Bodybuilding and Athletic Skills: Is the Bodybuilder an Sportsman?

Introduction In this article we will talk about bodyubuilding, but not about purely technical aspects, but about the collective opinion towards this activity.Shutterstock We will discuss the very nature of bodybuilding and aesthetic culture in general; more precisely of the common points and differences with the sports disciplines .The subject is rather tricky, as bodybuilding has gained a bad reputation over the past few decades - mainly due to the obvious abuse of performance-enhancing drugs. Therefore, many associate bodybuilding with an image of unhealthiness, ignorance and clumsiness. Is the Bodybuilder an Sportsman?Sport on the other hand ... " it's still sport! " . This cliché makes it perfectly clear that the various sports disciplines - albeit repeatedly touching by the dark hand of illegal pharmacological chemistry, especially in professionalism - regardless of everything, continue to arouse positive reactions and thoughts .Note : in any sport it is possible to use doping , as many types of active principle fall under this category ; We are not speaking only of steroids, therefore, but also of other anabolic broncho-dilating substances, which increase the synthesis of hemoglobin , which improve concentration, which reduce nervous tension, etc.Accomplice of this deviant mechanism, also the totally wrong idea that bodybuilding does not require any of the very useful athletic skills , instead necessary in the various sports disciplines.It is therefore no wonder that, to date, bodybuilding represents the "opposite pole" of sport.Athletic Skills Under the heading of "athletic ability" we could include both the conditionals (strength, endurance, speed, in all their variants), and the coordinative ones (general and special); to them we could also add muscle flexibility and joint mobility .Are we sure that none of the aforementioned conditional skills are involved in bodybuilding?Absolutely not!Athletic skills in bodybuilding The transverse diameter of the muscle is involved in the foreground in the expression of force , together of course with the nervous capacity, intra and intermuscular coordination, etc.The correlation is valid both in one direction and in the other. Therefore:as muscle mass increases , strength capacity increases ;with strength training there is an adaptation of increase in muscle mass.All this, of course, relates to subjectivity and other general conditions. In the sense that the adaptation responses and the results vary from individual predispositions to anabolism, training, starting condition, etc.Since muscle growth responds to multiple biochemical stimuli, and since each of us can be sensitive to the latter in different ways, it is no wonder that the tables and diets allow you to increase muscle mass with considerable differences depending on the case. .The practice of bodybuilding requires a continuous stimulation of the strength capacity . This obviously is a means to obtain muscle hypertrophy and not the ultimate goal of the activity, or at least on the surface . This does not mean that training - for the reasons described above - cannot be structured without seeking the maximum strength capacity; otherwise, the results will never be at the pinnacle of individual possibilities.In a few lines we have already dispelled the false myth that "you don't need any athletic ability to practice bodybuilding". The bodybuilder trains in the expression of strength as much as an athlete, except that in some ways (for example on the technical level of certain exercises) he does it in a "different" way.Moreover, to date many bodybuilders - we are not speaking only of professionals, of course, but in particular of agonists at lower levels or simple amateurs - have integrated the traditional bodybuilding activity with numerous parallel protocols. This hybridization arises from the awareness that the weightlifter must develop, regardless of the ultimate goal, also:Pure strength and specific technique of heavy exercises in the powerlifting style (deadlift, squat , bench press , rowing , etc.);Functionality of the movement, especially through calisthenics exercises (all variants of traction on the bar, dip at the parallels , etc.)Today bodybuilding is, from the point of view of athletic abilities, to be considered a real sport - also considering the commitment it requires in managing the diet, definitely superior to most sports disciplines.For sure the bodybuilder will never be as fast as a sprinter, as tough as an endurance, flexible, mobile and agile as a gymnast; but, on balance, he's not even interested in being one.However, one should also not make the mistake of believing that as muscle volumes increase, other athletic abilities - such as speed, endurance, flexibility and mobility - decrease. Or, that a swollen muscle is not "as strong".Obviously, the musculature of a bodybuilder "helped" by drugs, especially in the absence of a specific and well done protocol for pure strength, will not have the same correspondence between " trophism and contractile capacity " of a sportsman specialized in this field.There would be a lot to talk about in relation to subjectivity. Whoever is inclined to bodybuilding will never be a successful runner, centometrist or gymnast . But that depends on his subjective potentials and predispositions, not on what "bodybuilding could transform you into".Nonetheless, the ability to "build muscle" is not the same for everyone. And the muscle weighs! In various sports strength capacity is evaluated in relation to the overall weight of the athlete. Bodybuilders, in this sense, are certainly not competitive. However, the bodybuilder seeks muscle growth in all areas, which obviously will contribute to weight gain, while for example the powerlifter will never focus on developing the mass of biceps, triceps , deltoids, calves , etc.The health of the bodybuilder Trying to increase the musculature without training the other abilities will orient the organism only in that direction; in this sense, the bodybuilder's organism is limitedly affected by what would be the benefits associated with sport in general - beware, "limited2 does not mean" at all ".But there is a clarification: the bodybuilder of the new millennium is a much more evolved and aware subject than the bodybuilder of the last century .Even the average bodybuilder cares about their health , functionality and quality of life . There is no bodybuilder who can be defined as such who does not constantly perform aerobic activity , both to increase energy consumption and to improve cardio-circulatory and pulmonary function, or who does not engage in joint mobility and muscle flexibility exercises .I will say more. Thanks to the advent of wellness as a global attitude towards lifestyle, "popular" bodybuilding has progressively moved away from the use of "chemistry" and, at the same time, has come closer to the concept of well-rounded health - which we have summarized in the article on Personal Coaching and Total Functionality .Reading all this, the idea we had of the "average bodybuilder" may have changed enough already ... but who is really the bodybuilder?