OMG! Bodybuilders who Took It Too Far (Photos)

The story of bodybuilders who took their quest for the perfect body way too far...

One thing about we humanis that we are never satisfied, never content to accept things the way they are. When it comes to our bodies, that counts double. It doesn't matter if you're a catwalk model or the archetypal couch potato — a million bucks says there's something about your body you'd be happy to change. But while, for most people, that desire is focused on health and fitness, but for other, let's say motivated people, the focus is squarely in big muscles at all costs, health be damned.


More Photos after the cut

1. Trevor Smith

                                                                       Trevor(L) making Jay Cutler seem small.
Trevor Smith never competed in any professional competitions, but despite this, he was well known and liked in the bodybuilding community. Rather than get on stage and flex in front of judges, Smith instead chose to coach, write articles, run his own bodybuilding business called Nuclear Nutrition, and create a workout regimen called Beyond Failure Training that … sounds utterly terrifying. But the thing h's most famous for is simply being huge. Trevor Smith stood 6'1", and at his peak weighed over 400 pounds. Unfortunately, to get that big, he not only had to train excessively, but also reportedly used steroids. All that extra weight, and the damage done to his internal organs by years of steroid abuse, meant he was putting an excessive strain on his heart, and in 2004 he suffered a heart attack and died, at the age of 33.






2. Andreas Münzer

Steroids are pretty much a given if you want to get BIG in bodybuilding, but they're not the only medicine in the market. In order to achieve increased muscle definition, it's fairly common for bodybuilders to take diuretics, which according to Allmax, rids the taker's body of water and dehydrates it almost completely This has the effect of shrinking the skin and tissues on the surface of the body, which pull tight around the muscles and turn giant men into giant anatomy displays. Andreas Münzer utilized this technique, but also went a step further and managed to reduce his body fat to almost nothing, resulting in never-before-seen levels of muscle definition.

While this technique may have played a part in his numerous competitive successes, it almost certainly played a part in his downfall. Under the constant onslaught of dangerous chemicals and an incredibly unhealthy diet regime, Münzer's organs started to fail, and in March 1996 he was admitted to the hospital with severe stomach pains. Doctors tried to operate to stop the bleeding that was causing the pain, but he suffered multiple organ failures and died. An autopsy revealed numerous physical abnormalities, including a diseased liver covered with large tumors, a heart swollen to almost twice the normal size, and shrunken testicles. But obviously, since none of that is visible even when wearing speedos, it probably didn't matter to him.


3. Gregg Valentino

 Gregg Valentino is notable for two things: holding the record for the biggest arms, and being possibly the most hated man in the bodybuilding community, according to Elite Fitness. The reason being that, unlike most professional bulgers, Valentino didn't try to bulk his whole body evenly — rather, he focused on his arms, making him look like a cartoon character to serious bodybuilders. While he managed to get pretty big training naturally, it wasn't until he started using testosterone, steroids, and synthol (a type of oil used to add bulk), that his arms grew to an unbelievable 27 inches.

He must have liked what he saw (even though seemingly no one else did), because all that flexing in front of a mirror seemingly distracted him from observing the basic rules of hygiene. Valentino was so busy injecting that he stopped changing needles, instead reusing needles and not bothering to sterilize them. This (along with getting hit in the arm by a baseball bat) resulted in a very disgusting abscess in one of his arms, but he liked looking at his arms so much, he filmed himself trying to drain the wound in his own bathroom, rather than go to the doctor, When that inevitably failed to achieve anything other than make his bathroom look like the scene of a brutal murder, he gave in and went to the hospital, where the doctor had to slice open his arm to clean out the abscess. This left him with a large scar across his bicep, and a distinctly asymmetrical appearance.



4. Moustafa Ismail

 Moustafa Ismail is an Egyptian bodybuilder who walks in the footsteps of Gregg Valentino by focusing his efforts almost entirely on his arms. Legs, those thing we walk on? So overrated. Unfortunately, although he set a new world record with his biceps measuring an almost-alien 31 inches, he was later investigated for using less-than-natural means to achieve it. As a result, any mention of his record was quietly removed from the Guinness World Record official website. Among bodybuilders, it's widely believed that he's a serious user of synthetic oils that artificially bulk his biceps, a claim that he denies. Either way, there's enough meat in those arms to keep a starving family full for several days, though if the rumors are true, the FDA probably wouldn't approve it for human consumption.

5. Greg Kovacs

 Hailing from Niagara Falls, Canada, Greg Kovacs was a professional bodybuilder of remarkable dimensions. He measured well over 6 feet tall, and weighed anywhere from 330 pounds for competitions, to over 400 pounds in the off-season. You may not be surprised to hear that he was a heavy user of steroids, hormones, and probably a few other things, and this contributed to his massive weight gain. As you can see in the video above, he was huge, physically dominating his competitors and making them look like children in comparison. But like Trevor Smith, all that extra weight (and almost certainly high doses of drugs) did his health no good at all, leaving him dead from a heart attack in 2013, at the age of 44