#jason blaha

[theinfamousgrimhope-blog]

Two People Who REALLY Got Under the Skin of Jason Blaha!

[anabolicbodies]

If you have been struggling to make strength progressions, or maybe you are just looking for some structure in your workout, look no further than the Ice Cream Fitness 5x5 training program by Jason Blaha.

[theclintonyears]

The delusion.

[theclintonyears]

Sandy Hook.

[500fairytales]

Where is the lie

[powerlifting-kingdom]

You may dislike him but Jason Blaha just tore apart the Supplement industry and their complete lack of integrity. If supplements are your jam then all power to you but I personally think the supplement industry needs some serious regulation. Treat supplements for what they really are, convenience, and not some magical key to improved gains. 

[ccrew-bodybuilding]

Just my thoughts on the latest bodybuilding news.

There's been a protracted 'war' between two Youtubers which I've avoided talking about until now.

It involves a famous natural bodybuilder named Layne Norton (who now has a sizeable subscriber base on said Youtube) and another guy called Jason Blaha - an American national who emigrated to the UK and who also has a large Youtube following.

The reason why I didn't subscribe to the arguments between the two is because it's not my goal to get caught up in anything other than what I know or want to achieve personally. This basically amounts to the fact that while everyone is entitled to their own opinions, one needs to employ better judgement than to just wade in unprepared.

Though my opinions are based on my own particular methods of research (having already finished my own Master's degree which has arguably afforded me the necessary level of expertise required to do so), it works in conjunction with personal experience and my better judgement - which happens to come about from such extracurricular activities. 

While I understand that Jason's agenda was to make people aware of the known flaws and corruptions within the bodybuilding scene, I do feel he could have gone about it in a much better way. As mentioned earlier everyone is entitled to their own opinions and whether those opinions are based on fact or some misguided allegiance is totally up to them, but Jason would have been better just providing the methods of his rationale, rather than implicating (whether directly or indirectly) examples of 'practitioners' to that particular mode of thought.

I'd heard of Layne Norton long before he became a Youtuber because he was well known throughout the natural bodybuilding fraternity, however whether he used illegal substances or not (which I'm not saying he has) should have no relevance to anyone apart from those who a/ are specifically looking to somehow get involved in that sort of thing b/ those who haven't or cannot be bothered to do their own research c/ those who are gullible and ignorant of the 'wider' bodybuilding scene.

We should also bear in mind that while channels like Jason's have an amazing avenue from which to help inexperienced/aspiring bodybuilders, we all have to take into account the fact that illegal substances have been perpetrated throughout the bodybuilding scene for decades! Yes we have social media which one would presume would lead to better coverage; an elevation in levels of awareness, but the proliferation of substance abuse will continue unabated regardless of what we (as those who are experienced and who know otherwise) tell people. You'll always get your gullible lot, which is why doing your own RESEARCH to make better-informed judgements is my number one piece of advice!!!

Indeed what Jason said in one of his videos about how he could tell what substances users were taking due to their physique meant absolutely nothing to me personally, for I openly admit to that which I have no personal experience in. 

Secondly and I think more importantly, is that I never took Jason's opinions as fact simply because I had never done my own research on the subject (which I should also add I have no intention of doing). This is not a personal attack on Jason either, because no-one should take anyone's opinions at face value.

So as long as you can just ignore all the aspects of the bodybuilding world that bear no relevance to your own particular goals, research or better judgement, you've got nothing really to get involved in. If you've done the necessary research you'll be in a better position to make your own decisions on for example, whether or not someone who purports to be natural but who is actually on an illegal substance, and to then take measures by acting in the appropriate manner - which usually means just ignoring them!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dw9A4381FBQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyhFFufToIg

[ccrew-bodybuilding]

I should really explain who Jason is but I'll leave that for another time, as I'm pretty exhausted from today's shoulder workout.

I do however think I should justify the use of Youtube videos over traditional text. Youtube is now home to a whole host of channels dedicated to fitness and bodybuilding, and you'll find (by sheer force of numbers) some great channels that have a ton of useful information. It's also a community that tends to share opinions of contemporary issues - news that 'does the rounds' where for instance one channel could make a claim to something related to BB which are later discussed by other channels within a small time frame. It also benefits from the shared Youtube platform which makes linking into one another's videos a breeze.

Anyway Jason's latest video is really interesting not least because like me, he draws on the concept of today's body aesthetics and it's Greek derivation. If modern society hadn't been influenced such as it has, then our views on aesthetics probably wouldn't have been codified such as it currently is (though this was perhaps unavoidable given our adherence to Scientific Method).

Jason's video actually talks about a couple of things, for instance that bodybuilding can be conducted by various means, and that it largely depends on how it's interpreted by the person. He also inadvertently stumbles upon something that many bodybuilders don't like to admit: that those who do so purely from an aesthetic standpoint are basically generating useless muscle.

I'd assume it would be quite difficult to understand what he means, and so I'll go through some examples.

One way of looking at it would be saying that by doing things (as Jason says) like isolation curls in such a way as a typical bodybuilder might do, would actually mean that all you're doing is building muscle that will serve no discernible function outside of that particular range of motion. Jason contrasts this with an MMA fighter or Strongman who actually has to go through the various motions to generate explosive power; thereby fulfilling some sort of function (if you look back at the Magnus Samuelsson strongman video that I posted and his training you'll see what I mean).

It's also easier to grasp once you understand that bodybuilders in most cases are not strongmen; we do so for aesthetic purposes only (once again Samuelsson at the beginning of the video makes fun of bodybuilders who do so "to look pretty"). Another example is via martial arts. I once talked to my Karate sensei about this, and he replied by saying that you'll rarely find a martial artist (I assume Karate specifically) that was totally ripped from having done Karate alone. However, that's not to say that Karate practitioners cannot and will not exert an incredible amount of force in their movements to fulfill that ultimate goal.

I even remember watching a documentary on Bruce Lee some years back. They interviewed some of his original Wing Chun teachers back in China, and they talked about how they'd noticed that Bruce had intentionally put on muscle mass in order to look good for Hollywood. However to them it went against how Wing Chun worked, because the increase in lean muscle mass would actually have been detrimental to the Art.

Another example was a documentary of Mike Tyson and his former trainer, the legendary Cus D'Amato. In that old documentary, there was a clip which showed Mike going through his paces and I remember them mentioning that even though Mike exhibited incredible bulk and muscularity, he didn't do any weight training because it was a liability to be carrying excess muscle mass that had no function inside the ring.

Muscle mass and bodybuilding is more or less always about aesthetics but as Jason points out, there are some people out there (myself included) that believe that you can tailor your training to incorporate both aesthetics and usefulness outside the realm of BB alone (my rugby training for instance). Genetics aside, we have to remember that athletic aesthetics does not often equate to that of bodybuilding aesthetics (one example that stands out is 100m sprint runners), but at the end of the day it depends on the person to find the right balance.