[quote]rcsermas wrote:
When’s the last time any of you looked at ancient Greek sculpture? The athletes depicted are not all that muscular when compared to today’s standards. [/quote]
That’s what I was thinking. A lot of the statues just look like normal, lean people to me. The way a lot of people with manual jobs probably looked 50-100 years ago and many of them look today. Look at the guys who were considered “heavyweight” high school wrestlers 30-50 years ago. They weren’t huge.
[quote]conorh wrote:
rcsermas wrote:
When’s the last time any of you looked at ancient Greek sculpture? The athletes depicted are not all that muscular when compared to today’s standards.
That’s what I was thinking. A lot of the statues just look like normal, lean people to me. The way a lot of people with manual jobs probably looked 50-100 years ago and many of them look today. Look at the guys who were considered “heavyweight” high school wrestlers 30-50 years ago. They weren’t huge.[/quote]
IMHO, they are ideal. If I could look like that, well damn I’d be happy…
Man…this forum just cant fail…anyway ancient greeks had a diet mainly consisting of grains and small amount of meat, they did a lot of physical labor ect
I’m calling bullshit on the ‘no processed foods’ wannabe Poliquin-eat-like-your-ancestors tinfoil hat crowd.
(yes, I consider that a demographic. Fuck the census.)
What I think was was responsible for their possibly better, ‘ripped’ physiques was the fact that they did not eat ALL the time.
The feast/famine eating cycle they were on, plus the copius amounts of physical activity, lack of Segway scooters and text messaging and Myspace whoring, meant that they’d get their physical activity on top of having been without food for longer than we typically go, and that meant their bodies absorbed the nutrients better.
Plus, they’d get less nutrients - less calorically dense, nutrient dense - foods, so whatever was consumed would be efficiently put to use by their starving, active bodies.
I read the wrestlers used to eat pounds and pounds of lamb. Also they were athletes not manual workers. They trained naked so they had to look good.
The word gymnasium comes from the greek to “train naked”.
[quote]shugrblossm2 wrote:
Thanks guys (even the haters). I’ll read those threads.[/quote]
Greek athletes used NO Explode.
[quote]Rach2784 wrote:
Yeah, well I frequent both sites. I have posted on FA longer than on here. Every single thread has been on both sites, and she doesn’t really listen to the answers on either one…so it’s like she’s a double troll.[/quote]
That’s awesome, I’ve never seen a double troll before, except HH and his self-created alter ego.
Kudos!
[quote]big balls wrote:
I read the wrestlers used to eat pounds and pounds of lamb. Also they were athletes not manual workers. They trained naked so they had to look good.
The word gymnasium comes from the greek to “train naked”.[/quote]
So that’s the secret
No trousers at the gym from now on.
The ancient Greek athletes didn’t look like the statues. Ancient Greek statuary (well, Roman copies mostly) is based on systems of idealized proportions that approximate measurements of attractive body parts of different people, combine them together, and then tweak them to look good together.
The proportions are then tweaked again to look natural when viewed from below and distorted by perspective. What you see when you view these statues should not be taken as a realistic depiction of human form in ancient Greece.
In the 1970s and 1980s, during the “Golden Age of Bodybuilding”, Robert Mapplethorpe spent years searching for bodybuilders who came close to those proportions. In over a decade of photographing bodybuilders, only three people even came close, so he gave up and starting taking photos of statues.
I don’t know crap about the ancient Greeks, however, I am currently work with Ugandans (Africans) and am pretty sure it follows the same principles as the Greeks of yesteryear. As far as the Ugandans go, they are probably the mirror opposite of Americans. Where most of the people in the U.S. are fat with the minority being “fit”, the opposite can be said for the Ugandans.
This is due to their eating “naturally”…that is to say that nothing is processed, no sugars, no high fructose corn syrup…nothing but natural meats and grains etc. As a result of this and some hard labor, I would venture to say the “average” Ugandan that I work with (out of 500 people) would probably be in the 8-10% bf range. I am not talking about skinny…but ripped and muscular.
although the poster might be a troll or whatever…this is kind of an interesting question.i dont think spartans had any rest days which everyone says are very important…and they were known as the big strong warriors.
[quote]tplet wrote:
although the poster might be a troll or whatever…this is kind of an interesting question.i dont think spartans had any rest days which everyone says are very important…and they were known as the big strong warriors.[/quote]
Also… WTF?
[quote]tplet wrote:
although the poster might be a troll or whatever…this is kind of an interesting question.i dont think spartans had any rest days which everyone says are very important…and they were known as the big strong warriors.[/quote]
Have you not read any of the responses here???
[quote]tplet wrote:
although the poster might be a troll or whatever…this is kind of an interesting question.i dont think spartans had any rest days which everyone says are very important…and they were known as the big strong warriors.[/quote]
Oh for fucks sake.
The were pretty slim people who trained with swords not barbells on a daily basis!
Just use some common sense and look at our elite fighting units like the SEALS. Most are under 200lbs because all of the endurance and speed that is needed in war. Only once in a while do you get someone genetically gifted enough to be 230+ lbs and able to handle all of the running and swimming.
[quote]supabeast wrote:
In the 1970s and 1980s, during the “Golden Age of Bodybuilding”, Robert Mapplethorpe spent years searching for bodybuilders who came close to those proportions. In over a decade of photographing bodybuilders, only three people even came close, so he gave up and starting taking photos of statues.[/quote]
What??
If the proportions you are talking about are the ones often referred to as the Grecian Ideal and supposedly derived from the statues, the only difficulty in finding bodybuilders in the 70s and 80s being close to these proportions is that everyone of any competitive merit greatly EXCEEDED the ratios. In other words, had more dramatic physiques.
Even going back to the 50’s, Steve Reeves considerably exceeded the Grecian Ideal.
All Mapplethorpe would have had to do is find bb’ers at much lower competitive levels. Someone close to the Grecian proportions couldn’t do well at a major contest due to far too ordinary a physique and so of course if he was looking only at top competitors he found none matching. But the reason was different than you seem to think: not that bodybuilders didn’t come close to being as much developed, but that the Greek proportions weren’t close to being as much developed.
Heck, I when at low bodyfat am within about a half-inch of the “Grecian Ideal” on almost everything and an inch at worst. And I am very bog ordinary. It is quite ordinary for anyone lifting weights and is routinely exceeded by others with better – not needing to be extraordinary, just better but still within an average range – genetics.