A good question, and one that every person should address themselves. I’ve fought with myself over this issue for years, between aesthetics and performance, and within aesthetics themselves. Traditional bodybuilding sentiment is that the truest ideal of bodybuilding lies somewhere between skinny guys like Frank Zane, the allegedly herculean but actually apollonian Bob Paris and Steve Reeves, and fan-favorite Arnold Schwarzenegger.Much was made about Reeve’s classical proportions, wherein one’s neck, upper arms, and calves are all supposed to match. Zane was similarly proportioned, while Paris was a bit larger, and Arnold was a mass monster by comparison. For comparative purposes, Reeves was 6’1″ and 210 lbs (which is the size of a somewhat impressive guy at any gym in the US these days), while Zane was a paltry 5’9″ and 180 lbs (making me considerably more jacked than that yoga-loving retard), Paris weighed in at 220 at a height of 6′ (giving him roughly the same proportions as Arnold, though as a gay activist and a terrifically uncompelling personality, no one gives a flying fuck about Bob Paris outside of an AIDS clinic or the greater San Francisco area), and Arnold tipped the scales at around 240 at a height of 6’2″. All of the guys looked great for their time, and are revered as some of the best physiques ever.

When I got into the whole bodybuilding thing, it was the mid-90s, the beginning of the mass monster movement. I fucking revered guys like Mike Quinn, Mike Matarazzo, and David Dearth. All three of those guys were fucking lunatics, trained constantly, and were generally pissed off and ready to battle every time they hit the weights. Dearth was quoted once as saying “I’m an extremist, and I hope to be remembered that way: noncompliant and an artist. I do not want to be remembered as a nice guy. I want to be the slayer of Bambi.” THAT’S the kind of fucking guy I wanted to model myself after, rather than Reeves and his namby-pamby lifts and his obsession with measuring his bodyparts.
Fuckers all look like they’re about to eat a baby, even when smiling.

Anyway, I fought a war with myself over what the ideal should be. This war got even more pronounced when I stopped doing reps, or even considering bodybuilding to be a sport, and I shifted into powerlifting and strongman. I then started revering guys like Ed Coan and Pudz, and getting into the old school guys like Maxick, Hackenschmidt, and Arthur Saxon. All of the last guys I named, modern and classic, are and were consummate showmen, displaying physiques that belie their strength, and may in fact complement their strength as well. That’s what I’ve come to see as the ideal, and have adjusted my sights to be the strongest I can be within the strictures set by my need to lift brutally heavy every time I enter the gym. This seems to be the trend in strength sports lately, as I’ve noticed a lot more BIG strength athletes rolling into comps with impressive sets of abs.

So, how to accomplish this? Well, check out the next installment of ChAoS&PAIN to find out.

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