Weight Training : The Iron Game Essay

Weightlifting is a sport Egyptians do. One method of weightlifting was the attempt to lift a heavy sack of sand with one hand. The method

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

Being an athlete I know the struggles of strength and conditioning. Many athletes are pushed in the weight room and during conditioning, however are they being taught the right way? Effective weight training depends on proper technique. Many coaches try to go off of what they know and force their athletes to lift weights. This improper way of lifting often causes injury. The athlete should also lift the proper amount of weights. Athletes today need to know the right way to lift weights. This will allow them to actually gain muscle, power and speed instead of just being sore. There are many factors in weight lifting which include diet, frequency, intensity, and specification. All of these factors play a vital role in developing muscle.

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.

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.

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

Iliades, C. (n.d.). 7 reasons to add strength training to your workout routine. Retrieved January

A few prominent historical examples of body modifications include neck elongation in Africa and Thailand, ear lobe stretching in Africa, and corseting in Western Nations (Barker & Barker 2002). As body modifications have become increasingly common, the issue of discrimination toward people who possess them in the workplace has become greater and desperately needs to be addressed.

The ratio of men to women in most weight rooms is nowhere near equal. Adult females tend to shy away from loading a bar with weights and ‘pumping the iron.’ The issue is that women are not offered an introduction to lifting when they are young. A class that is designed for female beginners is needed in schools. Girls deserve the focused attention of a trainer that advocates for their education in the weight room. Working out is proven to cause boosts in both mental and physical strength and females should not be left out of such a beneficial activity. Creating a women’s lifting course presents them with the opportunity to learn exercises, build self-esteem, and lead a healthier lifestyle.

Eugen Sandow is generally accepted as the first modern bodybuilder. He performed feats of strength and displayed his body in the late 1800s. As a result of his exhibitions, Sandow was known as the strongest and best built man in the world. Others soon began to admire and emulate him. Most of these bodybuilders, mostly men, performed at exhibitions and for circuses. As more individuals participated in bodybuilding, gyms and weight-rooms appeared. Standard exercises began to dominate weightlifting competitions. Although it was still not popular in the United States, an increasing number of men and women began lifting weights to improve their physiques.

Starting in the early 1900’s, the Olympics took the world by storm. It soon became the greatest test of athleticism and strength. One of the centerpieces of the Olympics, that is a true testament of athleticism and strength, is weightlifting. Not only does it measure strength but it also measures skill and brute force. Out of all the countries competing, China stands above all its competitors. The greatest Olympic weightlifters reside in China. Lü Xiaojun, an example of Chinese weightlifting domination, is a three-time world champion and the current Olympic and world holder of the snatch in the 77-kilogram weight class. Now, one might ask, how do the Chinese continue to prevail against all competitors in weightlifting? The answer is simple. The five philosophies of Chinese Olympic weightlifting.

The history of weightlifting really started in the Olympics, back in 1896 when the Olympics were re-started weightlifting was one of the events. “Back then the only lifts they competed in where the one handed lifts and the two handed lifts, very unlike nowadays where Olympians compete in the power clean, squat, and bench press”. (Archibald) Weightlifting never really took off as a casual sport done by everybody for a long while after that, but there were men who went around with circuses and advertised themselves as the strongest men in the world and lifted weights for a living. When weightlifting was actually adopted as a casual sport every country did it different. The Russians lifted kettlebell-type weights for repetitions. The Scottish

A study by Brace-Govan (2004), focused on external factors that attempted to contain the interest and access to weightlifting as well as epiphanic moments during interview sessions. The article concluded that the sense of achievements through weightlifting was crucial to their identity. There were social controls outside the gym where women were judged upon because they were muscular however, it enables them to challenge the idea and prove that they can be strong too instead of conforming to the norms.

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

The history of bodybuilding started by Eugene Sandow born in Prussia in 1867 is known as “The Father of Bodybuilding”. Sandow was one of the first people in the history to reach this level of muscular perfection. At the age of 19, he was using body building as a form of entertainment by showing off his barbell and strong muscles. Soon enough Sandow had a large group of people following him, who were inspired by his strength and skills. The point of bodybuilding at this time was not so much for physical appearance but more for showing the audience the men strength. These entertainers were called strong men and they would often compete to see who was stronger than the other one. However many of these strong men were overweighted and unattractive in comparison of today expectation of a typical bodybuilder. It was still a while before the bodybuilding subculture that we know today with its emphasis on looks, muscles and strength were materialized.