I have always been happy with the products I have gotten from John
Berardi, Martin Rooney, and Joe DeFranco. With that said, I have a complaint about the other strength coaches out there. I will keep this anonymous so it is not considered a flame and thereby deleted.
With all the cross promotion going on out there I no longer know who to trust. Some of the products myself and my friends have recieved recently have been sub par to say the best.
My buddy recently bought for a large sum of money, a book from one of these strength coaches with a “religious” title. The book was “hundreds of pages” long “filled” with quality information. Not!
The book had at least a hundred pages or so of worthless exercise descriptions. The worst part was how the book was stretched out. The margins were several inches out on each side, 3 or more inches in on each side. The book by rights should have been less that 100 pages.
There seems to be a coaching clique out there these days who all seem to follow the same pied piper of marketing. Their motto seems to be “Charge the crap out of people” and don’t care about the production quality or quantitiy of info while at the same time stating it is all about the “information”.
Some of these products seem to cost very little to produce, with poorly printed and binded books with poor photos and home video type production.
It pisses me off.
I would complain about their annoying amount of emails (seeming one every 3 days) anouncing some “new” product they have come up with. I won’t complain about that because if you ask them to take you off their list they are really good about doing that.
I feel ya. I bought one book based on the recommendation of someone (Author 1) whose work is first class, and whose book I found to contain the best information for my goals.
The “book” (by Author 2) I ended up buying was crap. I am going to send it back. If Author 2 won’t take the book back and refund my money (which is required by law), I’ll ID the author and explain why the book was junk. (I.e., I’ll cost the author A LOT more than what I paid for the book.) If I can’t get it through here (re: do the MODS smoke threads critical of T-Mag authors?), then I’ll just post it to my blog - which is a high PR6 and will be the top result for anyone searching for the book.
Anyhow, just letting you know that “I feel your pain.”
I’ll never buy anything recommended by Author 1, though I will by books that Author 1 himself wrote. HIS information is still good, even if he recommends shitty books as part of a “You push my stuff, I’ll push yours” marketing strategy.
Who to trust? In my opinion, I think EliteFTS is one of the best, as I believe Dave approves every product. He knows the reputation of his site is on the line, so doesn’t offer anything sub-par.
As far as books go in general, I feel that they are too expensive. At the end of the day they don’t contain information you can’t get online with a little patience. Obviously there are exceptions. Like JB’s Precision Nutrition seems like a decent deal.
DVDs can be even worse. I have seen training DVDs that basicly fill the time with mindless repetitions. I don’t need to see someones warm-up sets, etc.
I want to make a note that I have only one product from Christian (Black book of training secrets) and I found it to be excellent. I wanted to avoid putting too many specific names in this thread, I forgot Christian since he isn’t a product/marketing whore.
thanks,
Orange
[quote]PredatorOC wrote:
I have personally found, along with T-Nation, EliteFTS.com, Westside-barbell.com and Nazbar.com to be quality sources for information. I pretty much stick with those.[/quote]
Well this is akward. I just said that Nazbar.com has quality information and afterwards as I check my email I find an email from nazbar that reads ‘Double Your Bench in 2 months!’. And contains a link to some Men’s Health article…
[quote]orangecola wrote:
I want to make a note that I have only one product from Christian (Black book of training secrets) and I found it to be excellent. I wanted to avoid putting too many specific names in this thread, I forgot Christian since he isn’t a product/marketing whore.
thanks,
Orange[/quote]
Thanks, I do appreciate that. I do have quite a few products out there so I was really insecure about your post.
My goal is to teach people and not make a buck from them. So I do encourage anybody who is not fully satisfied with any of my books to contact me and voice their concerns.
As I recall, that article cites Tate, so I think you’re ok.
[quote]PredatorOC wrote:
PredatorOC wrote:
I have personally found, along with T-Nation, EliteFTS.com, Westside-barbell.com and Nazbar.com to be quality sources for information. I pretty much stick with those.
Well this is akward. I just said that Nazbar.com has quality information and afterwards as I check my email I find an email from nazbar that reads ‘Double Your Bench in 2 months!’. And contains a link to some Men’s Health article…
[quote]orangecola wrote:
I want to make a note that I have only one product from Christian (Black book of training secrets) and I found it to be excellent. I wanted to avoid putting too many specific names in this thread, I forgot Christian since he isn’t a product/marketing whore.
thanks,
Orange[/quote]
I went to go see the super heroes at their venice beach/gold’s stop and I remember Thib was so cool and just talked with everyone about training without a stuck up attitude or anything. He also got our email addresses and sent us his e-books.
“I rather have a good friend then make a few bucks”.
Now I’ve never been one to buy training books, but these e-books are packed full of great information. Like the poster above, Thib doesn’t disappoint. Just agreeing with the quote.
Thanks, I do appreciate that. I do have quite a few products out there so I was really insecure about your post.
My goal is to teach people and not make a buck from them. So I do encourage anybody who is not fully satisfied with any of my books to contact me and voice their concerns.[/quote]
…and I definitly think he’s sincere when he says this.
This is a site run by a supplement company. You have to remain aware of that. It’s obviously superior to other outlets, but still.
You should let personal (or as close to personal as you can get) experience with a person determine it for you. I’ve experienced nothing but quality with Thib and Berardi, and Neanderthal No More helped me immensely when it was released so I’ve got nuttin’ but luv for Cressey and Robertson.
Also I am convinced Dan John and Mike Golic are the same person, so clearly I trust him (them?) with my life.
