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The Feminine Physique: On Women's Bodybuilding

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Re: The Feminine Physique: On Women's Bodybuilding

#131

Post by samatman »

nostromo wrote: post #112
rmah wrote: post #82

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 pr…

... really? 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 appearan…

It surprises you, on Hacker News, to find someone who doesn't give a lot of thought to his appearance and thinks it's weird that other people do?

Not that we should go around calling people 'neckbeards', it's rude, but there's a reason the term exists.

Re: The Feminine Physique: On Women's Bodybuilding

#132

Post by Blikkentrekker »

pacaro wrote: post #121
nsajko wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 no…

France, Italy, Spain, and Israel all have laws about the weight of fashion models. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39821036

Indeed, weight. — they all use b.m.i. as an indicator, rather than the far more reliable b.f.p., because they are hampered by the fact that the latter, correctly, indicates that most body builders are very unhealthy, and the former, as one of it's many problems, fails to correctly indicate that, or even indicates that they are overweight, when they are severely underweight.

And correct science is a politician's greatest enemy, for it demonstrates that his ideals and morality are arbitrary, and that the explanations he proffers to substantiate his moral control are purely ad hoc.

The very reason they choose b.m.i. is because it was never about healthy, as they proffered, but about subjective æsthetics standards, so they needed a scale that indicated that, rather than health, all the while masking as one that was reflective of health.

Re: The Feminine Physique: On Women's Bodybuilding

#133

Post by jaegerpicker »

matwood wrote: post #85
jaegerpicker wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I understand that A LOT of strongman competitors are using steroids, it is entirely possible to compete without them. I know this because I've done it. Not at the international level but at a state level and placed very well. I've never taken a PED in my life. I was also a successful power lifter without PED's (550lbs bench press, 680lbs deadlift, and 725lbs squat at my peak). Those who don't compete don't unde…

Those are great numbers. If you don't mind me asking, what did you weigh when doing those? I agree with you, that people can get far stronger than they realize. I'm not genetically gifted, started quite skinny, and still got a 325 bp, 405 squat and 525 DL at 195 back when I was younger. All I ever took was creatine and whey. I'm fairly tall, which seemed to help the lever action with my DL, but always caused my squat…

Thanks! I'm not really close to that anymore, wish I was but not enough to put in the work. I lived in the weight room back then. I was 19 and bounced between 265-285 depending on the time of year. I wrestled in college for a year before having to drop out and I was right at 265 during that. I'm 6'1" also so not a little guy and that helps a lot. More than anything though I lived in the weight room. I actually mostly hated squats, I had a little bit of a poor technique and I believe to this day that all the weight under load on my lower back with poor technique help contribute to a pretty severe back injury later in life. Moral of the story: we should all be more careful when chasing numbers.

Re: The Feminine Physique: On Women's Bodybuilding

#134

Post by samatman »

linspace wrote: post #115
kofejnik wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Steroid ladden/extreme body building one is probably not healthy. Steroids are not necessarily always bad, tho taking your body to the extremes of competitive bodybuilding probably is.

My reasoning is the following, and as someone who likes to do weight lifting I would love to be proved wrong: if steroids are not necessarily bad and we surely know they work wonders how is it possible that, in a world obsessed with looks and moving so much money in all kind of (absurd) products, they have not been legally commercialized somehow.

We could ask this question about almost every substance which has been declared illegal.

Indeed, we should.

I don't use androgenic steroids, but I'm right on the cliff where natural levels start falling off, and once I'm over it, I will give it some serious consideration.

Re: The Feminine Physique: On Women's Bodybuilding

#135

Post by zoover2020 »

Blikkentrekker wrote: post #101
ardit33 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Profess…

This reads like coping material from someone with no abs. 10-12% is definitely _not_ unhealthy.

Agree on the unhealthy BF% for bodybuilders though

Re: The Feminine Physique: On Women's Bodybuilding

#136

Post by throwaway2245 »

leshow wrote: post #120

> 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'…

> 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.

Re: The Feminine Physique: On Women's Bodybuilding

#137

Post by Jtsummers »

TeaDrunk wrote: post #130
Jtsummers wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I get your point. They are two men with very different base body types. But even looking at Phelps, especially at his prime in the Olympics, he has no shortage of muscles but has obviously trained with performance as a goal over presentation .

I'm confused because the parent poster is saying there are ways to maintain Brad Pitt's physique AND slim down by swimming, so I looked at a swimmer and didn't see this.

You're the only one that brought up Pitt. They spoke of Pratt. Similar letters, different name, different men.

My point was that cardio-centric fitness does not cause you to waste away from a muscle mass perspective, and I pointed out two exercises which are generally considered cardio but which result in people developing more noticeable muscles throughout their body or maintaining muscles already present. Contrasting with exercises like cycling and running, which focus on a limited set of muscles and, without additional exercises, do not promote a strong upper body or maintaining the muscles of the upper body if someone already starts off with well-developed arms, chest, and back.

Re: The Feminine Physique: On Women's Bodybuilding

#138

Post by scythe »

actuator wrote: post #71

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.

> 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.

Re: The Feminine Physique: On Women's Bodybuilding

#139

Post by jaegerpicker »

eredengrin wrote: post #107
simonbarker87 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think mobility and staying injury free are probably more important at the level you were at than PEDs and an aspect that many people underestimate. My squat topped out at 300 simply because of old injuries and mobility limitations caused by them. Clearly strongmen on the international stage are using though.

Staying healthy and injury free is obviously important, but that's important at every single level. Also to be clear, a drug free 725 lb squat is very impressive, that's not something most people would be able to achieve even if they managed to stay injury free.

It is, 725 is a lot of weight. In fact I believe it probably contributed to a severe back injury later in life. At the time I was a division 1 college heavyweight wrestler that was forced to drop out and NEEDED an athletic outlet badly. So I lived in the weight room and chased numbers. I wasn't the healthiest mentally at the time and channeled all of that into it. I actually wouldn't recommend that level of lifting unless you LOVE it.

Re: The Feminine Physique: On Women's Bodybuilding

#140

Post by nsajko »

pacaro wrote: post #121
nsajko wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 no…

France, Italy, Spain, and Israel all have laws about the weight of fashion models. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-39821036

That's just red tape.

That is, if you're a model, you just have to get a doctor to "certify you healthy", which I'm sure isn't at all difficult as they can pick any doctor. Note that the modelling agency will probably "help" with this, as it's very much in their interest to do so. And note the quote from BBC: "But the final version, backed by MPs 2015, allows doctors to decide whether a model is too thin by taking into account their weight, age, and body shape." (so the decision is arbitrary).

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