I agree with what I think Dave is saying. There is nothing terribly abnormal or difficult about gaining that much weight in that little time. To prove it I will do it:

http://catallarchy.net/blog/archives/2006/03/09/you-cant-gain-15-pounds-of-muscle-in-100-days-without-drugs/

There is no way that any person at ANY age (much less in their 30's) can add 15+ pounds of pure muscle in 100, 200, or even 300 days through natural means. It simply isn't metabolically possible. Five pounds of new muscle mass in one year through continuous hard training and proper nutrition is widely considered a very optimistic upper bound among steroid-free body builders. You can quickly make your muscles appear larger and add 5-10 pounds of non-fat weight by taking something like creatine, but that's mostly just fluid retention.

You can add 15+ pounds in 100 days, but it can't be new muscle mass... unless you're hormonally enhanced.

There's a big difference between joe schmo trying to put on 15 pounds of muscle in 3 days and a professional athlete, who has been weight training since who knows when, doing the same. While you might be able to to do it, it proves nothing.

Im sorry Jeff, but you're wrong.

I entered US Army boot camp in 1989 weighing in at 130 pounds and six feet tall. My neck size was 15 inches, and my waist was 29 inches. 13 weeks later I weighed 160 pounds, but still had the same neck and waist measurements.

Now, even if I gained 50% of that new weight as body fat, that still means I added 15 pounds of new muscle. But the reality is that probably close to 100% of it was pure muscle. It's not like I was chowing down at the buffet table while I was there.

As far as Barry Bonds is concerned, Rick is spot on. He could theoretically have put on that much muscle, but that assumes his training regimen for the last few years had been crappy at best. In my case, I was so skinny that if I had a suspected broken bone, you could have just held me up to a candlelight to see it. Bonds should have already had some decent muscular base to work with.

He's a juicer. And the Human Growth Hormone thing is something I've been suspecting about him for years.

There is a big difference between a hitter like Bonds putting on the weight and a pitcher like Schmidt doing it. There's sort of a "traditional" baseball dogma that states that pitcher's shouldn't lift weights with their upper body for fear of making their muscles "tight" and prone to strain or pull. However, certainly by 1998, hitters had for quite some time understood that stronger = hit ball farther... plain and simple. So yes, I agree that it might be easier for someone like Schmidt, who may not have been in the weight room much at all and may have relied in the past on playing himself into shape, to make gains when he began a strict regimen... versus someone like Bonds, who - if we're quoting the article here,

"Bonds worked harder in the gym during the 1998 off-season than he had in years"

has some gym experience. In fact, I pose this question: if, years ago, Bonds worked out equally as hard as he did in 1998... or even close to it... why wasn't he so big back then?

From the supporting documentation: "...In '97, when the Giants reported that he weighed 206, Bonds told USA Today that his body fat was an extraordinarily low 8%. In '02, when Bonds's weight was listed at 228, Greg Anderson told The New York Times Magazine that Bonds's body fat was even lower: 6.2%."

Also, it's interesting that Schmidt would report such numbers since API's program doesn't concentrate on 'bulking up' as much as building core strength. I wonder how accurate any of the quoted numbers are.

Still, was it necessary for the authors to use such pejorative language?

Speaking from a medical point of view, it's not impossible to gain 15 pounds of pure muscle. The problem here is that he did it in the off season, following a full season of baseball, at age 34. Additionally, as Josh points out, we're not talking about a guy who starts from scratch, even in his Pirates days, Bonds must have weighed nearly 180 or so, and had been an athlete his entire life; adding muscle isn't a linear proces. To achieve what Bonds did at his age would require not just the best trainers, nutritionists, doctors, etc, but the most extraordinary genetics this side of Clark Kent. As someone pointyed out at catallarchy, the article isn't even saying that it can't be done, just under Bonds' circumstances it is highly unlikely.

Additionally, hearsay by Jason Schmidt hardly proves anything. Who's to say Jason Schmidt isn't on the same cocktail that Bonds (allegdely) on.

And yes, I think the pejorative language is necessary, as the book is a narative indictment of Bonds (or at least the SI excerpted parts certainly are).

Tim: That may be the best answer yet to why the authors seemingly held back so much information for the book. (Well, besides greed. duh.)

I don't doubt that a professional athlete with the time and money can put on that much weight / muscle during the off-season. I also know that players stick up for one another, but JT Snow, one of Bonds' longest tenured teammates, has told the Boston Globe that he never saw Bonds use steroids or talk about steroids. Snow, of course, acknowledges that he had no idea what Bonds did or did not do during the off-season.

At any rate, I think it's all for naught in the end because steroids weren't banned from baseball until '02. Selig and Fehr should just issue a statement saying the book is a distraction, they acknowledge there was an era of steroids in the game, but they cannot revise history at this point nor can they retroactively penalize anyone for allegations that may or may not turn out to be true, mistakes were made, let's move on and continue to improve testing for banned substances going forward.

It's way too late now given Bonds' attitude and past history, but I can't help but look at Jason Giambi as an example of what Bonds should do. Giambi's ambisuous apology has basically let him off the hook with baseball, the media, and fans (outside of Fenway anyway). I just wish we could look forward instead of backwards.

The key to the muscle gain is the age. When guys in their 30s put on 15+ lbs. of muscle in the span of a couple months --red flags should go up. If Bonds were in his early 20s, I think he has much more leeway, and its plausible cause he could also be naturally filling out his frame. But once men reach about 25-26, they're done growing naturally; Bonds was an Ectomorph naturally, all the way thru his 20s, then in his mid-30s he totally changes his bodytype to a Mesomorph. You just don't put on that type of muscle mass in your 30s with out some help.

I'm quite tired of reading that steroids weren't banned from baseball until '02.

Steroids WERE banned from baseball prior to '02, they just weren't tested for (thanks to Bud and the union)... and there appears to be evidence that Bonds juiced in '03 anyway.

Allow me to quote the Mercury News from this morning:

"But in 1991, teams were notified that ``the possession, sale or use of any illegal drug or controlled substance . . . is strictly prohibited.'' And continue along this timeline: Steroid testing then began after the latest labor contract took effect Sept. 30, 2002. The federal government's raid on the Balco laboratory in San Mateo took place Sept. 3, 2003. And during that year, there is plenty of evidence -- from grand-jury testimony to the logbook kept by Bonds lackey Greg Anderson to the supply calendar kept by Balco chief Victor Conte Jr. -- that Bonds was using performance-enhancing substances."

Seriously... people who really know will tell you that those weight gains are mostly fat (although it doesn't look like "flab" -- it's not muscle growth)... you simply cannot gain that kind of muscle weight that quickly... speak to a doctor about it -- a doctor who has experience in this stuff... and he'll tell you that very often people kid themselves with the bulk they gain into thinking it's mostly muscle... it isn't.

Really good stuff here. I've wrestled with this over and over and with not only the physiological and psychological processes involved in Bonds transformation but his transformation into a superior hitter. That is what blows my mind. If you look at his numbers when he came up with the Pirates and how they improved with time it is amazing. He was not a great hitter in his early days. Maybe it took him awhile to adjust to major league pitching but do steroids or muscle mass translate into better vision and better decision making at the plate. I would say no. What he did was transform himself not only physically but mentally into one of the greatest hitters of all time. I don't see how that can be denied and I don't see how that it can simply be "chalked up" to steroid or growth hormone abuse. Yes greater muscle mass should translate to greater bat speed, but he was a tall, lean, naturally muscular athlete who as blessed young man in that regard may have been a little lazy about hitting the weight room as so many of his fathers generation and prior generations were. What if the Mick had hit the weights instead of the booze? Perhaps he finally mentally challenged himself as he saw so many other prominent high profile athletes doing .. ie MJ and finally aggressively hit the weights. Sorry this is long. I haven't read the book and don't know if there's anything out there about his "work ethic" history.

When talking about adding 15 pounds, it's important to talk in terms of relative percentage of body weight. At 100 lbs, this is a 15% gain. At 208 lbs, this is a 7% gain. So, the question is not can you gain 15 lbs in 100 days, but rather, can you gain 7% in 100 days. It's an important disctinction.