Muscle Men: 1. All That Glitters

Meet William Dillon. A young amateur bodybuilder from small-town Illinois, who dreams of getting ripped. It’s the early 1980s and across the USA a fitness revolution is underway. Exercise has become a national pastime and Arnold Schwarzenegger is taking the jacked-up physique mainstream. Dillon is one of many young men with a new kind of American dream - big muscles, and big money. In 1984, a lucky break transports Dillon to star-studded LA, and the world’s most iconic bodybuilding gym, Gold’s Gym. There, to the sound of clanking steel weights and a pumping disco beat, a new physical ideal is being forged that’s changing the way Americans look in the mirror. But Dillon’s about to learn that, beneath the glittering surface of this world, there’s a secret. And when he discovers the chemical key to how many of the guys get BIG, it will set him on a path that will change his life - and many others - forever.In the first episode of Extreme: Muscle Men, historian, podcaster and fitness expert Natalia Mehlman Petrzela - presenter of hit podcast Welcome To Your Fantasy (Gimlet) - reveals how the California beach body became an iconic symbol of the 80s fitness boom. When that boom collided with anabolic steroids, it sparked a chemical and criminal revolution that would transform bodies all across America.Featuring William Dillon, former bodybuilders Joe Troccoli, Sandra Blackie and Dr Jeff Golini, and former co-owner of Gold’s Gym, Ed Connors.Presenter and Executive Producer: Natalia Mehlman Petrzela Producer: Caroline Thornham Assistant Producer: Mohamed Ahmed Editor: Katherine Godfrey Production Manager: Cheree Houston Sound Design and Mix by Nicholas Alexander Original Music by SilverHawk, aka Cyrille Poirier Executive Producer: Max O’Brien Commissioning Editor: Dan ClarkeA Novel production for BBC Radio 4Featuring clips from: Pumping Iron - George Butler and Robert Fiore, White Mountain Conan the Barbarian - John Milius, Universal Pictures Advert for Gold’s GymEpisodes are released weekly on Mondays. If you’re in the UK, you can listen to the latest episode, a week early, first on BBC Sounds https://bbc.in/3ybDcHO

Om Podcasten

Peak Danger is Season 2 of Extreme, the BBC podcast about those who chase the impossible... who strive for superhuman status and refuse to accept that life has any limits. Every season tells an unforgettable, action-packed story about people who’ve pushed their minds and bodies to the very edge – but at what cost?A mountain of trouble...In August 2008, around 30 climbers took on K2. Over 2 disastrous days, 11 of those people would lose their lives. This is the story of what really happened.Sitting on the border between China and Pakistan, K2 is a perfect pyramid that pierces through the clouds. It looks like a kid’s drawing of a mountain…but this terrifying peak is anything but child’s play.Newlyweds Cecilie Skog and her husband Rolf Bae loved climbing mountains almost as much as they loved one another. In the summer of 2008, they embarked on a honeymoon like no other, when they decided to climb K2. What happened next would change their lives and the lives of everyone around them…forever.A devastating avalanche scatters high altitude climbers across K2’s steep slopes. Life and death rescue missions quickly get underway. Who can be saved… before time runs out?Historian and podcaster Natalia Mehlman Petrzela returns with a sky-high story of human vs nature, and of survival against all the odds.What does it really take to push yourself to the brink of human possibility? How does it feel to stand with the whole world at your feet? And is it ever worth risking death… in order to feel alive?