Posts Tagged “bodybuilding myths”

There are a lot of myths in bodybuilding. When I was young, I took many things at face value. I just didn’t think there was a whole lot of written material meant to entertain me at best or mislead me at worst. I eagerly perused bodybuilding periodicals from cover to cover in search of what would satiate my desire to obtain a muscular physique. I spent thousands of dollars on supplements that were probably all worthy of the fate that befell a bottle of colostrum I purchased in 1990. I chucked that half-used product in to a ravine near where I lived.

Early Bodybuilding Mistakes

So naive was I in my quest for muscle building success that I easily adopted counterproductive training methods along with the worthless supplements. One of these, a protocol claiming to add an inch of arm size in 24 hours, sent my arm training progress backward for no less than two entire months. It called for any muscle building enthusiast who could devote one long day to the gym to perform biceps and triceps workouts every hour for an eight-hour period. This left my arms so over-trained that they performed about as well as wet noodles for seemingly endless subsequent workouts.

Good Bodybuilding ideas

Seventeen years later, I’m seeing much of the same hogwash I fell for in my youth as it’s reformulated for new audiences. The reason I know this is that I subscribe to a couple of popular bodybuilding newsletters. I make it my business to keep up with what’s out there and, putting it mildly; some of it’s looking less than scrupulous. Without mentioning any names or products, here’s a synopsis of some of the possibly dubious presuppositions I’m expected to believe in order to shell out the bucks for today’s ‘hot’ bodybuilding products:

• “Secret” protein formulas from the past can speed up muscle growth.

• Increasing a muscle’s “pump” will cause an anabolic effect.

• Eating liver tablets will increase muscle mass.

• “Bulking up” (i.e. gaining fat with muscle) is necessary for muscle gains.

The first on this list would be funny if it weren’t so friggin’ maddening. I’m asked to believe that a mid-twentieth century nutritional guru possessed a since-lost secret formula that accelerates muscle growth. But what should I expect in an era of ‘The Da Vinci Code’ and ‘The Secret’? Many seem wont to believe something vitally important was lost and buried in the historical shuffle.

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