T-Nation Veterans & Bodybuilding

Off Topic
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Amendment I

We shall promote a new type of bodybuilding.

On second thought, we should say we promote an old type of bodybuilding. Old-time bodybuilding, with its roots in Charles Atlas and Dan Lurie and Vince Gironda and Steve Reeves, wasn’t just about looking strong; it was about being strong, too.

Steve Reeves

Some time around the late seventies or early eighties, being strong lost its importance. Come to think of it, it was right around the time those kit cars got popular. You’d take your old beat-up Volkswagen and pimp it up with a fiberglass shell that looked vaguely Ferrari-ish.

It may have looked fast, but it was still a 60-horsepower turd. We think bodybuilders should be more than 60-horsepower turds.

We kinda’ like symmetry, too. We’re not real fond of the cookie-cutter body look of the 90’s and this century. If you were to cut the heads off today’s top bodybuilders, you probably couldn’t identify their bodies without reading the toe tag.

It didn’t used to be like that. You could have easily identified Larry Scott by his biceps or Serge Nubret by his chest and his waist. Who couldn’t pick out Franco Columbo’s back from a line of stiffs?

I have this theory that there’s a sort of steroid threshold that’s part of our genetic make-up. Maybe it’s 3 grams or 4 grams a week, but once you exceed the threshold, growth supersedes genetic differences.

Say you have three balloons. One is small and round. The second is bigger but a little oval, and the third is longer and skinnier. If you pump enough air into all of them, and assuming for the sake or argument that they won’t break, they’ll all end up looking pretty much the same �?? big and round.

Maybe it’s the same with muscles and large amounts of steroids.

Regardless, the point is that a good artist working in clay knows when to stop adding clay and when to start refining the shape of his statue.

The above is an excerpt from a TC article titled the “New Testosterone” http://www.T-Nation.com/readArticle.do?id=1646953

Now, I am not a veteran here, I’m a newbie. I’ve been around these boards actively for the better part of two to three months and have been learning all sorts of things. What I’m learning most is that the vets here are ranging from annoyed to pissed off at what they see as the disillusion of T-Nation and perhaps a betrayal of the excerpt above.

Threads have been hi-jacked, keyboard verbal sparring are happening, as I type this, over this topic with no resolution in sight. So veterans for my edification, why are you so mad right now?

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Amendment III

Testosterone readers shall mentor the wretched newbies.

There aren’t many weightlifters left in the world, at least not that many like us. Maybe bodybuilding is seen as wretched excess or maybe it’s seen as just too blatantly egocentric and narcissistic. Maybe the public is so hyperaware of steroids that anyone who shows a little muscle is thought to be a drug user and that perception turned off a whole generation of potential new lifters.

Whatever the reason, we need to mentor those who show the least little interest in our sport. Most of us were scrawny and weak at one time and most of us had someone to mentor us, whether it was a grizzled old gym rat or a particular writer in a bodybuilding magazine.

If we don’t mentor, our numbers will continue to diminish. For every one who squats or deadlifts, there’ll be a thousand Bosu ball trainers. Mentor or get ready to say goodbye to this lifestyle.

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are you looking for a bodybuilding big brother?

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[quote]Qaash wrote:

If we don’t mentor, our numbers will continue to diminish. For every one who squats or deadlifts, there’ll be a thousand Bosu ball trainers. Mentor or get ready to say goodbye to this lifestyle.[/quote]

why say bye to the lifestyle if you don’t mentor?

you can live any lifestyle you want, regardless of what others do.

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[quote]LiveFromThe781 wrote:
are you looking for a bodybuilding big brother?

[/quote]

No, this is a question to the members who have been here for years and they do not like the direction the site is going. The above is an excerpt from the article linked…as I see it these are the two things in debate right now through out the boards.

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[quote]jehovasfitness wrote:
Qaash wrote:

If we don’t mentor, our numbers will continue to diminish. For every one who squats or deadlifts, there’ll be a thousand Bosu ball trainers. Mentor or get ready to say goodbye to this lifestyle.

why say bye to the lifestyle if you don’t mentor?

you can live any lifestyle you want, regardless of what others do.

[/quote]

Just so we are clear, the above quote are not my words, it is an excerpt from the article “New Testosterone” by TC

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I think the problem is it went away from being hardcore. Before people didn’t have to mentor, people came here pretty much knowing their shit, or would at least ask reasonable questions.

Going more mainstream, hardcore bodybuilders and strength athletes alike, now have to deal with the squat rack curling, frat boys they orignally came to this site to escape from.

I BELIEVE (I’m still too new to know for sure)that this is causing the anger. The fact that 180lb kids are coming on here and asking how to LOSE muscle shows how much the industry has changed.

I know that if I had asked such a question 2 years ago when I joined I would have been run off in a second. Now not only are people responding to the thread, some were giving advice on how to do it!

It just pisses me off that people are dumb enough to come to a bodybuilding site asking for advice on how to lose muscle. F that, they should have had their membership canceled by the mods.

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I’m willing to mentor someone in the correct lifts and such, but you can’t mentor someone into being hardcore.

Plus mentoring is done in the gym, not on the internet. You can teach someone on the internet, but without someone pushing them in the gym it’s worthless information.

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[quote]CrewPierce wrote:
I think the problem is it went away from being hardcore. Before people didn’t have to mentor, people came here pretty much knowing their shit, or would at least ask reasonable questions.

Going more mainstream, hardcore bodybuilders and strength athletes alike, now have to deal with the squat rack curling, frat boys they orignally came to this site to escape from.

I BELIEVE (I’m still too new to know for sure)that this is causing the anger. The fact that 180lb kids are coming on here and asking how to LOSE muscle shows how much the industry has changed.

I know that if I had asked such a question 2 years ago when I joined I would have been run off in a second. Now not only are people responding to the thread, some were giving advice on how to do it!

It just pisses me off that people are dumb enough to come to a bodybuilding site asking for advice on how to lose muscle. F that, they should have had their membership canceled by the mods.[/quote]

Hey crew, congrats on your record and yeah, I remember mr. huge 21" thighs. Now the article above I mention, states the goals of the site…has that goal been betrayed?

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[quote]bushidobadboy wrote:
CrewPierce wrote:
I’m willing to mentor someone in the correct lifts and such, but you can’t mentor someone into being hardcore.

Plus mentoring is done in the gym, not on the internet. You can teach someone on the internet, but without someone pushing them in the gym it’s worthless information.

I’ve helped out a few chaps here who have later referred to me as their ‘mentor’ so whilst I do agree with you for the most part, certain subjects such as PEDs and nutrition can be comprehensively tackled over teh interwebz.

Bushy[/quote]

Hey B3, what’s your take on the state of this site as it pertains to the Amendments listed above…you’ve got the post count of a vet.

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I understand some of their frustration. There used to be a better signal to noise ratio. Lots of posters who were really living it and exchanging advanced information on how to maximize muscle gains. There are a lot of people posting who just want to get to a basic level of fitness - what any normal human being should look like if they weren’t sedentary and eating crap all day. Not that that is a bad goal… but such people should stay out of the bodybuilding forum.

I try to keep out of there. I’ve been here for just about as long as anyone else, but I am not at the level necessary to start posting in that forum. Just my opinion.

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[quote]nephorm wrote:
I understand some of their frustration. There used to be a better signal to noise ratio. Lots of posters who were really living it and exchanging advanced information on how to maximize muscle gains. There are a lot of people posting who just want to get to a basic level of fitness - what any normal human being should look like if they weren’t sedentary and eating crap all day. Not that that is a bad goal… but such people should stay out of the bodybuilding forum.

I try to keep out of there. I’ve been here for just about as long as anyone else, but I am not at the level necessary to start posting in that forum. Just my opinion.[/quote]

Yet we keep getting jackasses who clearly aren’t even into bodybuilding running into the bodybuilding forum and not only ignoring the focus of the forum, but degrading bodybuilding itself. That’s retarded. It also isn’t happening in any other forum from what I can tell. No one is running into the Strength forum and telling people strength training is stupid.

Why the fuck is that?

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[quote]nephorm wrote:
I understand some of their frustration. There used to be a better signal to noise ratio. Lots of posters who were really living it and exchanging advanced information on how to maximize muscle gains. There are a lot of people posting who just want to get to a basic level of fitness - what any normal human being should look like if they weren’t sedentary and eating crap all day. Not that that is a bad goal… but such people should stay out of the bodybuilding forum.

I try to keep out of there. I’ve been here for just about as long as anyone else, but I am not at the level necessary to start posting in that forum. Just my opinion.[/quote]

I was hoping to here from you, you’ve been mentioned by a few of the people I’m directing my question at. So overall, even the newbies at one point weren’t as annoying as they seem to be now, with goals that are completely the opposite of the stated mission of this site?

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[quote]Professor X wrote:
nephorm wrote:
I understand some of their frustration. There used to be a better signal to noise ratio. Lots of posters who were really living it and exchanging advanced information on how to maximize muscle gains. There are a lot of people posting who just want to get to a basic level of fitness - what any normal human being should look like if they weren’t sedentary and eating crap all day. Not that that is a bad goal… but such people should stay out of the bodybuilding forum.

I try to keep out of there. I’ve been here for just about as long as anyone else, but I am not at the level necessary to start posting in that forum. Just my opinion.

Yet we keep getting jackasses who clearly aren’t even into bodybuilding running into the bodybuilding forum and not only ignoring the focus of the forum, but degrading bodybuilding itself. That’s retarded. It also isn’t happening in any other forum from what I can tell. No one is running into the Strength forum and telling people strength training is stupid.

Why the fuck is that?[/quote]

I knew I’d hear from you…I think it’s the definition or word association between bodybuilding and weight training…I too once thought of them as interchangeable but in this place there is an absolute distinction and there I think lies the problem.

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[quote]Qaash wrote:
I was hoping to here from you, you’ve been mentioned by a few of the people I’m directing my question at. So overall, even the newbies at one point weren’t as annoying as they seem to be now, with goals that are completely the opposite of the stated mission of this site?[/quote]

I have been mentioned with regard to this issue?

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My observation is there are too many people complaining that they can’t achieve their goals and making excuses as to why.

I have seen so many threads where the OP is given excellent advice only to come back with lame ass excuses as to why the advice is all wrong for their very special case. That they have tried everything and nothing works. They just want to be told it is ok to be average.

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[quote]nephorm wrote:
Qaash wrote:
I was hoping to here from you, you’ve been mentioned by a few of the people I’m directing my question at. So overall, even the newbies at one point weren’t as annoying as they seem to be now, with goals that are completely the opposite of the stated mission of this site?

I have been mentioned with regard to this issue?[/quote]

Not this issue but as someone who has been part of this site for a long time and could attest to the changes that have taken place both good and not so good, nothing derogatory.

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[quote]christine wrote:
My observation is there are too many people complaining that they can’t achieve their goals and making excuses as to why.

I have seen so many threads where the OP is given excellent advice only to come back with lame ass excuses as to why the advice is all wrong for their very special case. That they have tried everything and nothing works. They just want to be told it is ok to be average.[/quote]

Now the question then would be, why do those individuals stay here? Within two pages they know that they won’t get the answer they want, at least not by anyone who has something worthwhile to say.

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[quote]Qaash wrote:
christine wrote:
My observation is there are too many people complaining that they can’t achieve their goals and making excuses as to why.

I have seen so many threads where the OP is given excellent advice only to come back with lame ass excuses as to why the advice is all wrong for their very special case. That they have tried everything and nothing works. They just want to be told it is ok to be average.

Now the question then would be, why do those individuals stay here? Within two pages they know that they won’t get the answer they want, at least not by anyone who has something worthwhile to say.[/quote]

They stay because stupidity and boldness seem to go hand in hand lately. They don’t leave because they want all of us to sympathize with them. They want to complain about being hardgainers and FFB’s and they want all of us to listen. It is like those girls video taping their assault for the world to see. They think we should care. They don’t think they should work on themselves at all.

This site is going to become BB.com part Deaux. It is only a matter of time.