Website Review #1: T Nation
T Nation has been around since 1998. Now that does not guarantee it’s good, but any website that has made it almost 20 years and through the Dot.com bubble of the late 90’s early 2000’s must be decent right?
I have been reading T Nation fairly regularly since 2008. I was a decade late to this party but better late than never.
Overall Content
T Nation contains a wide variety of content about training, specific workouts, diet, fat loss, supplements, muscle gain, strength building, joint health, technique, commentary and beyond. If you are interested in reading about it, they most likely have an article addressing the topic. Plus the content often comes with helpful pictures and videos. In case you are still confused, you have a chance to ask the authors questions on their own forum or Facebook page.
Authors
Not only do they have stellar content, but they have a team of authors creating content for the site with a wide background of abilities and specialties. This list is far from exhaustive, but let me name some of the authors I particularly enjoy:
John Meadows – fantastic muscle building tweaks to your program or specific exercises, great understanding of digestion and also program design.
Christian Thibaudeau – best description of how to perform a single repetition I have ever read, great advice on building muscle and strength while performing at your best.
Ben Bruno – tons of great ideas to keep your workouts fresh.
John Rusin – great understanding of the human body with suggestions on how to keep yourself moving well and helpful tips regarding cardio.
Brad Schoenfeld – probably the best breakdown of hypertrophy science (i.e. building muscle) you will read.
Eric Cressey – if there is a joint this man does not understand, I am not sure what it is. Great advice to rehab from injuries, get stronger and the man may know a thing or two about baseball. Especially helpful with shoulders.
Jim Wendler – tells you how to get brutally strong and keeps it brutally simple.
Amit Sapir – this man has done it all; Olympic lifting, Powerlifting, Bodybuilding, Soldier. And he takes his experience and tries to help you benefit from it.
Nate Miyaki – great thoughts on carbs specifically, nutrition in general.
Sales
T Nation has a sales side, called BIOTEST. I must personally admit that I have never bought a product from them. However, I have been active on T Nation’s forums and been in many discussions with those who do use their products. They appear to be top notch, although on the high end in terms of price. But you get what you pay for, don’t you?
Appearance
The website has always had a professional look for as long as I have used it. It is easy to navigate and the social media presence is apparent immediately. Very rarely will I encounter any glitches on the website. Also, they will occasionally update the color scheme or layout which keeps things fresh.
I cannot pinpoint the date, but they have opened up to advertisements, which is understandable and frustrating at the same time. I congratulate them on their success as almost anyone would accept advertisements if they had the chance to monetize their website, but there is a downside in regards to the user experience. It should be obvious for anyone using the internet that advertisements, especially those with video or movement, slow the page load time, sometimes dramatically.
I will admit that I have visited their website less often as the ads became more prevalent.
Favorites
I won’t bog you down here with tons of articles, just two, but there have been many I have enjoyed and vastly benefitted from over the years.
Christian Thibaudeau’s description of how to perform a rep was fantastic and changed my training. However, the full description is on an article that is no longer posted on T Nation and the link I just shared only contains a short description. Luckily, I found the article posted elsewhere.
John Meadow’s article about digestion helped me to realize it is not just what you eat, but your lifestyle and digestion that effect how you benefit (or not) from the food you consume.
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