36 Pounds.com » BUSTED Myths

Huge Blatant Lies of T-Nation!

Adrian — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 16:20:24 +0000

As you know, I am (was actually) a fan of T-Nation magazine. I have linked to their articles numerous times. And they do have some great stuff there. But they tend to sell stuff there. Site is owned by BioTest supplement company and you can constantly see authors saying that Surge (one of the products is necessary for successful muscle gains). Which is a lie. But hell, I was still reading them because I knew when I was sold something and where was solid advice. BUT their recent new program called “I,Bodybuilder” was just too much for me. BLATANT LYING! Huge marketing campaign promising incredible results that are not possible. They promise results that are better than those guys on steroids get…

Some guys like Nate Green and Chris Thibodeau who seemed to be trustworthy takes part in it. They have lost credibility from now on!!!

Here are two posts calling the BS out!

This one is written by Alan Aragon at Lyle McDonald’s blog:
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/muscle-gain/supplement-marketing-on-steroids-by-alan-aragon.html

And this one is by Jim Deen at JCDfitness.com (whom is a great guy and has already guest posted on this blog once):
http://jcdfitness.com/2009/08/t-muscles-t-nation-i-bodybuilder-review-fact-or-fiction/

And here is the BS program from T-Nation:
http://www.tmuscle.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance/i_bodybuilder_radical_strategy_for_radical_hypertrophy

You can check out the I,Bodybuilder program and see a perfect example of shameless marketing and lies. They promise incredible results (27 pounds gained in 6 weeks), you just have to buy that program and buy 80 bucks for mysterious super-supplement called Anaconda!

I wasn’t gonna write about this at first, but I have to. Maybe some of my blog’s visitors already read it and fell for it so I have to call it out!

Don’t buy I,Bodybuilder and Anaconda, save your money for milk and nuts better ;)

Adrian

BUSTED!: More is Better

Adrian — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 07:00:46 +0000

NOPE! More is not better. Not always. Yes lifting more weight is better but just if your exercise technique is good. Eating more is good, unless you overeat so much that you start gaining fat (that’s why I say Clean Bulk). Anyway, these two are not the main thing I’m going to talk about today. Main problem in today’s bodybuilding is OVERLOAD of information, overload of bullshit to be more exact.

Which information is bullshit? – You ask. Well, pretty much everything in muscle magazines that says you need to do MORE exercises, those that isolate your one body part and train only it, that says that you need MORE supplements which for sure will blow your muscle up so much that you will look like Arnold!

Look, to successfully gain muscle people don’t need to do more exercises, use more supplements. People only need to do what works and what works are the basics. But magazines wont talk about this because they live off of advertisements, or they advertise their own supplements and want to sell them to people. Stuart McRoberts said the following:

Food supplements offer huge potential for
repeated sales. A barbell set can last a lifetime, as
can a good book on training know-how, but a
Can of protein powder only lasts a week or
few. The profit margin on food supplements
is large, and the scope for hype and lies in
marketing material is unlimited.

And it is true, while you only need a gym membership to a gym that has barbells and dumbbells and a squat rack, magazines wont tell you that because it ain’t profitable! They teach people that training with machines and doing fancy exercises is better because it’s new, cutting edge, or it’s the secret… nope it isn’t.. EVERYTHING people need to know is SO SIMPLE that people can’t believe it. Yes, the best exercises are those done with free weights (read a post “Free weights vs Machines” for more info), those exercises that train your whole body (like squats and deadlifts) not the barbell curls (which have their use but only later in training).

Also, it is not better to train MORE. 2-hour marathon of training 7 times a week is killing yourself and a sure way to not gain anything.

So more in terms of exercises and workouts is not better. Keeping things simple is better, following the basics is better (and I have been trying to tell you as much as I can about them and I will do so in the future too). Don’t fall for bodybuilding magazines! Follow my advice and you will succeed!

Cheers,
Adrian

Keep things simple! Plus, F.uck Supplements!!!!

Adrian — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:01:17 +0000

From now on my goal is to keep things when building muscle as simple as possible. I just read a book about nutrition from one nutritional specialist (he is good, I trust him) but it was so hard to read because of those damn medical/biological/chemical terms. I don’t like to read that stuff, it’s so boring. The content is great and if you get it, you have a better knowledge of how your body works instantly and it gets easier to gain muscle (a bit).. I am sure that one can tell the same stuff in simple people’s language. Maybe using metaphors would help. So from now on I am on a mission not only to help 1000 Skinny Guys go Buff but also to create a simple, easy to understand, step-by-step guide/system on training and nutrition. I like to keep things simple and I think visitors of this blog love it too.

For example, some people advise to eat 1,5-2 grams of protein per pound of weight a day.. Now that’s a shitload of proteins.. not sure where to get that much without spending tons of money on protein shakes ( I have a small stomach and I eat like 6 times a day but still, getting around 300grams of proteins would be a torture for me).. You probably don’t know that protein is just 22 percent of muscle tissue!!! So why over consume it? You wont be able to change your body tissue structure so don’t sweat too much about proteins JUST GET the 1 gram per pound of your weight.

Or another example: magazines tell you that you need all kinds of supplements to help you gain muscle and that they will explode your muscles FAST and EASY.. well, I say FUCK SUPPLEMENTS! If you have a good diet then those are unnecessary expenses. I’d better buy myself some tasty food for the same amount of money or went out to play pool or bowling or buy gloves. I am not sure that supplements aren’t just loads of rice flour with like 10 percent of the real stuff in it.

I might get some heat for saying such things and questioning some dogma’s of bodybuilding, but I don’t care… In my opinion, we need to simplify things and stop believing in stuff magazines tell us!

Cheers,
Adrian

How to cut through the BS information about gaining muscle

Adrian — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:18:51 +0000

In today’s bodybuilding, magazines and some sites write a lot of BS information. And everyone falls or have once fallen for it. They promise something so spectacular, so fast, so great that we just see it and believe it because we want as big results as possible as fast as possible! And the advertisements give that to us….

Cutting through the Bullshit:

1. I really recommend you to watch the movie Bigger Stronger Faster. It shows how the magazines and supplements companies lie to people. For example: they take people who use steroids to promote some kind of supplement so that people start to think that the exact supplement allows you to achieve it. And if you see a bodybuilding champion promoting it then it looks good and a lot of people are convinced. Or, if you see an unknown guy who has a good transformation and now looks a lot better (shredded, ripped, etc.), like in this picture:

This picture is from movie Bigger Stronger Faster and it is done with help of Photoshop (photo editing program). Both pics have been done the same day, at the same studio and the photographer who did this says that 90 percent of all ads of supplements are scams!!!! And I used to believe them! :((

From now on I am not gonna use any supplement probably. Later in the movie the guy buys some stuff and makes his own supplements. Uses small part of the actual supplement ingredients (like creatine monohydrate) and the other part is rice flour. The cost of making one supplement bottle is like 2 bucks, but he can sell it for 60 bucks!!!!!!!!! How is that for a scam. It is possible since you don’t have to prove your stuff works for USA’s government agencies (whoever those are called) who are responsible for this stuff. This is why there are a lot of useless stuff on the market.

2. Don’t believe in promises such as that you will be able to gain 30lbs of muscle in 30 days… That is impossible!!! Let’s calculate, at rate of gaining 1lbs of muscle a day you would be 365lbs heavier after a year of training!!! Now does that sound believable to you? I doubt a human go have that much muscle mass on him no matter how many years he trained and how much steroids he has taken..

Now people who just start training can have big gains (more than 2lbs of muscle a month). Those are called newbie gains and they don’t last long. Only for a month or even less. And it is rare that people gain a big amount of muscle (definitely not 30lbs in 30 days still).

Also, you will see the 5-minute Abs workout or similar ones that promise great results FAST! BULLSHIT!!! Abs are made in the kitchen!!! Don’t fall for those workouts (although they are more towards overweight people). If you see a workout routine that says you will some famous Pro Bodybuilder’s arms then forget it too. They use steroinds and their workouts are not for normal people.

3. Some advertisements might use bad studies to show that the supplement or equipment is incredibly good. One great example of it is called the Colorado Experiment and has been used to promote Nautilus training equipment in the past. Here is the study itself:
http://www.musclenet.com/coloradoexperiment.htm

It says that:

RESULTS . .
First subject (Casey Viator), 28 days
Increase in bodyweight……..45.28 pounds
Loss of bodyfat…………..17.93 pounds
Muscular gain……………..63.21 pounds

Second subject (Arthur Jones),22 days
Increase in bodyweight …….13.62 pounds
Loss of bodyfat……………1.82 pounds
Muscular gain……………..15.44 pounds

How about that??? You like the results? I bet you do. I like them too, BUT..

Here is what Mark Rippetoe, author of a great book Starting Strength has to say (he is very well respected trainer and I trust his opinion a lot):

We were treated to a series of before-and-after ads featuring one Casey Viator, an individual who had
apparently gained a considerable amount of weight using only Nautilus equipment. Missing from
the ads was the information that Mr. Viator was regaining size he previously had acquired through
more conventional methods as an experienced bodybuilder.

The problem, of course, is that machine-based training did not work as it was advertised. It was almost impossible to gain muscular bodyweight doing a circuit. People who were trying to do so would train faithfully for months without gaining any significant muscular weight at all. When they went to barbell training, a miraculous thing would happen: they would immediately gain — within a week — more weight than they had gained in the entire time they had fought with the 12- station circuit.

So as you see bad people (supplement companies mostly) might interpret things in a way that is useful for them. And then we would pay them a lot of money..

In the end, be really careful with what you read. I have actually stopped reading bodybuilding magazines myself. As I said earlier I might now buy a supplement again.. I just am not sure that it is just a bunch of rice flour… If you read stuff, don’t believe in everything, be skeptic about it. Know that the more they promise the less likely it works. Those who know stuff, don’t promise heaven, they say that it will be hard, it will take time, take some work (blood, sweat and tears). Them I’d trust, but it is rare that people tell so these days, if they want to sell you something they will promise you more and faster…

Cheers,
Adrian

BUSTED!: The Supplements Myth

Adrian — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:06:24 +0000

Time to bust another bodybuilding myth! Today, it’s about supplements. You see millions of ads of supplements in magazines and they all say that this one is the BEST! And you will grow immensely! Your muscles will explode! Or that this supplement is as Anabolic as anything except steroids can (read gives you most growth). And on and on and on!

So you might get an idea that supplements are a must when bodybuilding… well. NO NO NO! They are not a must, not one type of protein powder, not creatine, not Animal pack not anything else. IF you get enough calories and eat balanced meals with enough proteins/carbohydrates/healthy fats then you don’t NEED supplements. Protein shake is good only for supplementing your nutrition, you can start drinking shakes all day and expect to gain muscle, that’s not real food. Real food is the best and nothing, NOTHING will substitute it. NEVER!

So while buying a supplement is not a must, a necessary thing, you can still use it. One protein shake per day after a workout is not bad, but if start drinking 3 of them instead of eating, you are dead wrong! And buying other fancy named supplements aren’t a must either, good nutrition and intensive training with plenty of rest is the basics and the only Musts there are!

That’s it for today, short post, hope you enjoyed it!

Best of luck,
Adrian

BUSTED: The Don’t Squat Below the Parallel Myth

Adrian — Fri, 08 May 2009 12:48:33 +0000

Hi guys,

today I want to bust a myth that squatting deep is bad . At my gym I only see people squat to the parallel, my friends are doing that too. I feel bad because of it. Everyone is not developing their legs fully and risking their knees more then me… In this post I will give links to sources that bust this myth too, because my own opinion is not enough and you probably need some links from specialists about it.

Here are the links and quotes about this topic:

1. Marc McDougal wrote for johnberardi.com about Fitness Mythology and mentions this:

“More squat myths?!?
We’ve all heard it, if you dip below parallel during a squat, your kneecap will blow off and land in the front desk girl’s mocha latte. Well it just ain’t true! What’s that, you need a little more evidence? Ok boys and girls, its time for today’s episode of Fun With Musculoskeletal Anatomy.
The knee has four main protective ligaments that keep the femur from displacing on the tibia (ACL, PCL, MCL, LCL). These four ligaments are most effective at their protection during full extension and full flexion. Full extension would be when you are standing; full flexion would be when there is no daylight between your hamstring and your calf. When the knee is at 90 degrees of flexion (the halfway point), these four ligaments are almost completely lax and cannot exert much if any of a protective force at the knee (Zatsiorsky V. Kinematics of human motion. 1998 – published by Human Kinetics – p.301).
Unfortunately, the position where the protective ligaments of the knee are not doing any protecting is the common recommended stopping point of a squat. Therefore, as it as it turns out, this is the exact worst place you could reverse the motion under load.
If flexibility allows (heels staying planted, torso not flexing forward past 45 degrees), then a full squat where you lower yourself all the way to the ground is far safer on the knees than the traditional half squat. Guess what joint angle most leg extension machines start at? If you said 90 degrees, give yourself a pat on your healthy knee. This makes a full squat even safer than a leg extension machine (Wilk K et al. A comparison of tibiofemoral joint forces and electromyographic activity during open and closed kinetic chain exercises. Am J Sports Med; 24(4):518-527).
So am I telling you never to do parallel squats? No! Am I saying that you’ll injure yourself on a parallel squat? No, again! What I’m trying to do is simply make an argument for the safety of full squats, thereby relegating squat myth #2 to the fiery pits of hades.”

I definitely trust John Berardi and believe he wont let some loser post wrong information at his site… You can also Google Marc McDougal and find info about him, that proves he knows some stuff about bodybuilding.

2. T-Nation.com writes about 5 myths of bodybuilding in Debunk the Chump:

This relentless myth arose in the 1950’s and was based solely on one flawed study. A researcher in Texas, Dr. Carl Klein, was hell-bent on proving that deep knee bends (squats) were destructive to the knees, so he conducted a study with 100 lifters and 100 nonlifters. He put this little apparatus onto the knee and pushed laterally to see if it would move.

Pushing from the side like this showed ligament laxity. The gadget on the knee showed just how much it would bend. The problem with the study was that, before the subject got on the table, Dr. Klein would ask him whether or not he was a lifter. If the subject said yes, the good doctor would press harder on the apparatus! (One important reason why double-blind studies are more reliable!)

The results were flawed because of the researcher’s bias and have never been repeated in subsequent studies. But the damaging data was out there: people were told that “squats were bad” and they still spread this myth today—50 years later!

3. Some more links about squats:

How to improve your flexibility to be able to squat fully: Third World Squat

Debunking Exercise Myths Part 1 by T-Nation

And another thing. I have not read this book, but I have been told that it writes in depth about squatting below the parallel. It’s Mark Rippetoe’s “Starting Strength”. I will read it in the future for sure and review it for you guys. For now, I believed I have provided enough material to bust the myth.

Now, if you want strong, well developed legs then squat deep and don’t listen to others!

Another post about squats will come in the future. It will be about flexibility. Some guys are not flexible enough so I will give them info on how to improve it and it will be easier to squat deep.

Best of luck,

Adrian

BUSTED!: The Protein Myth

Adrian — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 16:15:06 +0000

Not so long ago I learned that one of most important things about nutrition I believed in was a MYTH.. Wow. And I was ready to defend it and spread a word as if it was true. Thank goodness I learned that I was mistaken. This is important for everyone who bodybuilds!

The myth is that protein from plants is not useful when bodybuilding. You should only count those from meat, milk, cottage cheese, eggs and fish, because protein from plants don’t have all the amino-acids necessary for body…. Well, how wrong was I to believe it.

Here is some proof for it:

One guy’s story – he is a vegan and looks pretty good, has changed his body very nicely. http://blog.nutritiondata.com/ndblog/2008/05/meet-troy-a-bod.html

Also, here’s a quote from a great guy whom I trust a lot since I know he “walks the walk” not just talks.

The idea was that most plant foods only contained some of the essential amino acids, so you’d have to combine “incomplete” foods like beans and rice to form meals that contained complete proteins. This idea was put forth in the 1971 book Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappé. It was a million-copy bestseller. Unfortunately, many people still aren’t aware that this theory was later found to be completely false, as Lappé herself recanted her original theory in later works that were far less popular. The truth is that most plant foods do contain all the essential amino acids, but furthermore, your body will store amino acids in a pool between meals — it doesn’t even need to get all the essentials in a single meal. So the theory of combining plant foods to form complete proteins isn’t even remotely correct. Of course, lifelong vegans already knew Lappé’s theory was wrong, as they weren’t suffering from protein deficiencies regardless of how they combined their meals.

There are a lot of myths in bodybuilding. I will bust them for you in this series which is called Busted! Looking forward to do it. Hope this helped you guys!

Cheers,
Adrian

P.S. Go eat some food!!!! Now! ;)