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Comment by the_af | Hacker News Reader

> 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.

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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.

> 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.

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