Summary: Me sharing high quality resources on lifting and nutrition.

Body

Been lurking for some months now, glad to help out the community as it has tremendously helped me.

Even in 2016 the state of the fitness industry is absolute garbage. You have fake natties giving bullshit advice on working out and nutrition while they have no scientific basis, you got photoshopped fitness models selling their crap supplements and cookie-cutter meal plans. It's just really hard to sieve all the trash and find the diamonds among the coal. That's why I decided to share my trusted resources of information gained over the last few years of hitting the books and the gym and help you avoid spinning your wheels like I did at the start.

If you're just starting out:

  • Eric Helms and MuscleAndStrengthPyramids.com, the guy is yet another well respected contributor(and a PhD candidate) in the community and has produced a couple of books on exercise and nutrition that are again backed up by sound science. I highly recommend them as they explain in a gradual manner the importance and applications of the exercise and nutrition principles so if you're just starting out you'll know what to emphasize on. He also has an information rich YouTube channel.

  • MuscleForLife.com and the book Bigger Leaner Stronger. Here you will learn how to train and eat properly while using science to back it up. The workout plan is very suitable for a beginner, the founder is a cool guy and actually responds to everyone's comments. He also has a supplements company selling only high quality and science backed stuff. His book is really cheap(also a bestseller on Amazon), like several dollars or so and most of the information is actually freely available on his website anyway.

If you're intermediate or more advanced, look out for the stuff below.

To get in depth on the science of exercise and muscle growth:

  • Follow Dr. Brad Schoenfeld and Alan Aragon on social media. They pump a great amount of scientific literature on hypertrophy and are up to date with the latest research(as they're producing a lot of it).

  • Also look out for Dr. Shoenfeld's upcoming book "Science and Development of Muscle Hypertrophy". It's going to include all the latest scientific literature + how to practically apply it and it's something that I belive hasn't been done before, so IMO that makes it a must to take your gains to where they could be.

  • StrengthAndConditioningResearch.com, another site founded by Dr. Bret Contreras & co., a well respected scientist in the community.

  • StrengTheory.com, site founded by Greg Nuckols, a world record-holding powerlifter that has some really high quality content on improving strength and muscle growth. He also has some great books published so go check them out.

  • BayesianBodybuilding.com. Menno Henselmans takes pride in promoting a rational(the Bayesian) approach to science and lifting and overall has very high quality content and has produced some scientific papers on his own. His site is poorly done but the articles are really well written.

  • Dr. Layne Norton. I know a lot of people don't like him but he still has a lot to say about proper nutrition and I think he was the one to coin the terms reverse dieting and metabolic damage/adaptations during a cut which are very important topics for staying lean in the long run. You can find his research here.

  • Omar Isuf's YouTube channel. Has some great content on lifting properly and making more natty strength gains.

Supplementation

If you're considering buying a supplement, you might want to consult with labdoor.com first. That's an independent 3rd party testing lab that makes rankings of different kinds of supplements based on their tested content and quality/price ratios.

If you're wondering whether a compound is worth it, you could try researching it on examine.com which is a very reputable independent encyclopedia on supplementation and nutrition. If you really have the funds(but that's the smallest and least important bit of the process) you can check out their stack guides to be sure you're doing everything possible.

Conclusion:

Be a smart lifter and you'll save hundreds of hours of effort while looking and feeling better. Be aware and skeptic about lifting advice from your local gym bro. Just because he's swole doesn't necessarily mean he knows what he's talking about. Also, most of the famous and ripped YouTubers are full of shit so maybe think twice before buying their "Get huge arms in 30 days" $$$ program or their "customized" meal plan.

Train hard AND smart brothers. There are a lot of gains to be made.

Edit: Fixed links' formatting.