The prevalent use of pharmaceuticals as enhancers of performance or appearance in the athletic arena is well-known. However, the legal and moral issues surrounding their use prevent users from access to credible and reliable medical information on health issues associated with their use. Medical practitioners cannot legally or ethically prescribe them for use by athletes […]
Women and Steroids
Planet Estrogen Part 2 – Apples and Pears
“At the same time that hormones challenge the pubertal brain, they change the body. A girl’s high estrogen content helps in the deposition of body fat on the breasts, hips, thighs and buttocks, subcutaneously, everywhere. Because of estrogen and auxiliary hormones, women have more body fat than men…..We can look at the deposition of body […]
Staying A-Breast of Things
Here in Texas where it is warm people like to show their skin regardless of size or stature. All too common I see women on the treadmills or in the aerobics classes who have double-C breasts crammed into flimsy size-B sports bras, their breast mass bouncing up and down like swinging water balloons. Many women […]
Female Athletes and Menstrual Irregularities
What sets the female gender apart most from the male is the dynamic rhythmicity of the reproductive cycle. Dynamic fluctuations in hormone levels cyclically prepare the female human body for propagation of the species despite the volitional intent to produce children. Today, more women are participating in sports activities and training has become increasingly intense. […]
Planet Estrogen: Hormone Therapy, Training and Diet
A common concern amongst many women is how their hormones affect their exercise training and diet. Women’s bodies are influenced by fluctuations in hormones not only throughout the normal monthly reproductive cycle, but also throughout their entire lives. Both men and women experience a significant change in hormones at the onset of puberty and sexual […]
Women and Steroid Blues
“Nobody knew or could agree on what women wanted or needed to be. Not even women themselves…. Up close and dressed in anything feminine, female bodybuilders started looking like something God had made suffering from a divine hangover and caught in delusional terrors beyond human imagination.”1 Body by Harry Crews In 1990 Harry Crews accurately […]
Contrarian Endocrinology Part 1 – Testosterone for Women
In this series of articles, I will attempt to bring clarity to two common myths about endocrinology. The first myth is the notion of the exclusivity of “male” and “female” sex hormones. While it is true that men have higher concentrations of testosterone and lower concentrations of estrogen and progesterone than women, all of these […]
Women and Iron
Too often and much to my dismay, I hear women protest against using any appreciable weight in their weight training program. Moreover, many young women completely refrain from resistance training; instead spending countless hours on the cardio deck in a fruitless effort to attain an ideal physique. What is the ideal physique and why are […]
Female Bodybuilders, Fitness Competitors and the Crisis of Representation
Introduction This article is not just about female bodybuilders or fitness competitors. It is not about who is posing where and how. It is not about who is more feminine, athletic, sexy, muscular, or appropriate. It is about the creation, maintenance, and representation of a so-called crisis. Avid watchers of physical culture, or anyone who […]
The Bodybuilding Grotesque: The Female Bodybuilder, Gender Transgression, and Designations of Deviance
The other day I received some email from a man who had visited my women’s weightlifting website. He was so emphatic in his pronouncement that he felt he had to send the message twice, once with the content in the subject line just in case I missed it the first time. His important missive, in entirety: […]