Does anyone else ever thing about this?

[Type O Hero]

Does anyone else ever think about this?

First off, I don't want to sound pretentious, but anyway, as I've been reading on recomp and fat loss supplement reviews I've noticed a general trend among some supplements that get the extreme reviews, and by that, I mean you mostly see 5 star reviews or 1 star reviews. Something I've noticed in a lot of the 1 star reviews where I can click on the name of the reviewer and see what they look like is that they're often times not in shape at all.

So if you're taking something that's supposed to lean you out and you're already fairly lean, you may notice some differences, but if you've got quite a bit of fat on you already, while the supplement may be helping, more often than not you're not going to see drastic changes. For instance, recently I've been on an Erase/EndoSurge stack and I noticed it really dried me out and increased vascularity. Now, I'm already fairly lean, so I noticed the effects fairly easily. But if I were say, a little chubby, I probably wouldn't have noticed the slight change in leanness that it gave me, or the increase in vascularity, I suppose since fat would be obscuring the muscle.

Does anyone else ever notice this? I'm all for people wanting to get in shape, I just think it's nuts when someone says that they didn't get anything out of it and then come to find out, they're not really in shape to begin with. Maybe they were expecting more than possible?

I hope I'm not coming off as a douche, but surely someone else has to know what I'm talking about. Thanks for hearing me out.

 

[Type O Hero]

I've noticed this as I've been reading reviews on supplements where there are a lot of people saying they love it and noting the effects, then you'll see a random review where someone says it didn't do anything for them. I'm wondering if more than likely, they're either not in shape to begin with or didn't really know what they were doing in the first place (low training/dieting knowledge, ect..).

 

[Sputter]

You are not alone in your observation friend. I completely agree, you get good reviews (provided the supplement is sound) from people who are lean enough/ trained enough to see the difference and have a good enough understanding of their body to know when something has changed. An obese untrained person taking a 'cutting' supp is likely thinking it will do everything for him. On a similar note, i always notice that pre workout supplements with the extreme reviews (1 or 5 star) are the ones that rely most heavily on caffeine, so people either buzz off their nuts or get nothing if they are pretty tolerant to caffeine.

 

[Estevato58]

Lol, I like this! You're right! I know ppl from school who do exactly that! They take supplements without knowing really how to use em. Sometimes I think that some ppl take supplements that may be too advanced (IMO) for them at their level. Like when you jump on a forum and see an 18-20 year old asking about what kind of cycle they should take of ph/aas, even though they're too young. Or extremely overweight ppl wanting to juice cuz they think it'll help em lose weight. (I had a fat dude I worked with once ask me about that. His theory was steroids build muscle and muscle burns fat. I told him no, part if the reason he wouldn't lose weight was cuz he drank heavily every day!) I've had friends see me taking fat burners and lose weight, so they go out and buy em, then complain that they don't work. When I ask about dieting, they said they don't like to diet that's why they wanted fat burners. Smh. It's annoying. Or when people see your physique and the first thing they ask is: what are you taking? 1.Clean diet. 2. Dedicated exercise. Most ppl want magic pills, they don't realize that supplementation is just a tiny piece of the puzzle compared to mainly diet, then exercise.

 

[wmp05c]

I'm sure this is the case more often than not, the majority of people have unrealistic goals to begin with.

 

[Aleksandar37]

It makes it hard for consumers to get actual honest information. It's about being realistic and working with a good diet and training routine.

 

[hsk]

I agree. Nowadays too many people are unrealistic and expect miracles. I think supplements have their place in this lifestyle/hobby, but goals and expectations must be realistic. Additionally, I believe that diet and training first need to be optimized for the individual based on their goals, anatomy, body type, and body chemistry. Once that is achieved, supplements can be used to make up for any deficiencies and or used to help the body move past plateaus and sticking points.

It took me a long time to get in tune with my body. It took lots of hard work, trial and error, and epic fails. But in the end it was all worth it due to the fact that I really learned how to take care of myself mentally, physically, and nutritionally.

 

[Geoforce]

To be honest I'm not a huge fan of rating supplements even though I've done it before. If you look at the product reviews on this site you will see an insane amount of 5/5 star reviews. If as many products were truly 5/5 as get perfect scores why do we have so many different products on the market? Shouldn't we be pretty satisfied with all these perfect supplements?

I think it's better to ask if someone is going to buy that supplement again within the next 6 months or show a receipt from ordering that supplement again. Some supplements do indeed work and do what they say they do, but the cost-benefit isn't high enough in their favor to have me run again.

A lot of your 1 stars are gimmick accounts by competitors. For instance when Slintensity was released it got multiple one star reviews on NutraPlanet before it had ever even came out with a price or to the public to run. I can't see giving a supplement a legitimate one star unless it gave you sides that made you sick repeatedly. But in that case it was clear some companies had a vested interest in making the supplement look bad as quickly as possible. They didn't even wait for it to come out

 

[snagencyV2.0]

First off, I don't want to sound pretentious, but anyway...I hope I'm not coming off as a douche.

you pretentious prick you
:hitwithrock:

lol j/k man
the issue you bring up of course is reality, and why i do not pay attention to "ratings" and have not for yrs
anyone can have an "opinion"..whether that opinion is valid or an educated one (or conversely an ignorant one) is a whole nother issue entirely

unfortunately, such is the landscape of "advertising" that we embrace in our industry - like it or not

make your own educated decisions, and you will be much better off in the long run

 

[Type O Hero]

Thanks for the positive feedback, fellas!!

I generally don't rely on "star" ratings as much as individual reviews based on individual merit (it's something everyone does, you just don't really think about it specifically). And what I mean by that is, if you can see the review was written up by someone who's articulate as well as from their profile, seemingly in pretty good shape, you would give that review and reviewer more merit than say, the guy with Chuck Norris as his avatar who doesn't really know how to form sentences and keeps them running on without proper punctuation and never really establishes any kind of useful information... Haha you guys know exactly what I mean!

Good posts guys.

In my opinion, one of the biggest factors in success is the ability to self-educate. One of the toughest tricks is learning which information is good and which is crap. And unfortunately, I would say that 90% of all the training/diet/fitness info floating around out there is crap. But if you read and reference enough information, you will get smarter and expand yourself. And along the way you may even learn something that years later you think was retarded (we've all done it), but that's just part of it - trail and error. And as you continue learning more, you can apply more of yourself and evaluate the outcomes with more precision and skill. Over the years I find that my body improves as my ability to learn and think improves. Of course work ethic and genetics are important, but self-education is sadly a virtue less stressed.

This all relates to the point of reading through as much as you can on any given supplement(s) or ingredient(s) you're looking into to try and make the best education opinion you can as to whether or not you want to try it. Then when you decide to try it out, if you want to review it later on, simply give as much detailed feedback as you can. Speaking of which, I always appreciate the reviewers that leave well written, detailed feedback about a product.

But when I see a product that generally gets great press get a bad review, I'm thinking either someone possibly didn't respond, or far more likely, someone didn't really know what they were doing.

You dudes keep up the good work!


P.S - I fixed the title of the thread so it makes sense. At first people probably thought, what the hell is this guy talking about? lol
P.S.S - I'd used "thing" instead of "think"