Sanders held the 40 record for almost a decade-- someone broke it recently with a 4.27 can't remember who right off hand. Last season I saw a picture of Boston standing next to the Cards TE Freddie Jones and they were very similar in size, Jones was a bit more massive though. They also had another thing in common last season -- fantasy busts. I wonder if Boston's knee(s) will hold up- if it does and he returns to form watch out...Brees, LT, Boston...
Article to Boston's Diet and Workout Regimen David Boston, the Chargers' buff wideout, spends a small fortune every year to hone his body By Jim Trotter UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER August 9, 2003 David Boston hears the gasps and whispers, he senses the stares and double takes. It doesn't matter if Boston is on the field or in the locker room, people can't help looking in his direction. Wide receivers aren't supposed to have the physique of a young Schwarzenegger and the quickness of a pickpocket. They're supposed to be big or fast, not big and fast. On the move, No. 89 shouldn't be hard to spot during tonight's exhibition opener at Seattle. "He's one of those guys that might be like a Bo Jackson or Eric Dickerson, guys who came along before their time," former Chargers cornerback Alex Molden said of Boston, who has been timed in under 4.3 seconds in the 40-yard dash despite carrying an astonishing 245 pounds on his 6-foot-2 frame. "They're not supposed to be that big and run that fast, but they do." Boston, who led the NFL with 1,598 yards receiving two years ago, doesn't think in terms of revolutionizing the position, but perhaps he should. And while he has the physical dimensions and skills to leave a mark on the game, that's just one of the things that makes the Texas native different, if not unique. His commitment to nutrition and diet might one day change the way some players look at maximizing their potential. Workouts consist alternately of medicine ball exercises, ankle and foot strength exercises, 40-yard sprints with 90-second recoveries, grip training alternated with catching 50 footballs between sets, weight training. Pushing the envelope Arguably no football player has pushed the boundaries of training and nutrition as far as Boston has. He and trainer/nutritional therapist Ian Danney rely on science as well as traditional training methods, as running back LaDainian Tomlinson learned one recent morning. Tomlinson awoke at 5 o'clock to find Boston, his roommate, getting an IV drip to replenish vitamins, minerals and nutrients. "I was like, 'Man, you're crazy,' " Tomlinson said, chuckling. "But that's David." Actually, that's just the beginning: During private on-field workouts, Danney pricks one of Boston's fingers, draws blood and measures the level of lactates – byproducts that contribute to muscle soreness – on a portable analyzer so Boston doesn't exceed a specific fatigue level. Boston takes an average of 90 dietary supplement pills a day to ensure his body has the correct balance of vitamins, minerals and nutrients; he also has his intestines flushed through hydrocolonic therapy to help his body break down and process the supplements more efficiently. He eats only specific things at specific times, depending on his workout regimen. The goal is to keep his nutrient levels and hormones balanced to maintain his energy level and recuperative powers. Total annual cost for nutrition and training: $200,000. "It's very complicated," said Danney, a former member of the Canadian bobsledding team who has a degree in biochemistry from the University of Alberta. "In the NFL, there are very, very few players doing this . . . Running around the field at 245-plus pounds, playing wide receiver, that's kind of uncharted territory. "We've got to be on top of things and know what's going on and have a good road map so we have something that we can look back on and modify things in the future. We need quantitative data. If we run a workout that consists of eight 40-yard dashes, I need to know the time of each one he runs in that workout. Everything is filed, including his lactate level." Boston said he got into dieting seriously two years ago, then took it to another level when he joined forces with Danney, whose company, Performance Enhancement Professionals Inc., works with professional athletes in many sports. "Sixty-five to 70 percent of everything is your diet," Boston said. "You are what you eat. Once you get your diet down perfectly sound, when you start lifting weights your gains become more and more and you recover more and more quickly. "When I changed my diet and started eating exact things at certain times – a certain amount of protein, a certain number of calories – every time I lifted, I started gaining and gaining and gaining, and I haven't stopped yet. Ian breaks it down to a perfect science. He knows exactly what he's doing." Boston, aware of the rumors and innuendo that have accompanied his weight gain the past five years – he played at 206 pounds as a rookie, 210 his second year, 235 his third and was in the low 240s last season – brings up the S-word without anyone asking. "People see me walking around, in the locker room and elsewhere, and they wonder," Boston said. "Obviously, there are questions raised, 'Does he take steroids? Does he do this? Does he do that?' "I have to hear this from a lot of people. But there are things that I do lifting weights and through my diet that make me the way that I am." Athletic heritage As a youngster growing up outside Houston, Boston was always one of the smaller kids in his age group. But he excelled in various sports largely because of his speed . . . and genes. His dad, Byron, who is in his ninth year as an NFL line judge, was an oustanding athlete who played college football; his mother, Carolyn, was a state high school tennis champion. It wasn't until the summer between his freshman and sophomore years that Boston began to mature physically. His high school football coach estimated he grew from 5-8 to 6-2, with none of the awkwardness that normally accompanies such spurts. Older brother Byron Jr. learned as much when he returned home during a college break. As usual, the brothers went to the front yard for a game of basketball. But the pecking order changed for good on one play, when David drove and Byron defended. "It came out of nowhere," said Byron Jr., who is 5 years older. "I was coming to block his shot and he slammed it out of nowhere. That's when I knew things had changed." Boston went on to earn all-state honors in high school and all-conference recognition at Ohio State, where he caught the winning touchdown pass in the Rose Bowl as a freshman. After three seasons, he turned pro and was selected eighth overall by the Cardinals in the 1999 NFL draft. The transition was not smooth. Accustomed to being on successful teams, Boston now was with a club that would win just six games his first season, three his second, seven his third and five last year. The only thing uglier than the win totals was the fines he accumulated his first couple of seasons for taunting opponents. But those were nothing compared with his arrest on suspicion of driving under the influence of cocaine and mar1juana two offseasons ago. Boston, who was about to enter his free-agent year, weighed all the possibilities and pleaded no contest rather than fight the case in court. "Every family goes through certain types of situations, and those situations are magnified if you're a professional athlete," Byron Sr. said. "They're often times blown out of proportion, and the circumstances involving this situation were very, very bizzare, should never, ever have happened. "David made a decision not to pursue it, to just get it over. Because in pursuing it, we – as well as the attorneys and everybody – really feel like this was just a trumped-up deal. . . . There are a lot of extenuating circumstances that, had it been me, I would have never folded my cards. But I'm a little different than David. He'd rather just forget about it and move on." Not a big talker In Boston, the Chargers have a fabulous young player (he turns 25 this month) who says he will do whatever he can to help the team win a championship. But just as he will give, so too must the club. Boston acknowledges that he is an introvert who is set in his ways. His family and agent are trying to persuade him to open up more, to develop more ties with teammates and the community, but Boston says it's a slow process. "I'm not a guy that's going to speak to everybody, say 'hi' to everybody every time I see them, even teammates," he said. "Some people do think that it's rude, or some people take that as he's an arrogant individual. But I'm not a big talker. I really don't say much to anybody. Most of the time I'm a little short; that's just how I am. "It has nothing to do with being rude or not wanting to talk to them or not being willing to hang out with them off the field. Guys are like, 'Do you want to come over and hang out?' Nah, I've got other things to do." That honesty rubs some folks the wrong way, but Boston shrugs it off. He visited only the Chargers during free agency, but he heard that some teams had made up their minds to back away from him because of perceived character issues. "It doesn't bother me at all," Boston said. "In this league, it's all about the respect you get among your peers. If I go in the airport and I see Donovan McNabb or I see Champ Bailey, or someone that I have that much respect for and they respect me, to me, that's more important than if this team or that team doesn't want me to play for them. That doesn't matter, because I feel like I'm a good enough athlete to stand my ground." Chargers strong safety Kwamie Lassiter played the past four seasons with Boston in Arizona, and he believes Boston has been miscast. "David is his own person, and when it comes down to it he has everybody's back on this team," Lassiter said. "He's going to sell his soul to make a play and help this football team. And regardless of what you think of him, the guy's very smart; he's very intelligent. He's not just talking just to be talking. Whatever's going on with him, he took time to research it." Boston's representatives were up front with the Chargers when the sides met the first week of free agency. They told the club about his training habits and how he wouldn't attend all the voluntary offseason workouts because he was working with his own trainer. Now, Boston is trying to educate the Chargers about how they can get the most out of him on the field. Unlike last year's leading receiver, Curtis Conway, he doesn't believe it's in his best interest or the team's best interest for him to be on the field every play. "They need to know the type of receiver that I've always been," Boston said. "If you're going to try to develop me into a Conway type of guy, I'm not an every-down guy. If I make like a nice catch on a dig, I'm going to need to come out of the game because I'm physically heavy. I have a lot of tissue, a lot of blood. I'm not in that type of shape. I'm in shape, but I'm not in that type of shape. I train for explosion, to be at my highest level for four or five plays, then come out for a couple. "I'm a guy that really made my name by catching slants and making yards after the catch. I'm not really an 'out' runner; I'm really a guy that catches hitches. Guys back up off me because they're scared to death of my size. So if they just throw me (quick) routes and hitches and slants, and I make yards after the catch, that's where I can be successful. "I think Cam (Cameron, the Chargers' offensive coordinator) is slowly understanding that. But I think he's just trying to install a certain offense that we've got to get down this camp. But when the season comes he's going to realize that when these guys start backing off, all you need to do is throw me a quick stop, I'll take 1 or 2 yards, and I'm going to get you 12 yards. I'll give the guy $100,000 if he tackles me before that. I mean, he's going to be 180 pounds; I'll be embarrassed if he tackles me." Simulating game moves Danney focuses on explosion and accommodating resistance during Boston's strength and speed sessions. All the running and lifting are meant to simulate things Boston will do in a game. There is no conditioning just for the sake of increasing endurance. It's all about gaining quickness and explosion. "The way a lot of these people train, they're worried about how long you can maintain and how long are you going to go," Danney said. "Are you going to be just as fast in the fourth quarter? So they kind of get into the mode where, let's say for example, you're a cornerback and you're a 4.4 guy; they want to make sure that you're a 4.4 guy all the way through, that you can run that fast when you need to in the fourth quarter. "The way we look at it is, I say, 'OK, that's great if you're a cornerback and you're a 4.4 guy. But I'm going to get myself to a 4.2 guy. That way, No. 1, I'm faster than you to begin with. And No. 2, even when I get tired, if I fall off, chances are I'm still faster than you because I'm significantly faster than you to begin with. So it's a different approach, as opposed to just condition, condition, condition. It's like to maximize your peak potential, you work to the lowest percentage of what you've got to do. That's a little bit different than the mentality of a lot of training in the NFL." One thing Danney concentrates on with Boston is strength-to-weight ratio. "The speed aspect is not unlike a race car. It's horsepower to curb-weight ratio. So if the curb weight goes up, the horsepower has to go up. And as long as your training is eliciting that effect, you can continue to get fast over short distances anyway." The more Boston lifts and maintains his diet, the bigger and heavier he gets. The key, he said, is that he hasn't sacrificed speed for size. But can there come a point at which he's too big? "As I start to gain confidence in my size and speed, Ian's got me to where it doesn't matter how much you weigh, it's about how you carry your weight and how your body is proportioned with each chain," said Boston, who took a couple of anatomy and physiology courses during offseasons in Arizona. "I have no weak links on my chain, on my body. So, nothing slows me down. That's why I'm able to run as fast as some of the guys that are 175 pounds. I can keep up with them at 80 pounds heavier. "Everything I do is about trying to make a play. The bigger and stronger I am, or the more explosive I am off the ball, that DB's getting out of there. Or if he's jamming me, it just helps my whole game because, if you line up and you're bigger, faster, stronger than somebody across from you, what is he thinking? He's going to have some doubt. I don't have a doubt when I line up against anybody who I know that I'm bigger, stronger and faster than. That's a big part of my game. "Bodybuilding, I'm not into that. I hear the people's reactions, screaming out about the way I look, but it gets on my nerves so bad. That's totally not what I'm into. . . . I'm interested in making plays. I'm interested in winning a championship, and we've got a chance to do that here. "I've been first-team All-Pro, I've gone to the Pro Bowl, I've done all that. The only thing I haven't done is win a championship, and I'm going to do everything I can to help this team do that. I don't want to revolutionize the position; that's not something I even think about. I just want to get bigger, stronger and faster than anybody across from me. It just gives you a certain amount of confidence when you line up." No tea party for Boston An offseason day in the life of Chargers receiver David Boston: 6:30 a.m. Wake up. Supplements (8 pills). 7 a.m. Breakfast, 3 free-range eggs, 6 egg whites, 1 tbs. non-GMO Lecithin powder, 4 oz. organic sirloin, supplements (25 pills). 9:45 a.m. Pre-workout. Shake, supplements (8 pills). 10:15 a.m. Workout 1. 11:30 a.m. Post-workout shake. Noon-12:45 p.m. Therapy. 1-1:30 p.m. Lunch, 10 oz. orange roughy, 2 cups organic broccoli, 1/2 cup (cooked measure) organic black beans, supplements (20 pills). 3 p.m. Workout 2. 4:30 p.m. Post-workout shake, supplements (8 pills). 5-6 p.m. Therapy, treatment. 6:15 p.m. Dinner, 2 free-range grain-fed chicken breasts, 12 asparagus spears, supplements (20 pills). 9:15 p.m. 1 cup strawberries, 1 cup cottage cheese, nighttime supplements (12 pills). 11 p.m. Bedtime.
Yes she is, only with a different technique. Boston uses supplements and weight training. The woman uses McDonalds and the 12 ounce curl!
Dude's liver will be shot by the time he's 40 - the liver isn't engineered to handle that amount of pill usage - no matter if its "just supplements." Short term gains at the expense of future health. Then again, he'll be able to afford the medical consequences...
By my count, that's 101 pills he's taking daily. It's a wonder why the guy doesn't rattle when he walks. This dude's the uber-drapg!
He might be ripped, but think about all the other things he's missing out on, foods, drinks, life in general. It doesn't sound like he has much fun. It sounds like he has a mental problem kind of like an anorexic (sp?)/bulimic trying to lose weight.
My name doesn't even belong on the same planet! I thought I was bad with my counting of every calorie, severely restricted diet, downing pills and protein powder like candy, and recording every morsel I eat and every minute of caloric burning activity. But I'm nothing but a wuss compared to this guy! I really don't understand how that tiny amount of food sustains his daily calorie expedenture (sp?). The diet sounds like that of an anorexic person (minus the pills of course). Just throw tons of diet coke, gum, and coffee in the equation and you've got the typical anorexic. His arms literally frighten and disgust me simulatenously. Now the real question is whether this will effect his draftability in my fantasy league!
"Now, Boston is trying to educate the Chargers about how they can get the most out of him on the field. Unlike last year's leading receiver, Curtis Conway, he doesn't believe it's in his best interest or the team's best interest for him to be on the field every play. "They need to know the type of receiver that I've always been," Boston said. "If you're going to try to develop me into a Conway type of guy, I'm not an every-down guy. If I make like a nice catch on a dig, I'm going to need to come out of the game because I'm physically heavy. I have a lot of tissue, a lot of blood. I'm not in that type of shape. I'm in shape, but I'm not in that type of shape. I train for explosion, to be at my highest level for four or five plays, then come out for a couple. Anybody else have a problem with this? Now he thinks he gets to dictate how the offense should be run?
Who cares. The woman is a big tub of goo who's had her share of Doritos, French Fires, and Big Gulps (Diet Coke of course).
Charles Woodson is in the best shape of his career and has had an outstanding camp. If Brees can even get the ball to him, Woodson will be all over him. and the real riot will be the Chargers Defense trying to stop Jerry Porter. Scary - What do you think of the new team so far? Teyo is going to be a STUD in this league, and I think Fargas will be great too.
has anybody seen the espn insider article on this? By Tom Friend ESPN The Magazine Sunday, August 17 Updated: August 18 3:32 PM ET this is going to appear in espn the mag, sept 1st What's going on in Room 614? There's a man in there, a he-man, actually, listening to ocean music. There are syringes and needles in boxes and IV bags in the closet. There are registered nurses knocking on the door and chiropractors coming and going, and a personal trainer carrying in a backpack full of pills. A backpack that some people would love to inspect. What's going on in Room 614? There's an overgrown wide receiver in there. "Dude, you're on steroids!" fans yell at him at training camp. A lot of NFL players and coaches think he's on something, but the term they use is yoked up. "Gotta be," says an NFC defensive back. The receiver keeps testing clean (seven times last season), but his peers are still suspicious. They can't prove it, but they think he's on something they don't have a test for yet, maybe human growth hormone (HGH), and one reason is the size of his head. "Look, even his face is growing," the player goes on. "He's bloated. His cheekbones have changed." Guys around the league just don't see how his weight could jump from 209 to 257 in three years. Or how he can have 21-inch biceps, a 34-inch waist and 5.5% body fat. Or how he can run the 40 in 4.3 seconds. Or how the sorry Cardinals could let such a physical specimen walk. Or how 30 other teams could let the Chargers scoop him up as a free agent for only 47 mil. No, there's got to be something going on in that room. Something to keep Arizona from franchising him, something to scare off the rest of the league. "We didn't even have him on our board," says a Redskins exec, whose team needed a receiver this winter and opted to pay Laveranues Coles a $13 million signing bonus. Laveranues Coles? He's half this guy's size and doesn't run any faster. But few trust him. They hear all the stories. How he eats only in his personal trainer's room, Room 614 at the Hilton Carson Civic Plaza in Carson, Calif. How Hall of Famer Joe Greene, an assistant coach on his old team, wonders if he'll live to 30. How he's paying his personal trainer $200K a year. How, even though he's rooming with LaDainian Tomlinson, he's holed up most of the time in Room 614. Holed up and getting heavier every day. "Have you seen that guy? Our D-line coach calls him Robocop," says Chargers defensive end Marcellus Wiley. "If any of us defensive linemen go down, he's going two-way. I mean, 260 pounds, 5% body fat, a 4.3 40? That's 30 sacks. Every day in the cafeteria, I walk past the fried foods and say, 'I am David Boston.' That way, I won't eat them. I want to look just like David Boston." But that's the problem: David Boston doesn't look like David Boston. "I give him 'til Halloween." -Arizona Cardinals official The consensus in Arizona is that he'll break down, that his ankles are too thin to carry that load, that he's too massive for the ligaments on his sprinter legs. The consensus is that the patella tendon in his right knee -- the one that burst last season -- will burst again. And that will be that. He'll be a bodybuilder. Or a model. "Well," Boston says, "I'd rather be explosive at 250 for 8 to 10 years than be 230 for 13 years." Somewhere, Boston became body-mass first, everything else second. Maybe it started after he broke his left scapula as a rookie in 1999 and decided he needed more meat on him. Or maybe it was the car accident a year later, when a drunk driver slammed into his Hummer at high speed, killing herself and rearranging Boston's body. Or maybe it was when a chiropractor examined him six months after the accident, noticed lingering nerve damage in his foot and weakness in his lower back and said, "Your body's for s --." Whatever, he's undergone a makeover that few believe is aboveboard. A makeover on and off the field that ultimately contributed to the Cardinals' decision to run their prize possession out of town. "Man, we've taken a lot of hits for doing it," says Greene. "But once in a while I'd like to hear that maybe we weren't wrong." Arizona staffers roll their eyes when they hear Boston's name now, but it wasn't always that way. When the Cardinals saw him at training camp in 2001 -- his body fat down from 11% to 6%, his weight up from 209 to 238 -- they were thrilled. He was still fast enough to outrun Oakland's Charles Woodson on a 50-yard score that season, and no one dared jam him at the line. "DBs got scared of me," Boston says. By year's end, he led the NFL with a team-record 1,598 yards on 98 catches and had everybody at the Pro Bowl staring. "Brian Urlacher kept going, 'How are your arms bigger than mine?'" Boston says. But a month later, Boston tested positive for cocaine and mar1juana after a DUI arrest. He pleaded no-contest to two misdemeanors, and his world changed. Now the Cardinals began to notice his idiosyncrasies. He'd mumble. He'd show up with his eyebrow pierced, his tongue pierced, his upper earlobe pierced, his nipples pierced. He'd hang with only one teammate, running back Thomas Jones. The 2002 season was Boston's contract year, but there was little goodwill between him and the franchise. In practice one day, he asked the DBs not to hit him hard because otherwise his shoulder pads would pinch his nipple piercings. Boston says he doesn't remember that, but Cardinals coaches and players confirm it. "He was like, don't hit me in the chest," says wide receiver Jason McAddley. "The coach was like, what the hell?" The low point came the night before a game in Seattle, in the second week of the season. During bed check, Greene says, a coach found a woman in Boston's room. When the woman was asked to leave, Boston's response was, "If she goes, I don't play. I'll come down with an injury." So the girl stayed. And Boston played. "Putting your personal needs in front of the team," says Greene, "that's not an environment I grew up in." Boston says he doesn't remember that incident, either, but some Cardinals coaches felt he was never focused again. "Who knew what was going on in his world?" says a member of the front office. "Or what he was ingesting." The team just didn't trust the supplements he was on. His weight had climbed into the 240s, he'd get winded after four or five plays and he was muffing passes. Some coaches felt he was so muscle-bound that he couldn't extend his arms, that he was trying to catch everything against his body. "People who say that stuff are haters," says Jones, now with the Buccaneers. "There were a lot of guys who didn't like me and David." The team felt Boston was caught up in his new image. Like when he'd put lotion on his arms before games so his biceps would glisten. Or when he'd show off shirtless photos of himself to women. One day, reserve quarterback Preston Parsons noticed a pleasant aroma in the locker room and said, "What's that smell?" Boston told him, "My hygiene is unbelievable." Dead serious. Boston would show up with different colored contacts -- blue ones, red ones, purple ones -- and people would walk away confused by his look. "When I wear the red ones, people think I'm stoned," he says. "I'm a different kind of cat, aren't I?" Says Wiley, "I went up to talk to him after a game two years ago, and he had, like, purple eyes. And I said, 'Okay, a little Melrose in you.'" Boston never finished the 2002 season. His right patella tendon, already slightly torn coming into the year, snapped when a 49ers defensive back nailed him directly on the knee last October. He hobbled through the next game, then had season-ending surgery. It was still assumed the Cardinals would place the franchise tag on him, but owner Bill Bidwill declined. The DUI arrest and his erratic behavior had sealed his fate. Greene's explanation as to why Arizona let Boston walk: "Fear. Fear of him repeating not his Pro Bowl year, but the year after. To keep him, you'd have to make a serious commitment to him financially, and that was scary. That was scary." San Diego got Boston's first -- and last -- free agent visit. The Chargers brass had done a background check with the league office, and while the Cardinals assumed Boston would be suspended for the cocaine incident, San Diego was told not to worry. "We did a lot of due diligence," says Chargers coach Marty Schottenheimer. Atlanta, Baltimore and the Jets had all invited Boston, but the Chargers never let him get out of town. Schottenheimer assured him that with Tomlinson, defenses wouldn't be able to double-team him, and Boston was sold, settling for just a $4million signing bonus. "I know one thing," says Greene. "The coach he's with right now ain't gonna tolerate anything. And I don't think I'm slinging mud at David, either. I like David. But I was disappointed in his behavior last year. It was beyond disappointment. It was painful." "It's not like I just fall out of bed and look like this." -David Boston There's got to be an explanation. His father, Byron, says his son is too good a kid, from too good a family, to be hearing these whispers. Byron is a respected NFL line judge who's worked a Super Bowl, and his wife, Carolyn, is a retired teacher. One of David's grandfathers was a radiation biophysicist. One great-grandfather was a minister for 51 years. The other great-grandfather and a great-uncle were dentists. His great aunt is a college professor. His sister, Alicia, is an attorney, and his brother, Byron Jr., is a cop working for the Dallas drug task force. And then there's David: the football player and family rebel, the one who had to be hounded by his mother into doing his homework at Humble High School, northeast of Houston. Football set him apart. His first two years in high school, he relied on speed, not brawn -- until he shot up five inches and gained 40 pounds the summer before his junior year. He was fascinated by his new size, and by the confidence it gave him. At 18, he caught the winning touchdown for Ohio State in the Rose Bowl. At 20, he turned pro. But the NFL was full of hard bodies, and after that auto accident, he needed an edge. And so his chiropractor referred him to a Canadian bodybuilder named Charles Poliquin. Poliquin, known for bulking up hockey players and bobsledders, set two primary goals for Boston: reduce his insulin levels with a low-carb, high-protein diet and vitamin supplements, and raise his growth hormone levels with vigorous workouts to build muscle. There would be blood tests to monitor it all, and there would be 90-minute IV drips of magnesium and minerals to help his body recover. ("I lay there during these drips and listen to trance music, you know, ocean music," Boston says.) It was all done away from his teammates, which is why, when he showed up at Cardinals camp bigger and faster in 2001, the rumors about HGH started spreading. "Blah, blah, blah," says Poliquin, who's based in Tempe, Ariz. "As a 25-year-old guy, David produces more growth hormone than he could buy in a store. An intense workout will boost your growth hormone nine times above normal levels. You'd have to shoot yourself up with a week's supply of HGH to equate one workout. People say he's on drugs. Food, if used properly, is a drug. So, yeah, he's on drugs. He buys 'em at Safeway." Researchers agree that exercise increases growth hormone levels, but they say it's unlikely an athlete could gain 50 pounds of muscle through workouts, food and supplements alone. Boston didn't want to hear that. He told Poliquin he wanted a full-time trainer, someone to tell him what to eat and when to eat it. So Poliquin referred him to one of his colleagues, a former Canadian Olympic bobsledder named Ian Danney. Originally from Guyana, Danney is foremost a speed trainer. But he's also a former biochemistry major at the University of Alberta who, says Poliquin, is using biomechanics to advance his theories. Boston asked Danney to train him, and Danney agreed -- and walked right into the rumor mill. Boston made it clear during contract talks with Chargers GM A.J. Smith that he and Danney were a package deal. At Schottenheimer's request, Boston promised to work out twice a week at the team facility, but he otherwise wanted to be free to train alone with his guy. "We're flexible," Smith says. "It all worked out." But a handful of Charger players and coaches are already curious about Danney, who often stands with his backpack on the fringe of the Chargers' practice field. The truth is, other than at meetings and practices, Boston and Danney are inseparable. Boston still sleeps in the room he shares with Tomlinson. He signs in every day at the team cafeteria, but then he's off to see what organic food Danney has for him. It's Danney who organizes Boston's day. It's Danney who brings in the registered nurses for the post-practice IV drips. It's Danney who has Boston take an average of 90 pills a day. And it's Danney who does the hormone and insulin testing in Room 614. Even though Schottenheimer and Smith say they're unconcerned, the accusations come anyway. They come from a strength coach who used to work with Poliquin: "I started to question it this past year because I've compared pictures of David in 2001 to now. And his cheekbones have changed." (Doctors say excessive amounts of HGH, which is legally available only from a physician, can induce elongation of the jaw muscle.) They come from current and former NFL players who assume a 6'2" wideout can't outweigh Lennox Lewis. "David works hard," says wide receiver Rob Moore, Boston's former teammate, "but who wouldn't get suspicious?" "I hear this all the time," says Boston. "People question me because my physique is totally different from everybody else's in the league. What am I supposed to do? I pass every drug test. I eat the right things. I work out hard. And when I sign a big contract, instead of buying a Benz, I move my trainer out here. Some people go to the movies; I like to lift weights and run. All I care about is my body. I take hot and cold contrast baths to flush my system out. I pay five grand to have a doctor test every pill I take. I watch my calorie intake. I take antioxidants. I eat egg whites and cottage cheese, lean steak with asparagus, protein shakes before and after practice, sushi and simple carbs at night like blueberries. I eat six, seven meals a day. Yeah, I'm over 250. But I'll be 240 on opening day. I can lose weight any time I want." But he can gain it, too. How big can he get? He sits in Room 614 and thinks about it. "Maybe 290," he says. "It wouldn't be for football, but give me a year and I could get to 290." His eyes widen. They're purple today.
i don't think he on drugs but he maybe a fanatic about this stuff GO DB I think the chargers got a steal Rocket River
