SEATTLE - The Side Tricep is Walt Radke’s favorite pose, and he’s pleased to demonstrate why. “Pretty good arm size for a 70-year-old guy,” he says, modestly inflating his age by a year.

Bodybuilders get only minutes of glory when they finally take the stage after months of drastic dieting and heaving heavy weights. Just like the more youthful contenders at a recent bodybuilding championship, Radke and other senior competitors hoped to dazzle the judges with voluptuous pectorals and topographical torsos.

Contestants who are pushing 70 — or even 80 — are just as competitive as the rest, but they have a few extra challenges. Stooped posture and sagging skin don’t show off a muscular physique. And declining testosterone levels make building up muscle slow and difficult.

Accommodating nature’s deficits by using illegal drugs has been so commonplace that bodybuilding has a long and unsavory association with steroid use. But all but one of the seven men over age 60 who participated in this year’s Emerald Cup in Bellevue, Wash., swore they were “all-natural.”

The competition is one of the largest regional championships in the country and one of the first to create special categories for older bodybuilders. Some events require blood and polygraph tests in an effort to ensure entrants have been clean from two to seven years, but many contests, such as the Emerald Cup, don’t. That means competitors in these events who don’t use drugs could be up against pumped-up rivals who take steroids, human growth hormone and other illegal substances.

The senior bodybuilders taking part in the event said that wouldn’t deter them. For one thing, they weren’t in it for the money; as amateurs, they don’t win any.

If you're serious, costs can mount
In fact, bodybuilding can be a costly undertaking. Radke, who retired five years ago after driving city and charter buses for 23 years, said his wife bought a new car when he took up bodybuilding. “I’ve spent more on gyms and personal trainers than she did on her car,” he acknowledged.

This was Radke’s fifth Emerald Cup. He had previously placed second and third, and hoped this was the year he would capture first place. Like his rivals in the over-60 division, he had eaten small meals every two hours in the days before the event to speed up his metabolism, and eliminated carbohydrates and sodium to get extra lean and shed any puffiness. He even cut back drastically on drinking water.

As what was left of his fat layer melted away, the lack of fluid caused Radke’s skin to cling to his musculature. Tiny details and muscle fibers were clearly outlined, and even slight exertions made his veins stand out like piping on upholstery. Diuretics and laxatives — but not too many — added to the effect. Like other contestants, he experiments constantly to see what gives him the most definition.

Radke said couldn’t recall the last time he had had his favorite treat, pie a la mode. “When I started training,” he said, “I couldn’t look down and see my shoes because my belly came out too far.” 

Two hours a day of cardio workouts helped Radke shed 40 pounds in seven weeks. He pointed to his sternum — a minuscule, bony valley buried between the hills of his pectoral muscles —and said, “This chest bone used to stick out. Now I have enough pecs to have developed these striations on the sides of the muscles.”

Do diet aids work? Who knows
For lunch, Radke pulled out a container with salmon and sweet potato, and gulped four white capsules of what he said were branched-chain amino acids to help his muscles use protein. “This and protein formulas are all I take,” he said with a shrug. “I don’t really know if it works, but everybody uses it.”

Many medical experts have expressed concern about the casual attitude exhibited by bodybuilders toward ingesting supplements and — more alarmingly — injecting drugs.  

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Radke’s capsules are legal and probably harmless, but Dr. Carl Grunfeld, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, and chief of the metabolism and endocrinology sections of the Veterans Affairs Hospital there, said Radke might do just as well by simply eating a protein-rich meal.

David Patterson, a 53-year-old fitness specialist sometimes known as “Dr. Buff,” said few elder bodybuilders experiment with dangerous drugs like steroids.

Because the drugs are illegal, they are unregulated and untested, so bodybuilders can end up injecting their large muscles with something they wouldn’t knowingly take. “Sometimes even motor oil or vegetable oil,” he said.

Patterson said he briefly dabbled with steroids when he was 21, but quit because he didn’t like the anxious and aggressive feelings they produced.

“They made me bigger, but they didn’t fix my flaws,” he said. “I’ve been clean ever since, and that’s why I can still compete and stay at my best.”

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