Doctor's 'secret' is his calling

When he sees the in Barry Bonds' body, it isn't anger that wells up in Dr. Greg Shepard.

"It's sadness," says Shepard.

The anger comes when he reads an article about Bonds, or another athlete, and the term "performance-enhancing drugs" comes up. That's because they're not performance-enhancing, he says. They're performance-inhibiting.

"What does make me angry is the media always saying they're performance-enhancing and that players are cheating when they use steroids," he says. "That promotes the idea that steroids do work. So I have to come out and dispel the myth. That makes me angry."

If Shepard sounds like a classic steroid user himself — aggressive, irritable, prone to rage — think again. He's actually quite civil. Beyond that, he's adamantly anti-steroid. The founder and CEO of Utah-based Bigger Faster Stronger considers steroids the worst thing to hit sports since the Black Sox scandal. The message he preaches as he speaks to dozens of high schools annually is that steroids actually hinder performance. He points out that there are better, non-chemical ways to perform at a higher level.

Shepard acknowledges steroids do force a rapid increase in strength and weight the first cycle of use. But a short-term gain will quickly reach the point of diminishing returns. Then there are the other effects: injuries, acne, bad temperament and lying about the situation.

When the muscle growth ceases, it takes more steroids to maintain.

Meanwhile, the athlete usually ignores other vital areas such as flexibility, jumping, conditioning and speed.

"They're leaving everything else out, in favor of size and strength — and strength is the easiest thing to build (naturally)," he says.

Shepard, who has a doctorate from BYU in exercise physiology, started BFS over two decades ago. After earning a master's degree from the University of Oregon, he worked with BYU football players in the early 1970s.

About that time, Shepard — who had won a state championship coaching prep football in Washington — decided to get back into coaching.

He wanted to test some of his strength and agility theories, so he set about "finding the worst high school football team in America to coach." He interviewed for jobs in five states, settling on the 1973 Madison Bobcats of Rexburg, Idaho. They had lost every game the previous year, including a 72-0 homecoming pounding.

He started his weightlifting program, and the next year the Bobcats had a winning season. He had two more wining seasons before moving on to another woebegone prep program — the 1976 Granger Lancers of West Valley City, who lost every game the previous year.

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