What is Bodybuilding to T-Nation?

Training
121

[quote]Jab1 wrote:
My take is that it depends on your goals.

If you are mainly trying to get bigger muscles and look better then to me you are a bodybuilder. If your main goal is more muscular size, you’re a bodybuilder. Zyzz was a bodybuilder but never competed. Lots of people are “bodybuilding” with no intention of ever stepping on stage; their primary goal is just looking better and getting bigger.

My primary goal is performance so I don’t call myself a bodybuilder, but I use a lot of bodybuilding methodology. But it’s like, Ronnie Coleman used a lot of powerlifting methodology (we’ve all seen those low rep deadlifts) but his PRIMARY goal was getting huge and ripped, so he was a bodybuilder.

Competing doesn’t necessarily make you a bodybuilder. But it can make you a COMPETITIVE bodybuilder.

This way the words are useful and meaningful. If someone says they are a bodybuilder then you know their main goal is getting more muscular and looking better. Doesn’t mean they don’t care about strength or performance or whatever… Same goes for all the other labels. They’re useful descriptors but they don’t tell the whole story.

I don’t like the way some people seem so set on putting up artificial divisions… I prefer to look for commonalities rather than differences. Pretty much all of us here want to get bigger and look better, even if that isn’t our main focus. Some are bodybuilders, some powerlifters, some gym rats but we all share at least some training elements and we all look just as weird to regular people.

We all lift weights and battle the metal.

That’s why it is not a “brotherhood of bodybuilders” or a “brotherhood of powerlifters” but a Brotherhood of IRON. [/quote]
Do you always have to be the voice of reason?

plz respond

122

[quote]want2getlean wrote:
Topic has absolutely turned to shit in the last few pages.

What was otherwise a good discussion, has YET AGAIN turned into an outlet for Steely and X to infuse themselves with drama at any given chance and cry about how all people are idiots for not agreeing with or enjoying what they are doing.[/quote]
Stop being a troll, the discussion has been fine.

123

[quote]spar4tee wrote:
Do you always have to be the voice of reason?

plz respond[/quote]
responding <3

And yes, yes I do. Sorry.

124

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]Maiden3.16 wrote:

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]Maiden3.16 wrote:

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[/quote]

I must have missed the joke.

You haven’t explained why you would care if a guy who looks like a bodybuilder calls himself one.

You care a bit much for some reason.[/quote]

You are the one here concerned about what people look like. I’m concerned with what they actually are. If someone wants to misrepresnt themselves as a bodybuilder just because they look like one to the average joe that’s fine, but that doesn’t mean they are one.

None of my comments have been personal, but you seem to be taking them that way.[/quote]

What someone actually is?

Uh, if someone trains with the specific goal of building themselves up in proportion and does so to the tune of looking like a “bodybuilder”, I would say they are a bodybuilder who hasn’t competed.

I mean, that is what they are, right?

How is it “misrepresentation” if that person called themselves a “non-competitive bodybuilder”?

Also, this is bodybuilding, how can it NOT be about what someone looks like?

No one cares if the guy with no muscles competed. No one would really call him a “bodybuilder” but act like the guy standing next to him with 22" arms who looks like Phil Heath can’t dare call themselves that.

Honestly, you only see that crap on the internet. This NEVER…I mean NEVER comes up in real life in the gym.[/quote]

So, the kid who started at 130 lbs but, is now 135 lbs is a bodybuilder? I mean he is building muscle, he is in the process.

I think there is a point when you become a bodybuilder but, you must look the part.

If I pick up the violin I am not a Violinist, if I take some lessons? No. If I learn a few simple tunes? No. When I can read music and play what ever the hell I want? Yes.

125

I think the baseball/bodybuilding argument is flawed.

Baseball is a sport comprised of a whole bunch of elements, throwing being one of them, but it’s not the only element. And it’s entirely centered around performance, actions.

Bodybuilding’s essence is physical appearance, and in competition, it’s based on subjective judging of that appearance. The actual day-of-competition experience, what a competitor is judged on, is SOLELY based on what they look like that day. It doesn’t matter to a judge how you got to your appearance, what weights you can lift/have lifted/what you ate/etc.

‘Playing baseball’ is an actual event that occurs over the course of a few hours. Baseball is a competition in and of itself. But a bodybuilding competition is NOT synonymous with bodybuilding, which I take to be the process leading up to competition.

Just some thoughts.

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So if I eat a bunch of food, stay sedentary until I look virtually untrained and start dipping can I say I’m a baseball player cause I look like one?

trololololol

127

Zyzz was a physique model and a tool… Not a bodybuilder.

Trololololol x2 (but srsly)

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[quote]flipcollar wrote:
I think the baseball/bodybuilding argument is flawed.

Baseball is a sport comprised of a whole bunch of elements, throwing being one of them, but it’s not the only element. And it’s entirely centered around performance, actions.

Bodybuilding’s essence is physical appearance, and in competition, it’s based on subjective judging of that appearance. The actual day-of-competition experience, what a competitor is judged on, is SOLELY based on what they look like that day. It doesn’t matter to a judge how you got to your appearance, what weights you can lift/have lifted/what you ate/etc.

‘Playing baseball’ is an actual event that occurs over the course of a few hours. Baseball is a competition in and of itself. But a bodybuilding competition is NOT synonymous with bodybuilding, which I take to be the process leading up to competition.

Just some thoughts.[/quote]

I’m not saying it’s a perfect analogy, just the best I could come up with at the time haha. Yes the actual contest is very different from what you do leading up to it, but it is still part of the sport. So the basic point is how can somone be a bodybuilder without actually participating in all aspects of the sport at least one time?

129

Just to argue with myself a little since I am on a roll…

I think the best argument for somone that hasn’t competed has that they are a bodybuilder is to say that bodybuilding is not a sport, but an activity or hobby such as smoking cigars or hunting. I smoke cigars, therefore I am a cigar smoker. I hunt deer, there for I am a deer-hunter. I bodybuild, therefore I am a bodybuilder.

But if we consider bodybuilding a sport, then to be one you have to have competed in the sport at some level at least one time. IMO ofcoarse.

130

On a serious note… As Dave Chapelle would say: “i keeps it reeeeeeeeeal…”

My question is: Who cares what other people’s definitions are? So what if some people that you don’t even know in real life don’t classify you as a BBer? You do you and let people on the Internet think what they will.

I dont know about you guys but I got into the iron game for me and could care less if someone thinks I’m weak/small/fat/skinny/whatever. I’m about improving myself everyday I’m in the gym.

131

According to some of you, Vic Richards is NOT a bodybuilder.

132

[quote]Iron Dwarf wrote:
According to some of you, Vic Richards is NOT a bodybuilder.[/quote]

This is EXACTLY why ‘competitive’ and ‘non-competitive’ can both be applied to the world Bodybuilder. One adjective turns a lot of the argument into semantics.

133

[quote]Maiden3.16 wrote:

But if we consider bodybuilding a sport, then to be one you have to have competed in the sport at some level at least one time. IMO ofcoarse. [/quote]

^I think this is an interesting point. Is the actual competition the sporting aspect, or is it the training and prep leading up to the actual contest? And if so, what about a ‘baseball player’ who trains all off-season in preparation of his big day with a pro team, but then due to some unforeseen circumstance never ever end up playing a single actual game. Can he call himself a baseball player?

(I"m actually enjoying reading the intelligent opinions in this thread)

S

134

[quote]Iron Dwarf wrote:
According to some of you, Vic Richards is NOT a bodybuilder.[/quote]

1992 Nigerian Championships – 1st and Overall
1989 Mr. Barbados – 1st
1984 California Gold Cup Classic – 1st
1983 Teen Los Angeles – 1st
1982 American Cup – 2nd

Didn’t Vic Richards compete in all of these shows? Under no one heres definitions would Richards NOT be considered a bodybuilder.

135

[quote]Maiden3.16 wrote:

I think the best argument for somone that hasn’t competed has that they are a bodybuilder is to say that bodybuilding is not a sport, but an activity or hobby such as smoking cigars or hunting. I smoke cigars, therefore I am a cigar smoker. I hunt deer, there for I am a deer-hunter. I bodybuild, therefore I am a bodybuilder.

But if we consider bodybuilding a sport, then to be one you have to have competed in the sport at some level at least one time. IMO ofcoarse. [/quote]

As an outsider who doesn’t have a horse in the race (I consider myself a weighlifter who values the positive changes it has on my body both from a physique and health standpoint), this is one of the more intelligent things I’ve read. Bodybuilding for %99.99997 of the population is an avocation. If someone asks me what I do, I tell them I’m a trader. If they ask me what I do outside of work for fun, I tell them weightlifting. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for someone who lifts weights with the primary goal of physique enhancement to reply in a similar situation that they enjoy bodybuilding, and therefore can consider themselves a bodybuilder much like a hacker could call himself a golfer, or a weekend catcher of fish could call himself a fisherman.

You would never see an arguement like this on a fishing/hunting/golfing website, it’s inane.

136

[quote]gregron wrote:

[quote]Iron Dwarf wrote:
According to some of you, Vic Richards is NOT a bodybuilder.[/quote]

1992 Nigerian Championships – 1st and Overall
1989 Mr. Barbados – 1st
1984 California Gold Cup Classic – 1st
1983 Teen Los Angeles – 1st
1982 American Cup – 2nd

Didn’t Vic Richards compete in all of these shows? Under no one heres definitions would Richards NOT be considered a bodybuilder.[/quote]

lol, you have to admit, he got ya there ID, :wink:

137

[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:

Is the actual competition the sporting aspect, or is it the training and prep leading up to the actual contest? [/quote]

Like I said, I feel like it’s the training and prep for sure. That’s the “sport”, not standing around onstage - again, the posing and muscle control are important aspects that can’t be overlooked or minimized, but realistically it’s all the training and prep leading in…

138

[quote]heavythrower wrote:

[quote]gregron wrote:

[quote]Iron Dwarf wrote:
According to some of you, Vic Richards is NOT a bodybuilder.[/quote]

1992 Nigerian Championships – 1st and Overall
1989 Mr. Barbados – 1st
1984 California Gold Cup Classic – 1st
1983 Teen Los Angeles – 1st
1982 American Cup – 2nd

Didn’t Vic Richards compete in all of these shows? Under no one heres definitions would Richards NOT be considered a bodybuilder.[/quote]

lol, you have to admit, he got ya there ID, ;)[/quote]

Thing about Vic is that he never competed as a pro - not that he never competed in his life.

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389×640 31.7 KB

^^These are my shooting fish… in a barrel

[quote]heavythrower wrote:

[quote]gregron wrote:

[quote]Iron Dwarf wrote:
According to some of you, Vic Richards is NOT a bodybuilder.[/quote]

1992 Nigerian Championships – 1st and Overall
1989 Mr. Barbados – 1st
1984 California Gold Cup Classic – 1st
1983 Teen Los Angeles – 1st
1982 American Cup – 2nd

Didn’t Vic Richards compete in all of these shows? Under no one heres definitions would Richards NOT be considered a bodybuilder.[/quote]

lol, you have to admit, he got ya there ID, ;)[/quote]

You know gregron has love for ID… I just couldnt resist

140

here, Ill put it another way…

i trained at some pretty hard core dungeon gyms when I was younger and competing in PL and OLing.

there were lots of “bros” that were big and strong, but never competed. often after a contest, they would ask how i did, i would tell them, and the responses often were like:

“thats all you benched/squatted/pulled? hell, i could do more than that, i have done more than that just the other day, i should have entered that meet”

blah blah…

well it takes a lot more to be a PL than just to bench squat and deadlift heavy. you have to prepare yourself to do be your best at all three on the same day, while making weight, and perform when your name is called, not when you are ready, and to perform to the satisfaction of judges, etc.

cant tell you how many times i was nursing an injury while training for a meet, and come meet day, on at least one of my lifts i was not 100%

its one thing to train regularly and have a particularly good day at the gym when you are feeling good, nothing is sore and hurting, had plenty of rest, etc. and hit a big number on one of the lifts, it is quite another to prepare yourself to do your best and hit prs in all three lifts on a predetermined day under competition rules/judging standards.

hope that made sense.