Muscle & Fitness

It seems like every other ad is pushing some new, state-of-the-art supplement that will give you the results of anabolic steroids without any of the adverse health effects. The before and after shots are a riot. The worst was a user that was soft and bloated on day 1; on day 3 he was well defined and cut, with a great tan to match!

Ultimately, the only way this magazine is going to help you is if looking at grotesque, chemically-enhanced physiques with sprayed-on sweat motivates you. Personally, I would be happy if I could build the muscle mass of some of the women bodybuilders featured in the magazine. (I could use the manly jaw line, too.)


A mixed bag   April 22, 2002
32 out of 34 found this review helpful

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.


Those Were the Days, My Friend, We Thought They'd Never End...   December 22, 2007
John P. Morgan (Beautiful San Dimas, CA)
20 out of 25 found this review helpful

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'




A Must-Read for Serious Lifters   November 25, 2001
16 out of 24 found this review helpful

If you're serious about lifting weights, a subscription to "Muscle & Fitness" (or M&F as die-hards call it), is as essential as a good bench and some Olympic weights. M & F is the bible of weightlifting for a good reason. The articles in each issue are very well-written by well-informed experts who are actually aiming this magazine at serious lifters. What's especially important about M&F is it looks at the weightlifting lifestyle in its entirety, and that means a strong focus on nutrition--a key part of the equation that is too often pushed aside. Each issue contains helpful workout tips and articles that are well-illustrated, showing you the CORRECT form for each of the exercises. And many of the lifters and trainers who appear in the magazine provide you with their e-mail address to answer questions, that's how serious they are. M&F is not for the casual lifter. If you're interested in committing to a challenging lifestyle in which weightlifting is more than just a hobby, this is the magazine for you. If you just want to lift weights for 20 minutes a few days a week, magazines like "Men's Fitness" and "Men's Health" are aimed at you, and they'd be a better selection for your magazine subscription dollars.


Mostly Ads and Freaks of Nature   May 18, 2004
William Mize (St Petersburg, FL USA)
15 out of 19 found this review helpful

Since the recent decline of Men's Fitness, there really isnt't a reliable, realistic montly men's workout magazine. I picked up a copy of Muscle and Fitness, just for some workout tips and ideas, as I remembered when I read the magazine in the 80's that it was quite good.
Now it's quite full of ads.
From the same 4 or 5 companies.
As an experiment I ripped out every page in the the magazine that had ads on both sides. I ended up ripping out 90 pages.
90 pages!
Out of a magazine with 266 pages.
A full one third of this magazine is ads that fool people into taking crappy, expensive supplements so that they will end up looking like Ahnold (who has joined the magazine as Executive Editor).
You'd be better off by picking up one book for workout (like Body Sculping For Men or Women), one book for nutrition (like Eat to Live by Fuhrman) and save your money and your time.
You get a great looking body by eating healthy and working out regularly, not by gulping down supplements popping pills.