Before and After, Supplements in the Picture

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ended his $8-million contract with a muscle magazine publisher last week. But his deep emotional, political and business ties to bodybuilding -- and to the supplement industry that feeds it -- won’t be so easily severed.

Since becoming governor, Schwarzenegger has remained closely involved with the bodybuilding world and with the supplement companies whose products promise such things as ripped muscles, “thermonuclear” energy and better sex.

According to documents and interviews with industry leaders, Schwarzenegger has continued to give the industry advice. He has participated in private meetings about government regulations. The governor also received personal income from the Arnold Classic bodybuilding contest, which serves as a showplace for supplements.

And since entering politics, he has accepted $242,000 in contributions to his gubernatorial campaign and other causes from individuals and companies connected to the bodybuilding and supplement industry.

Supplement makers say the governor is strongly in their corner.

“Arnold is first and foremost a good diplomat for the bodybuilding and sports supplement industry,” said Lee Labrada, a former Mr. Universe and president of Labrada Nutrition, which sells such products as an “embryonic peptide matrix” and “Super Charge” energy drink.

After questions arose about potential conflicts of interest, the governor last week ended his relationship with American Media Operations Inc., publisher of Muscle & Fitness and Flex. He also said he would stop taking income from the bodybuilding and supplement exposition that carries his name.

Few people would be surprised that Schwarzenegger has contacts with the bodybuilding industry -- as a seven-time Mr. Olympia, he is perhaps the most famous bodybuilder in the world.

But now that he is governor, state conflict-of-interest rules apply to him. State law requires public officials to perform their duties “free from bias caused by their own financial interests or the financial interests of persons who have supported them.” His contract with American Media required him to “further the business objectives” of the company.

Schwarzenegger’s aides said the governor has no direct financial connection to the supplement industry, even though the industry’s ads dominate the muscle magazines that paid him. They said the governor had no conflict of interest when he vetoed a bill in 2004 that would have regulated supplements -- the magazines paid Schwarzenegger, not the advertisers.

Rob Stutzman, the governor’s communications director, said Schwarzenegger supports numerous business endeavors -- including the real estate industry and the California Chamber of Commerce -- and his support for the supplement industry should not be surprising given his history.

“His long documented involvement with supplements is a deeply held personal belief,” Stutzman said, “just as his beliefs about [not raising] taxes and about the need to reform California and build highways to the future.”

One of the main sponsors for the Arnold Classic bodybuilding competition is General Nutrition Centers, a shopping mall retailer that is one of the largest sellers of supplements. Company spokesman Steven Nelson said the Arnold Classic “allows us to connect with one of our largest segments of customers: the sports enthusiasts and bodybuilders.”

Just before taking office in 2003, Schwarzenegger reported personal income from two dozen bodybuilding and supplement companies -- such as SportPharma, Twinlab, VPX and Pinnacle Bodyonics. The income was funneled through his former company, Classic Productions Inc., which produces the Arnold Classic in Ohio every year.

After taking office, Schwarzenegger ended his ownership stake in Classic Productions, his aides said, although he still received an income from the company until last week. Like his American Media contract, Stutzman said the relationship with Classic Production was ended to avoid “any distraction his political opponents or the media can use against him.”

Stutzman said Schwarzenegger would not return any money he received from the two Arnold Classics that have taken place while he has been governor. He also will not return money he has received from the magazines. Under California campaign laws, Schwarzenegger is not required to disclose the exact amount he received from those contracts, only that he was paid more than $10,000 for each.

Even while governor, Schwarzenegger’s involvement with supplement companies extends to regulatory and political issues as well. At the Arnold Classic convention last March in Ohio, Schwarzenegger attended a private meeting with executives from the nutritional supplement industry whose products have been under fire by California lawmakers and regulators.

Jeff McCarrell, co-founder of supplement maker Nutrex Research Inc., and Labrada said they attended the meeting, where the governor spoke with industry executives about protecting their products from government interference. They said Schwarzenegger was enthusiastic about helping them.

“I’ve been in this business for 17 years, longer than most people in that room, and I can tell you I had never seen his involvement as much as I did that day,” McCarrell said. “I had never seen him say as much about the industry as he did that day.”

He added: “He is not going to abandon it; he does believe in dietary supplement ... and he is going to support us in every way he can.”

David Pecker, chief executive of American Media, organized the March 5 meeting to announce the formation of the Sports & Fitness Supplements Assn. The group of 20 supplement makers is being assisted by the Washington lobbying firm of Parry, Romani, DeConcini & Symms. Both Pecker and a representative from the lobbying firm declined to comment.

According to an article in the July issue of Flex, Schwarzenegger “urged everyone in the industry to stand together and speak loudly and cohesively as we deliver the message that supplements are not only safe when taken as directed but beneficial.”

In an interview, Labrada said he thought Schwarzenegger attended the meeting as a “representative for fairness when it comes to sports nutrition.... More than anything, he came to assure us that we were going to be treated fairly.”

Last year, Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill that would have required coaches to take a course in performance-enhancing supplements, created a list of banned substances for interscholastic sports and barred supplement manufacturers from sponsoring school events.

In his veto message, an official state document, Schwarzenegger said most dietary supplements were safe. He also said the legislation unfairly focused on “performance-enhancing dietary supplements (PEDS) instead of focusing on ensuring that students participating in high school sports are not engaged in steroids use.”

Muscle & Fitness and Flex, two American Media publications, are dominated by advertising from supplement makers. Ads for some products run over multiple pages. One advertisement by VPX Sports, which Schwarzenegger disclosed as providing income to him through the Arnold Classic, sells a “freeze & burn rapid fat loss and energy technology” drink.

Schwarzenegger attained worldwide stature through bodybuilding, an industry that relies on specially designed foods and powders to bulk up and get energized. His longtime patron, Joe Weider, was an early entrepreneur in the supplements world and began relying on Schwarzenegger to promote his products soon after he brought him to America in 1968.

“He is the Jack Nicklaus of our sport,” said Ironman Magazine publisher John Balik, who gave a $2,000 donation to Schwarzenegger’s initiative committee last year. “He helped put the sport on the map. He was one of the seminal figures.”

Balik said in an interview that he made the $2,000 donation -- modest by Schwarzenegger’s standards -- because he is a friend dating to the 1960s, when the two worked out at the original Gold’s Gym in Venice, and the now wealthy governor was “making $100 a week.”

Balik said he believes Schwarzenegger signed the American Media deal not so much for the money but because he retains an “emotional connection” with bodybuilding.

“He’s is not the kind of person who is going to be affected by the money -- never,” said Charlotte Parker, Schwarzenegger’s former longtime movie publicist. “He likes to be fairly compensated for what he does, but that would never compromise what he wants to do. He is committed to being governor.”

Parker now serves as a spokeswoman for Weider Health and Fitness, the nutritional supplements company co-founded by Joe Weider. In 2003, Weider sold an archive of Schwarzenegger photographs and seven magazines, including Muscle & Fitness and Flex, to American Media Operations Inc. for $350 million in cash, but retained the supplements business.

Parker said she was unaware of any business relationship with the supplements business run by Weider and Schwarzenegger. In 1994, Schwarzenegger presented an award to U.S. Sen. Orrin G. Hatch of Utah for his work to protect the supplement industry from government interference. The award was sponsored by Weider nutrition.

Weider has also been a regular source of money. Weider Publications gave $68,000 in 2002 to Schwarzenegger’s after-school program initiative, Proposition 49. Weider Health and Fitness, a Woodland Hills-based firm that markets pills and powders that promise to help consumers bulk up, has donated $37,000 to various Schwarzenegger campaigns dating to 2003.

The governor also has received $93,000 in campaign contributions from the family of Harold Zinkin, a Fresno body builder who died last year. Other donors with stakes in the muscle-building business include Tony Robbins, who contributed $22,300 to Schwarzenegger’s reelection and $25,000 to the California Republican Party earlier this year. Robbins is an owner and vice chairman of IdeaSphere Inc., the Michigan firm that recently bought supplement maker Twinlab Corp., of New York.

The company said in a statement that it does not have “any direct financial relationship with the governor.”

Robbins, for his part, explained in a statement that he has known the governor for more than a decade. He said he has “no business or financial relationship with him whatsoever,” and is unaware of any business relation between Schwarzenegger and Twinlab.

Another donor to Schwarzenegger is Muscular Development publisher Steve Blechman. He gave $2,000 to Schwarzenegger in 2003. The latest issue of Blechman’s magazine includes numerous before-and-after photos depicting fleshy men and women who were transformed by various supplements.

Schwarzenegger himself is a purported expert on supplements. The latest edition of his Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding contains 18 pages of information about supplements.

Schwarzenegger entered the bodybuilding world before supplements became a large and complex business. He was more old-school; his early advice on the subject of gaining weight included a 5,000-calorie diet mainly of milk, meat, eggs and cheese.

Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-Los Angeles) said his 16-year-old son once asked Schwarzenegger for advice on what he should take to improve his muscles.

“The governor said, ‘You shouldn’t take anything. If anything, protein. Eat more protein.’ I don’t think the governor is out there promoting these products on a personal level. I don’t think he’s out there doing that,” Nunez said.

Under Schwarzenegger’s magazine contract, his income at American Media increased if the company sold more ads. He was guaranteed 1% of advertising sales, but no less than $1 million a year starting in January 2004. The company estimated that the governor’s share of sales would amount to $8 million over five years.

Schwarzenegger is keeping the money he already has been paid; that amount has not been disclosed.

Attorney John Tiedt of Riverside, who has been suing supplement companies including Muscle Tech and Twin Labs, said Muscle & Fitness, Flex, and other similar magazines are key to the supplement business’ success.

“Arnold carries a lot of weight,” Tiedt said. “His magazine was accomplice to selling dangerous products. They could not be sold in the volumes they were sold without the magazine.”

Karen Getman, former chairwoman of the Fair Political Practices Commission, said the governor’s arrangement with the magazines clearly presented a conflict of interest, even though he didn’t receive payments directly from supplement companies.

“If you have got that kind of incentive built into a contract, where your financial interests are going to be tied to your actions as a public official,” Getman said, “we’re going to look behind the veil of who is actually paying you and get at where your financial interest lies.”