Dead Man Talking
Lee Priest responds to the Dead Pool
by John Koenig
Here at Testosterone, we don't talk to many pro bodybuilders. We're not really fans of the "sport" and about the only time we hear from the pros is when we've pissed them off. Still, it's kind of hard to ignore them, especially when every other magazine on the market is filled with close up photos of their bulging torsos and smiling mugs. Plus there's always the element of morbid curiosity. How far can these guys push their bodies without becoming permanent roomies with Andreas Munzer and Jeep Swenson?
Being a bunch of sick bastards, we set up a little pool, a Dead Pool to be exact, that places odds on which pro is most likely to be "training with the angels" in the near future. Despite the fake names used by the author, it's pretty easy to spot Lee Priest in the lineup. Priest has made the pool for three years running, once coming in first place, the best he's done so far in a major competition.
It's no surprise that Lee wasn't too happy with that particular title. But instead of busting out his ass-whupping stool, standing on it and blacking every eye at T-mag, Lee was ballsy enough to do an interview with contributor John Koenig. Say what you will about pros, but at least Lee is open about what really goes on behind the scenes. For that, he deserves to be heard.
The Scene: Spring 2000, Arnold Classic Expo. Lee Priest has spotted me in my Testosterone T-shirt and press badge and starts walking toward me. He stops and immediately hits a big double biceps pose. Lee laughs and asks, "Not bad for a dead guy, don't ya think?"
Now there's an introduction! After talking for awhile about all manner of issues in the bodybuilding world, including the first Dead Pool article, he agrees to sit down for an interview. We keep talking about the interview but life gets in the way, including Lee's marriage early in July. The second Dead Pool article is published and this time Lee is upset. He doesn't think the anonymous author of the articles is fair, that Testosterone is hurting bodybuilding and pro bodybuilders by publishing the Dead Pool, and that much of the gossip/news in these articles is just plain incorrect.
His willingness to be open makes him an ideal candidate for a T-mag interview. Here's Lee Priest on a variety of topics.
T: Obviously, you're not too happy about the Dead Pool articles published here at T-mag. Go ahead and tell us what you really think.
Priest: This is the sort of press that gives bodybuilding a bad name. People are wondering now if we're all gonna die. How does the author of those articles know he's any healthier than me? Just because I eat junk food in the off season? Because I get a little bit overweight? My cholesterol has never been any higher than 116. At my heaviest weight (285 pounds) it was 113. The doctor couldn't believe it. My blood pressure is perfect. I have blood work done every couple of months.
Lots of that Dead Pool stuff is irritating. People say someone is going to die because of the gear he takes, but TC Luoma or anyone else could have a heart attack no matter how healthy they're eating. Look at Wayne DeMelia. He's had one kidney removed, but he didn't take any drugs. He probably used to sit there and say to himself, "Look at the amount of gear these guys take. Look what they do to themselves," but look at him. The Dead Pool writer can't point his finger and say just because this guy looks a certain way he's going to die. There are people at the gym who drink and smoke and have heart attacks in their mid-40s.
T: Are there any pros you think qualify for the Dead Pool?
Priest: Not really. In any sport, if you take it to the extreme, it's dangerous. Is there a Dead Pool for race car drivers, for example? They drive around 200 miles per hour; they could crash and burn, you know. Football players take drugs. They could get tackled the wrong way, hit their head on the ground, break their neck and die. If you're at the elite level of what you do, sure there are risks involved where you could die. You could get hit crossing the street; people go rock climbing and could fall off. Anything you do can be dangerous.
Marathon runners occasionally drop over dead. And even if I die of natural causes people will say, see, it's because of all the shit he's taken! And I'll probably be clean at the time! You can't win, no matter, in this sport. If we get sick or whatever, it's related to drugs, as far as other people are concerned.
T: You stand about 5'4". People say drugs stunted your growth. What's your response to that?
Priest: That's rubbish. I'm one of the tallest in my family. My mother's 5'3", my sister's 5'3", my father's probably 5'6", if that. My grandfather is 5'4" and my great grandfather was 5'4". I don't come from a family of six-foot people! I wasn't born that way.
T: Fair enough. Let's transition to other matters. You're one week into preparation for the Olympia and you told me the other day you lost sixteen pounds last week! How much did you weigh a week ago?
Priest: I think about 236.
T: So this is a different situation from your true off-season program when you get up into the heavier bodyweights?
Priest: What weight I get to depends upon how much time I have between contests. When I weighed 285, it was because I only did one show that year so I had the whole ten months to eat whatever I wanted. I don't necessarily try to see how heavy I can get.
T: But you obviously like to eat?
Priest: I just enjoy food! Life's too short to be on a diet your whole life. Eighty percent of the people you see on diets are always miserable.
T: Your approach has been called "old school."
Priest: Well, when it comes to dieting, when it comes to training, stick to the basics and you can't go wrong. Why try to mess up what's already been proven over and over?
T: I think you're one of the few top pros that really does get big in the off season nowadays.
Priest: I know, people say I'm going to get so heavy I'm going to die of a heart attack in the off season. Think about the old days, when all of them used to get heavy and put the extra weight on. But now, not many do it any more 'cause they always want to be near contest shape. They say, you eat all that food! You're so out of shape you're gonna die! Please. I've seen fat people who can run rings around people half their weight. Just because they're heavy doesn't mean they're out of shape. There are people who eat clean who are more unhealthy than some who are fat.
T: Do you think your routine, training and dieting this way, allows you to make gains without some of the different odd drugs others are using?
Priest: I've always read reports that said I've used insulin, for example. I've never used insulin. People think I have to, to put all that weight on. That's nonsense, I just eat a lot of food. I drink whole cream milk and eat a lot of dairy products. I retain a lot of fluid from that. In the off season I hardly take anything, other than something to keep my joints healthy. The majority of the time, six to seven months out of the year, I'm not on anything. Eat a lot, train hard. Every one of my best lifts have come when I've been off the stuff.
T: But you have to admit you have superior genetics. You seem to respond well to whatever you do to yourself.
Priest: I never had that "a little bit worked, so I'll take more" mentality. Each time I did a cycle, I stuck with small amounts that worked and it kept working. I know people here who are like, 3000 milligrams of this, four tablets of this, two more milligrams of this one? They end up taking six different drugs, so that ends up the very best cycle they've ever done. Then they think, well, I took this much last time, this time I've gotta take more. They keep doing more and more.
T: It sounds like they don't even know what's working.
Priest: No, they don't. People look at me, for example. I've only used growth hormone the last three years, and people will ask me if I think it works. To me, I didn't feel any different when I used it. When I've not used it, I've been just as good. When I've used it I didn't see any dramatic change. Maybe when you get into your thirties, or late thirties, you might feel it more then, but I think the whole thing is overrated, you know?
T: Did you try growth hormone just because you wanted to see what effect it would have on you?
Priest: Everyone was saying how it was great, how there's no health hazard, it drops body fat, does this and does that? but I ended up in the same shape anyway. The only change was I was a few hundred dollars lighter!
I found stanozolol [Winstrol] worked just as good as the growth, you know? People laugh, but a large part is genetics and mind power. I know guys who take drugs who look the same year after year. They use a lot, get puffy, but why bother? You've got to be in touch with yourself. Unless you're going to make a career out of it, why go crazy taking those drugs?
T: I've met guys who aren't competing bodybuilders who say they take phenomenal amounts of juice for long periods of time and they don't even look like they train.
Priest: I like the ones who take a shit load of gear, then they're like, look at Lee Priest. He's five times the size of me, so he must be taking five times the amount. That's why I get so frustrated, sometimes. When I do seminars, I tell people the truth about what I'm taking, and they're like, "Oh bullshit, you're lying!" I got nothing to lie about. If I took 10,000 milligrams of Test and 20 IU's of growth, I'd tell you. I don't give a shit if you know what I take. It makes no difference to me. What I use is what I use, but the rumor sounds more spectacular than the truth.
T: The Internet chat rooms have contributed to that, don't you think?
Priest: Yeah, sometimes I'll go online and say, "I'm Lee Priest and this is what I use," and they'll respond, "You're not Lee Priest." Somebody else will go on and say, "I know for a fact this is what Lee Priest uses." And I don't even know the guy!
T: What do you really use? What are your real cycles?
Priest: Last off season I didn't really do any, but the previous off season it was just Deca or Parabolan, or Deca and Primobolan, two cc's of each per week. That's it. People think I'm lying. The last contest I did, Night of Champions, I didn't spend over $1500 on drugs. I used stanozolol, I used clenbuterol, I used a little bit of growth, and one Anapolon-50 a day. The last couple of weeks I took a bit of suspension, but that's it.
I always laugh when I read these articles where they say bodybuilders spend $50,000 to $60,000 on drugs. You can call us bodybuilders dumb, but I'm not going to spend $60,000 when the prize money is ten grand! Come on!
T: Don't you think there are some people who are really doing that, though?
Priest: Well yeah, but the top pros don't. I'm not going to say what Paul [Dillett] uses, but I can tell you right now Paul doesn't use a large amount of drugs. People think Paul takes these large amounts, but there's plenty of times, like when he was getting ready for the Olympia in '98 (that's when he lived with me), we'd load up a Winstrol shot and it would sit for three or four days, because we wouldn't take it. We were like, "We'll take it next time or whatever." I always hear these rumors about what Paul takes, but I lived with the guy for eight months and I saw firsthand what he took.
T: You've got to admit, though, that he makes some poor decisions in his last-minute preparations.
Priest: One time it was the diuretics; the next it was the insulin. People say steroids kill you. I say, no, nobody has really died from steroid use; it's things like diuretics.
T: What about painkillers like Nubain? Do a lot of pros use Nubain while they work out?
Priest: I know a lot who do. I've never been one to try things like that. When I was twelve I tried a cigarette, that was it. Marijuana I've never tried in my life. I've never really been into that sort of thing. Lots of people have an addictive personality. Like Renutrient or GHB, I've never tried that. People say, "Lee, try it, it's good for this, it's good for that?" I say screw it. They say it's good for your sleep. Fine, sometimes I'll have a Tylenol PM when I have a little bit of pain, but some of these people get hooked on all this stuff. It's just one progression to another. They start taking Ecstasy and that "Special K." I say to them, "What's up with you guys? Why are you screwing around with all this crap?"
They think take this, take that, whatever. I've never had an addictive personality. Me, whenever I'm dieting for a contest, I can't wait to get off the diet, so I can't wait to stop taking shit so I can eat normal food! It comes down to hard work and dedication. It takes years. You can't build muscle overnight. Sometimes you do see guys come in quick, but where are they now? You see them for a second, then they've disappeared.
T: What do you think of Synthol?
Priest: It's ridiculous. I think it's stupid. What happened to hard training, you know? Like that one guy who's in Ironman magazine this month with those 27" arms. How stupid does that look? He has the forearms of a fucking girl and you got these big arms that look ridiculous. Where's your chest, back and legs? Your arms look stupid. His forearms are probably 14". You'd have to grow some pretty good forearms to handle the weight to grow 27" arms.
There's never been a long-term study on that stuff. How do these guys pumping all that oil in know what's going to happen in a couple year's time? It can't just sit there for years and years. Breast implants cause problems and they're in sealed bags. I can't see these oils being good for you, you know?
Everyone wants that quick fix, wants to get bigger overnight. It doesn't happen that way. Again, I hear rumors that I put that stuff in my arms. Fuck, look at my biceps and triceps. I have striations in them at contest time! I've never used it, but if I did I'd stick it in my upper pecs and my back 'cause that's where people always say I'm weakest.
T: It's pretty easy to spot who's using Synthol when they're dieted down.
Priest: Yeah, their delts are big lumps. Some of the top pros now (who are up there placing in the top three), some of them are getting bigger and bigger in the delts, but there's no definition anymore, no cuts. They look big and full, but that's it. I look like that a couple of weeks after a show when I fill out, but on the day of the show you should be ripped and striated. Then I'll read in the magazines about how "this guy's muscle is so full and round." Fuck, it's fake! Come on, give us a break.
T: Back to cycles. Let's get specific. When you do a cycle, how long is it?
Priest: When I'm dieting, I'm on the whole twelve weeks of the diet, then I'll be off for a couple of months. Then maybe in the off season I'll be on a total of six to eight weeks, that's it, then I'm off until prepping for the next contest. I'm not like a lot of people who say they're "clean" but they're still taking something. When I'm off, I'm off, that's it. When I did the Ironman and placed sixth, two years ago, I was clean; didn't take anything for eight months. Just went into the show that way.
T: Nobody believed you.
Priest: I know, people told me I couldn't do it clean. I said screw you, I'll show you I can. Now, I was a lot lighter and didn't look as great, but really, I didn't want to do the show anyway, so that was half the deal. But I still looked pretty good, kept a lot of size, but I wasn't as shredded as I normally am. It's more of a mental thing; I was pissed off at people and my mind wasn't into it. I told people who didn't believe me to test me. I'll give you ten grand if I come up dirty; put your money where your mouth is. I say I'm clean.
Lee Priest responds to the Dead Pool
by John Koenig
Here at Testosterone, we don't talk to many pro bodybuilders. We're not really fans of the "sport" and about the only time we hear from the pros is when we've pissed them off. Still, it's kind of hard to ignore them, especially when every other magazine on the market is filled with close up photos of their bulging torsos and smiling mugs. Plus there's always the element of morbid curiosity. How far can these guys push their bodies without becoming permanent roomies with Andreas Munzer and Jeep Swenson?
Being a bunch of sick bastards, we set up a little pool, a Dead Pool to be exact, that places odds on which pro is most likely to be "training with the angels" in the near future. Despite the fake names used by the author, it's pretty easy to spot Lee Priest in the lineup. Priest has made the pool for three years running, once coming in first place, the best he's done so far in a major competition.
It's no surprise that Lee wasn't too happy with that particular title. But instead of busting out his ass-whupping stool, standing on it and blacking every eye at T-mag, Lee was ballsy enough to do an interview with contributor John Koenig. Say what you will about pros, but at least Lee is open about what really goes on behind the scenes. For that, he deserves to be heard.
The Scene: Spring 2000, Arnold Classic Expo. Lee Priest has spotted me in my Testosterone T-shirt and press badge and starts walking toward me. He stops and immediately hits a big double biceps pose. Lee laughs and asks, "Not bad for a dead guy, don't ya think?"
Now there's an introduction! After talking for awhile about all manner of issues in the bodybuilding world, including the first Dead Pool article, he agrees to sit down for an interview. We keep talking about the interview but life gets in the way, including Lee's marriage early in July. The second Dead Pool article is published and this time Lee is upset. He doesn't think the anonymous author of the articles is fair, that Testosterone is hurting bodybuilding and pro bodybuilders by publishing the Dead Pool, and that much of the gossip/news in these articles is just plain incorrect.
His willingness to be open makes him an ideal candidate for a T-mag interview. Here's Lee Priest on a variety of topics.
T: Obviously, you're not too happy about the Dead Pool articles published here at T-mag. Go ahead and tell us what you really think.
Priest: This is the sort of press that gives bodybuilding a bad name. People are wondering now if we're all gonna die. How does the author of those articles know he's any healthier than me? Just because I eat junk food in the off season? Because I get a little bit overweight? My cholesterol has never been any higher than 116. At my heaviest weight (285 pounds) it was 113. The doctor couldn't believe it. My blood pressure is perfect. I have blood work done every couple of months.
Lots of that Dead Pool stuff is irritating. People say someone is going to die because of the gear he takes, but TC Luoma or anyone else could have a heart attack no matter how healthy they're eating. Look at Wayne DeMelia. He's had one kidney removed, but he didn't take any drugs. He probably used to sit there and say to himself, "Look at the amount of gear these guys take. Look what they do to themselves," but look at him. The Dead Pool writer can't point his finger and say just because this guy looks a certain way he's going to die. There are people at the gym who drink and smoke and have heart attacks in their mid-40s.
T: Are there any pros you think qualify for the Dead Pool?
Priest: Not really. In any sport, if you take it to the extreme, it's dangerous. Is there a Dead Pool for race car drivers, for example? They drive around 200 miles per hour; they could crash and burn, you know. Football players take drugs. They could get tackled the wrong way, hit their head on the ground, break their neck and die. If you're at the elite level of what you do, sure there are risks involved where you could die. You could get hit crossing the street; people go rock climbing and could fall off. Anything you do can be dangerous.
Marathon runners occasionally drop over dead. And even if I die of natural causes people will say, see, it's because of all the shit he's taken! And I'll probably be clean at the time! You can't win, no matter, in this sport. If we get sick or whatever, it's related to drugs, as far as other people are concerned.
T: You stand about 5'4". People say drugs stunted your growth. What's your response to that?
Priest: That's rubbish. I'm one of the tallest in my family. My mother's 5'3", my sister's 5'3", my father's probably 5'6", if that. My grandfather is 5'4" and my great grandfather was 5'4". I don't come from a family of six-foot people! I wasn't born that way.
T: Fair enough. Let's transition to other matters. You're one week into preparation for the Olympia and you told me the other day you lost sixteen pounds last week! How much did you weigh a week ago?
Priest: I think about 236.
T: So this is a different situation from your true off-season program when you get up into the heavier bodyweights?
Priest: What weight I get to depends upon how much time I have between contests. When I weighed 285, it was because I only did one show that year so I had the whole ten months to eat whatever I wanted. I don't necessarily try to see how heavy I can get.
T: But you obviously like to eat?
Priest: I just enjoy food! Life's too short to be on a diet your whole life. Eighty percent of the people you see on diets are always miserable.
T: Your approach has been called "old school."
Priest: Well, when it comes to dieting, when it comes to training, stick to the basics and you can't go wrong. Why try to mess up what's already been proven over and over?
T: I think you're one of the few top pros that really does get big in the off season nowadays.
Priest: I know, people say I'm going to get so heavy I'm going to die of a heart attack in the off season. Think about the old days, when all of them used to get heavy and put the extra weight on. But now, not many do it any more 'cause they always want to be near contest shape. They say, you eat all that food! You're so out of shape you're gonna die! Please. I've seen fat people who can run rings around people half their weight. Just because they're heavy doesn't mean they're out of shape. There are people who eat clean who are more unhealthy than some who are fat.
T: Do you think your routine, training and dieting this way, allows you to make gains without some of the different odd drugs others are using?
Priest: I've always read reports that said I've used insulin, for example. I've never used insulin. People think I have to, to put all that weight on. That's nonsense, I just eat a lot of food. I drink whole cream milk and eat a lot of dairy products. I retain a lot of fluid from that. In the off season I hardly take anything, other than something to keep my joints healthy. The majority of the time, six to seven months out of the year, I'm not on anything. Eat a lot, train hard. Every one of my best lifts have come when I've been off the stuff.
T: But you have to admit you have superior genetics. You seem to respond well to whatever you do to yourself.
Priest: I never had that "a little bit worked, so I'll take more" mentality. Each time I did a cycle, I stuck with small amounts that worked and it kept working. I know people here who are like, 3000 milligrams of this, four tablets of this, two more milligrams of this one? They end up taking six different drugs, so that ends up the very best cycle they've ever done. Then they think, well, I took this much last time, this time I've gotta take more. They keep doing more and more.
T: It sounds like they don't even know what's working.
Priest: No, they don't. People look at me, for example. I've only used growth hormone the last three years, and people will ask me if I think it works. To me, I didn't feel any different when I used it. When I've not used it, I've been just as good. When I've used it I didn't see any dramatic change. Maybe when you get into your thirties, or late thirties, you might feel it more then, but I think the whole thing is overrated, you know?
T: Did you try growth hormone just because you wanted to see what effect it would have on you?
Priest: Everyone was saying how it was great, how there's no health hazard, it drops body fat, does this and does that? but I ended up in the same shape anyway. The only change was I was a few hundred dollars lighter!
I found stanozolol [Winstrol] worked just as good as the growth, you know? People laugh, but a large part is genetics and mind power. I know guys who take drugs who look the same year after year. They use a lot, get puffy, but why bother? You've got to be in touch with yourself. Unless you're going to make a career out of it, why go crazy taking those drugs?
T: I've met guys who aren't competing bodybuilders who say they take phenomenal amounts of juice for long periods of time and they don't even look like they train.
Priest: I like the ones who take a shit load of gear, then they're like, look at Lee Priest. He's five times the size of me, so he must be taking five times the amount. That's why I get so frustrated, sometimes. When I do seminars, I tell people the truth about what I'm taking, and they're like, "Oh bullshit, you're lying!" I got nothing to lie about. If I took 10,000 milligrams of Test and 20 IU's of growth, I'd tell you. I don't give a shit if you know what I take. It makes no difference to me. What I use is what I use, but the rumor sounds more spectacular than the truth.
T: The Internet chat rooms have contributed to that, don't you think?
Priest: Yeah, sometimes I'll go online and say, "I'm Lee Priest and this is what I use," and they'll respond, "You're not Lee Priest." Somebody else will go on and say, "I know for a fact this is what Lee Priest uses." And I don't even know the guy!
T: What do you really use? What are your real cycles?
Priest: Last off season I didn't really do any, but the previous off season it was just Deca or Parabolan, or Deca and Primobolan, two cc's of each per week. That's it. People think I'm lying. The last contest I did, Night of Champions, I didn't spend over $1500 on drugs. I used stanozolol, I used clenbuterol, I used a little bit of growth, and one Anapolon-50 a day. The last couple of weeks I took a bit of suspension, but that's it.
I always laugh when I read these articles where they say bodybuilders spend $50,000 to $60,000 on drugs. You can call us bodybuilders dumb, but I'm not going to spend $60,000 when the prize money is ten grand! Come on!
T: Don't you think there are some people who are really doing that, though?
Priest: Well yeah, but the top pros don't. I'm not going to say what Paul [Dillett] uses, but I can tell you right now Paul doesn't use a large amount of drugs. People think Paul takes these large amounts, but there's plenty of times, like when he was getting ready for the Olympia in '98 (that's when he lived with me), we'd load up a Winstrol shot and it would sit for three or four days, because we wouldn't take it. We were like, "We'll take it next time or whatever." I always hear these rumors about what Paul takes, but I lived with the guy for eight months and I saw firsthand what he took.
T: You've got to admit, though, that he makes some poor decisions in his last-minute preparations.
Priest: One time it was the diuretics; the next it was the insulin. People say steroids kill you. I say, no, nobody has really died from steroid use; it's things like diuretics.
T: What about painkillers like Nubain? Do a lot of pros use Nubain while they work out?
Priest: I know a lot who do. I've never been one to try things like that. When I was twelve I tried a cigarette, that was it. Marijuana I've never tried in my life. I've never really been into that sort of thing. Lots of people have an addictive personality. Like Renutrient or GHB, I've never tried that. People say, "Lee, try it, it's good for this, it's good for that?" I say screw it. They say it's good for your sleep. Fine, sometimes I'll have a Tylenol PM when I have a little bit of pain, but some of these people get hooked on all this stuff. It's just one progression to another. They start taking Ecstasy and that "Special K." I say to them, "What's up with you guys? Why are you screwing around with all this crap?"
They think take this, take that, whatever. I've never had an addictive personality. Me, whenever I'm dieting for a contest, I can't wait to get off the diet, so I can't wait to stop taking shit so I can eat normal food! It comes down to hard work and dedication. It takes years. You can't build muscle overnight. Sometimes you do see guys come in quick, but where are they now? You see them for a second, then they've disappeared.
T: What do you think of Synthol?
Priest: It's ridiculous. I think it's stupid. What happened to hard training, you know? Like that one guy who's in Ironman magazine this month with those 27" arms. How stupid does that look? He has the forearms of a fucking girl and you got these big arms that look ridiculous. Where's your chest, back and legs? Your arms look stupid. His forearms are probably 14". You'd have to grow some pretty good forearms to handle the weight to grow 27" arms.
There's never been a long-term study on that stuff. How do these guys pumping all that oil in know what's going to happen in a couple year's time? It can't just sit there for years and years. Breast implants cause problems and they're in sealed bags. I can't see these oils being good for you, you know?
Everyone wants that quick fix, wants to get bigger overnight. It doesn't happen that way. Again, I hear rumors that I put that stuff in my arms. Fuck, look at my biceps and triceps. I have striations in them at contest time! I've never used it, but if I did I'd stick it in my upper pecs and my back 'cause that's where people always say I'm weakest.
T: It's pretty easy to spot who's using Synthol when they're dieted down.
Priest: Yeah, their delts are big lumps. Some of the top pros now (who are up there placing in the top three), some of them are getting bigger and bigger in the delts, but there's no definition anymore, no cuts. They look big and full, but that's it. I look like that a couple of weeks after a show when I fill out, but on the day of the show you should be ripped and striated. Then I'll read in the magazines about how "this guy's muscle is so full and round." Fuck, it's fake! Come on, give us a break.
T: Back to cycles. Let's get specific. When you do a cycle, how long is it?
Priest: When I'm dieting, I'm on the whole twelve weeks of the diet, then I'll be off for a couple of months. Then maybe in the off season I'll be on a total of six to eight weeks, that's it, then I'm off until prepping for the next contest. I'm not like a lot of people who say they're "clean" but they're still taking something. When I'm off, I'm off, that's it. When I did the Ironman and placed sixth, two years ago, I was clean; didn't take anything for eight months. Just went into the show that way.
T: Nobody believed you.
Priest: I know, people told me I couldn't do it clean. I said screw you, I'll show you I can. Now, I was a lot lighter and didn't look as great, but really, I didn't want to do the show anyway, so that was half the deal. But I still looked pretty good, kept a lot of size, but I wasn't as shredded as I normally am. It's more of a mental thing; I was pissed off at people and my mind wasn't into it. I told people who didn't believe me to test me. I'll give you ten grand if I come up dirty; put your money where your mouth is. I say I'm clean.