Date: April 19th, 2020
Bodybuilding - Healthy Sports?
Particularly low fat percentages among the population and even among 'regular' exercisers, significantly (primarily anaerobic) physical ability, impressive physical proportion, high vitality, lower physiological age than chronological age, high self-esteem and more - constitute only a partial list of The same practitioners who do bodybuilding on a regular basis.
This is an industry that has become especially common in recent years in the world - at the same time - in United States, and its awareness began as early as the late 1950s.
Thanks to the famous bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger, who did a soldier when he started out on a competitive bodybuilding, but gradually and impressively integrated into the Hollywood film industry (played in dozens of films), and was elected governor of California. But not only, also in terms of attribution, was married to Maria Schreiber (who is a member of the Kennedy family), which of course added more credit in terms of prestige, glory and more. At this point, an interesting question arises: Is bodybuilding at all levels a healthy sport at all?
It turns out that this is not a simple question at all and in order for us to provide a compelling answer, it is necessary to understand what is involved in this field. In addition, we will point out that there are different levels in the bodybuilding industry, for example: There are many bodybuilders who enjoy bodybuilding for fun, amateurish, do not want to participate in bodybuilding competitions (such as "Mr. United States" or "Mr. / Miss Universe" which is one of the most prestigious competitions in the world In this area) and are engaged in it for the purpose of training that they want to achieve such as: a significant improvement in physical aesthetics, physical fitness, daily exercise enjoyment, self-esteem due to the impressive results, may be due to greater success in areas such as: Finding an attractive spouse , a good workplace (performance has little weight in getting a job and not everything is subject to professional skills) and more. Here are some points to consider by which it is likely to know whether engaging in bodybuilding training on a good basis to improve the health condition or not?
1. Improving Main Physical Fitness Components - Strength, cardiovascular endurance, coordination and flexibility are the main physical fitness components that need to be improved in all life cycles. The appropriate dosage for each depends on various factors such as: exercise age, workout goals, etc., but the macro recommendations can be at least 150 minutes of aerobic exercise per week, 3-2 weekly strength training, and also make exercises to improve flexibility and coordination. All of these, on a regular basis, carry out bodybuilding trainers. The only component that sometimes does not get the proper place is the aerobic training that not all bodybuilders make sure to perform on a relatively large scale. This can be seen in competitive bodybuilders who perform significant aerobic exercise in the months before the competition to reduce fat percentage significantly. However, the strength component gets a very serious and impressive reference in bodybuilding and the musculoskeletal systems operate on average 6-5 times a week, and sometimes even more, by doing 2 strength training a day (mostly before competitions).
2. Strengthening Stabilizing Muscles - Strengthening the deep body muscles in each joint is really important to every person and especially with age. For example, strengthening the deep abdomen, back spine, shoulder stabilizers, and more. In the average traditional training of various types of trainers and even athletes like endurance trainers, this muscle strengthening is done, in many cases, in a minor, if at all. Often, different strengthening exercises are selected in body postures that are not sufficiently effective to strengthen the deep stabilizing muscles. Then the result is that, despite strengthening muscles (even several times a week), the stimulation applied to the relevant muscles is insufficient. In bodybuilding training it is customary to perform exercises in particularly varied body postures such as: standing, goo tilt, sitting, spinal rotation, and more. Also during training you should return and take hand weights and rods on a regular basis (most exercises are done with rods and free weights), performing mainly complex exercises (multi-joints), weights raised in the various exercises (high - very high), the technique of doing the exercises correctly (in most cases) and more. These are the factors that greatly influence the involvement of the deep stabilizing muscles when performing various types of strength training. This is far more significant than the traditional trainer who performs strength training just because he has to, or the doctor has recommended and so on. In these cases, an unwise choice of different exercises can be discerned (for example - performing mostly isolated exercises), low intensity at which the exercises are performed and more.
3. Nutrition - One of the main reasons for the impressive results of bodybuilders at various levels is the balance of a nutritious diet, there is also a calorie count, an average of 6 meals a day, adequate fluid intake, use of various supplements that are important On the one hand, supplementing nutrition, or significantly upgrading physical ability, on the other (eg creatine use) and more. Or then, adding the right training can achieve great results.
4. Good Effect On Physiological Age Reduction - In order to create an important and wide gap between the physiological and chronological age (of course the goal is that the physiological age will be significantly lower than the chronological age), several important actions must be performed in the various life cycles. It's about adopting a healthy lifestyle that includes variables such as proper nutrition, informed physical training, recommended sleep, avoiding smoking, alcohol consumption, and more. Bodybuilders do this on a regular basis. Thus, it can be said that in most cases of bodybuilding, on the face and even feel young physiologically significant from their chronological age. This can easily be seen in older bodybuilders 40, 50, 60, and over who look relatively good to many of their peers thanks to the adoption of a unique lifestyle.
5. Use Of Anabolic Steroids - One of the most prominent features of bodybuilding sports is the use of anabolic steroids that, in effect, mimic the action of the male hormone - testosterone. Then, you can significantly increase anaerobic capacity, increase muscle mass impressively, and more. The brief note at this point lists all possible medical problems if used regularly on these substances and there is no doubt that uncontrolled, health-hazardous professional use may also be the cause of some chronic illness. However, it is important to note that at the level of professional bodybuilding that is done under close medical supervision (a specialist sports doctor), laboratory tests done regularly and more. In addition, an interesting point to note is that in old age, too, there has been a consistent and even significant decrease in the testosterone hormone and controlled use of these substances may not necessarily be problematic as long as it is done in an educated and professional manner. Incidentally, testing the amount of testosterone is not done on a regular basis in the USA because it is related to the field of preventive medicine and can be performed mainly privately. The cost of the test is expensive and therefore we will not see it in the near future for patients to see this test to the ordinary person unless it is a unique medical problem.
6. Body Composition - Bodybuilders at all levels enjoy a high lean body mass, along with an exceptionally low body mass. The thing has different (positive) meanings including better health because low fat is healthily important (except in extreme cases where the fat percentage is too low, especially in women and then there is a risk of medical problems such as decreased fertility, bad physical feeling and more), Aesthetically - reducing the percentage of fat is very much related to improving aesthetic appearance, of course, to the extent that proper and sufficient functioning of musculoskeletal systems is maintained. We note that bodybuilders may have an average fat percentage of 6-4% for men and 10-8% for women. When the recommendations for people who are not bodybuilders are: women: 22-30% fat and men 13-20% and this correlates with the human age, health status, and more.
In conclusion:
One can certainly conclude that bodybuilders at the various levels are relatively healthy compared to a significant proportion of people who exercise (and of course compared to those who do not). However, there is one notable reservation, and here is the issue of the use of anabolic steroids (the use of which is most common in competitive bodybuilders) that may be detrimental to health (except if done under certain conditions and under medical professional supervision).