What is bodybuilding?

Bodybuilding is the process of training the muscle fibers of the athlete through a combination of weight training, special diet and rest. A person who deals with this type of activity is called bodybuilder.

In the sport, called competitive bodybuilding, bodybuilders demonstrate their physical condition in front of judges that awards them points for their aesthetic appearance. The muscles are revealed through a process of being shredded – a combination of fat loss, oils and products to impart a tan, which combined with lighting make the distinction between a group of muscles more visible. Due to excessive use of anabolic steroids and other banned products that are easy to proof in the body (even visually), Bodybuilding is not ranked in the list of Olympic sports. In most bodybuilding tournaments, steroid use is informally permitted due to the need for ever greater performance and accordingly the need to attract more viewers and more advertisers.

Famous BodyBuilders

Some of the famous bodybuilders from the recent past are Larry Scott, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Steve Reeves and from present days – Ronnie Coleman, Jay Cutler, Markus Ruhl and many more.

BodyBuilding Competition Rules

Because of the specificity of this sport, the order of conducting competitions and subjective judicial discretion, the combination of these three criteria is most important: volume of body muscles (to be maximum), fat percentage (to be minimum) and optimal harmony of physics (without lagging or having dominant muscle groups). Endurance is irrelevant and do not affect the classification of the athlete.

Trends by several decades dictate major competitions such as Mr. Olympia. The main 3 components for which contestants are evaluated are:

• Muscle volume (density, size)
• Presence of subcutaneous fat – the level of subcutaneous fat is lower, the higher the athletes are evaluated.
• Symmetry – physique with no perceptible difference between muscle groups (lagging muscle groups for example)

What is Natural BodyBuilding?

There are also natural bodybuilding tournaments where players undergo mandatory testing for banned stimulants. Typical for the natural body building tournaments is that muscle mass volume of the contestants has a significantly smaller role in the evaluation by the judges, compared to body fat percentage and optimal pysics harmony.