Author Topic: Flex Magazine - stopping publication - last issue will be April 2018  (Read 18236 times)

MAXX

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Re: Flex Magazine - stopping publication
« Reply #25 on: March 03, 2018, 02:05:45 PM »
bound to happen. Dinosaurs not moving with the times..

I bet mag sales hasn't been even 5% of what they where in the 90's.

I mean who gives a shit when you get video format on your mobile device in a second. And a mag has 5 weeks old news that you've already seen on the web.

stuntmovie

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Re: Flex Magazine - stopping publication
« Reply #26 on: March 03, 2018, 02:15:49 PM »
Hey, BAY, I gotta asume that you don't believe that bodybuilding and boduybuilding competitions are 'dieing" nor anywhere near the graveyard.

A death of a bodybuilding magazine does in no way imply the pending death of the NPC nor the IFBB.

I personally cannot think of any other 'participation event' that comes anywhere close to the present membership growth of both the NPC/IFBB organikzations.

If you know otherwise .... please advise.

BayGBM

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Re: Flex Magazine - stopping publication
« Reply #27 on: March 03, 2018, 02:36:46 PM »
Hey, BAY, I gotta asume that you don't believe that bodybuilding and boduybuilding competitions are 'dieing" nor anywhere near the graveyard.

A death of a bodybuilding magazine does in no way imply the pending death of the NPC nor the IFBB.

I personally cannot think of any other 'participation event' that comes anywhere close to the present membership growth of both the NPC/IFBB organikzations.

If you know otherwise .... please advise.

It is not that I think it is dying.  It is a niche sport and always will be.  Every now and then someone will make a post and say something along the lines of “the industry needs to do X in order to make bodybuilding more mainstream.”  This kind of rhetoric is idiotic because this sport is never going to be mainstream.  While huge swaths of the population are appropriately interested in fitness and wellness, bodybuilding (pumping up and sculpting your physique to look in a mirror or flex for the sake of vanity, sex, money, etc.) is not healthy and should not be widely adopted.  Particularly when doing so involves supplements and extremes that ultimately take the body to a place no one wants to go.  Does anyone want to trade places with Ronnie Coleman right now?  Or Dallas McCarver?

There will always be a new generation of meatheads and fans, but it is never going to be huge nor expanding to any great degree in part because huge muscles don’t really lead you anywhere in particular.  Many young guys look at Arnold and think they will become the next champion, movie star, governor multimillionaire, but how many of them has bodybuilding produced in the last 50 years vs. how many have crashed and burned (kidney, colon, dead, etc.)?  All of print publishing is certainly contracting, but no, I do not think bodybuilding is dying.  Quite the contrary: the internet has made the idea of bodybuilding much more accessible than it has ever been but it remains a niche sport.  And there is nothing wrong with that.

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Re: Flex Magazine - stopping publication
« Reply #28 on: March 03, 2018, 03:25:02 PM »

Earl1972

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Re: Flex Magazine - stopping publication
« Reply #29 on: March 03, 2018, 05:58:34 PM »
i had a subscription from the early 90's to 2006

i canceled it when the bodies got worse and realized everything i wanted was on the internet

E
E

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Re: Flex Magazine - stopping publication
« Reply #30 on: March 04, 2018, 12:07:31 AM »
And when you think that Weider's replaced Muscle Builder magazine with Muscle and Fitness in 1980.. :-[  I think the Flex magazine was better than M&F in recent years.

Tha Grim Lifter

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Re: Flex Magazine - stopping publication
« Reply #31 on: March 04, 2018, 12:58:34 AM »
It is not that I think it is dying.  It is a niche sport and always will be.  Every now and then someone will make a post and say something along the lines of “the industry needs to do X in order to make bodybuilding more mainstream.”  This kind of rhetoric is idiotic because this sport is never going to be mainstream.  While huge swaths of the population are appropriately interested in fitness and wellness, bodybuilding (pumping up and sculpting your physique to look in a mirror or flex for the sake of vanity, sex, money, etc.) is not healthy and should not be widely adopted.  Particularly when doing so involves supplements and extremes that ultimately take the body to a place no one wants to go.  Does anyone want to trade places with Ronnie Coleman right now?  Or Dallas McCarver?

There will always be a new generation of meatheads and fans, but it is never going to be huge nor expanding to any great degree in part because huge muscles don’t really lead you anywhere in particular.  Many young guys look at Arnold and think they will become the next champion, movie star, governor multimillionaire, but how many of them has bodybuilding produced in the last 50 years vs. how many have crashed and burned (kidney, colon, dead, etc.)?  All of print publishing is certainly contracting, but no, I do not think bodybuilding is dying.  Quite the contrary: the internet has made the idea of bodybuilding much more accessible than it has ever been but it remains a niche sport.  And there is nothing wrong with that.


Exactly but Bodybuilding isn't a sport where it has an exciting ending, last round knock out etc. You can look at the photos afterwoods and it's the same. Very few people would want to look like the top guys and even fewer would have the drive let alone the mindset to take crazy amounts of drugs to do what you need to.

SuperTed

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Re: Flex Magazine - stopping publication
« Reply #32 on: March 04, 2018, 01:04:23 AM »
bound to happen. Dinosaurs not moving with the times..

I bet mag sales hasn't been even 5% of what they where in the 90's.

I mean who gives a shit when you get video format on your mobile device in a second. And a mag has 5 weeks old news that you've already seen on the web.

This.

Who the fuck still buys magazines?

Pray_4_War

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Re: Flex Magazine - stopping publication
« Reply #33 on: March 04, 2018, 02:59:20 AM »
I used to love that magazine. 

Once I figured out that everything that was written in it was a fucking lie I stopped buying them.

Griffith

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Re: Flex Magazine - stopping publication
« Reply #34 on: March 04, 2018, 03:11:42 AM »
This.

Who the fuck still buys magazines?

I don't now, but I do miss the days of waiting for my favourite magazines.

I used to read mostly videogame magazines though. Wish I still had them.

hench

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Re: Flex Magazine - stopping publication
« Reply #35 on: March 04, 2018, 04:58:28 AM »
Im surprised they've kept printing as long as they have,  why not just merge and call the whole mag flex, muscle and fitness, or scrap both.  Cant remember the last time i bought a mag of any sort

ProudVirgin69

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Re: Flex Magazine - stopping publication
« Reply #36 on: March 04, 2018, 07:22:08 AM »
I bought one anytime I had a flight, less so for the articles than the advertisements.  I find the marketing fascinating--anabolic vapor, primal rage, dark matter, etc.  Where do they come up with this?  ;D

MP

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Re: Flex Magazine - stopping publication
« Reply #37 on: March 04, 2018, 08:16:31 AM »
Musclemag International was the best. They discovered Trish Stratus before she went to WWE.

The immediacy, reach and low cost of Internet content (usually free) is basically impossible to compete with.

Print is continuing to die. Hard to imagine a day when there will be no printed materials at all. Hope that day never comes.

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Re: Flex Magazine - stopping publication
« Reply #38 on: March 04, 2018, 09:30:01 PM »
Bodybuilding is dead.

Bodybuilding.
bodybuilding is very much alive and well, idk what you're talking about. Maybe we are not currently in a ''golden age'', like the 70s or the 90s, but make no mistake about it bodybuilding is alive and well, and it's not going to die anytime soon

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Re: Flex Magazine - stopping publication
« Reply #39 on: March 04, 2018, 09:41:29 PM »
bodybuilding is very much alive and well, idk what you're talking about. Maybe we are not currently in a ''golden age'', like the 70s or the 90s, but make no mistake about it bodybuilding is alive and well, and it's not going to die anytime soon

D.E.A.D.

Ron

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Re: Flex Magazine - stopping publication
« Reply #40 on: March 04, 2018, 10:01:24 PM »
Yes, 35 years of FLEX Magazine, and the last issue will be April 2018. I was fortunate to have quite a few of my pictures over the years in FLEX Magazine, thanks to Allan Donnelly and Chris Hobrecker (former editor in chief, and creative director).  I still have the magazine in boxes.   Sadly, the last of the hardcore magazines are going away (Ironman, Flex, and others).  Looking back at the magazine section on Getbig,  the new generation just doesn't want to pay $9 for a magazine anymore when they are only looking for certain items, as well as the supplement companies to put ads into them.

This is what they sent...


Quote
Dear Flex Magazine Subscriber;

Thank you for being a subscriber to Flex Magazine. We hope you have enjoyed each issue. Effective with the May issue, Flex will no longer be published. You last issue will be the April issue. However, the good news is that Flex is merging with Muscle & Fitness magazine. Starting with the May 2018 issue – and for the remainder of your subscription – you will receive Muscle & Fitness that incorporates Flex content.

Expect the new Muscle & Fitness to include all the tips and workout programs Flex readers and avid bodybuilders crave, as well as the latest training and nutrition trends, expert interviews, gear, and tech needed to train smarter, build muscle, and sculpt your best physique ever.

If you are also a current subscriber to Muscle & Fitness, your subscription will be automatically extended for your remaining copies of Flex.

Look for your first issue in your mailbox in April.

Thank you.

Flex Magazine

Sexybeast777

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Re: Flex Magazine - stopping publication - last issue will be April 2018
« Reply #41 on: March 04, 2018, 10:09:22 PM »
lol I have a lot of flex magazines

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Re: Flex Magazine - stopping publication - last issue will be April 2018
« Reply #42 on: March 05, 2018, 12:04:49 AM »
Only time I ever had a subscription to any bodybuilding magazine was to flex while I was in prison for the first two years. There's a company that does discount subscriptions to magazines (their catalog probably has at least a hundred if not 200 magazines to select from),& I believe I paid $6/year for it.

* I take that back, I did also have a subscription to PlanetMuscle, but I got that for free through Jeff Everson. Not sure if that mag is even around, but it was THE best bbing mag ever produced. Even got about 50mags a month to "give Way" when I had my GNC, but I ended up putting "Code-8" UPC code-stickers on them and selling them for $2.95 each lol. ( occasionally I will give them out for free for regular customers or people who made somewhat larger purchases of maybe $50 or more.

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Re: Flex Magazine - stopping publication - last issue will be April 2018
« Reply #43 on: March 05, 2018, 01:32:58 AM »
Only time I ever had a subscription to any bodybuilding magazine was to flex while I was in prison for the first two years. There's a company that does discount subscriptions to magazines (their catalog probably has at least a hundred if not 200 magazines to select from),& I believe I paid $6/year for it.

* I take that back, I did also have a subscription to PlanetMuscle, but I got that for free through Jeff Everson. Not sure if that mag is even around, but it was THE best bbing mag ever produced. Even got about 50mags a month to "give Way" when I had my GNC, but I ended up putting "Code-8" UPC code-stickers on them and selling them for $2.95 each lol. ( occasionally I will give them out for free for regular customers or people who made somewhat larger purchases of maybe $50 or more.

In prison and looking at pictures of men in thongs, fuck me I bet you were a real bottom bitch....

Ted SuperSet

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Re: Flex Magazine - stopping publication - last issue will be April 2018
« Reply #44 on: March 05, 2018, 01:36:16 AM »
In prison and looking at pictures of men in thongs, fuck me I bet you were a real bottom bitch....

Brutal

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Re: Flex Magazine - stopping publication - last issue will be April 2018
« Reply #45 on: March 05, 2018, 02:28:22 AM »
Didn't Peter McGough go back to FLEX recently, after having previously moved to Muscular Development?  His articles were of extremely good quality.

Personally, I stopped reading the bodybuilding magazines regularly after the second or third article that I read about how to train my "lower" biceps.  ;D [despite not anatomically existing, that didn't prevent both FLEX and MuscleMag from writing full articles on them - with the latter having the article written by the magazine's publisher himself, Robert Kennedy.  The article's title was something like "Train Your Lowers"].

FLEX Magazine also featured my favourite Ronnie Coleman quote:

Quote
Ronnie Coleman: "The harder you train, it seems, the slower your progress. You obey all the rules using good form, hard and heavy, proper pyramiding, and a regimen so precise that the Greenwich prime meridian bends to your schedule...but your chest remains the same."

https://www.flexonline.com/training/12-week-plan-freaky-chest-development

Erm...in the future, perhaps Peter McGough might not be the best choice to ghost-write Ronnie's articles.  Peter is just...a little better at writing than Ronnie is.  ;D

PS - The Greenwich Prime Meridian is likely the last thing I would expect Ronnie Coleman to be speaking about.  ;D

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Re: Flex Magazine - stopping publication - last issue will be April 2018
« Reply #46 on: March 05, 2018, 02:32:59 AM »
Quote
Ronnie Coleman: "De harder you train, it seems, de slower your progress. You obey all de rules using: good form, hard and heavy, proper going up wid de weight, and nuttin happened yeah buddy."

fixed

Matt

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Re: Flex Magazine - stopping publication - last issue will be April 2018
« Reply #47 on: March 05, 2018, 02:45:40 AM »
fixed

 ;D ;D ;D

I see no mention of The Greenwich Prime Meridian in your corrected version of Ronnie's quote?  ???

Oh wait...right.  :D

Kwon

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Re: Flex Magazine - stopping publication - last issue will be April 2018
« Reply #48 on: March 05, 2018, 05:32:49 AM »
The End of an Era!
Q

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Re: Flex Magazine - stopping publication - last issue will be April 2018
« Reply #49 on: March 05, 2018, 09:43:06 AM »
used to be, if you were a 98 pound weakling, you bought some muscle magazines and started lifting with an old plastic weight set filled with concrete.  Now, you just buy a TapouT or Affliction type shirt and warn everybody you "train UFC, Bro!"
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