We all love training, its a big part of our lives. We also have real 9-18 jobs to pay our bills. Do you ever find yourself envying professional bodybuilding and fitness athletes? Would you love to eat, train, nap all day and do occasional guest appearances, photo shoots etc? Some people may find it extremely boring. I believe it would be fascinating. What do you think?
Nope. I’m good training 1 hour a day and eating like a normal person.
I hate training, I just love the results it gives me so I put up with it lol. I do love squats though haha.
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Only superficially. I strongly believe that if you want to be good at anything, you have to work very hard and very smart. Those guys put a year of training (assuming they’re already pro), dietary consultations, MD. visits, drug regimens, and on and on- into 10 minutes of flexing in the hopes that they place in the money.
Even then, most of them lose. There are very few winners in bodybuilding.
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I know a guy with a pro card in 231 lb strongman, and a guy who is professional in powerlifing (if such a thing exists). Both are poor.
The powerlifter has said that he barely sleeps because of the crazy cycles he runs all year long. I could probably work a month and get his yearly income.
When we think pro, we are thinking Phil Heath, and Hafthor, not the guy who comes in 8th or whatever.
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Not exactly… I do wish I could train six days a week, and it would be fun to be Arnold, making those action movies and all that money, but just regular body building? No.
Pretty much what you said. Most of the money some make is from secondary sources. Most aren’t getting rich from it.
Not really, I mean I might envy their strength or athleticism (& money in some cases) but I don’t envy their lifestyle. Training is great but I wouldn’t want it to be pretty much my whole life as it would be if I was a pro whatever.
What?
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I envy full time athletes. I like training, but I like variety. I could be happy lifting for a couple hours, conditioning a bit, and then working on the skills of the sport throughout the day. I’d also like the perks that come with making the big time - someone prepping my meals and the tissue work for recovery would be glorious.
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Similar to this. I do not envy the pro bodybuilder life at all nor team pro athletes. I would love to be an athlete in an individual sport like boxing or mma. To figure out your training, nutrition and to execute it to compete looks awesome. You are not a slave to team practices, etc.
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You know how they say, “if you love your job, you never work a day in your life”? Or, “to be truly happy, turn your hobby and passion into a career”? I think, more often than not, the flipside is more true. If you want to lose your love and interest for a hobby, turn it into something you have to do.
You love lifting? Awesome, now you have to train five days a week, every week of the year, no vacations, no sick days. Also, you’re gonna be monitoring every single meal you eat from now on, not just watching “most meals most of the time”.
10-day family vacation to Aruba? No doubt you’ll look awesome on the beach, just Google the area to find the closest Gold’s to plan your days around the workouts, and don’t forget to ask the resort for egg whites in the morning and a virgin margarita with extra ice at the pool.
I think it was @The_Mighty_Stu recounting a story from natural pro Jim Cordova, about how he was invited to a fun ski trip, but declined to go because the chance of injury on the slopes would’ve meant interrupted training. (I might’ve mangled the details, but the point is the same.)
Long story short (too late), I believe the “nothing to do but eat, sleep, and train” lifestyle sounds like much more fun than it probably is.
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College was pretty cool when I still didn’t pay bills. Go to class occasionally, train, go to baseball practice, drink beer, repeat.
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Nothing about being a professional physique (contestant?) sounds appealing to me. Suffering so much, for such a small income and small following isn’t appealing.
On the other hand, I would be a MLB player no question. I love that lifestyle.
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I would like to be retired early and train for enjoyment everyday. I like that idea.
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I think it would be pretty cool to be a farmer and like World’s Strongest Man or a champion Arm Wrestler on the side. Training through the working lifestyle, and lifting for fun. Then every once in awhile coming out of the barn to kick ass.
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Ya know, maybe even be able to close a Captains of Crush #4.
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…from the sports with the big TV bucks, which means the big salaries.
YeeeaaHH…it sure would… 
Wrt full-time bodybuilders, I think there is enough evidence to show that quality of life post “glory days” can be substantively degraded -so no envy, and no thanks.
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I don’t envy bodybuilders in their prime. I know a guy here who’s constantly prepping. No, thanks.
This says it all. I did one show and the preparation for it severely interfered with other aspects of life. When I tell ordinary people just how much it did, I don’t think they get it until I go into detail and tell them that when preparing for a show, the most common word out of a competitors mouth is “no” or another similar word or statement for rejecting offers for fun, or even family time.
“I was thinking, wanna go on an extended weekend trip to…?”
“No!”
“Hey, we were thinking, after work, maybe wanna come with us to…?”
“No!”
“Hey, my mom’s having people over on Sunday for X’s birthday.”
“What time are we going and what time are we getting back? I need to know exactly!”
“Hey, I need a favor. Can you help me…?”
“Not sure. Probably not.”
In short: “ F— the world!”
There’s a reason my mom referred to bodybuilding as “a sentence”.
But this goes for any endeavor if one doesn’t want to be ordinary. It’s not necessarily bad so long as the person taking on such an endeavor and those in their life are comfortable with it.
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