Avoiding heart-problems is my main motivation for working out. I could probably make a huge list of benefits from a life-style of eating clean and working out. Just thinking about the way my life has improved brings a smile to my face. But at the very top of that list would be to avoid heart-disease and I would gladly give up all the extra benefits if it meant keeping my health.

I read that Mike always had heart problems. But if compound lifting provides cardio-vascular benefits, shouldn't he have avoided getting a heart-attack? After all, he's about as hard-core as you can get and had an amazing physique.

Or was it the steroids that were the main culprit?

He talks about it in this interview. (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0KFY/is_5_23/ai_n14706837)

Sounds like he was using a lot of dangerous stuff.

Sounds like he was using a lot of dangerous stuff.
Ya think? Nobody achieves that kind of size naturally. And these guys have it coming every.single.time. I haven't opened a bodybuilding magazine in years because I know (A) how they've achieved their status, and it's patently false, and (B) anything they have to say is automatically pigeon-holed because of condition (A).

It's very sad. That kind of dedication could be put to much better use than unnaturally bulging at the seams for no good reason. But... we all make our choices... and later, we all have to live with them.

-R

Pro bodybuilders today are poor examples of healthy bodies. Their diet isn't healthy and neither are their "supplements".

A good diet and exercise are certainly a positive attempt to do what we can to prevent heart problems. So continue them. :bb:

But runners, lifters, doctors, slim people, vegetarians, People who get annual physicals, you name it, die from heart attacks. Genes are a key factor. Maybe our number comes up, who knows. We all die.

one person can't be a determinant of anything. Humans are too complex to understand all the variables. We will try but we will never know for sure what makes us tick or can keep us ticking for longer than 120 years or so. :gl:

He talks about it in this interview. (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0KFY/is_5_23/ai_n14706837)

Sounds like he was using a lot of dangerous stuff.

A exerpt from the article: " Worst were the chemicals. I have so many memories of being alone in a hotel room the week, five days or two days before a contest, and doing unspeakable things to my body--steroids, growth hormones, diuretics--anything and everything that we as bodybuilders do to achieve a certain look. The greatest danger, though, is that, while dieting and training stay the same through the years, there's a compulsion to experiment more wildly with chemicals. Every day, guys are on the phone asking who's using what, where are they getting it, how are they mixing it? There are guys out there who are being paid big money by pros to mix special concoctions for them. I remember being all over the world, a few nights before a contest, putting chemicals into my body, knowing I was hurting myself, but I did whatever it took to attain a "look."

If I could go back in time, those things never would have happened. I would have gone back to driving a truck. I have no doubt in my mind that the primary cause of my problem--the biggest thing--was the chemicals. It was the steroids, the growth hormones, the diuretics. We take Cytomel to lose fat, knowing it's an incredibly powerful thyroid drug, and that's only one of the many, many drugs out there taken by everyone, from amateurs to the highest level in the world."

That is really some scary stuff. Thanks to everyone for the info and responses.

I feel bad for the guy, but I agree that he had it coming. I guess sometimes the intense competition and extreme tunnel visioned goal of obtaining the most freakishly huge, ripped bod can make people do irrational things.