[Jeff Higgins]

These people sure give up a lot to get this kind of size. As one who spent a fair amount of time pursuing this in my younger days I met and worked out with several people that went down this path. One of my early workout partners, after a couple of years, decided he was not making progress fast enough. He went on the juice and started getting bigger and stronger than me at an astonishing rate. We were pretty close up till then but he surpassed me quite quickly and never looksed back. We kind of lost contact after that as I switched gyms, but I did manage to talk to him a bit at a bodybuilding show some years later. By then he had one some shows, going as far as winning the Emerald Cup several times, which was an NPC qualifier (in other words, you could qualify for your "pro card" that allows you to compete at pro events). He had a lot of regrets by then. Chief among them were certain "male problems" that he was affraid were irreversible. In the end, it just was not worth it for him. The sad part is that it has become so pervasive in this sport that it is required even to win at the lowest local level. Kids that have not fully developed naturally on their own get on the juice and wind up having physical and emotional problems for the rest of their lives. Bodybuilding can be a wonderfull, healthy sport, until the competition starts. The win-at-all-costs nature of sports today rears its ugly head here more than in any other sport.