Strong man – Daily Bruin

By Pauline Vu

Daily Bruin Senior Staff

It was a memorable scene, Alexander Nevsky’s first day in
English-language class at UCLA Extension. The class was full of
foreigners ““ mostly 18- and 19-year-old Asian women ““
and when Nevsky, 28, shouldered his 6-foot-6, 300-pound pure-muscle
frame through the door, everyone gaped at him.

“People were in shock. They’d never seen anything
like him,” said Andrew Freund, the class’s teacher,
with a chuckle.

But Nevsky, Russia’s most famous bodybuilder,
doesn’t mind causing a commotion. He’s been doing it
since he was strong enough to lift weights.

For the past seven years Nevsky has fought for a cause that no
one in Russia paid attention to before he brought it to the
limelight: the anti-steroids campaign.

It started in his homeland, where steroids are legal, when
Nevsky was 17 and stick-skinny. As a beginning boxer, Nevsky
wandered into Moscow’s lone gym and told them he wanted to
pump himself up.

The trainer sized him up.

“Okay, if you need muscles, we will do it,” Nevsky
recalled the trainer saying. “But you know, if you need
results soon, we will give you special magic tablets. And you will
be a superhero in six months.”

Nevsky was a bean-pole. The trainer was huge. And the tablets
were only $10.

He handed over the cash.

But before he took the pills, Nevsky brought them to his boxing
team’s doctor. And that’s where he learned the truth
about the “magic tablets,” otherwise known as steroids.
He learned that by the time you’re 30, they cause balding.
That by the time you’re 30, they could cause impotence.

Still, 30 was a long time away. Nevsky was 17 and had worlds to
go before he hit that ripe old age.

But then the doctor added that steroids had another negative
side effect: they could cause health problems for your
children.

That changed everything.

“Your life is your life, but your children, that is
another story,” Nevsky says now.

He recalled a friend of his, a champion bodybuilder who married
a Moscow beauty queen. Five years ago, they had a baby girl ““
who was born with a heart problem.

The friend went to talk to the doctor, who asked him in return
if he ever took steroids. His friend denied it, but Nevsky knew the
truth; his friend was taking steroids.

The doctor said, “If you took it, this is your
fault.”

Two days later, Nevsky said, his friend’s hair, once
black, turned white.

“He was like an old man,” Nevsky said.

Nevsky thinks about this and shakes his head. He thanks fate
that he was stopped in time.

But that’s not all he does.

He uses his enormous influence in Russia, where he has published
numerous books on strength and fitness, to fight steroids. Chuck
Norris of “Walker, Texas Ranger,” which is one of the
most popular American shows in Russia, has been a guest star on
Nevsky’s weekly TV show, “Self-Made Man,” to
discuss the danger of steroids. Nevsky has gone before the Russian
Parliament to ask them to consider making steroids illegal, and
will travel to Russia to do so again in September.

Because of Nevsky, who first gained fame after a 1993
documentary about bodybuilding featuring him, the danger of
steroids has been brought to the public light in Russia. Though the
drugs are still legal there, there is now a stigma attached to
using them.

“Now, the natural idea (of fitness) is number one,”
Nevsky said.

The Russian Parliament, Nevsky said, should also vote soon on
possibly making steroids illegal.

Now Nevsky hopes to bring his fight to the United States.

Although steroids are illegal here, Nevsky wants to clear up
some misconceptions he’s noticed about bodybuilders,
especially Russian bodybuilders.

“I have trained at L.A. Fitness and 24-Hour Fitness. Many
people ask me about how to use steroids,” Nevsky said.
“Plus, they ask me because I told them I’m
Russian.”

He’s even noticed it a bit at UCLA.

“Here, there are students from all over the world. Most of
them have trained and they ask me about my training system,”
Nevsky said.

“Of course, most of them don’t ask me about
steroids, but they ask me about “˜secrets,’” he
added. “You know, they think of steroids as part of
bodybuilding.”

He’s already gotten started in spreading his message.
Nevsky takes the UCLA Extension classes to learn English and reach
a wider American audience about steroids. When he first came over
to the U.S. in 1998 to meet Arnold Schwarzenegger and other
celebrities at the bodybuilding championships in Columbus, Ohio,
Nevsky knew just one line: “Sir, you have many fans in
Russia.”

But now, after studying English since August 1999,
Nevsky’s grasp of the language has increased. He has two
goals in mind: first, a possible acting career. And second, to
teach about steroids.

Nevsky has already started on the first. He currently takes
classes at the Lee Strausberg Acting Academy and was recently asked
to audition for a small role in an upcoming Jean-Claude Van Damme
movie.

As for the second, he’s spoken at Santa Monica College,
lecturing on the dark side of steroids. He also publishes a popular
Russian magazine, “Flesh and Blood,” that he’s
working on making an English version of.

“It’s very admirable,” Freund said of
Nevsky’s campaign. “(Steroid use) is pretty rampant in
sports. Other people are trying to take shortcuts.
Alexander’s put in the time.”

As he pursues his acting career and brings his anti-steroids
message to the U.S., Nevsky is still putting in the time. Only
it’s not just about building himself up. It’s about
making sure that as others build themselves up as well, they do it
in a manner they can be proud of.

DETRIMENTAL EFFECTS OF STEROID USE

• Cancer

• Internal bleeding

• Acute stomach pain

• Muscle strain

• Acne

• Hair loss

• Sodium retention

• Stunted growth

• High blood pressure

• Jaundice

• Heart disease

• Weakened immune system

• Increase of heart size

• Insomnia

• Impotence

• Vitamin depletion

SOURCE: “How to become a bodybuilder in Russia” by Alexander
Nevsky Original graphic by YU WANG/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Web
adaptation by CHRISTINE TAN