We at MuscleWeek wish Todd and Shawna the best and look forward to reading Ron Harris’s Todd’s column each month in the pages of Muscular Development. Todd recently stated that his plan was to hit the stage in 2012 at a mighty 285 lbs. Considering that is 30 lbs more than he weighed at the Nationals, that is indeed a lofty goal.

While we only want the best for Todd and Shawna, we certainly hope that Todd continues to put his health and family ahead of his bodybuilding aspirations. As many of our readers know, Todd was hospitalized and severely ill in early 2011 and briefly considered foregoing his bodybuilding career. God bless!

I hear people rambling on about quality protein and nonsense like that. Back in the 70′s everyone including Arnold used Calcium Caseinate (Milk Protein) and those guys looked insane (Mentzer, Platz, Padilla, Robinson). Then in the 80′s, Egg Albumin (Egg protein) became the rage. Remember? Perfect 4.0 protein on the quality protein scale they’d show you on the Weider container?

Then soy protein made a brief comeback and now it’s whey protein. But not just whey protein. No, of course it has to be more complicated. Whey protein isolate works ‘much better’ than whey protein concentrate (yeah right) which is superior to the perfect egg protein which is better than soy which is better than the milk protein that built all of the guys that today’s crop of oilbags can’t hold a candle to.

In every industry, they have product cycles that last anywhere from 1-7 years. When the cycle has been exhausted, they reinvent the wheel. What’s outdated becomes fresh. What’s old is new. What’s forgotten is suddenly remembered.

A close friend of mine ran global product development for a major cosmetics company for ten years. It was IDENTICAL to the supplement biz right down to how they prey upon the ignorance, the hopes, the short memory, and the vanity of the consumer.

Let’s take a product like foundation that all women use to mask their freckles, acne, blotches and other facial imperfections. You could buy maybelline foundation for $5 a bottle. Or you could buy Loreal foundation for $15 a bottle. If you are rich, you might buy Lancome for $50 a bottle. But it really doesn’t matter because it’s all made in the same factory, formulated in the same lab, and contains the same ingredients. The only difference is the packaging and the marketing.

Do women know this? Many of them do. But they would always still buy Lancome over Maybelline. Even knowing it’s the identical product, they will still prefer to purchase the more expensive product. Why? Because of how it makes them feel INSIDE to spend more money, have a nicer looking product, and know that Catherine Zeta Jones wears the same product as they do.

All of us KNOW that bodybuilders today look WORSE than the bodybuilders of the 70′s and 80′s. Despite having BETTER EQUIPPED GYMS. Despite having MORE KNOWLEDGE. Despite having ACCESS TO MORE INFORMATION.

But are today’s SUPPLEMENTS really any better or superior to those from the 70′s and 80′s?

Because we KNOW that today’s bodybuilders are eating MORE PROTEIN, shooting MORE STEROIDS, using MORE INSULIN, and pinning themselves with MORE GROWTH HORMONE.

We buy the WHEY PROTEIN ISOLATE and any other shiny supplement for the same reasons a girl buys Lancome. We REALLY REALLY want to believe that’s how Jay Cutler got so big. We REALLY REALLY want to believe we too can get HUGE or RIPPED if we take this product.

But I challenge you to use Google Images to set your mind straight. Look at photos of the bodybuilders of the 70′s who were using a fraction of today’s drugs. Tom Platz’s legs built WITHOUT a PRE WORKOUT FORMULA. Danny Padilla’s physique built WITHOUT an NO ‘supplement and Arnold’s chest and arms built WITHOUT any of this WHEY PROTEIN ISOLATE garbage.

Gentlemen, we have been fooled to the 99th degree. The supplement companies took a page out of the women’s playbook that feeds upon a woman’s innate insecurity and they used that play on us.

Today’s bodybuilders look worse than ever before. You’d be hard pressed to find ANY BODYBUILDER in ANY GYM with a dense quality physique as seen on Mentzer back in the day.

And for you modern day guys, make no mistake: Our very own KEVIN LEVRONE NEVER USED ANY SUPPLEMENTS. NOTHING!

I challenge each and every one of you to THROW OUT YOUR WHEY PROTEIN ISOLATE. Or at least put it away in the garage or basement (don’t worry, the bugs won’t go near it). Double your milk intake, eat your chicken breasts and fish and continue eating your eggs. Try it for 30 days and tell me if you got weaker. Tell me if you got smaller. Because YOU WON’T!!

Take the MuscleWeek Protein Challenge and report back to us with your results.

This challenge could save you THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS over your lifetime and THOUSANDS OF HOURS in shopping and cleaning protein shakers.

Gentlemen, the gauntlet has been thrown down. Will you accept the PROTEIN CHALLENGE?