Roger Clemens, Personal Trainer

This little item ranks pretty high on my list of bad ideas. According to the May 28, 2008 issue of USA TODAY, Roger Clemens is providing training and conditioning advice to NY Yankees pitcher Joba Chamberlain. Chamberlain says he’s taking pieces of Clemens’ workout routine and incorporating them.

One piece of advice Clemens gave him: “The easiest day should be the day you pitch.” Back when we all thought Clemens was a natural wonder, this was good advice. Now that it is abundantly clear that Clemens was a juicer, Chamberlain may well find himself in trouble if he follows Clemens’ training directions.

Why?

Because it was the juice that enabled Clemens to work out so hard and therefore perform at such a high level as long as he did. Take away the juice and Clemens achieves far less. All this talk of how it was Clemens’ (or any juicer’s) hard work and not the PEDs that is responsible for their success rings pretty hollow. A lot of players work hard, but by following the rules (and laws) they don’t enjoy the anti-catabolic benefits of PEDs like Clemens and others did.

Note to players who want to stay clean and perform at your highest: DO NOT take advice from known (or suspected) PED users. While on these drugs, you recover more quickly and effectively than those not cheating. It’s just like those ridiculous body-building magazines and their workouts. Among the real "secrets" is that the guy on the cover is using PEDS. If you follow the offerred training regimen, you will not get the same results because you’re not juicing.

So Roger, do Joba and ball players everywhere a favor and limit your advice to such things as how to throw a curve or how to pitch to Manny.