Bodybuilding is a way of life

Bodybuilding. What may come to mind for some is men, with huge muscles, walking around on a huge stage with nothing more than a speedo, or a useless meathead that uses steroids and spends too much time in the gym.

While this is true for some people, this is not what comes to mind for me. When I think of bodybuilding, I think of an art. I think of countless hours spent in the gym as time constructing and refining the human body to be as aesthetically pleasing to the eye as possible. The body is the marble block that the artist, in this case the bodybuilder himself, is chipping away at. The tools that bodybuilder uses are diet and weight training. He uses them to carve away fat that is covering up years of hard work to reveal a beautiful physique.

When I was a sophomore in high school, I watched the movie Pumping Iron. It is about the 1977 Mr. Olympia Contest and showed an insider view of what the contestants went through leading up to the contest. Even with the movie being 37 years old, I was hooked on the sport instantly. Seeing the ease at which Arnold Schwarzenegger picked up hundreds of pounds to put on his back to do squats blew me away. I knew immediately I had to start doing the same.

My hope is that the reader keeps an open-mind to the rewards of becoming involved with bodybuilding and all its wonderful possibilities.