Crazymank
MuscleChemistry Registered Member
Here is an interview with the late Paul Borresen,talking about the next big thing, Histamine suppression.
AE: What's going to be the next big revelation is sports pharmacology for bodybuilders?
PB: Histamine suppression maybe. I don't know if it's a big revelation, but it's an exciting new development. Asking me the "big revelation" is like asking me the cure for cancer (lau***ng). This is one of the most interesting new things I know of. I also think short duration big doses of gear occasionally is another new development. But whenever you've got a new development, people certainly do try to shoot you down, don't they? But it is going on and it does work at the right times.
AE: Let's explore histamine suppression for a moment. How does this work?
PB: Well, I'm a very strong believer that allergies are the primary reason why we don't grow or why we age. Because our bodies become more and more unable to recognize itself, or starts to think itself is an enemy. A lot of diseases like senility are examples of this, as we get older we start to attack our own brain, Graves disease where we attack our own endocrine system, these diseases develop as we get older and develop as our bodies start to slip. That's really why we age.
I always look at what's stopping this person from growing, not what will make this person grow. The first most important thing for any bodybuilder is to have a cytotoxic test to find out every food he's allergic to and remove it. That's just simple logic. Allergies occur in times of excess. Bodybuilders live for excess, we force-feed, we overeat, we create more of these reactions in our bodies. The mechanism is histamine, the body creates histamine in an allergic response to try to fight any change in the body. People with allergic reactions take anti-histamines, or histamine suppression. Now, I'm saying that histamine is a control, it's something that holds us back as bodybuilders. It's a defense mechanism that can go wrong. So when you push the gear up or when you push the food up, I find that if you do a cytotoxic test on someone when they're dieting and then you do one on them when they're force feeding they'll end up allergic to a whole host of things when they're force feeding. So I would then use histamine suppression. At times of excess, when you're pushing the course, when you're eating hard, when you're trying to grow, you hit a sticking point, by incorporating an anti-histamine you'll find that growth comes easier.
AE: That's interesting.
PB: It works. But I'm sure when this interview goes out, I'm sure everyone will tell me how suicidal it is. You have an idea, and it automatically gets attacked. And I'm not always right. However, when I am right, everyone else had the idea first. That's why I like people like Dan Duchaine, I admire the guy because he speaks his mind. And he's not always right, but he's been right enough times that he deserves a lot of credit. He thought of things like DNP, he came up with the idea of using Cytradren, not me. I'd never even heard of it until one day I saw it in one of his articles and I decided to try it out on my people. You know, I coach a lot of people, and if someone says something works, I see if it works. I often try it out on myself first, or I've got a bodybuilder that I'll go to and say to him, "I don't know if this stuff works, do you want to try it with me?" And you'd be surprised how many people are out there just stupid enough to say yes! (lau***ng)
AE: Dan also knows when to admit that he's wrong. [Editors note: Remember, when this interview was conducted, Dan Duchaine was still alive]
PB: He does, and I like that. How can he be right all the time, how can anyone? But people seem to forget when he's right and remember when he's wrong. That's not fair, that's not seeing the whole picture and the contributions he's made. If I ever made a contribution in my life to bodybuilding as much as the Underground Steroid Handbook made, that is the biggest single contribution to our sport because it brought knowledge to everyday people. All of a sudden it wasn't a few elite people in the world that knew what to do, everyone did!
AE: I know you've worked with a lot of elite level bodybuilders. Generally what kind of dosages have you seen being used at that level?
PB: I get accused of naming names all the time, but that's basically a case of people naming names on my behalf. I never coached Dorian, he used to phone me up and ask for my advice, but I never coached him. I certainly never coached Ernie [Taylor] either, or Lee Priest for that matter. I met Lee for the first time at my seminar, he did me the honor of turning up. But, I see some individuals, top amateurs and pros, using very high dosages for a long time. And it concerns me, because whether people like it or not, I'm doing a research study with the University of Glamorgan here in the UK. You'd better get the name of that University right! Anyway, I'm working with a Professor Bruce Davis, he's heading up the team with myself, and we are simply taking subjects than have been on steroids for 20 years or more and looking at them, echogram, cardiogram, testing their fitness, blood tests, everything. It takes a full day for the protocol.
AE: What are you finding?
PB: The first 14 people we looked at had cardiac damage. Now that frightened the shit out of me. I can quote this because this is accurate and anyone can check this with Glamorgan, 4 of the subject are probably going to need operations within the next 10 years. Now I did not expect the damage to come out in the cardiac area, I expected it to come out in the liver and the kidneys. Now we're going to produce a paper and I was expecting it to prove that after 20 years of steroid use, everyone was alright. And that isn't the case. After 20 years, 50% of the people were perfectly health, 40% had damage that was repairable, and 10% had irreversible cardiac damage. That's the results so far. That's a bit scary, isn't it?
AE: It is.
PB: There's no arguing it either. I know lots of bodybuilders, and I'll take the people I talk to or coach and ask them if they'd like to go along. They get a complete check over, blood test for free. One of the members of my staff, Bill Bingham, he's only 22, and he has elevated cardiac enzyme at age 22. He's now come off everything under my advice. In 10 years time, he would have been one of those 10%. We've got a 27-year old who will need a heart bypass operation before he's 30. It frightened the life out of me because it's hardcore evidence. It's the first quality research into this that I know about.
AE: How many subjects have been tested so far?
PB: I've only seen the results from 30 subjects, they've actually tested more. The full study will be 200 subjects by the time the paper is written.
AE: When do you expect that to be out?
PB: The paper should be out in 16 weeks. I don't want thousands of people emailing the University of Glamorgan asking for this reseach, but as a magazine you could. They'd happily provide it to you. They'll happily tell you about it. I don't think they'll want to go into exacting details with you because as scientists they need to complete the study, but they will at least confirm the study is ongoing and that the indications are not what we expected. We actually intended to prove that anabolic steroid use was perfectly healthy and all this cardiac stuff has come up. [Editors note: After I transcribed this portion of the tape, I contacted the University to inquire about the test Paul is referring too. Nothing has been confirmed as of yet]
AE: I look forward to seeing that study. Let's talk about training and nutrition for a bit, I don't believe anyone that interviews you ever takes the time to get your views on those subjects. They always focus on drugs with you.
PB: They always do when I get interviewed, and it quite honestly annoys me. Drugs are not really what matters, they're not everything are they.
AE: Well, you know why that is, most people would rather read about drugs.
PB: I don't know about the people reading the magazines, but publishers definitely like the more controversial stuff.
AE: For training, I know you really advocate pre-exhaustion and rest-pause style systems. What are the advantages of training in this fashion?
PB: I go back to the science. Were trying to make muscle fibers thicker to make our bodies bigger. Right? That's what we're doing. The body recruits muscle fibers, and this is in the scientific literature for everyone to see, in reverse order. It recruits the small ones first, they're shorter and stronger. So when we train a 6 to 8 rep set, we only train about 30% of our fibers, and these are going to be the shortest and smallest ones. Therefore, even if we doubled their thickness, we're not going to see huge increases in size. We need to get down to the big, thick, weak fibers, which are only worked in the latter stages of a set or workout. So, it's pure science. When I, or you, are doing a set, we're initially only using the small, strong fibers. As you get weaker, you start to bring into play the larger fibers. So, as you put the weight down and pick another weight up, you're getting deeper. The reason why I like drop-setting, is because by the time you get down to the bar, or using no weight at all, that's when the weakest fibers in your body, which happen to be the largest, are getting hit. And therefore, you're gaining the most size. You have to work down through the muscle fibers, I actually take a workout as a way to recruit all the muscle fibers in a given area, not as an objective to lift weight. The weights immaterial, I don't care if I have to lift egg boxes to get big, I simply want to get big.
AE: One of the biggest problems I face is convincing people that the weights they use are not as important as the fashion in which they are lifting and the intensity while doing so.
PB: As you know, I have a back injury, I can no longer do a 400-500 lb bench press. So, I'll do 50-60 reps on flyes, perhaps a triple-drop set of flyes, and then do a 200-300 lb bench press. By then, I'm tired and pre-exhausted. And yes, the guy next to me in the gym is probably looking at me saying, "I can do that", but he couldn't do it after doing what I did. Even Simon, [Cohen] and this man is big and massive, called me up to day to tell me that his chest has been sore for the last 5 days. It told me, "Paul, it's awesome!!!" And this is Mr. Universe getting really excited. He's telling me that he's got a whole new way to train and that he loves it. Now we're planning on putting another 20 lbs on Simon just by improving his training. Here I am at 260-ish, my training partner is 240-ish, and by the end of the workout, we're picking Simon up off the floor. We only did 4 sets, and by the last set, Simon's ready to die. But he loved it, he loved it. He's my star of tomorrow.
AE: You take a Simon Cohen. How do you advocate someone the size of a Simon Cohen eat during the offseason?
PB: Macronutrients. I'm concerned with Simon getting 400 g of quality protein down. I'm concerned that Simon doesn't get too fat, within the confines of that, it really doesn't matter what he does. If Simon wants a pizza, I say Simon, have a pizza. I'm more concerned that if his diet is too clean, he cannot eat enough. Also, what the hell are we going to do to clean it up? What are we going to take out if he's living on turkey breasts? My answer is, when you're trying to eat more than you need, which you have to do to get bigger, you've got to use whatever food you can eat. There's only fat, protein, and carbs, there's only fuel. So, as long as their enough protein, and we supplement his diet with 200 g of protein a day, and he eat plenty of steak, turkey, chicken, lean red meat, things like this. He's consuming some source of protein every 2.5 hours, and in between meals, he's having small protein shakes, 10-15 grams of protein. We're trying to keep a constant blood supply of all the amino acids needed for muscle growth. I start my seminars with, "Close your eyes, and imagine a sphere floating in space. It's spinning like the earth, and outside that sphere is the ocean. Running through that ocean are tubes of liquid. Well, that sphere is the muscle cell, and the ocean is the lymph that surrounds it and the tubes are the blood. To build muscle, you've got to get all the amino acids into the muscle cell. To do that, you've got to get them into the lymph, to do that you've got to get them into the blood. And to do that, you've got to get them into the stomach, and to do that you've got to them into the stomach you've got to eat. There are 22 amino acids that you should be eating every 3 hours."
That's how I start my seminars, with those words. That's what I believe. Nutrition is first about getting those amino acids in, then it's about providing enough energy. That means eating, and eat what the hell you bloody like
AE: Do you often find that people stop making progress because they're not consuming enough calories?
PB: Definitely. It's definitely more that than simply not enough protein. It's not enough calories, therefore, the nutrition that's required to build muscle is going to be diverted to providing basic energy needs which is always going to be a priority over muscle growth.
AE: The reason why I ask is simply because that's what I see every day. When I evaluate people's diets their simply not consuming enough calories.
PB: Right, they're living on turkey breasts.
AE: The whole thing has been created by the supplement companies which would have you believe that these athletes live on rice and chicken and eat clean year round. In addition to that, they consume copious amounts of supplements. In reality, this simply isn't happening.
PB: You know I own a supplement company. The word supplement is the key here. You should eat lots of food, a diet rich in protein, fats, and carbs and then add supplements on top. People who replace their meals with MRP's and things, they're never going to grow. Eat the MRP as well as the meal. That's what an MRP is for, to drink with your steak and eggs. I'm going to be hit for saying this, but all my people have steak and eggs before bed every night. The reason for that is this. In the wild, when a lion eats a zebra, it doesn't only absorb 30 grams of that food, I mean, it only eats once a week. You can extrapolate this to man, we didn't eat every three hours. When we eat, we don't only absorb 30 grams, if we did, we be the size of mice. The fact is that the amount of nutrients we absorb from our food is largely dependent on the kind of food we eat. If you eat red meat and eggs, it's very slowly absorbed. You can eat 150 grams of protein in this fashion and it's going to take all night to be absorbed. That way you're covering yourself throughout the night and you always sleep deep on proteins and fats. It's natural to eat and sleep. So, all my clients will have a big steak and eggs before going to bed, that way I know their muscle cells are getting a constant infusion of amino acids throughout the night. I used to advocate that my clients wake up and eat in the middle of the night. Now I prefer to have them simply eat a high protein moderate fat meal before going to bed.
AE: What's going to be the next big revelation is sports pharmacology for bodybuilders?
PB: Histamine suppression maybe. I don't know if it's a big revelation, but it's an exciting new development. Asking me the "big revelation" is like asking me the cure for cancer (lau***ng). This is one of the most interesting new things I know of. I also think short duration big doses of gear occasionally is another new development. But whenever you've got a new development, people certainly do try to shoot you down, don't they? But it is going on and it does work at the right times.
AE: Let's explore histamine suppression for a moment. How does this work?
PB: Well, I'm a very strong believer that allergies are the primary reason why we don't grow or why we age. Because our bodies become more and more unable to recognize itself, or starts to think itself is an enemy. A lot of diseases like senility are examples of this, as we get older we start to attack our own brain, Graves disease where we attack our own endocrine system, these diseases develop as we get older and develop as our bodies start to slip. That's really why we age.
I always look at what's stopping this person from growing, not what will make this person grow. The first most important thing for any bodybuilder is to have a cytotoxic test to find out every food he's allergic to and remove it. That's just simple logic. Allergies occur in times of excess. Bodybuilders live for excess, we force-feed, we overeat, we create more of these reactions in our bodies. The mechanism is histamine, the body creates histamine in an allergic response to try to fight any change in the body. People with allergic reactions take anti-histamines, or histamine suppression. Now, I'm saying that histamine is a control, it's something that holds us back as bodybuilders. It's a defense mechanism that can go wrong. So when you push the gear up or when you push the food up, I find that if you do a cytotoxic test on someone when they're dieting and then you do one on them when they're force feeding they'll end up allergic to a whole host of things when they're force feeding. So I would then use histamine suppression. At times of excess, when you're pushing the course, when you're eating hard, when you're trying to grow, you hit a sticking point, by incorporating an anti-histamine you'll find that growth comes easier.
AE: That's interesting.
PB: It works. But I'm sure when this interview goes out, I'm sure everyone will tell me how suicidal it is. You have an idea, and it automatically gets attacked. And I'm not always right. However, when I am right, everyone else had the idea first. That's why I like people like Dan Duchaine, I admire the guy because he speaks his mind. And he's not always right, but he's been right enough times that he deserves a lot of credit. He thought of things like DNP, he came up with the idea of using Cytradren, not me. I'd never even heard of it until one day I saw it in one of his articles and I decided to try it out on my people. You know, I coach a lot of people, and if someone says something works, I see if it works. I often try it out on myself first, or I've got a bodybuilder that I'll go to and say to him, "I don't know if this stuff works, do you want to try it with me?" And you'd be surprised how many people are out there just stupid enough to say yes! (lau***ng)
AE: Dan also knows when to admit that he's wrong. [Editors note: Remember, when this interview was conducted, Dan Duchaine was still alive]
PB: He does, and I like that. How can he be right all the time, how can anyone? But people seem to forget when he's right and remember when he's wrong. That's not fair, that's not seeing the whole picture and the contributions he's made. If I ever made a contribution in my life to bodybuilding as much as the Underground Steroid Handbook made, that is the biggest single contribution to our sport because it brought knowledge to everyday people. All of a sudden it wasn't a few elite people in the world that knew what to do, everyone did!
AE: I know you've worked with a lot of elite level bodybuilders. Generally what kind of dosages have you seen being used at that level?
PB: I get accused of naming names all the time, but that's basically a case of people naming names on my behalf. I never coached Dorian, he used to phone me up and ask for my advice, but I never coached him. I certainly never coached Ernie [Taylor] either, or Lee Priest for that matter. I met Lee for the first time at my seminar, he did me the honor of turning up. But, I see some individuals, top amateurs and pros, using very high dosages for a long time. And it concerns me, because whether people like it or not, I'm doing a research study with the University of Glamorgan here in the UK. You'd better get the name of that University right! Anyway, I'm working with a Professor Bruce Davis, he's heading up the team with myself, and we are simply taking subjects than have been on steroids for 20 years or more and looking at them, echogram, cardiogram, testing their fitness, blood tests, everything. It takes a full day for the protocol.
AE: What are you finding?
PB: The first 14 people we looked at had cardiac damage. Now that frightened the shit out of me. I can quote this because this is accurate and anyone can check this with Glamorgan, 4 of the subject are probably going to need operations within the next 10 years. Now I did not expect the damage to come out in the cardiac area, I expected it to come out in the liver and the kidneys. Now we're going to produce a paper and I was expecting it to prove that after 20 years of steroid use, everyone was alright. And that isn't the case. After 20 years, 50% of the people were perfectly health, 40% had damage that was repairable, and 10% had irreversible cardiac damage. That's the results so far. That's a bit scary, isn't it?
AE: It is.
PB: There's no arguing it either. I know lots of bodybuilders, and I'll take the people I talk to or coach and ask them if they'd like to go along. They get a complete check over, blood test for free. One of the members of my staff, Bill Bingham, he's only 22, and he has elevated cardiac enzyme at age 22. He's now come off everything under my advice. In 10 years time, he would have been one of those 10%. We've got a 27-year old who will need a heart bypass operation before he's 30. It frightened the life out of me because it's hardcore evidence. It's the first quality research into this that I know about.
AE: How many subjects have been tested so far?
PB: I've only seen the results from 30 subjects, they've actually tested more. The full study will be 200 subjects by the time the paper is written.
AE: When do you expect that to be out?
PB: The paper should be out in 16 weeks. I don't want thousands of people emailing the University of Glamorgan asking for this reseach, but as a magazine you could. They'd happily provide it to you. They'll happily tell you about it. I don't think they'll want to go into exacting details with you because as scientists they need to complete the study, but they will at least confirm the study is ongoing and that the indications are not what we expected. We actually intended to prove that anabolic steroid use was perfectly healthy and all this cardiac stuff has come up. [Editors note: After I transcribed this portion of the tape, I contacted the University to inquire about the test Paul is referring too. Nothing has been confirmed as of yet]
AE: I look forward to seeing that study. Let's talk about training and nutrition for a bit, I don't believe anyone that interviews you ever takes the time to get your views on those subjects. They always focus on drugs with you.
PB: They always do when I get interviewed, and it quite honestly annoys me. Drugs are not really what matters, they're not everything are they.
AE: Well, you know why that is, most people would rather read about drugs.
PB: I don't know about the people reading the magazines, but publishers definitely like the more controversial stuff.
AE: For training, I know you really advocate pre-exhaustion and rest-pause style systems. What are the advantages of training in this fashion?
PB: I go back to the science. Were trying to make muscle fibers thicker to make our bodies bigger. Right? That's what we're doing. The body recruits muscle fibers, and this is in the scientific literature for everyone to see, in reverse order. It recruits the small ones first, they're shorter and stronger. So when we train a 6 to 8 rep set, we only train about 30% of our fibers, and these are going to be the shortest and smallest ones. Therefore, even if we doubled their thickness, we're not going to see huge increases in size. We need to get down to the big, thick, weak fibers, which are only worked in the latter stages of a set or workout. So, it's pure science. When I, or you, are doing a set, we're initially only using the small, strong fibers. As you get weaker, you start to bring into play the larger fibers. So, as you put the weight down and pick another weight up, you're getting deeper. The reason why I like drop-setting, is because by the time you get down to the bar, or using no weight at all, that's when the weakest fibers in your body, which happen to be the largest, are getting hit. And therefore, you're gaining the most size. You have to work down through the muscle fibers, I actually take a workout as a way to recruit all the muscle fibers in a given area, not as an objective to lift weight. The weights immaterial, I don't care if I have to lift egg boxes to get big, I simply want to get big.
AE: One of the biggest problems I face is convincing people that the weights they use are not as important as the fashion in which they are lifting and the intensity while doing so.
PB: As you know, I have a back injury, I can no longer do a 400-500 lb bench press. So, I'll do 50-60 reps on flyes, perhaps a triple-drop set of flyes, and then do a 200-300 lb bench press. By then, I'm tired and pre-exhausted. And yes, the guy next to me in the gym is probably looking at me saying, "I can do that", but he couldn't do it after doing what I did. Even Simon, [Cohen] and this man is big and massive, called me up to day to tell me that his chest has been sore for the last 5 days. It told me, "Paul, it's awesome!!!" And this is Mr. Universe getting really excited. He's telling me that he's got a whole new way to train and that he loves it. Now we're planning on putting another 20 lbs on Simon just by improving his training. Here I am at 260-ish, my training partner is 240-ish, and by the end of the workout, we're picking Simon up off the floor. We only did 4 sets, and by the last set, Simon's ready to die. But he loved it, he loved it. He's my star of tomorrow.
AE: You take a Simon Cohen. How do you advocate someone the size of a Simon Cohen eat during the offseason?
PB: Macronutrients. I'm concerned with Simon getting 400 g of quality protein down. I'm concerned that Simon doesn't get too fat, within the confines of that, it really doesn't matter what he does. If Simon wants a pizza, I say Simon, have a pizza. I'm more concerned that if his diet is too clean, he cannot eat enough. Also, what the hell are we going to do to clean it up? What are we going to take out if he's living on turkey breasts? My answer is, when you're trying to eat more than you need, which you have to do to get bigger, you've got to use whatever food you can eat. There's only fat, protein, and carbs, there's only fuel. So, as long as their enough protein, and we supplement his diet with 200 g of protein a day, and he eat plenty of steak, turkey, chicken, lean red meat, things like this. He's consuming some source of protein every 2.5 hours, and in between meals, he's having small protein shakes, 10-15 grams of protein. We're trying to keep a constant blood supply of all the amino acids needed for muscle growth. I start my seminars with, "Close your eyes, and imagine a sphere floating in space. It's spinning like the earth, and outside that sphere is the ocean. Running through that ocean are tubes of liquid. Well, that sphere is the muscle cell, and the ocean is the lymph that surrounds it and the tubes are the blood. To build muscle, you've got to get all the amino acids into the muscle cell. To do that, you've got to get them into the lymph, to do that you've got to get them into the blood. And to do that, you've got to get them into the stomach, and to do that you've got to them into the stomach you've got to eat. There are 22 amino acids that you should be eating every 3 hours."
That's how I start my seminars, with those words. That's what I believe. Nutrition is first about getting those amino acids in, then it's about providing enough energy. That means eating, and eat what the hell you bloody like
AE: Do you often find that people stop making progress because they're not consuming enough calories?
PB: Definitely. It's definitely more that than simply not enough protein. It's not enough calories, therefore, the nutrition that's required to build muscle is going to be diverted to providing basic energy needs which is always going to be a priority over muscle growth.
AE: The reason why I ask is simply because that's what I see every day. When I evaluate people's diets their simply not consuming enough calories.
PB: Right, they're living on turkey breasts.
AE: The whole thing has been created by the supplement companies which would have you believe that these athletes live on rice and chicken and eat clean year round. In addition to that, they consume copious amounts of supplements. In reality, this simply isn't happening.
PB: You know I own a supplement company. The word supplement is the key here. You should eat lots of food, a diet rich in protein, fats, and carbs and then add supplements on top. People who replace their meals with MRP's and things, they're never going to grow. Eat the MRP as well as the meal. That's what an MRP is for, to drink with your steak and eggs. I'm going to be hit for saying this, but all my people have steak and eggs before bed every night. The reason for that is this. In the wild, when a lion eats a zebra, it doesn't only absorb 30 grams of that food, I mean, it only eats once a week. You can extrapolate this to man, we didn't eat every three hours. When we eat, we don't only absorb 30 grams, if we did, we be the size of mice. The fact is that the amount of nutrients we absorb from our food is largely dependent on the kind of food we eat. If you eat red meat and eggs, it's very slowly absorbed. You can eat 150 grams of protein in this fashion and it's going to take all night to be absorbed. That way you're covering yourself throughout the night and you always sleep deep on proteins and fats. It's natural to eat and sleep. So, all my clients will have a big steak and eggs before going to bed, that way I know their muscle cells are getting a constant infusion of amino acids throughout the night. I used to advocate that my clients wake up and eat in the middle of the night. Now I prefer to have them simply eat a high protein moderate fat meal before going to bed.
