Maybe social anxiety, or sexual performance anxiety. I have come to realize that a huge number of people who bulk up to huge amounts of bw usually have a lot of deep phychological issues. This is the reason rippetoe is no longer popular and only people who follow him are people who dont care for their image anymore. A lot of people join the iron game to improve their image and not further "destroy" it by adding slabs of useless meat. In all honesty, you can get strong as hell if you are willing to sacrifice your outer image (get bulky, watery, fat) BUT that comes with a huge price and creates juxtaposition in the mind. Why? Because natties will be natties regardless of the exercises or rep schemes they do. It was obvious, except to the brainwashed kids who couldn't see that the emperor has no clothes, that Zach had gotten quite fat.īut even to this day, the army of dudes who have allegedly built gladiator physiques from low bar squats is still undercover. Rippetoe was doing everything in his power to present the gains as legit muscle mass. just like you would expect from white collar scammer investing your money to give you +100% the return of your original investment. A decade ago, is a hell of a long time to see if someone knows what he is talking about or if he talks shit. Oh and btw, its almost a decade after ripettoe published his GOMAD program + 5x5.
until "progress" photos of Zac came and everyone suddenly shut the hell up and actually accused Rippetoe for false marketing. I remember i had lots of arguments on Scoobys old (and long gone) forum where people acted like rippetoe was god on earth. Before that photo, everyone was talking about how 5x5 is the elixir for steroid like results. Thats when rippetoe was exposed and lost a lot of following. I think the whole hype actually ended when Rippetoe showed the before/after picture of Zac, which revealed that he got fat as hell without gaining noticable amounts of muscle or strength.
Starting strength is a great program for someone to get in shape, but the whole 4 gallon milk drink fest hype is long gone. They are nowhere because the hype is over.