Q: I’ve been a dedicated lifter and eating healthy for over 20 years, and if Jonathan Lawson achieved the huge ripped size he had in those photos at the X-Rep.com Web site drug-free, I’ll eat my shorts. 🙂 Steve Holman maybe would be believable as drug-free, but I’m skeptical there too.
A: We’re not sure which photos you’re referring to, but on the left below are our afters from our first X-Rep year (the program we used is in The Ultimate Mass Workout) and on the right is the following year using many X-hybrid techniques (our program and methods are in Beyond X-Rep Muscle Building). We get the steroid accusation a lot—Jonathan especially because of his better bodybuilding genetics—but we’re both drug-free in all of our photos. Get out those shorts and start chewing…
Wait! We both use caffeine, so maybe you don’t have to eat your shorts on that technicality.
Jonathan has been training for about 30 years and has never touched a steroid; Steve has been training for over 45 years and other than two weeks of taking one 5mg Dianabol tablet a day when he was in his early 20s (a looong time ago), he has never taken anything before or since (he’s kind of a hypochondriac—thinks he’ll crap out his liver as a result of steroid use).
Often, our studio photos even shock us—but that’s because of the following reasons, the same ones that make you and others think we’re on drugs:
1) When we—or any bodybuilders—are at our leanest, we look about 20 pounds bigger than we really are. In our peak photos above Jonathan only weighs about 205 and Steve right around 200 pounds; we’re both about 5’11” tall. A top pro bodybuilder at our height would weigh at least 260 pounds.
2) A dark tan adds to that illusion of dense muscularity.
3) A professional photographer’s precision lighting can bring out detail, cuts, and vascularity you don’t think is there.
Here are some photos of us taken in our warehouse without tanning solution and under regular lights (and Steve is in a semi-relaxed pose—and 50 years old in the pic below)…
We are near peak condition there too, but ZERO steroids or other growth drugs are involved in our conditioning. Not using is why we continually change workout programs, incorporating various tactics like X Reps, the 4X method and X-hybrid techniques (such as DXO and X Fade found in Beyond X-Rep Muscle Building). For us, it’s all about frequent CHANGE to trigger bigger gains—NOT implementing any sort of drug stack.
Till next time, train hard—and smart—for BIG results.
—Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson
www.X-Rep.com
ATTENTION OVER-40 BODYBUILDERS
One of the most interesting read-me pages on Testosterone and other muscle-building hormones we’ve seen is The Truth About Testosterone.
It even talks about a fruit, a specific part, that can up your T naturally. Cranking up your testosterone will not only get you jacked in the gym, but in the bedroom too—not to mention help rip up your midsection as it ignites fat burning. If that interests you, there’s more from our colleague and registered dietician, HERE.