Fitness Industry Scams

[Simple Simon]

^ I've adjusted the source link.

("The primary goal of these magazines is to sell supplements for the companies controlling them")

[Simple Simon]

PT James Smith slams ‘dishonest’ fitness influencers

"Controversial personal trainer James Smith has slammed “deceitful” fitness influencers who surgically modify their bodies then profit by manipulating people on social media."

"But what about the success stories of these plans that are plastered all over social media?

Just like traditional “before and after” examples, Smith said these, too, are manipulated.

“The fitness industry is run by people marketing their hyper responders,” he said."

[Simple Simon]

"Joe Weider was a propagandist, a phoney, a con man, a cheat, a mail fraud artist, an enabler of sports drug culture, a fast shuffler, a four-flusher, a user of people, a bait and switcher, a low common-denominator hustler, a chiseler, a weasel, an exploiter, a hack and a second rate pornographer. Yes, he was a great influence on what the iron game is today..."

https://www.ironmind-forum.com/forum/str...ider/page2

[Simple Simon]

Bodybuilding is a scam and why it matters

"Don’t fall for the mass monster steroid fallacy, that steroid users look like Phil Heath or Kai Greene, not like Jeff Seid. This is a delusion built upon YouTube videos, social media drivel, manipulated science and straw-man arguments. Most juicers are way smaller than you realise."

[Simple Simon]

Natural'' bodybuilding is a SCAM and the Fitness industry is full of FRAUDS

"You are getting an unrealistic image of what is archieveable natural[y], you will not get that body natural without being on the juice"

"Lifting weights is and has always been a scam that was somehow made pretty by the fitness industry and the bodybuilding industry"

[Grinch]

Joe Weider sold absolute garbage as his first supplements, and the FDA ordered him to remove these products from the market. He had Arnold model the magic "power bracelet". Joe was a conman.

However. People are stronger and healthier if they lift weights. People should just ignore the "influencers". God forbid they watch Jason Blaha. Most of what I have seen on the internet is poor advice for natural bodybuilding. Bench, squat, deadlift is a poor choice for building muscle. Try Ryan Humiston, the best, instead: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj209lI...kK8e3qFFNQ
Or Jason Gallant https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoSnXBa...y2ZQqgCQXw
Technique matters, and Scott Herman or Jeff Cavaliere will not get someone to their true natural limit.

Talking about natty limits, we have to consider context. If someone only benches, their arms will not be as large as if they had benched and also did tricep and bicep isolation exercises. For most men building their physique, a proper diet and squats will take care of everything below the rib cage. So shoulders, upper back, chest, biceps, and triceps should take precedence. No isolation exercises, no reaching the natty limit. Don't eat enough food, won't reach the natty limit.

[impatient_undertaker]

Whoever wrote the above last paragraph is talking complete shit.

You can definitely reach your natty limit with compound movements alone.

Not really. Calves don't grow that much from squats and deadlifts (pessimists may say that they don't grow at all ); biceps don't grow that much from rows and, say, chin-ups; lateral delts don't get that much of a stimulation from compounds either. Depending on your proportions squats and deadlifts may overdevelop e.g. your glutes and not do much for hamstrings; without a direct work your forearms will be just good enough to handle the rest of your activities so they are not the limiting factor, which far from natty limit.

I would say 80% can be achieved with compounds and it's fine. The rest requires polishing with single joint exercises and if aesthetics is your goal, then IMO they are necessary and maybe even more efficient than some compounds.

[khrazz]

Not really. Calves don't grow that much from squats and deadlifts (pessimists may say that they don't grow at all ); biceps don't grow that much from rows and, say, chin-ups; lateral delts don't get that much of a stimulation from compounds either. Depending on your proportions squats and deadlifts may overdevelop e.g. your glutes and not do much for hamstrings; without a direct work your forearms will be just good enough to handle the rest of your activities so they are not the limiting factor, which far from natty limit.

I would say 80% can be achieved with compounds and it's fine. The rest requires polishing with single joint exercises and if aesthetics is your goal, then IMO they are necessary and maybe even more efficient than some compounds.

muscle mass increases from your daily/weekly/monthly tonnage aka volume. Your biceups, cannot distinguish the difference between the stimulus they get from rows  to concentration curls. They only distinguish the signal they get from your bodies biological mechanism of MPS, which starts the moment you do a sufficient amount of workload in order to deplete energy stores and create micro tears which in turn will trigger MPS.

Rows, particularly heavy rows, will increase the size of your arms. Show me a guy who does pendley row with 100kg, and then show me his spaghetti arms. Not going to happen sorry...

That 80% is a very vague number. What does 80% mean? There are no % percentages in fitness. Thats a huge bullshit myth, like the myth that claims you get your results from doing 20% exercise, and 80% diet. Sorry, but the reality is that you need to work 100% in both of these 2, plus proper 7-8 hours of sleep.

[impatient_undertaker]

Aestheitics has nothing to do with exercise choice. Aestheitics has everything to do with bone structure.

That's defeatist bullshit. Sure, it matters a great deal and in absolute terms it may be a main factor. However, what's important is that if you take non-exercising fairly lean natty and put him on reasonable routine without making him fatso in the process, he will look much much better than before, no matter the starting point.

My narrow waist and broad shoulders have nothing to do with lateral raises or military press.

But they have (or other exercises or physical activity that hit these areas). Let the muscles melt away and tell me with a straight face that you look the same aesthetics-wise.

Its diet and genetics.

They are factors, and exercise choice is another.

So what you are fundamentally saying is that a chin-up will only get my biceps to 80% of their max growth while a concentration curl will give me the next 20%. Why do chin-ups stop at 80%, if they took me that far why did they stop there?

That's your invalid conclusion. You will develop 80% of your muscle gain potential, but it doesn't mean that each body part will be developed in 80%. Compounds hit bigger muscle groups and develops them well, so they are developed in >80%, and smaller groups <80%, but the overall effect is 80% in my example.

Chin ups eventually stop developing biceps before reaching limit because they don't provide enough stimuli. You may not be able to do even 1 more chin up, but biceps can be quite fresh. Biceps are not a prime mover during chin ups so what do you expect?

Lol calves don't grow unless you have calves. Heres a example - chris dickerson (1 time mr olympia) had huge calves. He was a bodybuilder and a steroid user. He had a twin brother who was not a bodybuilder or a steroid user. His twin brother had calves measuring an inch smaller than his.

My own mother and father have huge calves (by bodybuilding standards they would do just fine). My mom and dad have not done a calf raise exercise in over 20 years. They just walk around like everyone else.

Inch here and there makes or breaks the physique. I would rather have that inch rather than not.

And sure, we can exchange as much anecdotes as we like. But take an average guy with average calves - would you advice him not to do calf raises? Do you think that there would be no difference if he did them or not? No difference in appearance maybe? If exercise selection doesn't really matter, where do these guys with T-Rex physiques come from, if not from SS or other isolation-phobic nonsense?

In the other thread you even admitted that you do thigh curls. Why? Maybe the reason is that compounds are not enough?

---

muscle mass increases from your daily/weekly/monthly tonnage aka volume.

If that was the case, intensity wouldn't matter. But it does and you need both.

Your biceups, cannot distinguish the difference between the stimulus they get from rows  to concentration curls. They only distinguish the signal they get from your bodies biological mechanism of MPS, which starts the moment you do a sufficient amount of workload in order to deplete energy stores and create micro tears which in turn will trigger MPS.

But they can distinguish between intensities, and rows are intense for your back, but not so much for the biceps. If you don't do exercises in which biceps is the prime mover, you leave biceps gains on the table.

Rows, particularly heavy rows, will increase the size of your arms. Show me a guy who does pendley row with 100kg, and then show me his spaghetti arms. Not going to happen sorry...

That's a straw man, no one said you will end up with with spaghetti arms by avoiding direct biceps work. Do strongmen and powerlifters or SS trainees have the same biceps development as people following a bodybuilding program? No? So what are we arguing exactly?

That 80% is a very vague number. What does 80% mean?

Divide muscle mass obtainable via compound movements, take the natty limit (provided it exists, but I think we believe it does, otherwise sky is the limit, right?) and divide the former by the latter, and then multiply by 100%. 80% refers to what I think (roughly) to be the case.

There are no % percentages in fitness.

There are. Some are even directly measurable, like 1RM%.

Thats a huge bullshit myth, like the myth that claims you get your results from doing 20% exercise, and 80% diet. Sorry, but the reality is that you need to work 100% in both of these 2, plus proper 7-8 hours of sleep.

Yeah, that one is nonsense and nobody knows what does it mean. Nevertheless, some "fitness %" are fine and useful in communicating ideas and real world phenomenons.

[twp]

Chin ups eventually stop developing biceps before reaching limit because they don't provide enough stimuli. You may not be able to do even 1 more chin up, but biceps can be quite fresh. Biceps are not a prime mover during chin ups so what do you expect?

Every time I do weighted chin-ups my biceps is the limiting factor. And I guess I am not the only when.
With pull-ups my biceps and back tire at the same rate.


I used to do only arms isolated exercises, and some of this blood flow restriction bullshit and I reached 39-40 cm, but every time I stop doing this my arms go back to the regular 38 cm. I feel like these 1-2 cm are just temporary pump lasts no more than 3-4. At the time I feel good and think that isolated exercises are actually working my arm muscle muscles, buts its only temporary. 
Same can happen if emphasize some other isolation exercise like leg extensions. For a while my quads feel bigger, but after I stop doing isolation everything balances out.