear, you will find out that what Bob is saying is actually right on the mark. And that’s whether you like Bob or not. Facts are facts.
I think it’s stupid and irresponsible. Even though insulin, growth hormone and the exotic SARM’s of today were not available in the 70s and ’80s, there are things that were. They had access to a wide range of anabolic steroids (at almost 100% purity(. They also had access to dangerous diuretics. We cannot downplay that enough. These guys looked huge and were totally shredded and at the same time were as strong as elephants. The reality of the matter is these guys were playing with fire, too. Maybe not as much fire as with what is played with today, but they were hardly running the puny cycles they’re talking about today.
At the end of the day the old timers are free to say whatever they want, whether they’re saying it to sell supplement powders or they’re saying it to inflate their own egos. But I applaud Bob Cicherillo for calling bullshit and doing so in a very public manner with some of the biggest names of the past. With regards to the old school bodybuilders that are lying through their teeth, stop doing that. Be proud of what you accomplished and try to inspire others by being honest and transparent. Don’t play games with the fans, they don’t need it, and you don’t need it, either.
As always, I hope you enjoyed reading my article, here, at IronMag. I look forward to reading your feedback in the comments. Please be sure to copy and paste a link to this article on all your social media feeds. Even though I primarily write about bodybuilding news, this falls into the Good Housekeeping category. It’s important to write an article like this from time to time to keep people honest. Because Lord knows, people love to lie in the world of bodybuilding and fitness.
