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I wonder how this relates to Hollywood, namely the well-known shift towards men having bodybuilder level physiques, even in roles where it doesn't really fit the character.

If you're in sport, you know that highly performant bodies don't look like that almost ever. They're too specialized to have the physique that prioritizes aesthetics. Road cyclists with their lanky frames, powerlifters have fat over their absurdly strong cores. High level marathoners look like they might blow over in a stiff wind.

The most interesting thing about the article to me was the mention of kinesthetic skill. This is a huge differentiating factor IME in mountain biking. Some people do not have the meta visualization to understand why what they did worked or didn't, why they cleared that rock, why their weight transfer caused the front to wash out. The feedback loop doesn't exist, and they can't progress.

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Peacock's impressive tail does not make it a much better flyer, or fighter, or whatever. The huge feathers only demonstrate that the bird can still function adequately even with this useless and expensive ornamentation.

The same way, a "highly athletic" / bodybuilder body demonstrates that a man can spend resources on building all these impressive-looking muscles and can strictly ration carbs. (I don't even try to mention what women have to do to look "like a model".)

So it's the same demonstrative behavior, only the results are harder to buy directly than a supercar or a yacht. It's about as practical: not completely useless, but the point is not in the utility but in the hard-to-achieve aesthetics.

Much like a real able flyer looks much less impressive than a peacock (look at a goose or a crow), a real high-achieving athlete looks much less impressive than an athlete for show. But looks sometimes play a critical role, e.g. for an actor, or during dating, so it's not irrational behavior.

Unless you use steroids or won the genetic lottery, you won’t look much different in clothes compared to someone who never lifts weights.

There are proven short-term, medium-term, and long-term benefits of resistance training for men and women, both young and old.

Right so for maximum benefit you need to remove your clothes whenever possible.

This just isn't true. The difference in the same person is visible immediately in the face and neck, even if they're wearing a parka. And in most places it's absolutely evident under normal clothing.

Agreed, pretty much any man can dramatically increase their lean body mass from baseline with 3-6 hours per week of resistance training for 6 months if they haven’t already done so.

There are many women who avoid resistance training because they are afraid becoming too "bulky" Thanks, in part to people like you. It is nonsense of cause.

What point are you trying to make? That no amount of lifting and muscle mass is discernable through clothes?

I can walk through my office and immediately pick out who lifts or has lifted.

I largely agree with you, but in general more muscle => stronger so bodybuilder muscles are not strictly ornamentation. In fact it’s not uncommon for bodybuilders to become powerlifters and vice versa.

Also, an underappreciated role of muscle mass is as a giant store of emergency amino acids.

You generally train for the sport you’re participating in.

Stronger in the non-important (for the activity) parts of the body makes it harder to be stronger in the important parts. And also there are many ways to be strong, as in not all muscles are the same and also your neurological ability to control your muscles may also very widely .

Also powerlifters have much less impressive bodies than bodybuilders, and without pump and proper lighting you will generally might not even recognize that a person is top powerlifter.

I agree that strength is specific, but my point is that ‘bodybuilder muscle’ is not strictly ornamental.

Powerlifters have incredible muscle mass, they just aren’t picky about covering it with body fat because it doesn’t make sense for the sport. The main reason bodybuilders are weaker is that their caloric intake is much lesser (especially at meet prep when they sometimes are practically starving themselves to death).

That's true around competitions, but the main reason they aren't strong relative to powerlifters is because they don't train to express maximal strength.

They could easily add a few top sets of higher intensity work with low reps and get much stronger.

If you define strength as one-rep max, sure.

Well, yes. Practical use of muscles -> strong muscles -> looks good -> pumping-up of muscles just for the looks. But the muscles are still there, only excessive for the practical use.

OTOH weightlifting is still an activity performed for show, not practical tasks requiring strength. Equally, a Lamborghini is still a pretty nice car, and a Tissot watch is still a precise mechanical watch. But it's not the point.

By contrast, a police car does not look like a super-fast car, even though it's very fast. Equally, most Marines don't look like bodybuilders, even though their job requires exceptional athletic prowess.

Police cars aren't very fast. The days of building police cars with special engines are long past. Most US law enforcement agencies use regular Ford Explorer SUVs for patrol now.

https://www.ford.com/police-vehicles/hybrid-utility/

Ford Utility Interceptor: 400 hp, 150 mph. Not much slower than a showy Lamborghini Huracán at 160 mph, all while looking like a boring utility car.

Which is exactly the same engine that any consumer can buy in a regular Explorer ST available at their local Ford dealer. My uncle bought one to tow his boat. The police model is nothing special or particularly fast.

Arguably, women have to do much less to "look like a model" since that only requires not eating too many calories (facial proportions and such can not be changed anyway, require no effort), 15-minute daily skin-care routine and waxing every now and then. A bodybuilder has to alternate between bulking and fasting, pay attention to nutrition and spend many hours a week doing hard exercise to build muscle. A hollywood actor like Chris Hemsworth will not drink for two days before a topless scene to achieve that muscle definition. An emergency doctor has to be on set because it's so dangerous. And don't tell me about cosmetics or hair care... a typical football star will go to the barber three times a week minimum and they aren't even in close-up shots.

The word “Arguably” is doing quite some work there!

Moreover, it's not just bodybuilder physiques, but specifically the kind that is created via heavy use of anabolic steroids. Their bodies are literally unattainable without drugs.

> the well-known shift towards men having bodybuilder level physiques

What's puzzling is that bodybuilder physiques aren't even attractive to most people. I don't mean physically fit and showing some muscle, I mean the extremes of Arnold and even more "built" guys. When you talk to normal people, they don't find it attractive. The people who universally find the bodybuilder physique attractive are other bodybuilders! It's a very "niche" look.

And it's well-known it's not a physique that correlates with actual physical strength or agility. It's just for show. Actual physical fitness doesn't look like that, and even bodybuilders admit this.

> And it's well-known it's not a physique that correlates with actual physical strength

100% disagree. The last I checked, muscle size is the strongest correlating physical characteristic with force production. Also, have you not seen videos of Ronnie Coleman lifting weights?

Bodybuilders aren't the most strong or fit people. They optimize for a specific look (definition in muscles and a certain body shape), not for strength or agility or fitness in general.

Most bodybuilders will tell you this, it's not a secret.

Yes, but they are stronger than 99% of people. You claimed that their muscle size had no correlation with strength, which is absurd.

You know what I meant. I didn't submit my comment to a peer reviewed biology journal.

Stop trying to nitpick and engage with the actual argument.

You said “it's well-known it's not a physique that correlates with actual physical strength” when the reality is closer to it being perfectly correlated, so no, I wasn’t nitpicking.

Ok, let me rephrase if it makes you happy: the bodybuilder physique is suboptimal for raw strength, agility, and general fitness. A person in peak fitness doesn't look like a bodybuilder. Bodybuilders themselves admit this; their shape and physique is optimized for competition-level standards, not for health or fitness.

Furthermore, this physique is mostly attractive and desirable to other bodybuilders, and not to regular people. Therefore, it's puzzling that Hollywood used to push this as the "ideal" body shape.

There. Happier? Almost everybody else in this thread understood what I meant.

It often isn’t for other people. Kinda like when I drive a certain car I like or wear certain clothes that I like. I am signaling to some degree, but more than anything it’s because /I/ like it. Same reason I lift, stay lean, etc. it’s for me. Often the group it does signal to is maybe not immediately obvious as well.

Bodybuilders are optimizing for the judging criteria in a competitive sport, not for conventional attractiveness. If you step back and look at the sport objectively it seems a bit silly, but then you could say the same about most sports.

I mean why Hollywood promotes (or used to) this build, or why it was associated with fit & attractive people, when it's neither. I wasn't mocking bodybuilders.

Most bodybuilders aren't in the open category of the untested federations. It doesn't help that they look like overcooked rotisserie chickens with the fake tans, starvation-level leanness, and dehydration to make minute differences actually visible to judges on stage. Outside of the few weeks right around competition, though, most of them look a lot more normal and I'd say well within the range of what would popularly be found attractive.

Now, anyone actually on stage and the true mass monsters? Sure, nobody finds that attractive, but Hollywood actors don't look like that, either. Alan Ritchson and Joe Manganiello and what not are plenty attractive.

> I wonder how this relates to Hollywood, namely the well-known shift towards men having bodybuilder level physiques, even in roles where it doesn't really fit the character.

I agree. When I read "The Martian", I wasn't picturing Mark Watney as Jason Bourne.

Dunno this might even be realistic, astronauts have to be "in shape" not as in strong or muscular but baseline healthy:

https://www.justjared.com/photo-gallery/4473115/matt-damon-s...

They do it even if it directly clashes with the project. Like for example Sonic 2 James Marsden playing a nerd while being more buff than beefcake Shemar Moore.

| even in roles where it doesn't really fit the character.

I recently watched A Small Light with Bel Powley playing Miep Gies, the Dutch woman who hid Anne Frank.

It was solid miniseries, I recommend it. Not extraordinary, lots of tv melodrama but still worth it. Otto Frank doesn't get nearly enough attention for his prescience in trying to keep his family safe.

That said, the actor who plays Jan Gies, her husband, while playing the role very well, at some point takes his shirt off and reveals an absolutely incredibly bulked physique. A social worker in Nazi occupied 1940's Netherlands where people were treating ration cards like gold bullion and eating tulip soup because nothing else was left looked like he was consuming 4500 calories a day and possibly on a steroid stack that didn't exist yet.

He might as well have whipped out an iPhone, it took me out that much. I understand every actor is waiting for a call from Marvel these days, but I wish actors didn't feel so pressured to be ripped for every role. If I was the director I would have at least never put him in a shirtless scene and kept him in oversized suits.

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