Holy crap, it's 2010! Aren't we supposed to be living in condos on Mars and buzzing around in jetpacks by now? Wait, we have iPhones, hard-on pills, and a black president? Oh well, that's progress too, but we're really hoping 2010 brings us one of those Minority Report jetpacks.
Truthfully, almost everything seems to be moving along at warp speed. TMUSCLE is no exception. In case you missed 2009 because you were too busy being consumed with teenage vampire love triangles and watching the Gosselins implode, we ran over 260 pieces about muscle building, fat loss, athletic improvement, and anything else remotely related to those three endeavors.
Along with that, TMUSCLE and Biotest launched video projects, a couple of Super Programs, nine spankin' new forum categories, and six cutting-edge supplements.
And we're just getting started.
Before we dive into 2010, let's take a look back at the year that was.
The Videos
In 2009 Tim Patterson got serious about adding video to TMUSCLE. These documentary-style films are very high quality, hardcore, and guaranteed to make you want to hit the gym and tear shit up.
I, BODYBUILDER: Radical Strategy for Radical Hypertrophy
A glimpse into a new style of "black ops" training and nutrition strategery. You might be skeptical, until you try it!
This video and accompanying article may just change the way you build muscle forever!
Our cameras pay a visit to Dave Tate and his private powerlifting gym. Take a rare peek into one of his exclusive underground strength sessions, capped off with Dave himself doing battle with a 35-rep box squat!
You will want to train after watching this!
Christian Thibaudeau's Experimental Arm Workout
"Blast isometrics." "Twitch reps." Hypertrophy guru Christian Thibaudeau and bodybuilder Kevin Nobert show you how to use them to add massive amounts of, well, mass to your biceps.
New 2009 Forums
Sometime in 2002, TMUSCLE launched its discussion forum. Back then there were no categories at all, just a big hodgepodge of people discussing everything from our latest articles to training and nutrition and sex and politics. The forum got so popular we had to categorize things a little.
Today our forums officially get bajillions of hits. And that's bajillion with a "b", folks! This year we tried to further organize all that wonderful chaos by adding several new forum categories for you to browse when you should be working:
Conditioning
Strongman
Olympic Lifting
Powerlifting
Anaconda Protocol Users
Christian Thibaudeau (HTH)
Velocity Diet Helpful Tips
Velocity Diet Training Logs
Velocity Diet Before/After Photos
Check 'em out if you haven't yet! Just don't let the boss see you visiting Sex and the Male Animal.
The Supplements
Biotest cranked out some amazing stuff this past year. Check it out:
Dr. Jonny Bowden includes turmeric in his best-selling book, The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth. He notes that turmeric has an "almost encyclopedic list of health benefits." These include: alleviating inflammation, anti-cancer properties, improving heart health, an anti-oxidant effect, liver protection, and a host of others.
The secret to this super substance is the curcumin and other curcuminoid compounds it contains. And that's exactly what's in Biotest's Curcumin 500 (and a bit of piperine, which helps with absorption).
The main reason most of us lifter types use it, though, is to combat pain. Banged up from lifting? Banged up from living? Curcumin 500's remarkable pain-fighting abilities will fix what ails you, along with being good for you.
You'd have to be a dope not to take your omega-3 supplements like Flameout, which is a super-concentrated and ultra-pure fish oil (EPA/DHA) formulation that also includes just the right amount of CLA. But what about the other fatty acids that can help you to optimize body composition and hormone production?
Well, if you're eating lots of organic virgin coconut oil, organic olive oil, and borage oil every single day, then you probably have your other fatty acids covered. If you're not, you should be taking FA3™, a precise blend of pristine, high quality lauric acid, oleic acid, and gamma-linolenic acid (GLA).
If you'd like to be leaner, more muscular, more energetic, and healthier, then FA3™ should be part of your daily supplement arsenal. If you don't want to be any of those things, then, um, why the heck are you here at TMUSCLE?
Oh, you're here because of the Figure Athletes? Okay, we can understand that. But they'd like you better if you took supplements and, ya know, worked out and stuff.
Alpha-GPC: Fast-Acting Liquid Formula
An increase in peak force during training. Double your growth hormone (GH) levels post training, the time you need it the most. In short, make faster and greater gains in muscle, strength, and overall body composition.
Take it before training and you'll lift more.
How? By using alpha-glycerylphosphorylcholine, a precursor to the neurotransmitter acetylcholine.
Alpha-GPC is one supplement that's becoming a fast favorite of both powerlifters and bodybuilders. Apparently, we can all get along!
We've offered a high-quality but less expensive protein product for a while now: Grow!™ Whey. But this year Grow!™ got an update and a price drop!
Basically, the update has to do with extracting high levels of the muscle-buildingbioactive fractions from whey. These bioactive fractions, in addition to supplying a rich source of protein, play a big role in enhancing muscular growth, immune function, and nutrient absorption.
Well, Biotest discovered the best extraction approach for pulling out the highest concentrations of these bioactive fractions, and they developed a whole new approach to manufacturing whey protein.
End result? A whey extract containing the richest concentration of muscle-building bioactive fractions. Then they jacked the price up to cover R&D and bought candy-apple red Porches!
No, no, just kidding. Actually Biotest dropped the price to only 18 bucks a bottle (when you buy two or more). The price of ingredients dropped, so instead of shoving the money in our pockets, we passed the savings on to you. Cool deal.
This year the "mystery formula" was finally unleashed. After sneaking its way into the underground gyms of bodybuilders, powerlifters, and athletes for over a year, ANACONDA® was finally made available to the public.
ANACONDA® is actually a combo of two formulas, MAG-10® Anabolic Pulse and MAG-10® Anaerobic Fuel, along with a Superhydration Catalyst. (MAG-10® Anabolic Pulse is also offered as a stand-alone formula.)
You can read all the details HERE but it basically comes down to this: these formulas, assuming you're not being a little pansy in the gym, will help you gain muscle faster than you ever have before, even if you're an experienced gym veteran.
FINiBAR, designed to be consumed before competitions and your toughest workouts, is the elite athlete's secret to increased energy, hydration, recovery, and digestion during intense exercise and sports. It's also part of the all-powerfulANACONDA® Protocol Package.
This year we released the dark chocolate version of FINiBAR to go along with the peanut butter. And here's a quick tip: Stack a PB flavored bar with a dark chocolate FINiBAR for a taste experience that'll make you want to train more often just so you can eat more of them!
And oh yeah, we also made some new T-shirts featuring the Testosterone logo and "T" symbol. These are athletic cut and made of 100% combed ring-spun cotton. We really don't know what that is, but it feels nice and lasts forever.
Placebo-controlled, double-blind studies have shown our T's to be 400% more anabolic than wearing a regular T-shirt.
Okay, not really. But still, they're snazzy.
The Superprograms
It's radical. It's insanely strict. It's a little frickin' insane. The kicker? It strips off more body fat in 28 days than any diet program we've seen, without sacrificing muscle tissue. As a bonus, it violently breaks your bad dietary habits for you while helping to instill new ones that'll last a lifetime.
What the V-Diet is for rapid fat loss, the Anaconda Protocol is for unadulterated muscle gains. From training to the crucial peri-workout period, this protocol gives you the secrets to sustained gains in lean body mass!
Our Favorite Articles of '09
With around 260 articles to choose from this was really an impossible task, so here's what we did (it was very, very scientific)... we asked around.
Yep, we just asked our bevy of editors and writers to list their favorite "high impact" articles. So, rather than saying these are the "best" articles of '09, we'll just say that these are some of our personal favorites.
Gather up some TMUSCLE readers, take their pics, and let an NPC bodybuilding judge evaluate their physiques and give them tips for improving it. It's practical, useful, and unlike anything else out there.
Completely changed the way we look at asses! An encyclopedia of the posterior that contains some funky new exercises that'll give you a powerful (and purdy) set of glutes!
Believe it or not, simple and inexpensive Vitamin D, when "mega-dosed", may be the secret to better performance, fat loss, strength increases, enhanced mood, and even a longer life!
Specialized Training: One Bodypart at a Time
For advanced gym rats, a specialized program that focuses on one major muscle group at a time may be the key to bodybuilding success. This article will show you how to do it.
Powerlifter Jim Wendler describes his oh-so effective 5/3/1 system for putting up big weights.
Steroids in the Sand: Making Muscle in the Middle East
In Dubai, pornography is illegal, as are recreational drugs. Steroids, however, are an altogether different matter.
We pulled back the curtain on an aspect of bodybuilding and figure competitions that the mainstream mags refuse to acknowledge.
We turned on a recorder and let Tate go off. You'll laugh, you'll learn, you'll pee your pants a little.
How to Pull 1008 Pounds and Make it Look Easy
The first man to break the 1,000 pound deadlift barrier describes how he did it.
The "Best of" Series
This past year we decided to put together a list of our favorite routines and exercises for every major muscle in your body. The results? The "Best of" series. Check 'em out:
Coming in 2010, Best of Bulbocavernosus!
Controversial, irreverent, and in your face. "I'm hot, look at me, fuck you!" Raised our Testosterone 98.76%.
Dr. Hyght's "Building" Series
Sure, we write about athletic performance, powerlifting, and just about everything else that involves barbells and dumbbells, but at our hearts we're bodybuilders.
That's why we like Dr. Clay Hyght's "Building" series. It's pure, aesthetic, unapologetic muscle-building. And we kinda dig that. Check out what he's written so far and tune in this year as the series continues.
The A-Dog
TC's Atomic Dog column has been with us practically since the beginning ofTestosterone. In a lot of ways, it's responsible for the zeitgeist of the entire site. Heck, it's even taught us to use words like zeitgeist.
Anyhow, a lot of people love it and probably just as many hate it. The latter can't figure out what it's got to do with bodybuilding.
The column intro probably explains it best:
The Atomic Dog is a weekly feature that isn't necessarily about weight training or bodybuilding. Sometimes it's about sports in general, sex, women, or male issues of some kind. At times it's inspirational, but it can also be informative, funny, and even a little weird, but hopefully, always interesting and a little controversial. We hope it reflects the nature of Testosterone magazine in that, just as no man is completely one-dimensional and only interested in one subject, neither are we. If it makes you think or laugh — or even get angry — it's served its purpose.
With that in mind, here are just a few of this year's best columns.
Who would've thought that an innocent little tongue-in-cheek piece about the 2009 guy's guide to manliness would spark such spirited debate? And a follow-up interview the next week with it's misunderstood, beleaguered author?
"7. Walking to a Public Restroom Carrying a Newspaper
Walking to public bathroom with a newspaper rolled up under your arm automatically sends every bed-able female the mental image of you sitting on the can, leisurely reading the sports section, periodically making the tiles ring with a blast worthy of Heimdal's Asgardian horn.
It's not manly to let a woman know you're going to take a shit. It'll also do very little to help you get laid."
TC leaves the comfy confines of his home office to go undercover at the weirdest social group you've never heard of, members of which include "Frisky Whiskey," who provides full body sexual massage with "release" but not "full service".
Is fidelity really like eating dry toast for the rest of your life? Millions were appalled when former senator and Democratic darling John Edwards cheated on his ailing wife. But TC understands Edwards' plight and suffers the slings and arrows on behalf of all married men.
"After all, how can a man who sticks his thing into the vagina of a woman who is not his wife until some stuff comes out have any sincere interest in the public's welfare? How can a man who sticks his thing into the vagina of a woman who is not his wife until some stuff comes out have anything to contribute at all?"
My Speech to the Graduates 2009
Newsflash, youth of today—you're not nearly as interesting or important as your parents have built you up to believe. Now get off my lawn!
"You ever hear of the Greatest Generation? They grew up during the Great Depression, contributed to the war effort either by fighting in it or making materiel contributions to it, and then went on to build America."
The Embarrassment of Bodybuilding
TC used to be embarrassed to say he was a weight lifter, or worse, a bodybuilder.
Not anymore.
"Saying I was a bodybuilder used to embarrass me when I was immature; saying I was a bodybuilder used to embarrass me when bodybuilding was immature.
The caricature of bodybuilding still exists to some extent, but a few things have changed. For one thing, I don't give a rat's ass what lay people think about it, but mainly, bodybuilding has largely morphed into something else altogether: it's left the stage and the pages of silly magazines to go back to where it started, to the dimly-lit garages and back-alley gyms.
It's back to being about preparing yourself for some battle that may never come. It's back to battling the weights; to feeling the pleasant 'uncomfortableness' of having trained your ass off. It's back to being connected to your body in a way the normal people can't imagine; of being acutely conscious of how the tightness of your shirt, which, hot damn, is just a little tighter than the last time you wore it."
WANTED: White male seeks new friend or friends to engage in occasional debauchery with women folk.
Every man deserves a wingman of some sorts. Maverick had Goose, Kirk had Spock, Turner had Hooch, and even Joe The Master Blaster had an assortment of muscular, tanned, fresh-faced boys who really needed the money.
So what kind of world are we living in today when you can't find a friend who'll go to a bikini contest with you?
TC says we need to go back, way back, all the way to September 1918, when ships full of soldiers returning from the Great War brought with them a deadly stowaway — the Spanish Flu, that would kill more people in 24 weeks than AIDS would later kill in 24 years.
Only by doing that, going back in history, can we get a perspective on the Swine flu. Unfortunately, this perspective kinda' sorta' suggests that the Swine flue vaccine doesn't work.
You Don't Know Dick About Manhood
TC says that most men, if asked to define manhood, would stammer something inane about not crying, not asking for directions, or refusing to wear anything in Adam Lambert's leather and lace filled closet.
Unfortunately, they don't know dick about manhood.
Coming in 2010...
What can you look forward to this year? Well, we can't let the proverbial cat out of the bag just yet, but we can promise you this: We at TMUSCLE and Biotest will push ourselves to bring you the best training programs, the fastest diets, and the most powerful and effective supplements on the planet.
And, if we're all very lucky, The MAG-10® Jetpack.
The MAG-10® Jetpack. Coming in 2010!
Pauline Nordin: Because God is a man.
Dave Tate taught us a lot this year. That's him above. The one in black. The bald one in black. Yeah, we didn't notice him at first either.
From the bodybuilding pretty boys to the powerlifing beasts, the TMUSCLE experts had your goals covered in 2009!
It does exist! And in '09 it was unleashed on the anxious public (that would be you bastards).
Men have glutes. Women have asses. We learned a lot about both last year!
In 2010 we're giving this guy his own forum!
Young Nate Green garnered much respect from his peers in 2009.
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