Total Physique Online

I cannot remember the last time I picked up a bodybuilding magazine. However, I can remember the first time I did. I cannot remember the last time I wondered who would win this years “Mr. Olympia”, but I can remember the first time I did. I cannot remember the last time I spotted a cover of a leading bodybuilding magazine, thinking to myself, “I wanna look like that guy!” But I can remember the first time I did.

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In fact, it’s been a long time since I had any interest in the sport of bodybuilding. Why is that? What happened to the sport I use to love so much? What happened to the sport that inspired me so much? Now don’t get me wrong. I love to train, and more than ever. Spend any amount of time at Total Physique Online and you will see that. Yet, when I think of the sport known as Bodybuilding, my stomach turns. Why? Is it just me, or is there something different about the sport? I think it has to be the latter.

I love feeling strong. I always have. True, I wish I felt strong and perfectly healthy, but strong will do if that is all I can aspire to for now. Each day is a battle of wills. In the one corner is me. Yeah, that’s me over there. I am the one with the asthma inhaler in one hand and a dumbbell in the other. I’m the one who, depending on what time of day it is, may be wheezing or laboring for breath, or both. Or, maybe I am feeling fit as a fiddle, with lungs that feel great. Or maybe I am coughing so hard my extremities are going numb. Like I said, it depends on the time of day.

In the other corner is illness. Disease. Chronic lung malfunction. Pancreatic dysfunction, a perennial disjunction from health and well being whose sole purpose is to kill me if it gets half a chance. But I won’t let it. Not if I can help it.

So far so good.

When I was a kid I had a keen awareness of my self. I was in touch with how I felt. Emotionally. Psychologically. Spiritually. And, of course, physically. I was hyper tuned-in to my body, and I knew that I wanted to beat Cystic Fibrosis. I was on a mission from the very first time I saw my first issue of Muscle Builder. On the cover of the first issue I ever saw was a picture of Ahh-nold!

Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Man. How I wanted to be that guy. I really did. And somehow I knew I could. Or, at the very least I knew I would try. That summer was the beginning of something wonderful, and yet not so wonderful. That summer was the beginning of an education that was one of the best and worst of my life.

It was 1977.

As I flipped through the pages of that issue of Muscle Builder (it’s now called Muscle and Fitness), I discovered a whole new world of sights and sounds and smells that would come to define me for what appears to be the rest of my life. As I flipped through the pages of that magazine, not only did I learn more about Arnold Schwarzenegger, but I discovered other names. Names like Frank Zane, Franco Columbu, Bill Pearl, Chris Dickerson, Dave Draper and others. Perhaps due to the fact that I am on the short side, Franco Columbu would quickly replace Arnold Schwarzenegger as the benchmark for my aspirations.

I admired Franco Columbu’s body, but even more so I admired his strength. I really wanted to be strong liek he was. Life would soon teach me that I hadn’t the genetic predisposition for that sort of strength. But as they say, “ignorance is bliss”, and I forged ahead, lofty goals firmly etched into the back and front of my mind.

Glory be to God for unrealistic dreamers like myself. Looking back on those days, I am so glad that in my mind I had no self-imposed limitations. I would not let anyone else set them for me either. I see how far I have come in all these years and surprisingly I still have this belief in my limitless potential, though now that belief is rooted in a faith Christ, in whom I dwell.

Onward and upward. Forward, always pushing forward.

So, let’s talk about this education of mine. The best and worst of educations. The best and worst of times. Something wonderful and yet, not so wonderful. That is bodybuilding in a nutshell.

On the one hand, I cannot think of a sport that, when done properly, is healthier for you. The bodybuilding lifestyle is a profoundly healthy one when lived right. Yet, even at it’s zenith, bodybuilding can be incredibly stunting to ones development as a person. Think about it for second.

Bodybuilding is a lot of things. At its’ worst it is this: an activity whose primary judge is yourself and a mirror. And as judge, jury and executioner, you evaluate your self worth on what the mirror tells you. You begin to focus on your outward appearance so much that you become self-centered and vain, all the while ignoring the inside of you that really needs most of the work.

Prior to bodybuilding, I was so in tune with my feelings. Somehow, the sport changed me so that I started to be more focused on the external. I lost touch with myself. Remember the story of Narcissus, how he fell in love with his own reflection in the pool of water? That was me. At it’s worst, bodybuilding is self-worship. Self-worship is bad enough, but when you start to only see the external self that makes it even worse. In this respect, I think Bodybuilding was bad for me.

Thankfully, as I grew and matured as a person I began to see that I had significant character flaws inside me that bodybuilding had never addressed. In fact, bodybuilding had cleverly disguised those flaws. The truth is that I had a lot of inner work to do, some of which is going on to this very day.

A lot of time and a lot of life passed me by in the process of self-discovery. God, how I wish I could have some of that time back. Sometimes when I reflect on who I became and who I could have been, I shake my head in silent disbelief. It is a sad realization. On the positive side, I am now peering beyond the mirror more than I use to, past the facade reflected in it, and into my deeper, more authentic self. Through prayer and surrender, I am becoming a better person. Yet, this process takes time, perhaps a lifetime. I suppose I began to see the inside of myself a bit late, but at least I am on the road. Does that make me a late bloomer?

Having said all of this, I want to also say that bodybuilding most certainly saved my life, or at the very least gave me a quality of life that is better than it could have been. The sport, what with all of it’s devotion to training and healthy eating patterns, was perfect for me from a medical standpoint. It was, in fact, precisely what the doctor ordered. My sport of choice slowed down a most determined foe that is the number one genetic killer of kids today. I remain hopeful that, provided I can remain devoted to the lifestyle, it will continue to take good care of me, God willing.

Looking back on those formative days in my early teens, the training and healthy eating patterns espoused in that magazine were the things that motivated me most. The guys in that magazine, those luminaries of muscle, were totally sold out to healthy living, eating and thinking. At least, that is what they said, and that was enough for me. I wanted to be like that.

Over the years, as I struggled to add weight to my body, I learned that some of the muscle these guys had was due to chemical enhancement in the form of steroids. At the time, steroids were not very common and they were very taboo, but I do not think they were illegal. Yep. Steroids were the sports dirty little secret. Yet, the level of drug use in those halcyon days of bodybuilding was minimal compared to what is going on today.

In other words, while the athletes of that bygone era did use drugs, the primary, fundamental underpinnings of the sport was rooted in healthy living. While I am sure there were exceptions, my feeling is that drugs were a small part of a much larger whole, largely due to the fact that science simply did not have that much to offer in the way of drugs at the time. So, athletes really needed to lean heavily on training styles, specific diets, etc. All of which made the sport/lifestyle of bodybuilding ideal, not only for me but for everyone, and I still feel this way.

Today, as an adult who has done lots of work on himself, I tend to view bodybuilders with a certain amount of ambiguity. For the most part, I know who they are. I know from whence they come. I know the baggage they carry. Insecurities and character flaws notwithstanding, most bodybuilders have great potential as people. I admire their drive, their discipline and their devotion to their craft. But of the sport of competitive bodybuilding, I have no ambiguity.

The sport has changed so much in the last 30 years, and not for the better. Sadly, bodybuilding has fallen victim to the same temptations and forces that pull other sports in the wrong direction. There is now so much focus on excess that the sport and the lifestyle is far from healthy. Drugs, money, sex and hip-hop are what drive sports today. Bodybuilding has been destroyed by these very things in my opinion.

When I see competitors like Ronnie Coleman, I am left with a strange feeling. Perhaps it has to do with being 44 and wanting a physique I can live with far into my later years. Perhaps it has to do with having a greater dislike for things that are dishonorable. And make no mistake about it, there is nothing honorable about pumping your body with poisonous chemicals that destroy vital organs, shorten your lifespan, and in the case of women, totally nuke your bodies sexual orientation, all in the quest for a physique that has no aesthetic appeal, and simply fails to serve you on a daily basis as a practical vehicle in which to get around.

Do not misunderstand me. I am all for developing a physique that is as healthy, muscular and fit as it can be, provided you are not killing yourself in the process. Does that make sense?

When I look at some of the competitors in the sport of bodybuilding today I think to myself, “At what point will that persons drug abuse catch up to them? What will be the price he or she pays, and will it have been worth it? When he or she stops the drugs and reaches the age of 50 or 60, what will happen to all of that mass. How will it look? How will that person feel?” These are the questions which plague me when I look at the covers of muscle magazines today. These feelings drive me away from the sport, not towards it.

As I said earlier, when I was a kid bodybuilding was so much more about health and vitality as well as useful strength and muscle. Yeah, sure, Franco, Arnold, Lou and the other guys were big. But the game back then did not seem to be just about freakish size. It was about so much more than that. It was about feeling strong, feeling good, having a balanced physique etc. For whatever reason, that inspired me to pick up a barbell. Something tells me that had I been born later, so that I was turning 14 by the time Ronnie Coleman and others began dominating the bodybuilding scene, I doubt very seriously that I would have been motivated to pick up a barbell.

By the time Coleman and others were taking center stage, drugs were openly pervasive in gyms. Everyone knew that these athletes were using, and that would have discouraged me. So, I am grateful I was born when I was, because my health depended on exercise, and thanks to the focus of bodybuilding back in the 70’s I was able to start a lifelong process that would be of tremendous value to my medical well being.

I am far from naive. I know that many of the pros in those days were probably using. Heck, maybe they all were to some extent. But my gut tells me that the use of drugs back then did not play as pivotal a rule in the development of the bodybuilders physiques as it does today.

I suspect that in the 70’s and 80’s diet and training were vastly more integrated, vastly more important. It had to be a science that was mastered in order to force the physique to be at its peak in terms of definition, size and fullness. Today, all you need to do is play with a few powerful chemicals to force muscles to swell up, water to be eliminated etc. Do today’s competitors focus on diet? Well, sure they do, but only as a means to abuse the body into a state of hyper-muscularity that lasts for only a few hours at its peak.

The sport of bodybuilding today has shifted its priorities in such a way that I would no longer recommend it to people. I just do not think that what goes on is the sport today is healthy. The magazines do not talk about it. They never have. Today, drugs are so prevalent in most gyms that magazines do not need to talk about it.

Better bodies with chemistry.

Today’s competitors point to genetics as the reason for the huge leaps in size and muscularity in bodybuilding. Well, OK, some of these athletes do have great genetics, but how much better are any one persons genetics than the genetics of any other competitor when they are all so freakishly large? Look how big all these current athletes seem to be. Look how freakishly big.

I know genetics matter, but for the most part the same genes that existed in athletes 30 years ago are the same ones that exist today. Can we not at least agree that too little time has passed in the last 30 years for the human genome to have evolved to the extent necessary in order to permit so many of today’s athletes to get so disproportionately huge?

When I look at athletes today, I realize that no amount of training or genetics alone would ever permit me, or anyone else, that kind of metamorphosis unless we consumed something very dangerous and very risky. That is not what bodybuilding should be about. In a nutshell, bodybuilding is at its best when it is about diet, supplements and training. Oh, and one other thing: recovery!!!!

No matter what you eat, what you drink or how you train, if you don’t recover between workouts sufficiently you will never achieve your optimal level of muscle mass and shape. It’s for that reason that I think the primary goal of any lifter should be recovery. If that takes place in sufficient amounts, then the sky indeed is the limit. But I digress.

In conclusion, bodybuilding as a sport is not particularly healthy. Bodybuilding as a lifestyle, as it is presented at Total Physique Online, is honest and healthy. It is a lifestyle you can live with. The goal is to build a physique you are happy with that offers you health, energy, functional strength, improves conditioning and makes you a happier, more balanced individual.

God Bless and thanks for reading.