Pumping Iron

I didn't catch a lot of the news as I was trying to finish up some yard work that I've been putting off.  I did catch something that was a little annoying though.  It's another pointless study.  There is good news though, I don't think it was a federally funded study.  Just a quick one tonight so please read on.


So the world news decided to talk about this study of teenage boys.  The study found that a large number of them are doing a lot of things to increase their muscle mass.  And that includes lifting weights, changing their diet, along with taking supplements and steroids.  Wow, how is this news?  I'm far removed from being a teenager but when I was the jocks were doing this!  This isn't something new at all.  I remember that they even talked the coaches into bench press contests.  There were a few of them who attempted to avoid steroids by using supplements and amino acids.  In the end they made the switch to steroids because those that were using them were bulking up much faster.  This is nothing new people.

What is new is that the pictures of these kids are seen by more and more people.  That is the real reason this is a story.  When I was in high school you couldn't take a picture and share it with millions of people in a matter of minutes.  If you wanted to share a picture at all you had to pay to have it developed, pay for additional copies, and pay for postage to send them to people.  You couldn't just take a picture with your cell phone and post it to the internet instantly.

I will give them that it is something that teenage girls are starting to follow the trend, but teenage boys have been doing this for a long time.  I put the real blame on professional sports and poor teaching by high school coaches.  Every kid that plays sports wants to play as a pro and dream of the big salary.  The only way they can compete is to be bigger, stronger, and faster then the other kids.  And it's much easier to take the drugs to get there then to work hard.  How do coaches fail?  They could put it into real perspective.  College football has less then half as many football players then in high school.  The pro game cuts it even more drastically.  Take the thousands playing college and cut that down to 64 per team, or 2048 for the league.  Sure there are practice squads for each team but they don't make a whole lot of money.  Coaches need to teach that.  Just my two cents, what's yours?