Were You Conned Into Bodybuilding?

[Skorp1o]

Did you as a young child one day stumble across a movie with a jacked up dude, or one of Arnie's old muscle movies, Conan, Commando...etc, or even Van Damme...or a poster in a magazine and thought "wohaa, this is how I want to be"....then later in your teens you bought your first Flex mag and before you knew it you could recognize all the top 10 Olympia pros from a back double bi shot. Followed all the weider principles and drank Mega Mass 2000...you loved it for the first year or two and then it dawned you on one day whilst flexing in the mirror that you are still light years behind your dream physique....why is it not happening? why am I although bigger than before, look nothing like Arnie or Ray...etc? and that's when the seed of AAS was first planted in that very moment in your head, and the rest was history.

Had someone told you the moment you subconsciously absorbed that image of your ideal physique told you, "son....this is a never ending road, no real human being can look anything close to this, to do so you will inject and swallow pills and eat and sleep right...and should you stop all of this you would shrivel back to oblivion in no time."

[spiro]

Yup exactly word for word what happened to me. God damn action movies.

[Icelord]

Used to work out 2hrs a day, 6x a week. Bought all the supplements I could afford at the health store and protein dispensary at the gym. Did cardio, diet, the whole bit.

After six months, I thought I'd done pretty well. Then I upgraded to a real gym with real bodybuilders and felt like a chunky pile of hairy poop with a few forearms veins. I asked one of those guys in a stringer with razor-sharp abs what he did to look like that, and he rattled off a list of steroids I'd never heard of. My faith in muscle-building was shattered in 200 pieces.

[the trainer]

I was into comics as a kid and I saw all these big muscle superheros and I wanted to be big and strong like them plus watching arnold movies, and there was this big muscled back dude in my neighborhood I used to stare at him with awe and thought to myself I want to look like that.

[SuperTed]

Action movies, strongman competitions and wrestling got me interested in bodybuilding.

[liquid_c]

The incredible hulk TV program is what got me interested.  The only thing I believe to be a con in bodybuilding is the supplement industry as a whole. 

[spiro]

I always kind of new I wanted to juice. I remember being like 14 and telling myself if I could ever get them I would certainly do them. Wasn't until my junior year of college I ran across a website you had to pay like 50 bucks and they gave you a list of suppliers. First guy I used had legit pharmaceutical grade gear out of the Ukraine. I bought a ton of sustanon amps and dbols rest is history. I put on like 30 pounds with that first run it was epic.

[io856]

It's essentially a pyramid scheme(like anything else in life) perpetuated by American media. It gets you to consume bodybuilding related products and use pharmaceuticals. Whether it becomes your lifelong obsession or not.

Keep consuming until you look like they did for three days of their life!
Then you too may look as they did for 3 days of their life(everyday)
Depending on the scope of the marketing endeavour, masses of people absorb the message

If it inspires you to look better then so be it, if it's to the detriment to the rest of your life then so be it.

How is it any different to being exposed to images of "success" through fashion, cars, houses, sexy women and other luxuries and spending your life in pursuit of that?

Where you conned into consumerism?

[El Diablo Blanco]

Kind of.

[TheShape.]

This shit is responsible.

[kofo]

My first phase was in the end of the 80ies and I wanted to be van Damme. I cross trained karate with bodybuilding. I remember buying  Ironman magazine for a few times. Stopped buying when the pretty girl behind the counter gave me a very sheepish smile. Not sure how to read it. But it was either "you like looking at men" or "so your dream is to look like that".

[dr.chimps]

Of course. Kept it up, and umpteen years later I thank my lucky stars for the shape I'm in. My buds/peers are train wrecks. 

[_aj_]

Used to work out 2hrs a day, 6x a week. Bought all the supplements I could afford at the health store and protein dispensary at the gym. Did cardio, diet, the whole bit.

After six months, I thought I'd done pretty well. Then I upgraded to a real gym with real bodybuilders and felt like a chunky pile of hairy poop with a few forearms veins. I asked one of those guys in a stringer with razor-sharp abs what he did to look like that, and he rattled off a list of steroids I'd never heard of. My faith in muscle-building was shattered in 200 pieces.

X2

[YngiweRhoads]

Of course. Kept it up, and umpteen years later I thank my lucky stars for the shape I'm in. My buds/peers are train wrecks. 

Exactly.

[JasonH]

Did you as a young child one day stumble across a movie with a jacked up dude, or one of Arnie's old muscle movies, Conan, Commando...etc, or even Van Damme...or a poster in a magazine and thought "wohaa, this is how I want to be"....then later in your teens you bought your first Flex mag and before you knew it you could recognize all the top 10 Olympia pros from a back double bi shot. Followed all the weider principles and drank Mega Mass 2000...you loved it for the first year or two and then it dawned you on one day whilst flexing in the mirror that you are still light years behind your dream physique....why is it not happening? why am I although bigger than before, look nothing like Arnie or Ray...etc? and that's when the seed of AAS was first planted in that very moment in your head, and the rest was history.

Had someone told you the moment you subconsciously absorbed that image of your ideal physique told you, "son....this is a never ending road, no real human being can look anything close to this, to do so you will inject and swallow pills and eat and sleep right...and should you stop all of this you would shrivel back to oblivion in no time."

I'd be willing to bet a lot of us on here have eclipsed Van Damme's level of development.

When I first saw Bloodsport and Kickboxer roughly around the age of 14 or 15 I thought Van Damme had the perfect physique. Watching these movies today and he looks tiny.

[kreator]

haha i even thought stallone was jacked in over the top but actually he looked like a regular joe

[Papper]

It was via martial arts. From turtles and video games segwayed to bruce lee flicks..

I think it was mainly Van Damme who inspired me to train to look better. Obviously you wanted to look and move like him.

You get "conned" by most things in life. Women, men, companies..

[Nirvana]

I do it for the children.

[Man of Steel]

This shit is responsible.

Me too.....100%.

[wes]

I was framed,conned,hoodwinked,bamboozeled,bewitched,bothered,and bewildered.

[Simple Simon]

Bruce Lee movies and Daredevil comics

[Icelord]

I was framed,conned,hoodwinked,bamboozeled,bewitched,bothered,and bewildered.

Not to mention you had to get in shape for those gladiator fights in the coliseums or your leaders would feed you to the tigers.

[wes]

Not to mention you had to get in shape for those gladiator fights in the coliseums or your leaders would feed you to the tigers.

lol 

[beakdoctor]

Yeah, the mag's did it. The 80's action movies. Comic books. The bodybuilding "lifestyle" that Weider pushed in the 80's mags did it.

 Always publishing articles about the dangers of steroids. Pictures and articles of buff, seemingly well adjusted people, particluarly couples, engaged in healthy activities..... Then getbig exposed it all.....

Lee Priest shitting on people, Chris Duffy a butt pirate, Kai fucking a grapefruit, Rutkowski a bearded, psychotic, meth addict, the Tom Platz wig, the ice machine etc etc etc....

[MCWAY]

Did you as a young child one day stumble across a movie with a jacked up dude, or one of Arnie's old muscle movies, Conan, Commando...etc, or even Van Damme...or a poster in a magazine and thought "wohaa, this is how I want to be"....then later in your teens you bought your first Flex mag and before you knew it you could recognize all the top 10 Olympia pros from a back double bi shot. Followed all the weider principles and drank Mega Mass 2000...you loved it for the first year or two and then it dawned you on one day whilst flexing in the mirror that you are still light years behind your dream physique....why is it not happening? why am I although bigger than before, look nothing like Arnie or Ray...etc? and that's when the seed of AAS was first planted in that very moment in your head, and the rest was history.

Had someone told you the moment you subconsciously absorbed that image of your ideal physique told you, "son....this is a never ending road, no real human being can look anything close to this, to do so you will inject and swallow pills and eat and sleep right...and should you stop all of this you would shrivel back to oblivion in no time."

And what made you think you could be that size in a year, especially when they weren't even that size in just one year of training?

No. I wasn't conned into bodybuilding. Quite the opposite, from reading those pesky EVVVVIIIILLL magazine (only it was Muscle & Fitness, not FLEX),  I learned I was a beginner. I couldn't and shouldn't train the way the top pros and amatuers do. I started with the tried-and-true, three-day-a-week, three-sets-of-ten, full-body workouts.