Competitive bodybuilding is big business. According to some tournament directors, an estimated 20% of competitors use banned or unapproved substances to win these tournaments. In an effort to keep cheating to a minimum, many tournaments have resorted to polygraph (lie detector) tests.
The ugly truth is that these tournament directors are either being scammed or are knowingly going along with the scam. Polygraph tests, if done correctly and to established standards, can be over 90% accurate in getting to the truth. A properly administered exam takes about an hour and involves collecting a large amount of data before a decision can be made. Unfortunately these tournament directors are hiring so called “examiners” who can do a test in 5-10 minutes. This is frankly impossible with a real polygraph. The American Polygraph Association and the American Society for Testing and Materials have established global standards for the polygraph. There is no 10-minute polygraph that can meet these standards. Contestants have been charged with paying $20 to $40 each for their own polygraph, while legitimate examiners charge several hundred dollars per test. The disparity is obvious.
I am regularly asked to provide quotes for bodybuilding competitions, and have been told directly that they are not interested in doing an actual test, that the “tests” are only done as a scare tactic to try to keep cheating to a minimum. The problem is that this tactic will only work once. Once the cat is out of the bag, the unearthing feature of these fake exams is lost. The contestants have learned that they are not taking actual polygraph tests and are therefore free to cheat with little chance of being caught.
What is the solution? Forget polygraphing all the contestants. Pick the top money winners and give them legit polygraph tests before the prize money is released. Real tests. Real results. everybody wins
Michael Martin is president of the Global Polygraph Network.