Bodybuilders are risking their lives and sometimes dying for the sport they love because of extreme measures encouraged by coaches, rewarded by judges and ignored by leaders of the industry.
41 min read
Dvorakova helped lay her down on the concrete floor as others gathered and gave Kosinova water, packets of salt and sugar. Kosinova answered questions about the diuretics she had taken before convulsing and losing consciousness. Engle won first place in her division and earned a "pro card," allowing her to compete professionally. But the price she paid was steep: Tens of thousands of dollars in medical bills and, doctors told her, she would eventually need a kidney transplant.
The Washington Post investigated the deaths of more than two dozen bodybuilders, focusing mostly on those who died leading up to or in the aftermath of competitions. A review of hundreds of documents including medical and autopsy records, police reports, 911 calls, emails and text messages, along with interviews with more than 70 people, reveals the devastating consequences of a sport that for years has operated under the halo of health and fitness.
But bodybuilders and coaches say the risks have intensified in recent years as contest judges increasingly reward athletes with nearly impossible-to-achieve physiques. Those who've warned against the dangers say they have faced pressure to stay silent and suffered backlash from federation officials and coaches after speaking out.
Police discovered hundreds of pills without prescription labels, including steroids, thyroid medication to speed up metabolism and clenbuterol, a drug that is approved only for horses in the United States but is used by bodybuilders as a fat burner. "You need to put the athletes before the money," said Dunnington, who served as the chairperson of the Canadian Bodybuilding Federation until 2020. "We fail the athletes 110 percent on every aspect of the sport. We validated so many wrong things and made them acceptable."
He'd been training for months with his coach to add muscle after getting feedback from judges that his upper body thickness needed to match his massive 30-inch thighs. On Oct. 15, Alexander messaged his coach about the plan to increase his dosages and asked for more steroids and clenbuterol.When Alexander's parents visited from out of town three days later, their son had trouble catching his breath while they walked around a mall. Alexander blamed his intense cardio workouts for heart palpitations and an upset stomach.
She told him to go to urgent care and repeated the advice when he reached out later that evening. "I'm pretty sure I got winstrol in my blood during my shot today. It's better. Just not gone," texted Alexander, referring to a steroid injection he'd given himself. "I will go if I feel like I'm dying. But being 23 days away from my show I don't want to get pumped with fluids and ruin my physique for not a heart attack."Alexander never responded.
"It felt like we were holding up the show," Janine Alexander said. "It was more hurtful than it was helpful." At her son's apartment, Carolyn Char Lunger took photos of the drugs she found, including five types of steroids, clenbuterol, diuretics and a bottle with the label T3 - a thyroid hormone - marked "NOT FOR HUMAN USE."
Char-Lee's mother knew that her son was supposed to compete in a bodybuilding contest in Fresno, Calif., and sent photos of the drugs to the show's promoter. She said she wanted answers but instead got an invite to "complete his journey" and attend the bodybuilding competition. At the time, the IFBB was lobbying to make bodybuilding an Olympic sport. The organization began testing for steroids at certain competitions and taking away prize money from those who failed.
Her partner, Hal Swaney, said she spent 16 weeks preparing with hours of daily training, a severely restricted diet and a mix of steroids and clenbuterol. Working with her coach, Harris was the leanest she'd ever been - about 10 pounds less than her typical stage weight."I tried to shove Pedialyte in her and she was afraid she was going to spill over . . . come into the show with too much water," Swaney said.
The International Fitness and Bodybuilding Federation, a separate organization based in Spain that says it does drug testing, was sanctioned this fall by the World Anti-Doping Agency for failing to implement an effective testing program and devote sufficient resources to testing. A federation official said "the non-compliant situation is a regular procedure among signatories and it is a temporary situation which will be resolved soon.
When Loyd came home at age 21 with a tattoo that read "Get big or die trying," Raia wondered how long he would last. Raia still competes at age 63, but she doesn't believe the industry will ever put safeguards in place. Three days after the Tampa Pro show in 2019, Sabanovic-Suarez was having trouble breathing in the middle of the night. Hours later, her teenage daughter found her dead in the hotel bed, according to law enforcement records.
Starnes, a former bodybuilder and self-described hermit, has coached hundreds of athletes around the world. He boasted on Instagram about his clients' transformations, calling them "freak," "Freak show," "freakazoid" and "Team Tapeworm." She said she had taken performance-enhancing drugs for several years after a judge recommended them as a way to build up her physique more quickly. But Engle had never seen such a detailed and aggressive plan as the one Starnes emailed her after she paid him $900.
She fell off a stair machine and cut her ankle the first week because her blood glucose was too low after her coach slashed carbohydrates. Her cardio doubled from 45 to 90 minutes on some days. At the competition, her skin was gray under her spray tan, and she had to sit on the floor backstage at one point because it was too difficult to stand. Someone was walking around with cups of Pedialyte for competitors. Engle hadn't drunk for hours - it wasn't on the plan.
A few days after the Pittsburgh Pro, Gearhart traveled to Mexico for several surgeries to fix her breast implants and remove back skin from a tummy tuck she had done earlier. She hoped the operations would ease some pain and improve her physique for the ever-critical judges. Heugly, who is listed in the bio on Gearhart's Instagram profile, said through an attorney that Gearhart "was not a client" at the time of her death.
Gearhart had prescriptions for metformin, spironolactone and a thyroid medication from Randolph Whipps, the founding physician of LifeMed Institute in Maryland, which bills itself as the largest concierge wellness facility on the East Coast. He offered to provide basic care for athletes after a competitor collapsed at a 2011 show in Culver City and then died at a hospital.
"No you shouldn't take him to the f-----g hospital," Nicholls recounted in a 2020 interview with the "Real Bodybuilding Podcast." "I go, 'This is what he's supposed to feel like.' . . . At that lowest point you feel like you're dying, like you feel like your body is just shutting down." Most professional bodybuilders can't earn a living on the limited prize money from contests, so they rely on contracts with companies like Redcon1 to help pay for coaches and travel.
"That is early lol I'm sure you've done it a couple times this way before :)" Sandoe emailed in March 2018, according to messages reviewed by The Post.Several days before the Arnold Classic, Aceto emailed Sandoe to take the diuretic Aldactone every 12 hours and discussed adding a second diuretic. "I think Chris also forgot how much diuretics he was giving me to use. I didn't use all of what he told me because I just didn't have them with me," Sandoe said during a June 2018 episode of "The Size Game" podcast he co-hosted. "I don't know whether he just forgot what he was doing with me or whether he had too many other clients."
Sandoe's family said he built a gym in his home with his own money during the pandemic in part to meet his obligations. And he kept on training, hoping to compete once restrictions were lifted. Aceto, a former bodybuilder with a bachelor's degree in health fitness, has worked in the industry for several decades.
Nearly two years after Sandoe's death, Singerman, the founder of Redcon1, was sentenced to 54 months in prison for conspiring to sell illegal anabolic steroids and other products marketed as dietary supplements by Blackstone Labs, another business he helped start. Clarisse began bodybuilding when she was in college, but the contest prep was so intense that she abandoned the sport for several years.
Early on, Heugly texted Clarisse asking what supplements she was using and whether she wanted to take fat burners, according to messages reviewed by The Post."Obviously due to it being an extreme sport most use Clen," Heugly texted, appearing to refer to clenbuterol. "Some make EC with Caffeine and bronkaid or primatene tablets."
Justin Heideman, an attorney for Heugly, said the coach has advised certain athletes to do two hours of cardio but "Shane does not sell, distribute, promote or require any PED use. In fact Shane has frequently advised clients to reduce or minimize PED use that the client had previously elected to engage in."
One of Heugly's former clients posted anonymous messages on Instagram that she said came from athletes who had worked with him. Shortly after, Heugly filed a defamation lawsuit seeking $6.8 million in damages. He alleged that the "republished messages" were false and asked a judge for a restraining order to force her to take them down.
"I don't think that this needs to be something that is this dangerous," Clarisse said. "I think it can be done in a way that's a lot more healthy."
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