Are there any great bodybuilding magazines left?
Muscular development is a shell of what it once was (half as thick, more ads, more focus on pharma) with less pictures, training routines and advice.
MuscleMag (my old personal favorite) died with its founder a few years ago.
Flex is now part of Muscle & Fitness and that magazine is mass consumerism, not the dedicated.
Iron Man seems to still be around but I cannot find it in stores anywhere (and it focuses more on selling pictures of beautiful women as opposed to training advice).
No!
I was head was buried in the mags back in the 90s and early 2000s: M&F, Musclemag International, Flex, Muscle Media 2000, Natural Bodybuilding, Ironman. I LOVED Ironman and
Musclemag!
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That’s what I thought. I am still contemplating a MD subscription just for something to read - but as a natural lifter half the articles on pharma are of no interest to me.
I was morose when MuscleMag died - by far the best mag out there. I may have to get my dad to ship me my back issues from his place just for the nostalgia.
I did see that Ironman has an app for the kindle fire - I downloaded it, but haven’t had a chance to peak around yet and see what they offer.
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I have a free subscription to men’s health, but I honestly only read the non-training articles. Occasionally a good recipe or tip on some new tech gadget but for any decently knowledgeable and experienced fitness folk it’s a waste and often just silly (different audience I realize).
S
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Whoa, are you telling me you don’t want to know the secrets of how to get 13 inch arms like the cover model of the month? I suppose you don’t want to know how to add 50lbs to your bench either. Sad, really.
Most of the best advice today is online like this one. I get more real world info from this site than I ever got from all old mags I used to read.
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I must be old school (especially for my age). I appreciate the journalists and professional photos in the magazines.
Sometimes its nice to see a printed page instead of an LCD screen.
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Is this the meathead version of being caught with thr old style girlie-mag?
“Bro?!?!are you reading men’s health?”
“Urrrm, I only get it for the travel articles!!! I don’t look at the training”
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Hardgainer is out of print but if you go to their website you can order back issues. There is no advertising in them.
I think one of the major reasons Muscular Development still exists is the inclusion of pharma. It makes it relevant for “bodybuilding”(though your criticisms about the magazine are justified). None of the major magazines have ever really been about natural bodybuilding. Their business model was duping natties into thinking they could eventually receive Pro results, by buying the supplements advertised in the magazines.
Like Brick’ I was a massive collector of BB magazines. Now I just browse through MD at the news stand and only buy if there is a useful article about pharma(which isn’t very often).