Just got my first issue of Milo the other day. I was sick of looking
through bodybuilding magazines, wading through all the ads (you think
usenet spam is bad, you ain't seen a bodybuilding magazine!), getting
some of the same old self-contradictory articles, so I subscribed to
this outrageously expensive little quarterly, Milo, "the journal for
serious strength athletes."
It's not even bound in hardcover anymore, like they still advertise it
to be (?!?!), but I'll have to keep my subscription of ~$50 a year
because it is an interesting complement -- antidote, even -- to the
usual bodybuilding fare. Indeed, most of these guys are fat, and
damned proud of it! 'Cause they're not weak, fat as they are, and
there's something very nice about that -- people who can just be,
instead of worrying about whether their glutes are striated enough,
etc.
There also doesn't seem to be a "drug ethos"...reading bodybuilding
magazines, I can't help but snicker at how much of the advice given is
really for the steroid-addled set...reading Milo, it seems that these
are folks who take pride in real strength, and aren't so looks-
obsessed as to get into drugs and whatnot (though it's true the
Bulgarian team got banned from the 2000 Olympics for testing
positive)...main thing about Milo is that despite its slick paper, it
still reads like someone's home-made newsletter...a usenet post, even!
But on-topic, and that's good. No filler pages on some exotic new
bullshit supplement or amino acid or herb -- though they do break up
the text with reprints of "pull quotes" (enlarged text excerpted from
the text they're trying to break up), which is a "filler strategy" in
itself...and it seems like the same coterie of mutual friends and
acquaintances who write for each issue, but I suppose that's to be
expected, given the limited audience of strength sports...all in all,
a good read.
Any other mags like this? Maybe with an equal bodybuilding focus,
though...no reason why one shouldn't look good, too! Indeed, many top
bodybuilders are pretty impressive strongmen as well!
Milo -- The Journal for Serious Strength Athletes 
Linear Mode
