There is a documentary currently out that everyone should go see: Bigger, Stronger, Faster. The side effects of being American.

Lots of clips on You Tube too.

But today I have something to write about. The MuscleMemory database now contains over 100,000 entries. And yes, I personally type in almost all of them. Here are the current statistics:

12501 different women with 28883 entries. 27639 men with 71141 entries, for a total of 40140 individuals with 100024 entries.

MuscleMemory currently receives 1.5 to 2 million hits a month from 65000 unique visitors.

Now if each of you would just send me 10 cents…

(My service provider is in the UK, and while it seemed like a good rate at the time, today’s exchange rate is not so good.)

There are many things I would like to do with the website, but just haven’t had the time to so.

• I would love to create a WebServices/SOAP interface to the database. This would allow others to incorporate the contest results into their websites.
• I want to include more non-US bodybuilding magazines in my list of magazine covers. I also want to find more European contest results. A month long trip to Europe would help greatly.
• I want to complete the bodybuilding magazines Table of Contents database. So far I’ve typed in the table of contents of all US bodybuilding magazines from 1930 into the 1970s into a searchable database. Many people have written me to say they find it very useful for doing research on the history of bodybuilding, weightlifting and fitness. But as we go into the 1980s and 1990s, the magazines got thicker and thicker, and it takes longer to type in the table of contents.
• I added a wiki to the site for things that don’t fit in elsewhere on the website. A wiki is meant to be a place where everyone can contribute encyclopedia type articles.

All this takes is time and money. Both are in short supply at the moment. Much of my time has been spent working on other projects, one’s that may actually make money. But I do my best to try to put in a few hours each week on MuscleMemory.

If you would like to help, I could certainly use help finding more contest results, especially from outside the US. I could also use help finding people with collections of non-US bodybuilding mags. You’re welcome to write articles for the wiki. I’d even be willing to allow others to write about current events on the blog. And of course, there is a donation button on the front page.

One immediate change is that I’ve switch the blog software from MovableType to WordPress. That should mean less spam for me to delete. One nice feature of WordPress is that it allows multiple authors on the same blog. I’m hoping to find others to contribute to the MuscleMemory blog. If you’d like to write about what’s happening in bodybuilding in your part of the world, drop me an email.

How do I do it? I have helpers throughout the world. The China results came from planetemuscle.com forum in France, and the Hungary results came from 村重典昭 (Murashige for those who cannot read Kanji, or don’t have the right character set) in Japan.

Men’s World Amateur Championships
Women’s World Amateur Championships

update: WABBA World’s up too

Federal agents raid Illinois lab linked to BALCO steroid
Chemist suspected of creating drug called ‘the clear’

…

In raids led by the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation division, search warrants were served on the Champaign, Ill., offices and home of chemist Patrick Arnold, who authorities believe produced the steroid that came to be known as “the clear” in the BALCO case.

…

Even before BALCO broke, Arnold was suspected by anti-doping officials as the man who resurrected the steroid norbolethone, a drug that was manufactured in the 1960s but never marketed to the public. The substance was discovered in the urine sample of an athlete in 2002. Based on e-mails and documents seized in the BALCO case, authorities believe norbolethone was the first generation of “the clear” distributed by Conte to elite athletes.

Chris Jalali remains in intensive care in a Las Vegas hospital a week after the USA Championships. The talk on various forums is that diuretics is the cause.

On a happier note, Ted Karnezis has sent me photocopies of contest rank sheet of all the major AAU contests from the 1990s. I’ll be able to fill in many gaps in the database. It just may take a while, as I’ve started a new job.

Paul DeMayo died yesterday. He was 37.

A wiki is a community document, where everyone can contribute. You can create new pages, or edit already existing pages. Perhaps the most popular wiki is Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia where anyone can write about any topic. Here are the bodybuilding topics already covered there. Hardly anything at all.

The MuscleMemory Wiki will be about bodybuilding, of course. The goal is to have biographical articles about all the major figures, historical and current. But other topics can be covered, nutrition, training methods, politics, etc. Its up to you. If you have a favorite bodybuilder, feel free to create a wiki page about him or her, or add to an existing page.

The wiki will also allow you to write about yourself. If you are already in the MuscleMemory database, you can create a wiki page to tell about yourself, list other contests not covered by the database, even about your achievements in other sports. Once you’ve created a wiki page, email me, and I will link it to your name in the database so that a Wiki icon appears on your contest page.

To create a new page, you just append the topic name to the URL in your browser, for example

http://www.musclememory.com/wiki/index.php?pagename=TopicName

Capitalize each word, but don’t add spaces. For example

http://www.musclememory.com/wiki/index.php?pagename=ArnoldSchwarzenegger

If that page does not exist, a new one will be created.

Note that you must register and log in to edit a page. To create a new account, just enter a name and password (at least six characters) in the login form.

This wiki will be successful only if everyone contributes.

Charles Durr Jr died on May 2, 2005. He had won the 1996 AAU Mr America contest, but was then disqualified for failing the drug test. He then sued the AAU. Some believe this is why the AAU decided to wash its hands of bodybuilding.

Don Youngblood died of a heart attack yesterday.

Yaxeni Oriquen and Branda Raganot won the heavy and lightweight classes for the Ms International. Jenny Lynn took the figure over Monica Brant. Complete results here.

Since steroids have been in the news of late, the Arnold Classic has received more than the normal amount of press. The article, Schwarzenegger Urges Steroid Crackdown is a good example of the mis- and dis- information. For example,

No, steroid use is common among bodybuilder who’ve never competed. They’re mandatory to compete at the local amateur level. National level amateurs today use more performance enhancing drugs than any of the pro bodybuilders did in the 1970s and into the 1980s.

The IFBB’s random drug testing is for diuretics, not anabolic steroids, growth hormone, insulin, or any of the other drugs and chemicals that pro bodybuilders use. When the press reports that the IFBB does perform drug tests without mentioning what test they do, they imply that the IFBB is really trying to prevent their athletes from using performance enhancing drugs. That is not the case.

Now if I were a reporter in the MSM, the question I would ask Governor Schwarzenegger:

Gustavo Badell won, barely beating out Lee Priest and Troy Alves. (I would have given it to Troy.) Melvin Anthony was fourth, King Kamali fifth, and Craig Titus a very generous sixth. Complete results here.

I had not planned to attend the event, as I’m still unemployed and need to save money. But at the last minute Jim Morris was asked to judge a side award and he brought me along as his guest. We both were given badges that got us in for free. The way it was first explained to him, the additional prize was to be for who presents the best image of bodybuilding to the public. Not following pro bodybuilding for 20 or so, Jim wanted me near by to answer any questions he may have of who is who. He had thought he’d be meeting with the athletes. We attended the morning judging without having anyone tell us what the judging criteria was. Then in the evening, the contest was explained as simply “best poser”. I think Jim was a bit annoyed as there was no reason for him to attend the morning show, and his Saturdays are usually quite full with personal training. Also, anyone could have judged best poser.

In fact, while there were five routines that were slightly out of the ordinary, only Melvin Anthony’s stood out. And he did win the $1000 prize. Melvin’s routine had lots of dance movements. Frank Roberson wore a cowboy hat, boots and belt, and had the second best posing routine. Frank has a gregarious personality that is fun to watch…the first half dozen times. Then you wish he’d kind of tone it down. Eduardo Van Amsterdam had an interesting routine, marred by the offensive lyrics in his song. Cop killer lyrics with selected words barely bleeped out did not go over well. Kamali’s routine is your standard robot shtick. Hidetada Yamagishi wore a Japanese demon mask and played with a samurai sword.

I saw Hidetada when I was in Tokyo a few years ago. In my opinion, he had a much more aesthetically pleasing physique then than he does now. Pics on his website are much better than he looked today. I suppose he could have just had an off day, perhaps jet-lag took its toll. Or it could be that he thinks he needs a lot more mass to compete at the pro level. But big is not always better. Symmetrical with wide shoulders and narrow hips should win out over more massive but blocky. But I know it doesn’t.

Francesco Mazzotta had the best posing musc, but I couldn’t tell you what it was, other than it was along the lines of Carmina Burana. (While I love O Fortuna, it is one song that should not be played at a bodybuilding show ever again, along with Bad To The Bone, which I don’t love.)

The six months pregnant award goes to Heiko Kallbach, second place goes to Massimo Valli. These two reverse their order for bad skin. Is it the 3% bodyfat or the dehydration that makes the skin look so granular? like rough sandpaper.

And Jocelyn Pelletier once again wins the “what kind of self image must you have” award. Jocelyn got his pro card by winning the 1976 IFBB Mr International. He’s 57 years old and could not win a local NPC Grand Masters contest. Yet he continues to enter pro bodybuilding contests.

The most aesthetically pleasing physiques, physiques that I would like to aspire to, were in order, David Henry, Jojo Ntiforo, Melvin Anthony, and then Troy Alves. They were thick, yet still had symmetry.

Neither the morning or evening show was sold out. The morning show was less than a third full, perhaps because of the heavy rain. The evening show was maybe three-fourths full.

Below the theater was a fitness expo. I attended it on Friday night, paying the $13 myself, thinking I wouldn’t have time to attend on Saturday. Friday was quite empty. A few of the booths didn’t even bother setting up for Friday, and no one was really giving out free samples. Saturday the prejudging was over by noon and we had to be back for the finals at 6, (although they didn’t start until 7), and my badge go me in for free, so I walked through it again. This time it was quite crowded, and I did collected lots of free samples. At 1 pm in the expo was the amateur Figure prejudging. They had about 20 contestants total in three classes.

In the booths in the expo were your normal supplement companies, a few gym clothing resellers, the LAPD, LAFD, and Army Reserves, and an Amend for Arnold booth (I declined to sign their petition). In one booth was Lifewave, which I wrote about in a previous blog entry, promoting the multi level marketing of their little plastic disks. I showed great restraint and did not get into a conversation with them. But I did listen in: “I really don’t understand it, but it has something to do with nanotechnology.” I bit my lip. And the sad thing is that the people doing all the work promoting this product really believe that all this pseudo-science really means something. It doesn’t.

In the expo, I talked to a few top amateurs who were working at various booths. Amateurs who really have no expectations of becoming a pro in the IFBB. [in the old days, that would be an oxymoron, as an amateur working a booth at a fitness expo would no longer be an amateur] I asked them to consider entering the NABBA Universe, the real “Mr. Universe”. Today, the top athletes in the NPC really have no place to compete at the international amateur level. The IFBB World Amateur Championships are suppose to be natural, so that pretty much rules out anyone who’s made it to the NPC Nationals or USA. Americans use to dominate the NABBA Universe, but it’s been years since we’ve sent a top contender. I think I planted a few seeds. We’ll see what grows.

The only old-time bodybuilder that I saw at the expo was Frank Zane, who was signing autographs at the Ironman booth. Many of the current pros were signing autographs at other booths. I tried to go up and introduce myself when I could.

When I go up to someone and I introduce myself and my website, I always get one of two reactions: a blank stare, (it could either be “what’s a website”, or “so you have a website, big deal, everyone does”), or I get “MuscleMemory!!! I love that site. I visit it all the time. That’s you???”

The funny thing is, that I can never predict what reaction I’m going to get. Old timers, you might not think spend much time on a computer. But many of them do know about my site, and they’re very glad that I’m preserving the history. While people in the industry, people with their own websites, people who you’d think would use my site on a regular basis, they’re the ones I have the hardest time explaining it to. (I’ve explained my website to one contest promoter on three separate occasions. Each time all I’ve gotten was a blank stare.)

Today, I saw a pro bodybuilder that I’ve been wanting to meet. The thing is, I know he’s gay. While he may not be openly gay, it is rather common knowledge. And as you probably know, I’m quite openly gay, especially on web forums such as getbig.com, and long before that on Usenet’s misc.fitness.weights. I’m always willing to take on the clueless straight boys who think its acceptable to bash gays on these forums. Now I’m almost certain that this pro bodybuilder has also participated on these web forums. You’d think that a gay guy would notice another gay guy (quite deftly, I may say) putting these homophobic kids in their place. And you’d think that someone who participates on web forums would recognize the names of others who post regularly on these forums. But I went up to him tonight in the lobby of the theater, and introduced myself and my website. Got nothing but a blank stare. He had never heard of me or my website, and while he occasionally posts to a specific web forum, he didn’t recognize my name from that either.

Since Jim Morris was a judge, we got to sit in the first row for both performances. At the finals, in the row behind me there were two older gentlemen behind me. A few times they asked me who was who on stage. Before the show ended, one of the gentlemen left. Only afterward did I find out that it was Reg Park!