Dave Draper’s Musclebuilding Q&A

The sport of modern bodybuilding I feel is blemished and tarnished compared to what is often called the glory days. How do you feel about competitive bodybuilding these days?

You are not alone in viewing the bodybuilding scene as if from the outside looking in. The subjects we see being glorified on stage and in the mags represent a relatively small subculture and I thus regard them as such. I liken them to NASCAR autos screaming around oval courses or Monster Trucks careening across mounds of dirt… spectators wild-eyed and cheering. They are modified, amplified, totally committed performers and they have accomplished their deeds with great zeal and sacrifice. They are truly impressive. Wow!

But as beings walking the surface of the earth pursuing muscle and might they have in effect missed the boat. They have become the boat. Grand as their pursuits are, they are confined to a small and tight circle, and I’m not sure it’s the center of the target.

You and I and our mates lift for a hundred reasons, a few of them the same as the pros (muscle and might), but many are different — health, fitness, authentic development, real discipline, earned patience and long-suffering perseverance, honorable self-achievement; a day at the beach, the cool fit of a tank top, the first rep of the first set of an honest to goodness workout… lifting weights for the rewards of lifting weights.

Stay afloat under your own power and love for the sport, the challenge, the action, the hard-gained mass, muscularity and might. What’s yours is yours. Be strong, be generous, be unafraid and be safe.

Go… Godspeed… Bomber Draper, Dave P.