Personal Narrative: Bodybuilding Strength

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.

The physical appearance of today's masculine men are big, and muscular guys. The fact that most television and movie actors are all thought to be tall intimidating men should prove this. In fact the average Hollywood actor is about five feet ten inches which is taller than the average man, this goes to say something about what height the media thinks guys should be. This leaves many males with body image issues just because they do not fit into the tall body images. Now the media also wants men to be muscular, this is shown in the body image that are given to the public by the media. Almost as a direct result to all these super muscular guys on magazines and in movies is the increased need of young men to workout by lift weights. While lifting weight is a health and positive activity for most young men, however, many young men go workout take supplements and pre-workout additives. The sheer number of men that use these products in order to aid them in their quest for a better more tone body is outlandish. While these product may work to help shape and sculpt muscles however, by adding all of these extra chemicals to your body it could be doing more harm than

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

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.

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.

As exposure to the male body expands, the demand for “chiseled” bodies greatens. In recent years, the number of memberships and frequency of visits to health clubs has increased (Luciano 3). In one year alone, four billion dollars was spent on exercise equipment and health club memberships. “An estimated eighty-five million Americans, mostly male, are doing some sort of weight

You wonder why am I not making any gains, I have gained some muscle but not like these other people at the gym. “Son of a bitch” you start to get mad and wonder if you are lifting right, and eating right. You finally learn the bitter truth, these people have been lying to you. These people say if you eat right and do this program you will become ripped just like me. The only way you can be as ripped as them is if you put a foreign object in your body. These people are druggies they use steroids, the most common one is trembolone which is designed for farm animals. It hurts that they do this and lie to you. The real crap is that they say that they are all natural. The one person that lights my flame is a bodybuilder named Simeon Panada. This guy is six foot two; weight 235 pounds, has a waist of 34 and a 57 inch chest. He says that he is all natural and that people who question me don’t know how hard I have worked. Really man you say you are natural well let’s compare him to a well-known steroid user “the terminator” Arnold Schwarzenegger. In Arnolds prime he was 6 feet 2 inches; weight 235 pounds, waist size of 34 inches and a chest of 57 inches. Simeon

As I looked at the barbell stacked with two 45 lbs plates on both sides, I questioned my own ability, and think to myself there is no way in hell I am able to lift this without injuring myself.

Facts: For the past two years, Minsu, a Korean American, has worked as a high school physical education teacher. He is also a body-builder and a part-time graduate student in educational technology at State University. In preparing for a master’s thesis he has decided to participate in Arnold’s World Body-building training program and analyzing advanced technology used to help students absorb physical education. Arnold’s training program has a regular faculty, curriculum, an enrolled body of students, and advanced technology in its gym equipment.

In “HARD BODIES” by “STUART EWEN” and “THE SPORTS TABOO” by “MALCOLM GLADWELL” outlines particular sports in addition to the differences between the athletic individuals and the ways in which they experience extracurricular activities. The first article listed begins by introducing a man named Raymond who is hoping to achieve the body figure in which he has always dreamed of having. It goes through his daily workout in detail in which he accomplishes after a long day in his office. To achieve his long wanted goal, he works on parts of his body piece-by-piece, practicing repetition in a room surrounded by full-length mirrors. The author then begins describing various advertisements with pictures of quote-on-quote perfect bodies. Both men

The judges were forced to make an ambiguous line between what the difference was between a man and a woman. The costs of this sport may be unfair judging of the bodybuilders because the judges are still divided on what makes a woman's feminine form better.

When it comes to fitness, clients believe they will see instant results. A certain percent of individuals are impatient and expect to see changes within a week of exercises. Whereas the other percent will understand it takes more than a few sets of sit ups and planks to achieve their ultimate goal. Over the course of the summer, I was able to see the different workout personalities at D1 Jackson’s “Boot Camp” sessions.

Millions of dollars are made and lost in the pursuit of the largest muscles, fastest gate, hair replacements, plastic surgeries, implants and liposuction removals to at least give the physical appearance of our basic standards of prowess. Many times life changes and new habits can help a person become stronger, healthier, more control of their anger, and be able to exhibit traits of an alpha male without using techniques such as plastic surgeries.

Over the last ten years weightlifting competition has seen a large spike in publicity. Strongman competitions and bodybuilding have been around for years, but of recently CrossFit has been extremely popular. Not only does CrossFit try to discover the “best athlete” on earth, but because the sport has so many variations on difficulty, people from all different types of backgrounds are able to participate in it. The movie “Born Strong” highlights four professional strongman competitors preparing for the Arnold Classic, as well as the competition. These four athletes share very similar training methods from weight training or their mental state to the athletes from CrossFit that are shown in the movie “Froning: The Fittest Man in History”.

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