.gif "IP Gear")
- Joined
- Feb 11, 2011
- Messages
- 2,186
To Be (Big) or Not To Be
Being a bodybuilder used to be a relatively simple thing. Sure, you had to stress about carbohydrates and fats, if you were eating enough protein, what type of training will give you the best gains, etc. But those were all just different bricks in the road to being bigger; you knew what the destination was. If you were lucky enough to be one of the few to achieve such size that you had to actually consider your “aesthetics” or a growing waistline, it was because you had added more muscle mass than 95% of your peers and were truly a specimen
Nowadays, “aesthetics” are not something that one has to keep in the back of their mind as they push towards their goal of being a human brick wall. It is a word tossed around from day one and a whole new generation of Dragonball Z worshipping video game players go to the gym to get “aesthetic”. I am not exactly sure what all of that even means anymore in today’s scene, but it sure as hell doesn’t often include looking like a bodybuilder. Perhaps the most ridiculous aspect of this movement is the implication that these people are small by choice – even if they just started training. It’s as if the reason they don’t look like an offseason Kai Greene 90 days into their gym membership is because they don’t want to look bulky.
When did being big stop being cool? I remember seeing action movies as a kid and everyone wanted to look like Arnold or Stallone. By today’s standards neither of these men were huge in their acting gigs, but the mindset of the kids watching was “I want to be big!” and there were no instant limits on how muscular of a physique they thought would be acceptable to obtain. Professional wrestlers took on extreme proportions and were the subject of admiration for millions of boys from toddlers to teens and even grown men. I don’t remember sitting around discussing how Macho Man was too bulky and had sacrificed a marketable appearance in order to add mass. Such a concept did not exist in my brain, nor did it in anyone I can remember.
One thing that cannot be denied is that socially many more things are marketed towards women now than they were in the past. I’m not pretending to be an expert on social psychology, but it’s a fact. As women fought for equality the pendulum in many ways swung very far in the opposite direction, and women were empowered past the point of equality in a reaction to the oppression beforehand. What in god’s name does this have to do with bodybuilding? Well, this meant movies/commercials/books/TV and society in general began enforcing the idea that women should be portrayed as powerful and the notion that a woman had to rely on a man or even want one became viewed as sexist and oppressive. Male action stars transformed from complete bad asses who could take on an entire army by themselves to smooth skinned harmless sweet talkers who would fall hopelessly for the female character and usually need to be picked back up before they could accomplish anything. Pit bulls became puppy dogs.
As media became more and more one dimensional, eventually Bruce Willis became Ryan Gosling and Arnold became Channing Tatum. Thank god for the Rock. Men began to stop pursuing their own (although admittedly extreme and sometimes absurd) ideas of what being a badass man was, and sculpted their image after what the media portrayed as what women wanted. Goodbye brash confidence and 20 inch biceps. Hello washboard abs and being sentimental.
Greg Kovacs once had one of the highest paid supplement endorsement deals in the entire fitness industry. The man was 400lbs and looked like Shrek. Freaks used to sell magazines and muscle used to have no limits. How much money could a guy like Kovacs possibly make to represent a company in today’s climate? I would put his chances at a six figure contract in the slim to none category. As a bodybuilder, the message being sent out by companies is a somewhat scary one. We still have a few hardcore brands such as Mutant who cater to the serious bodybuilder (honorable mention to Prime Nutrition for having Evan Centopani and John Meadows as the faces for their brand) but the overall situation is a very different one. You can essentially outgrow (literally) your chance to land yourself a sponsorship deal, and that is a bit frightening to some because for decades now that has been the Holy Grail for the bodybuilder; the chance to be paid just to be big.
So now we have limits on how successful you should be at a pursuit that is fundamentally based on excess and many are implementing these restrictions the first day they pick up a weight. The subjectivity of bodybuilding criteria was confusing enough when there was a relatively defined set of goals (get big, get ripped, look good), now we have a whole new category of moderation based tight rope walking that stretches from gym weight rooms to NPC and IFBB stages via the MPD.
I wasn’t around gyms in the 1970′s but I just have a feeling that people weren’t walking up to bodybuilders and saying, “What should I do to tone my arms? I don’t want to get BIG like you though.” I swear every single compliment or request for assistance from a gym member less developed than you these days has the mandatory reminder that they don’t WANT to look like you. This is obviously a self-defense mechanism installed in the human brain to convince oneself that the reason they aren’t seeing results is because they are choosing not to. I also think this is partly due to the fact that being “big” is no longer the end goal for many lifters thus they assume it’s easy because it’s not as sought after.
If history tells us anything it’s that trends are cyclical and always fade. We are always just one charismatic bodybuilding superstar away from a new resurgence. In the meantime, I want to salute all the hardcore bodybuilders who do what they love and do not give a shit what the rest of the meddlers think.
Being a bodybuilder used to be a relatively simple thing. Sure, you had to stress about carbohydrates and fats, if you were eating enough protein, what type of training will give you the best gains, etc. But those were all just different bricks in the road to being bigger; you knew what the destination was. If you were lucky enough to be one of the few to achieve such size that you had to actually consider your “aesthetics” or a growing waistline, it was because you had added more muscle mass than 95% of your peers and were truly a specimen
Nowadays, “aesthetics” are not something that one has to keep in the back of their mind as they push towards their goal of being a human brick wall. It is a word tossed around from day one and a whole new generation of Dragonball Z worshipping video game players go to the gym to get “aesthetic”. I am not exactly sure what all of that even means anymore in today’s scene, but it sure as hell doesn’t often include looking like a bodybuilder. Perhaps the most ridiculous aspect of this movement is the implication that these people are small by choice – even if they just started training. It’s as if the reason they don’t look like an offseason Kai Greene 90 days into their gym membership is because they don’t want to look bulky.
When did being big stop being cool? I remember seeing action movies as a kid and everyone wanted to look like Arnold or Stallone. By today’s standards neither of these men were huge in their acting gigs, but the mindset of the kids watching was “I want to be big!” and there were no instant limits on how muscular of a physique they thought would be acceptable to obtain. Professional wrestlers took on extreme proportions and were the subject of admiration for millions of boys from toddlers to teens and even grown men. I don’t remember sitting around discussing how Macho Man was too bulky and had sacrificed a marketable appearance in order to add mass. Such a concept did not exist in my brain, nor did it in anyone I can remember.
One thing that cannot be denied is that socially many more things are marketed towards women now than they were in the past. I’m not pretending to be an expert on social psychology, but it’s a fact. As women fought for equality the pendulum in many ways swung very far in the opposite direction, and women were empowered past the point of equality in a reaction to the oppression beforehand. What in god’s name does this have to do with bodybuilding? Well, this meant movies/commercials/books/TV and society in general began enforcing the idea that women should be portrayed as powerful and the notion that a woman had to rely on a man or even want one became viewed as sexist and oppressive. Male action stars transformed from complete bad asses who could take on an entire army by themselves to smooth skinned harmless sweet talkers who would fall hopelessly for the female character and usually need to be picked back up before they could accomplish anything. Pit bulls became puppy dogs.
As media became more and more one dimensional, eventually Bruce Willis became Ryan Gosling and Arnold became Channing Tatum. Thank god for the Rock. Men began to stop pursuing their own (although admittedly extreme and sometimes absurd) ideas of what being a badass man was, and sculpted their image after what the media portrayed as what women wanted. Goodbye brash confidence and 20 inch biceps. Hello washboard abs and being sentimental.
Greg Kovacs once had one of the highest paid supplement endorsement deals in the entire fitness industry. The man was 400lbs and looked like Shrek. Freaks used to sell magazines and muscle used to have no limits. How much money could a guy like Kovacs possibly make to represent a company in today’s climate? I would put his chances at a six figure contract in the slim to none category. As a bodybuilder, the message being sent out by companies is a somewhat scary one. We still have a few hardcore brands such as Mutant who cater to the serious bodybuilder (honorable mention to Prime Nutrition for having Evan Centopani and John Meadows as the faces for their brand) but the overall situation is a very different one. You can essentially outgrow (literally) your chance to land yourself a sponsorship deal, and that is a bit frightening to some because for decades now that has been the Holy Grail for the bodybuilder; the chance to be paid just to be big.
So now we have limits on how successful you should be at a pursuit that is fundamentally based on excess and many are implementing these restrictions the first day they pick up a weight. The subjectivity of bodybuilding criteria was confusing enough when there was a relatively defined set of goals (get big, get ripped, look good), now we have a whole new category of moderation based tight rope walking that stretches from gym weight rooms to NPC and IFBB stages via the MPD.
I wasn’t around gyms in the 1970′s but I just have a feeling that people weren’t walking up to bodybuilders and saying, “What should I do to tone my arms? I don’t want to get BIG like you though.” I swear every single compliment or request for assistance from a gym member less developed than you these days has the mandatory reminder that they don’t WANT to look like you. This is obviously a self-defense mechanism installed in the human brain to convince oneself that the reason they aren’t seeing results is because they are choosing not to. I also think this is partly due to the fact that being “big” is no longer the end goal for many lifters thus they assume it’s easy because it’s not as sought after.
If history tells us anything it’s that trends are cyclical and always fade. We are always just one charismatic bodybuilding superstar away from a new resurgence. In the meantime, I want to salute all the hardcore bodybuilders who do what they love and do not give a shit what the rest of the meddlers think.
