Bodybuilding Research Paper

I have always been very obsessed with body image. When I was young, baseball was my sport. Soon after, I joined the swim team. During these years I’ve never looked the way that pleased me. When the age of fourteen came around, I decided to join the gym with a personal trainer. At this time, being overweight and unhappy. Never did I think the gym would mean so much to me in the future. Just before the age of sixteen, bodybuilding made a drastic impression on me. The art of building a well symmetrical body. Everything about this sport fascinated me because it gave a chance to create a new me.

Today’s modern bodybuilders opposed to the bodybuilders of the sixties and seventies look like they have evolved from some enormous inhuman creature with amazing genes. Looking at the average size and body fat percentages of old school bodybuilders they weighed somewhere between one hundred and eighty to two hundred and twenty pounds. Now if you compare that to today’s bodybuilders weighing in at somewhere between two hundred fifty and three hundred pounds it makes you think what the heck

Many people look for an activity that will better them in every way possible; weightlifting is the greatest activity in the world for such goals! Weightlifting yields so many benefits and it can improve the quality of life for anyone who can do it. Weightlifting is one of the activities that, in conjunction with other exercise and proper diet, will improve overall health, physical performance, and mentality.

Finally, Dyer talks about muscularity and what this means for male and female activity. Muscularity is the sign of power and achievement. He states, “The muscle man is the end product of his own activity of muscle-building” (62). The male body shows that he worked hard, or in some cases not at all, to achieve the appearance that he has. However, pertaining to the female body, even though she may have worked hard to get the shape she’s in its seen as “something that has been done to the woman” (Dyer 62). The male goes and actively seeks to achieve muscles,

I developed a character to be a representative of the main audience for my essay by taking the characteristics of individuals observed in McComas’ weight room and combining them into one persona. Based off of this, the persona is a male Virginia Tech college student who is familiar with the weight room and the concepts of body building. He is in good physical shape, and wears typical gym clothing, such as gym shorts, sweatpants, t-shirts, or wife-beaters. He has long-term experience with the majority of the weight and machines found in McComas’ weight room, and falls into the category of “serious lifters,” rather than just an occasional gym-goer. He is very perseverant in his work out regiment, and has a focused mindset.

article, he tries to emphasize that bodybuilders are regular people, yet the public sees them as

“Enhancing Your Body Image” (2015) discusses the impact popular culture has on women strive to have Twiggy’s body and men hope to be the tough guy like Clint Eastwood (p.340). People are willing to alter their appearance physically; for example, people try to lose weight or change their personality by playing sports or instruments to find the sense of belonging. Society has a fascination of trying to belong within a social group.

Bodybuilding is the process that involves development of muscle fibers which is facilitated through special exercises, increased diet (calorie) as well as having the recommended amount of rest. I believe that in the current century bodybuilders have formed subcultures that are very unique in the sense that they have their own values, beliefs as well as traditions that are enshrined within their cultural provisions.

The voice perceived from Eleanor Robinson’s essay, “CrossFit: the new fitness craze has a lot to tell us about late western capitalism,” has an emphatically melodramatic tone to its words. The essay is written with emphasis on Robinson’s opinions and her ability to persuade the reader the reader, rather than facts and data, as if the essay is essentially a personal narrative on the topic. Robinson’s essay sheds light on a relatively new fitness trend that many Americans have increasingly started to participate in: CrossFit. Robinson claims that this wellness trend is as comical as it is disturbingly unsafe, as she writes that, “There are of course plenty of fit, lovely people who enjoy CrossFit, some of whom even have all their original limbs. To those people, I say: get out now!” While analytically interpreting this quote, the reader may identify several expressions in the voice of the author, all of which pertaining to the idea of the melodramatic voice in her words, as she writes about the consumer loyalty for CrossFit as a new fitness trend. It is evident in Robinson’s quote of her sardonic point-of-view on the fitness trend, as she presumes the fitness trend is not only dangerous, but comical because of the support and popularity associated with it.. Although scarce in the essay, Robinson’s usage of facts and data to support her argument of CrossFit being an unsafe fitness trend also backs-up her melodramatic voice. An example of such data is that 73.5% of CrossFitters become injured at some point in their lifetimes directly from the workouts, Robinson claims. She also refers to the fact that, “Injuries and exertion vomiting are used as a marketing tactic,” and, “The shoulder reconstruction goes with the rippling abdominals,” to compare CrossFit to other, less dangerous and injurious fitness trends. As the essay closes, Robinson writes about how western capitalism and CrossFit relate to one another, in which she agrees with the stereotype that only post industrial-knowledge workers (particularly those who are more financially successful) with a non-labor-intensive occupation will be willing to, “pay $200 a month to throw weights around

Drexler uses statistics from a pediatrics report which quotes “40 percent of boys in middle and high school exercise regularly -- and 90 percent at least occasionally -- with the specific goal of bulking up” (1). As studies progress it shows that boys are under pressure to fit a physical aesthetic. Dr. Drexler believe that the male stereotype is not catching up with the stereotype of the females, but instead reverting back to the traditional notion of what it means to be masculine and she quote from a traditional saying “It's fine if boys want to go around wearing sparkly nail polish as kids, as long as they grow up to be big and strong and macho”. Dr. Drexler state that the false image of male aesthetic is difficult to avoid because on a daily basis, boys are engulfed by Magazines, DVDs, and Malls, all displaying the same body image. Dr. Drexler explained that the biggest pressure boys receive are from their coaches and peers, where muscle building are encouraged and dieting and grooming are condemned. This ideal cultivates a system where girls are supposed to be fragile and decorated, whereas boys are supposed to be tough and

Bodybuilders train specifically for mass building only rather than who can lift the most weight; That would become powerlifting. Bodybuilders training techniques differ from anaerobic based athletes completely. Examples are bodybuilding training is involved around moving weight(volume) and varys on low to high reps for overload purposes(anywhere from 10-12, 4-6, and 1RM.) While anaerobic atheletes weight training methods differ such as the weight repitition which is alot higher in number, number of sets, and weight intensity which is usually lighter. These athletes are in the weight room for strength building, but mostly for muscle endurance to improve their

The dominant identity of the group would be males who are interested in becoming bigger and stronger, past the point of normal human standards. Although there are women who are bodybuilders, and they have their own Miss Universe and Ms. Olympia for bodybuilding, it is still a male dominated sport (EDinformatics).

Weight training originated in the Egyptian-Greek era. Since war was common in those days, weight training was a tool to gain muscle and stamina. It wasn’t until the early 1900’s did a man named Eugene Sandow change the way people viewed bodybuilding. In those days, weightlifters were called “strongmen”. These “strongmen” entertained people with their displays of great strengths by lifting animals and pulling carts. Many “strongmen” were overweight with meaty limbs, in which today’s society would view as “overweight”. It wasn’t until Sandow came along that the concept of weightlifting changed. Sandow was able to display great acts of strength, but unlike the “strongmen”, had an appealing physique to the public. His physique drew people in by the masses. People became intrigued with weightlifting and many researchers began to study the sport. Through their research, they

There are many existing literatures on women and weightlifting. This research will be focusing on how hegemonic masculinity has set ideas of gender roles and how these women challenge the social discourse that they face being a muscular or look ‘manly’.

Although, athletes are the role models the boys grow up playing sports but when they do not perform in an excellent or right way they are chided as girls in a away to help them perform better. The language that is in the media attributes and reinforces the dominant discourse that males are stronger than females. (Public research group, 2010). In addition, men are expected to have healthy strong bodies and simultaneously on the other hand isolate and seclude themselves from females as to not care how they look. Men that are obese are subjected through oppression as a result of the factor that they do not fit in the masculine stereotype of a muscle built body. Furthermore, young boys are taught this early and consequently reproduce this discourse to discriminate others in school that do not fit in to Western culture's ideology of masculinity. This discrimination of the obese instills a fear on the youth that to be fat is not ideal and is therefore seen in revulsion and hatred. Nevertheless, the discourse implies that genetics do not play a role and that every male can get this perfect body of masculinity in a sense. Therefore, a man would need to endure the journey for how ever long it takes to achieve this. In contrary, this is not the truth a man may go the gym everyday for a number of years and never achieve this form of masculinity because for their body type and genetics is impossible. Moreover, the stereotypes against overweight men at a first glance