Sunday, 23 July 2017

Barry Bond's Strength Coach: Fitness Trainer Hall of Shame -or Not ?

   Can you sentence someone to the Fitness Trainer Hall of Shame when you actually feel some grudging admiration? That is my dilemma regarding Greg Anderson.  I have trouble completely condemning this man despite the abundance of evidence pointing towards guilt.
Who was Greg Anderson?
  • Greg Anderson was a weight room gym rat.
  • His father was killed during a gambling altercation when Greg was a child.
  • He grew up in the same neighborhood as future baseball home run king Barry Bonds. 
  • Like many gym rats, Greg became the go-to guy for fellow weight training enthusiasts wanting to gain muscle or get stronger.
  • This morphed into a career as a Strength and Fitness Trainer despite Greg's lack of educational background or formal accreditation in the Fitness Training field.
  • Anointing the most muscular men as physical training experts was not uncommon in the hard core weight room environment. 
   The relationship between Greg Anderson and Baseball home run king Barry Bonds evolved from teenage acquaintanceship to something more professional.
  • Greg Anderson starting working in the weight room with Barry Bonds and became his weight training guru. 
  • Barry Bonds morphed from a tall, wiry and talented athlete into a baseball bashing brute with cartoon like muscles and a pumpkin sized head under Anderson's guidance.
  • The gym where Greg trained his clients was only a few blocks from the headquarters for a health supplement company named the Bay Area Lab Cooperative. (BALCO)
  • BALCO founder, Victor Conte, was providing an undetectable steroid known as 'the Clear' to pro athletes in many sports. He also supplied the Clear to Greg Anderson.
  • Anderson also bought Human Growth Hormone from financially needy AIDS patients.
  • Presumably these substances were supplied to Greg Anderson's star client Barry Bonds.
  • After a tip from Olympic track star Marion Jones' disgruntled former coach, the internal Revenue Service and the Food and Drug Administration began investigating BALCO. 
  • The ensuing fall out caught up to Greg Anderson and Barry Bonds.
  • Barry Bonds was indicted and tried with lying under oath.
  • Greg Anderson refused to testify against Bonds and spent 3 stints in jail for contempt of court.
  • Bonds was convicted but the conviction was later overturned.
    • Image result for barry bonds and greg anderson together
    Barry Bonds (left) and Greg Anderson at court appearances
  • With the case concluded, Greg Anderson was off the hook for the contempt charges but remains with a criminal record for steroid trafficking. He has resumed Fitness Training for lower profile clients and as the go-to guy for aspiring gym rat/bodybuilders

Obviously, Greg Anderson was guilty of supplying banned substances to a client. That the client used these performance enhancing drugs to break a sacred baseball record compounds the story. Greg Anderson remained faithful to his client and repeatedly refused to testify against him at great cost to himself. Was this merely out of loyalty or will some financial payback be received from Barry Bonds in the future?
     In some social circles Greg Anderson deserves street cred for not ratting out his friend and client. However in the eyes of the legal system such loyalty is considered a criminal act. Does Greg Anderson Belong in the Fitness Trainer Hall of Shame? You decide! 
   Despite a lack of educational credentials this subject is often referred to as a Fitness Trainer. The controversy and danger arises when such a person obtains supplements or substances for someone else. Not only is this beyond the scope of practice for a Fitness Trainer, in this case it entered the realm of unlawful activity
                       
Until Next Time,  Keep Fit
Fitness Trainers beware! If you deal in illicit  substances or Performance Enhancing Drugs
 you just might run afoul of the long arms (and/or legs) of the law!


Little Bobby Strong










References
Steroid Nation Shaun Assael (2007) ESPN Books 
Bases Loaded     Kirk Radomski (2009) Hudson Street Press
Game of Shadows Williams and Fainaru (2006) Avery Publishing

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Thursday, 13 July 2017

Melissa Bishop's International Racing Conundrum

   I attended the 2017 Canadian Track and Field Championships in Ottawa last weekend. There was lots of running, lots of throwing, lots of jumping and lots of rain. There were some outstanding world class performances despite the inclement climate. Canadian sprint sensation Andre de Grasse ripped a sub twenty second 200 meters that wins the Canadian title but does not register as an official time due to a wind speed above 2 meters per second. Other events were most likely hampered by the conditions.
   The women's 800 meter race featured local track star Melissa Bishop leading most of the way to a winning time just a shade over 2 minutes. The time was half a second better than my best time on the same track (different surface) a generation earlier. Of course I was running into a 20 mile per hour headwind wearing cement boots - or at least it felt like it. Okay, maybe her running form was more efficient and economical than my technique in my prime. She looked smooth and fast!

Image result for melissa bishop
Melissa Bishop taking the lead in an international race.


  Melissa Bishop is a silver medalist from the 2015 World Championships. She finished 4th at the Olympics in Rio last year. Melissa is caught right in the middle of an international
 track and field conundrum through no fault of her own. A gender issue that has surfaced numerous times in international sports has once again reared its head and become news.
Image result for caster semenya
Caster Samenya after winning
209 World Championships in Berlin.
   Bishop's 800 meter race in Rio was won by Caster Semenya of South Africa. Melissa Bishop finished in 4th place. Since winning the 2009 World Championships, Semenya has been a controversial athlete. She has a form of hyperandrogenism which results in her producing more testosterone than women normally do. This likely gives her an advantage in competition since more testosterone means larger and stronger muscles.This physical benefit could be anywhere from 1.8% to up to 4% for female runners. This of course would put normal female runners such as Melissa Bishop at a disadvantage. There has also been some suggestion that the silver and bronze medalists from the same race also have hyperandrogenism.

   Since 2009, the world sporting bodies such as the International Association of Athletics Federation (I.A.A.F) and the International Olympic Committee (I.O.C) allowed such athletes to compete  only if they took female hormones. In 2015 the Center for Arbitration in Sport (C.A.S) ruled that to be a violation of the athlete's rights. Semenya won silver medals in the 2011 World Championships and the 2012 Olympics while taking female hormones. She won the Rio Olympics last year while off of the female hormones. The rule to force female athletes with hyperandrogenism to take female hormones is under discussion for reinstatement. This controversy will continue.
   Interestingly, the gold medal winner in the 2011 and 2012 races-a Russian woman- has since failed numerous drug tests for steroid enhancement. The world governing bodies were quick to act on Semenya after her 2009 win for natural but high testosterone levels but seemingly turned a blind eye for decades to unethical testosterone enhancement by eastern bloc countries and their political descendants. Sport is not always fair!  However, Caster Semenya may yet wind up with 2 more gold medals retroactively.
   There are many considerations that are aligned with this issue:
  • Caster Semenya did not intentionally try to get an unfair advantage unlike her Russian competitor who  was outright cheating.
  • Some may argue that all great athletes have some genetic advantage over the norm. Gretzky had magical perception and coordination. Phelps seems to have flippers for feet.  Basketball players are twice my height. Usain Bolt has no evident slow twitch muscle fibers.  Soccer players have more natural acting ability than Meryl Streep when trying to draw a penalty. Baseball players can wash chewing tobacco down with gutrot whiskey and not gag! Us mere mortals are humbled by such genetic physical genius.
  • We are in an era when some people want to be addressed as Meh rather than as Mister, Ms., or Mrs.  Sport will not be immune from such issues in the future.
  • Some view this as another attempt by men in power of trying to define what women should look like.
  • Some men who have transgendered to  become women will want to compete against them. Wasn't there a male who became a woman named Renee Richards and tried for the women's professional tennis tour some time back?
  • Should former Olympic Decathlon champ Bruce Jenner, now Kaitlyn Jenner,  come back and try and capture the women's Heptathlon crown, I am confident that Canadian Brienne Thiessen Eaton would kick his/her butt. Hey - they're both retired from track and field so it's a valid analogy and a moot point!  
  • Were I to pull a Kaitlyn Jenner and try to dominate women's wrestling Canadian Olympic Champion Erika Wiebbe would absolutely demolish me! (Ouch!)
  • More men becoming transgender women will want to compete against women. What will happen then?
  • The International Olympic Committee used to perform sex tests on suspect athletes back in the 1960's.  It is a historic and unpleasant topic in which the discussion is once again relevant!
Image result for caster semenya
Russian runner Mariya Savinova beats Semenya at 2012 London Olympics.
Unnaturally juiced- with-testosterone runner beats runner with naturally high testosterone levels.
 One took substances for an unfair edge! The other has a genetic advantage through no fault of her own!















  
 Meanwhile I will continue to be a track and field fan. I will still appreciate the running talent of a Melissa Bishop no matter how many medals she may or may not have. Running will always be poetry in motion to my sports starved eyes.

  On a more personal note, whenever I go to the Terry Fox Athletic Complex for track and field events in Ottawa, I feel old and slow. I sometimes feel like my track career peaked in high school and maybe it did. However, no worries,  my career as a sports/fitness blogger has yet to reach its zenith. Keep on reading fans!

Until Next Time

 Keep Fit!

 Little Bobby Strong
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