Educating Weight Training Athletes One
Reader at a Time! -
The Shapeshifter Mission Statement
by Arik Orosz

Okay, raise your hand if your thoroughly sick of reading the same mindless, monotonous hoopla month after month in most of the various, so-called fitness publications. Wow, that's quite a show of hands I see there. These days, it seems that finding a weight training magazine that can keep the interest of even the most nominally educated weight training athlete is about as rare as picking up a Muscle Media and finding an article that's targeted at a higher-than-fourth-grade reader demographic. Oops, did I say that? Uhhhh, yes I did.

I think the demand for high quality, no-punches-pulled, training and nutrition information is perhaps greater right now than it has ever been in history. And ya know what? The demands are simply not being met. It seems as though most of the articles in these publications are either the literary equivalent of an O'douls non-alcoholic brew, which isn't really helping anybody, or a double-pour of Bacardi 151 which is gonna knock you flat on your face if you don't have a PhD. in Biochemistry. Once again, I'm not impressed. Wouldn't it be beautiful to meet right in the middle for a flute of Yarrabank Cuvee? Enough depth to satisfy even the most knowledgeable weight training veterans, but also in plain English to "keep it real" for the new guy in the gym too.

Lifting weights and learning our bodies is supposed to be fun. Don't make it just another daily chore. Time spent in the gym (and outside of the gym for that matter) is so much more productive and enjoyable when we can develop a feel for what information is even relevant, and of course, how to properly apply it. Not too much different than any other endeavor in that respect. Doing an engine overhaul can be rather tedious if you don't even know how to change your oil.

In short, Shapeshifter is committed to bringing you the most up-to-date scientific training, nutrition, and supplement information available. If it's out there, and it matters, we'll talk about it. If it doesn't matter, well, I'm sure Muscle and Fitness will cover it anyway. Our stance is and will remain truly unbiased. Good companies? We'll expose em! Bad companies? We'll expose them too! Our articles, interviews and Q & A forums will be all the stuff we wish we coulda' been reading as youngsters in the gym. It probably would've saved us all years of headache, failure, trial and error, and thinking that the Weider Principles were actually invented by Weider (imagine that), but I digress. These are all things we're here to help you avoid.

We promise to always write about important stuff, like "What Women Really Want", and "Why Puff Daddy and Jennifer Lopez broke up so tragically". Okay, maybe not. We will however teach you why proper omega-3 to omega-6 ratios are important, and how to increase your bench press in no time flat without sustaining acute trauma to the rotator cuff in the process. Most importantly, by gosh, we're gonna have fun doing it. We may poke a little fun and harass some people (deservingly of course) here and there. In fact, we may even poke a little fun in every article that ever goes to print, but if it gets our point accessed and makes it more entertaining to you, the readers, then I feel we've definitely done our job.

Last but not least, we'll have a staff of contributing writers and guest writers that'll give anyone a run for their money. Guys like Dr. Pat O'Brien, injury specialist extraordinare and one hell of an endurance athlete, Dr. Dave Watts, orthopedic surgeon who requires a much larger lab coat than your average M.D., Mark Waters, exercise kinesiologist and professional NHB fighter, and James McCormick, one of the few "real" trainers left floating amongst an ocean of wanna-bes out there. These are just a few of the guys that'll be appearing each month here in Shapeshifter.

Without further ado, I proudly present you the future in training and nutrition theory, Shapeshifter Magazine...