Prior to this week, the most I’d ever known about anything involving deer came down to: 1) Venison is delicious as long as I convince myself it’s not Bambi and 2) You can buy deer piss in hunting stores. The latter, I’m sure, is common knowledge, but I learned about bottled deer urine in high school, when I thought it would be hilarious to buy two bottles and pour them out in my classrooms. Needless to say, I didn’t have many friends.
But this week the big buzz for the ignorant types like me involves deer antler spray, which apparently possesses some performance-enhancing drug-like qualities. That’s why some people are accusing Ray Lewis of using such a spray to boost his recovery time from his torn triceps injury earlier this season. Of course, Lewis has denied that he would ever consider using a PED to help make sure that he wouldn’t miss the remaining games of his final season, and the whole thing has him agitated to all heck. Heck, I say!
Lewis said he was “agitated” about the report and blamed the story on “cowards.”
“I think this is probably one of the most embarrassing things that we can do, on this type of stage,” Lewis said. “When you let cowards come in and do things like that, to try to stir something. It’s just sad that someone can have this much attention on a stage this big. I don’t need it, my teammates don’t need it, the 49ers don’t need it, nobody needs it. It’s very foolish.” (Via)
Foolish enough that we don’t even need to second guess it. According to one ESPN writer, the athlete who is so popular that he earned the same Sports Illustrated cover twice in one season is beyond questioning, and he’s too big to bring down anyway. That’s right, never in a million years would the American media tear down a superstar athlete at the end of his career. Never. Ever.
You can read everything you need to know about Ray’s harrowing experience and martyr mission during this Super Bowl week over at KSK, where the media fellatio has been covered quite extensively. But what of this strange deer antler spray?
“You’re familiar with HGH, correct?” asked Key, referring to human growth hormone. “It’s converted in the liver to IGF-1.” IGF-1, or -insulin-like growth factor, is a natural, anabolic hormone that stimulates muscle growth. “We have deer that we harvest out of New Zealand,” Key said. “Their antlers are the fastest-growing substance on planet Earth . . . because of the high concentration of IGF-1. We’ve been able to freeze dry that out, extract it, put it in a sublingual spray that you shake for 20 seconds and then spray three [times] under your tongue. . . . This stuff has been around for almost 1,000 years, this is stuff from the Chinese.” (Via SI)
Oh, it’s from the Chinese? So are fireworks and Chinese girls, and those are two things that I love, so deer antler spray must be great. Will it help my 7-year old nephew become awesome at sports?
A group of scientists took 32 male weight lifters and gave half of them New Zealand Deer Antler Velvet and half of them a placebo for 10 weeks,” CNBC reports. “While the placebo group didn’t show any difference in bench or squat tests, those given deer antler velvet saw an increase of 4 percent on the bench press and 10.1 percent on the squat test as compared to the placebo group. The scientists also reported that there was a ‘significant improvement in aerobic capacity’ with the group that was taking deer antler velvet. (Via)
Hot damn, where can I buy this stuff to help create my invincible kickball army? Oh yeah, Amazon. Here, here, here, here, here, here and here. Happy spraying, folks.
UPDATE: Annnnnnnnnd you can’t buy Deer Antler Spray on Amazon anymore.
