The Bad Name Of Bodybuilding

Maybe it's not quite as bad in America, but here in the UK Bodybuilding is still decidedly underground. Bodybuilding to most Brits is a bizarre and frightening practice, a disease even, akin with the occult, anorexia or rabies. In the UK, when your mother finds a photo of you in your posing briefs fully tensed, she cries. I speak from experience. Girls find it creapy and gross. Grandmas worry that you're 'obsessed' or 'hurting yourself'. Your girlfriend says 'you look great just don't get any bigger'. What's going on? I decided recently that I'd had enough of this. Having the body of a God is supposed to win you babes and respect not concerned council and squeamish giggling - what's gone wrong?
To get to the bottom of the problem I decided to target the most vocal member of the oposition: my Mother, the cryer. I put it to her simply: 'why don't you like me training?' She sobbed a bit and mumbled allot (wuss) but what I eventually got out of her was the following:

• She's worried I'm hurting myself
• It'll turn to flab when I've finished training
• She's worried it's bad for my heart
• She's worried I'm 'obsessed'
• She doesn't like to see her little boy as a giant mofo.

Well okay, so the last one she admitted wasn't really a reason and there's not much I can do about it anyway. Although people who worry about bodybuilders looking like 'freaks' are getting their image of a bodybuilder from the competitions when they're looking their best, ripped, pumped, shaved, tanned and oiled. Of course they look like monsters then but during the day when they walk around in baggy shirts they really don't look so bad. If I always walked around flexing, topless and oiled up then we may have a problem. Besides, I'm training to look like Frank Zane someday, maybe Arny, not Ronny or Cutler. Most people who train don't want to look like one of the gigantic 'freaks' and it's a shame to me at least, that the sport's current trend is putting off allot of people who might otherwise be advocates of the practice.

The other four reasons are also irrelevant and come from unfounded beliefs that are none-the-less held by many a punter. The 'hurting myself' point is a fair one and proof that the concern is coming from the right place but this isn't so much an argument against bodybuilding as it is against badly informed bodybuilding. She knows I read up allot on Bodybuilding and have a decade of experience to draw on to make sure I train safely. Of course there's still a chance that I could hurt myself. I could pull a muscle or drop the barbell on my face. The chances of this happening however are relatively small and I'm certainly safer in the gym than I am on the football pitch, rugby pitch, ice rink, boxing ring, climbing wall or while practicing almost any other sport.

The 'it'll turn to flab when I've finished' point is also unfounded. I'm not sure where exactly this theory originated but I have a hunch it may have something to do with jealousy. Firstly, muscle doesn't turn into fat, that just doesn't happen. If you were to stop training but continue eating the same amount of food then you'd likely get pretty flabby but it's unlikely this will happen. It's also possible that they mean 'skin flab', as in your skin will have stretched. Unless you're a real giant this won't be a problem at all and even if you are a real giant it still won't be as bad as if you were just really fat. Just look at Arny, he may have had some surgery to look as youthfull as he does but still, not an ounce of flab on him. So again dismissed. Next!

Okay, you can see why someone might be concerned if they think you're damaging your heart. Again though this is not an issue with most sensible bodybuilders. Allot of bodybuilders do have heart problems but this isn't from bodybuilding itself, but rather steroids. Here it is the professionals that are giving the sport a bad name. Potentially getting increasingly large can put a strain on your heart, but again the strain would be worse if you were just fat. Yet sometimes it seems my Mum prefers the idea of me getting chubby. If a sensible bodybuilder includes some cardiovascular work in their training to make sure their heart gets stronger while the rest of their body does then they have nothing to worry about.

The point I've saved to last is the 'obsession' one. This has always been a nuisance and is the reason that many people close to bodybuilders look on with concern rather than admiration. My point is though, sure I might be obsessed, or addicted, or whatever, but does it matter if it's not doing me any harm? Most people are addicted or obsessed with at least something. With my Mum it's cigerrettes. Well we know that that is unhealthy. More people have died from cigerrettes than they have from bodybuilding, and for me training provides the same kind of stress relief. The question you have to ask yourself to find out if you're addicted is 'could I stop if I had to?'. Well I can't answer that because I can't see any reason to have to. I'm hardly going to lose bulk just to test how addicted I am. If I ever get ill then I'll know.

The media doesn't do much to help matters often portraying bodybuilding as a psychological disorder. Many call it 'Male Anorexia'. Well I've studied anorexia and it's fairly obvious to me that the two are very different. People who have anorexia look in the mirror and see a fat person, this is called 'body dysmorphia'. They think they are fat and so they starve themselves. However thin they get they still think they're fat. So if bodybuilding were a similar beast you would expect to look in the mirror and see a skinny body that you despised. Speaking for myself I can tell you that's not true. Infact I have probably an unhealthy admiration for my own body and nothing puts me in a better mood than posing infront of the mirror. The first thing I did when I moved into my house in Guildford last year was to get a mirror for my room. Not to obsess about my weight, but to enjoy my reflection.

So really it seems to be the media, and to a large extent professional bodybuilders, that are giving the sport and its practitioners a bad name. Of course some of the trashing comes from jealousy. But then anyone who's tries to knock a bodybuilder down is really just wasting their time - it doesn't matter to most of us as we're all too pleased with ourselves to care what anyone else says anyway.