I usually don't read articles like this, but it was so well written that I was sort of sucked into it.
What was most interesting to me was not the various controversies about body aesthetics or even health consequences. What stood out to me was the author's description in the early parts of the article of how much she seemed to crave the approval of strangers, especially men. It was thought provoking and I'm still processing it. I find this way of thinking completely foreign. I know intellectually that many people need external affirmation... but from total strangers whom you barely interact with? I can't help but feel a bit sad that so many go through their lives this way.
I also found the article fascinating for the insights the author shows about her own thoughts and motivations.
When I started working out at a gym, when I was in my early fifties, I barely knew that bodybuilding existed. But the gym I happened to join in Tokyo turned out to be popular with amateur bodybuilders, and I exercised near them most evenings for more than ten years. I became acquainted with quite a few of them, including some of the top bodybuilders in Japan, and made friends with several, but I never really understood what drove them. Although most of them had full-time jobs, they worked out nearly every evening for a couple of hours, and when the summer competition season approached they would drastically restrict their diets and start spending money on skincare and tanning. It looked to me like self-torture, but many of them continued this year after year.
In my job, in foreign-language education, I think a lot about what motivates some adults to keep studying long and hard enough to become proficient in a foreign language, as relatively few actually succeed. I tried to get some insights about motivation from watching and talking to the bodybuilders, but I didn’t really learn much. This article helped.
I'm not a body builder, but I was a competitive powerlifter for awhile and still am a serious lifter now. In my experience, serious lifters of either gender (including myself) tend to have trauma from the past that got them into it and helped the hobby stick. Typically they were either fat, underweight, short, or weak; they felt looked down on; or some combination of these things, and they were angry about it. Alternatively, they felt powerless for some reason and they felt that lifting empowered them and gave them control.
As George Leeman (an accomplished powerlifter) once said: "to lift these kinds of weights is not a happy thing...you do not try and pick up 800 lbs and fucking look like you're going to fucking kill somebody before you do it because everything is fucking great".
>In my job, in foreign-language education, I think a lot about what motivates some adults to keep studying long and hard enough to become proficient in a foreign language, as relatively few actually succeed.
I'm not sure I would compare something like bodybuilding with foreign languages. At some point you become proficient enough in a language that you can simply consume movies, TV shows, books, news etc that the language learning becomes mostly effortless. Becoming really proficient at a language requires someone to immerse themselves in it (to use it for a purpose without easy fallbacks). The internet has been amazing for learning English.
I don't know anyone that became proficient at a language by studying it. It's always been through use. The studying just creates a base that allows a person to start using the language.
Exercise requires persistence. You can't really have gaps in it, because you lose your progress. Language learning is much more flexible in this. You might forget what you learned, but the next time you try to learn the same thing it's much easier.
RE language acquisition, I often wonder how much is circumstance. I have an engineer friend who on the one hand is making excuses but he points out his job doesn't really require him to talk to anyone, further, his programming job is almost entirely in English, looking up API docs or language docs in English, writing code while thinking in English, further he's somewhat introverted. So, his language skills are not so great for the amount of time he's lived abroad. Conversely his sees socialite colleagues doing jobs that require interaction doing much better.
My point is, some adults don't need so much intrinsic motivation. Their situation effectively carries them or at least is a strong helpful push.
You don’t need that validation, but it’s still very noticeable. The difference between being slightly overweight and ripped is shocking. The world is suddenly a different place where you show up at a large party and several hot women hit on you etc.
Granted you need to be otherwise attractive, but it’s not just women men also treat you more positively. Women see a wider range of responses, yet it’s still generally a very positive experience.
I'd say you probably don't even need to be attractive physically in terms of having a pretty face. If you've got a charming personality and you are reasonably in shape, you'll get plenty of attention. You're signaling that you have value and people act accordingly.
Since the pandemic started, my interactions with strangers of the opposite sex have been quite curtailed. Last week a vague acquaintance in my condo complex, 35 years my senior, stopped me and spent a good 30 seconds telling me how blue my eyes looked, and musing on how my outfit made them stand out especially. On the one hand, this is weirdly objectifying, and I kind of wish she had the slightest interest in who I am as a person - she’s one of those archetypal condo neighbors who mostly just goes around complaining about people. But on the other hand, I had the distinct thought, “Hot dang, Daniel. You’ve still got it.” This thought was steeped in irony, but at its kernel, there’s a stark emotional reality there. I’m even tolerably well adjusted.
Positive attention from strangers is a singularly terrible thing to hinge your wellbeing on, but man. It sure feels nice.
I would comment that many men seem use sex with women as a form of self esteem boosting. Like, if I fuck enough women, the emotional void inside of me will finally fill and I’ll know I’m worthy. Women do the attention seeking stuff more overtly, and they’re encouraged and allowed to display themselves as objects. men have a pretty similar set of emotional drives, just have different avenues for acting them out.
> I would comment that many men seem use sex with women as a form of self esteem boosting. Like, if I fuck enough women, the emotional void inside of me will finally fill and I’ll know I’m worthy. Women do the attention seeking stuff more overtly, and they’re encouraged and allowed to display themselves as objects. men have a pretty similar set of emotional drives, just have different avenues for acting them out.
In the absence of a demonstrably testable and provable God (or Gods, or religion) the only real success is genetic success -- that's the way of things for 99% of the living critters on the planet. Getting laid a lot means breeding a lot means genetic success.
Kinda like money: having it is no promise of happiness, but not getting any will make you miserable.
To the parent thread: bartended a bit after getting out of the Marines. Now currently a fat beardly linux type. Night and day in terms of how people, of all genders and orientations, treat you when you're fit, clean cut, and dressed well.
This is so interesting. I had a similar experience like what you described. A friend of mine drunk dialed me when she was partying with her girlfriends, telling me that her friend thought I was cute.
It felt weird - that she was sharing photos of me with her friends - and a bit objectifying too. But yeah, I had the same thought as you. It felt nice.
Also, your writing style is amazing. If you ever write a blog or a book, I would give it a try just on the basis of how well you articulate thoughts.
Nice story (first paragraph; third paragraph rings all too true). I don't think being told you have beautiful eyes is necessarily objectifying, though.
I was a ridiculously cute little girl and I'm pretty damn sure a lot of my social issues as a young adult were rooted in getting essentially trained to play to the crowd as a toddler. At that age, it's a form of brainwashing and it's amazingly hard to root out after you become an adult and are puzzled that your antics no longer get you adoration. (PSA: Please don't do this to your own children. It's an awful thing to experience.)
My oldest son was a ridiculously cute toddler but I never taught him that he was expected to play to the crowd. So when he got to be school age and found that too much social attention was actively problematic, he was able to choose to intentionally behave differently.
This is likely to some degree a gender difference. Girls seem to get a lot more social pressure generally to "be cute" and to engage socially in a performative manner.
You'd be surprised. Male attractiveness is simply NOT TALKED ABOUT much, especially around older people. But my mother, who is quite reserved, once blurted out that in his early years father looked 'like a young god'. And yeah, I've seen a black&white photo. He looked pretty much like Clark Kent. Square jaw, glasses, swole from muscles... except he wore a linen shirt instead of a suit. He always enjoyed labor. I wouldn't get this description if I just asked about him.
Many women don't feel comfortable openly saying they find some men attractive. That doesn't mean they don't care about it a lot.
On a tangentially related note, I've noticed that many heterosexual men imagine the comedian Felix Kjellberg (AKA Pewdiepie) must be the height of attractiveness for women, while few heterosexual women find him particularly attractive. I found this very confusing, but after a few discussions with heterosexual female friends of mine we've come to the conclusion that the kind of playfulness and disinhibition this persona consists of is looks like vivaciousness in a woman but immaturity in a man. I imagine some similar dynamics must be in play there.
Wanting affirmation from and to be attracted by others around you (total strangers included) is basic human nature. It’s why we adorn ourselves with clothing and perfume, not to mention our skin and hair, whatever gender you are. I am a male and always want to seem attractive in physique and in character to the opposite sex, and even in some level to the same sex. My wife insists she doesn’t care what other people think about how she looks but she spends hours doing her hair and makeup when she goes somewhere with me or by herself. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this and it is completely healthy from a psychological standpoint.
I generally don't care what people think of my appearance, but I'll still shave and comb my hair before meeting people -- not because I want to impress them, but because it says "I value you enough to make at least a little bit of effort if we're going to be seen together in public".
Honestly, a shower in the morning, a brush and maybe some product and being reasonably healthy already puts you at a great advantage over others. It doesn't take two hours of Bateman level prep (unless you aim to supermodel levels), or a life dedicated to sports.
Right. Who would count their karma points here on Hacker News and make a big deal about how many strangers anonymously clicked on the up arrow next to their post?
I actually know such person. That is exactly what happened - karma was supposed to be proxy for social status and mine was lower so I was supposedly not allowed to argue against that person.
This magazine is a great one for getting me to read long articles about things I didn’t think would be interesting. It seems like they attract writers that are more honest and human about their motivations than you see in other places.
I don't think for self-validation it matters much if someone is a complete stranger or not, it's more about where in the perceived social hierarchy that person sits. Attention from someone who you feel is "higher" in the social tree is a positive, ego boosting signal, and we're wired to react to that. That's the core mechanics behind animal groups organization, and while human society tolerates individualism to much larger extent than other animals, still we're hard-coded to strive for it. I think very few people have such amount of healthy ego that their self-esteem is completely independent from their environments social signals - and it's not necessarily a healthy sign, as it might be also a consequence of some personality disorders.
You've never wanted to be attractive to whatever gender you're attracted to? I find it surprising that this can be "totally foreign" to any human that's not asexual.
Being the most attractive version of yourself that you can be isn't just about sex, either. It really does open doors socially and economically. Right or wrong, people enjoy the company of people who put thought and effort into their appearance. And if for no other reason, your partner certainly appreciates it!
Of course I have. But that's not what she described. From what I read it was a near obsession, consuming her thoughts on a near constant basis. THAT is what I found foreign.
And of course being more attractive makes life easier. Did I say even once that it did not? That's blatantly obvious. But do you reallyactively think about if strangers that you happen pass on the street or in a store find you hot? This is what she described.
Everyone cares what some other people think of them. Friends, family, collogues, and people they're attracted to, etc. Some people care more, some people care less. But, I think, most people don't really care too much what complete strangers think to the point where they actively think about it while passing them by. Or do they?
This is much more common than you would imagine. And on both sides of the typical gender roles. (I’m speaking about western society here as it’s what I know, and where I feel like a lot of that need comes from.)
> What was most interesting to me was not the various controversies about body aesthetics or even health consequences. What stood out to me was the author's description in the early parts of the article of how much she seemed to crave the approval of strangers, especially men.
We very much stand on opposite ends.
Fools exist, and many fools try to phrase their foolishness in terms of gender so to arouse the impression that they have an excuse.
Not a day goes by that I see a man attempt to excuse his foolishness by claiming it stems from his gender, his ethnicity, his religion, or anything else.
Needlessly craving the approval of others has nothing to do with gender, — some do so, and some do not.
> I can't help but feel a bit sad that so many go through their lives this way.
Foolish behavior exists everywhere in many forms. Some crave the approval of others to deluded paranoia of rejection; others wish to control their fellow man for no purpose but control itself; yet others are disproportionally afraid of very specific, uncommon things, yet ignore far more common dangers. — it is old news.
Title: Duped by the “Frailty Myth:” USMC Gender Based Physical Fitness Standards
Author: Major Misty J. Posey, United States Marine Corps
Thesis: Female frailty is a myth; women Marines have the strength and ability to perform pull-ups and should be required to do so on the PFT in order to evaluate more accurately female upper-body strength, properly condition women for the likelihood of combat, and mitigate the negative impact that differing standards have on unit cohesion.
Except for winning competitions, is there any natural advantage of bodybuilding for both men and women?
For both, for advantage in most sports and attractiveness the typical calisthenics physique, sort of gymnast/football(soccer) one seems like the ideal one to me, yet a lot of people seem to be obsessed with getting overly buff.
For women especially, as they age about one-third suffer from osteoporosis, and lifting (heavy!) weights forces body adaptions that help strengthen bones. One also often hears about seniors slipping/falling and breaking hips, which can cause a downward health spiral: doing squats and deadlifts with respectable weights (1.0x to 1.5x your bodyweight) would probably help with that.
Some simple tests can reliably predict longevity: number of push-ups that can be done, speed of walking up stairs, and a sitting-rising test:
There's also the fact that strength is useful in life: from carrying children and groceries, moving (heavy) items, etc. It will also help in keeping one's independence when older: I see infomercials about electric chairs to help the elderly up and down stairs. That's completely unnecessary if one has sufficient muscle mass (which is harder to keep as one ages) for mobility and stability.
If one has a limited amount of time, the one activity that I'd do (and do personally) is weight training. The main disadvantage is that some equipment is needed, and with gyms closed nowadays it's hard to get much done. As a fall-back I have taken up running, but it's not my first choice (though I cycled to work pre-WFH).
I'd strongly second resistance training, it doesn't really take that much time either.
A simple program like Starting Strength will have you train for not much more than 60 minutes three days a week and you'll make significant strength gains up to 1.5x body weight easily.
Some of the training may be similar, but I see resistance/strength training as different from body-building.
You do the former to become stronger, the latter to look it, and even ignoring the substance abuse (which happens in strength training, too) that adds aspects to training that are unhealthy.
I also think that strength training reaches a plateau fairly soon where endurance training gives bigger benefits than further strength training.
The "natural" footballer (soccer) physique is far from ideal: it's basically just thick legs and very rigid back. It's only in the last 20/30 years that footballers started training the whole body, mostly because "why not" - their physios are now well-educated professionals with degrees, they're already at the gym on most days, and it helps them look cool.
This said, they are definitely closer to "ideal" natural proportions than most bodybuilders. They are also more balanced than tennis/basketball/baseball players, who have to work quite hard in the gym to compensate for the extremely unbalanced efforts their sports require.
There is a lot to be said for the rugby physique; sadly the sport is insane on the grounds of personal safety.
I know in person someone playing in the Polish highest division, not exactly a beer league. Eventually the club got rid of him for disciplinary reasons - the physios didn't approve him training his upper body too muscular that makes you less 'elastic'. He obviously didn't agree with them but by looking at his career trajectory they were probably right.
By bodybuilding, you probably mean steroid-fueled muscle building.
Most natural body-building will never reach that level. On the other way, there is plenty of good health reasons to train with weights, and build a good/solid muscle mass. It also improves a lot of other aspects in your life (social).
So, weight-training, bodybuilding - lite is great. Steroid ladden/extreme body building one is probably not healthy.
The issue is not building muscles, in almost any body building competition, what comes with it is lowering body fat to unhealthy levels.
Know well that something as simple as visible abdominal muscles already requires a body fat percentage that is lower than what is generally considered healthy.[0]
One's musculature should not be “defined” for optimal health, — that requires dropping below healthy fat levels.
Professional body builders go far beyond that, of course.
> is there any natural advantage of bodybuilding for both men and women?
I'm especially curious about the long-term effects of training muscles for hypertrophy rather than functional endpoints (strength, power, endurance). It's always stuck out to me that workout guides just treat this as normal — "everyone" wants big muscles, so we should all do painful eccentric reps to stress them out and build up lots of not-so-useful tissue? It's not obvious this is directly comparable to normal exercise.
Culturally it bothers me — fitness should be for everyone, but being a gym rat under whatever name (Crossfitter, etc) has become an identity that you either cling to or retreat from, to the detriment of both camps.
For naturals, there is significant overlap in the training style that produces maximum strength gains and maximum size gains. Larger muscles are stronger muscles. Studies have shown very similar size gains between groups performing high weight sets and more moderate "hypertrophy" style sets, though training with higher weight maximizes strength gains. One thing not revealed in short term studies, but which I have observed[1], is that training for strength early on eventually produces better gains in size, since when you do shift to "higher rep" training, you will be able to use more weight -> bigger muscles. Regardless, I don't think it's all that important to stress over these details, and progressively overloading (increasing weight/reps) the compound movements (squats/deadlifts/bench press/overhead press) over time is far more important than rep schemes and intensity.
For steroid users, the equation changes some, as they benefit more from very high volume, high rep training that pumps the muscles full of blood. Natural lifters cannot recover quickly enough from this sort of training.
[1]standard disclaimer about taking this with a grain of salt as I'm just some internet stranger, but I do have > 10 years experience with this
I don't think so. My understanding is that being overweight always makes some health problems more likely, especially long-term. Even if it's muscle. And that's not even considering the effects of taking excessive growth hormones / steroids etc common to body building.
Being fit is something else altogether, and produces better health outcomes AIUI.
The mental and physical requirements coupled with seeing the weekly changes in the mirror were damn near the only thing that kept me sane over a busy period of work, combined with lockdown, combined with my wife being away for over three months due to work/family illness and unable to see each other due to travel restrictions.
I also went from an unhealthy BMI, high but not yet dangerously so cholesterol levels to nearly stage lean (have since raised my weight to a saner level) and having excellent blood work all round to the point of my doctor being completely astonished. (Note, I did not take any androgenic substances, so I wasn’t expecting much other than positive changes in my blood work)
bodybuilding is far less injurious than other strength sports and those are far less injurious than any team sports.
you are almost certain to sustain significant acute injuries doing gymnastics, football, basketball, etc over a long training career. the same cannot be said for bodybuilding - you might develop overuse injuries or wear and tear, but still less frequently than in other sports.
it's really, really, really hard to tear an acl, break a collarbone, or dislocate a shoulder bodybuilding. yet I know someone who did all 3 in one season of rugby!
I think it really depends. I mean the extremes of bodybuilding also involve rigid diets (maximizing calories for maintenance and bulking out, minimizing them + dehydration around competition, down to dangerous levels of fat (people have fainted at competitions), or lifting to the point of tearing muscles, prolapsing, etc. A competition weightlifter can only go for a record attempt once, maybe twice a year - their nerves are fried after that.
And there's enough dumb people around that try and lift too much without being spotted.
Depends what you mean. Genetics plays a big role in competitive bodybuilding, but it plays a big role in any sport. Some people are genetically predisposed to put muscle on easier, some people genetically can be leaner, all of these things can help. At the upper levels of the sport you will see people that work very hard, have good genetics, and do lots of steroids.
Assuming you mean natural body building (without hormones etc): More muscles means better circulation, so you are less likely to feel cold. More muscles also increase the basal metabolic rate so you are less likely to get overweight.
I think many women enjoy feeling small, petite next to a swole guy. Or just a big guy. I'm extremely tall and random girls and coworkers have commented how small they feel next to me, but always with a smile.
Is that actually so? Looking at US homicide statistics, over 75% of cases involve firearms. Would a bodybuilder have better chances of surviving a bullet wound?
Fast people are harder to kill. Many short and fast people are fearsome opponents in karate kumite for example. Strong and big people are often also slow... but it depends on the motivation. Everybody can be killed in a lot of ways, sadly.
Leaving all the ridiculous gender politics aside, body building is very comparable to those so-called “pro-ana” models in how unhealthy it is, and I believe it should be treated the same, which is, of course: allow a man to do what he wants.
However, it strikes me as a particular dual standard that some jurisdictions have tackled models whose body fat percentage is dangerously low, but who do not have steroid-built, unhealthily large muscles with it that their body fat can't healthily support, but seem to be completely fine with adding said unhealthy muscles, to the former.
It comes as no surprise to me that such jurisdictions elect to primarily use the very unreliable and pseudoscientific body mass index in lieu of the more reliable body fat percentage as an indicator of “underweight”, for had they elected to use the latter: it would accurately show that most body builders are unhealthy low in fat, and would be struck down under the same rules.
But of course, that is not what they desire, for that falls under what they consider to be their conventional ideal of beauty, and “health concerns" have always been one of the first thing the authoritarian reaches for, to enforce his own will and social control over others.
We ban drugs, for they are unhealthy! but alcohol? well I don't know about that... they are socially acceptable, after all.
> some jurisdictions have tackled models whose body fat percentage is dangerously low [...]
What are you talking about here?
> unhealthily large muscles
Taking steroids and other activities related to bodybuilding and sports more generally can sure take their toll, but I'm pretty sure nobody has problems because of overly large muscles.
> most body builders are unhealthy low in fat
Source?
> But of course, that is not what they desire, for that falls under what they consider to be their conventional ideal of beauty [...]
Aren't you contradicting your point now? Or maybe I misunderstood what your point is?
On a related topic, I recently watched an excellent documentary on disordered eating among rock climbers, especially professional climbers - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thtDQJGrO5s
The encyclopedia of “modern” bodybuilding by Arnold (it’s old now) was written with the help of somebody who writes (elsewhere) about female bodybuilders frequently. It’s exceptional writing, with long chapters about aesthetics and the meaning and goals of the practice. Other chapters on psychology and how to talk to your friends about your important goals that they might not understand. I haven’t followed what happened in the decades since it was published but I hope there are some positive stories
> What was left was mostly tilapia and cod, kale, low-sodium broth, and colorless, calorie-free shirataki noodles. Sasha’s rules around food and training, handed down to him from other coaches as bodybuilding doctrine, were inscrutable to me. I found myself living in a world where green bell peppers were OK and red peppers were not
I just want to say that while this is representative of what some bodybuilders do. It's also completely wrong and not representative of how you can diet for a competition.
Modern bodybuilding is not "witch" magic. You count calories, macros, and your exercise output and manipulate those to lose weight. Anyone who is saying one bell pepper type is okay but another isn't doesn't know what they are doing, and it's not fair to judge bodybuilding based on that.
Yes, the article mentions that later, and she switches to a more sensible regimen:
> My own research had proved that many of his ideas, though common in bodybuilding, were scientifically baseless. ... your daily intake of macronutrients—protein, fat, and carbohydrates—falls within the prescribed ranges, you can eat whatever you want.
> it's not fair to judge bodybuilding based on that
It's bunk, but if it represents a large portion of the population then I'd say it is fair to judge bodybuilding based on that; community and culture are part of the sport.
(I don't know any bodybuilders even from my gym rat days so I don't make any claims as to what the common dieting methods actually are; the ones I knew that did strength sports were pretty much focused on calories and protein and let the rest fall where it may)
> It's bunk, but if it represents a large portion of the population then I'd say it is fair to judge bodybuilding based on that;
Do you usually judge groups based on the worst actors in them?
Part of the problem is that at the high levels of bodybuilding everyone is on steroids and other drugs, thyroid, clenbuterol, diuretics, etc and there aren't any studies to tell people how those should be taken in order to make yourself really lean-- those are the spaces that pseudoscience jumps into the most.
> Anyone who is saying one bell pepper type is okay...
This assumes that Sasha's only concern with food consumption is nutrition alone, where other aspects of discipline and adherence are likely to also be important.
Asking for red, green and blue but specifically no brown M&Ms doesn't mean that you think brown M&Ms are fundamentally different in any way: there was another reason why Van Halen did that.
It was Van Halen’s unit test for the gig. If there were brown M&Ms he knew not to climb on the equipment as obviously the venue didn’t read his instructions
I don’t think this was one of those cases. The Italians I know have firmly held beliefs about what foods should be eaten when and why that don’t seem at all grounded in science. If the bodybuilding subculture has developed beliefs about food, they’re likely just as firmly held.
The bell peppers in particular sound like believable pseudoscience. nightshades are poisonous and if one is looking to avoid bloating, perhaps it’s a legit concern.
That's not why it's done though. It will often be accompanied by pseudoscience justification that doesn't hold up to rationality or accepted science.
Even if that wasn't the case though, what do you expect to be gained by enforcing that discipline?
You have a finite amount of variables you can control, and wasting time thinking about details that don't matter is a massive drain. When training for a show, you should be focussing your effort on the things that make the biggest difference: overall food intake, macros, exercise, resistance training, meal timing, micros, etc.
Forget that and forget runway modeling. They told a friend (former with benefits now actual friend) of mine, who is demonstrably a cute and hot girl she "could never be a runway model because her butt is too big." while her French friend has an imperceptibly-slightly smaller behind is acceptable. TBH, she has a perfect, bitchin bottom. What the actual? That industry's standards are beyond insane.
Let's suspend societal expectations, dispel myths, and look at different types of exercise.
Diet and exercise alone will never make any woman "look like a man." Only steroids or seriously-unlucky endocrine dysfunctions can do this. Not working out at all makes a woman subjectively appear less healthy, less defined, and less attractive, IMHO.
The stereotypical "flat-bottomed, upper-income, undefined physique" etiology is the result of excessive "more is better" cardio, yoga, and so forth is offset by a lack of significant and efficacious weightlifting recruiting type IIB muscle fibers, and converting IIB into IIA. All that running on the treadmill or elliptical doesn't lead to strength or muscle mass, it leads to endurance and joint degradation. IIA is tiny in volume compared to IIB. "More is better" is worse.
Short duration, high-intensity weightlifting until failure is the most efficacious activity to classify as exercise, with a limited amount of cardio to maintain practical endurance without converting too much muscle fiber. This applies to both adult men and women. If anyone wants to be healthiest with least cost, time, and net effort, this sort of approach is preferable. And tell the gymrats: Pain and time don't win merit badges, results do. Hopefully, they'll respond: "do you even lift, bro?" :]
That's my (100-80)/10 cents.
PS: Body by Science by Little & McGuff (2009) obliterates many gym tradition superstitions, factoids, and popular misconceptions with evidence, experience, and studies.
Readit News
What was most interesting to me was not the various controversies about body aesthetics or even health consequences. What stood out to me was the author's description in the early parts of the article of how much she seemed to crave the approval of strangers, especially men. It was thought provoking and I'm still processing it. I find this way of thinking completely foreign. I know intellectually that many people need external affirmation... but from total strangers whom you barely interact with? I can't help but feel a bit sad that so many go through their lives this way.
When I started working out at a gym, when I was in my early fifties, I barely knew that bodybuilding existed. But the gym I happened to join in Tokyo turned out to be popular with amateur bodybuilders, and I exercised near them most evenings for more than ten years. I became acquainted with quite a few of them, including some of the top bodybuilders in Japan, and made friends with several, but I never really understood what drove them. Although most of them had full-time jobs, they worked out nearly every evening for a couple of hours, and when the summer competition season approached they would drastically restrict their diets and start spending money on skincare and tanning. It looked to me like self-torture, but many of them continued this year after year.
In my job, in foreign-language education, I think a lot about what motivates some adults to keep studying long and hard enough to become proficient in a foreign language, as relatively few actually succeed. I tried to get some insights about motivation from watching and talking to the bodybuilders, but I didn’t really learn much. This article helped.
As George Leeman (an accomplished powerlifter) once said: "to lift these kinds of weights is not a happy thing...you do not try and pick up 800 lbs and fucking look like you're going to fucking kill somebody before you do it because everything is fucking great".
I'm not sure I would compare something like bodybuilding with foreign languages. At some point you become proficient enough in a language that you can simply consume movies, TV shows, books, news etc that the language learning becomes mostly effortless. Becoming really proficient at a language requires someone to immerse themselves in it (to use it for a purpose without easy fallbacks). The internet has been amazing for learning English.
I don't know anyone that became proficient at a language by studying it. It's always been through use. The studying just creates a base that allows a person to start using the language.
Exercise requires persistence. You can't really have gaps in it, because you lose your progress. Language learning is much more flexible in this. You might forget what you learned, but the next time you try to learn the same thing it's much easier.
My point is, some adults don't need so much intrinsic motivation. Their situation effectively carries them or at least is a strong helpful push.
Granted you need to be otherwise attractive, but it’s not just women men also treat you more positively. Women see a wider range of responses, yet it’s still generally a very positive experience.
Self confidence plays a role so it's a sort of self fulfilling prophecy, but there's no question others treat you differently.
Positive attention from strangers is a singularly terrible thing to hinge your wellbeing on, but man. It sure feels nice.
I would comment that many men seem use sex with women as a form of self esteem boosting. Like, if I fuck enough women, the emotional void inside of me will finally fill and I’ll know I’m worthy. Women do the attention seeking stuff more overtly, and they’re encouraged and allowed to display themselves as objects. men have a pretty similar set of emotional drives, just have different avenues for acting them out.
The addictivity of facebook/youtube/instagram/hackernews upvotes condensed in a single sentence, great insight!
In the absence of a demonstrably testable and provable God (or Gods, or religion) the only real success is genetic success -- that's the way of things for 99% of the living critters on the planet. Getting laid a lot means breeding a lot means genetic success.
Kinda like money: having it is no promise of happiness, but not getting any will make you miserable.
To the parent thread: bartended a bit after getting out of the Marines. Now currently a fat beardly linux type. Night and day in terms of how people, of all genders and orientations, treat you when you're fit, clean cut, and dressed well.
It felt weird - that she was sharing photos of me with her friends - and a bit objectifying too. But yeah, I had the same thought as you. It felt nice.
Also, your writing style is amazing. If you ever write a blog or a book, I would give it a try just on the basis of how well you articulate thoughts.
My oldest son was a ridiculously cute toddler but I never taught him that he was expected to play to the crowd. So when he got to be school age and found that too much social attention was actively problematic, he was able to choose to intentionally behave differently.
This is likely to some degree a gender difference. Girls seem to get a lot more social pressure generally to "be cute" and to engage socially in a performative manner.
Many women don't feel comfortable openly saying they find some men attractive. That doesn't mean they don't care about it a lot.
You've never wanted to be attractive to whatever gender you're attracted to? I find it surprising that this can be "totally foreign" to any human that's not asexual.
Being the most attractive version of yourself that you can be isn't just about sex, either. It really does open doors socially and economically. Right or wrong, people enjoy the company of people who put thought and effort into their appearance. And if for no other reason, your partner certainly appreciates it!
Not that we should go around calling people 'neckbeards', it's rude, but there's a reason the term exists.
And of course being more attractive makes life easier. Did I say even once that it did not? That's blatantly obvious. But do you really actively think about if strangers that you happen pass on the street or in a store find you hot? This is what she described.
Everyone cares what some other people think of them. Friends, family, collogues, and people they're attracted to, etc. Some people care more, some people care less. But, I think, most people don't really care too much what complete strangers think to the point where they actively think about it while passing them by. Or do they?
We very much stand on opposite ends.
Fools exist, and many fools try to phrase their foolishness in terms of gender so to arouse the impression that they have an excuse.
Not a day goes by that I see a man attempt to excuse his foolishness by claiming it stems from his gender, his ethnicity, his religion, or anything else.
Needlessly craving the approval of others has nothing to do with gender, — some do so, and some do not.
> I can't help but feel a bit sad that so many go through their lives this way.
Foolish behavior exists everywhere in many forms. Some crave the approval of others to deluded paranoia of rejection; others wish to control their fellow man for no purpose but control itself; yet others are disproportionally afraid of very specific, uncommon things, yet ignore far more common dangers. — it is old news.
Author: Major Misty J. Posey, United States Marine Corps
Thesis: Female frailty is a myth; women Marines have the strength and ability to perform pull-ups and should be required to do so on the PFT in order to evaluate more accurately female upper-body strength, properly condition women for the likelihood of combat, and mitigate the negative impact that differing standards have on unit cohesion.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BwvKWSxwvalaR01ZT1dEY1ZtWTA/...
For both, for advantage in most sports and attractiveness the typical calisthenics physique, sort of gymnast/football(soccer) one seems like the ideal one to me, yet a lot of people seem to be obsessed with getting overly buff.
For the 'extreme' of what most competitors go through? Probably not.
But resistance/strength training more generally is probably beneficial:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strength_training
For women especially, as they age about one-third suffer from osteoporosis, and lifting (heavy!) weights forces body adaptions that help strengthen bones. One also often hears about seniors slipping/falling and breaking hips, which can cause a downward health spiral: doing squats and deadlifts with respectable weights (1.0x to 1.5x your bodyweight) would probably help with that.
Some simple tests can reliably predict longevity: number of push-ups that can be done, speed of walking up stairs, and a sitting-rising test:
* https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/simple-sitting-test-...
All involved strength more than aerobic ability.
There's also the fact that strength is useful in life: from carrying children and groceries, moving (heavy) items, etc. It will also help in keeping one's independence when older: I see infomercials about electric chairs to help the elderly up and down stairs. That's completely unnecessary if one has sufficient muscle mass (which is harder to keep as one ages) for mobility and stability.
* https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/want-to-live-...
If one has a limited amount of time, the one activity that I'd do (and do personally) is weight training. The main disadvantage is that some equipment is needed, and with gyms closed nowadays it's hard to get much done. As a fall-back I have taken up running, but it's not my first choice (though I cycled to work pre-WFH).
A simple program like Starting Strength will have you train for not much more than 60 minutes three days a week and you'll make significant strength gains up to 1.5x body weight easily.
You do the former to become stronger, the latter to look it, and even ignoring the substance abuse (which happens in strength training, too) that adds aspects to training that are unhealthy.
I also think that strength training reaches a plateau fairly soon where endurance training gives bigger benefits than further strength training.
This said, they are definitely closer to "ideal" natural proportions than most bodybuilders. They are also more balanced than tennis/basketball/baseball players, who have to work quite hard in the gym to compensate for the extremely unbalanced efforts their sports require.
There is a lot to be said for the rugby physique; sadly the sport is insane on the grounds of personal safety.
Most natural body-building will never reach that level. On the other way, there is plenty of good health reasons to train with weights, and build a good/solid muscle mass. It also improves a lot of other aspects in your life (social).
So, weight-training, bodybuilding - lite is great. Steroid ladden/extreme body building one is probably not healthy.
Know well that something as simple as visible abdominal muscles already requires a body fat percentage that is lower than what is generally considered healthy.[0]
One's musculature should not be “defined” for optimal health, — that requires dropping below healthy fat levels.
Professional body builders go far beyond that, of course.
[0]: https://www.fatherly.com/health-science/how-to-get-six-pack-...
Steroids are not necessarily always bad, tho taking your body to the extremes of competitive bodybuilding probably is.
I'm especially curious about the long-term effects of training muscles for hypertrophy rather than functional endpoints (strength, power, endurance). It's always stuck out to me that workout guides just treat this as normal — "everyone" wants big muscles, so we should all do painful eccentric reps to stress them out and build up lots of not-so-useful tissue? It's not obvious this is directly comparable to normal exercise.
Culturally it bothers me — fitness should be for everyone, but being a gym rat under whatever name (Crossfitter, etc) has become an identity that you either cling to or retreat from, to the detriment of both camps.
For steroid users, the equation changes some, as they benefit more from very high volume, high rep training that pumps the muscles full of blood. Natural lifters cannot recover quickly enough from this sort of training.
[1]standard disclaimer about taking this with a grain of salt as I'm just some internet stranger, but I do have > 10 years experience with this
Being fit is something else altogether, and produces better health outcomes AIUI.
The mental and physical requirements coupled with seeing the weekly changes in the mirror were damn near the only thing that kept me sane over a busy period of work, combined with lockdown, combined with my wife being away for over three months due to work/family illness and unable to see each other due to travel restrictions.
I also went from an unhealthy BMI, high but not yet dangerously so cholesterol levels to nearly stage lean (have since raised my weight to a saner level) and having excellent blood work all round to the point of my doctor being completely astonished. (Note, I did not take any androgenic substances, so I wasn’t expecting much other than positive changes in my blood work)
you are almost certain to sustain significant acute injuries doing gymnastics, football, basketball, etc over a long training career. the same cannot be said for bodybuilding - you might develop overuse injuries or wear and tear, but still less frequently than in other sports.
it's really, really, really hard to tear an acl, break a collarbone, or dislocate a shoulder bodybuilding. yet I know someone who did all 3 in one season of rugby!
And there's enough dumb people around that try and lift too much without being spotted.
Is that actually so? Looking at US homicide statistics, over 75% of cases involve firearms. Would a bodybuilder have better chances of surviving a bullet wound?
However, it strikes me as a particular dual standard that some jurisdictions have tackled models whose body fat percentage is dangerously low, but who do not have steroid-built, unhealthily large muscles with it that their body fat can't healthily support, but seem to be completely fine with adding said unhealthy muscles, to the former.
It comes as no surprise to me that such jurisdictions elect to primarily use the very unreliable and pseudoscientific body mass index in lieu of the more reliable body fat percentage as an indicator of “underweight”, for had they elected to use the latter: it would accurately show that most body builders are unhealthy low in fat, and would be struck down under the same rules.
But of course, that is not what they desire, for that falls under what they consider to be their conventional ideal of beauty, and “health concerns" have always been one of the first thing the authoritarian reaches for, to enforce his own will and social control over others.
We ban drugs, for they are unhealthy! but alcohol? well I don't know about that... they are socially acceptable, after all.
What are you talking about here?
> unhealthily large muscles
Taking steroids and other activities related to bodybuilding and sports more generally can sure take their toll, but I'm pretty sure nobody has problems because of overly large muscles.
> most body builders are unhealthy low in fat
Source?
> But of course, that is not what they desire, for that falls under what they consider to be their conventional ideal of beauty [...]
Aren't you contradicting your point now? Or maybe I misunderstood what your point is?
I just want to say that while this is representative of what some bodybuilders do. It's also completely wrong and not representative of how you can diet for a competition.
Modern bodybuilding is not "witch" magic. You count calories, macros, and your exercise output and manipulate those to lose weight. Anyone who is saying one bell pepper type is okay but another isn't doesn't know what they are doing, and it's not fair to judge bodybuilding based on that.
> My own research had proved that many of his ideas, though common in bodybuilding, were scientifically baseless. ... your daily intake of macronutrients—protein, fat, and carbohydrates—falls within the prescribed ranges, you can eat whatever you want.
It's bunk, but if it represents a large portion of the population then I'd say it is fair to judge bodybuilding based on that; community and culture are part of the sport.
(I don't know any bodybuilders even from my gym rat days so I don't make any claims as to what the common dieting methods actually are; the ones I knew that did strength sports were pretty much focused on calories and protein and let the rest fall where it may)
Do you usually judge groups based on the worst actors in them?
Part of the problem is that at the high levels of bodybuilding everyone is on steroids and other drugs, thyroid, clenbuterol, diuretics, etc and there aren't any studies to tell people how those should be taken in order to make yourself really lean-- those are the spaces that pseudoscience jumps into the most.
This assumes that Sasha's only concern with food consumption is nutrition alone, where other aspects of discipline and adherence are likely to also be important.
Asking for red, green and blue but specifically no brown M&Ms doesn't mean that you think brown M&Ms are fundamentally different in any way: there was another reason why Van Halen did that.
The bell peppers in particular sound like believable pseudoscience. nightshades are poisonous and if one is looking to avoid bloating, perhaps it’s a legit concern.
Even if that wasn't the case though, what do you expect to be gained by enforcing that discipline?
You have a finite amount of variables you can control, and wasting time thinking about details that don't matter is a massive drain. When training for a show, you should be focussing your effort on the things that make the biggest difference: overall food intake, macros, exercise, resistance training, meal timing, micros, etc.
Let's suspend societal expectations, dispel myths, and look at different types of exercise.
Diet and exercise alone will never make any woman "look like a man." Only steroids or seriously-unlucky endocrine dysfunctions can do this. Not working out at all makes a woman subjectively appear less healthy, less defined, and less attractive, IMHO.
The stereotypical "flat-bottomed, upper-income, undefined physique" etiology is the result of excessive "more is better" cardio, yoga, and so forth is offset by a lack of significant and efficacious weightlifting recruiting type IIB muscle fibers, and converting IIB into IIA. All that running on the treadmill or elliptical doesn't lead to strength or muscle mass, it leads to endurance and joint degradation. IIA is tiny in volume compared to IIB. "More is better" is worse.
Short duration, high-intensity weightlifting until failure is the most efficacious activity to classify as exercise, with a limited amount of cardio to maintain practical endurance without converting too much muscle fiber. This applies to both adult men and women. If anyone wants to be healthiest with least cost, time, and net effort, this sort of approach is preferable. And tell the gymrats: Pain and time don't win merit badges, results do. Hopefully, they'll respond: "do you even lift, bro?" :]
That's my (100-80)/10 cents.
PS: Body by Science by Little & McGuff (2009) obliterates many gym tradition superstitions, factoids, and popular misconceptions with evidence, experience, and studies.