Ryan DeLuca

Bodybuilding.com is an American online retailer based in Boise, Idaho, specializing in dietary supplements, sports supplements and bodybuilding supplements. The site also once had a highly popular forum section which was shut down in September 2024.

In September 2015, the CEO and founder Ryan DeLuca stepped down from his role, announcing he would be succeeded on an interim basis by Liberty Media CFO Chris Shean. Chris Shean was subsequently replaced with the appointment of Karl Walsh in October 2021.

History

Bodybuilding.com grew out of wholesale-creatine.com, an online storefront created by teenage web marketer and amateur bodybuilder Ryan DeLuca in 1997, to capitalize on the rising popularity of creatine supplements.

A majority stake in Bodybuilding.com was acquired in July 2006 by Milestone Partners for an undisclosed amount. In January 2008, Liberty Media Corporation acquired a controlling stake in Bodybuilding.com for more than $100 million. DeLuca stayed on as the company's CEO.

As of 2014, it has 450 employees working at 3 locations, including distribution centers in North Las Vegas, NV; Shiremanstown, PA; and Bedfordshire, U.K. The corporate headquarters is also located in Boise, along with the company's customer service call center.

In 2013, the company donated the equipment for Boise's first outdoor gym, located in Ann Morrison Park.

In 2007, an FDA agent purchased several dietary supplements from the company which were determined to contain anabolic steroids. In May 2012, Bodybuilding.com was fined $7 million, and as part of the settlement, CEO DeLuca and his brother Jeremy were both fined $600,000 for selling misbranded drugs.

In September 2015, founder and CEO Ryan Deluca suddenly announced he would be stepping down from his position as CEO.

In April 2018, it was publicized that Bodybuilding.com experienced a security breach, though the site would not say if any of its users' data was stolen.

Vitalize, LLC.

In 2015, Liberty Interactive spun off Bodybuilding.com and its stake in Expedia into a new company, Liberty Expedia Holdings. In December 2016 after a massive layoff, Bodybuilding.com reorganized to form 4 different companies/brands.

Forums

At the time of their discontinuation, Bodybuilding.com's forums were the internet's largest online forums for fitness discussion. They were known for their strong sense of trolling and their expansive discussion of unrelated subjects in the Misc. (miscellaneous) subforum. As of 2022, 18 million people used the forums. This popularity led to them becoming one of the last remaining Web 1.0 forums. They were politically diverse, notable in comparison to other boards like the right-wing 4chan.

Notable people who posted on them included bodybuilder Zyzz; WWE wrestler Lars Sullivan; and the perpetrator of the 2014 Isla Vista killings, Elliot Rodger. The site popularized the (drinking one Gallon Of Milk A Day) and (consuming pre-workout powder stimulants without water); both methods are known to be dangerous. In 2008, 19-year-old Abraham Biggs committed suicide after being bullied on the forums. He livestreamed his suicide on justin.tv, and posted the link to the stream beforehand on the site. In 2011, user ThePoz discovered, and publicized on the forum, a way to access private photographs of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the Facebook site itself. In 2014, Australian man Gable Tostee was found not guilty of murdering his girlfriend Warriena Wright. He had defended himself by posting a full testimony of his actions at the time of her death on the forums, alongside photographs. Also in 2014, the site popularized the word "nutting" as slang for ejaculation.

On September 19, 2024, the company discontinued its entire forum section without notice. All links to its forums redirect to the message below:

Hi Team,

No good growth came without change. We’re building new ways to connect our global community.

Be on the lookout here on Bodybuilding.com, or subscribe to our emails below to stay up to date on the newest brand developments.

Together, we’ll move forward to discover more ways to Build Your Body, Build Your Mind and Build Your Life.

Team BBCOM

Enter your email address to subscribe

Ten days later, former users of the Bodybuilding.com forums organized to re-create the misc section on a self-hosted domain titled newmisc.com, which opened to public registration in October 2024.

"Days in a week" debate

The forums are notable for a thread titled "Full Body Workout Every Other Day?" created on May 17, 2008, in which two users got into a long and intense argument over the number of days in a week. The thread started when user m1ndless posted: "If I go o the gymevery other day I will be at the gym 4-5 times a week, is that over training? .. User steviekm3 responded: "That makes no sense. There are only 7 days in a week. If you go every other day that is 3.5 times a week." m1ndless, from this point on posting under the username TheJosh, responded: "Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday. That is 4 days. How do you go 3.5 times? Do a half workout or something? lol". User Justin27 agreed with stevekm3 by saying "7x in 2 weeks = 3.5 times a week, genius."

The argument continued for two days, mostly between TheJosh and Justin27. The argument narrowed down to a disagreement over whether or not a week is seven or eight days; Justin27 said a week is defined as Sunday to Saturday, while TheJosh defined it as Sunday to the next Sunday. The debate then hinged on whether Sunday counted as a "real day". It intensified to where they were posting harsh insults, such as when Justin27 told TheJosh: "You are the dumbest boy alive. Jump off a bridge."

The thread ended at 120 posts, or five webpages. It was rediscovered by Reddit in 2015, and as of 2016, was viewed 3 million times. It was the subject of a 2016 documentary by Jon Bois for ''SB Nation''; he referred to it as the "perhaps the dumbest argument in the history of the Internet". Albert Burneko, writing for ''Deadspin'', said the thread was "the least essential discussion ever had". In 2015, ''Vice News'' contacted mathematician Joanna Nelson for a resolution, and she said that TheJosh would have to schedule his workouts in two-week chunks, since a week is seven days from Monday to Sunday.

See also

*List of Internet forums

References

{{Liberty Interactive

Online retailers of the United States
Internet properties established in 1999
Bodybuilding mass media
Companies based in Boise, Idaho
1999 establishments in Idaho