Mark Rippetoe and Lyle McDonald go to war ... against each other ..

[hailtotheking]

Its a shame these guys fell out, because Rip often deferred people to Lyle for diet advice, and Lyle rated Rip's strength training advice highly. Having two of the best nutrition and strength training minds in the industry respectively supporting each other seemed too good to last - and it was.

All started with one of Rippetoes students, Zach Evetts, gaining a huge amount of mass (Rip claims alot of it was lean), and massive numbers on his lifts.

Zach Update - Starting Strength Forums

McDonald said BS - he just created a fatass who squats with bad form, claiming it is impossible to gain that amount of muscle and strength in that time.

Rippetoe update on zach - wot do u guys think? - BodyRecomposition Support Forums

On Rips thread towards the end you can see that Lyle just lost it in his characteristically 'f*** you" manner when he last contacted Rip.

There is a video on Rip's thread of Zach squatting, and TBH to me it looks like a) he isnt that fat, and b) his squatting is pretty damn good (although the looking at the floor thing is a bit odd).

[Luffers]

Lyle is very arrogant and thinks he knows best always!!

No point in getting in an argument with some one like that.

[ATZ]

There's more to this than is being made out on publicly available pages shall I say.

Rip's claims regarding Zach are exaggerated / out of whack, whatever you want to call them. He made a skinny guy add some mass by training and eating a lot, not a massive acheivement imo. Anyone looking at the photo's can see he's added a significant amount of fat along with any lean mass gain. He's definately NOT 18% BF.

Lyle called BS on the lean mass claims, as again (this reminds me of Khris' thread) they were above what is naturally acheiveable, or rivaled / exceeded that of people on AAS.

A slight online p*ssing match proceeded between forum members of both Lyle and Rip's sites, but nothing between the guru's themselves. In fact they exchanged polite emails which Lyle later childishly shared online.

As a result of the above Rip cancelled a trip Lyle had booked down to Witchita Falls to make a podcast for the Starting Strength website, this is where Lyle lost it and went a bit schoolyard calling Rip out on his forum etc.

Things have since died down, both have probably profited / got more customers from it. Both are wrong in one aspect of the fallout or another.

[hailtotheking]

I think the lean mass gains probably were a bit exageratted, but the strength gains are another thing. In the 60's and 70's it was not entirely unheard of for high school athletes in the US to make those kind of gains. Rip puts it down to the fact he just pushed the Zach hard with linear progression and the kid stuck with it (as well as consuming massive amounts of calories). I think he is implying that the reason why people these days think those strength gains arent possible is simply because their programs are crap and they just look for excuses not to consistently push themselves hard. Lyle kinda mugged himself off a bit because he stated on his forum for Rip to either put up or shut up (i.e to post a vid of these squats Zach was supposedly doing), so Rip did, and then Lyle simply closed the thread discussing it on his forum.

[cheef]

lyle imo knows alot more than ripp in geneneral about diet,training,science but tihnk his opinions is always fact

[craig1014]

This is the problem with internet "gurus". I find Lyle's science stuff very good, but he is incredibly opinionated, and seems to think he can never be wrong, and anyone who disagrees with him is automatically a d**k. He posts on a well known sprinting website all the time, slagging others off. Similarly Alan Aragon, who I again have massive respect for, and subscribe to his research review, which is very good, occasionally comes across a bit "know-it-all". The internet gurus seem to actively go out of their way to slag off other peoples ideas/methods, etc, and get involved in internet slanging methods, which I find very sad because it makes me dislike people who I would otherwise have huge respect for.

[nerast]

Lyle's knowledge about nutrition is outstanding, there's no doubt about that. But I strongly dislike his manners and attitude. I'm fine with him not agreeing with someone or even disliking people for whatever reason, that's what discussion boards are for. But you can't go around calling people retards, morons, idiots and cons all the time, it's getting way out of line...especially people that have built their names with hard work and legit results.

Ripp was probably exaggerating a bit, but nonetheless, in my book he clearly won this debate! Lyle didn't wanna participate in the discussion any more once he realised he's in jeopardy of being proven wrong and that is NOT ok for someone who has buit his reputation on academic discussions and censorship free boards!