Young Writers Society

I had an essay to do for school to write about a hobby of mine. I chose bodybuilding.

Suppose I told you that there are 300 pound giants who wax, tan, and oil their bodies, parade onto a stage, and then flex their muscles in such a way that they look better than the other giant next to them. You would probably frown and shake your head. “What an active imagination you have.“ you’d say. Nonetheless, this what many people-including myself- call a sport. In fact, there are professional organizations dedicated to it: the IFBB and PDI being the largest. They have pro meets many different times a year all over the country. However, there is something wrong with this sport. Anyone who knows a little bit about the game can tell you that right now, competitive bodybuilding is in a sad state. With such rampant supplement use, spotty judging, and poor public opinion, it’s hard to wonder why.

The first and biggest problem with bodybuilding right now is the supplements. Not all supplements are bad, now. Protein powders, Nitrous Oxide boosters, Creatine, and fat burners are all beneficial supplements when used wisely. However, Synthol, GH, Anabolic Steroids, and Insulin are major no-no’s. Anabolic steroids are and always have been the biggest problem. None of the pro’s can get that truly massive, shredded look without using them. Steroids are not used as much for the beefing up factor, as to retain muscle mass while training for a competition, to get their weight down. We wouldn’t be able to see the striations in the pro’s butts were it not for ‘roids. However, there are so many different problems that can arise from anabolic steroid use that it hardly makes them worth using. The biggest problem steroids present is in the heart’s left ventricle, which becomes enlarged with prolonged steroid use. Once enlarged, the ventricle becomes unable to relax and contract properly. The results in chronic palpitations, an elevated number of beats per minute, outrageously high blood pressure, as well as increasing the chance for heart-related complications like heart attacks or pulmonary strokes. For example, the Asian-American professional bodybuilder Kris Dim nearly died this month when he suffered a split in his aorta. AS users’ livers are torn to hell also, worse than an alcoholic’s. Nearly everyone knows about the problem with ball-shrinkage. Testosterone levels never return to normal after the use of steroids and old pros who are off the drugs must forever use supplements to maintain even the minimum level of healthy testosterone. In fact, each time a bodybuilder injects himself with testosterone, a little bit more of it is turned into estrogen by their own bodies’ endocrine system. This can result in what is called gynecomastia, in other words, “man-boobies.” Elevated growth hormone levels, which can come from insulin as well as straight shots of GH, packs major amounts of muscle onto a frame. GH levels decide who gets big muscles and who doesn’t. Too much GH and distension takes hold. For the layman, too much growth hormone gives you a pot-belly. Almost worse than steroids is synthol. Also called SEO, it is a liquid substance, usually a mixture of oils, used to increase the apparent size of their muscles. The effects of SEO are purely and solely cosmetic. It is injected either under the skin or between the muscle fibers. SEOs work by filling the muscle up with an oil substance, not a good thing. SEO is usually used to 'top up' a muscle that is not quite up to standard with the rest of the body, and once the use of synthol is stopped, all gains are lost, because the oil is soaked up into the muscle. The use of SEOs is extremely dangerous, potentially fatal, as injection into a major blood vessel can cause an embolism, leading to heart strokes, respiratory crisis, and/or permanent brain damage if SEO traces find their way into cerebral vessels. Clearly, the supplements are causing trouble.

Some of the negative press, even among the bodybuilding world, is due to the hubbub in that there is no set standard for what is good. In other words, there is not a statue that judges hold up and compare against the competitors. There is not a list of measurements that must be followed. Neither are their weight limits. In the annual Mr. Olympia contest, the world title for bodybuilders, there aren’t even any weight classes. This has led to much debate over what the point of bodybuilding is. People are in hot debate right now whether the point of bodybuilding is to beef up into unbelievably gigantic proportions, or to shape the body into an image of beauty. Of course, the floorboard bending proportions of some pro’s are impressive, but any way you look at it, there is very little aesthetic attraction to a 5’ 9”, 300-330 pound man. Furthermore, the lack of a standard results in much controversy in the decisions of judges, who are not qualified as judges so much as they were picked out of the handbag. Of course, how could there be a standard when what you are judging is how big and beautiful someone’s muscles are? With a standard that is purely subjective (who are you to say that Dennis Wolf’s biceps are better than Johnnie Jackson’s?) it’s all but impossible to come up with a standards.

With doped up contestants and the perplexing outcomes of many competitions, it’s no wonder that there isn’t a very large fan base for the sport of professional bodybuilding. The fan base that exists is composed mostly of other bodybuilders, young and old, and homosexual men; for who else would appreciate a 300-pound muscular giant? In addition, not everyone become a bodybuilder like everyone can play football, or soccer, or basketball. Bodybuilding is the most demanding sport, the life of a contestant must center around it. Eating 6 meals a day, which entails waking up in the middle of the night to eat; staying away from processed foods, like sugar; being born with the right genetics; and pounding out workout after workout for years are the minimum requirements to be a pro. In modern culture, the sport is downplayed as a big joke, with very few of the pro’s making it out into the spotlight of the public. Arnold Schwarzenegger brought the sport out into the open so that people at least knew it existed, but bodybuilding right now provides little more than provide a subject for late-night talk shows and quirky situations on sitcoms. It’s hard to blame the public though, in a sport where the competitors wax their bodies, coat themselves in oil to enhance their definition and muscle-belly appearance, and parade around in miniscule posing trunks- man thongs.

It’s apparent that there are problems with the sport. When competitors have to use class II narcotics, on the level with heroin and cocaine, just to get to the pro level, it’s obvious there’s a problem; when the judges can arbitrarily place the competitors with no particular sense of reason at all, and when the ordinary citizen can’t look at the winner of the latest competition without either bending over with giggles or recoiling in disgust, it’s obvious that there is a problem. Of course, the only way to straighten out the supplement problems is moderation. The pro’s in the old days took only a fraction of the drugs that pro’s do today, with only a fraction of the side effects, and they looked pretty good. It would be hard but not impossible for the judges’ to straighten out their results, they had it done even 5 years ago. Once competitive bodybuilding has itself straightened out, then it can start to appeal to the public.

Anyway, go ahead and be brutal. I thought it was pretty good, except that I didn't have quite enough of a solution.