Bigger is Better

Director Chris Bell makes a strong debut with a steroids documentary.

Even before Chris Bell’s telling documentary Bigger, Stronger, Faster, you may have known that Hulk Hogan and Sylvester Stallone took steroids. You may have even wondered about Barry Bonds and Floyd Landis. But we’ll bet you’ve never thought about the issue from such a guy-next-door. INsite recently sat down with the budding director.

What led you to the "The Side Effects of Being American" subtitle?

Well, I’ve always known about steroids since I was younger because I knew guys that were doing them. I was a power lifter. There were always guys saying I’m taking this and I’m taking that. They’d always encourage it because it can get you so much stronger. Temptation was always there. Over the course of the past 15, 16 years of working out, I noticed a trend where more and more people were becoming bigger, stronger and faster, like I say in the movie. Personally, when I found when I was younger that Hulk Hogan, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone all were using steroids to get where they were, I was really disappointed. I’d like to say it didn’t bother me but it really kinda did. It felt like, "Oh, wow. All this hard work I put in was for nothing."

Your brother says, "I’d rather be dead than average." Traveling around the country for this film, did you notice that quote echoing in others?

Everybody that watches the movie identifies with my brother Mad Dog (Mike). Some of them are successful athletes and but they just want more.  My brother said, "I’d rather be dead than average." When you’re in the world of athletics, I think you’re always craving more.

The range of interviews you got for this movie is really impressive. How did you approach people like Ben Johnson and Carl Lewis?

Ben Johnson, for example.  I’m just a guy coming to ask you a question. I’m not coming to hurt you. Ben Johnson looks at me and the first thing he says is, "Hey, man. How much do you bench?" He’s got this really thick Jamaican accent. I’m like, "Aw, man. I bench like 500 pounds on a good day." He goes, "I used to bench like 405 for reps." And then we started talking. I ask, "Why would you bench 405 if you’re a runner?" He says, "Oh, your upper body is your locomotive. It gets you going." A lot of it has to do with the trust that I gained. With talking to Carl Lewis, the first thing I said was, "Hey, man. You were a hero of mine. You used to run so fast. I was never a good runner. So, I went into my strength, which was power lifting. I used that same attitude that you have to develop what I did in power lifting." And right there, you gain the trust.

One of the misconceptions about steroids is that people think if you juice you don’t have to work out.

The thing is that you work harder! I think that one of the misconceptions is that you’re going to take steroids and all of a sudden you’re going to be a super hero. That only happens in the comic books, with Captain America’s super soldier serum. It doesn’t happen in real life. What happens in real life is that people who take steroids take them so they can train harder and can train for a longer period of time. If you go the gym for, say,

An hour and you’re totally exhausted. Then you go on steroids and you go in for an hour and a half one day. The next day you’re not even tired really. It’s this cumulative build-up of the workouts with the anabolic steroids that are producing the results.