Barry Bonds: A Tragic Story of Misguided Trust

Barry Bonds-The Remarkable Athlete: Barry Bonds is an obviously highly skilled athlete and baseball player. He also has an exceptional work ethic. Both these two attributes together in one person is a rare commodity, especially to have that extreme inner drive well into his 30's. You don't have to beg him to go to the weight room; you would need to kick him out to avoid over training. Unfortunately, it appears his personal trainer, Greg Anderson, probably did not know this. In any event, he was not a certified strength and conditioning coach. To have millions of dollars in the bank and to want to do everything possible to succeed at his age is just amazing to me. Bonds reportedly lifts weights so hard that he gets tears in his eyes. I admire him greatly for that intense desire to succeed. It is just so sad that he trusted some people that he never should have trusted.

Barry Bonds-The Remarkable Hitter: Former San Diego Padres super star Tony Gwynn is now a coach and describes Barry’s impressive swing: “Barry sets up the same way every time. Most guys can’t do that. What separates Barry is his ability to consistently get his hands and body in optimum position to hit almost any pitch fair. All great hitters get in a position so that your hands can work so your body can work. And that’s what Barry Bonds does. Because of his hands, his body goes where it is supposed to go. Barry is always in the proper position. You can’t get in on him because he pulls his hands inside the ball. Other guys will hook that kind of pitch foul but Barry takes the knob of the bat and hits it fair.” Obviously steroids have nothing to do with this innate skill.

Barry Bonds Nutrition Program & Alleged Drug Use: Barry was aware of the importance of nutrition before his alleged steroid use. He would eat egg whites for breakfast to get cut like a bodybuilder. Before Greg Anderson entered the scene, Raymond Farris was Barry's personal trainer (!996-1997). In four months, Barry lowered his body fat from 12% to 8%. His bench press was 315 pounds.

In a startling 2006 book by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams called Game of Shadows, they offer compelling evidence that Barry Bonds used steroids in several varieties in both pill and injection forms along with Human Growth Hormone and other sophisticated drugs that accompany bodybuilders who are really into the steroid scene. However, Bonds denies these allegations and plans on suing the authors. The following are some of their findings and allegations:

Greg Anderson, Barry's personal trainer after Farris, was a friend of Bonds since their boyhood days. "Anderson took Barry to see Victor Conte, a self-taught scientist who boasted he could propel top-level athletes to peak performances through an unconventional mix of blood analysis and nutritional supplements." Conte's lab called BALCO offered a variety of supplements and a popular zinc and magnesium product called, ZMA.

Bonds was enthralled with this supposedly sophisticated process of getting his blood analyzed. "People don't understand how important this is," he explained in an interview several years ago. "I visit BALCO every three to six months. They check my blood to make sure my levels are where they should be. Maybe i need to eat more broccoli than i normally do. Maybe my zinc and magnesium intakes need to increase, and i need more ZMA. Nobody showed me a scientific way before, how important it is to balance your body. I have that knowledge now."

Unfortunately Barry Bonds did not know about the patented Biophotonic Scanner. It can analyze what is going on nutritionally right down to cellular level and give you a nutritional score. It takes less than five minutes at a maximum cost of five dollars. Thousands are tested every day. The Giants could have provided this important service but apparently don't know about it even in 2006. Testing is done under the direction of Pharmanex, a division of Nuskin. Once you know your score, you can compare it to the average national score and then try to improve. You can improve through better eating habits or take vitamins and minerals. All of the Pharmanex vitamin and mineral products have been thoroughly tested by independant labs and are approved by just about every governing nutritional body. The products don't produce overnight miracles, they just help you stay healthy all season long. You have a better chance of not getting sick. But BALCO was offering a miracle and unfortunately Barry fell for their ploy.

According to Fainaru-Wada and Williams, Conte, through BALCO, did give Bonds a variety of legal supplements including ZMA. In 1998, BALCO only had $42,820 in gross revenues. Two years later, with the endorsement of famous athletes like Bonds, this increased to $1.8 million. ZMA offers nothing new or amazing but athletes were wearing ZMA t-shirts and touting its effectiveness in bodybuilding magazines. Bonds gave BALCO and ZMA a plug in a feature story in Muscle & Fitness. The trap was set. Conte would write on internet boards that Barry would take ZMA every night without fail and that Barry was a big fan of ZMA. Bonds didn't pay for supplements or drugs; instead, he received them in exchange for promoting ZMA.

The ploy, the Game of Shawdows authors claim, is that ZMA had nothing to do with Barry's great gains in size, musculature and performance but everything to do with steroids and HGH. Bonds denies this. Nevertheless, Conte was making a lot of money from the sales of ZMA.

Greg Anderson-Barry's Personal Trainer:Two days after BALCO was raided, federal agents broke down the door of Anderson's rented condo and reportedly seized steroids, syringes, invoices with files of athlete's names and the dosages of prescribed performance-enhancing drugs along with $60,000 in cash. This was Barry's personal trainer and friend from childhood.

Anderson played some shortstop at Fort Hays State University, an NAIA school in Kansas. According to school officials, Anderson attended for two years after transfering from a California junior college but received no degree. He went back to his home state and became a gym rat and trainer spending 12 hours a day pumping iron. He became very knowledgable about the bodybuilding subculture of performance-enhancing drugs. At 5-10, he packed on 225-pounds of muscle, had heavily tattooed arms, spiked hair and was financially strapped. He hooked up with Barry before the 1999 season and put together a "baseball oriented strength program."

Prior to his personal trainer assignment with Bonds, Anderson was a JV baseball coach at Aragon High School in San Mateo, California. I am guessing as a non-teacher coach. He was banned from the league half way through the season for arguing with the umps too much. Was this his 'roid rage? However, even with these dubious qualifications, he was given free reign in the all of the Giants facilities. After all, he was the personal trainer of Barry Bonds.

Barry was apparently aware of his clients shortcomings because he paid Anderson very little. He received $10,000 cash from time to time. Nothing was ever in writing according to the authors of Game of Shadows. Bonds also had a stretching coach, Harvey Shields and a running coach, Raymond Farris to also help him in those areas. All three trainers had the run of the clubhouse. It is amazing to me. Anderson could not get a high school job and we, at BFS, certainly would not have hired him and yet there he was - training one of most elite athletes to ever play the game of baseball.

The Barry Bonds Injury Report: Since 1999, Barry has missed about 240 games. When you take steroids you should expect that. You should expect muscle and tendon injuries. Anyway, that equates to about 900 additional at bats if Barry would have been healthy. That would perhaps be an additional 80 homeruns. But that is speculation and one could say the injuries would have happened anyway being in his late 30's. Bonds only needs seven more to pass Babe Ruth and 48 more to get Aaron's record.

Bonds played in only 102 games in 1999 and spent seven weeks on the disabled list. When he returned, he promptly pulled a groin muscle. Now, more from Game of Shadows, Bonds complained about being muscle-bound and not flexible, He had trouble hitting inside pitches. Barry also complained of back and knee problems. Further, there seemed to be problems with his eyes, saying he couldn't pick up the rotation of the ball.

Fainru-Wada and Williams say that Anderson began to rethink Barry's workout regimen. However, instead of learning more of the "Secret," Anderson, so say the authors, began to seek out other drugs for his prized client. These drugs were more sophisticated and the allegations are that Anderson began giving Barry human growth hormone (HGH). Bonds was still making the mistake of training every day for 15-20 minutes during the season. However, his eyes seemed to get better.

The list of evidence according to the authors: blew out his left elbow nearly ruining his career. MRI revealed a bone chip. Torn triceps tendon requiring surgery. Four knee surguries. Hair falling out and shaving his head to make it not noticeable. Back breaking out in acne. Sexual dysfunction and episodes of rages of quick temper.

Barry's Body Building Workout Program:

Barry's workoput program was design by Greg Anderson with the apparent help of Milos Sarcev a former Mr. Universe. Mr. Anderson has no college degree, no apparent athletic strength and conditioning accredidation and no strength coaching experience. He hung out in a heavy-duty bodybuilding gym which has no real meat & potatoes athletic conditioning equipment. So just about every mistake you can make in a strength and conditioning program was made. A very sad tale indeed. Barry's off-season program was as follows:

Mondays: Chest and Biceps. (Seven exercises) Tuesdays: Quads and Hamstrings (Nine exercises)
Wednesdays: Back and Abs (eight machine exercises) Thursdays: Shoulders and Triceps (five exercises) Fridays: Quads and Hamstrings (ten exercises).

If the top 50 discus throwers in the world were to do this program, they would rapidly get smaller, slower and weaker. They would immediately be less explosive and their performance would drop off. It would be a disaster.

I don't know if any stretching were done of significance or any speed, agility or plyometric workouis were done. there were no quick lifts done like the power clean or power snatch. There was only one balance lift done and that was a lunge but if you do it like bodybuilders then there is no balance development.

Why can't baseball players learn the secret? Barry Bonds was led down the wrong path. Now, even if he does pass Babe Ruth and Aaron, his marvelous schievement will be severely minimized. Barry Bonds will live with the steroid issue all his life. Steroids don't work. It will be interesting to see the ramifications of all of this steroid/bodybuilding stuff twenty years from now. In the meantime, if you are a younger athlete, run don't walk from steroids. They are not performance enhancing. They are performance debiulitating over the long run. Be smart. Learn the Secret. Steroids Don't Work.

Strength Training and The History of Steroids

Most people define steroids as performance enhancing drugs. I define them as performance debilitating. Athletes in mainstream high school or collegiate sports can achieve better results through hard, consistent and smart training. Professional athletes in mainstream sports like baseball could have longer, more successful careers by not taking steroids.

Every sport has had to go through its own learning curve. It is just amazing to me that one sport could not teach another sport about strength and conditioning. This isolation factor has been mind-boggling.

The Throwers

Shot putters, discus, javelin and hammer throwers were the first to learn the secret of strength and conditioning. They learned in the 1960s the benefits of stretching and doing sprint, jump and agility drills. You lift primarily with free weights and do core lifts that emphasize the hips and legs: parallel squats and power cleans. Finally, you must include a lot of variation in a workout.
Throwers who used steroids in the 1960s and 1970s generally used light dosages. Most used them only periodically. Throwers almost always trained among themselves because their coaches were in the dark ages when it came to strength and conditioning. It was not unusual for a thrower to be 6-4, 270 pounds, and run a 4.6 forty in 1970.
Throwers today have to go through a lot of testing. Some spend a lot of energy on how to beat the tests. However, John Godina, a past BFS Athlete of the Year, has been a world-class shot putter and discus thrower the last ten years. I know his family and John has been a guest in my home. I am sure John steers clear of steroids.
Nik Arrhenius recently set the world high school discus record at 234-3. In high school, Nik, at a bodyweight of 240, power cleaned 315 pounds for reps, benched 405 and did a 570-pound parallel squat. I know for an absolute fact that Nik never went near steroids. I have known Nik and his family for years.
Throwers have known the secret to strength and conditioning since the 1960s, and virtually every thrower has had to do the secret to be successful. I see no likelihood of significant improvements in distances in the future. The marks of the top ten discus throwers, for example, have held steady for 30 years. Once you know the secret, it doesn’t make any difference what year it is.

Football

Colleges and high schools started seeing the benefits of strength and conditioning in the 1970s. Gradually, Division I schools started hiring strength coaches to work just with football. By the 1980s, almost all Division I and I-AA colleges had strength coaches. By the 1990s almost all had adopted the secret of the throwers. Several still have not, but the primary approach of these schools is in preventing injuries. As the strength coaching profession matured, all sports were put on a strength and conditioning program. Colleges built massive facilities. The head college strength coach of today has a number of assistants, grad assistants and interns who are responsible for the strength and conditioning of all men’s and women’s sports.
I was first approached to buy steroids when working out with the San Diego Chargers football players in 1965. Steroids have been around a long time. In the 1970s and 1980s, the dangers of steroids were not fully known. College team doctors would actually give steroids to players. If a college did not have a weight room, players would train at a commercial gym. Most players went home in the summer and trained on their own. Many obtained steroids at these private gyms. Coaches generally knew but looked the other way.
Today, almost all Division I and I-AA football players train year round at their universities under the strict supervision of a strength coach. Players know they could get tested and strength coaches know their careers would be lost at any hint of steroid use. In the mid-1980s, strength coaches in one university received jail time for distributing steroids to their athletes.
Today’s college football players are bigger, faster and stronger than ever. These sport-wide standards have all been accomplished without steroids. Obviously, there are probably some who do steroids but, in my judgment, this has to be rare. College and pro football players have figured out “the point of no return.” Today’s college coaches do not look away and team doctors wouldn’t even think of writing a steroid prescription for performance enhancement purposes. Doing so would be an open invitation to prison and multi-million-dollar lawsuits.
College and pro football players have almost completely closed the gap on the throwers. I don’t think the best can get much better in terms of size, strength and speed. Many more future players will reach the highest level of accomplishment, and do it without steroids. For example, a 6-3, 250-pound linebacker who runs a 4.4 and has a vertical jump of 38 inches is at that level now.
Future high school players will continue to improve in size, strength and speed in the next decade. There will be 10,000 coming up who will be able to match the top 1,000 of today. This will all be accomplished without steroids.
There are already quite a number of high schools that have multiple weight training facilities. Many hold two or more classes every hour of every day involving 300-600 athletes and non-athletes. It is not uncommon to have several athletes at each high school bench 300-plus, power clean 300-plus and parallel squat with 500-plus while running a 4.6 or better. All accomplished without steroids.
Commercial gyms are not usually set up to train athletes. High schools usually have superior equipment. That was not the case 15 years ago. Non-athletes were more likely to train at commercial gyms just to bodybuild. Therefore, these non-athletes were more likely to get involved with steroids. The future will see more teen non-athletes training at their schools, which should decrease steroid use as it has with athletes.
I’ve worked with hundreds of high school coaches, who also teach at their school, and none of them provide steroids or encourage their use. To think so would be ludicrous. High school coaches make about $40,000 a year teaching and maybe $3,000-$6,000 a year coaching. If you lose too many games and get fired from coaching, you still remain as a teacher. Any high school coach who would promote steroids at any level would open themselves and their school to million-dollar lawsuits. Coaches outside the school may be another story as far as steroid responsibility.

Basketball

Very few basketball players weight trained in the 1960s and 1970s. Coaches just knew players would lose their touch if they went near a barbell. The Utah Jazz hired me in December of 1981 and at that time I was the only strength coach in the NBA. The first training session was so funny. We had all the media there because it was a new thing. The players would cry because their shoulders hurt trying to support a 135-pound squat (a weight that many of today’s 15-year-old girls can do easily).
As weight training began showing positive results, NBA teams became interested. At first many just assigned their trainer to help the players lift weights, but today every NBA team has a strength coach. Most players are expected to weight train. However, many high school basketball coaches still do not really believe in strength and conditioning or just dabble at it. This, I find, is a truly amazing phenomenon. I’ve seen so many cases where the football players who also play basketball are physically superior and less injury prone than the basketball-only players who never weight train.
A few players have probably experimented with steroids throughout the years but because basketball is such a high-skill and endurance sport, I think those players who did take steroids found it to be a negative experience. Can you imagine a brilliant point guard like John Stockton thinking about taking steroids? How about a power forward? Maybe some might be tempted, perhaps to build rebounding power, but you still have to run hard for a whole game, be somewhat graceful and be able to shoot. Steroids don’t enhance those qualities at all.
As far as size, strength and speed are concerned, basketball players are still far behind in what they could achieve. Even though pro players of today are physically superior to those of just 20 years ago, very few do the secret.
Ten years from now many more basketball players in college and high school will do the secret, perhaps as many as half. You will see a number of 6-5, 220-pound high school kids putting their elbow on the rim. All of this will be accomplished without steroids.

Baseball

Today, we still have high school baseball coaches who will not allow their baseball players to attend a BFS Clinic. They say, “Weight training is only for football.” This stance is amazingly shortsighted. However, schools like Barbe High School in Louisiana do the BFS Program in strict fashion. They are among the team home-run leaders in the nation every year and have won several state championships in recent years. In 1999, they hit 76 home runs, a total that was the fifth highest ever hit in the nation. Coach Cecchini’s starters averaged 304 on the bench, 226 on the power clean and 400 on the parallel squat.
LSU has been a formidable power in the college ranks and they do a great job in strength and conditioning. BFS did a feature story on the Tiger baseball team when Skip Bertman was coaching. Under his leadership, LSU won four national championships in eight years at the time of the article. Their players did the secret under the watchful eye of baseball strength coach Curtis Tsuruda. No way were those players steroid users.
We also did a feature story on Tagg Bozied from the University of San Francisco. Tagg did the BFS Program all through high school and college. In his sophomore year, Tagg led all collegians in home runs and was a first team All-American. His dad, Bob Bozied, is one of our BFS Clinicians. Tagg heard me speak at a clinic when he was in junior high and decided not to drink sodas. To this day, he has not had one soda since that decision over ten years ago. I am absolutely positive Tagg never even considered using steroids.
Pro baseball is the last frontier among major sports in terms of becoming involved with strength training, and its leaders apparently haven’t yet learned much from the other sports that paved the way. Basketball is still going through its own learning curve.
Jose Canseco and one of the Oakland A’s’ coaches, Dave McKay, wrote a book called Strength Training For Baseball in 1990. The coach was called a “fitness instructor” for the team. Amazing! High schools and colleges had strength coaches well before 1990 and the NBA also had strength coaches well before 1990. But, the Oakland A’s had a fitness instructor. Just several years later Bob Alejo would become their strength coach.
Canseco’s book might as well have been written in the 1960s. The first 65 pages of the weight training exercises are all upper body fitness exercises bearing no resemblance to the secret that was readily available from many sources. Lower body exercises were de-emphasized and then only done primarily on machines.
Significant athletic progress would be impossible as outlined in this book. Maybe that was why Jose felt compelled to take steroids. It’s too bad. If only he had known the secret.
I would like to share one highly ironic and prophetic excerpt from Jose Canseco’s book: “A word about steroids: don’t use them. Steroids may create the illusion of great gains in short periods of time, but they may have a debilitating effect on your body chemistry, and in the long run you will be much worse off for having used them. The ultimate price you will have to pay is far, far greater than any short-term gain.”
After high school, baseball players are different from football or basketball players. Many pro baseball players skip college. This fact may leave them more susceptible to steroids. Under the direction of a college strength coach, baseball players are far less likely to become steroid users.
Although the secret can certainly be learned in a week, it will take at least a decade for the information to filter out on a large scale. That is why you ain’t seen nothin’ yet as far as home runs are concerned. Steroids will cease to be significant and the number of home runs will continue to rise.

The Baseball Program of the Future

The most important training principle pro baseball players and their coaches will need to learn is that the power in throwing and hitting comes primarily from the legs and the hips. It does not come from the chest and arms. Look closely at Picture A and Picture B. What are the athletes doing? Picture C shows Stefan throwing the discus over 220 feet, while Picture D shows Sammy Sosa hitting a home run. Not much difference in the legs and hips. Therefore, baseball players need to learn the training secrets of the throwers.
The second principle to learn is also part of the secret: Baseball players need to do every phase of strength and conditioning in perfect form. It is the little things that make a big difference. Doing everything perfectly reduces the worry that taking steroids might be necessary. Look at the photo of Brock Olivo doing a picture-perfect athletic lunge with 225 pounds. Jose Canseco, in his book, showed himself doing a short bodybuilding lunge with 30 pounds. He was not upright and his toes were not even close to being straight.
The third principle is to recognize that pro baseball’s unique challenges and differences affect strength and conditioning programs. The length of a baseball season is incredibly long. Longer than football or basketball. The travel situation is unique. Each baseball team must arrange for a great place to continue an in-season program in each city of travel. It takes great discipline to be consistent. The age differences of the players are greater than in football and basketball. Roger Clemens was still playing well at age 40 and was a generation older than most of his counterparts in football and basketball.
Would you do the same training program with a 40-year-old pitcher as you would with a 20-year-old power hitter? The answer should be obvious. I suggest three categories: First, a strength and conditioning program for the young players who are still in the development stage. Development-type players should be doing squats, cleans and/or snatches for a core lift strategy while doing the glute-ham raise and straight-leg deadlift for top auxiliary lifts. A hand/finger development exercise, a rotator cuff exercise and one (and only one) shoulder exercise could also be done. There is some evidence that suggests that multiple shoulder exercises done with multiple sets in an effort to prevent shoulder injuries can actually cause more injuries. All players should be stretching hard for speed and jumping power. Second, a strength and conditioning program should be in place for seasoned players who are at their peak. This could be around the age of 27. The goal would be to maintain, especially if the players are already developed physically. Third, a strength and conditioning program should be tailored for those clearly past their prime but still a valuable asset to the team. The goal would be to try to get one more productive season. This program should be highly individualized by analyzing previous injuries and capabilities of the player in question.
The fourth principle is that it is critical to develop specific speed and jumping power. First, the speed of the defensive player: explosive speed and jumping movements to field a ball. Second, the speed needed to get to first after a hit. Finally, the speed required for stealing bases and base running.
Players need to be taught the technique of sprinting. Consistent weekly practicing of technique is required. Players should experience video analysis of the different speed and starting techniques required in the above areas. Players need to be electronically timed to test their improvement but more importantly to really understand which technique and body positions work best. Let me give you an example.
In stealing second base, each foot or half-foot advantage gained creates a monumental difference. An electronic timer can give a player some critical feedback. When a player figures out how to position himself perfectly, it is a difference maker. Obviously a player needs to be able to take the biggest lead he can, and then begin an explosive start in the fastest way possible. What foot do you start with? What angle is best for your arms? How far should you bend your knees? Opposing pitchers should be videoed from a base runner’s angle and analyzed so you know exactly how far you can take him. I would not be surprised if many pro baseball players could cut two-tenths of a second off their current ability to steal second.

That future could be now!