doping

DOPING: THE EXPERIENCE OF CLARENCE BASS - MR. AMERICA AND MR USA OVER 40 1978-1979

Edited by Roberto Rillo - Book Author: Calisthenics BodyBuilding

CLARENCE BASS source: www.cbass.com

In Italy very few know Clarence Bass, but in the States it is a kind of living legend. It was one of the first to reach body fat percentages below 4%. This characteristic has earned him the nickname "ripped" (skinned).

His body history begins late. As a young man he had been part of the Olympic weightlifting national team and then retired without devoting himself to any sport. Then at thirty-nine years after an interview with Arthur Jones he decided to even compete for Mr. America. He is convinced, however, that if you are out of shape, you must lose weight as much as possible before gaining muscle. Even today, his most important recommendation is: "become lean, stay lean, then gain muscle" (he becomes thin, keep thin, then put on muscles). Bass recounts his transformation that led him from a mediocre and overweight physicist to be crowned Mr. America and Mr. Usa, in his book Ripped. In the book he explains every transformation of his body in relation to training, diet and doping. As for doping, this is what he tells us.

Clarence Bass after a year of a particular diet had managed to reach a body weight of 70 kg consisting of 67 kg of lean mass and only 3 kg of fat mass equal to a percentage of body fat of 4.16%. He was very satisfied with the result achieved but was not satisfied with the muscle level. He then consulted with a doctor and decided to try anabolic steroids (deca durabolin and anavar). Deca durabolin was taken with one injection a week, the first 100 mg and the others 50 mg. Anavar instead was taken in tablets three times a day at main meals. The starting body data were those mentioned above. In the end Bass found himself with a body weight of 75 kg, a lean mass of 70 kg and a fat mass of 5 kg, equal to a body fat percentage of 6.6%. He was satisfied with his earnings but he had to define himself more. He decided to optimize his earnings by focusing on training and diet, but without steroids despite all the effort he put into training and the care he took to follow a strict diet, he found himself with a body weight of 77 kg, a lean mass of 70 kg and a fat mass of 7 kg, equal to a body fat percentage of 9%! Such was the dismay that he literally says "I wanted to find a black hole and throw myself into it" and from that moment he decided that he would no longer use steroids.

This is the experience of Clarence Bass that happened in 1978; it was and is similar to that of thousands of other body builders. The result and the narrated effects are typical. The body naturally produces testosterone, if more is artificially fed into it and in large quantities, the testicles that should produce it get smaller and go into atrophy. Once the steroid cycle is over, the body finds itself with zeroed testosterone: from the outside it no longer comes, from the inside the testicles do not produce it, as a result the organism becomes a eunuch that quickly loses muscle and gains fat.

Many doping gurus, champions and practitioners will laugh at this experience considering it childish and will argue that through a dosage to scale and the insertion at the end of the cycle of other substances able to fight the testicles atrophy, you can get lasting muscle gains and quality.

But the facts say instead that any strategy is adopted, in the end the problem is postponed only and instead of resolving it becomes chronic and very serious. Do not think that for you it will be different: the positive effects of anabolic steroids are the same for everyone as well as the negative effects. Except that the negative effects last longer than the positive ones and sometimes last forever.

Meditate.