BodySpace Official News Blog

We’ve had the pleasure over the past couple of days to work on several projects with some well-known BodySpace members here at BB.com HQ in Meridian, ID. Among them were liftstudios (Isaac Hinds), obadike1 (Obi Obadike), and k-chzzle (Kendall Wood).

Mr. Peanut Butter is hardcore because of his huge jug!

Collegiate Track Stars Kendall Wood and Obi Obadike!

Stay tuned on Bodybuilding.com for some really great content from these guys in the upcoming weeks!

Meridian, ID (Bodybuilding.com) June 24, 2009 — A bizarre little story unfolded today, as it was revealed that BodySpace member Isaac Hinds up until today had never before tasted peanut butter.

Isaac’s “Peanut Butter Virgin” status was inadvertently made known during a routine visit to Bodybuilding.com headquarters in Idaho this afternoon.

Click for larger image.

When asked about his unusual former status, Mr. Hinds had no comment.  Upon leaving the building, however, several staff members noted a wide grin upon his face.

UPDATE: Rumor has it that Isaac subsequently made a run to a local convenience store to acquire some chunky peanut butter for an impromptu taste test before heading off to a BB.com softball game.  Creamy remains his favorite, however.  Welcome to a bold, new world of flavor, Isaac!

Please be aware of these two BodySpace notices from today:

1.  "We plan to have a scheduled site maintenance this weekend.  There will be a complete site outage lasting approximately 15-30 minutes this coming Sunday, June 21st, 2009, sometime during the window of 8:00 p.m. and Midnight (MST -0700)."

– Reece, Bodybuilding.com Development Team

2.  “The release of the Inspirational Profiles feature has been a great success!  You are able to show who inspires you, and other people can easily find these members when visiting your profile. You are highlighting BodySpace members that really inspire you in your fitness life. These are members that have completed transformations, contests, overcome illnesses, have great BodyBlogs, have created helpful BodyGroups, and left you comments that have been inspiring, motivating, and life changing!

With that in mind, it was hilarious and lulz were had by all when a group of forum members decided to make stealth_swimmer the most inspirational male member (no pun intended), but since it was not done with the right intentions, we had to remove the votes.”

– Brandon, BodySpace Product Owner

Congratulations go out to BodySpace member Chung-Hua (Katie Barnes) for winning Round #1 of the 2009 FLEX Bikini Model Search Online!

You may know Katie as the Bodybuilding.com Clothing Manager, but what you may not know is that she grew up playing hockey and started working out to become a better athlete. Once she quit competitive hockey, she turned to bodybuilding and lifting to stay in shape!

Don’t mess with Katie, she’s a knockout!

For more information, check out the Month One Winners press release at FLEXonline.com, and Isaac Hinds’ write-up on Hardbody.com.

Katie’s tattoo says “Chung-Hua,” which is
Chinese for “Royal Flower.”

More on Chung-Hua here:

Visit Katie’s BodySpace Profile

Visit Katie’s Blog

Bodybuilding.com CEO Ryan DeLuca Named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year^® 2009 Award Recipient in the Utah Region
Award Recognizes Entrepreneurial Excellence in the E-Commerce Category

Meridian, ID – June 15, 2009  Bodybuilding.com, the Internet’s most-visited bodybuilding and fitness site and largest on-line retailer of nutritional supplements, announced today that Ryan DeLuca, CEO received the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year^® 2009 Award in the e-commerce category in the Utah Region.

According to Ernst & Young LLP, the award recognizes outstanding entrepreneurs who are building and leading dynamic, growing businesses and recognizing them through regional, national and global awards programs in more than 135 cities in 50 countries. An independent panel of judges selected Ryan DeLuca, and the award was presented at a gala event at the Salt Lake Palace Convention Center on June 12, 2009.

Befitting of this award, Ryan DeLuca has always held himself to a standard of success higher than most. One can find his daily, monthly and yearly plans neatly taped to his office walls and on his master bathroom mirrors. Ryan did not spend money on a traditional college degree; his learning was self-taught by taking advantage of the education provided by the world around him. His insatiable thirst for knowledge and determined focus has enabled him to do what many others have failed at—building a multi-million dollar company from the ground up.

CEO Ryan DeLuca (Left) & President and Brother Jeremy DeLuca.

DeLuca puts trust in his employees and recognizes he never could have won this award without them. “Even though I was handed this award tonight, it’s truly the whole company who is receiving it. There’s no such thing as the lone ranger entrepreneur it takes everyone in the company working together,” explained DeLuca…

For more, read the full Press Release!

Have you met Fitness Model, Bikini Competitor and BodySpace Member Marzia Prince yet?  Check her out here!

Marzia Prince BodySpace video from Gaspari Nutrition

Drop by her profile afterward and let her know what you think of her BodySpace video profile and her new Gaspari Mustang GT Giveaway video!

Having problems with the video?  Click here for the YouTube version.  Video and photo courtesy of Gaspari Nutrition.

Check out other BodySpace Video Profiles here.

BodySpace surpassed 350,000 active users today! 

Thanks and welcome to all of our new members!

Have you ever found someone on BodySpace that Inspires you?

Now with the new Inspirational Profile feature you will be able to add them to your BodySpace Profile. This is very  different than just adding a friend, you are highlighting BodySpace members that inspire you in your Fitness life.

Think of members that have completed Transformations, Contests, BodyBlogs, Created BodyGroups, left you comments that have been inspiring, motivating, life changing! Whatever the case may be go out and highlight these members they deserve it and trust me they will be highlighting you on their BodySpace Profile. Remember you can only add up to 10 so choose wisely!

So if you’re not as active on BodySpace as you should be now it’s time to get serious and make your BodySpace Profile the BOMB! Members look  up to you and your profiles.

Check out the new Inspirational Members on the front page of BodySpace.

Notice the bright YELLOW and GREEN button with the Rocky Balboa Icon? Yea that’s right adding members Rocky style!

Here is where you can view all the members YOU find Inspiring. This is listed under you Goals on your BodySpace Profile. Check it out!

Again, Please get out there and find members that inspire you, not just hot chicks! LOL

And please give a shoot out to the Community Development Team! Patrick Lee, Jane Miceli, Zac Feuerborn, Jen Zundel and to all others that helped make our new feature!

In this light-hearted parody, featured BodySpace member “Maddi” has her recent blog entry read by a distinguished orator’s cousin.  Follow along:

“I was blessed with a visitor last night.  And I’m not talking Auntie Flo.  She came this morning.  No.  Last night it was a young man, teen to early 20’s.  He was wearing a ball cap and sucking on a nice cold bottle of Dr. Pepper.  I woke up to the sound of, “Mom?”  “Yeah,” I said, and there he stood.  Next to my bed staring down at my husband.  Now this may sound like the beginning of a good porn sequence.  However me and hubby still have our values.  We just don’t f-ck the undead.”

Who will be next?  Click here for past BodyBlog Readings!
Right-click and “save file as…” to download the MP3 (1:19 - 622 KB).

Dear BodyGroup Owners,

Good news! BodyGroups now have their own private forums! This new feature will help you and your members to:

• Create full and in-depth discussions
• Share fitness tips
• Ask questions and get fast answers
• Share success stories
• Follow each others progress
• Subscribe to receive daily or weekly emails with all of the latest threads
• Make fun of other BodyGroups that aren’t as good as yours!

Here are some sample BodyGroup forums:

Click For Larger Image.

Click For Larger Image.

As a BodyGroup owner, you have FULL control over your new private forum. You are able to:

• Turn your forum on or off
• Decide if you want to approve all new messages before they are displayed
• Allow non-members to view the forum, or just keep it 100% private
• Delete any post that a member puts up

To modify the settings of your new BodyGroup Forum, simply visit your BodyGroups management settings at the bottom of your BodySpace Control Panel to edit your options!

Go to your BodyGroup main page now or go to the BodyGroups main page at http://groups.bodybuilding.com/ to check it out!

Enjoy your new BodyGroup Feature! Many more coming soon!

Brandon Poe
BodySpace Product Owner

In case you didn’t remember, all contestants in the 2009 MuscleTech/Bodybuilding.com $50,000 Transformation Contest must have submitted their "After" photos in their BodySpace profiles and their Essays in the official forum thread by tonight at midnight (Eastern Time).

If you made the sickest transformation in bodybuilding history but still haven’t posted your stuff, you’ve only got precious MINUTES left!

Here’s the contest thread - get on it!!

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=113001981

Iron Man magazine has been around for decades and is one of the top national bodybuilding/fitness magazines. It’s everywhere.

They are featuring BodySpace on the FRONT cover this month, along with two separate multi-page features in the middle of the magazine. Notice the “BodySpace” mention on the cover in the MAIN headline.   Pretty cool stuff!

Also one of the ads showcased the Bodybuilding.com Supplement Awards right in the ad. Many of our vendors do this with the Supplement Award logos that they win (on TV, on their sites, in their print ads, in their brochures, in their event booths, etc.).   Check out the Supp Awards in the bottom area of an Optimum Nutrition ad that was in many national magazines. Optimum is our biggest vendor.

This year we will give out our 5th annual Supplement Awards. We give out the awards on the MAIN stage at the Olympia… the biggest bodybuilding show in the world.

In this light-hearted parody, featured BodySpace member “JediBB/Jedi MASSter” has his recent blog entry read by a distinguished orator’s cousin.  Follow along:

“Well the Excalibur was a relative success for me. Compared to my first experience there I did much better, up a whole weight class and I placed 7th instead of 9th. So progress is good. Of course I have my complaints about the judging and the placings of Cody and myself, but the point is I just need to keep getting better. If I just get good enough there will be no other option than placing better. It was a huge show though and two of the guys in my class have (or had) big sponsorships- Muscle Asylum and MuscleTech guys they were- so if I’m hanging in the top ten with them that is cool.

I must complain about the show logistics though. The show was very poorly managed. I wasn’t even through with registration and the show was already more than an hour behind schedual. It can be really annoying actually because it really f*cks the competitors up. I mean can’t they keep **** together? I’ve been a competitior in countless national and world class track meets and they run like clockwork- with 5 times the number of athletes and events! John Lindsay’s shows are supposed to be the best in the west and out of the three I’ve been in so far everyone has been a cluster f*ck wth unhappy athletes and incompetant help. I mean three of the heavyweights almost missed posing in the nightshow because the pump room help didn’t call them (or called the wrong numbers!)… that turned into posing routines with no pump time. Sh*tty. During the prejudging the judges forgot to bring out an athlete at one point so all of us heavyweights wound up having to hold a front double biceps for 2 minutes! while they figured it out. As soon as they did, they brought the dude out and started our mandatories over again. Basically every five seconds people that were supposed to know what they were doing were f*cking up and it felt like they were doing it out of apathy. Glad I dropped like 500 bucks on the event.

Anyway with that said I’m back to training for the next (not gonna stop till I win!) and can’t be stopped! Lol. Hope you all have a great day and train hard!”

Who will be next?  Click here for past BodyBlog Readings!
Right-click and “save file as…” to download the MP3 (3:01 - 1.38 MB).

Attention all Bodybuilding.com Members:

The following sections of Bodybuilding.com will be completely offline from 3:00 p.m. MST on Sunday, May 3, 2009 through 12:00 p.m. (Noon, MST) on Monday, May 4, 2009:

• BodySpace
• BodyBlogs
• BodyGroups
• Workout Tracker
• Product Reviews
• Forums
• Photo Galleries
• My BB.com

During this time hardware and software will be upgraded to better serve and support the growing Bodybuilding.com online community.

The following sections of the site, however, will still be available to serve you during that time:

• SuperSite
• Store
• Chat Room
• Newsletters
• Careers
• Bodybuilders
• Teen Bodybuilding
• Contest Database

Thank you for your patience and cooperation!

Administration Staff

How would you like to be featured in your very own Wallpaper of the Week on Bodybuilding.com?  We’ve featured several BodySpace members in the past, and are looking to feature more in the upcoming weeks and months.  Check out our Wallpapers main page here to full scope of images that we feature:

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/wallpapermainpage.htm

Here are some recent examples of BodySpace member wallpapers:

All of these wallpapers are available for download here:

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/wallpapers_full_archive.htm

If you’d like to throw your hat into the ring for a possible featured wallpaper, please email your photo(s) to:

wallpapers@bodybuilding.com

And please put “BodySpace Wallpaper: Please Consider” in the subject line.  Thank you, and good luck! 

FYI, just a friendly reminder and warning about the current phishing scams going around via PM here on BodySpace and the forums.  What is phishing?  Wikipedia has a good explanation:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing

If you receive a PM (personal message) from someone you don’t know, BE WARY, and don’t click on any links that might be present within them, especially if they say something about your personal information being on another site (it’s a lie and a scam - don’t believe it!)

We get emails like this from people who unfortunately clicked on the links and now their accounts are compromised:

“I got the PM a few weeks ago saying that her name and mine were on some other site. So I followed her link and it sent me to a strange forum site. I deleated her PM and got out of the site. Did this have anything to do with somebody posting as me?”

The answer is YES, don’t click on strange links in PMs - you run the risk of having your account taken over by malicious phishermen.  Your account isn’t being “hacked” per se, you are actually (albeit unknowingly) giving them access to your account.  Don’t be the next victim!

Another similar scam is the dating PMs:

“hey there, I waz goin’ over here, and i unearthed your lil’ site…. Well, if you want to chatting with me, you could find me over at dating_bucket.net, my name there is clubbingfox. So, ya, hope to meet up with you there. always lookin’ to find more people. Allyson Turner”

Seriously, it’s not a hot chick wanting to hook up with you, it’s a scam - don’t click the link, or else you might be giving them access to your account! 

More phishing warnings previously posted here:

http://blog.bodybuilding.com/BodySpaceAdmin/2009/01/12/beware-of-phishing-pms/
(January 12, 2009)

http://blog.bodybuilding.com/BodySpaceAdmin/2008/06/16/possible-phishing-site-pms-going-around/
(June 16, 2008)

For more information and to report phishing, click here:

http://www.us-cert.gov/nav/report_phishing.html

If you did click on any links like this, please CHANGE your PASSWORD immediately!

(For your own protection against identity theft.)  Thanks.

Heya folks,

Several behind-the-scenes security fixes and minor changes to photo uploads were done today.

The only thing that will affect most people will be that animated GIFs are no longer allowed.  If an animated GIF is uploaded, it will be automatically converted to JPG, thus only using one frame of the animation.  Likewise, all photos that aren’t already in JPG format (like PNGs and BMPs) will also be automatically converted to JPG.

These improvements will result in faster page loading times, consistency amongst main profile photos, and decreased image storage requirements (since JPGs are compressed whereas BMPs are not, for example).

Kudos go out to our programming team and our BodySpace product owner, Brandon Poe, for these upgrades! 

Everyone please join us in welcoming your new 2009 Miss Bikini BodySpace, Lacey a.k.a. "liveandlove!”  Lacey made the long drive to Boise this past weekend to compete against other BodySpace ladies to earn this new but coveted title!

Click here to see just photos from the Miss Bikini BodySpace contest -

http://contest.bodybuilding.com/gallery/contest/12022/

And here to see *all* photos from the BFE (Boise Fitness Expo) -

http://contest.bodybuilding.com/gallery/contest/12012/

While in town for the BFE, Lacey also stopped by BB.com HQ and did a live JTV video chat for us.  You can check it out here:

http://www.justin.tv/clip/7dfac4f53afca185

UPDATE:  This video just in from our local FOX TV station here in Boise, in which Kim Lyons, Gunter Schlierkamp and Nick Scott were all interviewed while they were here for the BFE!  Check it out here:

If you couldn’t make it to BFE this time ’round, plan on it for next year, it’s a blast! 

Hi BodySpace Members!

Do you have a compelling transformation story?  Has Bodybuilding.com and/or BodySpace helped you to make that transformation? Would you like to inspire others with your own health and fitness accomplishments?

Bodybuilding.com is writing a book (to be published nationwide in 2010) featuring its top 30 transformation stories that will reach out to touch thousands seeking change in their health, fitness, and appearance, and we’d like for you to be a part of it!

To be considered for inclusion in the book, please send an e-mail to john.shumate@bodybuilding.com with the following information:

1) Your BodySpace username

2) Why your personal physical transformation story will inspire others (200 words or less, for consideration we need your response no later than April 15, 2009)

3) Your before and after pics (unless they are already up on your BodySpace profile)

Think of all the people dealing with physical issues and mindset barriers keeping them from living a better life, and how your own personal story could reach out and inspire them to change.

Don’t miss this important opportunity to help others by helping us tell your story and the story of BodySpace, the world’s most important and helpful fitness community!

Don’t miss our live JTV video chat this Friday, March 27, 2009, when FAME USA President Jason C. Powell visits Bodybuilding.com HQ for the first time!

He’ll be introducing himself and talking about his competition career, training, supplements, and nutrition - all live, and all while answering your questions!

Details here:

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/justintv.htm