Comments on: The Bodybuilding Doctor: Jim Stoppani

By: Robert Vincelette

Robert Vincelette — Wed, 27 Jul 2016 13:18:55 +0000

Dr. Stoppani says that certain minerals taken near the time of a workout decreases MPS. An article published by T-Nation last week said that vitamin C and vitamin E have the same disadvantage. Thus, according to these two claims, if the science has anything to it, it should be a simple matter of taking vitamins and minerals at a different time of the day from working out. Also, some multivitamin formulas are more expensive than individual vitamins of equally good quality. With some homework, including looking up the vitamins and minerals in your diet to exclude the ones that you get more of than what is required will make it possible to have a few pills you take at supper (if you workout in the morning.)

By: James Fiddler

James Fiddler — Wed, 27 Jul 2016 04:05:41 +0000

As someone who was, laughably enough, “perma banned” from the Jym Army page, I can vouch for your interpretation. In fact, that’s why I was banned; for respectfully questioning the interpretation on 1.5g of protein, weightlifting belts, and soy protein. My greatest sin was citing my sources.

By: Robert Vincelette

Robert Vincelette — Sat, 09 Jul 2016 09:28:19 +0000

A PhD does not make you a generalist, your dissertation is on a very narrow research project. Thus, many claims on how to optimize supplement and diet he makes might make minor or statistically insignificant differences, e.g. caffeine or betaine.
Do we really need to worry about zinc after exercise? It is not clear what difference that makes to protein synthesis, but in the case of another claim he makes about vitamin A in his vitamin pills Consumer Labs corroborates what he says about Vitamin A in large doses needing to be beta-carotene.
But my concern is that he uses sucralose in his protein and pre-workout powders. It may not be perfectly established that this is not good for you, but FDA claims that it is harmless have to be taken with a grain of salt because the FDA serves the food and drug industries and not the public: they require it to be said that growth hormones in cows from which dairy products are made cannot be detected in the milk, implying them harmless, but these hormones are outlawed in Europe and throughout the rest of the developed world.
With artificial ingredients and hormone treatments I would rather play it safe rather than sorry.

By: Kyle

Kyle — Sat, 11 Jun 2016 14:30:49 +0000

Jim Stoppani is a literal joke. He is fit, yes. But he uses his PhD to peddle his supplement brand. That’s all he really cares about.

A friend of mine subbed to his site and everything is geared towards his supplements that are incredibly overpriced that you can buy nowhere else but the supplement pushing site, bodybuilding.com.

If you follow his plans as instructed you will spend upwards of $200 – $225 a MONTH on supplements. Absurd. And people do it and get no better results than all the natural bodybuilders out there who truly have their diet and workout programs down.

Also, his Shortcut to Shred program is just bad. It has you busting out cardio between every set during your rest period. Nonsense. Proven to not burn fat any faster than just lifting 3-4 days a week with 2 days of cardio. You will get so worn out, and dread your workouts so much that you will quit.

Working out should be an enjoyable experience. You should look forward to it. It’s health and wellness. NO ONE looks forward to KILLING themselves and hurting for 45 minutes. It’s just not conducive to long term viability and it is why so many people drop out of his programs. It’s only sustainable for very few people.

I thought he was the shit until I really looked at what he says and recommends and I slowly realized this guy is a greedy piece of shit giving people really bad advice, like using Smith machines, and then when you burn out and don’t get the results he will ALWAYS give you one more supplement to take at $20 a bottle.

Unless you are rich and don’t have to work ignore this clown because you will be popping 30 pills a day and eating all day long plus dreading the workouts. Just follow him on Twitter to get some insight into the advice he gives people there all day. He makes losing weight and getting fit sound like rocket science when it is anything but. Eat 4 times day or so. Eat clean. Workout hard 4 days a week. Cardio 2 days a week. Done. You don’t need to worry about supplements or when to HIIT or fasting or any of that other bullshit.

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 12 Apr 2016 09:27:51 +0000

In reply to evilcyber. Did i read that right that u said the caffeine burns 10 calories an hour? Do u not realize how much that adds up over 12 weeks. U just sold me on it silly, thats 2 more lbs of weight gone or an extra 1% bf.

By: Djswimma

Djswimma — Mon, 25 Jan 2016 17:23:55 +0000

In reply to evilcyber.

What does it matter? The guy gained his weight he wanted and if he looked leaner then he did before and is happy with his results, mission accomplished. sounds to me like there is “hate us because you ain’t us” going on with you and your view of Jim. You looked at his program and didn’t see anything you haven’t seen before? You can look at any program and say that. Even the black sheep child known as crossfit. You think they invented the burpee? hard work…that’s what gets results. And as for the two studies you picked out and critiqued. You are not wrong and neither is he. He has a business to run and my opinion is he runs it with more transparency than most supplement companies. I take his pre workout and protein powder. As for the other products I do feel they can be gimmicky because the results are so minimal for me but for someone else they might be huge. The fact that caffeine doesn’t burn fat instantly or as consistently across the spectrum for every person doesn’t take any cedability away from Jim’s knowledge of the sport.

By: A

Wed, 13 Jan 2016 20:08:38 +0000

I totally agree. I used to buy the Jym products and then realized it’s all BS! All of them! Shredz is the worse!

By: Todd

Todd — Wed, 28 Oct 2015 21:06:56 +0000

I have followed Jim Stoppani in the past but not much recently. I haven’t used much of his advice on exercise many because I already have the knowledge or it concerned an area in which he is not familiar with such as Kettlebells. His followers are very loyal and get very upset when you criticise something of his, which I did. Simply a Kettlebell Swing or an alternate with a dumbbell is not a squat(video on YouTube), wow they got butthurt. I wasn’t the only one on youtube pointing out the problems but somehow the comments disappeared. Anyway if you you want as little body fat as possible and are more concerned with aesthetics than you are with strength or real fitness than DR.Jim is for you. But make sure you have a strong bank account for all the supplements (his of course) he pushes.

By: Lisbeth

Lisbeth — Wed, 14 Oct 2015 13:46:50 +0000

Reading s article, I had a few concerns:
From my understanding, it was the authors intent to criticize
Jim Stoppani’s marketing approach. However, I have a few problems with is methodology of doing so.
The author cites research articles and claims little reported efficacy. Well, this is where actual science differs from a profit driven tv show or website, scientific peer reviewed articles will give you objective results. So yes, accurately describing the effects of caffeine or any other thermogenic aid (besides ephedra, which since reportedly causing premature death has since been rendered illegal) will provide you with the established consensus that the “magic pill” does not exist.
At this point, you could commend Stoppani for laying this research out there for the potential customer to see. Unlike a previously mentioned Dr Oz, he doesn’t make false efficacy claims. At no point do I recall Stoppani defining a supplement as the “end all be all”.
I think what people most get upset about however is his aggressive marketing approach which aligns with is other competitors in terms of aggressiveness. While other body building figures are backed by supplement companies and highly promoting their sells, Stoppani lists his own involvement in the design and production of the products he sells.
At the end of the day, we are living in a capitalist country, and we are all trying to bring home money.
Jim Stoppani went through a thorough academic career earning degree from the top ranked Exercise Science Orogram at Connecticut which allowed him to beat out the competition to finish his post doctoral campaign at the Pierce Laboratory in Yale. To discredit his scienctific background, is therefore highly inappropriate. He turned away from academic research to enter the private sector. He lists peer reviewed articles to provide an objective understanding of how things work what you can’t do is claim a conflict of interest in terms of efficacy statements.
I agree that as members of society we need to think more critically and ask questions. But let’s try to raise awareness in a more prolific way that doesnt cause people to miss the message entirely and instead, leads to insults and silly comments in a public comment section.

By: SignaleerSSG

SignaleerSSG — Mon, 13 Jul 2015 15:29:30 +0000

In reply to evilcyber. Tell this to the Army that continually states that the tape test is the only authorized way to test for BFP. In general it is accurate to within 1-2% and typically errs on the higher side. What is your scientific evidence that 22LBS in 3 months is unrealistic, he did not give any inoformation on duration or intensity of his actual workouts. Just because it may not have worked for you it may have worked for him.