Original subtitles

- [Announcer] His whole life was a million-to-one shot.

♪ Trying hard now ♪

♪ Sunshine on my shoulder ♪

("I Wish" by Stevie Wonder)

- [Alex] This is the one thing

that made me decide to be a bodybuilder:

Arnold Schwarzenegger on the cover

of Joe Weider's Muscle Builder magazine.

You see, I fell in love with bodybuilding,

California, Arnold and Joe Weider supplements

all at the same time.

It was 1976.

Stevie Wonder and the Bee Gees were playing on the radio

and I just couldn't wait to grow up.

♪ I wish those days could ♪

♪ Come back once more ♪

♪ Why did those days ♪

♪ Ever have to go ♪

♪ I wish those days could ♪

♪ Come back once more ♪

♪ Why did those days ♪

♪ Ever have to go ♪

♪ 'Cause I love them so ♪

- [Alex] I was 12 years old

and my family had just moved back to Italy

after nine years in Australia.

They sold Bruno's Tarrawanna Restaurant

and headed back to Rome.

Apart from getting into fights every day

with Australian kids calling me Wog.

- [All] Wog, Wog, Wog, Wog, Wog!

- [Alex] I had a great childhood.

I didn't start working out because of the bullying,

I kinda just stumbled upon it.

I loved that I had complete control

over building the body I wanted.

Supplements were just part of that world

that were displayed in the pages of those American magazines

and I wanted all of it;

all of it, altogether in one bundled Joe Weider package.

Just sign me up and take my money.

But I was skinny and weak and painfully introverted.

I tried to eat more as much as humanly possible,

but that didn't work.

I wasn't able to eat enough food to put on any fat,

let alone muscle.

But then I saw this ad in Joe Weider's magazine,

I thought this was the answer, this was the key.

This would help me get there faster

and solve all my problems.

And in a way, it kinda did.

I became a boy obsessed.

I worked out before going to school,

as soon as I got home from school

and before I went to bed every night.

I would wake up in the middle of the night

to drink olive oil just to get those extra calories in me.

But I felt that my secret weapon

was the Crash Weight Gain drink.

What was it about that shake that I loved so much?

Was it because I felt that I had an edge

that only a few kids in Italy knew about

or did I feel that it was giving me a shortcut?

How could powered milk, sugar and flavoring

give me such a noticeable drive?

Was it all psychological?

Did the Master Blaster hypnotize me into telling myself

that I would turn into a Mr. Olympia if I took his product?

Maybe it was all of the above.

- So pay careful attention

to what the bodybuilders tell you.

Listen carefully to what the champions tell you.

Because without that knowledge, you'll never look your best.

- [Alex] In the 1970s,

sports supplements were barely emerging.

And today, it's a $40 billion a year industry and growing.

But how did we get from this

(intriguing orchestral music)

to this?

(intense orchestral music)

Let's go back a little.

(intriguing orchestral music)

(soft intriguing music)

For a very long time, humankind has been looking

for that magic potion that promises

power, health and longevity.

Hippocrates was the first to notice

that the whey that separated from goat's milk

gave athletes extra vitality and strength.

Even Roman gladiators that relied heavily on meat,

fish and fruit, supplemented their diet with exotic tonics

like raw bull testicles as they were thought of

as the ultimate performance enhancers.

This was 2,400 years before the discovery of testosterone

and it wasn't until the 1800s that we see any real advances

in using natural compounds as ergogenic aids.

There were no commercial supplements

as we know them at this time.

The concept of fitness through exercise wasn't widespread

and the sport of bodybuilding didn't even exist

until a German strongman living in London came along.

His name was Friedrich-Wilhelm Muller

who took the name Eugene Sandow,

commonly referred to as the father of modern bodybuilding.

He promoted the very first physique contest

in 1901 in London and was already famous for marketing

his resistance training courses,

periodical magazines and weightlifting apparatus.

After endorsing the protein food, Plasmon,

he created his very own new supplement:

Sandow's Cocoa Powder.

It promised energy and strength

and Sandow was a perfect physical specimen to endorse it.

This seems to be the first modern marketing

of a natural product focusing on a receptive target audience

that wanted to gain a physique like he had.

Sandow put cocoa in a box and sold it.

Around the same time in England,

a popular beef concentrate called Bovril

was toted as having amazing bodybuilding effects.

Since day one, bodybuilding

and supplements were intertwined.

They were born together as twins

and have never been separated, not even for a moment.

♪ Everybody's workin' out on the sand ♪

♪ From the latest dance craze to a wild man's dance ♪

- [Alex] But we would have to wait decades

to see the emergence of the modern protein supplement;

thanks to young pioneer named Rheo Blair.

♪ Flex your muscles for a kick ♪

♪ Now now now ♪

♪ Gotta hustle the kick ♪

♪ Yeah yeah yeah ♪

♪ Take your vitamin pills now ♪

- The oldest supplement brand

to make an impact with athletes,

especially with elite athletes

and that actually garners the legend status was Rheo Blair.

♪ Always get the attention ♪

♪ Until the muscleman's got the dynamic tension ♪

- [Announcer] The boys are here,

the girls are here and the musclemen are here.

Bikini chicks are the bait and romance the reward.

(energetic piano music)

- He would actually give it out for free

to a lotta bodybuilders including Arnold Schwarzenegger.

You know, all the guys back then

were using Blair's Protein.

- Arnold one day says, "Come on,

I'm gonna introduce you to Rheo Blair.

You'll like this guy and he can use you

in his magazine or for his ads and you'll get free stuff."

Rheo says, "Oh my god, Ric."

"If you wanna advertise my products, endorse 'em,

I'll give you free supplements."

Just like Arnold said.

Blair's Protein was probably the best protein

on the market at the time.

Larry Scott, Don Howorth and all the guys

down at Vincent's Gym were takin' it.

- Rheo was very much you know a pioneer

and he was also in the right place at the right time

as far as protein was concerned.

It was the only protein that was instantized

and it was because Ovaltine protein supplement

for the medical business prescription called Optipro

and Rheo realized it was way ahead of everything else.

He got an exclusive on it for a private label.

And at that point, I believe Ovaltine was the only one

in the United States that had instantizing powders.

That was one of the big thing and no soy.

- His theory was with his protein, you mix with cream.

You make a pudding out of it and you have the fats

to burn energy and the protein to build muscle;

therefore you eliminate your carbohydrates.

That was his whole theory.

And by looking at the guys' bodies back then, it worked.

- From the point of view of modern proteins,

it wasn't very good.

It was 62% protein and 25% carbohydrate.

Unfortunately, that carbohydrate was lactose milk sugar.

So if you took a fairly decent quantity of Blair's Protein

and you were lactose intolerant,

you have a lot of gastrointestinal, particularly flatulence.

There was a famous bodybuilder,

the first Mr. Olympia, Larry Scott.

In his book, he wrote a book later on.

He talked about how he took several cups a day

of Blair's Protein.

He had a roommate and his roommate almost moved out on him

because of his constant flatulence

from drinking Blair's Protein.

♪ Why do you build me up ♪

♪ Build me up ♪

- [Alex] In the 1960s,

three former athletes turned entrepreneurs

were successfully selling barbells and dumbbells.

Bob Hoffman in Pennsylvania, Dan Lurie in New York

and Joe Weider in California.

All three came to the realization

that once you sold a barbell set to a young man,

it would last them their whole lifetime.

But if you sold them supplements,

well they would have to buy them every month

for as long as they kept working out.

So the muscular trio made sure

everyone was working out as much as possible

and they created supplement lines,

sold of course through the pages of their magazines.

(soft cheerful music)

Rheo Blair was selling his high-quality protein

through Hoffman's magazine.

But after finding out how much money Blair was making,

Hoffman blocked all of his ads

and came out with his own line.

It wasn't quite the same though.

- He came out with a protein called Protein from the Sea

and this was rough stuff, lemme tell ya.

To this day, nobody really knows what was in that stuff.

I kinda believe it was kind of desiccated fish scales

and beach sand because that's what the consistency was.

It was terrible.

I remember I used to play a joke on people.

I'd have friends come over

and I take the can of Protein from the Sea.

I said, "Hey, wanna have some really good protein?"

And they say, "Sure."

I say, "Lemme mix this protein drink for you."

And I put in the Protein from the Sea

and I'd actually put in some flavoring.

It never failed every time somebody drank that.

Within minutes, they ran to the bathroom and vomited.

- But I know the Protein from the Sea

was dehydrated fish powder and you mix it with water

and it was just the most disgusting thing

you'd ever wanna have in your life.

It went in and it came out within five minutes.

- [Alex] Dan Lurie was selling his products

using Sergio Oliva and Joe Weider, by the late 1960s,

had a vast array

of supplements heavily advertised by most of the champions

competing in these new contest:

the Mr. Olympia.

(energetic funky music)

- Joe Weider got on top of the game

because he started the IFBB

and started the sanctioned contests around the world.

These contests started to be getting

the cream of the crop supplement consumer.

They started to want to get

the best possible performance they could.

Over time, he started to launch exercise equipment.

And the media platform happened to be the tool

that showcased these athletes,

but also had consumers reading how to be like those people.

And that is where he started to integrate supplements

and exercise equipment into the page of those magazines.

In the early days of some of the Joe Weider ads,

there would be the, "Hey skinny, wanna be huge?"

That still existed back in the early '70s

with some of the old Joe Weider magazines that I have seen.

But I think it progressed a little bit further

because they knew that these people

wanted to have some science that was in their supplements.

They wanted to see that the champs were using this

and Joe Weider used to sign

the top 10 Olympia winners every single time.

Having the top 10 always under contract

and what was interesting, it was a contract at the time

which was an editorial and supplement and clothing

and everything contract.

So at that time, you had a bit of a monopoly

and you had the manufacturing plants,

you had distribution channels.

There was a real dominance that happened at that time.

- [Alex] Joe Weider was 100%

tuned into the pop culture of the era.

And not only did he rise to the top of the heap,

he reinvented the game from scratch.

Joe made bodybuilding and supplements sexy.

Everything was wild, everything was fun

and everything had sex appeal

from the editorials to the ads to the labels.

At the time, Joe was using great champions like Larry Scott,

Dave Draper and Frank Zane to sell his supplements.

But in 1968, he found his main ambassador to the movement:

Arnold Schwarzenegger.

(soft rock music)

- I think the reason why Joe Weider was so successful

was obviously number one, he had Arnold on his side.

Arnold was the poster boy for bodybuilding.

Arnold, he had the look, he had the smile,

he had the physique, he had the personality,

he had the charm and he had the charisma.

I also think that Joe Weider

did have a lot of other pro bodybuilders under his belt.

And to the naive customer,

to the naive potential bodybuilder if you will,

a lotta those pro bodybuilders in their eyes

were very achievable physiques.

(soft rock music)

I believe that it was more marketing than science

that got people to buy the products.

It was just the grandeur thought

that I could look like Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Great, there's science mumbo jumbo.

I don't know what that means.

I really don't care what that means.

It sounds great to me.

But regardless I wanna look like Arnold Schwarzenegger,

so that's why I'm gonna take these products.

- I think what was smart about Joe Weider

and the way he marketed his products

was he got the very best, he got Arnold Schwarzenegger.

And for me, differently than everybody else.

Everybody else says Arnold had the greatest body

in the world ever.

It was who he was as a person and a character

and the dream he was living, I wanted that.

And if buying the Weight Gainer drink

gave me a bit of what Arnold was

and what Weider has created, then I'm purchasing that

and that sorta got me.

I'd say to my body, you know obviously it's calories

who had help me put on some size.

But what it did is something so much better:

It mentally made me believe in a dream

and made me believe in something bigger than myself.

It made me have a piece of Arnold and Frank Zane

that was representing the product

and it made me think I could be like that.

I could remember the ad actually.

It was Arnold standin' there

just next to the Weight Gainer drink;

but it was everything Arnold has done up to that point.

So seein' Arnold next to the product,

it sold me 'cause I was already fan of Arnold

and what he was doin'.

And then Weider puttin' him next to it, that's an easy sale.

I was a teenager.

I was like, "I want that."

- I think what Joe Weider did is he found a niche.

He found that bodybuilding was the way of the future.

People wanted to get built.

And especially men and even women were getting more fit

and they had icons like Arnold Schwarzenegger,

Lou Ferrigno.

So TV was shifting and changing to more muscular men

and so I think Weider capitalized on that.

He had all the bodybuilders,

launched a supplement line that was targeted to bodybuilders

and it became a mass line.

- Joe Weider, really his strengths besides his love

of bodybuilding was his marketing

in how he saw bodybuilding and bodybuilders.

His advertising was so unique

because he was in the dream business.

That's what he was selling.

He was a maker of dreams and a fulfiller of dreams.

But he always talked about the glamor.

He always talked about the magic, you know?

So that's what made him special.

He wasn't selling supplements.

He was selling the girls on the beach

and he was selling the sunshine

and all the fun you're going to have.

That's what made him special.

- Joe Weider's strong point

was almost certainly that he was the first guy

to see the potential of bodybuilding

'cause he later parlayed bodybuilding techniques

into other sports.

'Cause a lot of other sports were saying you know,

you don't wanna get muscle-bound.

It'll slow you down or it'll somehow impede

your ability to perform when now everyone knows

the opposite's true.

Well Joe Weider is probably the biggest advocate of that

and he was also a guy

that was very into bodybuilding himself passionately.

And he flew Arnold over from Austria,

so he had all the credibility in the bodybuilding world.

- The reason I took the Weider supplements

is because when you look at the magazines,

he's got all these ads in there

and so you really believe that Joe Weider

knew what he was doing and you saw

all the guys he was workin' with:

Arnold, Lou Ferrigno, Franco, Zane.

I mean you could go on and on, Bill Pearl.

So you wanted to look like these guys.

- I was just a skinny little kid, you know what I mean?

And I wanna play football, I wanna play hockey,

baseball, basketball, every sport.

But I was just a bag of bones.

So my dad you know, of course you go to the store,

you pick up a Weider magazine

and you get the Joe Weider Weight Gain 2000

and you're gonna pack on muscle on top of muscle.

So I must've drank so much protein powder from age 15 to 18

and my head was gonna explode. (laughs)

There was a lotta education when all those publications

came out which was great, you know?

It wasn't just take this, this will happen.

A lotta times the bodybuilders will record what they ate.

But I would see okay, I'd learn about you have to eat meats.

You have to eat proteins.

And in between training or after training,

try the Joe Weider drink or try this drink,

you know what I mean?

Of course I didn't get huge or nothin',

but it probably put on like an extra five or 10 pounds

which is pretty good for a high school kid.

- You know what?

I have to say, I love Joe.

Dear Joe, he has created more enthusiasm.

Well he can, you know?

I mean I don't see that as much.

You know, you work with Joe.

But the thing is Joe loved the game

and then when he did the magazine, it was articulate

and he did that things right.

And I would go up there.

Me and Tom Platz, we would do like an interview

once or twice a week.

And so it was for me, it's like fun.

Drivin' with Joe Weider sometime

and singing Ventura Highway. (chuckles)

Ventura Highway.

♪ Ventura Highway ♪

♪ In the sunshine ♪

♪ Where the days are longer ♪

(soft rock music)

- Well in my opinion, Joe Weider was a marketing genius.

And it came about with me is that

he would come down to the gym on Sundays

and take all of us to Jamaica Bay and for lunch.

And Joe, he was a

how can I say?

He was deceiving.

People would come into the gym

and he picked up two 65-pound dumbbells and start curling.

I couldn't believe it.

So I had done his last interview

when he was 90 for my show

and I said, "Joe, I remember when you

picked up these dumbbells."

"I was a very strong man, Ric.

I could lift anything."

I said, "Really?

Because those 65s, I can hardly do."

And so anyway, we began to talk and he had his supplements.

And what he would do, which was really smart.

He would put ads in his magazine for like the Master Blaster

or for Super Pro 101 and he'd see the results coming in.

And if it was gonna be good,

then he would start to manufacture it.

He would stockpile it ahead of time

because he'd be sitting on all this product,

which to me is a good idea.

But if you were to read Joe's ad,

get big arms, get big back, get big chest.

Workout really hard, get up at two o'clock in the morning

and perform a sneak attack on your muscle

and shock them into growing.

But it's only possible if you take my Super Pro 101.

So after you read the whole article,

when you get done is oh, I'd just been suckered

into buying something.

So he was smart, he knew what he was doin'.

(soft rock music)

- Fitness was taking off.

You know, fitness became cool.

People wanted to get more healthy.

So a lot of the stuff that came at that time,

he was helping to grow that

and putting multiple layers into that

and it was less competition.

I think in order to grow bodybuilding,

you need to have physiques that people aspire to be.

You need to have champions

and that's no different than any other sport.

So because Joe Weider had the best athletes in the world,

a lotta consumers that wanted to be like them

would read those magazines to read the stars

and how in which those people got the results that they got.

At the time as well though,

the athletes wanted to be famous.

They wanted to have opportunities.

They wanted to move to California

and you know live the lifestyle,

so he provided an outlet for that

kind of opportunity for them.

And the consumer started to buy the products

that they saw in the magazines

and they started to want to be

a lot like the stars that they saw.

So with the best athletes in the world under contract

in terms of the bodybuilding industry,

you had a lot of readers that wanted to be

like the stars that they idolized.

Joe Weider was amazing at marketing

each particular bodybuilder.

Each of the bodybuilders didn't have a great personality

to see this is what I stood for.

He in the magazines controlled what was written

and how they express themselves

and how they were family people

or how they loved dogs or you know wherever it is.

And that kinda created personalities

with inside the bodybuilding world.

- For me, Joe Weider's Dynamic Muscle Builder,

Life Essence and Megabolic Pak is number one.

- Really lookin' back,

it was the inmates runnin' the asylum, you know?

The bodybuilder that was better than you

was the authority that you looked to.

You know, the article in the magazine was the authority.

You know, we didn't have anyone else to go to.

- I used to dream about supplements

when I used to open the magazines of Joe Weider

and see the Anabolic Pak

or Arnold you know drinking all this protein

and just flexin' his biceps and I'm like,

"Wow, I wanna look like that guy

or I wanna look like Bob Paris.

I wanna look like Lee Haney, Rich Gaspari."

They were the people that are really really,

that inspired me to wanna do it, you know?

But when I had the chance to really have supplements

for the first time when I moved to England

to actually become a professional bodybuilder

and bought that Anabolic Pak,

Joe Weider Anabolic Pak.

I was like, "Wow."

I was just lookin' at it.

I walked a week.

Seriously, I was like I used to wash dishes

in this restaurant for the supplements.

I was like, "I have it right now."

- In some sense, the people would say the promotions

or the endorsements back then were cheesy.

To me, it wasn't.

I loved it, I loved it.

I never put the comprehension together

that he's just sellin' hype.

I honestly believe and still do to this day,

I love that period of time

because it showed hope.

It showed me that I can achieve something

and it was more than the supplements.

It was more than the training.

It was becoming part of something, a family.

And so I actually love the old-school

and it could be that I was just so naive,

but I love the side effect of it.

The side effect was it is that you can believe it

and try to have a piece of somethin'

and belong to something.

- Joe Weider is the father of bodybuilding.

He was also the father of nutritional supplementation.

He's the one that had all these nutrition supplements

and I signed with him back in 1991.

I remember all of us you know,

basically following Joe Weider's principles

and taking Joe Weider's supplements.

As far as if Joe Weider was taking advantage

of bodybuilders, hell no.

I mean, really.

Whoever really knows him,

he was so passionate about the sport.

He brought Arnold, he helped so many other people.

But now they said take advantage, you know?

Some of us would be greedy and expect for more and more.

He made all this possible.

He gave us a platform to compete

in the magazines to be known internationally,

giving us supplements and a paycheck.

So no, by all means I think Joe Weider

really should be just saluted for everything he did.

I remember back in the day he had a big competition

from like Twinlab, Universal, you know that was coming up.

But Weider was always Weider.

- But he always, always saw the connection

between bodybuilding and sex;

always, from the beginning.

If it's with Arnold on the beach

with the protein and the girls,

I could remember seeing Muscle Builder

and the back ad was a bunch of bodybuilders

and beautiful women.

This is drawn.

This is an illustration, kinda float you know in a lake.

You know and they're all standing there

and the girl is saying "The guy on the float

that gets my vote is the Weider-trained man."

I'm pulling that out of 50 years ago.

So you know what kind of impression

it made on me as a 17 year old,

that I can still remember it word-for-word.

That's Joe Weider.

("Call Me" by Blondie)

- [Alex] To me, the '80s were totally awesome.

They were so good, they were bad.

♪ Who's bad ♪

♪ Ooh ♪

("Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" by Michael Jackson)

- [Alex] I remember begging my dad

to send me back to Sydney

to see Arnold win his seventh Mr. Olympia.

(retro rock music)

At 17, I was able to win Teenage Mr. Italy

and at 19, I won Teenage Mr. Europe.

My dream of being in those magazines

I loved so much finally became a reality

and soon I was offered my first supplement contract.

But these formulas were just horrible

and when I asked the brand to improve their products,

they just canceled my contract.

But I had my eyes set on California and when I arrived,

Weider was still the king of the industry.

But I saw other companies coming up fast.

(inspirational rock music)

- There was a dominance that Weider,

as a whole, had in the marketplace.

But at the same time, the same company that owned Twinlab

was actually the same owners

of Muscular Development magazine

and that was in the opposite side of the country.

That was in New York, New Jersey, that area.

They were another major Goliath in the industry

and really at the forefront of

the launch of ephedrine caffeine.

- Joe Weider knew how to captivate an audience

and I think the products that came in after that

had to play a very special role

on how they were gonna sell their products.

They couldn't sell it like the Weiders were.

So I think Universal came at it with

well let's have a multipak.

I don't think there was one at the time

and Twinlabs was a little more glamorous.

Not as glamorous as what we see today on Instagram,

but it was like the first product line

that sold in a way where it was really cool to be built.

It was really cool to take a product

and they were the next Weiders.

I believe that Twinlabs and Universal

went head-to-head for a few years on their products.

(energetic music)

- After the you know, Weider era continued,

a company called Twinlab did arise

and there was another small one in California

called Beverly International.

So I remember, you know I don't know about that time.

You know Beverly was doing some protein powders and things,

so they were starting to evolve that protein business.

I believe they continued to sell like the liver tabs;

things that were popular prior to that era.

Twinlab really was, I would say, the innovators.

They brought the non-sexy items.

They brought the vitamins, the minerals

and they started to educate athletes

about the importance of basic nutrition.

They didn't do a lot of fancy things.

It was all just you know, basic-type things.

You know protein was egg white, milk and egg.

Nothin' fancy, didn't taste that great,

but just lots of different types of vitamins.

They then started to incorporate amino acids

and they started to train us about the importance of aminos.

So I'd say Twinlab was probably the big next innovator

into the whole sports nutrition.

- Do you wanna be a tennis player when you get big?

- Yes.

- [Man] Do you know how old you are?

- Yeah. - How old are you?

- [Boy] Six.

(tennis balls smacking) (soft inspirational music)

- [Announcer] When you're ready to become

the person you were born to be, Twinlab will show you how.

With innovative sports nutrition,

vitamin and herbal formulas.

- [Man] Listen, you just keep hittin' 'em good

and good luck to you, okay?

- [Boy] 'Kay.

- And I remember this one ad with Jim Quinn

and it look like he was coming out of a spaceship

and how the lights were coming up from behind him.

He looked like this alien comin' out.

He was veiny and just for us gross, right?

It was awesome.

These guys were like aw yeah, I wanna look like that.

Where the Weiders were approaching their line

with you can be a Mr. Somebody.

You can be a Mr. Universe, Mr. World, Mr. Olympia

if you take our product.

And Twinlabs is more like here's our product, that's it.

Cut and dry.

It was like what is that?

I gotta know more about that.

So I think that the era that I grew up in,

I was getting the tail end of the Weiders

and I was getting the introduction

of Universal and Twinlabs.

(intense orchestral music)

- Ripped Fuel by Twinlab.

Now there was something interesting about Ripped Fuel.

You know, there was a picture

on the bottle of just this dude.

You didn't see his arms really.

You didn't see his face.

You just saw a chest and these friggin' big mountain abs

that were like deep and shredded;

and you're like this stuff's

gonna get me absolutely shredded.

And you know what it was?

Guess what that key ingredient was, none other than Ephedra.

Listen, Ephedra was the game-changer

in the supplement industry.

It gave you energy, it gave you focus

and it got you absolutely shredded to the bone.

- So as far as ephedrine,

originally I remember the first ones were Dymetadrine,

which is just ephedrine alone.

And then you had Ripped Fuel and Diet Fuel from Twinlab

and they were really big sellers at the time.

They sold tons.

They had these really nice-looking glass bottles too,

so they look like a very high-end product

and they were doin' a lotta good advertising.

They had Muscular Development the magazine behind them,

which was one of the really science-y

but also entertaining bodybuilding magazine.

So they were doing a lot of really interesting stuff then.

That product sold great.

- [Woman] I am a one-woman army.

I chew up weights, I eat up the road.

I feed my dream with Twinlab Diet Fuel.

- [Man] So they were one of the first companies

to actually use TV as a medium.

- They said no one could win eight straight Olympias

and I said, "Watch me."

I trained harder, ate smarter and used Twinlab supplements.

- You saw Lee Haney on there.

"I trained harder, I ate smarter

and used Twinlab supplements."

You saw that.

But they were also marketing athletes.

They also had tons of products that were for the mainstream.

Potassium, minerals, Ripped Fuel, other things

that were really not meant specifically for bodybuilders.

Weider on the other hand, really did target

and market the bodybuilding lifestyle.

He had the protein drink on the beach

with the babe next to you and big muscles.

And you know, I wanna be like Arnold

and I wanna be like this and that.

So that was kinda the main difference

and it worked for both of them at that time.

- Twinlab focused more on the benefits up front as I recall

and not on the actual athlete.

And they started to weave in the appearance

and elements of science and jargon.

They made it sound cutting-edge,

revolutionary and different and I want that.

That's cool.

- The companies were realizing

that bodybuilders weren't just blue-collar.

There were many many aspects behind the bodybuilder

in a sense of what their job and what profession they were.

They were doctors or lawyers.

They were construction workers.

The notion that bodybuilders were dumb

was going out the window

and so they wanted to be a little more smart

about how they approached taking their supplements.

- Look, this is me before Cybergenics

and this is me after.

(retro techno music)

- The company that disrupted those two companies

was actually Cybergenics, L&S Research

which was owned by Scott Chinery at the time.

They had been the first company to market science

in the supplement industry.

If you go back and look at them,

they had aggressive before and after advertising

and they had a kit that was only available

through mail order.

- The first supplement that I saw was in a magazine ad.

It was Cybergenics, the before and after

and it came with a kit and a VHS video.

And I remember purchasing that kit

thinkin' it was gonna get me from that before picture

that I saw in the commercial to the after picture

of the guy with the huge legs.

I could still picture it now.

I thought okay, that is my surefire way to move forward

and be that after-picture.

Didn't work out that way.

- You know I enjoy performing,

but I also enjoy working out.

That's why I go to General Nutrition Centers

and get Cybergenics Phase 1.

Hey if this guy can do it, you can do it.

Get Cybergenics at GNC,

the authority in sports nutrition products.

- Cybergenics didn't work for me.

I found out many years later a supplement

wasn't gonna work unless I did.

- And I remember first seeing the ads

with the yellow Lamborghini Diablo on the beach

somewhere in the New Jersey shore

and the guy that was all jacked-up

and the girls with the implants on both shoulders,

I thought okay no, this is not real.

This can't work.

It's too good to be true.

I think what Cybergenics did

at least from my vista of the world

was that I saw that in drugstores

and I had never seen any nutrition products.

Maybe there were some Weider products you could see.

The Cybergenics brand in drugstores was revolutionary.

Wow, that's big.

- The thing that really got me

about Cybergenics as to why I bought it

was that they made it very simple for you.

They put it all into one kit

and they go okay this is your bodybuilding kit.

This is all you need, everything.

You got your supplements, you got your training guide,

you got your diet guide.

So if you follow this plan to the T,

you're gonna get great results.

I did.

I followed it to a T.

I got great results, but I trained like a madman.

It was my time to grow

'cause I was severely underweight at the time

and I beasted out.

- [Alex] At this point, Los Angeles was my new home

and it was just a matter of time

before Hollywood recognized my thespian talents.

♪ It's raining men ♪

- [Announcer] Cable Access Channel 96

presents "Men On Cooking."

- [Alex] And only the best roles were offered to me.

- What's your name?

- Richard.

- I bet they call you Dick for short.

Could you put that in my car please?

Would you put this in my car for me?

- [Both] Two snaps and wipe your mouth.

(speaking foreign language)

- [Man] Actually, I feel very bad about the whole incident.

- [Man] An American was sitting next to me in a cafe in Rome

- I just gotta look at the time.

(speaking foreign language)

- [Man] I could see a if there were a fly buzzing around,

but I did not see one.

- [Announcer] Even a knuckle sandwich isn't a sandwich

without the tangy zip of Miracle Whip.

- But it doesn't have any breasts, just nuggets.

(audience laughing)

- Hey, is Kelly home?

- I'm ready, I'm ready.

(audience laughing)

- Whoa!

- [Kelly] Hey, I still have a nice body.

- [Alex] But I felt I found another calling in photography.

Arnold's favorite photographer Artie Zeller

inspired me to keep shooting

and I eventually started working

for all the bodybuilding publications.

Magazines around the world were publishing my images

and giving me assignments to shoot

the world's greatest bodybuilders

and fitness models for their covers.

After 1,500 covers published, I just stopped counting them.

I had the honor of being featured on the cover,

in addition to having my editorial work

published in the same magazines.

(soft inspirational music)

Advertising proved to be a lot more creative

and of course I gravitated towards some of the companies.

One of my clients at the time was Bill Phillips,

a controversial figure to some people.

But to me, it was apparent that

he was a visionary who understood his audience

and wanted to create the next chapter in the industry.

He was what Joe Weider would've been

if he were a young man in 1994.

(soft rock music)

- So Bill Phillips created a newsletter

that had developed a great following.

He formed a partnership with Jeff Everson,

Lee Labrada, Dr. Scott Connelly

and the four of them were involved

in helping to launch a product line called MET-Rx.

This was a really good combination

because Jeff had a publishing background

being the editor-in-chief of Muscle & Fitness

and you had Lee Labrada who was on the top of his game

as a competitor bodybuilder

and you had Phillips who was amazing marketer

and had a loyal audience with his magazine.

And Scott Connelly was one of the smartest protein experts

that had ever come in the industry.

Even since then, I don't know anyone who's come in

with more knowledge than what he has come to the table with.

And the product was actually very good.

The original product was phenomenal.

So they used this vehicle that they had to market this

and it was all direct-to-consumer,

which was phenomenal because the margins were healthier.

- Well MET-Rx was I think a game-changer.

It just changed the whole industry

and behind that was Bill Phillips.

So he then developed the book on,

I believe it was the supplement guide,

on every supplement in the industry.

He didn't leave anything out.

Not only did he have his own, but he had everybody else's.

So he didn't leave anyone out, he included them.

- I was told that you know MET-Rx was so complete

as far as nutrition goes that you can live on it;

and I tried that.

I wanted to lose some body fat, so I said,

"Okay, I'm gonna live on this stuff and see what happens."

So I lived on it for three months.

I had no food, just MET-Rx

and I wound up losing 40 pounds.

I got about six inches off my waist

and I lost surprising little muscle, very little muscle.

- I believed in MET-Rx so much

that I would probably punch somebody in the face

if they tried to take it away from me. (chuckles)

Not one product today can compare

to what MET-Rx was back in 1992 to 1994.

It was not available anywhere in the world like MET-Rx.

Whatever was in those products in the Base and the Plus,

it made physiques look even more incredible.

- My body fat was 2% at 260 pounds.

- MET-Rx with HMB, it does what it says.

- Workout with weights four days a week.

Why can't I get to your size?

- [Man] You know why?

You know why, man?

Do you take creatine?

- I think that's really just the beginning for EAS.

♪ And I feel like I just ♪

- The EAS story is a product of the union.

It's a consummation of Edward, myself and me

finding an article that came out in September of 1992

that showed for the first time ever

that if you take creatine monohydrate orally,

you'll get more than muscle

and that was a subject of disbelief.

No one in the science world believed it.

So when they submitted this article to Nature,

the number-one science journal in the world,

the editor said, "Nope, don't believe it,"

and they rejected it.

And so I told Ed, "We have to do this."

And Ed came up with the idea, another brilliant idea

of calling Bill Phillips which is all pre-Internet,

pre-email and saying, "Bill, we got this product

called creatine monohydrate, Phosphagen brand.

You gotta try it."

So Ed sent him a case of Phosphagen.

It went under his desk and stayed there for a whole year.

But Bill had the insight to have James Anderson,

who was his copywriter for Muscle Media 2000,

to actually look into it and he interviewed me on the phone.

And then James gets that box from underneath Bill's desk

and said, "What is that?"

And he asked Bill, "Oh, that's some creatine stuff

from those guys in California."

So James tries it and a week later as I've been told,

James said, "What the bleek is in that stuff?

This is amazing.

I feel like I'm on the juice again."

And so Bill's ears perked up, I was told.

And so that changed the complexion of the guy

and he had the dynamic of our discussions.

And at that time, Bill and Scott Connelly were having these

big ram-horned sheep.

And then Ed and I flew out to Golden

and met with Bill in May of '94.

And a month later, we brought on Bill

as an equal partner to us without any hesitation.

Best business decision we ever made.

(energetic funky music)

- [Announcer] No matter where you go,

you're always gonna be judged by your appearance

and we're not talkin' about the color of your socks.

PhosphaGain by EAS.

- What is the most important supplement

in the last two decades probably?

I would say it's creatine.

Now a lotta people are gonna claim the environment in it,

but I can tell you from my side how everything happened.

I was collaborating with Mr. Bill Phillips at the time

and I was the first guy that sent him

injectable version of creatine.

Neoton from Italy, you know the box

and you know he was actually, "What is his for?"

we were writing articles.

I said like this is something a lot of Russian,

Bulgarians, Eastern Germans are using.

It replenishes your ATP.

You know it's gonna give you strength, power.

Hydrates you.

It's you know, basically natural antibiotic also.

You know so he says, "Don't you have this in oral form?"

And I said, "I had never seen it."

And I remember very well when he was saying you know,

"If you can find the oral version of this supplement,

then that would make a killing."

I believe this was '93 when I talked to him

and I believe '94, '95 creatine monohydrate came about.

And I don't know exactly

who was involved with it in my research.

But idea about it, I can guarantee you it came from me.

- Phosphagen was launched into the marketplace

and it just turned it upside down.

I mean, things have never been the same.

Phosphagen was probably one of the most dynamic products

to ever hit the market.

- Bill Phillips was one of the guys

that I studied before I launched Bodycore

because of the success that he had in my early years.

And Bill's strength really in my opinion,

is his marketing savvy.

He's a marketing genius when it comes to

probably whatever he puts his mind to.

But in this case, it was health and supplement industry.

He saw what Weider did with his publications

and how it really helped promote all of his businesses

and so he came up with Muscle Media, you know,

Which was an amazing magazine;

which promoted all of his stuff.

And then he decided to come up with Body for Life

to make this challenge in this competition

to help drive sales of EAS.

- I think Bill touched upon the different psychographic

and that psychographic is I don't wanna be that way.

I don't wanna become a competitive bodybuilder.

I just wanna look better in my clothing

or without my clothing on or at the beach and feel strong

and not have to commit 18 hours a week to get that.

- Bill Phillips was one of those guys

when he came around with EAS, it was huge.

We were all taken and it seemed to work.

You know I think what made Bill Phillips so successful

is his marketing strategy was different.

He wasn't usin' the top bodybuilders.

He was usin' athletes and I think it was comin'

from a different point of view sometimes

where not only can you grow,

but we can help you with your condition.

So it was little different, but he worked.

Listen, he did very well for himself.

I remember when he first came to Gold's,

you know he didn't have much money.

I think since he was a bodybuilder,

I think that helped him creating the products.

And I think when people looked at him,

he was in great shape.

People admired him and say,

"Hey if this guy created this, I'm gonna try it."

- Bill Phillips was a visionary in that he took our culture

and he found a way to

make it open to people that were never gonna stand on stage

and that was the tipping point for this industry.

He basically opened that door that hey, I'm a professional.

You know, I work in an office.

I'm an attorney.

I'm this and that and you know what?

I still love working out.

I still love you know changing my physique for the better

and I'm never gonna get on stage and that's cool too.

I think that Joe Weider capitalized on

his passion for bodybuilding

and I think that he did a great job

of creating that tribe, that community of people like us

do things like this.

And you know you use Weider products

and you aspire to be Sergio Oliva.

You know, you aspire to be Arnold Schwarzenegger.

But what Bill said was you don't need to wanna be that guy.

You could be Danny Hester, right?

Not that Danny Hester's not phenomenal,

but you could be like someone more attainable.

He made it attainable for the average person

and I remember being there and working with EAS at the time.

And I remember a lot of heat that came about

when that transition with the magazine happened.

And you had some of the hardcore devotees

just not be cool and be aligned with opening it up

and opening that members-only club to the non-members.

He did a lot of people an enormous favor

by having the guts to do it

and he really, I think, is the most responsible

for the expansion of our industry.

- By the time Bill got together with Anthony Almada

and this is the next combination

between a science guy, Anthony Almada,

and Bill Phillips' famous marketing

that was now even more polished.

And now Bill Phillips had Muscle Media 2000,

which had the most innovative stories

about supplements and about nutrition

and they were trying out all.

They were the first guys to talk about

high-intensity interval training 25 years ago.

I mean these guys are hitting stuff that has come back

once or twice or three times since

and they hit this stuff first.

They were the first guys.

They had guys like Dan Duchaine

and they talk about supplement strategies

that might mimic the effects of drugs.

For people that really wanted you know the best results

outta their time in the gym,

these guys were feeding them all the information

exactly what they wanted.

So they became on a pedestal and they became the guys

that were properly informing the industry.

When you get the right science guy

and the right marketing guy together,

the sky's the limit back then.

(soft inspirational music)

- I believe that Bill Phillips didn't approach marketing

like Twinlabs or Universal.

They were competing against the Weiders, I believe.

When EAS is involved from MET-Rx,

I don't think that Bill Phillips looked at it as

I wanna compete against them, I wanna destroy them.

He was very competitive and he came up

with a whole different marketing scheme than anyone else

and that was giving a product for free.

I will give you something for free

and in return, they purchase something from him.

And so when Phosphagen came out, everybody used it.

I used it, my brother-in-law who didn't even compete used it

and people said it had a tangible feeling.

When you have a tangible feeling from a supplement,

I don't care if it doesn't do anything;

you're gonna keep taking it.

So that product would give people pumps like crazy.

I wish it was still out in the market,

I would take it today.

It was one of the best products ever.

When you took it, you trained, you got a pump.

End of story and you got a result from it.

- And I will never forget the day I met Bill Phillips.

So I go up to the penthouse suite

and I walk in and Bill Phillips and Kal Yee

were sitting in there on a couch.

And Bill Phillips just no real introduction,

he's a very focused, very driven man.

He said, "Take your shirt off."

So I said, "Okay."

I take my shirt off and Kal Yee says,

"Go stand in the sun right there."

So I'm like, "All right."

So I take my shirt off and I go stand in the sun

and they're like whispering back and forth to each other.

He says, "Go ahead and take your pants off.

I need to see your symmetry."

And I'm like okay, what'd I get myself into here, you know?

'Cause I heard all these stories

about what could happen in the industry.

But I trusted him, I knew it was nothin' weird.

Well I dropped my pants.

They're havin' me spin in circles

and they're really looking at me to the point

where they said, "Let us see your teeth."

And I was like.

So they were looking at me as a commodity,

as something that they could put on display

and that's really what they were goin' for.

They were looking for a team of guys

that could go out and represent this brand

at trade shows and events and that's what we did.

So I was, to my knowledge, one of the first guys

to get signed with the supplement deal with EAS

and it blew up from there.

- He really realized that marketing was critical.

So what he would actually do was he would fly in

some of the top marketers in the world.

So when we were at EAS offices,

he'd have Dan Kennedy in there,

Joe Polish, Ted Nicholas, Anthony Robbins.

And he would have all these people come in

and teach them about marketing.

You never heard this before from a supplement company

bringin' in these mainstream people

who were just marketing geniuses really

and authors and bestsellers.

They would bring 'em in and give us EAS you know employees

and Bill information about marketing.

But what he had that was a magic bullet

was a magazine called Muscle Media

and initially with Muscle Media 2000.

And what that did back then for him was it was a mouthpiece.

See, back in the day without you know

Internet and without phones,

we actually used this thing called magazines

and that was used to sell supplements.

If you didn't have magazines,

you could not sell supplements.

TV yes, but magazines were everything.

Everybody that trained,

their goal was to make it in a magazine, right?

I remember me working at EAS when I first got there

and I was competing, bodybuilding.

My whole goal in my mind was I gotta get that magazine.

I gotta be in Muscle Media, man.

And the first time they put me in the magazine,

ooh I told everybody.

Mama, we made it!

And I would carry that magazine in my car

and I would carry it everywhere.

I'd show the guys at the gym.

I'd be like, "Guys, look it.

I'm in you know Muscle Media.

I mean, you see that spread?"

So it was a proud moment for me, but that's what he did.

He actually used the magazine to sell his products

and what he realized was the more you tell,

the more you sell.

- He put integrity in his products.

He was concerned about the consumer

and he had research and development

to get the next best product.

So when you add integrity to his products,

if you had an EAS muscle shake

and you compared it to anything else,

I mean this greater protein was triple A plus

you know what I mean?

'Cause everything that he marketed, he took himself.

Everything he sold, he took himself.

So he wouldn't give out junk

'cause he wanted to be a living testament to his products.

And that's why he got a whole bunch

of just fit guys and fit girls

and we kinda like the catalyst to get things goin'.

The research and development was excellent.

He probably had the best scientists workin' for him.

He put on studies throughout the world, not just in America.

I mean he had studies in London, over in Spain,

over in I think Asia.

I mean, he really researched product.

And the other thing, component was Bill,

who was just to me, he was just a genius in the field

'cause he always looked for the next best product.

And he was the first guy to actually market creatine,

which was out there for years and he saw the benefits.

To me, it was like why wouldn't anyone else do it?

He recognized the benefits and he'd market it

and it was great.

And creatine was a supplement you got an instant response,

so it worked great.

Again, everything he put his name on

was an amazing product and he guaranteed results.

- And his first introduction into the supplement industry

was actually not his company.

It was a company called Calpharm

and that's how I got introduced to the whole EAS movement,

which is a whole 'nother topic on creatine.

But he started to help promote this Calpharm creatine

that I was manufacturing for them.

And over a course of a year and a half,

I think Bill saw how lucrative it was

and how much money was being generated;

that he now had a great following with that magazine.

He developed, I don't wanna say a cult,

but people just really admired what he wrote about.

Again, he was a genius, well-educated

and he talked the language.

And now we see direct marketing to consumers

where prior, you know Weider really went

more through the store chains.

- He would every month send us a big box of supplements

in anything we wanted.

That guy was on top of it like that.

Anytime you flew anywhere, you were flying in style.

You got picked up in limousines.

You were treated the absolute best.

Bill Phillips knew how to take care of his people, man.

And I'm forever grateful for that experience in my life.

- And you know, he really understood his market.

He understood that he needed to get into the household

of the everyday people.

He wanted to reach out to people

that wanted to get in shape.

Most people wanna drop weight and get toned.

They don't wanna get huge like bodybuilders.

And he understood that very well

and everything that he did was to set up his business

to actually tap into that market.

- [Announcer] Since 1993.

- [Woman] Designer Whey.

- [Announcer] New Designer Protein.

- David Jenkins was a pioneer in the industry

because he brought a product out called Designer Whey.

That was a instantized whey protein,

low-carb, low-fat, very easy to digest.

Very expensive at the time.

Jenkins was a former silver medalist in the Olympics,

I believe two times and I believe he was a food scientist.

Really had the academics

as well as he had the practical understanding

of what athletes were looking for.

- We were the first guys to instantize whey protein.

Very slow to begin, but I advertised it

in Bill Phillips' Muscle Media 2000

and the phone starts ringing.

Bill said this marketing was the best we could do

and we done Ultimate Orange at that time.

We branded it, started sellin' it

and then used a local agency to package it differently.

I mean, we were in plastic.

People like Champion and others

and Weider were all in cans,

so there was a differentiation for a local agency

and they branded it really different

in colors and this and that.

We moved to another agency in Bramley

and it really took off.

It really really took off.

- Over time, he launched

a pre-workout powder called Ultimate Orange

and this was the first pre-workout powder

that I'm aware of in the industry.

Although, there was things you could take like Ener-Carb

that Joe Weider created years ago

as a ready-to-drink.

This was the first traditional

caffeine/ephedrine-based pre-workout

that kinda led the market.

- What the great part about Ultimate Orange was

I was there when it was really being formulated.

I met Deshane, we worked a little bit together

when I was back with EAS and we saw the formulation

for Ultimate Orange.

When I first took it, I really thought it was rocket fuel.

I thought my heart was gonna explode.

I mean I had the greatest workout of my life.

But my god, the energy was off-the-charts, off-the-meter.

These are the days of caffeine, right?

These are the days of just coffee.

And not even Starbucks, but Dunkin' Donuts.

We had coffee at you know Taco Bell,

all these places we could get coffee at, right?

There was not even any Starbucks or anything like that.

So taking Ultimate Orange was literally

you felt like you were takin' like diesel, like rocket fuel.

It was one of the strongest pre-workouts

before there were pre-workouts made.

And I think what was unique about it

is it'd taste like Tang

and that was the kinda sell about it

is it'd taste like Tang, it launches your workout

and it really helped people

get further along in their workout program.

- Ultimate Orange in my opinion

was really the big, big pre-workout to hit the market.

It tasted like crap.

It was weird.

It was like kind of a mix of crushed up

orange Flintstone vitamins and just kinda like

a nasty generic orange Tang power mix, you know?

But we didn't taste stuff like that.

And the promise was listen,

you're gonna take this Ultimate Orange

and you're gonna be on fire in the gym

and you're gonna be focused

and you're gonna have all this energy.

And it blew up and this stuff was like crack to us.

- Ultimate Orange started almost similar to MET-Rx.

It was developed by a guy named Mike Zumpano,

who later on started his own company

called Champion Nutrition.

His flagship product for Champion was called Metabolol,

which coincidentally was supposed to be

the original name for MET-Rx.

Him and Connelly knew each other.

Zumpano was actually living in an apartment

above Gold's Gym in Venice and he gave it out to the people

at Gold's Gym for free to try it out.

And sure enough, you know he said it was like a pre-workout.

It would really get 'em through their workout and it did.

It became very popular.

So later on, I don't think that Zumpano

ever marketed Ultimate Orange.

But what would happen was that Dan Duchaine,

he got involved with a company called Next Nutrition.

And Next Nutrition, they also came on the scene

around the same time as EAS in the early '90s.

But anyway, Next Nutrition came out

with a commercialized version of Ultimate Orange.

Dan Duchaine brought it over to Next Nutrition.

Unfortunately the original formula would contain ephedrine.

Ephedrine was derived from a herb called ma huang.

Ephedrine got into some trouble later on

in the late '90s, early 2000s

because it was supposedly linked

to heart attacks and strokes, which I never believed.

I investigated it.

I believe it was almost all bogus.

Because unless you had preexisting cardiovascular problems,

ephedrine was safe.

I used ephedrine for many years myself,

never had a single problem.

But Ultimate Orange basically lasted

until the ephedrine was pulled off the market

by the Food and Drug Administration

and then Ultimate Orange just kinda disappeared after that.

(energetic hip-hop music)

- Hot Stuff was another innovator that disrupted things

because they created the all-in-one concept.

So with all these different ingredients

that the consumers wanted to be in,

they wanted to be on Boron,

they wanted to be on (indistinct).

They wanted to be on Smilax, Siberian ginseng.

They wanted to be on all these things.

What this clever marketer did

was they just put it all into one

and said, "Why use 50 different products

when you could just take one and get great results?"

- (chuckles) Hot Stuff was one of the most unique products

I have ever taken.

Listen, you would pour Hot Stuff into a cup of water

and just all kinda stuff would be floating around in it.

And it was all these different ingredients

and it was hellish to drink.

Everyone was takin' Ultimate Orange

and they were takin' Hot Stuff.

- Hot Stuff, we'd call it

everything and the sink with the kitchen.

We thought there can't be this many ingredients in there

in these amounts.

The math doesn't work.

I never tried Hot Stuff.

It was too hot for me to handle.

- In the progression, well you had Twinlab

and you had with Muscular Development magazine.

You had the Weider nutrition with their magazine

with Muscle Fitness and Flex and Men's Fitness I believe

launched around them.

You had another entity in Muscle Media

and you had all of Bill Phillips' supplements

that were there.

The next game-changer in that was MuscleTech.

MuscleTech started in 1995

as a direct-to-consumer supplement company.

They launched with three products:

Creatine 6000-ES, Hydroxycut and Acetabolan.

The combination was sold as a kit direct-to-consumer.

It had a tremendous amount of success.

I mean you really can't beat ephedrine and caffeine

as a fat burner and creatine as a muscle-building product

and a test support product with branched-chain amino acids.

It was great idea to put those together.

At that time, the owner was a guy named Paul Gardner.

He was indeed the bodybuilding hardcore consumer

and he knew what would work and what would appeal to him

and he used that in his marketing

and he was selling efficacious products.

He was on the cutting edge studying what Twinlab was doing,

what SportPharma was doing which was a player at the time.

What Weider was doing and what obviously

EAS was doing, MET-Rx was doing.

So he played within those areas

and he was not arrogant enough to think that

he couldn't have something to learn from these companies.

He had no problem learning from these companies

and just doing his own thing,

but he also had no problem in marketing the products.

- MuscleTech with their alignment with MuscleMag

was really able to go that next level

with turning advertisements into articles,

into editorial pieces

to the point where it was difficult at times

to tell whether you were reading an article

and learning about something that you really wanted

or if it was actually a sales piece.

So I think what they really did

was tap into the old Ogilvy that direct marketing.

And I'm not sure who it was that was responsible for that,

but it was a bit of genius.

- They also had Greg Kovacs at the time

who was considered to be marketed anyways

as the next Mr. Olympia winner.

And you're talkin' about an athlete

who at one point was 420 pounds.

Nobody had seen people that big before.

So at trade shows, people would be in awe

at that time with the person.

And although he never won a pro show

and he never became Mr. Olympia obviously,

he was one of the most popular athletes

in the history of the sport

because people just wanted to see the freakshow.

The publisher of MuscleMag, Bob Kennedy,

had a major effect on Paul Gardner

because he taught him a lot of the things

that were working with the readership

and were not working with the readership

and he was a good mentor to him.

But Paul Gardner is not just a average person.

A lot of people in the industry

who never really got to know the person

chance it up to lock and things.

This guy was a genius with what he did.

Photographic memory of detail on what he did, a math expert.

He surrounded himself with a great team,

had developed some great products

and was not afraid to spend on research.

This is one of the things that a lot of companies get wrong.

They think that MuscleTech didn't have any research.

But to this day, I know of no other company

who has more research funded than MuscleTech.

They had funded countless university studies.

They've done bursaries for scholarships for students.

They do a lot of these things

that they actually haven't even marketed.

You'll see now that they own part

of the school of University of Toronto

and they became a performance arm of the whole school.

So if you can name any other company in the industry

that actually has that, I'd be surprised.

- You know, there's rumors that Robert Kennedy

was the owner of MuscleTech.

Honestly, I don't know.

He always denied it.

But then again, Jeff Everson denied

being one of the owners of MET-Rx

and he was one of the original owners.

So you don't know what the truth is there.

But the point is that MuscleTech

really got the ball rolling

and MuscleTech just started growing exponentially.

And they became literally the 800-pound gorilla

of the supplement business.

At one point, I think just one of their products.

I remember one of their products alone,

I don't remember which one it was

was making 60 million a year.

Just one product they were selling.

Hydroxycut, that's it.

Yeah, Hydroxycut.

That fat burner was making 60 million a year.

One product and they had a whole line of products.

(heavy rock music)

- [Alex] Founded in 2001, BSN made a huge impact

by sponsoring the reigning Mr. Olympia, Ronnie Coleman.

- [Ronnie] This is my gym.

This is how I train.

- So Scott James and Chris Ferguson

started this amazing company, BSN.

Not only did they get Ronnie Coleman,

but they also got Monica Brandt at the peak.

So they had two really top-tier athletes.

In fact, Ronnie Coleman's contract

was the biggest in bodybuilding,

you know history at that time.

It was more than half a million.

So at that time, those two athletes together

were a powerhouse and it was shocking

that Ronnie came over from MET-Rx.

But BSN did it and that's why that actually kinda grew

in numbers and volume as well.

- Back in the day taking N.O.-XPLODE for the first time,

it was a unique very different experience.

They were doin' really cool things and this pre-workout,

it got you fired up in a different kinda way.

You know, this was not a fat burner pump you up.

This was pumping agents.

This was energy ingredients.

This was something to take

your workouts to different levels.

And in my opinion,

they really set the stage for the pre-workout.

- This is how I train. (growls)

(heavy rock music)

(intense intriguing music)

- It markets to the hardcore in a way

where it's not fluffy, it's not foo-foo,

it's not anything but gritty, black-and-white ads.

If you remember Mike Morrice ad

where he had throw up in front of him

after he did a set of squats.

I mean, what other company did that?

You're actually putting out an ad

where you got a guy with puke in front of him.

That's awesome.

That's what I like.

Now how many times I called home

and say, "Hey, I threw up today.

I trained legs."

I mean my wife would be like, "You're gross."

Like, "No, this is awesome.

I had a great workout.

I puked my brains out."

Most people can't relate to that.

The animal market relates to that.

(intense intriguing music)

- [Alex] And the next giant of the industry

was building itself up.

- Optimum Nutrition was a brand

that was created by the distributor Costello,

which was a Costello family.

It's a family based in Chicago,

just outside of Chicago and they were the ones

who brought the five-pound protein to market.

They also had their own manufacturing capabilities.

So they were able to make it themselves,

sell it to stores themselves of their own brand

which allowed them to have

what's called vertical integration.

Over time, the company Glanbia actually acquired them

and they did this because they knew

the kinda sales they were doing

'cause they were selling protein powder to them.

Glanbia's one of the largest companies in the industry.

They own fields in Ireland that have the cows,

that have the processing factories

that drive the milk and convert it into whey,

convert it into cheese.

But if you had your own brand that had amazing distribution,

you're going completely vertical integration

from the dairy fields to the consumer's cupboard.

So this was a huge, huge play in the market.

Over time, Glanbia would acquire more companies.

They also acquired BSN

and that was an interesting acquisition

because BSN was a lot more edgy.

It was a lot younger.

The ingredients were all super cutting-edge,

super edgy.

Glanbia's went on to then acquire Isopure.

This was a big play in the industry

'cause Isopure was regarded by the consumers

as the most premium isolate in the world.

Also they had the RTB business with their Isopure.

- [Ronnie] Yeah, buddy.

Let's do this.

- [Alex] Ronnie Coleman eventually left BSN

and in 2011 launched Ronnie Coleman Signature Series

with partner Brendan Ahern.

- [Ronnie] Yeah, buddy!

- [Alex] One of the fastest-growing companies

in the industry, Coleman now sells his line

in over 120 countries.

- He really stepped it up with this one.

Absolutely fantastic, yup.

(heavy rock music)

(soft piano music)

- [Alex] In 2012, the emerging Canadian brand Mutant

was looking for a new athlete to sponsor

and I suggested my long-time friend Rich Piana.

- Hey, Rich Piana here with my new line:

Love It, Kill It.

Gotta check it out on illpumpyouup.com.

- [Alex] I had trying to get Rich more exposure

after his Mr. California win,

but he was a hard sell at the time.

The magazines didn't want to feature him

and only published the occasional photo.

I hired him for some catalog work,

but supplement companies just didn't want to sponsor him.

They said that in his 40s, he was too old.

They didn't like the tattoos

and he was already retired from competition.

But creative director Ryan Keller

had the idea of producing a webisode series

around Rich and his California lifestyle.

It was titled "Leave Humanity Behind."

I brought on master composer Mustafa Avsaroglu

to compose an original score

and what happened next was completely unexpected.

(inspirational orchestral music)

- The Rich Piana phenomenon

was probably the most unbelievable thing

I've ever seen in the industry.

I've never seen anything in 28 years I've been around

explode like he did

and change so many aspects of marketing, sales.

You know, everything about the industry was altered

by Rich Piana's you know arrival on the scene.

- I don't think anybody realized

how many people there were left that weren't targeted

by what the big companies were doing

and Rich somehow tapped into it.

I don't think Rich even realized.

I think Rich sorta fluked out in a way.

He thought I'm just gonna be as real as I can be

and there's a crowd out there

and the crowd turned out to be huge.

There's all these people that felt kind of ignored

by the industry a little bit

because they were never gonna be the state champ

or the IFBB pro or whatever.

And they were never gonna get used in an ad

and they were never gonna be that guy.

And Rich somehow managed to attract the attention

of this massive number of people

that loved the gym and loved the lifestyle

and loved the subculture of being different.

And you know the sorta deviant,

social rejection type of thing, right?

I mean that was Rich.

I mean he was everything that society hated.

I mean he was the absolute pinnacle of you know

what is rejected by the cultural norm.

- You know when I started doin' well in bodybuilding,

I thought my phone was gonna ring off the hook.

You know, people woulda been callin' me and sayin',

"Rich Piana, we need you," you know?

"We want you," you know?

Blah blah blah, you know?

The next day, you know my phone didn't ring.

- I think a lot of the people that were attracted to Rich.

You know there was obviously the obvious crowd

with the Dickie shorts and the Love It, Kill It tank tops

and the tattoos and they kinda came from

you know maybe a rougher place.

I mean we all saw them in the lineup at the expo

and they made up a pretty grand portion of his fan base.

But that's not where it stopped.

It went all the way to like I've had lawyers in ties go,

"Hey, you know Rich Piana."

I've had cops say, "Hey, you know Rich Piana."

"You worked out with Rich Piana."

I've had people come up to me in restaurants

that don't look like they've ever seen a gym

and they're like, "Hey," you know, "you know Rich."

"You're friends with Rich."

I mean that was crazy how far the reach was on that.

It was something the industry has never.

I don't think the industry ever dreamed

that they could reach those people

with anything they did, you know?

Like no supplement company has ever reached

you know a suburban housewife with like a ad

with a guy doin' a most muscular,

but somehow Rich got to those people.

- [Alex] In a matter of months,

Rich Piana became the most popular bodybuilder online

and later went on to launch his own supplement line

using his 5% clothing brand.

- I'm here to motivate, keep you pushin' to the next level.

Whatever it takes, gotta keep killin' it, 5%ers.

- [Ron] You know he was pretty upset

at the amount of time and energy and money and work

and you know the investment that he put in

to try to be a pro bodybuilder

and I think he was a little bit,

you know maybe embarrassed about it to a degree.

- Is it more important for me to look good for myself

or more important for me to look good for those judges

so I can win that $5 trophy?

- Everybody's tried something that they love

and they weren't quite good enough to do it, you know?

I mean you know The Rock talks about

how he wasn't good enough for the NFL, you know?

He talked about it all the time.

He mentions it constantly.

You know, "I'm a field football player."

You know, he says that.

I mean Rich did that with bodybuilding.

You know I'm a failed bodybuilder.

I wasn't good enough; I didn't make it.

But that doesn't mean I can't be hugely successful

and I think everyone has a bit of that in them.

There's something that everyone kinda looks back on

and goes man, you know I wanted that so bad

and it didn't happen for me.

And so anybody who had any of that in them,

I mean Rich spoke to them in a way.

- You know, the glass is always half-full.

And whenever you look at anything,

you could either find the positive or find the negative.

And you know you'll be so much happier

and you'll enjoy life so much more

when you're bein' positive

and you're lookin' for the positive.

- [Alex] 5% Nutrition exploded on the scene

and its legacy lives on today,

stronger than ever even after his passing.

(inspirational orchestral music)

By this time, the industry had created gigantic brands

and one could say that today the market is flooded

with all types of supplements used by people

who engage in some kind of physical activity.

Market growth is far from slowing down.

It's actually been growing consistently

at around 8% every year.

Questions about sports supplements remain.

Do they have any benefit at all on athletic performance?

Can they build muscle and lose fat

like the advertising says?

If they don't, why do we continue

to buy them at an increasing pace?

And if they do work, are they 100% safe for us?

Let's take a look at some of the basic supplements

most commonly used.

(inspirational orchestral music)

- Whey interestingly enough actually was a waste product

of cheese manufacturing.

They have countless companies selling whey,

but there's three basic kinds

that the consumer has to know about.

The first one is called whey concentrate.

Whey concentrate has anywhere

from 'bout 72 up to maybe 87% protein.

It contains some lactose.

The feature of whey concentrate,

it has what they call bioactive peptides in there

which have a lot of health benefits.

Then you have whey isolate,

which is the highest whey protein as far as protein content.

It's 90% or more.

But whey actually does have a biological value of 105

which is the highest biological value

of any known food protein.

So whey isolate is very pure protein.

90%, very little lactose.

The third type of whey protein is called whey hydrolysate

and this is basically a predigested protein.

The feature is that it's digested very rapidly

and a couple of studies showed

that it increases workout recovery.

(dramatic orchestral music)

Creatine is a natural substance.

It's made in the body from three amino acids:

arginine, methionine and glycine.

Imagine having a second battery in your car.

So when the first battery goes dead,

the second battery kicks in.

That's basically what creatine supplements are.

That's what they do.

Creatine is so heavily-researched, every week,

almost every day, there's another study on creatine.

I mean more recently it's been found to exert

some beneficial neurochemical effects in the brain.

But it also serves as a buffer in muscle,

it helps soak up some of the acid

that produces fatigue when you workout.

It stimulates a anabolic hormone in muscle

called Insulin-like growth factor-1

and it attracts water to cells,

which is called cellular hydration.

And when cells are hydrated, they're anabolic.

So creatine does a number of things.

In fact, a lotta people think that any weight

you know any gain you make from creatine is water.

You see if you look at the way creatine works,

it really does help build muscle.

There is some water retention involved.

There's no question about it,

but it really does help build muscle too.

- I personally wasn't a huge fan of monohydrate.

Did I take it?

Absolutely.

I took it for years.

I found my gains on monohydrate were great

and then when you came off,

I always felt like I was losing everything.

The new creatines.

The new creatine isolates, hydrochlorides.

They're exciting.

They pump you up and get you hard stronger, faster, bigger.

But without the big water weight and I loved that

and I think that's where the market

is really moving these days.

People wanna keep their abs while they're on their creatine

and that was hard to do with the old-school

water weight, water-gaining creatines.

(light orchestral music)

- So before pre-workouts came along,

I think people relied on a banana maybe

and a cup of coffee and that was it

and their own motivation.

But then as the advancements of pre-workouts are surfaced,

people could see the actual benefits to them.

So then the banana and coffee went away

and then the body was primed for the pre-workout,

so that's exactly where the industry ran.

- What it does is it really gives you

that boost of energy in the gym.

Sometimes you don't feel like goin' to the gym,

sometimes you're a little bit tired.

It gives you that boost in energy so you can stay focused

and so you can get to the gym

even wen you're not having the most energized day.

- You know it's one of those things

where it's never been proven.

But every bodybuilder I would say who has trained

who has used you know arginine-AKG or arginine

or citrulline, you can feel the nitric oxide effect.

You can feel you know the pumps,

so I do believe in that and I think that you know again

arginine is great for muscle building

for increasing that whole nitric oxide production.

- All right, here we are at Mr. Olympia.

The energy is electric.

Thousands and thousands of people.

They are ready.

Now watch this; this how cool it is.

One, two, three, yell!

(crowd shouting) (soft inspirational music)

It is my honor.

I love you guys!

- [Alex] What was originally born as a minuscule niche

popularized in California is now a global phenomenon.

With over $40 billion a year in sales,

the sports supplement industry

has reached every corner of the world.

But despite increasing popularity

and general public acceptance,

sports supplements have many detractors

that want to control the industry

and have you obtain a prescription

before you're free to buy any dietary supplement.

This is actually not a new trend.

(dramatic orchestral music)

- [Man] Freeze!

- Hey guys, guys.

It's only vitamins.

- And that can actually happen.

- What you've just seen were public service announcements

made by some of us in the entertainment industry

to bring our concerns about the FDA's proposed rules

for enforcing the nutritional label.

- If they pass legislation basically making

any type of food supplement a prescription item,

that would be the end, the death

of the entire food supplement industry.

Over, done, gone.

Even though it's making billions now,

it would be just a fond memory.

This is what will happen with food supplements.

Let's say that they're oral prescription items.

You know, you go to your doc.

"Doc, I wanna take this weight gain.

I wanna take this pre-workout."

Doc goes, "No, no way!

"That stuff, we don't know what's in that.

No way!

I'm not gonna give you."

It's gonna kill the industry; bottom line.

- When the new GMP's went into place back in '93,

the dietary supplement industry

became the number two most regulated industry:

nuclear, dietary supplements, pharmaceutical.

We are more regulated than drugs.

Now what the mass media gets confused

is they wanna compare us with drugs

and say, well you don't have to do the clinical trials

that drugs have to do, therefore you're unregulated.

And that's unfair because the difference between a drug

and a supplement is one thing:

A drug can make a claim.

A dietary supplement is not allowed to have a side effect.

I always say the pharmaceutical

has to have a minimum of 100 side effects

in order for it to be a drug.

- So DSHEA, Dietary Supplement Health Education Act,

was a law that was written in place to kinda separate a food

from a drug and an OTC and it made a middle-ground area

and that's dietary supplements.

And a dietary supplement goes through

all the same checks and balances, regulations.

It is regulated.

You'll never hear an FDA person say

that our industry's not regulated.

It's under the same guidelines as the FDA's guidelines

for good manufacturing for foods and drugs.

It's our playbook, so to speak.

- We must be registered as a manufacturer with the FDA.

If you're not, it's against the law.

First off, it's a surprise visit.

And they come in and you need to allow the FDA,

they have jurisdiction.

They wanna see if you have procedures in place

to ensure GMPs are bein' met.

They'll look at your testing processes.

They'll look at your manufacturing process.

They'll look at your training logs.

Are your employees trained under GMP guidelines?

They look at your complaint logs.

Are consumers complaining about your product

and what are you doin' about the complaints?

If the complaint is an issue,

then us as a regulated industry,

we must get to the root of the complaint; why?

Because if you get to the root of the complaint,

then you know how to solve it

and you eliminate that risk from your facility.

So the FDA does a very, very good job

of ensuring that the manufacturers

are controlling the safety of the manufactured goods.

- The reality of the supplement industry is that

regulations and the enforcement

is kind of a gray area to a certain extent

and you know there are regulations in place.

A lotta people kind of like say,

"Oh the FDA's not involved

and there's not these regulation,"

but they really are.

The enforcement is kind of the questionable side of it

and how do they really get a handle on this monster.

And so what we're big fans of here at PricePlow

and what we believe in is that

it's not necessarily the government's job

to have to do that.

But outlets like ourselves can do our homework,

we can look at the data, we can understand the research

and we can inform the consumers and educate them

to if something is pixie-dusted or amino-spiked

or doesn't give you enough active ingredients.

And I think that's the price foundation is what we call 'em,

but our community is becoming educated.

If I post a video and it's something

that only has two grams of citrulline malate in it,

they're gonna say that's under dose, I'm not buyin' it.

And it's amazing, you know?

And I think that's gonna be the future.

I think that outlets like ourselves

are going to hold supplement companies

accountable internally

and not necessarily through government organizations.

- We are more regulated than a food,

but yet foods get a pass.

Like you put a nutrition facts panel on a label

and then you're a food, right?

You don't have to validate that it's safe.

You don't have to do the stability testing

to say that your food's in the right amounts.

There's an assumption of safety.

You go get a protein pasta or go get a meal replacement.

Protein pasta is a food; nutrition facts.

You go get a meal replacement

and it's a dietary supplement under DSHAE,

one's not under DSHE.

But go look at your ingredient list

and you're gonna see protein blends.

It's the same stuff.

You see fortification in one.

You see vitamin mineral premix, fortification in another.

What makes them different?

Nothing.

One is one you bake and one you add with water and shake up.

Why should that be radically different?

They demonize dietary supplements,

but they say all you need is real food.

Well what's a real food?

- A lotta people tell me

that a dietary supplement industry's completely unregulated.

It's the wild-wild west out there.

It's a free-for-all.

That could not be further from the truth.

There is some regulation in the dietary supplement industry.

There are some guidelines by the FDA.

In fact, the FDA actually has something called the ODS

which is the Office of Dietary Supplements.

This is a division that actually looks at supplements

and investigates supplements regularly.

And they do checks of supplement manufacturers

and do quality control checks

to get them to CGMP and other things as well.

And in fact if a product is shown to be harmful,

they'll take it off the market immediately

as they did with ephedrine and ephedrol and ma huang.

- I think raw ingredients

are the single-most important thing

and they're one of the most overlooked things.

I think science is you know kinda catching up

and people are becoming more aware

of what doses they should take

and what's beneficial and whatnot.

But the actual raw ingredient,

I think that'll be the next real trend

that we're gonna see in the industry

on where things are coming from.

Not all citrulline's created equal.

Not all ashwagandha's created equal.

- Some of the medical journals today,

you know the doctors who never even studied nutrition.

They're certainly not experts.

I get a personal peeve when I see vitamin bottles that say,

"Consult your physician."

Consult you physician?

You might as well consult

the next guy you meet on the street.

They don't know a damn thing about vitamins and nutrition.

They don't study it as part of their medical curriculum.

They know how to recognize nutritional deficiencies.

But ask 'em the benefits of certain supplements

or why would I need it,

they're gonna look at you as blank as anybody.

They don't know anything.

So the thing is you know

you have to get these nutrients

or you're gonna get messed up and you supplement

what you're not getting in your diet.

These medical journals, what I was gonna say.

These medical journals today, they're coming out.

All supplements are completely needless and useless.

To me, that borders on medical malpractice

to tell people who aren't getting these nutrients

in food not to take supplements

so that they don't get nutritional deficiencies.

That to me, borders on medical malpractice.

- I think people are looking for shortcuts

and I think they're looking for a way

to avoid doin' the research.

It's a quicker answer.

It's a faster fix.

Tryin' to fix this issue that they're having

with not getting the results

that they're dreamin' of getting.

- The reason why consumers buy supplements

is they wanna get there faster.

That could mean that they get their health faster.

They could get the doctor says

that their cholesterol's high.

They wanna use a supplement

that's going to get their cholesterol down faster

than diet or exercise alone.

Sometimes consumers don't want to diet

or they don't wanna exercise.

I never forgot this obese lady one time said,

"The reason I use diet pills is I don't wanna diet,"

and it makes sense.

People that want to build more muscle,

they wanna build it faster.

They don't wanna wait.

So they may be doing diet, they may be doing training.

But the next level on top of that

is going to be taking a supplement.

- You know, if you're down in certain minerals

and vitamins and amino acids,

it's very hard to get the full amount in food.

So you'll have to have condensed amounts

through sports supplements.

Some people use it as a means

as an excuse for their complacency,

thinkin' that they can have protein shake

after protein shake to fill the voids of meals.

Unfortunately, that's not the way to go either.

There has to be a balance

in order for people to sustain their health

and improve their performance and recovery.

- Why people take supplements?

To have an edge.

You know, this is as simple as that.

Diet can take you just so far

and nutrition supplements addition to

something that can complete and enhance your nutrition.

- It doesn't matter how many supplements you take

if you still eat junk and you don't workout hard.

So it's important to understand

that a supplement is a supplement.

That's what it is.

It supplements the other work.

You still have to eat right, you still have to train.

And the supplement goes along with it to help expedite

and improve those results.

The supplement alone does not give you those results.

- [Alex] I don't know if I will see the fall

of the sports supplements industry in my lifetime.

Maybe humankind will always have the urge to take something

that will give us an edge over the competition,

whatever that may be.

I know I need to continue educating myself

on what I should be taking so I know the difference

between what is a gimmick and what is a quality product.

- There's no magic pill.

You can't just take a pill

and all of a sudden you're gonna look awesome

and you're gonna feel awesome.

You still gotta put the work in.

You still gotta eat right.

Supplement is just that;

a supplement to what you should already be doing.

Now you have that extra edge, that extra recovery,

that extra strength, that extra focus, that extra energy.

That's what supplements can do.

- Supplements are just that.

They supplement your work, your graft, your nutrition,

your sleep, your rest, your recovery.

Then it is the icing on your cake.

("Muscle Beach Party" by Annette Funicello)

♪ Everybody's workin' out on the sand ♪

♪ From the latest dance craze to a wild handstand now ♪

♪ Well last year was great now ♪

♪ But this year is better ♪

♪ You better grab your chick ♪

♪ Or else some muscleman'll get her ♪

♪ Muscle Beach Party ♪

♪ Flex your muscles for kicks now now now ♪

♪ Muscle Beach Party ♪

♪ Gotta hustle the chicks yeah yeah yeah ♪

♪ Muscle Beach Party ♪

♪ Take your vitamin pill now ♪

♪ Muscle Beach Party ♪

♪ Give the honeys a thrill ♪

♪ Here's a 90-pound weaklin' ♪

♪ Well he ain't got no place ♪

♪ 'Cause you know he'd only get the sand kicked in his face ♪

♪ Well cherry little woodies always get the attention ♪

♪ Until the musclemen start the dynamic tension ♪

♪ Muscle Beach Party ♪

♪ Flex your muscles for kicks now now now ♪

♪ Muscle Beach Party ♪

♪ Gotta hustle the chicks yeah yeah yeah ♪

♪ Muscle Beach Party ♪

♪ Take your vitamin pill now ♪

♪ Muscle Beach Party ♪

♪ Give the honeys a thrill ♪

♪ Let's go ♪

♪ Muscle Beach Party ♪

♪ Flex your muscles for kicks now now now ♪

♪ Muscle Beach Party ♪

♪ You gotta hustle the chicks yeah yeah yeah ♪

♪ Muscle Beach Party ♪

♪ Take your vitamin pill now ♪

♪ Muscle Beach Party ♪

♪ Give the honeys a thrill ♪

♪ Well a 90 pound weaklin' ♪

♪ Well he ain't got no place ♪

♪ 'Cause you know he'd only get the sand kicked in his face ♪

♪ Well cherry little woodies always get the attention ♪

♪ Until the musclemen start the dynamic tension ♪

♪ Muscle Beach Party ♪

♪ Flex your muscles for kicks now now now ♪

♪ Muscle Beach Party ♪

♪ You gotta hustle the chicks yeah yeah yeah ♪

♪ Muscle Beach Party ♪

♪ Take your vitamin pill now ♪

♪ Muscle Beach Party ♪

♪ Give the honeys a thrill now ♪

♪ Muscle Beach Party ♪

♪ Flex your muscles for kicks now now now ♪

♪ Muscle Beach Party ♪

♪ Gotta hustle the chicks yeah yeah yeah ♪

(energetic retro music)