bodybuilding poll results and outliers; examples of muscular development

[alfresco]

Thank you all for participating in the poll I posted: In bodybuilding, what
is most important?

I have really enjoyed watching the poll numbers and reading each and
every one of your responses. And thank you all very much for taking the
time to cast your vote and to give your opinion. I have learned much.

Though the poll is still open, the results such as they are now, stand
about where I expected and in the order I expected. And what is really
reassuring to me is that steroids are in last place. Not that I have anything
against there sensible and responsible use (I don't), it's just in the grand
scheme of things, again my opinion, it's really the least important factor,
everything else being equal, in what it takes to be a professional bodybuilder.

So . . . along these same lines, please excuse me for re-posting a slightly
edited version of something I posted in another thread. In my defense,
I actually think it's more relevant here and now than where is was originally,
especially in light of all your thought provoking comments.

Here are a few outliers; examples of what genetics and the human body
are capable of. These two people just makes we wonder what it really
takes to build muscle and what it takes to maintain it.

EXAMPLE 1.

I was traveling through East Africa years ago and was in a small coastal
town in Tanzania called Bagamoyo. It was in this small town that I saw
a young African man who looked to be in his early twenties. He did not
have a shirt on and was dressed in a ragged old pair of shorts and was
barefoot and dirty. It was mid-day, and it was hot and humid. He was
carrying on his shoulder, a tall stack of recently hewn lumber. Perhaps
he was a carpenter; but regardless, it was apparent that this young man
had done some hard physical labor in his life. And it would be a under-
statement to say that he had not benefited from it.

Believe me when I say, this young man could easily have placed highly or
won any state bodybuilding championship here in the USA. And he was
untrained. How do I know? Having traveled, lived and worked in East Africa
years ago, I know a little something about the culture and lifestyle and what
native Africans look like. So say what you like and believe what you may,
my money goes with him being a untrained (in a conventional sense)
genetic freak.

This town had no gym, and at that time, barely any running water and no
sewer system. The nearest town that could have even had a gym (and it
didn't) was over 50 miles away over poorly maintained dirt roads. You
might want to think he was a transplant in order to explain his degree of
development, but to this day, I really don't think so.

I think it is safe to presume that this young man was untrained, had probably
the worst diet (for a bodybuilder, but it sure seemed to suit his needs), was
probably just happy eat and did not care what. He just grew due to the
everyday demands that were placed upon his body. And his body responded
because it had to, and because it could.

Name a body part, and he had it. He was ripped, vascular and full. I have
seen others like him in Africa that had individual, well developed body parts,
but never anybody with total this degree of development, proportions, and
balance.

I had a camera and I wish to God I had taken a photograph of him but several
of the people I was traveling with that day had been thrown in prison, had their
camera film confiscated, destroyed, on account of the then president of the
country was in town that day. (Be thankful we live in America.)

My memory of him standing there is still vivid in my mind. Could you imagine
what he would look like if he trained with weights on a regular basis and had
a well balanced diet and proper supplementation.

EXAMPLE 2.

It was a warm Manhattan evening when I came across a homeless African
American man, wearing a tank top, sleeping on the sidewalk on lower
Broadway in New York City. You could tell he had been living on the street
for some time by the condition of his self and the accumulation of his posses-
sions, his life being in a shopping cart.

But what he did possess was something many aspiring bodybuilders will
never have, and that is a legitimate, lean, 18" arm. It was vascular, cut
to the bone, dry, lean, great shape (terrible skin), call it what you want,
it was a world class arm, an arm that most bodybuilders would have given
their left testicle for. Obviously I don't know what the rest of his physique
looked like, but my best guess is that it was on par with his perfectly
developed arms.

I think it is safe to say, in that town at that time, here was a man that had
worked out a day or two in his life. Who knows, he could have been a
competitive bodybuilder at one point in time. But he had fallen into some
hard times, and was now down and out. Very sad. But he still kept his
huge arms despite his less than ideal lifestyle.

Please don't try and tell me that I haven't a clue what a legitimate 18" arm
looks like. Trust me on this . . . I do. I trained for years with a older man
who had >18" arms and saw him measure them twice a week, in the evening,
cold, and on the first flex. I never saw his arms go under 18". He was strong
a bull and fast as lightening and could do a 1 armed handstand pushup; the
only person I have ever seen who could do this. This man has been in
bodybuilding magazines and featured in other magazines.

But I digress . . .

I'm sure many of you have seen people like these two I described above. To
that end, all I can say is:

Some can, some can't. Those that can, do. Those that can't, don't.

And despite all our best efforts, sometimes I think it is really that simple.