Put health before muscles.
We’ve all seen pictures of tanned, oiled up bodybuilders competing for titles. With their bulging muscles and impossible physiques, one might think that a bodybuilder is the epitome of health. But it couldn’t be further from the truth.
On the day of a competition, most true athletes are at a peak level of health and fitness. For a bodybuilder, it’s the exact opposite. Many are so weak and dehydrated that they’d have trouble running a mile. The reality is that professional bodybuilding can be very unhealthy – and many bodybuilders put their bodies through hell to look the way they do. There’s actually a bodybuilding saying, “Live fast. Die young. Be a beautiful corpse.”
In bodybuilding, the motivation is to look a certain way by building superficial muscles and winning an aesthetic competition. By it’s very nature, bodybuilding isn’t about being healthy. It’s entirely about doing whatever it takes to look a certain way.
According to bodybuilding.com, many bodybuilders suffer from high cholesterol and high blood pressure due to their taxing diets. Moreover, it takes a lot of effort for the human heart to supply blood such a large body mass – and so it increases the risk of heart issues and complications. And that’s without even taking into account the effects of steroid use.
With a goal of true health, proper diet and appropriate exercise are necessary requirements – but bodybuilding takes things to the extreme. Bodybuilding is about vanity and not health. I recommend putting health before muscles.
Beauty? I wouldn’t go near a body builder.
I know! Looking at that pic up there makes me wanna puke…
You should check out Tuan Tran on YouTube. He’s a natural bodybuilder and seeks to prove the healthy way of natural bodybuilding. He goes by “roughneckasian” on YouTube.
You wrote “by it’s very nature” but it should be its.
Aggh, Davey, my love for your flawless grammar and eloquently simple command of the language is faultering.
What could be more amusing than someone who is anal retentive enough to latch on to a common spelling mistake instead of actually discussing the issue, and making a spelling mistake of his own?
It’s “faltering,” OK? Please try to grow up.
I agree with the assessment of prima facie health risks associated with bodybuilding, but I wonder if any studies have been done analyzing morbity and mortality comparing bodybuilders to the general population and to athletes.
Not to mention that they look like freaks!
You forgot to mention the detrimental psychological affects of bodybuilding, i.e, in old age, it’ll make you want to fuck and have love children with the help.
Perhaps I have a twisted view of physical beauty but that much muscle is a complete turnoff, I’d rather have sex with a woman, ok, not really. I was once very narrow-minded about beauty, it was skin deep. Now it is the complete package that counts, after all if I wouldn’t like you in non-sex situations why would I have sex with you? As I accumulate memories I want them to be ones that make me feel good.
I agree with the above, don’t find body builders attractive in the slightest.
I agree with most of the comments — professional bodybuider do not reflect beauty or cannot be considered attractive to me. Davey is my pick of a beautiful body…. and gorgeous heart!
i completely disagree with the above posters but one in favour of Tuan Tran-Bodybuilders are very much in tune with their bodies-they know health and nutrition very well-its just that they use nutrition-supplements-diet-exercise-to achieve their goal.they are very hyper about it-its their full-time obsession.
Tuan Tran is pretty inspiring for me personally. I think bodybuilding is a great sport and can be done effectively without performance enhancing drugs that cause terrible side effects.
Im a bodybuilder, my bloodpressure, cholesterol, blood oxygen, liver are all normal. I dont know where the author gets his information but it looks like it was written by a runner.
Bodybuilders usually don’t care what other people view them as. Hence why they are doing it. The information here is totally bogus.
“I recommend putting health before muscles”
I recommend putting research into your topic before blogging. You’re using bodybuilding.com as your main source of information.
I know vegans that have terrible blood work. Are all vegans unhealthy?
No not all vegans are unhelthy… but they are complete wuss bags haha
Like that total wuss Carl Lewis, for instance?
People with larger than normal muscles are unhealthy? total and absolute lie
http://www.bmj.com/content/337/bmj.a439.abstract
This is the sort of study I was asking about. The conclusion is noteworthy:
Conclusion Muscular strength is inversely and independently associated with death from all causes and cancer in men, even after adjusting for cardiorespiratory fitness and other potential confounders.
So muscular *strength* promotes longevity, but this does not necessarily mean that extreme hypertrophy does. A fine line, perhaps. Still, I can’t believe that the extreme leanness and dehydration that bodybuilders attain pre-contest can be considered healthy or promoting of longevity.
That is one of many studies. I don’t think anyone is arguing depriving yourself of water is a healthy activity. Thats common sense. The ‘body building’ groups that comprise the vast majority of muscular physiques are strength athletes and casual body builders. These people eat ridiculously healthy – because they have to. Only ones that put the little underwear on and spray themselves in hideous tanning spray while competing dehydrate themselves. As for steroids, if you want to talk about body building and steroids please include all other sports that abuse them as well.
There is also significant evidence that ‘runners’ (those that perform long duration cardio on a regular basis) are wearing their bodies out and are a lot less healthy than sprinters and strength athletes. To throw away lifting weights because the very elite tax their bodes too far (dehydration, etc) is to say to throw our running because running a marathon strains the body too far (sometimes to death).
Owing that two thirds of our society around us is going to DIE because of lack of exercise and abysmal diet it would be more accurate to form an almost opposite conclusion to yours: Put muscle on to get health.
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and that is all this post is- a rant that is based off only opinion and no scientific research or evidence to back any of it up. As for trying to reference bodybuilding.com I would personally like to see the articles that he is making these wild claims off of. Any type of extreme that is taken can be unhealthy, regardless to what sport it is. That all bodybuilders are unhealthy is bogus. I as a bodybuilder know how I eat and train and I guarantee I am in good health, and am no freak of nature who takes steroids. Bodybuilding does not take things to the extreme, it is the individual themselves that make the decision to go beyond what is healthy, regardless to where they apply it (work, sport, relationships, etc.) As for the risk of heart issues…do your research on the effects of obesity and people who live sedentary lives and the risks of heart disease, then get back to me please. I am a personal trainer also,with a BA in both Exercise Science and Psychology so I promise you that I have done plenty of research and am educated. I also back up what I say, so here are some things to get people started:
American Heart Association Call to Action: Obesity as a Major Risk Factor for Coronary Heart Disease.Circulation.1998; 97: 2099-2100 doi: 10.1161/01.CIR.97.21.2099
“Preventive Medicine”; “Impact of Progressive Resistance Training on Lipids and Lipoproteins in Adults: A Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials”; G.A. Kelley et al.; 2009