My friend Jeff O'Connell has a terrific expose of the supplement industry in the current issue of Men's Health. Jeff and I worked together at Weider in the mid-1990s -- he was at Flex, while I was at Men's Fitness. He eventually became editor of Muscle & Fitness before moving to MH shortly after I left. (I think he even has my old office.)

Everyone who works in or writes about the fitness industry has heard stories about the tricks of the supplement trade. One persistent rumor I've heard over the years -- which I assume Jeff heard at least as many times -- is that certain companies will build buzz for a new product by spiking it with ingredients that don't appear on the label.

Unlike me, Jeff actually found sources willing to go on the record about it:

With apologies for going on a tangent, I remember the first time I heard of Clenbuterol. I had recently started working at Men's Fitness when one of the trainer/models we regularly featured in our workouts came by the office. The trainer had one of the most amazing physiques any of us had ever seen, a walking anatomical chart. His skin looked like beige Saran Wrap applied directly to his muscles and veins. He had trained an actor who'd made a remarkable transformation for a recent movie; the movie was well-reviewed, but the buzz was about the actor's physique. The trainer, laughing, told my coworkers he'd injected the actor with Clenbuterol to achieve the look everyone was talking about.

Getting back to Jeff's story in MH, you can see how spiking a protein supplement with a powerful fat-loss agent would get the meatheads talking.

Jeff also writes about a practice I didn't know much about:

When I've asked friends in the supplement industry to explain how they do what they do, the conversation always comes around to cost: You just can't make good supplements on the cheap. The best materials are expensive.

I don't have a broad perspective on the choices you face when you walk into your local GNC or Vitamin Shoppe. I've been using Biotest products almost exclusively for years; they taste the best and don't cause the gastric side effects I've experienced with some other brands.

So the only advice I can offer is, don't go with the cheap stuff. You can't build muscles with fairy dust.

Tuesday blog meat

• A new study found that doing a combination of endurance and strength exercise was better for people with type 2 diabetes than doing one or the other exclusively. But I'm confused about something: The people who did both did twice as much exercise as the others -- 4.5 hours a week, vs. 2.25 hours. So how do they know that simply doing 4.5 hours a week of anything wouldn't produce the same effect? And wouldn't 5 or 6 or 7 hours a week of exercise be even better? And how many people with type 2 diabetes are able or willing to do exercise of any type or duration?
• From the restless mind of Joe Stankowski: "armadillo back" vs. "porn-star butt."