Bodybuilding!

MUSCLE BUILDING FOR A LOW BODYFAT MUSCULAR PHYSIQUE

Bodybuilding – Few sports generate the degree of public bewilderment as muscle building. And few other sports have as many myths attached.

In the purist sense, bodybuilding is a sport where males and females stand on stage and compare their physiques to other competitors through a series of poses. Muscle building contests are divided into rounds with some rounds involving direct comparisons between the competitors and some rounds allowing competitors to pose individually to their own music.

The word muscle building can also mean to use weights and other resistance exercises to shape the body strictly for physical appearance. The individual may have no intentions of ever competing. They just want to have a muscular physique with a low bodyfat percentage.
The most recognized bodybuilder in the world is Arnold Schwarzenegger, who immigrated to the US in 1968. After winning the top titles (Mr Universe, Mr Olympia) multiple times, he turned to acting, and from the mid eighties to the late nineties was one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. Since 2003 he has been Governor of California.

Historical Views
Although bodybuilding as a pure sport didn’t start until the late 1930’s, muscle building as a means to improve athletic ability and appearance goes back thousands of years.

The Ancients
Trying to pinpoint exactly when the sport first came into being is difficult. Check with three different experts and you’ll get three different answers. If we use the classical definition as building an aesthetically pleasing physique, then we can thank the ancient Greeks and Romans who placed great emphasis on conditioning and development. For the Romans this development had a practical side to it – survival! The Roman Coliseum was no place for the meek and mild mannered. Being muscular was necessary for living! The Greeks had their “body builders” take a different approach to entertainment rather than public dismemberment. Instead of gladiators fighting animals and one another to the death, they created friendly sporting events between neighboring countries. These sporting events became so popular that they were resurrected in the late 1800’s and we know them today as the Olympics.

The Middle Ages

One of the most popular forms of entertainment during the middle ages was the traveling carnival. Besides the usual assortment of jugglers, freaks, and acrobats, such roving spectacles featured the strongmen. These beefy characters thrilled audiences with their exploits of great physical strength. Among their famous acts were the bending of iron spikes with their bare hands and the hoisting of heavy stones and other impressive objects. While most of these portly characters would never win “best abs” in a contest, a few of them did sport physiques that laid the foundation for what we now recognize as modern bodybuilding. As time went on those strongmen who took pride in their appearance formed a separate group who began to recognize the evils that the Industrial Revolution was inflicting on the human body. They were called “physical culturists” and the most famous was Eugene Sandow.

Eugene Sandow – Bodybuilding’s first star

With a reputation as one of Europe’s best-built strongmen, Sandown was convinced by Florenz Ziegfeld to go on tour in America. What separated Sandown from most of his beer hall contemporaries, was his great physique built using various muscle building exercises. With a low bodyfat percentage down in the single digits, Sandown thrilled American audiences by stepping into a glass booth and posing. Over the next couple of decades Sandow would earn thousands of dollars posing and competing. Sandow’s popularity is credited with starting the first boom in dumbell sales and establishment of physical culture training centers. The winners of many contests received a stature of Sandow for their efforts. This trend continues to this day with the winner of the Mr Olympia receiving the Sandow statue.

Charles Atlas – Don’t kick sand in my face

With physical culture contests growing by leaps and bounds it wasn’t long before promoters and publishers got in on the act. The most influential at the turn of the century was Bernarr Macfadden. As Joe Weider would do decades later, Macfadden created Physical culture magazine and then in 1903, the America’s Most Perfectly Developed Man, contest. After a run of successful contests, the stage was set in 1921 for the sport of bodybuilding to take a joint leap forward. The winner was a young man by the name of Angelo Siciliano. Today we know him as Charles Atlas.

Unlike the European-born Sandow, Atlas had the American sense of free enterprise ingrained in his soul. He put together a muscle building course and called it Dynamic Tension. Recognizing that teenage males would be the biggest customer base, he designed a comic book ad that showed a skinny young male getting sand kicked in his face by a larger bully. After being intimated in front of his girl, the humiliated teen orders Atlas’s training course and after building his body drops the bully with one punch a few weeks later. The ad struck a nerve and by the early 1970’s Atlas’s Dynamic tension course had sold over six million copies!
Despite the phenomenal success of Dynamic Tension, Atlas rarely practiced the typed of training himself (the program was based on a series of static contraction exercises involving no moment). He was a traditionalist who primarily built his muscular physique using barbells and dumbells (1).

Bodybuilding comes of age

Despite the success of physical culturist contests that emphasized muscularity, competitors still had to perform some sort of athletic event such as handstands, chin-ups, or acrobatics. But in the early 1930’s the emphasis began to shift towards pure bodybuilding, with the winner being chosen based primarily on physical appearance. The first AAU Mr America contest was held in 1939, and while competitors came from such backgrounds as judo, wrestling, and gymnastics, it soon became apparent that those who built their physiques primarily with weights, had the advantage.

The most dominant bodybuilder of the early 1940’s was John Grimek, who won the Mr America in 1940 and 1941. Grimek built his physique almost exclusively from weight lifting and once word got around, gyms (as physical culture centers were now being called) everywhere began filling with aspiring Mr Americas.
If Grimek was the first true bodybuilder in terms of how he built his physique, then the title of the first massive bodybuilder goes to Clancy Ross. Unlike others who used weightlifting to build strength (with the great physique just happening to be a side effect,), Ross used weights exclusively for muscle building. Even by today’s muscle size and low bodyfat standards Ross was impressive.

Ross became so dominant during the 1940’s that he served as a role model for the next generation of  superstars including the first bodybuilder to popularize the sport to the general public – Steve Reeves.

Steve Reeves – Epitome of the Greek ideals.

When he walked the beaches of Southern California, crowds stopped and stared. Guys were jealous and women swooned. With his movie-star looks and classical Greek body, Reeves was the first bodybuilder to have mass public appeal. After winning both the Mr America and Mr Universe titles, Reeves went on to become one of Hollywood’s biggest stars in the 1950’s staring in such movies as Hercules and Thief of Baghdad.

The 50’s and 60’s
By the early 1950’s the first generation of bodybuilders were either retired or in Hollywood. But a whole new generation of stars was emerging and where the previous emphasis was on symmetry and classical symmetry, the new stars such as Reg Park, Bill Pearl, and Chuck Sipes, embodied mass.
By the 1960’s the sport of bodybuilding had exploded and many of the sport’s all-time greats made their competitive debuts. While Park and Pearl where still competitive, such other stars as Rick Wayne, Harold Poole, Dave Draper, Denis Tinerino, Frank Zane, and Freddy Oritz, has emerged. The biggest name of the early to mid 1960’s was Larry Scott. With his California good-looks and perfectly proportioned 20-inch arms, and low bodyfat, Larry won the first two Mr Olympia titles in 1965 and 1966.

Larry’s 1966 win was memorable as it featured one of the all-time freaks of the sport, Sergio Oliva. Sergio was a refuge from Castro’s Cuba and was nicknamed the Myth because of his unbelievable amount of muscle mass. With arms larger than his head, shoulders that seemed to be a yard wide, and a waist that couldn’t be more than 28-inch inches, Sergio dominated the sport in the late 1960’s winning the coveted Mr Olympia title from 1967 to 1969.

The Oak’s shadow

Just as Sergio’s second place finish to Larry Scott in 1966 signaled the start of a new reign, so too did Arnold Schwarzenegger’s runner-up to Oliva in 1969, warn the public of things to come. After dominating European bodybuilding during the mid-sixties, Arnold came to the USA to begin his quest for the American Dream. A second place finish to a much smaller Frank Zane at the 1968 Mr Universe, didn’t deter him, and he honed and polished his physique to 235-pounds of perfection. Arnold won the Mr Olympia from 1970 to 1975 and again in 1980.

Arnold didn’t just evolve the sport; he revolutionized it. In 1975 he became the star of the ground-breaking documentary Pumping Iron. This was the first serious profile of the sport, and thanks to Arnold’s onscreen charisma, helped market it to the masses.
Also staring in Pumping Iron were such other 1970’s great as Franco Columbu (Arnold’s great friend and training partner), Robby Robinson, Ken Waller, Mike Katz, and Lou Ferrgino. Lou deserves mention as despite being just 19 years old, stood 6”5’ and weighed 260 pounds. Lou would go on to Hollywood fame starting in a number of movies and a TV series as The Incredible Hulk.

A New Look

When Arnold retired in 1975, the sport’s top prize, the Mr Olympia title, was up for grabs. After standing in Arnold’s shadow for years, 5”5’ 180-pound Franco Columbu, took the title in 1976. Unlike his Austrian friend, however, Franco decided not to defend his title in 1977, and seasoned veteran, Frank Zane took top honors. Frank was a perfect example of what hard work and determination could accomplish. Frank never had the genetics for building a huge amount of muscle mass, but instead built one of the most perfectly proportioned low bodyfat physiques in the history of the sport. To this day many feel that Frank epitomizes what the male physique should look like. Frank set the standard for muscle building in the late 1970’s winning the Mr Olympia title from 1977 to 1979.

Two new directions

The two biggest developments during the 1980’s where the emergence of female bodybuilding as a legitimate branch of the sport, and the reclassifying of the titles. Fitness contests for women had been tied to men’s contests for decades. But the emphasis was always on shape and feminine form rather than women who looked muscular. That all changed in the 1970’s when Lisa Lyon burst on the scene. Unlike most previous contestants Lyon used weight training for muscle building, and while at first considered a curiosity, it wasn’t long before other females began emulating her.
To capitalize on the growing popularity the first Ms Olympia was created in 1980 (won by Rachel McLish) and a whole new generation of female stars began to emerge.
The other major change in the early 1980’s was the reclassifying of contests from “Mr” titles to “championship” titles. To bring the sport more in line with other sports, the Mr America became the US Nationals, state titles such as Mr California became the California Championships, the Amateur Mr Universe became the World Championships, and the Pro Mr Universe became the Arnold Classic. Besides the title changes, a lucrative Grand Prix circuit was set up to allow pro bodybuilders to earn extra income from the sport. Most are now held in Europe after the Mr Olympia show, which usually runs in late Sept/early October.

Into the 80’s

The 1980’s started with controversy for the sport of bodybuilding as Arnold came out of retirement and won the 1980 Mr Olympia title. Arnold had been training for his first big Hollywood movie, Conan the Barbarian, and decided to enter the Mr Olympia at the last minute. Besides being down in mass (anywhere from 10 to 20 pounds) Arnold relied on a posing routine “out of the seventies.” These deficiencies were highlighted by the tremendous shape of his opponents including Mike Mentzer, Chris Dickerson, and Boyer Coe. Yet when it was all over, Arnold had won the contest for a record seventh time.
If Arnold’s 1980 win created debate, Franco Columbu’s 1981 win was met with disarray. Franco was not at his best (particularly his legs), while his opponents such as Chris Dickerson, Tom Platz, Roy Callender, and Danny Padilla, where in the best shapes of their lives.

The 1982 and 1983 Mr Olympias were won by Chris Dickerson and Samir Bannout. For Chris it was the high point of a muscle building career that started back in the 1960’s. After placing second to both Arnold and Franco in 1980 and 1981, Chris came close to retiring, but working on the assumption that lightening couldn’t strike a third time, he put it all on the line and won the 1982 show.

In 1983 bodybuilding’s biggest contest was won by Lebanon-born, Samir Bannout. While carrying 10 to 15 pounds more than Zane, Samir had Zane’s classic lines and low bodyfat, and presented the judges with a near-flawless physique. The third place finisher that night was a young new-comer named Lee Haney, who starting the very next year, did what most thought impossible; break Arnold’s record of seven Mr Olympia titles.

Mass Appeal
After winning the 1982 Nationals and placing third to Samir Bannout at the 1983 Mr Olympia, Atlanta’s 250-pound Lee Haney, started his own record run of Mr Olympia titles. By 1991 he had become bodybuilding’s new Mr Olympia king with eight titles to his credit. Like Schwarzenegger a decade before, Haney dominated the sport with a unique combination of muscular size, proportions, and stage presence. Other competitors may have had more in one category, but Lee had the entire package.

The 1990’s and beyond
It seems placing second at the Mr Olympia sometimes has its rewards as Lee Haney’s last win in 1991 saw the emergence of the sport’s next superstar, England’s Dorian Yates. Standing 5”11’ and weighing a then unheard of 265 pounds, Dorian Yates raised the mass bar a notch higher. Yates was also unique in that he was the first Mr Olympia not based in the US to win the crown. Training at Temple Gym in Birmingham, England, Yates kept to himself and only came to America to defend his title or do seminars. Yates six-year run was not a cakewalk as nipping at his heals were some of the decades greatest bodybuilders including Paul Dillett, Vince Taylor, Flex Wheeler, Lee Priest, Nasser El Sonbaty, Kevin Lervone, and Shawn Ray.

Few in the audience at the 1997 Mr Olympia paid much attention to the 9th place finisher, Ronnie Coleman. With Dorian winning his sixth title and guys like Shawn Ray, Kevin Lervone, and Nasser El Sonbaty, in the best shape of their lives, Ronnie got lost in the shuffle. Not so one year when he stepped on the bodybuilding stage sporting 260-pounds of striated muscle. Since that less than spectacular 9th place finish in 1997, Ronnie has won every Mr Olympia title and is the odds on favorite to win a record 9th title in the fall of 2006.

A sport?
The reason some people dismiss bodybuilding as a sport is because they confuse it with powerlifting or Olympic lifting. Unlike those two sports where rankings are based on how much each competitor can lift, bodybuilding is more subjective and based on the competitor’s appearance.
Although it’s taken a while, most people agree that muscle building is a sport. Certainly if gymnastics and figure skating are sports then so too must bodybuilding. All three sports involve intense training, healthy eating, and dedication. Also, all three have posing routines set to music, and the winners are determined by a panel of judges.
As with most sports, there are numerous federations, the largest of which is the IFBB (International Federation of Bodybuilders). The sport’s most sought-after title is the Mr Olympia, first held in 1965.

Bodybuilding’s big three – Training, Nutrition, Contest preparation

Training
Bodybuilding training can be divided into the off-season and on-season (more commonly called the precontest phase). During the off-season the goal is muscle building - to gain as much muscular mass as possible. Bodybuilders do this by training heavy. They usually train different muscle groups on different days, doing basic exercises for low reps (a rep being one complete lift of an exercise. Although machines are incorporated, most bodybuilders prefer to use barbells and dumbells. About three months out from a contest, bodybuilders switch over to higher reps and perform more isolation exercises to bring out their muscularity, with the emphasis on achieving extremely low bodyfat levels.

 Nutrition.
As with training, there is an off-season and precontest phase to eating. During the off-season bodybuilders eat enormous amounts of food to fuel their intense workouts and provide the necessary nutrients for growth. Most bodybuilders take in anywhere from 600 to 1000 calories above their basal metabolism. Besides eating bodybuilders also consume a wide variety of supplements including protein, creatine, and glutamine.
During the precontest phase bodybuilders cut their calories to help shed the bodies of fat. They do this because bodybuilding contests are judged on muscularity as much as size. Muscle size is only valuable in a contest if it is not covered by a layer of fat.

Timing
Whether off-season or precontest, bodybuilders don’t eat like the average person. They don’t skip breakfast, have a small lunch, and then a huge calorie-loaded supper. Instead they break their eating down into five or six small meals. Doing so insures that there are always muscle building nutrients in the body. Smaller more frequent meals also keep the body’s fat-storing mechanisms turned off. When the body goes more than a couple of hours without food it thinks that it’s in a period of starvation. Storage-promoting hormones are released and more calories than normal will be stored as fat when you do finally eat. But by eating every two or three hours these storage mechanisms never turn on.

Protein
Bodybuilders consider protein their best friend. Protein is made up of smaller subunits called amino acids. Amino acids can be subdivided into essential and nonessential. Essential means that the body cannot manufacture them from other amino acids and they must be consumed in the diet. Nonessential amino acids can be synthesized from other amino acids. Animal products are considered the best sources of protein as they contain all the amino acids. With the exception of soy protein, plant sources are deficient in one or more amino acids. The best sources of protein for muscle building are red meat, fish, chicken, eggs, and dairy products. Bodybuilders find that they can maximize their strength and size gains by eating at least 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight. Protein is absolutely vital for building muscle and obtaining low bodyfat levels.

Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates also called carbs are the body’s primary fuel source. Carbs can be divided into simple carbs called sugars and complex carbs. Bodybuilders try to keep their intake of simple carbs low since simple carbs are absorbed and released into the blood stream much faster than complex carbs. This also means that they will be stored as fat quicker as well. Complex carbs such as whole wheat breads, pastas, and rice, are released much more slowly and tend to be burned as an energy source rather than stores as fat.

Fats
As with carbs, fats can be subdivided into two categories – saturated and unsaturated. Saturated fats deserve the bad reputation they get and lead to heart disease, stroke, and numerous other health problems. Bodybuilders do everything in their power to eliminate saturated fat from their diets. Unsaturated fats include the essential fatty acids. These fats are essential to life and play a vital role in the endocrine, cardiovascular, and nervous systems. The best sources of unsaturated fats are deep-sea fish and plant oils.

Supplements
Besides food, bodybuilders are famous for their consumption of food supplements. Supplements can be divided into two types – nutrient replacers and performance enhancers. The most well-known nutrient replacers are vitamins and minerals, Amino acids, and protein. Performance enhancers include creatine, glutamine, and pro-hormones. Creatine is the most popular bodybuilding supplement and is taken by bodybuilders to boost energy as well as muscular size. Glutamine increases protein synthesis and boosts the immunity system. Prohormones are now classified as illegal drugs but are still used to boost hormone levels (2, 3).

Bodybuilding Drugs
Bodybuilding is no different than other sports in that some members turn to drugs to get a competitive advantage. The most well-known drugs are anabolic steroids. These powerful agents were designed to mimic the actions of the male hormone testosterone. Bodybuilders started using them when they heard about their muscle building properties. Other drugs used are thyroid drugs for achieving low bodyfat, Growth hormone to increase muscle size, and insulin to increase amino acid transport and hence protein synthesis.

Rest and recuperation
Most bodybuilding success doesn’t take place in the gym. It takes place afterwards while the person is resting. During training muscle tissue is broken down. Then later the body rebuilds it but slightly thicker and stronger. Over time this tearing down and building up produces massive gains in strength and size. But if the individual doesn’t allow adequate rest between workouts, full recovery doesn’t take place. The end result is that the individual’s muscle never gets larger. If the bodybuilder goes extended periods of time with proper rest intervals he may slip into a state of overtraining. During overtraining, muscular size may not only stop, it may even reverse. Severe states of overtraining can lead to muscle wasting. In this case the body will burn muscle tissue as a fuel source. When this happens the only solution is taking time off (4).

Bodybuilders have numerous strategies to prevent overtraining including splitting their training into body parts, eating enormous amounts of food, and most important, allow sufficient time between workouts.

References
1) Thorne, G; Embleton, P; The MuscleMag International Encyclopedia of Bodybuilding, Canusa Publications, 1997.

2) Wagenmakers AJ, Muscle amino acid metabolism at rest and during exercise: Role in human physiology and metabolism. Exercise & sport Science Rev. 1998;26:287-314.

3) Rennie Mj et al. Glutamine metabolism and transport in skeletal muscle and heat and their clinical relevance. J. Nutr. 126: p1142S-1149S, 1996.

4) Kraemer et al. Hormonal responses to consecutive days of heavy-resistance exercise with or without nutritional supplementation. Journal of Applied Physiology. 85 (4):1544. 1998.