Bodybuilding – Physique Competition – is what the general public thinks we do here at Starting Strength. And lots of people who should know better think the same thing. The image of a tanned Frank Zane or an Arnold in contest shape with sub-5% bodyfat and pleasingly-symmetrical large muscles is burned into the brains of the vast majority of the human race as the pinnacle of what is known as “Physical Culture” – a catchall term used to refer to the structured pursuit of exercise, and especially strength training, for its own sake. Powerlifting and Olympic lifting are competitive sports, whereas Physical Culture denotes areas of special interest within all facets of regular programmed exercise that become regarded as a lifestyle choice.

Bodybuilding is not a “sport,” even though it involves very hard physical preparation – there is no physical component to the competition itself, and the competition is judged solely on the basis of aesthetics. It is quite literally a Beauty Pageant. It has been popularized at the checkout stands of America's grocery stores since the 1970s, and Arnold's image is familiar to everyone in Western Civilization since that time. The Weider people did their jobs very well, to the extent that every male who started training with weights had Arnold's physique in mind. Thin tanned skin, visible abs, tall biceps muscle bellies, quad separation, wide shoulders with capstone delts, pecs like twin shields, flaring lats, and big calves were the images in all our minds at the time, because that was the image sold to us on the checkout stands.

---

The Magazines (I realize that magazines have been replaced by the internet, but I am very old and you get my meaning) did a great job of selling us a product that most of us could never buy, no matter how much money we threw at it. Because the hard reality of the situation is that Championship Physiques are born, not trained.

I'm not saying that Arnold and Zane didn't train hard. Not at all. They obviously did. But what you have to realize – and what the Magazines refused to tell you – is that a physique that wins even a state-level bodybuilding contest is a product of genetic endowment, not training in the sense that we use the term. Strength can be improved through training for every human on the planet (absent significant pathology), while the qualities that place you first in the physique show are anthropometric proportion, muscle shape and insertion position, skin thickness, bodyfat distribution, and good old-fashioned handsomeness – inaccessible to people unfortunate enough to be “average” with respect to these qualities. The Genetic Lottery is the key determinant of an upper-level physique.

This is not to say that the programs followed by most bodybuilders won't result in aesthetic improvement in people who apply themselves with dedication. Anything is better than nothing, especially for a novice trainee. But these programs invariably focus on “bodypart” training, which divides the body into the perceived separate parts that the judges look for on the stage: Arms, chest, abs, lats or “back,” thighs, and calves. These parts are then trained separately, because if you don't skip “leg day” or “chest day” or “bis and tris,” your whole physique is developed, surely.

Or so the thinking goes, and has gone for decades. It may hold true for advanced competitors who are already big and strong for various reasons, but bodypart training alone will not make a novice trainee big and strong. This was the product being sold at the checkout stand, you bought it, and it remains an impediment to your strength development, and in fact to your physique development as well.

Breaking your physique into the bodyparts you see in the mirror and training them separately is not the most efficient way to get the job done, for a very simple reason: that's not the way the body works. The separate muscle groups are always participants in a much larger group of anatomical components that create motion between the ground and the object you are reacting to or against. Squatting down and standing back up is not merely a function of your quads, but rather your abs, upper back, low back, hips, quads, hamstrings, and calves. All of this muscle mass squats, and if all you see is quads, that's the Magazine talking.

Strength training is best thought of as normal human movement patterns subjected to incrementally increasing load over time. Squatting down and standing up, picking something up, pushing something overhead or away from you, and pulling something toward you are the movements we train, and they leave nothing out of the picture. And as the entire kinetic chain gets strong, the entire physique looks better. Humans are wired to appreciate the appearance of strength, a very old evolutionary adaptation to ensure the best outcome in reproductive choices. A strong man looks better than a weak man – it has always been this way. And some people just start out bigger and stronger than other people. This is not their fault, and it's not yours either.

Getting your deadlift to 550 and your squat to 475 will make more difference in the appearance of your physique than all of the separate muscle group work you can ever do on machines. Ask Ronnie Coleman, 8-time Mr. Olympia and 800+ deadlifter.

Stop thinking of the individual components of the body, and start thinking about the movement patterns that use the whole body and the process that allows the whole body to get stronger. The deadlift contributes more to the appearance of your physique than a preacher curl, and training your deadlift to 550 allows you to focus on the process of adding 5 pounds per workout and many pounds of muscle, instead of trying to lose another 2% bodyfat while driving everybody around you crazy (you're doing that, whether you realize it or not). A really strong man at 12% bodyfat looks much better than a skinny guy at 6% bodyfat, even though you have been told otherwise by the Magazines.

I hope this helps you organize your thoughts about training. It's not nearly as complicated as you've been told. In short, get stronger on purpose, and look better accidentally. 

---

Discuss in Forums