image source: www.muscleandbrawn.com;
Bodybuilding is not a sport. It’s a beauty contest in which muscular men in their underwear pose in front of judges whose job is to determine who is the most aesthetic muscle constructor from the lineup. According to the original rules, the guy with the best body wins. The criteria are as follows: symmetry, mass, proportions and posing skills.
Technically, the competing bodybuilders are in the hands of the judges who most of the time have not lifted a weight in their life. In theory, the appearance of the competitors decides their places. Doesn’t that remind you of a beauty contest where the prettiest girl wins? It’s very similar.
In bodybuilding, the winner is rarely the guy who’s worked the hardest, but rather the guy with the best genetics. Unless something in the preparation process goes terribly wrong, the more gifted bodybuilder will win. If you are a guy with average genetics, you just can’t beat men with superior structure.
Conversely, in sports, performance wins trophies. Of course, genetics are still very important, and the freaks are hard to reach, but sometimes it’s possible to become an overachiever. However, if you are a bodybuilder with bad genes, no amount of proper training and nutrition will save you.
During their preparation, bodybuilders perform physical activities that could be described as a sport, but ultimately, your lifts (performance in the gym) are irrelevant as far as the judges are concerned.
Moreover, bodybuilders rely on Synthol, PMMA and fake breasts. This proves one more time that bodybuilding is a beauty contest because the mentioned substances have only one goal – to enhance the way you look.
This is also one of the reasons why bodybuilding is not a popular. The crowd wants to see action and drama. People ask for entertainment that bodybuilding fails to provide. Where’s the blood?
Back in the day, bodybuilders had to perform weightlifting exercises – snatch and clean & jerk. At the time, bodybuilding was a real sport. Of course, today we have posing, but when was the last time someone won Mr. Olympia because he was a great poser? And once again – how do you decide who is the best poser? The judges have the final saying.
In short, bodybuilding is a beauty contest that requires the competitors to perform athletic activities, but performance is never the end goal. The aim is to look pretty and create the illusion that you are larger than life, and that, my friends, is a beauty contest.
You talk about basketball and then in the next sentence you continue”in real sports on the other hand…”. So you don’t consider basketball a real sport?
Really toby?
The judging in bodybuilding is so subjective that neither “hard work” nor “genetics” are things the eye can see. Judges judge according to what looks appealing in their own opinion. And it is not like being a bodybuilding judge requires special knowledge or training to develope specific skills. Anybody can be a bodybuilding judge, anybody.
Bodybuilding is a spectacle for the eyes. I tend to see bodybuilding more in line with striptease because both gravitate around the idea of the muscular male body as ultimate expression of male beauty thus deserving all attention.
Another very good article.
Talking about good and bad genes is so superficial. No wonder why bodybuilding has such a bad reputation. The level of dehumanization is horrible.