You may have seen electrical stimulators touted for helping muscle gains. They have genuine use in medicine, but do these devices really help bodybuilders?

What is an electrical stimulator?

Electrical stimulators are electrodes that attach to the skin of a muscle and pass an low electric current through the muscle. It’s purpose is to get the muscle to twitch and is used in medicine to rehab patients, such as recovering from a stroke.

Any use for bodybuilding?

No. The electric current is very weak and would have absolutely no significant role in increasing muscle growth.

Overtraining is a horrible thing for bodybuilders. It is often what puts inexperienced bodybuilders gains to a halt. Often we forget about the health effects of overtraining. Many bodybuilders are aware that overtraining increases the levels of cortisol, which leads to depression, sleep, and joint problems. According to research done in Chicago, Illinois it also may increase risk of heart disease too.

Over the years colostrum has been touted by some bodybuilding gurus as an important supplement. Colostrum has many health benefits such as: destroying infectious bacteria, protecting immune system from viruses, and killing cancer. Is Colostrum really that effective for bodybuilders? According to recent research at the University of South Australia, colostrum increased strength, but did not effect IGF-1 (an anabolic hormone) in the body.

A study a few years ago by the Washington State University, showed that 800mg of magnesium together with 5 grams of creatine monohydrate, increased lean muscle mass significantly more than creatine by itself. Magnesium is a great mineral for bodybuilding and many people are deficient in it from their diet.

According to other research studies magnesium taken by itself, can dramatically increase strength. This may be the reason why magnesium together with creatine, leads to more muscle mass. Lean mass increases usually follow after strength gains. Many bodybuilders take ZMA which has magnesium in it, but ZMA is really an overpriced product. It is cheaper just to take zinc and magnesium supplements seperately.

Most bodybuilders have probably not even heard of this very powerful fat loss agent.

What is Usnic Acid?

Usnic Acid is extracted from Usnea, a lichen. It is a bitter yellow substance. Usnic acid is used in powders and ointments for skin infection treatment. Dan Duchaine was the one that first promoted Usnic Acid heavily in the bodybuilding community.

Usnic acid is a extremely potent fat loss drug like DNP. DNP and Usnic Acid both work as an uncoupler agent in the cellular mitochondria. They both can cause dangerous body overheating and their is a very fine line between effective dose and what can kill you!

Usnic acid is highly toxic to the liver also. A mayo clinic study showed that two patients got hepatoxicity, as a result of “recommended dosages” of 3 months use. One of them had to receive a liver transplant!

Why isn’t Usnic Acid banned?

Usnic acid is technically legal over the counter because it is found occuring in nature. The FDA may eventually ban it for OTC use, but the lack of widespread use in dietary supplements, has helped keep it at a low priority with the FDA.

Bodybuilders who are steroid users often use NAC, Milk thistle, and other liver supplements to help their liver during and/or after a heavy cycle. One thing they may want to add to that is Olive Oil.

A study was done a few years ago by turkish researchers. They found that a olive oil and soybean oil combination, had the ability to regenerate liver cells in adult rats. While this study is done on rats, we don’t know if it works for humans. Olive Oil is a good source of “good fats”, so it will be worthwhile when trying to get your testosterone production back, regardless if it actually helps regenerate liver cells in humans.

You’ve probably heard that high protein diets lead to increased calcium excretion, leading to increased risk of osteoporosis. Men are usually only susceptible to it at very old age, but women can are higher risk at younger age. To help combat this, having extra calcium in the diet is important. Luckily protein powders and milk also happen to have significant calcium in them. According to recent research high salt in the diet increases calcium excretion. One way to combat this increased calcium excretion, is to increase your potassium intake or increase calcium in your diet.

I’m sure you have read the studies that 60% of the public in the U.S.A is overweight. Many countries around the world are also getting fatter as they adopt our lifestyles. However, I believe Bodybuilding is actually growing in popularity.

The public is getting fatter and as a result, they are looking for radical ways to change their body. They realize that the mainstream ways of getting in shape do not work well. Sure they can lose the fat by starving themselves, but they will look skinny fat and the weight will come back. The internet has also allowed information to flow freely, making such topics such as bodybuilding more accpetable. Before the internet, it was a thing you only talked about between people in the Gym. I think also Arnold Schwarzennegar becoming Governor has helped increase it’s popularity.

While bodybuilding has made some great strides in reaching new people, it is still full of misconceptions and rumours and misunderstood by most. The Mr. Olympia bodybuilding contest used to be on ESPN. Not anymore, yet they have the hot dog eating contest. I guess they want couch potatoes to feel better about themselves? ESPN would also rather gossip about steroid use among athletes.

The mainstream media jumps on the roid rage bandwagon with cases such as Steve Benoit(the wrestler who killed his family) because they love sensationalism. They also don’t understand much about steroids and figure the public doesn’t either, so they can use that to their advantage.

Roid Rage Scientific Studies:

There have been only a few studies done on steroids and testing aggression. Some studies I have come across are Horm Behav. 2001 Nov;40(3):409-18 and Ann N Y Acad Sci. 2004 Dec;1036:399-415 and one done on human males J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 1996 Oct;81(10):3754-8 All three studies concluded that high doses of steroids (testosterone in these studies) showed an increased aggression, but not an unprovoked or irrational psychotic “roid rage”, as displayed by the media.

What does this mean?

What I been saying all along, that steroids are not really a cause of “Roid Rage”. It is people with a bad temper who are looking for an excuse to lose control and do something stupid. If anything, Alcohol is much more of a cause of rage phenomenon, considering it makes you lose your total sense of judgement. Does this mean steroids are totally innocent? No, but it’s effect on the personality is greatly overblown.

You can read another article of mine where I address many of the other Steroid facts & myths from a fair analysis, backed by experience and research.

Over the years the one book that has been most commonly read by bodybuilders is Education of a Bodybuilder by Arnold Schwarzenegger. A lot of it is because of who Arnold is, but also because it is very controversial among bodybuilders. Arnold did wonders for giving bodybuilding into the mainstream, so many bodybuilders have a lot of respect for Arnold as a bodybuilder.

About Education of a Bodybuilder:

The book is split into two major sections. The first goes into his life. The second is his workout and nutrition advice. In the first section you realize how goal orientated he is, he is the exact persona of a “A type personality”. He seems to be willing to sacrifice many things in life to reach his goals. Some may say this is a sickness, while others may think it is admirable. Today, we know that many bodybuilders suffer from “Bigorexia”, I definitely think it’s safe to say that Arnold did at one time.

The second section deals with training. I have to admit, some of his advice is pretty absurd. He recommends for the advanced workouts 2 hours in the morning 2 hours at night 7 days a week. Only the most genetically blessed juiced bodybuilder on steroids (such as Arnold) could grow off a routine like that! He also says a lot of bodybuilding myths, when he talks about spot reduction and targeting muscles.

In the nutritional section he mentions about his common use of alcohol. Everyone knows that alcohol hurts bodybuilding gains, so either he exaggerated or more proof he has probably the best bodybuilding genetics ever. With todays mass monsters in the Olympia, they couldn’t even look at Alcohol, if they wanted to get to that ripped bf% they compete at currently. The overall diet recommendations aren’t too bad though, certainly much better than his training recommendations.

Overall, it’s a good book to read more for entertainment purposes. I wouldn’t necessarily take a lot of it it as a serious reference for bodybuilding information, since most don’t have his genetics and we have learned a lot since then on training, diet, and supplements.