Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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38 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A mixed bag, April 21, 2002
By A Customer
I thought some readers might benefit from the perspective of a beginner/intermediate weight trainer. I use this magazine for little more than getting ideas for new exercises so that my routine doesn't get stale. In that sense, Muscle and Fitness is a treasure trove of information on new and interesting ways to work out. Some of the routines are inappropriate for beginners or even intermediate lifters, but the principles remain the same. There is a great emphasis on proper form and a general disapproval of lifting heavier weights than you are capable. Exercises are well described with examples of proper form and thorough explanations provided by professionals. As a previous reviewer said, these professionals sometimes contradict one another, but as in any profession, opinions differ and all that can be done is to present the information and allow the reader to judge what is best for them.Having said that, there is bad with the good. There are an enourmous number of multi-page ads for supplements, often posing as articles. Some of these are of dubious benefit and often make outrageous claims. 90% of these are useless for the general user (I have no interest in spending outrageous amounts of money to build muscle while I sleep) though I imagine a professional would be interested in anything that might help them gain a slight competitive edge. In my opinion there are too many ads which tend to distract from genuine articles. There is also great emphasis on building mass and losing fat - if you are thinking about subscribing to this magazine you should be far more concerned about the "muscle" aspect than the "fitness". So, in conclusion, there is some good and some bad. You may be better off just buying two or three of these magazines if you are only looking for ideas to add variety to your workouts. After a while the articles start to repeat themselves.
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33 of 41 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Those Were the Days, My Friend, We Thought They'd Never End..., December 22, 2007
I can remember the day like it was yesterday; I was at Thrifty Drugstore and I glanced over the magazine rack. There was a copy of Muscle & Fitness. On the cover was a glossy color picture of Dennis Tinerino and some blonde babe. I was so incredibly impressed by that body! Hers wasn't too shabby, either.
I felt kind of embarrassed buying that magazine because I was, at the time, 6'1" and weighed 106 pounds. I had real long, blonde hair and so I had to be really careful not to stand in corners because people might've mistaken me for a mop and used me to try and clean their floors.
I remember reading that magazine cover to cover. It was pure inspiration which was sorely lacking in my personal universe at the time. I was 15 years old and I felt abandoned by life. I really didn't feel like I fit in anywhere.
But after reading that magazine, I dragged out my dad's old blue plastic York barbells and dumbells and his old Sears weight bench and set up a little place in the garage and started working out. At first, I didn't want anyone to know so when everyone was fast asleep, I'd tiptoe to the garage, turn on my Realistic Stereo from Radio Shack to three and workout from 1-2 in the morning.
This magazine really offered some great advice at the time but what I really liked were the pictures. Bodybuilding wasn't the 'freakshow' that it is today. There were some massive guys, but there weren't guys walking around at 300lbs with 25" biceps. Bodybuilding back then still had style and class. I immediately took a liking to Frank Zane. He wasn't super huge, but his body looked like it was sculpted from pure granite. One time the Mr. Olympia was on ABC sports and I used the Beta-tape player (remember those?) to tape his posing routine. Every morning and every night I watched that tape until it literally disentegrated from so much viewing.
I finally "went public" with working out because people began to notice that something was different. In fact, I got to play on the football team instead of being used as a yardage marker. Muscle & Fitness was still my Bible and I ordered all kinds of Weider related products. I once saved up my allowance for a month to get a container of chocolate 'gain weight pills'...I bought them because the same guy that was oin the cover of the first M&F I bought, Dennis Tinerino, was also peddling these. I thought for sure that if I took those pills, I'd look like him in another six or seven weeks.
God, those pills were awful.
I graduated from the garage to a real gym when I was 16 and I kept making progress. Bodybuilding took over my life. Even though my self esteem improved somewhat, it was hard to let go of all those mean and horrible things other kids used to say to me. I thought if I could just get to 160lbs...if I could just get to 175lbs...if I could just get to 200lbs...then I would be happy.
But I was never happy.
I started taking steroids right after I graduated high school and I still wasn't making the gains I wanted to.
One night, in a "roid rage" I was involved in a pretty horrible car accident. My right arm was almost completely torn off. My arm was spared but I was despondent because I couldn't go to the gym.
When I was finally able to go back to the gym, I returned to the same old tricks. I began to notice that Muscle & Fitness was saying the same old thing. I began to get really disillusioned about bodybuilding. I stopped lifting altogether. I distanced myself as much as possible from the sport.
About ten years ago, I gradually got back into it. Not to where I once was, but I decided to make it fun and have a good time doing it. I even bought a copy of M&F....
Same old stuff. I mean, all the people that are in the magazine now are different, but it's the same old stuff that I read 25 years ago. The 'champions' now are HUGE and grotesque. There are people like Jay Cutler and Ronnie Coleman who are weighing close to 300lbs at 5'11".
What the hell, man?
I think what really gets me now is all the advertising. You are paying six bucks for a magazine that is 80% ads. The ads these days even 'disguise' themselves to look like training articles, but they're still ads.
My suggestion is to look on e-bay and maybe buy some older versions of the magazine. Give yourself the opportunity to look at the 'golden days' of the sport. Yes, steroid use was happening even back then but it wasn't so obviously blatant as it is now.
Working out should be fun. I believe that the more fun it is, the more productive you will be. I know I'll never be Mr. Olympia, but so what...I won a bigger prize...I won my own self-appreciation.
Here's hoping you appreciate the gift that is the body.
Peace and Blessings,
john 'the Light Coach'
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16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Really fallen off....., February 20, 2005
I have been reading this mag off and on for the past 20 years. As other reviews have said, I think I am just reading the same tired old stuff from three or four issues ago. "Big Guns!" "Huge Chest!" "Massive Gains!" These seem to be the ones you'll see featured about every other month in here. As for adds? Don't get me started on adds! When half of your magazine is adds, it spells trouble. Not only that, they need to specify to people who may not already know, "This mag's training tips are for people who do not work for a living and can spend 6-8 hours a day in the gym, eat 8-10 meals a day and spend MASSIVE amounts of cash on supplements." In other words, people with no real responsibilities other than taking care of their physiques (Which as far as jobs go, that's a great one to have). I teach all day and into the night, literally, for me to eat and train like they require, I'd have to quit my day job, sell my kids into slavery, and become a homeless person. In which case I'd have no money to have a gym membership. I think you get the idea.
On the positive side, the photos are awe-inspiring. Also, to be realistic, it's a mag that has been around for decades upon decades. How many different ways can you say, "Lift heavy, eat like a horse, and train like you have no other responsibilities in life"? It just becomes repetitive any way you slice it. My recommendation would be to buy an issue or two every decade or so. Buy January's "BIG GUNS" issue, and then February's "HUGE CHEST". Then wait a decade and repeat.
Good luck!
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