The DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) on the lookout for you! If you sell steroids, you are on their hit list. Flex has an interesting report on what a Los Angeles agent is looking for! On a counter note, Flex also features a story on how steroids can work safely for you. On the cover of this month's Flex is Craig Titus and Tom Prince, first place and second place at the NPC USA heavyweight showdown in Long Beach. Also, Matarazzo confronts Mentzer on the crap that he wrote about him. Other interesting stories include is Venice, the Mecca of Bodybuilding, all washed up? Check it out!

Flex Magazine considers themselves the bible of hardcore bodybuilding. Each month, Flex visits and speaks with the champions of bodybuilding at their gyms, at contests, and at their homes, gathering information and photographs, Flex brings you their latest strategies, and the competitive goals that they apply to further develop their title-winning physiques. Flex is the official magazine of the IFBB.

Bodybuilding:

• Face Off 2: A mere 48 hours after a cocky Craig Titus defeated Tom Prince at the NPC USA, these two young guns gathered for a final showdown, in the gym, not onstage - to strut their stuff for the camera. There's enough heavy metal here to satisfy any appetite for carnage.

• Two Tiered Back Attack: Use a primary program for mass, in tandem with a secondary program of cable isolation exercises, to burn in details, accentuate ideal proportions and carve out deep separated muscularity.

• Charlie's Angeles: Learn how to master complete control of your arm exercises to get your biceps and triceps to grow like English bulldog pups on growth hormone. Bow wow!

• Can Heavy Iron Lead to Fat Loss? It's time for a Flex pop quiz. Which is the better form of exercise for losing fat: weight training or aerobics?

• Extending Growth: Get down and dirty with those vastus medialis meat builders: hack squats and leg extensions. Find out how to add fullness and mass to your thighs, while stabilizing your knees and keeping your patellas tracking correctly during flexion and extension.

  How to get H.U.G.E.: Part 10: The ultimate growth enhancement system for hardgainers. This month: dissecting the internal architecture of the muscle to better understand the nuances of training intensity and muscle recovery.

Special Insert

• Captain Anabolic Offers a few replacement exercises to keep your muscles guessing.

• A long road to Pro? When you check out these awesome shots of Edgar Fletcher, you'll be saying, "This man should be a pro!"
• Big Impressions: Karen Smith, the 1995 Canadian lightweight champ, exposes her vast potential in this Power & Sizzle pictorial.
• The Oh-Team: At May's NPC Pittsburgh Championships, the reigning Olympia king and queen, Dorian Yates and Lenda Murray, posed together for the first time. We caught all the glory on film for posterity.
• The Maine Connection: A look inside nutritionist cum bodybuilder Chris Aceto's world of consulting with Michael Francois, Laura Creavalle and other physique champions.

Supersection

• Brave New Drug World: To combat all the misinformation being promoted as fact in other publications and floating around in cyberspace on the Internet, Flex has enlisted the finest scientists and researchers to bring the truth to its readers. This is not a bible of drug usage; rather, it is a service to help readers make intelligent decisions and staying up to date on the vanguard of cutting edge research.

• This month: an in-depth interview with special agent Robert Bender of the Drug Enforcement Agency, on the hunt for steroid dealers, a sanguine Array Q&A on drinking cow's blood to beef up on growth hormone - legally? An analysis of the study that proves once and for all that steroids produce larger muscles, and more...

Contests / Posters

• Coated in muscle: 1996 Jan Tana Classic: Canadian Melissa Coates comes in from the cold.
• 1996 USA Women's Championships: Lightweight Clifta Coulter, a 4'11" petite powder keg, plays giant killer.
• Poster: Karen Smith / Tom Prince

Nutrition

• The No-Bull No-Tech Diet: Four time Mr. Olympia's 'can't miss no matter how confused you are' formula for simplifying and streamlining the perfect precontest diet.

Features

• The Real Iron Jay: Jay Leno may talk the muscle talk, but 23 year old heavyweight contender Jay Cutler plans to walk the muscle walk at October's NPC Nationals. Lend an ear and get out this brawny Bostonian's way.

• Mecca or Myth? Mr. Olympia rarely leaves England. Ms. O splits time between Detroit and Guam. Is Southern California finished as the capital of bodybuilding? One of our scribes takes a critical look at the shifting geographical axis of bodybuilding.

• The Big Picture: The Paul Dillett File

Departments

• Factoids
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• Hard Times
• IFBB World Report
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• Superteen
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• Ten Years Ago in Flex