Liver Amino
Hello Old Timer!
Have you noticed how few world records fell at the Olympics in track and field and weightlifting? I know Asa Bolt tore it up, but other than him it was pretty sparse. The German who won the heavyweight weightlifting gold medal clean & jerked roughly the same as Vasily Alexev did in 1976! The lighter weightlifter guys are
doing better – but I think that is attributable to the huge influx of Chinese lifters…in wartime the Chinese have always used the ‘human wave’ tactic and in sport they seem to be doing the same thing. The shot put, discus, high jump and long jump winners at this Olympics all jumped or threw less than in previous Olympics. What are your thoughts? Is it because the drug testing is better?
Rick, Atlanta
Your letter really resonated with me because after it was all said and done, I noticed the same thing. Performances in all Olympic sports have flat-lined. Not to sound messianic about it, but I think humans have about reached the limit of their evolutionary curve. I think that athletically as a species we’ve gone about as far as we are going to go. Yes the drug testing is better and because of that drugs are having less of an impact than they did during the sixties, seventies, eighties and nineties. Starting in the 1950’s and lasting until the late 1980s, the Iron Curtain countries, East Germany, Russia, Bulgaria, etc., actively sought ways to beat drug testing. Can you imagine a coordinated effort on the part of a government – involving thousands of officials, doctors, scientists and coaches – spending millions of dollars and devoting massive resources to purposefully doping elite athletes in such a way as to beat the doping protocols of the day? It makes the Marion Jones/BALCO scandal seem like kids playing in a sandbox compared to the construction of a skyscraper. Why did communist governments make beating drug tests and doping athletes such a top priority? They wanted to parade their gold medal winners around to prove to their impoverished, imprisoned populations that their political system was superior to capitalist societies of Western Europe and the United States. Many of the records that were set in the seventies still stand or have been barely exceeded. Dude, as you point out, Alexev clean and jerked 567 in 1976! Was he doped? You bet. We all thought way back then that the 600 pound clean and jerk was just around the corner. Guess what? 32 years later and we are still waiting for someone to break the 600 barrier! In 2008 the gold medal winner improved the massive Russian’s mark by a scant few pounds.
Bolt was incredible, but he and swimmer Michael Phelps were the exception. Bolt got a lot of attention for “shattering” the 220 yard dash record when in fact he barely bested Michael Johnson’s record of 19.32 with a 19.30 effort. Johnson set his 19.32 mark in 1996 and he broke a record that had stood for 17 years. Over a 29 year time span the 200 meter record improved by a scant .4 of a second. Sebastian Coe’s 800 meter mark of 1:41.73 stood for 16 years before Wilson Kipketer’s beat it in 1997. That record hasn’t been seriously challenged since. Cuba’s Javier Sotomayor set the current world high jump record of 8 feet ¼ inch on July 27, 1993. Mike Powell bested Bob Beamon’s 23-year-old mark in 1991 and no one has bested that since. American Randy Barnes set his world shot put record of 72 feet in 1990. In weightlifting we are seeing a similar phenomenon: lifts set 10, 20 and 30 years ago are not budging. Drug testing done today is much better than it was in past decades and once you take drugs out of the equation you see across-the-board record-breaking stagnation. My own pet theory is that we are at the apex of human development. After World War II world records fell in every sport with predictable regularity. Enter widespread doping in the sixties and the world record onslaught continued, peaking in the late 1980s. After the fall of communism and with the increasing sophistication of testing methods and protocols, record breaking began to stagnate. My conclusion is that as a species humans have peaked! Drugs and training breakthroughs accounted for the rapid upward curve of the world records from 1945 until the late 1980s. Past that and record breaking has pretty much ceased. Sure we will have occasional genetic wonders like Phelps and Bolt, and sure the Chinese will periodically find a marvelous athlete after sorting through millions of prospects – but generally speaking all the antidotal evidence points to the fact that we are about done for, athletically speaking.
Vic,
What’s new in Parrillo world? I got a box of Chew Bars™ and they were exceptional – I find it interesting that a lot of the same Parrillo Products I purchased back in 1980 are still being sold by Parrillo today – Beef Liver Aminos™, Pro-Carb™, Hi-Protein™…it’s wild – while everyone else in the nutritional world is discarding products right and left, a good portion of those original Parrillo products are still
with us…
Randall, Denton
All of the products John originally introduced are still in production. Not a single Parrillo product has ever been discontinued. The answer is simple: each product was originally introduced to fill a specific need. Each used the finest available ingredients and each developed a loyal following among athletes, bodybuilders and serious fitness trainers. The need that each product originally addressed still exists and as a result each of the products is still needed and still has a substantial fan base.
Pro-Carb™ was designed to provide bodybuilders and athletes a quality source of carbohydrate that did not spike insulin. Anyone can provide a carb product that spikes insulin – hell, go buy a box of candy bars – they have lots of calories and provide carbs galore – the trick is providing carbs (other than vegetables) that don’t spike insulin. Pro-Carb™ was that product and the reason it is still in production is individuals still need Pro-Carb™. Off season bodybuilders seeking to add quality muscle without adding body fat cannot find a better supplemental product than Pro-Carb™. This brilliant concoction still resonates with the public because as long as men lift weights and as long as they seek to become more and more muscular, Pro-Carb™ remains the ideal mass building supplement.
Hi-Protein™ was introduced by Parrillo Performance to fill the then urgent need for a quality, potent supplemental protein source. Back when Hi-Protein™ was introduced, protein powders abounded – but they were loaded with sugar to make their weak, cheap protein palatable. Anyone can buy a cheap, impotent protein, add a bunch of sugar to make the putrid powder palatable, slap a fancy label on the jug sporting some steroid monster and make outrageous, unsubstantiated claims. What is difficult is creating a potent protein powder that tastes fabulous without resorting to sugar. Hi-Protein™ uses slow release caseinate with whey protein and is still in production because it is as effective and in demand today as it was the day it was released. If Parrillo ever lost his mind and stopped producing Hi-Protein™ athletes would storm Parrillo HQ with torches and pitchforks. Has there ever been a better tasting protein powder on the market?
Liver Amino Formula™ was created to provide bodybuilders and athletes a source of high quality protein that could be consumed throughout the day. Each pressed pill contains 1.5 grams of high BV protein along with loads of blood-building, immune system-building heme iron. Were you aware that when Arnold and Franco were at their bodybuilding peak, each man gobbled down 100 beef liver tabs each and every day? Bodybuilders and athletes can carry beef liver tabs around with them and take 3-10 tabs, 3-6 times per day. This insures they acquire and stay in that most beneficial of all metabolic state: positive nitrogen balance. Supplementing with beef liver is as smart and effective in 2008 as it was in 1978.
CapTri® remains the most innovative supplement ever devised. In order to create a larger, leaner physique, John Parrillo knew that bodybuilders needed a clean source of quality calories. The trick was to create a supplement that provided lots of calories yet did not add body fat. Parrillo sought to create a certain type of supplement that provided a certain type of calorie. Not all calories are created equal: some calories have a natural tendency to easily convert into body fat; other calories have a natural tendency to build muscle or to be used as energy. Parrillo discovered that medium-chain triglycerides had the caloric density of fat (8.3 calories per gram) yet CapTri®’s unique molecular structure made its calories impossible to end up partitioned into body fat. CapTri® was and is the most famous and the most popular of all Parrillo products.
The Parrillo Energy Bar™ was originally called the Parrillo Supplement Bar. The formulation remains virtually the same and the need it serves remains the same. The widespread popularity of the Parrillo Energy Bar™ is easy to understand: think of this potent bar as a portable ‘meal in a wrapper.’ This prototype Parrillo bar weighed 65 grams, contained 240 calories, and caused a sensation. Devoid of sugar, tasting delicious, loaded with protein, low GI carbs and CapTri®, the Energy Bar™ could be stashed in a glove box, locker, gym bag, desk drawer, file cabinet or shirt pocket. The introduction of the Parrillo bar meant that the hard training athlete would never have to miss a meal again. These amazing bars were a runaway hit when they were introduced and remain a bestseller in the year 2008.
Hello Mr. Vic,
What do you look for in a woman? My girlfriends and I are longtime fans of yours – we met you at the Arnold Classic a few years back. What do you look for in a woman? We can’t picture you with a girly-girl. So I thought I’d ask. I assume you are taken?
Denise, Portland
I’m happily married to a former Ms. Maryland. First let me say that I am a registered independent – I hate all political parties don’t see a nickels worth of difference between the Donkey or the Elephant. I think politicians are inherently corrupt and saw quite a few bad examples up close and personal when I did high level security work a few decades back. Having said that, I gotta say that (politics aside) this Sarah Palin babe gets me aroused. Imagine being able to hunt and skin moose with your girlfriend? What a great date. Imagine racing snowmobiles together or fishing for giant Alaskan salmon with your life partner? Imagine sighting in your 30.06 or Glock 9 with a sexy babe? It would be one thing to do all this with some overly manly woman, some female oaf that looked like Frank Zane in a wig – but this Palin gal is sexy and sultry. Her old man looks like a guy I used to train with and also looks like a good man to have with you in a bar fight.
Vic,
I am sending you an article on a guy that was involved in breaking up a car jacking in Miami last month. A couple of thugs stuck a gun in a lady’s face at an ATM and took off in her Mercedes with a baby still in the backseat. Apparently some mystery guy saw what was happening, ran and leapt through the driver side window as the thugs attempted to speed away. This guy beat the sh-t out of the driver, breaking his arm while seizing control of the car. Gun shots went off as this mystery man, half in half out of the moving car, grabbed the second thug by the hair and yanked him so hard it apparently broke his neck – though it didn’t kill him. He got the car stopped, reunited the baby with the mom, refused to identify himself and split before the cops showed up. It is a big story down here and the physical description (older Latino guy, very muscular with a knife scar on his face) sounded suspiciously like your old mercenary buddy. I wondered if it was Santana Hanna – have you heard anything about this story. Is he in Florida?
Raoul, Miami
Hmmm…everything about that story sounds like my old comrade in arms. I haven’t heard from that certifiable bad-ass in almost five years. I heard rumors that he was doing contract work in Afghanistan tracking Bin Laden. Nothing verifiable. I will tell you one quick story about Santana that I can verify. He and another friend of mine were coming out of a New York nightclub at 2am one evening in the late 80s when they saw two street predators holding up a man and woman. It was a strong-arm robbery – no gun. Santana later told me, “Vic I had no intention of getting involved until I saw one of the thugs smash the woman in the face. She went down and I looked at Bubba and said, ‘It’s Go Time!’ You remember Bubba – he fought Marvin Hagler back in 1977 and lost on decision. So we sprint across the street yelling to get the thug’s attention. Bubba knocks his man out cold with three shots. Meanwhile my guy squares up to meet me. I can tell he’s a seasoned street fighter just by the way he settles into his back-loaded stance; he’s like 5-10 and maybe 240, no cupcake. I enter his strike zone and use an outside front kick to his lead knee as he throws a left uppercut – I take the punch and it rocks me. I think, ‘This punk can fight!’ My knee kick really lands square and he buckles. I start hitting him in the face with my Sunday punch, my overhand right. I keep firing and landing, over and over and over and over…still this bitch won’t fall! That’s when I realized that the reason he wouldn’t fall down was I had a hold of his leather jacket with my left hand. As soon as I released my adrenaline grip on his jacket, he crumpled and fell. I had caved in the left side of his face. That’s when we heard that unmistakable sound of a round being jacked into a shotgun as a voice yells ‘Freeze Bitches!’ It was a Manhattan undercover cop and his partner. The cops had us on our knees, fingers interlaced behind our head. The two civilian robbery victims told them what happened and the cop with the shotgun looks at his partner, nods and tells us, ‘Take off!’ He didn’t have to tell us twice. The guy I worked over would definitely need some plastic surgery and possibly facial reconstruction.”
…That’s the Santana I knew and loved. Sounds like he might have resurfaced.
Liver Amino
Hello Old Timer!
Have you noticed how few world records fell at the Olympics in track and field and weightlifting? I know Asa Bolt tore it up, but other than him it was pretty sparse. The German who won the heavyweight weightlifting gold medal clean & jerked roughly the same as Vasily Alexev did in 1976! The lighter weightlifter guys are
doing better – but I think that is attributable to the huge influx of Chinese lifters…in wartime the Chinese have always used the ‘human wave’ tactic and in sport they seem to be doing the same thing. The shot put, discus, high jump and long jump winners at this Olympics all jumped or threw less than in previous Olympics. What are your thoughts? Is it because the drug testing is better?
Rick, Atlanta
Your letter really resonated with me because after it was all said and done, I noticed the same thing. Performances in all Olympic sports have flat-lined. Not to sound messianic about it, but I think humans have about reached the limit of their evolutionary curve. I think that athletically as a species we’ve gone about as far as we are going to go. Yes the drug testing is better and because of that drugs are having less of an impact than they did during the sixties, seventies, eighties and nineties. Starting in the 1950’s and lasting until the late 1980s, the Iron Curtain countries, East Germany, Russia, Bulgaria, etc., actively sought ways to beat drug testing. Can you imagine a coordinated effort on the part of a government – involving thousands of officials, doctors, scientists and coaches – spending millions of dollars and devoting massive resources to purposefully doping elite athletes in such a way as to beat the doping protocols of the day? It makes the Marion Jones/BALCO scandal seem like kids playing in a sandbox compared to the construction of a skyscraper. Why did communist governments make beating drug tests and doping athletes such a top priority? They wanted to parade their gold medal winners around to prove to their impoverished, imprisoned populations that their political system was superior to capitalist societies of Western Europe and the United States. Many of the records that were set in the seventies still stand or have been barely exceeded. Dude, as you point out, Alexev clean and jerked 567 in 1976! Was he doped? You bet. We all thought way back then that the 600 pound clean and jerk was just around the corner. Guess what? 32 years later and we are still waiting for someone to break the 600 barrier! In 2008 the gold medal winner improved the massive Russian’s mark by a scant few pounds.
Bolt was incredible, but he and swimmer Michael Phelps were the exception. Bolt got a lot of attention for “shattering” the 220 yard dash record when in fact he barely bested Michael Johnson’s record of 19.32 with a 19.30 effort. Johnson set his 19.32 mark in 1996 and he broke a record that had stood for 17 years. Over a 29 year time span the 200 meter record improved by a scant .4 of a second. Sebastian Coe’s 800 meter mark of 1:41.73 stood for 16 years before Wilson Kipketer’s beat it in 1997. That record hasn’t been seriously challenged since. Cuba’s Javier Sotomayor set the current world high jump record of 8 feet ¼ inch on July 27, 1993. Mike Powell bested Bob Beamon’s 23-year-old mark in 1991 and no one has bested that since. American Randy Barnes set his world shot put record of 72 feet in 1990. In weightlifting we are seeing a similar phenomenon: lifts set 10, 20 and 30 years ago are not budging. Drug testing done today is much better than it was in past decades and once you take drugs out of the equation you see across-the-board record-breaking stagnation. My own pet theory is that we are at the apex of human development. After World War II world records fell in every sport with predictable regularity. Enter widespread doping in the sixties and the world record onslaught continued, peaking in the late 1980s. After the fall of communism and with the increasing sophistication of testing methods and protocols, record breaking began to stagnate. My conclusion is that as a species humans have peaked! Drugs and training breakthroughs accounted for the rapid upward curve of the world records from 1945 until the late 1980s. Past that and record breaking has pretty much ceased. Sure we will have occasional genetic wonders like Phelps and Bolt, and sure the Chinese will periodically find a marvelous athlete after sorting through millions of prospects – but generally speaking all the antidotal evidence points to the fact that we are about done for, athletically speaking.
Vic,
What’s new in Parrillo world? I got a box of Chew Bars™ and they were exceptional – I find it interesting that a lot of the same Parrillo Products I purchased back in 1980 are still being sold by Parrillo today – Beef Liver Aminos™, Pro-Carb™, Hi-Protein™…it’s wild – while everyone else in the nutritional world is discarding products right and left, a good portion of those original Parrillo products are still
with us…
Randall, Denton
All of the products John originally introduced are still in production. Not a single Parrillo product has ever been discontinued. The answer is simple: each product was originally introduced to fill a specific need. Each used the finest available ingredients and each developed a loyal following among athletes, bodybuilders and serious fitness trainers. The need that each product originally addressed still exists and as a result each of the products is still needed and still has a substantial fan base.
Pro-Carb™ was designed to provide bodybuilders and athletes a quality source of carbohydrate that did not spike insulin. Anyone can provide a carb product that spikes insulin – hell, go buy a box of candy bars – they have lots of calories and provide carbs galore – the trick is providing carbs (other than vegetables) that don’t spike insulin. Pro-Carb™ was that product and the reason it is still in production is individuals still need Pro-Carb™. Off season bodybuilders seeking to add quality muscle without adding body fat cannot find a better supplemental product than Pro-Carb™. This brilliant concoction still resonates with the public because as long as men lift weights and as long as they seek to become more and more muscular, Pro-Carb™ remains the ideal mass building supplement.
Hi-Protein™ was introduced by Parrillo Performance to fill the then urgent need for a quality, potent supplemental protein source. Back when Hi-Protein™ was introduced, protein powders abounded – but they were loaded with sugar to make their weak, cheap protein palatable. Anyone can buy a cheap, impotent protein, add a bunch of sugar to make the putrid powder palatable, slap a fancy label on the jug sporting some steroid monster and make outrageous, unsubstantiated claims. What is difficult is creating a potent protein powder that tastes fabulous without resorting to sugar. Hi-Protein™ uses slow release caseinate with whey protein and is still in production because it is as effective and in demand today as it was the day it was released. If Parrillo ever lost his mind and stopped producing Hi-Protein™ athletes would storm Parrillo HQ with torches and pitchforks. Has there ever been a better tasting protein powder on the market?
Liver Amino Formula™ was created to provide bodybuilders and athletes a source of high quality protein that could be consumed throughout the day. Each pressed pill contains 1.5 grams of high BV protein along with loads of blood-building, immune system-building heme iron. Were you aware that when Arnold and Franco were at their bodybuilding peak, each man gobbled down 100 beef liver tabs each and every day? Bodybuilders and athletes can carry beef liver tabs around with them and take 3-10 tabs, 3-6 times per day. This insures they acquire and stay in that most beneficial of all metabolic state: positive nitrogen balance. Supplementing with beef liver is as smart and effective in 2008 as it was in 1978.
CapTri® remains the most innovative supplement ever devised. In order to create a larger, leaner physique, John Parrillo knew that bodybuilders needed a clean source of quality calories. The trick was to create a supplement that provided lots of calories yet did not add body fat. Parrillo sought to create a certain type of supplement that provided a certain type of calorie. Not all calories are created equal: some calories have a natural tendency to easily convert into body fat; other calories have a natural tendency to build muscle or to be used as energy. Parrillo discovered that medium-chain triglycerides had the caloric density of fat (8.3 calories per gram) yet CapTri®’s unique molecular structure made its calories impossible to end up partitioned into body fat. CapTri® was and is the most famous and the most popular of all Parrillo products.
The Parrillo Energy Bar™ was originally called the Parrillo Supplement Bar. The formulation remains virtually the same and the need it serves remains the same. The widespread popularity of the Parrillo Energy Bar™ is easy to understand: think of this potent bar as a portable ‘meal in a wrapper.’ This prototype Parrillo bar weighed 65 grams, contained 240 calories, and caused a sensation. Devoid of sugar, tasting delicious, loaded with protein, low GI carbs and CapTri®, the Energy Bar™ could be stashed in a glove box, locker, gym bag, desk drawer, file cabinet or shirt pocket. The introduction of the Parrillo bar meant that the hard training athlete would never have to miss a meal again. These amazing bars were a runaway hit when they were introduced and remain a bestseller in the year 2008.
Hello Mr. Vic,
What do you look for in a woman? My girlfriends and I are longtime fans of yours – we met you at the Arnold Classic a few years back. What do you look for in a woman? We can’t picture you with a girly-girl. So I thought I’d ask. I assume you are taken?
Denise, Portland
I’m happily married to a former Ms. Maryland. First let me say that I am a registered independent – I hate all political parties don’t see a nickels worth of difference between the Donkey or the Elephant. I think politicians are inherently corrupt and saw quite a few bad examples up close and personal when I did high level security work a few decades back. Having said that, I gotta say that (politics aside) this Sarah Palin babe gets me aroused. Imagine being able to hunt and skin moose with your girlfriend? What a great date. Imagine racing snowmobiles together or fishing for giant Alaskan salmon with your life partner? Imagine sighting in your 30.06 or Glock 9 with a sexy babe? It would be one thing to do all this with some overly manly woman, some female oaf that looked like Frank Zane in a wig – but this Palin gal is sexy and sultry. Her old man looks like a guy I used to train with and also looks like a good man to have with you in a bar fight.
Vic,
I am sending you an article on a guy that was involved in breaking up a car jacking in Miami last month. A couple of thugs stuck a gun in a lady’s face at an ATM and took off in her Mercedes with a baby still in the backseat. Apparently some mystery guy saw what was happening, ran and leapt through the driver side window as the thugs attempted to speed away. This guy beat the sh-t out of the driver, breaking his arm while seizing control of the car. Gun shots went off as this mystery man, half in half out of the moving car, grabbed the second thug by the hair and yanked him so hard it apparently broke his neck – though it didn’t kill him. He got the car stopped, reunited the baby with the mom, refused to identify himself and split before the cops showed up. It is a big story down here and the physical description (older Latino guy, very muscular with a knife scar on his face) sounded suspiciously like your old mercenary buddy. I wondered if it was Santana Hanna – have you heard anything about this story. Is he in Florida?
Raoul, Miami
Hmmm…everything about that story sounds like my old comrade in arms. I haven’t heard from that certifiable bad-ass in almost five years. I heard rumors that he was doing contract work in Afghanistan tracking Bin Laden. Nothing verifiable. I will tell you one quick story about Santana that I can verify. He and another friend of mine were coming out of a New York nightclub at 2am one evening in the late 80s when they saw two street predators holding up a man and woman. It was a strong-arm robbery – no gun. Santana later told me, “Vic I had no intention of getting involved until I saw one of the thugs smash the woman in the face. She went down and I looked at Bubba and said, ‘It’s Go Time!’ You remember Bubba – he fought Marvin Hagler back in 1977 and lost on decision. So we sprint across the street yelling to get the thug’s attention. Bubba knocks his man out cold with three shots. Meanwhile my guy squares up to meet me. I can tell he’s a seasoned street fighter just by the way he settles into his back-loaded stance; he’s like 5-10 and maybe 240, no cupcake. I enter his strike zone and use an outside front kick to his lead knee as he throws a left uppercut – I take the punch and it rocks me. I think, ‘This punk can fight!’ My knee kick really lands square and he buckles. I start hitting him in the face with my Sunday punch, my overhand right. I keep firing and landing, over and over and over and over…still this bitch won’t fall! That’s when I realized that the reason he wouldn’t fall down was I had a hold of his leather jacket with my left hand. As soon as I released my adrenaline grip on his jacket, he crumpled and fell. I had caved in the left side of his face. That’s when we heard that unmistakable sound of a round being jacked into a shotgun as a voice yells ‘Freeze Bitches!’ It was a Manhattan undercover cop and his partner. The cops had us on our knees, fingers interlaced behind our head. The two civilian robbery victims told them what happened and the cop with the shotgun looks at his partner, nods and tells us, ‘Take off!’ He didn’t have to tell us twice. The guy I worked over would definitely need some plastic surgery and possibly facial reconstruction.”
…That’s the Santana I knew and loved. Sounds like he might have resurfaced.