Now, the goal of bodybuilding (i.e., strength, health and a well-formed, fit body) is not, properly, an end in itself.

The advantage of being fit, healthy and strong is that it enables one to better enjoy the goods, values and pleasures of human existence.

Love and sex are greatly enhanced by a well-built, powerfully fit body. Creative work becomes more pleasurable to do and enjoy, the fruits of one's labours can be more thoroughly appreciated and enjoyed because one is in a condition to LIVE.

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You will probably be a happier person and live a more complete, satisfying life if you consider INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT primary and physical development secondary, within reason of course. This applies to almost everyone; not just those who regard themselves as especially gifted or bright.

I don't want to imply that I believe muscles are for imbeciles or that intellectual development is strictly for geniuses. Our modern world offers intellectual rewards aplenty for just about everyone.

No matter what spectacular or outstanding level of physical development you achieve, you will NOT retain this peak throughout your life. Sadly, physical development, unlike intellectual development, levels off as one hits one's middle age, barring those fortunate enough to have great hereditary and biophysical advantages. It is not a "forever" thing.

The turn off that bodybuilding took a few decades ago, when it went the "steroid/size/nut route" was truly tragic. Just look at how it has, literally, made the word "bodybuilding" an emotive one! Mention "bodybuilder" and the majority of those sane people under the age of 40 who hear it will conjure an image of a gender-challenged, over-bloated, grotesque, drug-consuming freak, and they will likely be gripped with nausea. And who can blame them for having such a reaction? Gone is Grimek, Eifferman, Stanko, Park, Jowett, Sipes, Abele, etc. etc. and so forth. And the REAL Masters of the Iron Game (i.e. men like Rader, Hoffman, Paschall, and McCallum) have been replaced by goons.

It seems to me that one of the greatest services that can be rendered by those of us who love the healthy activity of bodybuilding — as it was in the 1920's, 30's, 40's, 50's, and throughout most of the 1960's — when the goal was genuine strength, vigorous good health, and physical efficiency and fitness

Bodybuilding, as an activity, was advanced as a health-building, character-building, and strength-as-well-as-muscl e-building pursuit. Real athletic/strength & muscle stars like Reg Park, Jim Park, John Grimek, Harry Paschall, Sig Klein, John Farbotnik, Steve Stanko, Louis Abele, Jules Bacon, Chuck Sipes, Jack LaLanne, and dozens of others, brought the gospel of sensible barbell and dumbbell training to boys and men everywhere. These heroes pushed sound and sensible routines, diets, and lifestyles. There were no steroids. Size was not everything, and only the odd man out was a “mirror athlete”. Back “then”, bodybuilders were men who not only possessed real muscle and strength; they were men who could do things with their muscle and strength. Jack LaLanne performed feats of endurance “back then” that any Navy SEAL would be hard pressed to duplicate today!

The number one cause of death in untimely or shocking deaths is the abuse of performance enhancing drugs. At times you will read apologists claiming that someone had an unknown genetic condition, or that they abused recreational drugs, but that ignores the fact that to compete in bodybuilding, athletes need to have a death wish. I do not have the education, nor the interest, in learning about the combinations or permutations of drugs that athletes use. All I know is that since the early 1980s, purists have claimed that athletes have become abnormally large, and abnormally lean.

Abnormally large and abnormally lean. Think about that. When Rich Gaspari stepped on stage in the 1980s with striated glutes, he did so to compete with the muscle mass of Lee Haney. Now ever bodybuilder worth their salt has to be as big and as lean as possible. What was once used to distinguish one body from another has now become the standard.

Bodybuilding has become a race to the bottom of the biological barrel and it is the athletes, not the promoters who suffer the most. After a series of high profile deaths and injuries in the late 1980s, the Weiders held a drug tested Mr. Olympia. It lasted for one year, in part because Vince McMahon decided to create an untested rival in the World Bodybuilding Federation. Where the Weiders partly attempted to curb drug use, McMahon claimed he was creating ‘bodybuilding as it should be’.

Bodybuilding as it should be. What does that mean? Especially in the present context? In the past decade multiple new divisions have been created ranging from classic to physique to everything in between. Competitors appear smaller and more proportioned in the first two to three years, and then they descend back into ‘mass monsters.’ Don’t get it twisted. Some of those competing in classic competitions would likely have been Mr. Olympia challengers in bygone eras.

Sandow and his judges explicitly said the man with the best overall health would win, not necessarily the man with the biggest muscles. Why? At that time, the early bodybuilders cared about overall health. Weightlifting and going to the gym was about the total reformation of the individual. It was meant to make you healthier, externally and internally. It was meant to make you calmer, more disciplined and more empathetic towards others.

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