Bodybuilding: A Ridiculous sport, or a hobby??
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Is there a more ridiculous sport than Bodybuilding?
It’s Super Bowl Week in America, and in honor of the grand spectacle, I’m going to write a few sports related blog entries. Speaking of “Sports,” it made me wonder: Is Bodybuilding actually a sport? If you are a fan of this “Sport” and happened to suddenly find your way on this blog, before you start spewing venom and hatred on my Blog, you should first understand the perspective I am coming from.
Except for a bad three-year stint of being lackadaisical, I’ve been involved in doing sports in one way or another since high school. I’ve been lifting weights for the past ten years or so, and I highly recommend it to everyone, male/female, younger/older, whatever. Hence, my issue is not with weight lifting.
More over, I really don’t care if you lift weights due to vain reasons of wanting to look good in front of a mirror. I’ve done that myself and know plenty of guys in the gym who the same thing. I can respect your right to wanting to sport the best physique possible in front of the mirror. Most guys (and women) who start lifting do initially for aesthetic reasons. Look, everyone wants to look good shirtless (or bottomless) and few actually have the drive to do something about it. No argument there.
So what are we really talking about there? An official “Sport” dedicated to posing on stage against each other while judges decided whose body appeases them more. And believe it or not, in my early 20s, this made sense to me. I even read the magazines, Flex, Musclemag, and other publications back then. Then one day, I woke up and thought, “What the f**k kind of a sport is this?” Suddenly, the whole completely ceased to not only make sense, but it seemed rather silly.
For some reason, it all made sense to me way back when. Then almost overnight, I had a weird realization: What does it say about a sport when the entire basis for competition is a bunch of grown men getting up on stage and engaging in a pose-off? They don’t really compete against each other directly. They are not even competing indirectly in the way gymnasts do. They are simply posing! Grown men posing and flexing their biceps in front of judges and a miniscule audience to decide who has better looking biceps.
I say grown men because if a bunch of drunken 19-year-old teenagers started engaging in a pose-off, then you’d just dismiss it as, “Well, drunken teens. It’s the way it goes.” But grown men, sober, training all year so they can strike a better pose? [All that’s missing is Madonna’s song Vogue on that stage., and sometime that may not even be a joke. ]
Being a fan of physical fitness, I respect most forms of athletic competition. Even a sport such as Baseball, one that is ridiculed by many of my European friends, is still a sport that is very highly competitive. Trying to swing a bat at a ball traveling at 95 miles per hour, versus the next one that is curving away from you at 75 miles, takes a lot of skill. (As does throwing those pitches.)
I can highly respect Power lifters and Olympic weight lifters. Squatting a 800, 900, or a 1000 pounds is an incredible athletic feat by a human being. Watching someone clean and jerk enormous amount of weight, like a human crane, is awe-inspiring. But then, what about grown men building low-functional muscles to just show them off? Men who have just pumped up muscles that have very low functionality?
What does it say for a sport when you hear the following conversations at a competition?
-Competitor X has enormous deltoid muscles. His posterior and mid delts are looking fine but his anterior delts are a bit smaller in proportion. Over all, good delts. Competitor Y has smaller deltoids but enormous lat muscles. His Biceps aren’t very elongated but they’re more compact as he flexes.
-Competitor Z is sporting nice hamstrings, but his quads could use some help in relation to both competitor X and Y.
– Can that be considered a sport? Grown ass men posing in G-Strings as to who has the hotter body?
What are some Arguments that are supposed to establish bodybuilding as a legitimate sport:
- “These are World Class Athletes”
Mr. Universe and Mr. Olympia contest participants would like to be considered “World Class Athletes.” That’s the problem… It opens the Pandora’s box, and does it ever…. See, when you go that direction, you’re going to open yourself to being compared to NBA Basketball players, NFL Football players, Boxers, Olympic level gymnasts, wrestlers, and Track & field athletes, as well as MMA fighters.
Yet, I’d bet you I can find high school level all-state basketball players who’d run circles around these “World Class” Bodybuilder athletes, and we are not talking basketball skills. I am simply talking Agility, mobility, and coordination.
Many of the above mentioned athletes use resistance training to strengthen muscle, and they do so for function and practicality. The end goal is not posing on stage in a G-string.
- “Lifting heavy weights is an Athletic endeavor.”
And I agree with you, except modern professional Bodybuilders are not that strong when compared to world class level strength athletes. A world class Olympian lifter or powerlifter will squat or press twice what your average puffed up-posing on stage bodybuilder will do. So Mr. Universe is most likely far stronger than you and I, but world class? Forget about it.
Certainly, you have to be blessed with the proper genetics to become a bodybuilder, and a supreme athlete who could have otherwise excelled in a legitimate sport may opt to become a professional bodybuilder for whatever reason. Yet, it doesn’t change the fact that you have people posing to see who has cuter muscles.
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So I ask again, is there a more ridiculous sport than this? And yes, I get that they’re trying to treat the human body as some sort of a sculpture by adding pieces to the muscles to create this perfect physique. I get it. It’s not the endeavor that’s alarming. It’s that it’s turned into a “Sport.”And yet, it’s still a bunch of grown men who trained for the past 9 months to pose against each other. (Not to mention poor dietary habits, taking insane amounts of roids/growth hormone/insulin; and then taking massive prespecritpion grade diuretics days before the event, just to go on stage for an hour and look great in tiny little Speedos. )
Before you say I don’t understand what it takes to become a bodybuilder, you should know that I’ve been around competing bodybuilders. I am aware that it’s not an easy endeavor. There is a lot of sacrifice. I get that. Going through periods of torturous “Cutting down” diets where you eat ungodly amounts of meat while dehydrating yourself to the point of insanity before a contest.
It’s just that something seems wrong with a sport where eating an organically grown apple, banana, or orange is wrong, but then you are forced to eat enough meat in one day that could feed an entire village in South East Asia for a whole week. All so you can have more puffed out muscle on stage.
And yes, I am familiar with the precision of trying to stack various amounts of anabolic steroids. Taking the right amount of D-bol, synthetic testosterone, Winstrol, and some Deca for joints and help in recovery, tapering off of it while adding testosterone boosters to get your body’s production back up to speed, and supplementing with HGH…. Two weeks before you cycle off, you gotta hit the clomid or (if you can get it, receive HCG injections) to get your normal test production up to speed. (No, I haven’t taken roids or “Gear”, but I’ve learned enough about them from reading and being around the gym-rats.)
I’ve been around guys who do compete in this endeavor and it’s not easy trying to manage the three variables: 1-the Proper diet, 2-proper training, and 3-the accurate anabolic steroid stack cycling. I know it’s not easy.
Maybe the fact that it seems ridiculous comes from the transformation of the contestants in recent decades. In my early teens, you could look at a bodybuilder as sort of the ultimate manifestation of masculinity and male physique. To male teenagers, there is the appeal of the ultimate male representation in such a physique. As an example, Here is a picture of Arnold in his prime:
Somehow we went from the above to the grotesque representation of a human body below:
A giant mound and blobs of muscle (And I’m with you: Who knew an alien could grow out of a human ass??)
It’s what Jabba the hut woud look like if it lifted weights:
It’s sort of what Jabba-the-hut would like if he lifted weights, wouldn’t you agree? In recent decades, bodybuilders starting injecting massive amounts of Human Growth Hormone [HGH] and the growth hormone abuse led to the new look bodybuilder with the protruding stomach. Compare the Arnold slim abs to the one below. This is a roid-gut:
The above individual is NOT fat, but rather, abuse of HGH has not only grown his muscles but it also grown his intestines from the inside. That’s how you get his protruding stomach look. Compare that stomach with the Arnold photo, and you’ll note the HGH difference. (And Arnold did his fair share of steroids. But the Steroid technology has improved drastically since the 1970s.)
On top of that, something interesting happened. One day a group of bodybuilding bandits dressed in bandanas and tank tops intercepted trucks full of insulin en route to poor suffering diabetics in a remote village. The professional bodybuilding world changed forever.
Apparently injecting Insulin, (as well as Anabolic Steroids + Human Growth Hormone) enables your muscles to even grow bigger than even Arnold imagined.
And that’s how you get the look of Jabba the bodybuilder…
Yet, at the end of the day, it all amounts to puffed out grown men, fresh out of the tanning salon, posing on stage. Can that competition be considered an athletic event? Grown ass men posing in tights on stage as to who has a nicer ass! Is this a sport? We don’t call female beauty pageants a sport. This is a male pageant except it’s not so beautiful!
I am sure if a competitive bodybuilder were to read this article, he/she would slightly peeved, but then again, it’s one person’s opinion. Alright, relax. I am not saying we should outlaw these contests, nor am I advocating that we should cut up these puffed out guys, turn them into “Soylent Green” and feed hungry people in Africa.
I am just asking a question. Is this really a sport? While I am certain, there are great athletes in professional bodybuilding, does it still count as a sport? If so, is there a more ridiculous sport than this where once again, grown ass men, pose against each other to see who has the nicer lats, pecs, or butt?
It’s a great sports weekend coming up. UFC on Saturday night featuring 4 very good matchups, (though none great), and then the big Football game on Super Bowl Sunday.
So, the Super-Bowl is less than a week away, (I’m excited about it) and we’re going to see the Indianapolis Colts play the New Orleans Saints. And are YOU going to be the person to tell Peyton Manning, Dwight Freeney, Drew Brees, and Reggie Bush, that the three guys pictured below, (Yes, the same 3 guys who are shaking their cute butts on stage so judges can decipher who has the nicer ass in a g-string), that these guys feel they should be considered on the same plain as them???
Well, you could tell them, but you’d hurt Peyton’s and Drew’s feelings, and that’s not nice.
Please discuss…
Actually, I have a similar feeling about the way most kinds of sports are carried out.
My ideal is that sports should be an activity that increases the well being of those practicing it, both physical and mental. That surpassing yourself is the goal. Competitive sports do not really encourage that goal, for as much as they might talk about it.
We have people following extreme diets and exposing their bodies to all sorts of long term harzards in order to win, in all sorts of sports. It’s not about bettering yourself, it’s mostly about beating others. There is a lot of rhetoric that you compete with others in order to better yourself, which could be true but in practice it isn’t. If an athlete finishes second he/she will most likely feel bad, even if it’s a great result. In soccer atheltes have spikes in their shoes in order not to fall easily, never mind the unhealthy pressure it places on their knees; this change occurred just to make it more spectacular to watch. There are countless examples.
I practiced and competed in “martial arts” (though nowadays I think gymnastics would be a better term for what we did) for several years. One of the reasons I dropped it was that having beautiful, fast, movements at some point became much more important than how effective they were. Proving to others how good I was became more important than how much I took from my practice. Becoming a better competitor and “fighter” according to some made up rules became better than being a better real-world fighter and a better human being.
Really, there are rules in bodybuilding, as there are in basketball or football. You become very good at playing some kind of game by certain rules and you do all you can do to win with those rules. The rules in bodybuilding are about creating “beautiful” muscles, rules for weight lifting are about lifting tremendous amount of weight. Both are pretty much useless for health, well-being or any practical matter of real-world life. As for drugs, atheletes from other sports take them as well. So what’s the difference really? That one is purely for physical display and showoff? Isn’t being 1ms faster than the next guy and killing yourself for that just as shallow? And what about dance? What matter is how beautiful the movement is, not how much it promotes any physical benefit, those are side benefits.
Sure, most athletes of other sports will have better coordination and agility. But a pro-golfer is also a joke in those attributes compared to a pro-gymnast.
Nowadays I appreciate yoga and pilates, because they are solely for the purpose of bettering yourself, not for competing. Their whole focus in on making you healthier, nothing else. As for fighting, I admire Krav Maga because it’s one of the few fighting disciplines where reality is what matters and what you train for.
Cam, you should read “Muscle” by Sam Fussell. Very funny and thought-provoking account of the “disease” of bodybuilding. Obviously he made some stuff up for the sake of a story, but its a disturbing tale.
Back in the days of Charles Atlas, bodybuilders were expected to display some sort of atleticism, such as gymnastics, or boxing. Muscles for the sake of it was frowned upon.
Sean Connery (he came 3rd in Mr Universe, in 1953!) saw some fellow competitors who were much more massive than him. He asked them their secret, and they said that they basically lifted weights and did nothing else. Sean, a keen footballer, thought that doing that was pointless, so quit the sport and became an artist’s model. This in turn lead to him becoming a famous actor!
Agree with you, Cam. Work out for health, but vanity…nah!
Ben
That’s what I have been saying the WHOLE time!
I think, bodybuilding the way it is presented now, it is NOT a sport, it is just really difficult endeavour.
Dressing up in strings , shaving your body hair off, getting a brown tan, and doing a pose off is NOT how MEN compete.
Can u imagine if animals competed that way? U’d see Gorillas flexing their muscles to determine who is more “alpha”. :)
Basically these “athletes” are not competing not in strength, speed, agility, or any of the physical characteristics.
In modern bodybuiding they just want to be the bigger “monster” :) Golden Era guys were a lot more appealing physique, their physique made more sense.
Michael D.,
Actually I believe some animals do compete, at least at times, just by showing off their physical traits. Peacocks for example compete for females by doing a funny dance and showing off their plumage.
Great article man. The point about the roid gut cracked me up. If you’ve ever watched a Ron Coleman DVD (cost of redemption for example) you really can see his massive bulbous gut, with six-pack sprayed on the top of it. Pure freakishness.
I started weight training to look better, but now focus on training for martial arts and function over form. Whilst these guys obviously have a massive amount of dedication to their ‘sport’, it’s true you just can’t compare them to olympic lifters or MMA fighters. Not even close.
Hey Mojito,
I think wanting to compete is a natural progression. I think very athletic people are born with that nature to want to physically compete. And don’t forget physical endeavors come easier to them just as other things come easier to you, (and just as making jokes or music comes easier to someone who has natural talent for comedy or music.)
You can even see it early on. My friend has a son who is 6 year’s old, and he is clearly a superior athlete to all of his classmates in school.
And if you happen to love playing basketball, you want to be better and the only way to measure yourself is against top competition.
No one said lifting nearly a 1000 pounds is a particularly healthy, just as no one said playing any physical sport 6 days a week is. However, I can respect athletic competition, where as bodybuilding is only a contest to post to see who is more puffed out.
Some sports go a few thousand years back, but then you’ve got to think that even a 100,000 years ago, prehistoric men would have raced each other to see who was faster.
(Btw, I don’t consider golf a sport, so it’s not part of the discussion. lol)
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David,
Agreed. I don’t think you can compare bodybuilders to ANY professional athletes.
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I am also surprised no one has shown any hostility. I figured a few fans of the sport would write me to say what an asshole I am, and how I just don’t get their sport.
Then again, my readership mostly consists of intellectuals, not dudes who talk about how “Bodybuilder X finished 2nd in last year’s Mr. Olympia but added an inch to his biceps to win this year’s contest.”
Oh man…. I know many guys who would go batshit crazy after reading this. I have never respected Bodybuilding as a sport. Try training MMA for a good while and then coming to this…
It’s more of an art form than a sport, except that these artists are more dedicated and consistent than most athletes in the gym. When artist look at paintings they see certain types of strokes and shading etc, the same is true for bodybuilding except the strokes are striations, the shading is separation and they are there own canvas.
Its not about “grown ass men” toiling in trivial vanity based outlets of interests. its not about lifting alot of weight, its about building a body, the idea that others lift more than they do is irrelevant, they’re not judges on performance they’re judges on aesthetics.
Anybody can take steroids and stack them perfectly, almost nobody can be a bodybuilder- if one were to think the differance between them and bodybuilders is steroids alone, they are misguided at best. Thats like thinking the differance between tiger woods and you is a set of quality clubs- its not the driver and the putter- its you, its not the roids that make them its them.
that blob of muscle is the best bodybuilder in history, some ppl think Arnold but Arnold in his prime would struggle to compete as an amateur these days- really struggle. Ronnie Coleman rules 8x Mr. Olympia- YEA BUDDY
I’m pretty sure they want to be counted as professional athletes and they consider this a sport. But let’s take your premise: It’s only for aesthetic reasons. Fine, but is that blob looking, Jabba-the-Hut with muscles, grotesque representation of a humanoid, considered aesthetic? Seriously?
(I suppose to the 75 guys who buy tickets to show up at these events, it does.)
As for art form, I always thought to be an artist, you’d have to have some artistic talent.
Posing is not an arbitrary act, its a skill that they practice for hours on end. look at the actual posing routines instead of pictures, it may not be art that you like, but its still art, and expression. 75 guys? these grotesque guys are sells those muscle mags every month, and the multi billion dollar supplement industry isnt fueled by 75 people.
I respect Ronnie Coleman for his dedication to his chosen sport, and for the hours he’s put in to his training…but he still looks like Jabba with muscles (thanks, Cam!)
You can respect a guy without having to like him.
Ben
Ben,
Agreed. I don’t dislike any particular individual in bodybuilding, professional or amateur. In fact, I’ve known acquaintances here in L.A. who’ve competed as bodybuilders (and luckily they don’t read the Blog.) They probably wouldn’t like it too much.
I just don’t respect the “Sport” or even the endeavor at this point (for the reasons state in the article.)
This is a very good expose you have on here Cam. I agree with much of what you have said in regards to the nature of bodybuilding and the extreme’s it has moved toward.
Being a life-long fan of bodybuilding up until the last 7-8 years and having attended Mr. Olympia contests as well as other professional contests, I can appreciate the wonder of the modern freak and how far they’ve pushed themselves, though I’m not sure they should be commended although the training and diet and consistency involved is often grueling.
I think bodybuilding started to take a step back in the early 80’s when drug-use and different types of drugs started to be introduced and got really out of hand up until this moment.
My favorite physiques of all-time are 1) Mike Mentzer and 2) Arnold. There is a alpha ruggedness and a beauty to both, especially Arnold, that has been lost in my opinion. It’s just become a freak show.
An the note about athletics and bodybuilding, if you’ve ever read the book Pumping Iron I think somewhere in there (its been a few years) they mention that Mike Katz (who also appeared in the movie and played football) tested very well against other athletes of his time. That also has been lost. If you’ve ever seen many of the modern guys up close they’re often wheezing and sweating profusely while sitting in a chair or standing. Not good.
Bodybuilding roxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
It requires more dedicaton then all sports put together
Its a total freak show now. I used to lift weights, and considered bodybuilding seriously when i was 16 or so. I never knew that about the big guts. HGH you say? People are crazy…
Im with you on this argument. No way its a sport. What it comes down to it, the only thing that is judged is the appearance of the body. Your body is not being used for any sporting purpose. Any other activity that you might care to describe as a sport is distinct from it in that it will involve carrying out some activity. Whether that activity is firing a gun accurately, running round and scoring goals, performing gymnastic moves to the best standard you can, reaching the finish line first. But in bodybuilding its ‘look at my body’. Thats all.
And it doesnt matter about hard hard it is to get that body, or how much ‘dedication’ it requires. The rules of any sport (and ironically, probably the ‘rules’ of the IFBB) are not in the slightest concerned with what you get up to prior to the competition. They dont even figure. There is, for example, no rule requiring Roger Federer to train three hours a day.
Bodybuilding is totally a beauty pageant, from head to toe, but some bodybuilders and fans cannot admit it because they feel it undermines their “sport”.
I have found many kinds of contradictions in bodybuilding. For example, some bodybuilders and fans when talking about it, say that they don’t want bodybuilding to be seen as a sexualized “sport”, however, when you buy a bodybuilding magazine what you see is both male and female bodybuilders usually posing in ways that suggest some sexual vibe to the reader. Many times the pictures are very heterosexist portraying the male bodybuilder as the alpha male and the female bodybuilder in a sort of worshipping attitude towards the male bodybuilder. Let alone the posing suits and/or very small and tight revealing clothes.
Not a sport; totally a beauty pageant.