Excellent points.
I also mentioned this elsehwere, but Arnold made bodybuilding “cool” because he worked hard OUTSIDE the bbing scene and helped people make a connection between ‘muscular" and "being charismatic, successful’ and “being the object of affection for women all over”. How many bbers of today are able to make that?
Many bbers of today are only allowing people to make the conenction between “muscular” and “financially NOT well-off” and “gay fans” and “females find it yucky” (a dogma being pushed by the media MAINLY as a knee-jerk reaction to drug-abuse in college going kids).
Thats why i liked Jay Cutler’s episode on “Cribs” where they showed him as being very successful, having an attractive wife, and so on and sof orth. Gunter Schlierkamp is another guy (esp since he has a beautiful wife) who COULD be a good ambassador for bbing if he tries to - ditto for someone like Shawn Ray. While Ronnie has a persona as a good natured big guy thats not helping the sport much, especially given his marriage to Vickie Gates (ditto for Ruhl).
Now everyone (thanks to testosterone) deep down wants to be strong, powerful and kick people’s asses. Also it will take a LONG time before women start finding wide shoulders, a V taper and big arms sexually unappealing. So all is not lost.
However, if you want being powerfully built to be back in vogue, you need someone to help people make the link between this (being big and built) and the other things young guys want to have (money, power, success, women, etc). The musclemag covers with Kovacs posing next to buxom bikini babes do their part is sowing the seed - but that will only work for so long before kids start observing whats REALLY happening around them (CAN ELABORATE ON THIS IF ANYONE WANTS).
The bbing world needs another Arnold.
[quote]Principal Weider wrote:
Just like there are trends in hairstyles/clothes there are trends in physiques.
The decade you were raised in plays a large role in molding your idea of what the male physique should look like.
I was born in the early 70s and raised in the 80s; so the physiques of popular action movie stars (Stallone, Arnold and JCVD) had a lasting impression on me.
So to did TV cartoons like He-Man and my, then, interest in comics and D&D. All of which reinforced my image of what a man should look like.
Of course the generation before mine, those raised in the 70s, had the ‘skinny’ look pushed on them.
My parents and their friends (post world war 2 baby boomers) seem to think barrel chested farmer types represent the ideal male physique. Not frail or ‘wussy’ looking, but not overly concerned with muscles.
All this to say I’m not worried for the next generation of males. Mextrosexuality is a trend like any other that will cycle in and out. Just like larger and more muscular male physiques will come back in vogue. Everything is cyclical. Just some people haven’t been around long enough to realize this.
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