I take supplements, I use  Universal products and love them by the way.    Sometimes I worry about some of the People on this forum. I actually think they put more into what they take supplement wise than the actual workout they do.  You should not depend on products and expect them to get you super huge and I think alot feel if they take this or take that it's going to happen.   I think it's 3 things that are the main factors here  1. Hard work 2. Genetics 3. Steroids.  I am not saying use steroids, I am just saying all of these supplements do not live up to what it says on the container.   I think sometimes they put more into the art work on the package than the actual product inside.   I think alot of these companies are all making the same stuff also.  I choose Universal because they are less hype than most and the package doesn't have some muscle guy on the front lifting 900lbs or they aren't claiming this or that. Universal is the one company that actually do come close to what they claim. 

I swear you work for them or something, your always on here plugging universal, I think everyone who reads the forum knows what you take and what you don't like. We all know...blah blah blah, shutup about universal already, I am sick of you on here knocking other supplements and plugging the crap out of universal.

thats all true, but i think that money can buy muscle to an extent, just like money can buy happiness to an extent.  i do agree with you for the most part though.

Case in point: Christian Bale. I mean, here's a guy who can diet himself down to an anorrexic 126 Lbs for a movie role, then shoot back up to a ripped-to-shreds, buff, 180+ Lb mass monster in less than 6 months. I defy anyone on this forum without Christian Bale's bankroll and arsenal of personal trainers to try something like that.

Or Oprah Winfrey, for that matter.

Money can buy a WHOLE LOT of muscle. Maybe not in a supplement container -you still have to put in the hard work. But money can make a lot of the hassle go bye-bye, principally by paying someone else to worry about it.

I wish I could afford to pay someone to worry about cooking all my meals, and design the perfect workouts, and push me through each and every one of them, and a team of PhD's to design my supplement stack, but I'm just a miserable, underpaid IT Project Manager.

But the original point of this post is well-taken. Folks need to spend less time chasing pipe dreams in glossy supplement containers and focus on what matters MOST in this game: hard work, and clean eating!

I wish I worked for Universal , but I don't.   I just like to stick with a company that makes good products and keeps them around.  Alot of Companies make a product then discontinue it, then come out with something else.  You can't always go by the pretty design of the package either.  No Xplode for example, when they had that glittery look going on, lol  I mean come on. They change the formula already on most products and the package.  I don't like companies that jump around so much, I like the ones that sit still and make good products.

Jayman, if you dont like BSN, i bet you love Muscletech

ORIGINAL: veggeep

Case in point: Christian Bale. I mean, here's a guy who can diet himself down to an anorrexic 126 Lbs for a movie role, then shoot back up to a ripped-to-shreds, buff, 180+ Lb mass monster in less than 6 months. I defy anyone on this forum without Christian Bale's bankroll and arsenal of personal trainers to try something like that.

Or Oprah Winfrey, for that matter.

Money can buy a WHOLE LOT of muscle. Maybe not in a supplement container -you still have to put in the hard work. But money can make a lot of the hassle go bye-bye, principally by paying someone else to worry about it.

I wish I could afford to pay someone to worry about cooking all my meals, and design the perfect workouts, and push me through each and every one of them, and a team of PhD's to design my supplement stack, but I'm just a miserable, underpaid IT Project Manager.

But the original point of this post is well-taken. Folks need to spend less time chasing pipe dreams in glossy supplement containers and focus on what matters MOST in this game: hard work, and clean eating!

 
 
first of all i think vegg has a crush on mr. bale... haha
 
 
anyway i agree... you can buy muscle. if i had loads of money to spend i'd buy the best foods, trainers, supps... and i'd sleep a hell of a lot more! But, with my schedual its very hard and stressful to eat all the right things at the right time, take the best supps, get enough rest.... i know i'd be over 200 lbs with more money!

first of all i think vegg has a crush on mr. bale... haha

Damn! Is it THAT obvious? HA HA HA HA! Just kidding

CB is one of the few celebrities who actually impresses me -if nothing else, at least for his diversity in roles. He was positively chilling as Gordon Gecko meets Norman Bates in "American Psycho", but the latest Batman installment is my new favorite CB film. Finally, someone WORTHY of the role, who won't turn it into a comic bookish joke, like Tim Burton and Joel Silver did

I agree w/ Jayman completely.  You see all these high scholl kids constantly posting in the supplements section and ignoring the training and nutrition sections.  They all think that supps are a magic pill, that they can eat like ****  or not train hard and somehow get ripped.  They come here and their posts all start "I've been lifting for about a month and I was thinking of trying the BSN mass stack", give me a break.

I honestly don't think you give SOME of us high school kids enough credit. Although, your 100% right about them jumping right into the supplement/pro-hormone forums. Before working out, I didn a complete month of research upon research of good foods w/ healthy calories and proteins, then finally finalized my work out routine. Therefore, led me to this forum. Now i research all supplements.

I'd say alot of highschool kids jump into here, I know fro my own experience, but they know they will get pretty precise answers from some of the older guys that know what they're talking about. But, I do agree w/ you to an extent.

well i think we are all just making generalizations and cannot be taken compeltley litterally.

Well whatever works for you, but I will tell you, more people use BSN than Universal, to be honest, I don't ever even see Universal when I go in to stores. All I know is that on my BSN stack including NOXPLODE my bench went from 165 to 225 in 1 1/2 months so, it worked for me. The bottles are glittery I will give you that but,they work. If universal changed there bottle would you go crazy and say they suck just because of appearance? I am sorry they didn't work for you I really am, but then again like I said before maybe if you spent less time making Polls and posting negative stuff on the site maybe you would have time to lift harder and have some better results, or maybe NoXplode didn't work for you because you drink coffee and are used to Caffeine in the product. Stop knocking products, maybe I will buy a universal product, try it, and tell everyone how Shi**y it is. But, I won't do that, because I know that people react differently to supps. So I still stand by my original statement, shutup, move on, you got burned it didn't work for you so what. Did you miss your mortgage payment because you had to pay for it?

way to dumb everything down by flamming mr. allstar.... you'll get this thread deleted in no time

well veggeep is definatley right.

you CAN buy muscle.  not without working somewhat. but you can pay for the best foods, trainers, gyms, supps, and spotters.

However, the original intention of this thread is something some of the people on this forum forget.  The supps aren't going to do the work for you.  Case closed.

Speaking specifically to supplements............
I've been lifting for a long time.  When I started (I'd rather not say when) most serious athletes didn't count on supplements for more than 5% of their gains.  Now granted, the supplement technology has certainly improved over the last decade.  But I have a feeling that its the 10 million dollar advertising budgets rather than the science that is primarily responsible for driving people's interest.

If you don't believe me, just look at an issue of Flex or M&F from 1990 and then compare it to the same issue today.  3-4 times as much advertising today.

Do I use supplements? Yes.  But I still hold to the 5% rule.