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The Feminine Physique: On Women's Bodybuilding

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Re: The Feminine Physique: On Women's Bodybuilding

#171

Post by kofejnik »

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.

Same as why vodka is legal but mdma isn't: deeply entrenched interests, on both sides. Listen, kids: All Steroids Are Bad, and anybody who disagrees is a Bad Person, and probably a criminal.

Re: The Feminine Physique: On Women's Bodybuilding

#172

Post by CydeWeys »

audiometry wrote: post #149
bluecalm wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just look at athletes before widespread steroid use. They have spent way more time training than actors and haven't looked like that even in sports that require dehydration like boxing. That's exactly the problem with lying about steroids. It took a while for Arnold and his successors to admit that they were on 1000mg of test per week (plus other stuff of course; normal production of even high test men is below 100mg…

>I don't condemn steroid use btw. I oppose widespread lying about it by the users and the media. Yeah this is the thing that annoys me. Recently listening to Tim Ferriss interviewing an amazing female powerlifter. She deadlifts 4x body weight and other sorts of remarkable feats. So the entire 2 hour show discussed her insane training regimen and diet and other forms of wellness. Hearing how much she squats in a week…

It's annoying but there's one obvious reason they don't talk about it: Not only is it cheating in their sport, but it's even flat-out illegal. So of course they don't talk about it. Even though it's completely obvious from everything else they're talking about. Hell, just listen to her voice! The testosterone use is undeniable.

Re: The Feminine Physique: On Women's Bodybuilding

#173

Post by Blikkentrekker »

belorn wrote: post #157
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…

> but I'm pretty sure nobody has problems because of overly large muscles. There is actually a body dysmorphic disorder called Muscle dysmorphia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscle_dysmorphia ). It is pretty easy to see the similarities of similar disorders. In general I would also suspect a higher rate of injuries related to those exercise that maintain that large muscle mass, and potential risk factors in regard…

The existence of a disorder means little more than that a psychiatrist has given it a name; it has nothing to do with the actual existence of the symptoms so named in the disorder.

No doubt symptoms for virtually any desire to have something with one's body exist. Personally, I am unnaturally obsessive with my haircut and even the smallest imperfections with it that only I can see annoy me to no end with no one else seeing the difference. — I am quite certain that if this were more common, some psychiatrist would give it a name, and thus it would “exist” as a disorder. Regardless of such nomenclature, the symptoms exist in at least one man, and probably many more.

Re: The Feminine Physique: On Women's Bodybuilding

#174

Post by nsajko »

Blikkentrekker wrote: post #166
nsajko wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

About the Euronews link, I disagree with your conclusion. The mentioned laws are just red tape (for an explanation see my reply to pacaro here). The hard limits on BMI seem to come from industry self-regulation.

Let's assume that be the case. The politicians allow this nonsensical, pseudoscientific self-regulation instead of demanding that they switch to b.f.p. , because they know well that it would outlaw body builders, which they do not want, despite their being as unhealthy. The industry came up with this method, of course, to allow bodybuilders to continue, and only having to cull the the hyperthin. It's a nice unspoken…

I think you're hugely overestimating the politicians here, I doubt that even a significant proportion gives much thought to these issues ;)

Re: The Feminine Physique: On Women's Bodybuilding

#175

Post by treis »

WalterBright wrote: post #108
ameister14 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also age - it's actually possible to lose 10kg of fat and gain 5kg of muscle in 60 days without any testosterone or whatever boosters when you're 22. I have a very, very hard time believing you can do this at age 48-50, like Josh Brolin did to play Thanos.

When I was 20 and started lifting regularly, I put on a lot of muscle very fast. But I plateaued in about 6 months and was never able to go past that. I didn't do any steriods, because a friend of mine went from "pillsbury doughboy" (his assessment) to very jacked in about 9 months. He used steroids, and was shocked to find he'd lost a couple inches in height. The doc told him it was the steroids, and even worse, he'…

>He used steroids, and was shocked to find he'd lost a couple inches in height. The doc told him it was the steroids, and even worse, he'd still lose the usual height when he aged (we all shrink as we age).

The things people believe constantly amaze me. Steroids don't make people shrink.

Re: The Feminine Physique: On Women's Bodybuilding

#176

Post by tkgally »

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…

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.

Re: The Feminine Physique: On Women's Bodybuilding

#177

Post by CydeWeys »

jaegerpicker wrote: post #29
CydeWeys wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will say that strongman is interesting. It eliminates the cutting weight aspect of bodybuilding at least, though admittedly retains the steroid abuse aspect. I think it fundamentally answers an interesting question though in a way that bodybuilding maybe doesn't, namely: What is the absolute limit of strength that the human body is capable of?

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…

Yeah, I was referring to the top-level international competitions, the ones where we find out the absolute limit of no-holds-barred strength. Your numbers are absolutely impressive of course, but wouldn't have qualified you for the highest levels of competition (as you know). Hafthor Bjornsson has deadlifted an unbelievable 1,104 pounds, and you know that he's not natural. But without all the juice, we wouldn't even know that breaking 500 kg is at all possible.

Re: The Feminine Physique: On Women's Bodybuilding

#178

Post by Blikkentrekker »

nsajko wrote: post #174
Blikkentrekker wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's assume that be the case. The politicians allow this nonsensical, pseudoscientific self-regulation instead of demanding that they switch to b.f.p. , because they know well that it would outlaw body builders, which they do not want, despite their being as unhealthy. The industry came up with this method, of course, to allow bodybuilders to continue, and only having to cull the the hyperthin. It's a nice unspoken…

I think you're hugely overestimating the politicians here, I doubt that even a significant proportion gives much thought to these issues ;)

And thought woud suddenly be given if the industry's self-regulation found a way to permit the models they want to ban because they think them too ugly.

Indeed, not much thought was given: they found certain models to look ugly because they were hyperthin, so they instinctively searched for a rationalization to ban them and selling it as something other than social control, and “health” is very often the first excuse to be reached for then.

Re: The Feminine Physique: On Women's Bodybuilding

#179

Post by Someone »

throw0101a wrote: post #116
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.

> Except for winning competitions, is there any natural advantage of bodybuilding for both men and women? 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 adapti…

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.

Re: The Feminine Physique: On Women's Bodybuilding

#180

Post by curuinor »

RealityVoid wrote: post #142
samatman wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not OP. But, maybe, a bit, it does surprise me. Most programmers I know in real life are not neck beards and quite presentable, despite what the cliche' is like.

I always assumed the unpresentable ones never showed up in person to things and therefore didn't present themselves to me
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