Getting Ripped?

During the 60's, Joe Weider built a bodybuilding empire on the complacent mounds of sun and surf pulp mags that could be found at any newsstand. His closest competitor, Muscular Development, featured a staff of sports trainers, physicians and nutritionists who extolled the Hulkamanic virtues of taking vitamins, getting plenty of rest and fresh air, and weightlifting at least two to three times a week. After all, Steve Reeves, their megastar, was literally the biggest thing onscreen. He was to pecs what Elvis was to pelvises. Gladiator movies were the rage, and having 15" arms and a 45" chest was guaranteed to make beach bunnies drool if you ate well, worked out and lived right.

Weider discovered Venice Beach, where quirky characters overexercised and kicked sand in dorks' faces, spending more time dousing themselves in oil and frying themselves in the sun to enhance that striated look than frolicking in the blue Pacific like everyone else. He came across narcissists who wanted to be bigger than anything else on the beach, and it was here he realized he could build a megafortune. Guys like Dave Draper, Chet Yorton, Larry Scott and Reg Park made Steve Reeves look like a greased football player. If he could get these monsters to endorse his products, he would corner the market on bodybuilding products. Well, folks, the rest is history.

Only the 80's brought more and more competition down on poor Joe as computer geeks and advanced chemistry entered the arena. When the Olympics began busting the Commies for steroids, it kinda pulled the curtain down from behind the Wizard of Oz. Now the life-changing potency of Weider products had big shadows of doubt cast around them. How big could you get without steroids? Rival firms jumped up and down, hawking their clinically-proven steroid substitutes that had a new generation of barbell fans leaving the Weider camp in droves.

The proof is in the pudding, though, and people started coming back when they realized Mr. Olympia was still the heavyweight crown of bodybuilding. Arnold stayed with Joe, and so did Lee Haney, Cory Everson, Dorian Yates, and every other legend the sport ever produced. Face it, kids, a curl will always be a curl, and protein is protein. You can angle it out and crunch it together, pack those vitamins in as tight as you can, but basically the MD people were saying the same thing Joe was. Pump that iron, eat good, get plenty of rest. As it says in Lamentations, "There's nothing new under the sun."

What M&F provides for us is inspiration. Joe knew that all along. You pick up a mag and see a 60" chest and 22" arms, and you fantasize about getting near that big. You blew the five bucks, so you feel guilty and do a couple of curls, get on the bench, and next day you feel sore but better about yourself. You're not as lazy or miserable as you were yesterday. Now the quality of your life goes up, and you thank Joe. So do the rest of us.

I'd like to see them focus more on inspirational stories rather than trying to compete with the Sears catalog in advertising junk. That's what we read the thing for in the first place. Tell us more about what made the guy want to look like a fire hydrant; we know he did a million curls, presses and squats, cleaning out his Mom's fridge in the process. Go back to basics, Joe, it's what put you where you are in the first place.