Gregg Valentino thinks that the sport today isn’t bodybuilding, “it’s body modification.”
Generation Iron has interviewed Gregg Valentino many times before. Something that we’ve noticed is that Gregg seems conflicted about steroid use in bodybuilding. On one hand, he openly displays his love for taking steroids. But on the other, he’s often criticized the direction modern bodybuilding has headed – even stating that we’ve hit a danger zone with drugs in bodybuilding. In our latest GI Exclusive interview, Gregg Valentino clarifies why he still loves steroids, but hates the current state of drug use in bodybuilding.
Gregg Valentino wants to get one thing straight in our interview – he loves steroids. He literally talks about how he likes to kiss them (it’s a bit strange – but that’s Gregg for you). So when confronted about why he’d previously said that modern bodybuilding has a drug problem, Gregg clarifies how he can hold both values at the same time.
The issue, it seems, is that steroids are no longer the main problem with drugs in bodybuilding. Gregg stays strong in his stance that steroids should stay in bodybuilding. The problem he has is with the addition of many other drugs that have become commonplace such as insulin, diuretics, and others. Those are the drugs that are much more dangerous than steroids.
Gregg admits to two of his friends dying from taking insulin improperly. He is also aware of how dangerous diuretics can be if overused. This is something that had been stated in one of our past interviews with Jerry Ward as well.
Gregg goes on to say that the sport as it stands today is no longer really bodybuilding. He calls it “body modification” due to the mass number of drugs that athletes use to transform their insides and outsides into an inhuman physique.
Gregg also admits that age is a factor in his thinking today. He’s older now and the amounts of drugs he once took he simply can’t take anymore. He even admits that in retrospect he didn’t take as many drugs as he did. He understands with hindsight that, while he still loves steroids, he loved it a bit too much in his heyday.
He furthers this example by using a theoretical scenario. He says if there was a clone of Vlad, one was 300lbs of fat and the other was 300lbs of muscle – that the fat version would live longer than the muscle version. Why? Gregg says it’s because the heart has to work harder to pump blood through muscle than fat. At the end of the day, if you stay at 250lbs or 300lbs for a long period of your life… it’s not healthy.
You can check out Gregg’s full comments in our latest GI Exclusive interview segment above!