Quick answer: Because it's important (for your sake and mine) to make a distinction between the many former steroid-users who are now calling themselves natural and someone like myself; a trainer who's never touched a steroid."
Hear me out. I'm not self-righteous about this stuff. I'm a strong believer in individualism and everyone has a right to do what they want with their own body. I'm not even a member of the anti-cigarette brigade. (I was once lighting up one cigarette with the remnants of the previous one.)
I live in Southern California - the original Mecca of fitness and bodybuilding. For this reason, I've witnessed a lot of personal fitness trainers in action. Moreover, I've seen quite a few individuals rely on drugs to build their own muscles and then become overnight experts upon cessation of the drugs. And why not? They've just spent a couple years building a nice physique. They might as well sell themselves since their bodies are now walking billboards.
Another observation: Many of their clients (natural since birth - no drugs) don't appear any differently after months of training under these individual's instructions. Should this be a surprise?
Back in the 90s, there was a guy at my gym that was so juiced up on steroids, you could smell the stuff coming out of his pores. He didn't hide the fact that he was using. He only started withholding that fact when he "became natural" and had a personal trainer's clientele list. Not surprisingly, I never observed any improvement in his own physique after he became a "natural". In fact, it only appeared to go in the wrong direction from there. Is it any wonder that his clients reported only hiring a repetition-counter who sidelined as their gym buddy?
Effective Natural Bodybuilding is Very Different
A few years ago, I had a neighbor in his mid-forties who had only recently started bodybuilding. He tried everything in the book to gain muscle. At one time, he seemed to be a pro-hormone junky. I would look on in skepticism as he'd excitedly flip through a magazine to show me the latest pro-hormone he was trying. I attempted to tell him what I thought he really needed to do after I patiently listened to the entire spiel about the pro-hormones. However, the guy was really hard-headed..
Within a year, that guy dumped the pro-hormone usage and was on steroids.
"Hey Scott"he says to me. "I talked my doctor into prescribing testosterone to me.".
"Oh, terrific." I responded. "Keep me updated on how you're doing."
Well, I'm pretty sure he's off the testosterone now. I saw him recently and he looks the same as he did when he began spending his hard-earned money on pro-hormones. Anyway, he saw that my "guns" (arms) are bigger than ever and now he keeps asking me what I'm "on". He's convinced I'm taking steroids. It's kind of flattering and insulting at the same time.
What's ironic is that as I stood there looking at his smirking and skeptical face, he was the only one between the two of us who had ever done body building drugs.
When you bring on a trainer (whether in person or through written material), wouldn't you rather have someone who's walked a mile in your shoes? If you think you're a hard gainer, remember this: My bodybuilding genetics are mediocre on a good day and downright lousy on a bad one. However, with the unorthodox methods I use now, I rarely have a bad day.
Yes, maybe I'm breaking implicit rules by indirectly plugging myself in a blog. But I don't think you surf the Internet to find out what my petty hobbies are or how I enjoyed a breezy Sunday morning in San Diego today. I'll leave that to people who keep online exhibitionistic "journals".
