Bodybuilding.com
American dietary supplements company

Bodybuilding.com
Company typeSubsidiary
IndustryEcommerce, Fitness Industry
FoundedFebruary 16, 1999; 26 years ago (1999-02-16)[1]
FounderRyan DeLuca
HeadquartersBoise, Idaho, U.S.
Key people
CEO Karl Walsh
ProductsDietary supplements
Number of employees
450
ParentRetail Ecommerce Ventures[2]
Websitebodybuilding.com

Bodybuilding.com is an American online retailer of dietary supplements and bodybuilding supplements, based in Boise, Idaho. 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.[3] 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.[4][5]

A majority stake in Bodybuilding.com was acquired in July 2006 by Milestone Partners for an undisclosed amount.[6]

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.[7][8]

In January 2008, Liberty Media Corporation acquired a controlling stake in Bodybuilding.com for more than $100 million.[9] DeLuca stayed on as the company's CEO.

Bodybuilding.com's headquarters in Boise

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.[10] 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.[11]

In September 2015, Ryan Deluca suddenly announced he would be stepping down from his position as CEO.[12] In November, Liberty Interactive spun off Bodybuilding.com and its stake in Expedia into a new company, Liberty Expedia Holdings.[13] After Bodybuilding.com laid off 90 people in December 2016,[14] it reorganized to form 4 different companies/brands.

In February 2019, hackers accessed some part of Bodybuilding.com's corporate IT systems, and may have retrieved personal data of the site's users. Sometime in the next few months, the company discovered this, but did not publicize it right away, instead hiring a security company to assess what their vulnerability had been. It was found that at least one of Bodybuilding.com's 450 employees had been susceptible to a phishing email sent in July 2018. It was not determined if the hackers accessed user data. In April 2019, Bodybuilding.com publicized the breach, saying its consequences were unknown, and reset all the passwords of the site's users.[15][16]

By 2025, many of Bodybuilding.com's devoted users felt that, in modern times, the company had deviated from the site's "grassroots culture" by simplifying its design to maximize corporate profit, and then not responding to users' negative reception to those changes. In one instance, the company shut down the site's highly-popular forum section (see below). The number of visitors to the site dropped prior to November 2025, when the company apologized to its users; they stated the site had become "less connected to the people who built this brand—you", and promised a redesign based on users' suggestions, which would launch in 2026.[17][18]

Forums

Bodybuilding.com once had the most popular Internet forums dedicated to fitness discussion.[16] After its closure, Aftermath's Chris Person wrote that in the history of forums, it "was so gargantuan it barely needs mentioning".[19] As of 2022, 18 million people used them,[20] making them one of the last remaining, popular Web 1.0 forums.[21] They were known for having a large amount of trolling; a politically diverse userbase, notable in comparison to other forums like right-wing 4chan; and expansive discussion of subjects unrelated to fitness, in the Misc. (miscellaneous) subforum.[21][22][23]

Health-related posts on the forums included logs of users' workouts; users signing up for bodybuilding challenges; reviews of supplements; and users giving each other motivational support.[17] Notable forum users included bodybuilder Zyzz;[24] WWE wrestler Lars Sullivan;[25] and the perpetrator of the 2014 Isla Vista killings, Elliot Rodger.[26] The site popularized the GOMAD diet (drinking one Gallon Of Milk A Day) and dry-scooping (consuming pre-workout powder stimulants without water); both methods are known to be dangerous.[27][28] In 2008, 19-year-old Abraham Biggs died of suicide after being bullied on the forums. He livestreamed his suicide on justin.tv, and posted a link to the stream on the forums beforehand.[29] In 2011, user ThePoz discovered, and publicized on the forums, a way to access private photographs of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on the Facebook site itself.[30][31] In 2014, Australian man Gable Tostee was found not guilty of murdering his girlfriend Warriena Wright, as he had defended himself by posting a full testimony of his actions at the time of her death on the forums, alongside relevant photographs.[32] Also in 2014, the forums popularized the word "nutting" as slang for ejaculation.[33]

In September 2024, the forums were discontinued, and its webpages redirected to a message from Bodybuilding.com, which began: "Hi Team, No good growth came without change. We're building new ways to connect our global community".[34] This was highly controversial among the site's long-time visitors.[17] Some of its users migrated to successor forums, such as newmisc.com.[17][34] In Bodybuilding.com's 2025 apology, it did not state if the forums would relaunch as part of its 2026 redesign.[17][18]

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 debate over the number of days in a week.[35][36] It started when user m1ndless posted: "If I go [to the gym] every 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."[36] 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".[35][36] User Justin27 agreed with stevekm3: "7x in 2 weeks = 3.5 times a week, genius."[36]

Diagram of the arguments in the debate

The debate continued for two days, mostly between TheJosh and Justin27. Their arguments 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.[35][36] The arguments then hinged on whether Sunday counted as a "real day".[37] 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."[36]

The thread ended at 120 posts,[38] or five webpages.[39] It was rediscovered by Reddit users in 2015, and was viewed 3 million times as of 2016. It was the subject of a 2016 SB Nation documentary by Jon Bois, who referred to it as the "perhaps the dumbest argument in the history of the Internet".[35] Albert Burneko, writing for Deadspin, said the thread was "the least essential discussion ever had",[40] and Chris Person wrote that it was "the stuff of legends".[19] In 2015, Vice News contacted mathematician Joanna Nelson for a resolution to the debate, 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.[41]

See also

References

  1. ^ "Bodybuilding.com WHOIS, DNS, & Domain Info - DomainTools". WHOIS. Retrieved July 13, 2016.
  2. ^ "Bodybuilding.com forms partnership with Retail Ecommerce Ventures". PR Newswire (Press release). July 1, 2022. Retrieved March 2, 2023.
  3. ^ "Bodybuilding.com founder DeLuca steps down". Idaho Statesman. October 5, 2015.
  4. ^ DeLuca, Ryan. "Ask a guy who started Bodybuilding.com anything, part I". Retrieved November 17, 2014.
  5. ^ "Catching Up with the 2006 30 Under 30 Alumni, Leading Your Company Article - Inc. Article". Retrieved November 20, 2007.
  6. ^ "Milestone Completes Sale of Bodybuilding.com". Milestone Partners. Retrieved November 17, 2014.
  7. ^ Roberts, Bill. "Bodybuilding.com agrees to pay $7 million fine for violating Food and Drugs act". Idaho Statesman. Retrieved February 19, 2013.
  8. ^ "US FDA Criminal Investigations- May 22, 2012: Bodybuilding.com, LLC, Ryan Deluca, and Jeremy DeLuca Plead Guilty in Federal Court to Violating FDCA". Food and Drug Administration. Archived from the original on June 13, 2012. Retrieved September 28, 2012.
  9. ^ Ando, Ritsuko (January 7, 2008). "Liberty Media buying Bodybuilding.com stake: report". Reuters. Retrieved January 10, 2008.
  10. ^ "Bodybuilding.com achievements". www.bodybuilding.com. Retrieved November 17, 2014.
  11. ^ "Boise's first outdoor gym opens Thursday in Ann Morrison Park". KTVB News Channel 7 Boise. Retrieved November 17, 2014.
  12. ^ "Bodybuilding.com founder DeLuca steps down". idahostatesman. Retrieved May 3, 2016.
  13. ^ "Liberty Interactive to spin off CommerceHub, Liberty Expedia". Reuters. November 12, 2015. Retrieved September 24, 2017.
  14. ^ TEGNA. "Bodybuilding.com lays off about 90 in Boise". KTVB. Retrieved December 29, 2016.
  15. ^ Hadley, James. "Bodybuilding.com Breach: Proof That An Organization's Biggest Cyber Risk Is Its People". Forbes. Retrieved July 31, 2024.
  16. ^ a b "Bodybuilding.com discloses security breach". ZDNET. Retrieved July 31, 2024.
  17. ^ a b c d e "'We failed you': Bodybuilding(dot)com apologises after mass outrage for 'abandoning' its community". The Times of India. November 25, 2025. ISSN 0971-8257. Retrieved January 17, 2026.
  18. ^ a b "Instagram". www.instagram.com. Retrieved January 17, 2026.
  19. ^ a b "Forums Are Still Alive, Active, And A Treasure Trove Of Information". Aftermath. October 8, 2024. Retrieved January 17, 2026.
  20. ^ "5 Best Bodybuilding Forums (Reviewed For 2024)". December 17, 2020. Retrieved July 31, 2024.
  21. ^ a b Jones, Kate Davis (March 26, 2015). "Bodybuilding Forums Are One of the Last Relics of Web 1.0". Vice. Retrieved July 31, 2024.
  22. ^ "Gable Tostee's journey from an introvert to a self-styled playboy". ABC News. October 20, 2016. Retrieved July 31, 2024.
  23. ^ "The Unheard History of Bodybuilding Forums, as Told by the Trolls and Counter-Trolls Who Made Them Huge". MEL Magazine. April 11, 2019. Retrieved July 31, 2024.
  24. ^ "Zyzz Can Never Die". MEL Magazine. April 21, 2022. Retrieved July 31, 2024.
  25. ^ Konuwa, Alfred. "Lars Sullivan And WWE's Recent History Of Turning A Blind Eye To Bigotry". Forbes. Retrieved July 31, 2024.
  26. ^ Woolf, Nicky (May 30, 2014). "'PUAhate' and 'ForeverAlone': inside Elliot Rodger's online life". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved July 31, 2024.
  27. ^ "Meet the Bodybuilding Bros on the 'GOMAD' Diet — a Gallon of Milk a Day". MEL Magazine. December 12, 2018. Retrieved July 31, 2024.
  28. ^ Rodrigues, Ashwin (June 7, 2021). "Dry Scooping Pre-Workout Is a Terrible Idea". Vice. Retrieved July 31, 2024.
  29. ^ "The Dark, Disturbing Trend of Teens Live Streaming Suicide, and How It Can Be Stopped". Inside Edition. October 17, 2017. Retrieved July 31, 2024.
  30. ^ Hill, Kashmir. "Mark Zuckerberg's Private Photos Exposed Thanks To Facebook Flaw". Forbes. Retrieved July 31, 2024.
  31. ^ "Facebook glitch reveals private photos -- including Zuckerberg's". TODAY.com. December 7, 2011. Retrieved July 31, 2024.
  32. ^ Bogle, Ariel (October 24, 2016). "'Tinder murder' accused posted testimony on a body building website". Mashable. Retrieved July 31, 2024.
  33. ^ Hathaway, Jay (August 26, 2016). "The sexy, sloppy history of 'nut' and 'succ'". The Daily Dot. Retrieved July 31, 2024.[dead link]
  34. ^ a b "Forums Are Still Alive, Active, And A Treasure Trove Of Information". Aftermath. October 8, 2024. Retrieved January 17, 2026.
  35. ^ a b c d Bois, Jon (February 18, 2016). "The Dumbest Boy Alive". SBNation.com. Retrieved July 31, 2024.
  36. ^ a b c d e f "'You My Friend Are El Wrongo': Two Bodybuilding Meatheads Argue Over How Many Days Are In A Week". UPROXX. January 5, 2015. Retrieved July 31, 2024.
  37. ^ Waugh, Rob (January 5, 2015). "'How many days are in one week?' Bodybuilders argue it out". Metro. Retrieved July 31, 2024.
  38. ^ "Bodybuilders row over the number of days in the week". Evening Standard. January 5, 2015. Retrieved July 31, 2024.
  39. ^ Jordie. "Throwback: A Bunch Of Meatheads Get Into Argument Over How Many Days Are In A Week In Body Building Thread". www.barstoolsports.com. Retrieved July 31, 2024.
  40. ^ "Deadspin | How Many Days Are In A Week? Internet Steakheads Go To War". deadspin.com. Retrieved July 31, 2024.
  41. ^ Conti, Allie (January 5, 2015). "We Got a Mathematician to Settle the 'How Many Days Are There in a Week?' Controversy That Tore a Bodybuilding Forum Apart". Vice. Retrieved July 31, 2024.
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