August 15, 2005

Welcome to SeriousAboutMuscle.com – a New Kind of Bodybuilding Publication with an Old Way of Thinking

Bodybuilding publications today are in a sorry state. Crack open any of the magazines on the shelves and you’ll likely see page after page of advertisements, mostly from supplement companies, amidst articles full of half-truths and nonsense that won’t likely appeal to anyone over the age of 21. The magazines’ purpose these days seems to be this simple: Write about anything you want and show any type of picture imaginable in the hope that some gullible consumer will latch onto what’s said and shown in the pages and lay down their hard-earned money on some worthless, and maybe even dangerous, product that’s being promoted there. The magazines seem no longer to be about the sport – they’re about products. The publishers of these magazines should be ashamed – and who knows, perhaps behind closed doors they are – but their shame is obviously offset by greed and a desire to do anything possible to stay in business.

However, it wasn’t always that way. Up until, I’d say, the late ‘80s, perhaps early ‘90s, the bodybuilding magazines were credible sources of information, with real training programs written by real athletes and coaches – stuff people actually did for real, and not some nonsense written by a desk jockey who had never lifted a weight, let alone seen the workout he might be describing. In short, the magazines were about bodybuilding, the sport, not the products that surround it. And the journalists back then seemed to understand the sport fully and have a passion for it. As a result, the magazines were real, and the people who read them learned something. The contest coverage, as well, used to be fantastic, and the writers weren’t scared to question the judges’ decisions and call it like they saw it.

But today, at least in my opinion, none of them is even good enough to justify its asking price on the newsstand. Open the covers and it’s the same old, same old…. It’s like they’ve run out of ideas, or passion maybe. When times get really tough they try to "up" their sales with their secret weapons: either they publish some picture of a seriously scantily clad woman (the famous "golf ball" photo that one magazine published was, in my opinion, the lowest point any magazine ever reached, something most people would consider pornography), or they dig out another group of Arnold Schwarzenegger photos and publish yet another one of his training routines from bodybuilding’s "glory days" – some 30 years ago! It’s no wonder nobody is reading the magazines, and fewer people these days care about the sport than even a decade ago.

I suspect I’m not alone in that way of thinking. It’s no secret that magazine publishing is on its way down, and the bodybuilding magazines with their incessant desire to continue to publish nonsense month after month are going down faster than most. Behind the scenes, the publishing industry is "hurting," getting closer every day to dying. What’s more, there’s no fresh blood.

But that’s what we hope to change with SeriousAboutMuscle.com, the same way we did with BodyBuildingLive.com and SeriousAboutFitness.com many years ago. We’re going to take the old-school energy and funnel it into a new online publication that you’ll be able to read for free on the Internet. No nonsense, no "special 6-page ad reports," and no holding back. The articles you’ll read here are from real writers who are actually involved in the sport – whether they’re journalist, trainers, or the athletes themselves. It’ll be like the old days – the "glory days" – when reading a bodybuilding publication actually meant something. Welcome to SeriousAboutMuscle.com, a new type of bodybuilding publication with an old way of thinking. The new articles will start appearing here September 1.

...Doug Schneider, Publisher
das@seriousaboutmuscle.com

Doug Schneider is the publisher and chief photographer for SeriousAboutMuscle.com, BodyBuildingLive.com, and SeriousAboutFitness.com.