In a recent “Buff Dudes” video, a skinny guy asks Hudson White and Brandon White what the “secret” is to getting as buff as they are. After trying to explain, over the course of a couple goofy songs, that there’s really no secret to building muscle and losing weight, the buff brothers, unable to get the non-buff dude off their backs about “the secret,” launch into an elaborate heavy-metal tune that sees Brandon White lifting a flaming, weight-laden barbell while hot chicks dance around.
It’s a pretty intense way to say what they’ve been trying to say throughout the whole thing: That there’s really no secret at all. Getting in shape really is about staying consistent, they say in the video—eating well and sticking with exercise. Although, when you see these two brothers with their big muscles and bodybuilder physiques, you’d be forgiven in thinking that there must be some mystery to it all.
I met the Buff Dudes for a workout at their home studio just outside Bend on New Year’s Day—a day, thankfully, I was smart enough not to arrive with a hangover. (It was a mellow NYE.)
WATCH: The Buff Dudes answer some tough questions:
On the walls of the studio are relics from the brothers’ years as the Buff Dudes—cartoon Brandons and Hudsons telling us all they want us to get buff. More Brandons and Hudsons depicted as hulking superhero-like characters. Also, awards from YouTube, first for amassing 100,000 followers, and another when they passed 1 million. Today, the Buff Dudes can count over 2.69 million followers on YouTube and 244,000 on Instagram. It’s an impressive feat for a couple of brothers who grew up in Madras, Oregon, getting into getting buff at a tiny corner gym in their small Central Oregon town.
“Growing up in a town with, like, 4,000 people and then realizing a million people subscribe to what you do… they have something called Imposter Syndrome, and there was a long period of time I thought maybe our parents were paying some organization to give us followers or something,” Hudson White joked.
CREATING THE BUFF DUDES
After spending their youth in Madras, the two brothers made their way to the Los Angeles area, where Brandon White worked as a personal trainer; Hudson White as a video editor. Eventually, the brothers brought their skill sets together to form the Buff Dudes in 2012.
Over its 12 years in existence, Buff Dudes videos have covered everything from the basics of weightlifting to current fitness trends like cold plunges and old-school mixed martial arts workouts.
“It was kind of this perfect marriage in a way, where everything we already enjoyed doing, we actually did professionally, we were able to combine,” Hudson White told the Source Weekly.
Gaining followers started out slowly, they said, but one particular video, a scripted number that employed a film crew and LA actors, helped them rocket to success.
“We put all our heads together to create a short, titled ‘Gym Wildlife‘ — a satirical look at the gym based in the style of ‘Planet Earth,” Hudson White said. ‘That was kind of the rocket-ship moment, because that was the one that exposed us to a large amount of people in a short amount of time.”
Over time, the brothers also put their thoughts down on paper, creating a number of exercise books, cookbooks and Buff Dudes apparel they now sell online. The Buff Dudes universe now also includes the wider Buff Dudes family. The brothers’ significant others and Hudson’s kids also now appear, and the Buff Dude parents, who the brothers credit as the inspiration for working out in the first place, are still in Madras and help out behind the scenes.
WORKING OUT WITH THE BUFF DUDES
While they used to shoot videos at the YouTube studio set up for content creators in southern California, roughly five years ago, Hudson White moved back to Central Oregon, with Brandon White soon to follow. A former shop on Hudson’s property is now home to the Buff Dudes universe, where I got to do that New Year’s Day workout, to the envy of some 2 million fans.
Just like the brothers’ recent video communicated, the workout itself was no combo of fancy bells and whistles. It was “leg day” in the Buff Dudes studio, so our workout consisted of high-bar and low-bar squats, leg presses, Bulgarian deadlifts, single-leg squats and dumbbell hamstring curls. To progress, the Whites do what has been long recommended by fitness experts: increasing the intensity of the workout, via more reps and sets and heavier weights, to continue to make progress.
Along the way, Brandon White, the trainer, gave me some tips on my squat form, for which I was grateful. It’s a big lift, and you want to be sure you’re getting it right.
And even though most fans of the Buff Dudes will never get the chance to lift weights inside the brothers’ buff-making space, the brothers get enough feedback online to know that what they’re doing is making a difference.
“We started it as a fun thing, as a way to create stuff,” Brandon White said. “But then once we started hearing stories from people that followed us—subscribers’ life-changing stories, it’s hard to not get a tear in your eye when you’re reading these. That’s when we really started to realize, what we’re doing is not only entertainment, but it’s also helping people change their lives.”
This article appears in Source Weekly January 11, 2024.
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