How not to build your body

He was already a thick, strong athlete with over four years logged in gyms training as a body builder. But when Murshed Mubarak, then 19-years-old, began taking steroids, he transformed from a bulky gym rat to Hercules practically overnight.

His muscles swelled so fast that Mubarak, a UAE national, had to buy a new dishdasha every month and eat 50 eggs a day to stockpile protein. Then he started taking off his shirt for judges.

Just three months after his first dose of steroids, he won the 1994 Mr UAE competition. That same year, he placed fourth in a junior world championship and then claimed both the junior and senior titles at the Arab Bodybuilding Competition. It was the first time in the history of bodybuilding that a contestant under the age of 21 won both titles at an event.

Success at a cost

The success was intoxicating, yet costly. In 1994 alone, he spent more than Dh15,000 on steroids. Soon, he began taking out bank loans so that he could buy steroids strong enough to give him an edge over the world's best bodybuilders in international competitions.

Again, his investments paid off. In 1997, he picked up a top-10 finish in the world championships, and even worked as a chauffeur in Italy for one year to give him a residence visa and access to the Mr Italy competition, which he won.

And then, he quit.

"Everyone was using steroids at that time, but I wanted to prove that I could win without them," said Mubarak, sitting in an office in the back of Power Gym in Karama, where he trains daily with the gym's owner Mohammad Ameen.

"I haven't touched steroids since Italy. But I haven't competed since then, either. It'd be too difficult to compete."

?Impossible'

"Difficult?" chimed in Ameen, jumping out of his seat next to Mubarak. "It'd be impossible to compete without steroids."

At the peak of his career in the mid-90s, steroid use was rampant among bodybuilders in the UAE and the Middle East because there was minimal steroid testing at competitions. But not much has changed since then, Mubarak and Ameen said.

Today, most bodybuilders here are just as, if not more, dependent on steroids as he was years ago, said Mubarak.

The 29-year-old is steroid-free these days, only using natural supplements such as protein powders and creatine, and he wishes that other bodybuilders would do the same.

"People will be angry with me for telling the truth, but I don't care," said Mubarak. "Here, everyone will say, ?I don't use steroids.' And before, I'd deny taking them, too. But steroids are a big problem here, especially at bodybuilding competitions, and I want people to realise that steroids are not the only way to go."

Government task force

The word ?steroids' has long been a hush-hush, taboo buzzword in bodybuilding communities, but lately, it has been echoing in the halls of government offices such as the General Authority of Youth and Sports Welfare and the Ministry of Health.

The youth and sports welfare department has recently formed a special task force to launch an exhaustive anti-steroids education campaign in early 2006, testament to the fact that steroid-use is on the rise.

A prerequisite of the department's recent allegiance with the World Anti-Doping Agency, the committee will focus on wiping out steroid-use in all sports, not just bodybuilding, said Abdul Al Dusri, who is heading the task force.

Currently, only UAE athletes competing outside of the country are tested for steroids because the process is so expensive. The UAE does not have its own lab to administer the tests, so officials must pay about Dh800 to have an athlete's blood and urine samples processed at one of five labs in Europe, Africa and Asia.

But by the middle of this year, the committee will begin testing for steroids at all local sporting events and competitions, and stiff fines and penalties will be handed out to athletes that test positively, said Al Dusri.

"It's our responsibility to make sure that our athletes are legal," said Al Dusri. "We are dealing with the image of our country here."

Local testing may not hinder participation in sports such as football, where agility and speed reign supreme and steroid use is usually marginal. But most agree that these tests could greatly affect local bodybuilding competitions, where judges fawn over sheer brawn and steroid use is both accepted and ignored.

Big men in action

At the Fujairah Classic International Bodybuilding Championship on December 15, big men competed for small trophies.

It is typical of the small-scale, locally-run bodybuilding competitions found throughout the Middle East. Most of the competitors that day were amateurs competing for bragging rights; none of them took home big cash prizes.

Yet it is at this level where steroid use is the most unbridled and dangerous, said Hussain Al Saffar, who has been judging bodybuilding competitions, big and small, in the region for 25 years.

The local weightlifting federations ? in the UAE, the Emirates Bodybuilding Federation and in the region, the Arab Bodybuilding Federation ? are generally apathetic towards steroid-use at this level because it is feared that a universal ban will "drop the standards and then nobody will be interested anymore," Al Saffar said after judging the morning session of the competition in Fujairah.

"Nobody that you saw competing today was natural," Al Saffar said. "All of them were on some form of supplement or hormone."

Both Al Saffar and Dr Ahmad Hamdy, another judge, stressed the need for educational campaigns to teach bodybuilders about the consequences of erratic, self-administered steroid use.

"Bodybuilders that compete in large, international competitions can afford to pay for doctors to show them how to take steroids properly," said Al Saffar, "But here, at this level, they don't have the money for doctors, so it becomes a problem. The [bodybuilders] will burn out after two years because they don't know what they're doing."

?Burnout friend'

Practically every bodybuilder in the UAE has a story about a "burn-out" friend who took powerful steroids, bulked up in a matter of months, peaked, and then crashed emotionally and physically.

The symptoms can vary, but fits of rage and depression are the most common, said Zaher Bakar, a professional bodybuilder from Iraq who placed second in the over-80-kilos weight category in Fujairah.

Bakar, 35, was one of the biggest competitors in Fujairah that day, but he said that he has never used steroids.

"It is human nature to cut corners, to want to get bigger, faster," said Bakar, who has been a personal trainer at Victory Gym in Abu Dhabi for four years.

"But I've met some young kids from the UAE here that are so desperate for steroids. They take too much, crash, and then come into my gym for rehabilitation and advice."

The youth and sports welfare department and the Ministry of Health visit gyms and sports clubs to check for steroids and other illegal substances, so the chance of a gym selling steroids to customers is very little, said Shaikha Abdullah Saif of the youth and sports welfare department.