May 2020
Funnily enough, it was a Steve Shaw clip that got me to write this article, one I've been wanting to write for awhile. In the clip he makes some keen observations between "the natural bodybuilding realm and the enhanced bodybuilding realm", which is a nice way of comparing drug-free natties versus steroid-using mass monsters. As someone recently commented, in today's bodybuilding "realm" even the greats like Arnie would be considered small.
Our ideal male body has evolved through the years as shown here and here in fact, one of the best ways to assess this is simply looking at leading men through the golden age of Hollywood down to the present: does anyone here remember growing up with this batman? My brother and I thought he was the snizz but he doesn't even compare with our modern day variant(s).
What's alarming is this body-beautiful-body-perfect fixation has long since ceased being a pressure for women-folk alone; it's now a generic pressure being consistently reiterated over and over to society at large -- and by that I mean males -- from posters to billboards, films to magazines, social media to television and beyond. It's everywhere.
Likewise, the same thing has been happening in bodybuilding for quite some time: the insidious creep of a new norm which has taken hold and established itself aka the "mass-monster". Arnold Schwartzenegger made a great call on this which garnished a lot of response through-out the bodybuilding and fitness community, but most likely it's too little too late. Anyway, you're probably wondering where I'm going with this seems as I'm no bodybuilder, huh?
Well, that's easy: unless you're genetically gifted like many of our Maori and Polynesian brothers are (I must have missed that gene), you are not going to get anywhere near the size of today's bodybuilders and shouldn't want to. How they look isn't just gross, disproportionate and comical, it's unnatural. Let me repeat that: they look unnatural and the only reason we've deified this is because we've chosen to or worse, accepted it as normal.
...when it is not.
Have a look at these two: the guy on the left is a drug-free, natural body-builder whilst the comic character on the right is a steroid-user. Most of us aren't going to look as big as the natty -- I certainly don't -- whose weight I'd say is roundabout 75kg/165lb and that, folks, is what can be achieved by most natural body-builders. If this guy walked past you in jeans and hoody you wouldn't even know he was a body-builder. That's normal.
Here in New Zealand we have a lot of naturally big guys in fact, I've seen men as big as the drug-user above right if not bigger who, if they opted to take up bodybuilding, would look pretty darn phenomenal. Naturally. I bet you probably know or at least have seen some big men too but most of us are roundabout 6" give or take, weighing in somewhere around 80kg/175lbs and able to achieve the above natty's build.
If we're willing to put in the work.
There is nothing beyond that apart from steroids.
There is no other way you can get any bigger whatsoever. Period.
So if all you look at are mass-monsters and all you idiolise are mass monsters (and yes, some like the now-deceased Rich Piana thrived on the attention their physical proportions gave them whilst leveraging the most they could from it) you're not only blind-siding yourself but conditioning yourself to this deformation and the legitimacy of steroids. Look again at the steroid-user above I mean seriously, the guy is a comic book character.
As I've mentioned elsewhere, when one of our whanaunga reached his genetic potential body-building, he felt he had no option for further improvement apart from steroids. In fact, Rich Piana stated there's no way forward in today's professional bodybuilding without using steroids. Is anyone else concerned we've legitimized a global sporting league -- bodybuilders are athletes even if drug-enhanced -- based on steroids? One our youth idolize?
'Cos I notice a lot of people are concerned when it comes to cycling (you feel me, Lance?).
Or the Olympics.
Steroids aside, I hope this little foray into what's naturally achievable has at least shown that. You and I know I'm not a bodybuilder in fact, I'm a nobody, but even nobodies have an opinion. My opinion is no-one should be idolizing these mass-monsters or even give them the time of day; that modern bodybuilding should return to its pure, aesthetic roots; that steroids (and steroid-users) should be permanently banned; and that New Zealand should legalise marijuana. Hope it helps.
Kia ora whanau (read How big can I get (Part I) for more information).
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