Science vs. vibes: Viral beef between Canadian bodybuilding coaches incites battle of age-old rival archetype

By now you've likely seen footage of Mike Van Wyck, the Canadian bodybuilding coach, whacking Jeff Nippard, a fellow trainer and certified internet celebrity, in the throat, and flinging him to the ground during a recent dust-up at a Burlington, Ont., gym.

If you don't know these guys, and haven't seen the video, maybe your date of birth puts you outside their target demographic. But if you know a young person that's into fitness, they can fill you in about how a disagreement over training philosophies resulted in an assault charge for Van Wyck, who put his massive right hand on Nippard's neck while cameras rolled.

Van Wyck, who once worked as Drake's bodyguard, has 287,000 Instagram followers and a straightforward philosophy. He doesn't need advanced degrees or a hard drive full of research papers; he has a PhD in pumping iron, and the rippling physique to prove his methods work. At six feet tall, he claims to weigh just over 300 pounds — almost all of it muscle.

Nippard, meanwhile, has built an expansive online following (2.1 million Instagram followers and 5.8 million YouTube subscribers) as a steroid-free expert on the science of building muscle. Training hard is good, but Nippard, who stands five-foot-five and weighs 180 pounds, believes training smarter is better. He reads all studies so his trainees don't have to. They just benefit from his expertise.

Clash among influencers

So if you're wondering how a beef between two Canadian bodybuilding coaches made mainstream headlines, the answer is in those details. Both men have audiences; Nippard in particular. News follows the numbers, so a dogfight between popular online figures is guaranteed traffic to your website.

More fundamentally, it's a showdown between age-old rival archetypes — jocks and nerds — taking place at the intersection of sports, science, fitness and social media. We have two clear sides – science versus vibes – and one obvious winner: Nippard, who successfully performed the hard work of being the bigger person.

You can measure winners and losers by tracking which man had to turn himself into police. That's Van Wyck, who is now facing assault charges in connection with the incident.

And you can also assign an 'L' to the party who winds up embodying the Streisand Effect. Again, that's Van Wyck, who started this conflict with an Instagram post titled "Science Based Scammers," assailing science-based bodybuilders' physiques as "mediocre."

The video never mentions Nippard's name, but it doesn't need to. Nippard has built his whole brand around trusting research to guide his training.

Nippard posted a reply explaining that he relies on science to eliminate variables — like genetics and PEDs — and reveal the constants that help build muscle and strength. He even ends with an attempt to meet in the middle.

"If you listen to a big guy's advice over scientific studies, that doesn't bother me," he says. "I listen to what big guys have to say, too."

Van Wyck's response?

We saw it, allegedly. He grabbed Nippard by the throat and tossed him like a rag doll.

According to Nippard's subsequent post, Van Wyck actually put him on the ground twice, and growled that Nippard should never mention his name again.

As a strategy for silencing even the mildest criticism, it failed. Footage of the shove went public, and now muscleheads from across social media are rallying to Nippard's defence, with harsher words for Van Wyck than the Canadian trainer ever offered. They're not critiquing his training philosophy. They're skewering his character.

"Fake 'Alpha Male' Tries to Bully The Wrong Nerd," read the title of one YouTube reaction video.

So what does any of this have to do with sports?

Plenty.

First, we have two former high-level athletes in a high-profile spat. Van Wyck played football at the University of Rhode Island, won several regional bodybuilding contests in the late 2000s, and earned an IFBB pro card. It's the bodybuilder's equivalent of a PGA Tour card, or a spot on an MLB roster. His sports credentials can weather any scrutiny.

And Nippard? He won the Mr. Junior Canada bodybuilding contest in 2012, and set several powerlifting records before he turned his focus to training others. This whole back-and-forth is a fascinating look at how people succeed, or fail, at taming their need for one-upsmanship when they outgrow competitive sports.

Analysis or experience?

The conflict also rests on a familiar pro sports fault line: quantitative analysts in an uneasy alliance with the guys with calloused hands and on-the-ground experience. The tension between what works on paper or in a lab, and strategies that actually succeed on the field. Any slight disturbance can have seismic reverberations.

It also echoes the time Buddy Ryan took a swing at Kevin Gilbride on the Houston Oilers' sideline in 1993. Ryan, the defensive coordinator, was an old school coach who believed in suffocating defence and blunt force offence. Gilbride was a modern offensive coordinator, married to the run-and-shoot, which involved throwing the ball at all costs. That day, the offence sputtered and Ryan fumed. Run-and-shoot functioned in theory, but running the ball worked in real life. Gilbride's refusal to acknowledge it made Ryan angry enough to smack somebody — namely Gilbride.

So if we're willing, we can see how a trainer like Van Wyck can grow tired of a perceived know-it-all like Nippard. He never directly says that his bodybuilding book smarts trump Van Wyck's hands-on experience, but once that idea takes root it can grow.

Van Wyck trains his clients according to guidelines he knows get results, and every few weeks here come the science guys brandishing a new study on reps in reserve, high versus low volume, or lengthened partials.

I'm sure it grows annoying. Maybe it can make you feel like Buddy Ryan watching Kevin Gilbride call for another fancy pass play that leads nowhere.

Except Ryan and Gilbride worked for the same team. A faulty process for either meant bad results for both. Van Wyck and Nippard are individuals with distinct careers and customer bases. Nippard's focus on science might offend Van Wyck's blood and guts training sensitivities, but it doesn't justify alleged assaults, and it doesn't cost him any money. 

It doesn't even have to cost him attention if he commits to tuning it out. Now he's facing charges for allegedly putting his hands on Nippard, when he just needed to use his thumb. The "mute" button is a magical invention, and still functions on every social media platform.