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“Only Competitors are Bodybuilders”
Oh. Get. Over. Yourself.
Not long ago I got a comment on a story I was writing about fitness. A woman fired a shot ( I just wrote snot, which was the same thing) across my bow, claiming that the term “bodybuilder” only applies to those who, like her, compete.
Where do you get off, sister?
Every so often I kinda fall off a cliff when someone plies me with that kind of misinformed hubris, particularly when a swift check of the definition most certainly doesn’t support her premise:
Bodybuilding is the use of progressive resistance exercise to control and develop one’s musculature for aesthetic purposes.[1] An individual who engages in this activity is referred to as a bodybuilder.
Wikipedia goes on to explain that within this much broader community there are of course those who compete. Within that family are those who are all -natural, those who are fitness competitors, all manner of age groups, strong-man competition and those who are full-on steroid freaks. Much smaller numbers in each category, to be sure.
However, as someone who has been a dedicated gym pig for going on 46 years, I am most certainly a bodybuilder. And I most certainly do not compete.