COMMITTED TO DRUG-FREE MUSCLES : REEVES APPLAUDS LIFTERS' HERCULEAN EFFORTS TO STAY OFF STEROIDS.

Byline: Ira Dreyfuss Associated Press 

In the days of Hercules, athletes didn't need to use drugs to get muscular, according to Steve Reeves, who used to be Hercules.

And it's good to see the old times returning, said the former competitive bodybuilder and star of B-movies in the late 1950s and early '60s. Reeves applauds a movement of bodybuilders who promise to train without steroids or other muscle-building drugs.

``That's the average guy who goes to the gym and works out,'' said the 70-year-old former Mr. America and Mr. Universe. ``All the rest are steroid-happy.''

Reeves still works out with weights at his small ranch north of San Diego. He has kept most of the physique he used to display in the Hercules films, when his neck, calves and biceps all measured 17-1/2 inches.

``Now I'm 17 inches,'' Reeves said. ``I still have good proportions.''

And Reeves is renewing his interest in bodybuilding after a long period of disgust with the sport's rampant drug use.

The move toward what's termed ``natural'' bodybuilding is being fed by at least one magazine, All Natural Muscular Development, which covers contests and athletes who accept drug testing.

The movement has been developing for a couple of years.

And starting in January, the ESPN show ``American Muscle'' will run only drug-tested competitions, said Louis Zwick, the show's producer.

``There is a much greater interest in bodybuilding from a natural perspective than from one that uses steroids,'' he said.

The athletes might not show quite as much muscle definition or mass, but they will be well-proportioned, he said.

Bodybuilding can't be promoted as a healthy lifestyle while people think its champions are pumping themselves up with illegal - and often dangerous - drugs, said Steve Blechman, publisher of All Natural Muscular Development magazine.

``It is our belief that the natural bodybuilders are the true ambassadors of the sport,'' he said.

``The blame for the eminent (sic) destruction of competitive bodybuilding rests squarely on the shoulders of the drug issue,'' bodybuilding champion Lee Labrada wrote in a column in the magazine.

However, interests commonly overlap in a sport like bodybuilding. Blechman is a member of the family that owns Twin Laboratories Inc., which makes many of the legal products, sold as growth-enhancing food supplements, that are advertised in the magazine.

Twinlab owns the magazine, and Blechman is listed in a Twinlab corporate publication as the company's vice president for product development and marketing.

And while Blechman calls on major bodybuilding groups such as the Montreal-based International Federation of Bodybuilders to crack down on drug use, Twinlab sponsors its own drug-tested teams and stars.

The IFBB's president, Ben Weider, contends that his group is ``very aggressive about fighting the steroid problem and everything else.'' Weider's family has a publishing-food supplement empire of its own.

``We test the winners in all categories,'' he said. ``It's impossible to check every athlete. It would cost us a fortune.''

And some experts doubt that all-natural contests can be reliably clean. Smaller bodybuilding competitions can't afford steroid tests, which can cost $120 each, said researcher Charles Yesalis of Penn State University.

Yesalis, an authority on steroid use, is a member of the Blechman magazine's scientific advisory team. The magazine is a good way to get information on drug use out to people who could use it, he said.

Tests only at the time of competition may miss bodybuilders who trained on drugs but who stopped use in advance of the show, Yesalis said.

What's more, some substances, such as human growth hormone, can't be spotted in tests because they occur naturally in the body. Many of these substances don't deliver the growth spike of steroids, but do work, he said.

And there are some legal food supplements, such as the protein creatine, that Yesalis believes ought to be classified as drugs.

Although the natural bodybuilding movement is worth encouraging, it will still have frauds, Yesalis said.

``I strongly suspect there are an increasing number of people who hold themselves out as drug-free and they are not,'' Yesalis said.