So I was all ready to do a post on how outdated the Weider folks still are, plugging their bodybuilding-based workout programs that haven't changed since the 70's, so I jumped on one of their websites for a little trip down memory lane.  I was a regular reader of Muscle and Fitness and FLEX back in the 80's, or, as fans of contractile tissue like to call them, the Haney/Gaspari/Labrada era. 

Incidentally, I love that after dozens of years of schooling and life experience in the intervening years, those names, faces, traps and lats remain seared into my memory.  I never attended a single bodybuilding contest, yet the rivalries among these titans were palpable:  Gaspari nips at the heels of Haney, his former training partner!  Lee "Mass with Class" Labrada eclipses his brother-in-law--and former Mr. Olympia--Samir Bannout!  A ripped Gary Strydom defeats smooth but huge perennial bridesmaid Matt Mendenhall in the Nationals!  "Ageless" Albert Beckles second only to Haney in '84!  The coverage almost made one think that bodybuilding was an actual sport for awhile there.

Anyway, I was all set to mock and deride the former bible of my youth--you know, the zealotry of the converted, the need to knock down our heroes, and all that.  But when I examined the site, there was actually some decent information on there.  Now, admittedly, featured among the training articles were programs like this:

Exercise            Sets/Reps

Incline barbell press         4/6-8

Hammer strength high row     4/6-8

Barbell bench press        4/6-8
Seated row             4/6-8

Decline dumbbell press             4/6-8

Hammer strength low row      4/6-8

Pull-up                To failure

Dumbbell overhead press     1/100 ²

which brilliantly features twelve sets of horizontal pressing, twelve sets of horizontal pulling, and, astonishingly, just one set each of vertical pressing and vertical pulling.  Pull-ups are second-to-last on the list, after a number of what I'd call "finishing" exercises, which is a little like fine-sanding a tree before you chop it down. Weirder still, the above is billed as an "arm" workout, perhaps because, presumably, all every M&F reader wants is huge arms.  I idly wondered what quacky Southern Californian orthopedic surgeon was underwriting the publication of that particular gem.

But further down the list was a pretty cool program for increasing jumping power that included some pretty decent functional movements like dead lifts, plyometrics, jumping butt kicks, and power cleans.  It appears pretty well-thought out, and looks like it might be worth trying if jumping height and power were of interest. 

Even the much-reviled Joe Weider appears to have changed his tune a bit:  in his 'Master Blaster' column in an issue of FLEX I picked up recently, I noticed he (or whoever is writing his copy these days) is now downplaying the "get ripped and huge" stuff and emphasizing the health and athleticism aspects of what he calls the "Weider lifestyle."  And every few months, even now, there's Arnold Schwarzenegger gracing the cover, sometimes airbrushed, sometimes in cartoon form, but ever in the  full flowering of his 1970's splendor, his massive right biceps proudly untroubled by California's fiscal woes. 

Muscle and Fitness is a schizophrenic publication:  on one hand, it's running on the fumes of Schwarzenegger's glory days; on the other, it appears to be tentatively dipping a toe into more up-to-date and truly useful training methods.  Which version eventually wins out will determine whether it's a relevant brand for the next generation of iron-pumpers.