Muscle On The Brain

"A six-week cycle's gonna cost ya $170, lady -- you wanna know how to use 'em?"

This was the bit of flotsam I picked up in the interest of leaning what families with teen boys face during last week's National Family Week focus on family fitness and health.

Call it the afterglow of the Summer Olympics or an offshoot of Extreme Makeover, or; heck, it could be the impact of Hollywood stars and singers with sexy six-packs.

Whatever the reason, kids who were raised on the best of health and fitness intentions are willing to do scary things to their bodies you taught them were temples.

While some are athletes and eager to improve their strength and skills, many are not, seeking only to look more adult. For both groups, faster is better.

So what do you do if the boy at your house is longing to be bigger and bader and is willing to tell you that even though some of his friends do steroids, he wants to try protein powders -- at $300. a month -- or "um, maybe, steroids because I know where to get them." If your teen will talk about any of this, consider yourself ahead of the game, said Scott Wooding, author of the best seller "Rage, Rebellion & Rudeness: parenting Teenagers in the New Millennium."

"Kids have no patience. They're not good at looking ahead. They don't recognize the years of work a strong athletic body takes nor that steroids or supplements are generally not the reason for the bulk," said Wooding, a psychologist.

Do the research. Go on the Web, together. It doesn't take long -- past the first 500 hits for supplement suppliers -- to read news stories of the questionable purity, safety and effectiveness of protein powders and creatine serums and the potentially long-lasting and life-threatening effects of steroids.

And then pay close attention, Wooding says. "If your kid is bulking up too fast, it's not from weightlifting. Weights will give definitions, that "ripped" quality they like, but it doesn't add bulk at all quickly."

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