It might seem vain, but bodybuilding is ultimately about oneself. Bettering yourself, learning your limits and surpassing them, creating the best looking body physically possible. That’s why this week we decided to count down the greatest bodybuilding transformations of all time. And to be honest, some of these transformations are mind blowing. It just goes to show that anything is possible with the right attitude, dedication, and will power. Check out these crazy before and after transformations in the episode above.
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The recent “staredown” between top women bantamweights Holly Holm and Miesha Tate was not much of staredown at all. The two strikers – set to fight on the co-main event on the UFC 197 card on May 5th – had a quite cordial stare down as they posed earlier this week at the press conference. While they were extremely polite with each other, with Miesha Tate even giving her a cupping hand shake – probably both united in the down fall of former reigning champ Ronda Rousey – one can rest assure these two women will come out like beast on fight night. This is a tale of two dragons – the dark and the light – feed both. The polite one for the conference, and the fire breathing one for the war. Check out the “not so” stare down below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a_Tdmrv2Jw What do you think about the upcoming bout between Miesha Tate and Holly Holm? Did we miss something in the staredown? Let us know what you think in the comments section below? Also, Be sure to follow us on Fbook, Insta, and Twitter! Lionel Harris-Spence is an amateur filmmaker, Krav Maga practitioner, and self proclaimed MMA junkie.
Eye pokes. It’s perhaps the most dreaded of all the infractions experienced in MMA. Don’t get me wrong, getting hit to the groin is a horrible feeling, it’s happened enough times for me to save that it really doesn’t feel too great. That being said, getting an eye poke, especially during competition, can truly be a game changer. With low blows you’re given five minutes to recover, a time that is almost never fully used by a professional fighter thanks in part to toughness and the protective gear provided. Eye pokes however aren’t lent the same weight despite the fact that it is far more detrimental to deal with. At UFC Fight Night 81 we saw a prime example of why eye pokes can be so harmful and why changes need to be made to the system. Travis Browne was squared off against Matt Mitrione on the undercard of the event in a heavyweight bout. The first round saw the underdog Mitrione take the fight to Browne, winning the round on most analyst score cards. Then came the eye pokes. With two separate and painful actions in which Travis Browne fingers lodged into Matt Mitrione’s eye socket, the fight was completely changed. Doctors were sent into the cage to examine Mitrione’s eye and like the true competitor he is decided to move forward with the fight. But it’s at this time that the onus is on the athletic commission’s medical staff as well as the referee to make the decision to protect the fighter rather than just let the fight continue. Mitrione admitted that he was seeing double which is a major sign that serious damage was done. The damage from the poke changed the complexion of the fight drastically. It was also clear that the fighter wouldn’t give up the fight so easily in the hopes that he could still gain victory. Unfortunately for him it wasn’t in the cards as Travis Browne used the opportunity to overwhelm Mitrione with strikes in the third frame of the contest. No one is accusing Browne of any intentional wrong doing, but the fact that the referee didn’t take a point from him or choose to stop the fight in favor of protecting the fighter shows incompetence that shouldn’t be overlooked. Yes, fighting is admittedly a somewhat barbaric way to make a living and obvious physical damage will be suffered by at least one of the two competitors, but that doesn’t change the fact that infractions like eye pokes need to be treated with more weight and concern. It can be as simple as letting the fighter have five minutes to recover much like a groin shot. Or, as Mitrione suggested while on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Hour, a no contest should have been issued. If you want to see Matt Mitrione’s interview with Ariel you can watch in the video below. https://youtu.be/4LjMBD8Kutw?t=3512 The bottom line is that rules are put in place for a reason, to protect the fighter sometimes even from themselves. But if we want to see the sport grow then some rules need to be changed, others excluded and even others added to make the sport evolve. What is your stance on eye pokes in MMA? Let us know in the comments and forums. Also, be sure to follow Generation Iron MMA on Facebook and Twitter. Jonathan Salmon is a writer, martial arts instructor and geek culture enthusiast. Follow him on Twitter and keep up with his latest exploits.
Every week, Iron Cinema will connect you with Generation Iron director Vlad Yudin. Giving you unprecedented inside access to the creative process behind his the Generation Iron Fitness Network. Get a first hand look at the entire journey of taking Vlad’s creative ideas to the big screen – from stories on set of films like Generation Iron and CT Fletcher all the way to exclusive behind-the-scene looks at our newest GI news and films. This week Vlad sits down with Gregg Valentino, one of the most controversial bodybuilders in the history of the sport. You know him as the “Ramblin’ Freak” or “The man who’s arms exploded.” Literally.
As you all know, Gregg Valentino is not only a loud talker but a long one. He has a lot to say. So much so, we couldn’t fit it all into one interview. That’s why Part 2 of my Iron Cinema interview with Gregg focuses more on his past. Even after all these years, bodybuilding fans see Gregg Valentino as one thing – a synthol abuser. But Gregg has consistently told a different story. Hear what he has to say and how he wants to be remembered in the second part of my interview with Gregg Valentino above.
And don’t forget to check out the first episode of his brand new show – Storytime with Gregg Valentino. Airing on our network every Tuesday. You can catch the latest episode below:
These days it seems that if you’re not a massive bodybuilder that your hopes of placing within the top ten standings is fairly low. We all understand that getting big and having massive muscle is a criteria of bodybuilding, but at times it seems that the ideology is taking precedence over symmetry and proportion these days. It something that has been touched on multiple times mainly because there are so many people who differ on the subject. No matter how much people want to side with the argument that the size of the athletes these days isn’t an issue, we can clearly see that aesthetics isn’t weighed as heavily these days.
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Case in point, Cedric McMillan is a truly great bodybuilder with tons of potential and a well proportioned physique to boot. He is a massive man, make no mistake about that, but he holds his muscle differently than most other competitors. Cedric McMillan is a man who chooses to emphasize a more classic aesthetic rather than focus purely on building more and more muscle. There comes a time when you have to realize that it’s not how much muscle you put onto your frame that matter, but rather the quality of muscle and the definition you wish to present to the judges when you’re ready to hit the stage.
With only a handful of weeks before the first major competition of the year, the 2016 Arnold Classic, Cedric is looking to change the minds of the judges at this years event and prove that old school aesthetics can beat out the modern day bodybuilder. It’s surely an uphill battle, but if this Instagram photo proves anything, it’s that Cedric is up for the task.
A photo posted by Cedric McMillan (@cedricmcmillan) on
Do you think Cedric McMillan will place higher at this years Arnold Classic? Let us know in the comments and forums. Also, be sure to follow Generation Iron on Facebook and Twitter.
Beyond the criticism: here’s why mass monsters today are bigger than the Golden Era.
The past versus the present. The old versus the new. It seems to be a constant topic in many different athletic endeavors, the impossible question of asking if an athlete from the present day would be superior to an athlete from the past. In regards to bodybuilding it seems that every athlete is always compared one way or another to the man who is considered the greatest bodybuilder of all time, seven time Mr. Olympia winner Arnold Schwarzenegger.
It’s easy to see why people would constantly compare themselves to the Austrian Oak. Arnold had one of the most impressive bodybuilding physiques of all time with the over the top and influential personality to back it all up. Arnold was the most popular bodybuilder of his time because of his mental game, posing routine, confidence, and sheer size. So though he’s still considered to be the greatest bodybuilder of all time, it is a bit interesting that most of the pros these days appear so much more massive than Arnold ever did. You’d think that if they wanted to emulate greatness that they would build a physique similar to the all time great, but this simply isn’t the case.
Ever since Dorian Yates won his first Olympia competition it was apparent that bodybuilders were getting bigger, larger, way more massive than they had ever been before. Bodybuilders of such magnitude are often dubbed mass monsters for their unbelievable size. Though many still wish the days where bodybuilders focused on aesthetics were still alive and well, the unfortunate truth is that bodybuilding has evolved into something entirely different.
So how exactly did this massive change in physique come about? Is it simply that bodybuilders these days are taking way more anabolic steroids than the athletes of the past? Arnold himself has admitted to taking steroids and it did nothing to harm his career so why doesn’t any present day bodybuilder like to broach the subject? Well Jason Blaha of JuggernautFitness fame has his own distinct theory behind the massive alterations in the modern day bodybuilder’s physique.
Do you think that bodybuilders have taken muscle building too far? Let us know in the comments and forums. Also, be sure to follow Generation Iron on Facebook and Twitter.
This week is a special episode of the Generation Iron podcast – Krystal Lavenne is doing a total take over while Kai Greene is out of town. But Krystal doesn’t like talking all by herself. So she’s joined by resident loudmouth and controversial bodybuilder Gregg Valentino to talk about his new show on the Generation Iron Fitness Network (Storytime With Gregg Valentino) and the current state of female bodybuilding.
With a focus being put less on mass monster female bodybuilders and more on “traditional” bikini figures – is the line between oversexualizing competitors and appreciating their fitness physique getting blurred? As the country struggles to bring equality to gender – can the bodybuilding industry keep up? Let’s just say when you have a loud mouth like Gregg Valentino in the mix – things get pretty interesting. Listen to the latest episode above.
The Generation Iron Podcast With Kai Greene airs every Wednesday and is available to listen right here on the Generation Iron Fitness Network, the iTunes podcast app, or on CBS’s official Play.It website. Please help us make a mark in the podcast world! Listen, subscribe, and rate us!
It’s perhaps the biggest part of combats sports, make no mistake. If your mental game is weak then there’s no doubt that your fight game will be less than impressive as well. The feeling of getting into the ring or cage, absorbing the energy from the crowd, feeling that pressure, the weight of the task at hand all on your shoulders. It takes a lot of sand to face another person in combat and in order to do that you need to be mentally focused for the task at hand. On the heels of the UFC 197 press conference where Conor McGregor dominated Rafael dos Anjos in the mental warfare, it has to be said that the brash Irishman is already winning the battle of champions. Having extreme confidence can be a fighter’s best weapon and it can allow even the most mundane of competitors to rise to the occasion. Having a great deal of skill and will can take you to the summit. It’s the confidence and mental fortitude that will have you ascending the mountain. For all of you who missed the UFC 197 press conference you can watch in the video below. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AQ7dlmZIFU If I were a betting man, which I should be at this point, I’d say that Rafael dos Anjos is in a pretty bad spot going into this match up. Despite all the tools at his disposal, despite the fact that he has crushed some of the most talented opponents the UFC’s 155 pound division has to offer, he’s allowing McGregor to get the better of him in the trash talk. No matter how much a fighter may not want to admit it, if you allow your opponent to run their mouth unchecked the chances of them getting under your skin is very likely. Before what was to be my last bout, my opponent was able to anger me with his disrespectful attitude. Though I tend to perform better when my emotions are running high, it was a valuable lesson that illustrated the fact that your opponent can get the upper hand mentally if you allow it. The match never took place, but that’s a story for another time. The bottom line is that the mental game is something that can impact the outcome of a fight and truly set the tone for proceedings. If Rafael dos Anjos wants to enter the fray with Conor McGregor with the upper hand he’ll have to maintain his cool and calculating demeanor and prepare himself throughly for the Irish champion’s verbal onslaught. If he gives into his emotions then we could end up seeing another quick fight with McGregor getting his hand raised. Do you think Rafael dos Anjos will let Conor McGregor’s trash talk get to him? Let us know in the comments and forums. Also, be sure to follow Generation Iron MMA on Facebook and Twitter. Jonathan Salmon is a writer, martial arts instructor and geek culture enthusiast. Follow him on Twitter and keep up with his latest exploits.
IFBB pro Frank McGrath is known for his massive physique, but in particular his “Thing” like arms. With veins for days, his physique is often compared to a road map as they artistically draw and sinew over a mountain of muscle. Truly a sight to behold.
In this recent video Mcgrath let’s you in on some of his training secrets to massive back and arms. It’s pretty much a 15 minute one-on-one training session. Though the editing is not the best, what we found amazing about this video is how real and candid it is. It’s not McGrath being overly enthusiastic or trying to sell you something – he gives you real, practical insight on what he does and why he believes it works.
We’ve posted up some supposed tricks on how to get insane vascularity before – but this videois the ultimate demonstration of how to get the back & arms of an unreal, unstoppable, mass monster BEAST.
In the quest for ever increasing knowledge of gains… this video is a must-watch as you continue to develop your training routine. Check out the video below and tell us what you think.
NO FLEX ZONE – is a new weekly series showing the best and craziest user generated fitness footage on the web every Wednesday.
You think by episode 10 of No Flex Zone we’d run out of crazy fitness videos to put into a super cut – but the truth is it’s a wide, wide internet out there filled with some incredibly skilled fitness masters and some attention grabbers who end up getting hurt. So long as there is a gym, some weights, a camera, and an internet connection… there will be jaw dropping fitness videos. Check it out in the episode above.
And don’t forget we want to see from YOU! Submit your most amazing fitness videos to us at [email protected] to have your clip featured in the next episode of No Flex Zone. Check out the first episode above.
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