IS
BODYBUILDING REALLY A SPORT?
By Bill Dobbins
PART
2
Sports
can be ranked according to what degree of fundamental athletic
ability they demand of their participants. Basketball, soccer
and hockey are types of athletic competition which require a wide-range
of athletic skills. Sports like weightlifting or shotputting involve
more sheer strength. World-class bowlers and golfers need an incredible
degree of talent when it comes to hand-eye coordination. Featherweight
boxers and competitors in table tennis need to be quick as cats.
But sports can also be categorized another way. There are sports
of objective measurement---how many, how much, how far, how high,
how fast---and sports of form---such as gymnastics, diving, or
synchronized swimming. In measured events, if you cross the finish
line first, nobody cares how good you looked doing it. Proper
technique may help you to throw a javelin farther, but you win
or lose based on the length of the throw, not on the beauty of
your execution of the throw. But in sports of form, how high you
go, how far, how wide, how fast and other "measurement"
considerations are not evaluated directly, but only to the degree
that they contribute to the grace, beauty and aesthetics of the
physical movements of the athlete's body.
So
where does this leave bodybuilding? It isn't a sport of objective
measurement, like powerlifting. Nor is it a sport involving the
execution of a series of aesthetic movements. (Even the "free
posing" round of a bodybuilding contest doesn't really involve
the evaluation of the movement of the body; rather the judges
are charged with evaluating the body while it's in motion.) Therefore,
if bodybuilding is really a sport, exactly what kind of sport
is it? The answer is that it is indeed a sport of form---just
a different kind of form than we are used to dealing with. The
form associated with gymnastics is dynamic, a form of movement.
But the form involved in bodybuilding is a plastic one.
The
term "plastic" in this case, means the molding, shaping
or sculpting of physical form. Bodybuilding is often described
as the sculpting of the muscles of the body, and this is exactly
what it is. When the bodybuilding takes place as part of a sports
competition, the ultimate result is judged according to aesthetic
standards, just as gymnastics or diving is. This result is achieved
by athletic means, a lot of hard, difficult and intense physical
training. In fact, the demands upon the body of training and diet
programs followed by world-class competition bodybuilders are
so incredible that only highly gifted, superbly-conditioned athletes
could be expected to bear up under stresses of this magnitude.
World-class bodybuilders are, and have to be, exceptional athletes.
Bodybuilding training in the gym is a demanding athletic activity.
And it is this training that is directly responsible for shaping
and sculpting the body into the final plastic form that will be
judged on stage in a bodybuilding competition. The mass, shape,
proportion, symmetry, and definition of the physique, the degree
of muscle separation, the low body fat and resulting display of
striations and "cuts," are all the result of highly
strenuous athletic workouts in the gym plus the discipline of
following an eating and nutrition program designed to yield maximum
muscle mass with a minimum of body fat.
Bodybuilders
are sometimes criticized because they become so muscular, develop
so much bulk, that other of their athletic abilities suffer. But
this simply means they are specialized, just as all elite athletes
tend to be. As far as athletic bodies are concerned, "form
follows function." You look like what you do. Bodybuilders
may not be good marathon runners, but long-distance runners generally
can't lift much weight, either. Gymnasts tend to be small, compact
and muscular. Discus-throwers are beefy and powerful. Golfers
do not succeed because of the height of their vertical leap, and
are rarely slam-dunk artists, while all the physical power in
the world doesn't help sink a three-foot putt on the final hole
of the U.S. Open with the tournament at stake.So bodybuilders
are indeed athletes, the training they go through is highly athletic,
the ultimate result, the competition-prepared bodybuilding physique,
is a direct consequence of that training, and the plastic form
of this physique is what the competitors are judged on in a bodybuilding
contest. Therefore, while competition bodybuilding is artistic,
it's not an art form; and while it has theatrical and dramatic
elements, it is not theater. It's a sport. And it satisfies every
criterion as to what an athletic contest or a sport ought to be.
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