I have been a voracious reader since I was quite young. So, it only made sense that when I started lifting weights seriously in the late ‘80s that I would read bodybuilding magazines. And I did. A lot of them. Starting in 1989, I’m pretty sure that each month I scoured the magazine stands for every magazine that came out. IronMan , MuscleMag International , Muscular Development , Flex , and lesser known rags (at least, today they’re lesser known) such as Dan Lurie’s Muscle Training Illustrated and the natural bodybuilding magazine aptly titled Natural Bodybuilding and Fitness were some of my regular reads. I couldn’t afford to actually buy all of the magazines at the time, which meant that I would sometimes hang out at the local grocery store or drug store’s magazine stands for hours so I could read the magazines from cover to cover. If I did manage to scrounge up the money for a magazine or two, I almost ...
Essays on Old-School Strength Training, Classic Bodybuilding, Traditional Martial Arts, and Budo Philosophy