Johnnie Jackson 3 weeks out from Iron Man Pro
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Written by: Allan Donnelly
January 29th, 2008
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For the first half of 2007, Toney Freeman was flying high. Two wins at the Ironman Pro and the Sacramento Pro and a third-place finish at the Arnold put Freeman in the drivers seat to make a run at the top five, if not the top three, at the 07 Olympia. Unfortunately for Freeman, thats where the wheels came off, as an illness he suffered the week before the contest all but erased his chances. When it was all said and done, Freeman dropped all the way to 13th. Now, a rejunivated Freeman has his sights set on redemption in 2008, starting with the defense of his Ironman Pro title on February 16.

FLEXONLINE: HOW BIG OF A DISAPPOINTMENT WAS THE 2007 OLYMPIA?
TONEY FREEMAN: Getting sick at last minute was a huge disappointment and the aftermath of the Olympia was a huge disappointment. But when I look back on it, those things were necessary to get me where I am today. When people see me at the spring shows theyll know what Im talking about. I kind of went through a cleansing process. There was a lot of hype and what not because of how well I did in the spring, so I expected more myself than probably everybody else expected of me. I did some things different and probably 90 percent of it worked. But I fell ill the last week and wasnt able to pull it together. It Wasnt the first time I got sick the week before a show but all the other times I was able to pull it all together

Tonya Elliot Fitness Model

JACKSON, Miss. -- A quarterback who was to sign with Mississippi on Feb. 6 has been kicked off the team because of an arrest for selling steroids.

Jared Foster, of Madison, who played last season for Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, was enrolled in classes at Ole Miss and was informally working out with the team. He was scheduled to formally join the team on National Signing Day and would have been able to practice this spring.

The Clarion-Ledger of Jackson reported Foster's arrest Monday on its Web site. The school announced that Foster was off the team in a one-sentence release but did not say why.

"It's a shame," Ole Miss coach Houston Nutt told the Clarion-Ledger. "But we're trying to build a football program and that's stuff we can't tolerate."

GUSTAVO BADELL THREE WEEKS OUT
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Reagan Andre Fitness Model

Written by Dave Palumbo
Sunday, 27 January 2008

January 23, 2008 - One of the largest studies ever to link exercise capacity to mortality risk should motivate physicians to pay as much attention to patients' exercise capacity as they do other major risk factors, researchers say [1]. Their study of older male veterans suggests that the adjusted risk of dying was reduced by 13% for every 1 metabolic equivalent (MET) increase in exercise capacity; men with the greatest exercise capacity reduced their mortality risk by 70%. "For a little bit of investment you get a lot of a return," lead author on the study, Dr Peter Kokkinos (Veterans Affairs [VA] Medical Center, Washington, DC) told heartwire. "In a time where health insurance in this country is going through the roof, we could do something like walk for thirty minutes a day and reap major benefits. "For god's sake, if we could walk on the moon we can certainly walk on earth." Their study appears in an early online edition of Circulation, January 22, 2008.

Written by Anne Rueter
Sunday, 27 January 2008

ANN ARBOR, Mich. - Block the action of a protein that normally regulates muscle mass, and watch your muscles grow.

That may sound like a good idea to people with muscle-wasting diseases such as muscular dystrophy, and to older people, whose muscles naturally get smaller and weaker with age. Drugs that restrict the protein myostatin, which normally prevents muscles from being overly bulky, are currently under study, but not on the market, for some medical conditions.

Such drugs, called myostatin inhibitors, also are stirring interest among body builders and athletes. There are already signs of a nascent black market for what might become another illegal performance-enhancing drug in organized sports.

Now, a new University of Michigan study in mice suggests that while myostatin inhibitors may indeed bulk up muscles, they may also bring a troubling side effect - small, brittle tendons that could make muscle injuries more likely.

Amrit Dhaliwal Canadian Fitness Competitor