I remember the first time I forced myself to think about exercise science in a critical way. It was the late ’90s, and I was just getting settled into my new gig as fitness editor at Men’s Health magazine.

I’d spend the previous six years at Men’s Fitness, but the two jobs couldn’t have been more dissimilar. At the Weider magazines, more often than not, we got training information from people who used it. Bodybuilders supplied workouts to the bodybuilding magazines (in theory; the writers themselves often came up with the actual programs), and at Shape and MF we relied on trainers who worked with celebrities and athletes. Proof that it worked came from the physique or performance of whoever they trained.

MH, though, liked to have a research-based angle to everything it covered. I could see the need when it came…

Tags: Tags: baseball, correlational studies, fitness research, mark young, mens fitness, mens health, steroids, weider

Back on the original Male Pattern Fitness, at the original louschuler.com, I wrote from time to time about steroids, particularly steroids in baseball, and most particularly the Golden Age of steroids in baseball, when Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Barry Bonds all crossed the 60-homer line at points in their careers when they should’ve been in steep decline.

(There’s no easy way to search my archives, but I did find this post, analyzing the career trajectory of another blatant juicer, Rafael Palmeiro.)

Early on, I thought the most logical starting point for Mark McGwire’s steroid use is the 1995 season, when his slugging percentage jumped up to .685, the highest it had ever been for a season in which he played 100 or more games. By comparison, in 1987, his Rookie of the Year season, he slugged .618. He was 31 in ’95,…

Tags: Tags: baseball, mark mcgwire, sports, steroids