[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
I’m not shunning or avoiding it. I just relate the term to competition.
It’s probably in large part because I won’t call myself one, because I don’t feel I live up to it.[/quote]
That’s all well and good. The only reason I even see myself like that now is because of the level of size acheived. Other people tend to let you know what you look like quite clearly. This is internet nonsense for the most part.
Most of us know a bodybuilder when we see one. None of us would see some guy walking into a store with 22" arms and assume we needed to check to see if he competed first before we described him as a “bodybuilder” to someone else.
I honestly think the only reason people do it online is because they can use it to degrade what someone else has accomplished.
Vic Richards competed as a teenager. He avoided comps as an adult, was well educated and never needed to rely on competitions for a living. For that, he gets faceless people on the net calling him a coward and saying he isn’t a bodybuilder.
It would be really cool if we could move past that.
I don’t need to check someone’s competition record to be able to look at them and see if they are a bodybuilder.
If you do, then chances are, you are missing what bodybuilding is really about.
There are tons of unimpressive people who have competed. they are not more of a “bodybuilder” than the impressively built people who don’t compete.