Leg Training – Myths, Facts, and the East/West Divide
by Christian Duque
Talk is cheap. Shut up and train. That’s what most hardcore bodybuilders would tell you. Though they’re a dying breed, there’s still a sizable group of men and women who don’t like gyms pumping out music. You want to bring your own tunes, played at a reasonable volume, with your own headsets – fine. But the hardcore crowd doesn’t wanna get anabolic to Lady Gaga singing about some dude named Alejandro. This small niche of the bodybuilding crowd, believes in hard training, clean eating, and (at times) some pretty far out supplement regimens. While they frown on those who talk a big game, they’re somewhat guilty themselves. You see, my friends, there’s an ages old divide, and we’re (hopefully) going to address it in this article. There’s a school of thought, a prevailing theory that people on the East Coast train much harder, particularly in the wheels department, than people on the West Coast. The further up (north) you go on that East Coast, the more hardcore the training – per the legend. Florida is an exception, largely because of the snowbirds who have settled there. When the Europeans came to the New World, they brought gunpowder, Christianity, and a lot of diseases. The snowbirds brought parallel parking and insane leg training to Florida, which is better.
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Working An Expo – Are You Cut Out For It?
by Christian Duque
Getting your foot in the fitness industry door is the first step towards making a name for yourself and potentially creating a brand. The #1 most marketable attribute you can have, is being able to work hard, and there’s no better testing ground than a fitness expo. The work is tough, the hours are long, and sometimes the compensation isn’t the greatness. Some companies if booth workers, oh yeah, that’s who this article is written about. I know that many of you probably have delusions of grandeur – it’s ok, so did I, but when you get started, typically it’s as a booth worker. I started out in media, where at first I was writing articles and doing videos without knowing if anyone was reading or watching and for no $. Those days are long behind me, but that’s where I started. If you’re looking to start out as an athlete, with the ultimate goal of landing a supplement deal, then starting out as a booth worker is probably the first gig you’ll get – if you’re lucky! Before I move on with my point about booth worker compensation, I need to take a much needed detour.
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The Underrated Phil Heath Era
by Geoff Roberts
How many times have you heard that the 90’s era was the most competitive era in the history of bodybuilding? If you follow the bodybuilding industry at all, this is something you hear and have heard on a consistent basis. While making a case for this notion, people are quick to rattle off names like Flex Wheeler, Kevin Levrone, Nasser El Sonbaty, Vince Taylor and Shawn Ray. More to the point, this list of names is commonly used to make the case that Kevin or Flex would have won several Olympia titles had they been competing in the modern era. Which clearly implies that in the last ten years or so, the competition at the top of our sport cannot hold a candle to that of the 90’s. While very few individuals within our industry, if any, disagree with this notion, I feel a case can be made that the modern era is equally as competitive as the 90’s, or at least fairly close.
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