The Trouble with Muscle Magazines
Posted by Spencer
If you are a regular lifter you will have no doubt have opened a muscle magazine in an attempt to get some good solid tips on improving your time in the gym. It takes a lot of guts to make the gym circuit four to six times a week come rain or shine, whether you are feeling up or down or nursing an injury. And if you are able to keep your motivation on an even keel, there's always the time element and how you are going to fit in your workout with all the other pressures in life demanding your attention. Still you've set aside this time for the gym, it's yours and the rest will just have to wait.
You finally make your way through the doors of the gym; there is no turning back. When you pick up those dumbbells or grasp that barbell, you had better be ready to lift. The mind and muscles may play a tug of war making you feel like a spectator watching the two forces try to work in harmony.
Back to the muscle magazines....I think I can speak for many of us when I say we want to be able to get straight answers to our weightlifting questions. We are ready to listen to the pros and learn through their experience and sometimes mistakes. But give us the straight goods.
My den is lined with all the old great muscle mags from Weider’s first editions of Your Physique, Muscle Power, Hoffman's Strength & Health, Rader's IRONMAN, UK's Health & Strength and the other magazines that make up the evolution of bodybuilding for the past sixty years. The common threads that were tightly woven in those magazines were the articles. Solid articles based on thousands of hours spent in the gym by countless lifters and pro bodybuilders. The information was passed on like a torch to light the way. The articles were not laced with ads for turbo charged amino acids or lightning bolt creatine. Instead it was the advice and wisdom of others who were willing to share their successes and failures in the gym. The photos were strategically placed not to distract but to add to the articles. Sure not all of the information was invaluable but you were still able to gain something from them even if it succeeded in motivating you in some small way. Collectively these works made you feel bound to a brotherhood of what has evolved into the Iron Game.
The trouble with muscle magazines today is that they have sadly lost the essence that made them into a million (s) dollar publishing industry. Its getting harder and harder for me to thumb through the countless ads and steroid photo galleries without feeling queasy. And frankly all I am looking for is the straight goods.
Re: The Trouble with Muscle Magazines
Posted by TJ
I agree that the old mags were the best. Peary Rader put out Iron Man Magazine and it had very few ads and a ton of solid advice on training and eating to get results. Todays mags are a bunch of ads and ghostwritten stories and worse yet a lot of them feature half-naked woman more than training articles. I like women but if I want nudity I'll buy Playboy. I want good solid advice and inspirational stories, not bull. I still read the old mags,and get a lot of new ideas and info off the internet.
