Extreme: Muscle Men

In the wake of the steroid ring’s downfall, the headline-grabbing prosecutions combine with sports scandals and anxieties about steroids making it into high school locker rooms. Lawmakers decide to take action. The Steroid Control Act of 1990, spearheaded by none other than then-Senator Joe Biden, promises to deal with steroids once and for all.

But the USA already had a taste of what it felt like to get ripped - really ripped. And it’s hard to stuff the genie back in the bottle once it weighs 240 pounds of pure muscle.

Today, as millions of Americans take steroids with the aim of bulking up, host Natalia Mehlman Petrzela reckons with the enduring legacy of the steroid ring, and an era which transformed our ideas about fitness and beauty.

Featuring former bodybuilders William Dillon, Shawn Ray and Sandra Blackie; Mike Zumpano, co-author of The Underground Steroid Handbook; Professor of Sports Studies at Stirling College-Chengdu University, Daniel Rosenke; Dr Harrison Pope, Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School; and Daniel Supnick, a former special agent with the US Customs Service.

Presenter and Executive Producer: Natalia Mehlman Petrzela

A Novel production for BBC Radio 4

Featuring clips from:

Episodes are released weekly on Mondays. If you’re in the UK, you can listen to the latest episode, a week early, first on BBC Sounds https://bbc.in/3ybDcHO

When bodybuilder William Dillon moved to LA, he dreamed of getting rich quick by selling the promise of big muscles in a bottle. But in the spring of 1987, that dream has come crashing down around him. With the authorities closing in on the steroid dealing ring, and fearing for his life, it’s time for Dillon and the steroid dealing ring to face the music.

In the fallout from the investigators’ operation, things get ugly. Loyalties are tested, and Dillon’s life could be on the line. News of what was then the biggest steroid bust in American history travels across the US and beyond, and host Natalia Mehlman Petrzela explores how it lay the groundwork for an anti-steroid movement that’s about to transform the way these drugs are policed and regulated.

Featuring William Dillon, Mike Zumpano, and Professor Daniel Rosenke, Professor of Sports Studies and Stirling College-Chengdu University

Presenter and Executive Producer: Natalia Mehlman Petrzela

A Novel production for BBC Radio 4

Featuring clips from:

Episodes are released weekly on Mondays. If you’re in the UK, you can listen to the latest episode, a week early, first on BBC Sounds https://bbc.in/3ybDcHO

In the summer of 1986, bodybuilder William Dillon moves to San Diego to leave his steroid dealing days behind him, and live a quiet life of working out and running a gym. Or at least - that’s the plan. When Dillon’s old life comes calling, with the promise of easy money, it’s hard to resist.

Dillon returns to the steroid dealing ring he set up with a crew of gym rats and former athletes. But this time, they’re going to do things differently. Keep it professional and stay off the radar of the authorities. But as host Natalia Mehlman Petrzela reveals, for Dillon, keeping control of the steroid empire he’s built is going to be easier said than done. And when events begin to spiral, things get violent.

Dillon pins his hopes on one last deal - his exit strategy, so he can cash out and move back home to Illinois. But he’ll have to move quickly. Because federal investigators are planning an ambitious undercover operation that could take down the steroid ring once and for all.

Featuring William Dillon, Mike Zumpano, and Stephen Gelman.

Presenter and Executive Producer: Natalia Mehlman Petrzela

A Novel production for BBC Radio 4

Featuring clips from:

Episodes are released weekly on Mondays. If you’re in the UK, you can listen to the latest episode, a week early, first on BBC Sounds https://bbc.in/3ybDcHO

Nobody gets arrested for dealing anabolic steroids. That’s the assumption bodybuilder Dan Duchaine, William Dillon and their fellow ring-members are relying upon, as they build the biggest steroid trafficking operation in America. But that’s all about to change.

As President Ronald Reagan’s War on Drugs rages in the mid 1980s, the ring find themselves in the crosshairs of a team of dogged investigators leading the fight against steroids.

Host Natalia Mehlman Petrzela reveals how a newly formed National Steroid Taskforce put steroids enforcement, once seen as a fringe issue by the authorities, on the map. That’s bad news for Dillon and his fellow steroid dealers. But catching them won’t be easy…

Featuring William Dillon; Daniel Supnick, a former special agent with the US Customs Service, and former special agent in the Criminal Investigations Division of the IRS, Stephen Gelman.

Presenter and Executive Producer: Natalia Mehlman Petrzela

A Novel production for BBC Radio 4

Featuring clips from:

Episodes are released weekly on Mondays. If you’re in the UK, you can listen to the latest episode, a week early, first on BBC Sounds https://bbc.in/3ybDcHO

In the lobby of Caesar’s Palace Hotel in Las Vegas there’s a modern-day shrine to a 2000 year old adonis - complete with perfectly square pecs. Michelangelo’s David. 17 feet of white marble beefcake. This is an ideal that bodybuilders can only aspire to. And in the 80s bodybuilding scene, a particular image of perfection emerges and begins to transform what American culture thinks of as a desirable man - one that’s bulked up and defined.

But in the 1980s, the supersized muscular body isn’t approved of for everyone. Host, historian and fitness expert Natalia Mehlman Petrzela explores how strong, muscular women’s bodies were policed, while gay men were excluded from mainstream gym culture, instead forging a strong and vital subculture.

In this atmosphere, for many, steroids seem to offer the perfect quick fix route to “perfection”. And there’s money to be made - the steroid ring built by Dillon, Duchaine and Jenkins is making money hand over fist. But can this Supersized American Dream last forever? Someone is watching them…

Featuring former owner of Gold’s Gym Ed Connors, former bodybuilders William Dillon, Joe Troccoli and Sandra Blackie, personal trainer and author of Muscle Boys: Gay Gym Culture Erick Alvarez, and Dr Harrison Pope, Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Presenter and Executive Producer: Natalia Mehlman Petrzela

A Novel production for BBC Radio 4

Featuring clips from:

Episodes are released weekly on Mondays. If you’re in the UK, you can listen to the latest episode, a week early, first on BBC Sounds https://bbc.in/3ybDcHO

Prior to the 1983 Pan American Games in Caracas Venezuela, the issue of sports doping was largely flying under the American public’s radar. But when 19 athletes are found positive for using banned substances at the games, steroids are thrust into focus. And a stigma starts to grow.

At the same time, authorities are cracking down on the manufacture of one of the most popular anabolics in the bodybuilding community - dianabol. It’s the perfect setting for a black market boom.

Enter William Dillon, Dan Duchaine and an entrepreneurial British ex Olympic track champion named David Jenkins who turn the steroid drought into an opportunity. Together, they supercharge their steroid operation.

In Episode 3 of Muscle Men, historian, podcaster and fitness expert Natalia Mehlman Petrzela looks at the evolution of the use of steroids in sports, from its early days in the Soviet Union’s sports programme, to its rise to the highest levels of international sport.

Featuring former bodybuilder William Dillon; Professor of Sports Studies at Stirling College-Chengdu University, Daniel Rosenke; and former Olympic weightlifter and weightlifting coach Michael Cohen.

Presenter and Executive Producer: Natalia Mehlman Petrzela

A Novel production for BBC Radio 4

Featuring clips from:

Episodes are released weekly on Mondays. If you’re in the UK, you can listen to the latest episode, a week early, first on BBC Sounds https://bbc.in/3ybDcHO

Historian, podcaster and fitness expert Natalia Mehlman Petrzela lifts the lid on the steroid underground - a world of risk-taking and experimentation that lies beneath the glamorous surface of life in the 1980s LA gym scene. It’s all about making it big, at any cost.

This is the scene that young bodybuilder William Dillon is initiated into, now that he’s settled into the California lifting community. He meets The Steroid Guru aka Dan Duchaine, a maverick anabolic enthusiast with a chemical fascination, who isn’t afraid to experiment on himself - or anyone else. Duchaine is a cult figure in this world - his book The Underground Steroid Handbook spread the secrets of juicing to gym rats all over the USA and beyond.

From that meeting with Duchaine, Dillon spots a big opportunity that marries his two favourite things - strength and wealth.

Featuring William Dillon, Joe Troccoli, Sandra Blackie, Dr Jeff Golini, and former bodybuilder and co-author of The Underground Steroid Handbook, Mike Zumpano.

Presenter and Executive Producer: Natalia Mehlman Petrzela

A Novel production for BBC Radio 4

Episodes are released weekly on Mondays. If you’re in the UK, you can listen to the latest episode, a week early, first on BBC Sounds https://bbc.in/3ybDcHO

Meet William Dillon. A young amateur bodybuilder from small-town Illinois, who dreams of getting ripped.

It’s the early 1980s and across the USA a fitness revolution is underway. Exercise has become a national pastime and Arnold Schwarzenegger is taking the jacked-up physique mainstream. Dillon is one of many young men with a new kind of American dream - big muscles, and big money.

In 1984, a lucky break transports Dillon to star-studded LA, and the world’s most iconic bodybuilding gym, Gold’s Gym. There, to the sound of clanking steel weights and a pumping disco beat, a new physical ideal is being forged that’s changing the way Americans look in the mirror.

But Dillon’s about to learn that, beneath the glittering surface of this world, there’s a secret. And when he discovers the chemical key to how many of the guys get BIG, it will set him on a path that will change his life - and many others - forever.

In the first episode of Extreme: Muscle Men, historian, podcaster and fitness expert Natalia Mehlman Petrzela - presenter of hit podcast Welcome To Your Fantasy (Gimlet) - reveals how the California beach body became an iconic symbol of the 80s fitness boom. When that boom collided with anabolic steroids, it sparked a chemical and criminal revolution that would transform bodies all across America.

Featuring William Dillon, former bodybuilders Joe Troccoli, Sandra Blackie and Dr Jeff Golini, and former co-owner of Gold’s Gym, Ed Connors.

Presenter and Executive Producer: Natalia Mehlman Petrzela

A Novel production for BBC Radio 4

Episodes are released weekly on Mondays. If you’re in the UK, you can listen to the latest episode, a week early, first on BBC Sounds https://bbc.in/3ybDcHO

Muscle Men is season one of Extreme, the BBC podcast that knows no limits. Each action-packed season tells the story of people who’ve pushed themselves to the very edge of what’s physically or mentally possible – and in doing so, have changed the world...

Under the hot California sun, amateur bodybuilders and a former Olympic medallist build the biggest illegal steroid dealing ring the US had ever seen. And America gets ripped.

Episodes will be released on Mondays, starting on Mon 29 July. If you're in the UK, you'll be able to listen to the latest episodes of Extreme - Muscle Men first on BBC Sounds

Extreme: Muscle Men is presented by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela and produced by Novel.