"Bigger Stronger Faster*" movie is awesome!

[SWMassMan]

This is a GREAT movie! I've seen it twice and it's definitely not your usual "steroids will kill you" propaganda piece. If you have a chance and it's playing near you, check it out!

http://www.magpictures.com/dates.asp...0-946e1be94759 for the list of theaters playing it.

http://www.biggerstrongerfastermovie.com/ for the movie website.

Let me know what you think if you see it!

--John

[Mdlftr]

I agree!!

"Bigger, Stronger, Faster" is a very interesting, very sympathetic look at the American obsession with ever more size. The narrator talks about himself (the smallest, middle child of three brothers) and his two brothers.

Although all the brothers were athletic growing up, and are jocks, only the oldest and youngest one took it to the limit and used steroids and other supps. The older one is married with a child, and realizes he could lose it all if it came out that he uses steroids. He's a high school football strength coach, and advises his students on proper lifting technique and lifting naturally. He himself competes in powerlifting competitions, and all the competitors agree they need "a little something" to keep an edge. It's not hypocritical on one level, since there is a tacit understanding that "you do what you gotta do, in order to win."

The narrator, the smaller, shorter (but still bulky and muscular) middle brother asks his brothers the tough questions, but doesn't condemn them. He does ask them how they don't feel like hypocrits, taking steroids while telling students not to use them. His brothers acknowledge that people "should do as I say, not as I do," but for them, winning is important enough to take the risk. The steroid user is conflicted about it, since he lies about his usage to his wife, and his parents. The mother is particularly effective in the scene when she finds out about the steroids. She sits there crying, while saying to the narrator, "What is it about Joey (the oldest) that he feels so badly about himself [that he'll use steroids?]" One of the most effective scenes in the movie.

Overall, the movie has some very funny moments, but the overall tone is nonjudgmental. Yes, the narrator says, "steroids are cheating, and bad for you, but lots of people think they are worth the risk." There are many great clips. There is a clip of Arnold, in recent years (pre-Governator) admitting that he used steroids, "when they were legal" and "only to keep the size I already had built from lifting." ..Um, Yeah....

There's a great clip where the narrator talks about current competitors at the Olympia, and zeroes in on Victor Martinez, who, like all modern competitors, is allegedly "clean".
"How" the narrator says, "is it that Arnold, at 6'2" and 230 pounds, admits he took steroids, but Victor, at 5'9", 5 inches shorter, and 250 pounds (20 pounds heavier than Arnold in his prime) did not?

"How" indeed!

Great flick!

Mdlftr

[nnnrg]

Uhhh .... No. I have seen the training journals kept by the man who provided the steroids to Arnold and Franco in 1969-1971. He recorded type and dosages. (And they did not use high doses - just enough, apparently, to kick them over into full-on anabolic state by boosting their recovery.) I don't know why he would forget them, but then he also seems to have forgotten that he funded his career by being a "model" for men (and perhaps some women) who greatly admired his body. In person.

He's being mendacious because he doesn't want to encourage steroid use among kids, but in fact, he did use them, and apparently in a non-damaging way. Too bad I can't say that for the guy who provided them. Last time I saw him he had a liver 3 times the size it should have been, and was planning to have surgery to reduce it.

[mewletter]

"He's being mendacious because he doesn't want to encourage steroid use among kids, but in fact, he did use them, and apparently in a non-damaging way. Too bad I can't say that for the guy who provided them. Last time I saw him he had a liver 3 times the size it should have been, and was planning to have surgery to reduce it."

How contradicting in one paragraph. Steroids don't kill you; But will kill you slow & painful... Still, I'm not against old guys taking them since they already near the end. (I wonder tif Mr McCain took them since he's unusually energetic for his age... Hmmm...)

Anyway, steroids are often trading short-term results for long-term damages. And few were lucky enough not to have symptoms of it...yet. Anyway, being bigger, stronger & faster is mostly primative desire to be the 'Creme of the crop', which ironically kind of made us less sentient. I assumed...

But then again, I'm not well-versed in Darwin's theory.

Sadly, I'm a very small guy. (5'1, 132lbs) Oh well, genetics. At least a lot of ppl mistaken me of a young teenager when I'm in mid-twenties. LOL The price of long-lasting youth I guess...

(Which explain why my mom looked like she's in mid-thirties when she's pushing 60)

[nnnrg]

Originally Posted by mewletter

"He's being mendacious because he doesn't want to encourage steroid use among kids, but in fact, he did use them, and apparently in a non-damaging way. Too bad I can't say that for the guy who provided them. Last time I saw him he had a liver 3 times the size it should have been, and was planning to have surgery to reduce it."

How contradicting in one paragraph. Steroids don't kill you; But will kill you slow & painful... Still, I'm not against old guys taking them since they already near the end. (I wonder tif Mr McCain took them since he's unusually energetic for his age... Hmmm...)

Anyway, steroids are often trading short-term results for long-term damages. And few were lucky enough not to have symptoms of it...yet. Anyway, being bigger, stronger & faster is mostly primative desire to be the 'Creme of the crop', which ironically kind of made us less sentient. I assumed...

But then again, I'm not well-versed in Darwin's theory.

Sadly, I'm a very small guy. (5'1, 132lbs) Oh well, genetics. At least a lot of ppl mistaken me of a young teenager when I'm in mid-twenties. LOL The price of long-lasting youth I guess...

(Which explain why my mom looked like she's in mid-thirties when she's pushing 60)

Good job reading between the lines, but there wasn't anything written there. My colleague had done steroids in very high doses, for a very long time, and was about 60 years old, IIRC. He held a national title the year I was born (1956) and so was one of the "older experienced" types 20 years later when Arnold and Franco came to the US. His liver grew due to his using high doses of unusual steroids and hormones, some of which were probably not human steroids (and what he had recorded for Arnold was pretty much (IIRC) dbol, sust, anavar, and whatever form of test was around.) He had been tested for liver function, and his liver worked quite well, it was just too big, and the surgery was scheduled simply to help him prevent other problems that could arise as he got older (and because he hated having a big ol' roid gut.)

Keep in mind that by age 60 even without steroids, you can get an enlarged liver if you don't eat properly. And, the guy left the company abruptly when they tried to hire him full-time from a contract and he failed the drug test.

I have no evidence that Arnold ever did steroids to excess, and I'm sure that as soon as he could afford it he got a doctor to monitor his hormone levels, and that he never went for the giant doses. He was and is too compulsive and too control-freaky to let the drugs take over his life, or even get too much of a hold; they were a tool and nothing more.

How well one ages is due to many things, genetics a big part, but there's also tobacco use, which causes serious skin damage over time, and alcohol abuse which can do the same thing, and the biggest deal: solar radiation.
I was carded a week before my 50th birthday.

I don't think the 'bigger and stronger' has any negative correlation with intelligence ... it may have cultural effects, but the biggest guys I knew in high school, the stars of the football and wrestling teams, were also at least B+ students and were generally quite smart, and while I've met a few people who were profoundly strong and muscular who weren't even average-smart, most of the jocks I've met are as smart as, or smarter than, average. Some of them were (despite smarts or lack thereof) not particularly gifted in common sense, but that's also true of not-jocks.

As for being a small guy... You do realize that many of the most awesome looking bodybuilders are short, right?