Criticizing the grotesque and distended guts of professional bodybuilders has become the norm. I did so myself in a couple of posts last year. I still believe that looking like you are about to give birth to an alien is by no means a pretty sight, especially when you are trying to be a visual example of how the body looks in its ultimate form.
However, blaming modern bodybuilders for everything is a little too convenient, don’t you think? The truth is that the competitors are partially victims of the system. Since the very beginning, many entrepreneurs from the muscle fiber valley have been leeching off bodybuilders’ ability to sell dreams to the naive crowd. Professional bodybuilders have been killing their bodies while greedy Wall Street style pencil necks have been collecting cash.
Without a doubt, there’s nothing healthy about professional bodybuilding because the doses required to compete at the high level are way beyond sane levels. In addition, the paychecks are low when you account for the expenses.
Initially, it was magical. People were looking at bodybuilders from the Golden Era and admiring their Greek God physiques. Things changed. Bodybuilders started using more and more drugs. Growth hormone and insulin were added to get big formula. This strategy increased the professional bodybuilding standards by 40-70lbs. Today, we have 5’9″ guys heavier than Arnold in his prime.
The size game was working just fine until the bodies of the pros started to revolt. You can’t expect to abuse your organism without side effects damaging your physique and internal organs. People may argue over the reasons why modern professional bodybuilders have distended guts, but it’s obvious that before the era of insulin and growth hormone, there weren’t similar disasters. Therefore, the cause is hidden in the high number of elixirs added during the 90s.
One of the groups that should take responsibility for this scenario are the judges and the brains who have come up with the judging criteria. Those people have been rewarding the size game far too long. If the mass monsters were getting sanctioned since the very beginning, we wouldn’t be talking about similar issues today.
While I believe that bodybuilders should stand for themselves, I don’t think they are to blame entirely. At the end of the day, the system is using them as replaceable muscle machines.
Of course, this does not mean that professional bodybuilders are innocent either. They often join the parade with a smile. Very few of them criticise the trends.
Bodybuilders are like soldiers – order followers. They do all the hard work, but those benefiting from their fight are people who have never seen a real gun. That’s how war works.
Nevertheless, orders do not give you an excuse to kill people. Blindly following orders is something that dogs do. Last time I checked, people are more intelligent than dogs.
The same principle applies here. Bodybuilders should stand for themselves, but they are neither the main nor the only individuals to blame for what’s happening. Soldiers don’t start wars. There are evil masterminds who stand behind similar events. They should carry some of the karmic consequences too.
