Health information

To a point, the most muscle you carry, the healthier you are going to be. When you train hard, you pull more oxygen into your lungs, which helps to strengthen your heart. Stronger people who eat better foods are without a doubt going to be healthier in general. This sounds like a great rule. In that case, the top bodybuilders in the world, clocking 10% body fart at 280 pounds off-season, must be the healthiest people around, right? Ah, think again, big guy!

Your heart is blind. No, this isn't a cheesy love balled from the 1980s. Rather, your heart has no idea whether the 280 pounds it is being forced to carry around is fat or muscle. The heart doesn't care. It has to pump twice the blood it would need if you were standing there at 140 pounds, right? Your heart is not in the least bit concerned that you look better, can win state level bodybuilding shows, can bench press double your body weight, or are the biggest, baddest dude around. All the heart does is pump blood. And the bigger you are, the more work it has to do. This is why many bodybuilders will slim down greatly following retirement or just during the off-season. They want to preserve their heart health. However, it should be noted that you can force your heart to work harder by constricting your blood flow with clogged arteries. Keep the saturated fats to a minimum, sticking with fish oil and lean meats to provide your dietary fats.

Drug use cannot be overlooked in any discussion involving the topics of health and bodybuilding. Steroids do have both positive and negative effects upon health. On the plus side, anabolic steroids do increase red blood cell production and oxygen transport in the body. Your brain, organs and muscle receive more oxygen thanks to the steroids. However, these compounds also cause spikes in blood pressure which can lead to heart disease of kidney damage. Couple this with the fact that the average steroid using bodybuilder is going to be tipping the scales at a much higher body weight, and you begin to see what many consider to be a recipe for disaster in terms of health. Advanced bodybuilding simply does not interact well with health goals. Amateur bodybuilders can eat their greens and conduct cardio and be healthy. Professional bodybuilders, for the most part, cannot. They engage in unhealthy habits daily, consuming pounds of meat, tipping the scale at unhealthy body weights, and pushing the limits of the cardiovascular systems with the use of anabolic steroids. It is not a healthy lifestyle, despite the fact that many people initially enter the world of exercise and fitness with the goal of living longer and better health!

Remember the old adage - there is no reward in being the most muscular man in the graveyard. It's totally possible to gain inhuman amounts of muscle, but the cost will be a shorter lifespan with which to enjoy this muscle!

Dane Fletcher is the world's most prolific bodybuilding and fitness expert and is currently the executive editor for BodybuildingToday.com. If you are looking for more bodybuilding tips or information on weight training, or supplementation, please visit www.BodybuildingToday.com, the bodybuilding and fitness authority site with hundreds of articles available FREE to help you meet your goals.