Skip La Cour is one of the most popular alleged natural bodybuilders. Many natties aspire to attain his physique. But is this a pipe dream? Can you get there naturally? Is Skip La Cour natty or not?
image via: bodybuilding.com
The personal website of Skip La Cour reveals that in his prime his body stats were:
|
Height: |
5’11” (180cm) |
|
Weight: |
216 lbs (98kg) |
|
Off season weight: |
Up to 240 lbs (110kg) |
The numbers above represent an exceptional muscular development. The size of Skip La Cour rivals many former bodybuilding champions.
One of the best ways to learn if someone is natty is to compare him to IFBB pros who have competed during the Golden Era of Bodybuilding.
This method works nicely. There is no need for a lab, and yet the results are very accurate.
Note: Most bodybuilders from the Golden Era took steroids. Back then, steroids were legal and available in abundance in gyms.
The first bodybuilder to whom we will compare Skip La Cour is the legendary Mike Mentzer.
Mike had the following body stats in his prime:
Image via: bodybuilding.com
|
Height: |
5’8″ (173 cm) |
|
Weight: |
225 lbs (103kg) |
|
Off season weight: |
unknown |
To summarize: Mike Mentzer was 3 (three) inches shorter than Skip La Cour and only 9 (nine) lbs heavier than him in contest shape.
If we assume that both athletes were about 5-8% in a shredded condition, their respective lean body mass would be:
Mike Mentzer – 213.75 lbs (95% of 225 lbs)
Skip La Cour – 205.2 lbs (95% of 216 lbs)
Isn’t it weird that natural bodybuilders are getting so close to former champions?
Is whey protein getting as good as Deca?
Another bodybuilder from the Golden Era to whom we will compare Skip La Cour is three times Mr. Olympia Frank Zane.
In his prime, Zane had the following body stats:
|
Off-season weight: |
200 lbs (91kg) |
|
Competition weight: |
185lbs (83kg) |
|
Height: |
5’9” (175cm) |
|
Arms: |
18” (45cm) |
To summarize: Skip La Cour is 2 inches taller than Frank Zane and weighs 16lbs more. At 5% body fat, the respective lean body mass of both athletes would be:
Frank Zane – 175.75 lbs (95% of 185lbs)
Skip La Cour – 205.2 lbs (95% of 216 lbs)
The difference amounts to 30lbs. Isn’t it weird that there are natty bodybuilders who weigh 30lbs more than a former Mr.Olympia?
The next bodybuilder that we will use for a comparison is Sergio Oliva a.k.a. The Myth. The body stats of Sergio Oliva were:
|
Height: |
5’10” (178 cm) |
|
Weight: |
225 lbs (103kg) |
|
Off season weight: |
unknown |
To summarize: Sergio Oliva is an inch shorter than Skip La Cour and only 9lbs heavier. At 5% body fat, the lean body masses of the two bodybuilders were:
Sergio Oliva – 213.75 lbs (95% of 185lbs)
Skip La Cour – 205.2 lbs (95% of 216 lbs)
The difference is 7-9lbs in favor of Oliva.
Finally, we will compare Skip La Cour to Flex Wheeler – a symbol of symmetry and great lines.
In his prime, Flex Wheeler had the following body stats:
|
Height: |
5’9″ (175 cm) |
|
Weight: |
210-225 lbs (95 – 102kg) |
|
Off season weight: |
265-275lbs (120-125kg) |
To summarize: Flex Wheeler was an inch shorter than Skip La Cour and only up to 9lbs heavier than him in contest condition.
Makes you wonder…
You fail to mention the introduction of creatine to natural bodybuilding. This can put 5-10 lbs of water inside of a natural bodybuilder’s muscles.
This website has real potential, but it is just so negative and self-limiting and uses selection bias to enforce such a view.
Before deciding whether someone is “Natty or Not”, we need to define what “Natty” is. To some it means only eating whole foods, to others, it is simply following what the natural federation says is natural. I submit, that is it anything that is readily available in food or plants & herbs is considered natural. If these things come in supplement form, then that is ok because this is simply preparation.
So what is allowed? As long as it is ingested and not injected; things such as Whey Protein, Creatine, Glutamine, Amino Acids, Vitamins, etc.., are OK, Caffeine, Ephedra and maybe as far as Tribulus would be within natural. What is not allowed are Steroids, GH, Pro-Hormones, DHEA, TRT, etc.., and I think even though it is difficult to define exactly, most people know if they are “Natty”.
In this regard, Skip La Cour is not Natty because he has openly shared his pro-hormone use in his journals and when challenged on his Natty status, he has defined Natty as anything that is allowed by the guys at Team Universe and if that reduces his status to “legal bodybuilder” or “OTC bodybuilder” then so be it.
However, I get by this site, the accusation is that Skip La Cour uses Steroids and maybe even GH. Skip has said he has never used steroids and has consistently passed drug tests throughout his career.
To evidence Skip’s drug use, “Truth Seeker” has put forward a number of comparisons, however, if we are to make comparisons, we need to be fair; the comparisons but forward are twisted and the examples used demonstrate classic selection bias, ie. examples designed to support a pre-determined outcome.
There have been radical advances in the fields of sports nutrition, supplementation, dietary dynamics, training knowledge, etc.., since the 70’s so in order to allow for that, you need to take bodybuilders from Skip’s era (his best years were 1998, 2002 & 2003) who would have had access to all of those things. Also, Skip is 5’11”, quite big-boned and used to rep with heavy weights; ie. 475 bench, 585 squat, etc, so to be fair we need to make comparisons with his actual peers who were using steroids.
So far the comparisons used were Frank Zane who is shorter, competed 30 years earlier and who Arnold referred to as “a twig with 17 inch arms”. The other comparison was Mentzer, a massive coke-head and habitual speed user (none of which are particularly anabolic) who was 3 inches shorter and competed 30 years earlier. Then there is Sergio, he was competing 40 years earlier and was actually competing at 240lbs. Then there is a comparison with Flex Wheeler, a bodybuilder with 6 inch wrists who after 1993 was competing around 235lbs and was 2 inches short than skip.
To make the comparison fair, we need to look at bodybuilders around the same time, of similar height and compare them with Skip, who weighed 216lbs the Thursday before the 2002 & 2003 shows but was around 205lbs on the day of the show. Skip is an elite-level, gifted, natural so we need to compare his competition weight with bodybuilders of similar structure, strength, and height:
Stage weights:
Skip La Cour, 5’11” – 205lbs
Ronny Coleman, 5’11” – 296lbs
Dorian Yates, 5’11” 270lbs
Nasser El Sonbaty, 5’11” 280lbs
JP Fux, 6’ 275lbs
Marcus Ruhl, 5’10” 282lbs
Chris Cormier, 5’9” 250lbs (party boy that did a lot of drugs)
Kevin Levrone, 5’9” 250lbs (only trained 5 months a year and went skinny in-between)
Skip trained year round, ate clean, had the backing of one of the best supplement companies out there, he recorded every weight, rep, set, calorie and even hired Tony Robins, yet when he tried competing in an untested show (the NPC), his best showing was in 2003 when he placed 10th in the heavyweights at 205lbs, Dave Palumbo was in that show at 5’9” weighing 260lbs.
Apart from pro-hormones which Skip says had little overall impact, I could believe he was steroid and GH free.