Bill Phillips has been around a long time.
He started out distributing supplements via mail order under the name "National Supplement Association" (sounds important, huh?)many years ago. He then published a book on how to use steriods and started a newsletter with "underground" information which further hyped his supplements. This evolved into Muscle Media 2000 which was an okay mag for bodybuilders at one time (if you didn't mind the constant "Weider-like" self-promotion.
After that came the met-rx fiasco (see articles on t-mag for backround on that).
Changing the name to just Muscle Media and going after mainstream money (bodybuilders are generally poor) with the transformation contests and promoting simplified "bodybuilding" strategies has worked very well for him. The transformations are real as far as one can tell
BUT
There are hundreds of thousands of entries (the first contest had 56,000 entries of which 10 were selected as winners) which means you have a very broad selection of folks to choose from to make things look like the system is a miracle. It's a very common and successful practice in marketing.
For many who have never paid attention to their eating and never strength trained, it may be a good initial program. It provides structure that a lot of folks need to succeed. It is certainly not a miracle and certainly has more "failures" than successes...you just don't hear about them.
The greatest quality Bill Phillips seems to have is the ability to market to a target audience and tirelessly promote himself and his products. He's also gotten some terrific marketing advice from some folks in the industry that makes him look like one of the good guys. For all I know, he may very well be a good guy, but he has skeletons just like most very successful people.
I had some contact with him many years ago while working in the personal trainer certification biz. He didn't take phone calls, and only communicated by FAX.
He did bring many now famous strength coaches into the mainstream like Charles Poliquin and Charles Staley to name a couple, but I think those relationships went south.
He has donated a bunch of proceeds to the Children's Wish Foundation which is nice, but based on his history, you kind of wonder what the true motive is...then again, motive may not matter as long as it goes to a good cause.
Back to your original question (Business seems slow today...can you tell by my rambling). It may very well work for you depending on where you're starting from, your dedication, your genetic predispositions, and any other influences to your progress that may have prevented your success in the past.
My apologies to all for the long-winded post. If I made any errors in tellin' the story, please feel free to correct them. I was doin' it from memory. With my history of concussions, I may have missed something.
Bill Hartman, HARTMAN Certified since 1966
P.S. Uh, Bill [Phillips], if you read this, I've got a great idea for a new book...call me...er,uh...FAX me! (Better make that an email I don't take FAXes
)
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