The best selling Fitness Author and how he got there.

June 30, 2008 6:33 PM

Most people have heard of Body for Life. Do you know about the guy behind it, Mr. Big?

But do you know about the guy behind the guy? T.C. Luoma, and another man named Dan Duchaine, are a couple of reasons that Phillips became so popular.
Muscle Media 2000 was a small bodybuilding magazine that was a repository of steroid information, before it turned into a refocused Muscle Media that concentrated on health and fitness.
T.C., who now runs Testosterone Nation, has many interesting things to say about Phillips and his time as at MM2K.
Not to mention, if you look around T-Nation you may find some gems like this!

Speaking of steroids, I can't wait for the Olympics to start!

posted by P.o.B. (14 comments total)

Wow, he's really good at posing shirtless in front of a Ferarri! I should listen to him and buy his shit.
posted by Frank Grimes at 7:04 PM on June 30, 2008 [2 favorites]

This photo is surely photoshopped, right?
posted by jkafka at 7:11 PM on June 30, 2008

Tree of Life, Body For Life, whatever...
posted by Dizzy at 7:24 PM on June 30, 2008

Nice post. Body for Life and similar things are so weird.

Has anyone seen Bigger, Faster, Stronger
posted by sien at 8:37 PM on June 30, 2008

These pictures seriously scare me.
posted by MaryDellamorte at 9:48 PM on June 30, 2008

i went to a talk by the famous bill phillips about two years ago. he didn't look so tough in person.

what?
posted by sergeant sandwich at 9:58 PM on June 30, 2008

Oh, hey thanks for putting that link in sien! I was going to put that in but forgot.
posted by P.o.B. at 10:23 PM on June 30, 2008

I always wondered how Carrie's boyfriend made his money. The show tends to elide this aspect of his character, just showing him gliding around in his limo, having to dash off to interminable meetings.

I never for a moment suspected he was a steroid dealer.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 12:47 AM on July 1, 2008

I'm curious that the old Charles Atlas, Before and After pics still work. That was a curious campaign anyway. Why would anyone want a girlfriend who was so shallow as to run off with some no-necked bully? And why on earth would you try and win her back? So that you could cheat on her with her friends, perhaps? Give her a taste of her own medicine?

Also: Dan Duchaine passed away at the age of 47

There seems to be a potential cost to pumping yourself up like a battery hen, then?

These pictures seriously scare me.

Me too. An accidental cough during intercourse and they could tear your penis off at the root.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 1:31 AM on July 1, 2008

okay, I'm the resident ex-ueber-fat-guy who lost a lot of weight due to running, working out and being really really hungry a lot. thet 'gem' article on t-nation, a site I usually find over the top and questionable, seems rather reasonable to me (but I'm only half through it). I'm not really sure if you're poking fun at them or saying they are cool. let's just chalk it up to my humour radar being off.

seeing a guy posing half-naked in front of a ferrari suggests insecurity to me, which isn't really anything I laugh about that easily, but the story again is genuinely interesting. so thank you for posting this, and thanks for the trailer sien, I would like to see that flick when it runs somewhere close to me (read: in london).
posted by krautland at 2:59 AM on July 1, 2008

Interesting stuff. T.C.'s writing is of a higher caliber than book-by-its-cover types will expect.

Very nice post.
posted by jbickers at 3:18 AM on July 1, 2008

If he's shy, reading that subtly disparaging article won't help matters much.
posted by CynicalKnight at 4:23 AM on July 1, 2008

I'm half-way to a sculpted body right now. I've bought the book Body For Life and have read parts of it.

Now once I actually start the program, I'll have that sculpted body. Any day now.
posted by leftcoastbob at 9:46 AM on July 1, 2008

Dan Duchaine passed away at the age of 47

There seems to be a potential cost to pumping yourself up like a battery hen, then?

You did see what he died from right?

krautland, I linked to that specific article because it is a very reasonable article. Hell, it would answer 90% of the fitness related questions that people ask in AskMeFi.

I do believe T.C. is a good writer aside from some of his macho B.S. he tends to put into the articles. I really wish they would have never started adding pictures to the articles, but more visuals equal larger readership I guess. I also think that Bill Philips is a...questionable character, which a lot of people don't know about, and hoped to show by the post.
posted by P.o.B. at 12:06 AM on July 4, 2008