I got into weightlifting to improve my combat sports, but when I realized I was getting prettier, it took on a bodybuilding element for me. I know a lot of our trans comrades also use body building to help make their bodies signal the correct gender.
That said, I worry about it sometimes. The "ideal" male physique is heavily shaped by media featuring steroid users. While most people think Arnold looks gross, they don't realize that most actors are bodybuilding and on steroids, and think of an intermediate bodybuilder's body as being lean, athletic and attainable. Like, google "toned man" and see what comes up. It's all steroid users at like 10% bodyfat.
It's a body that is technically attainable, but only if you make fitness your main hobby, which is frankly not something I think most people should do. Most people's health would be properly served by eating their veggies and biking to the subway, which is a far cry from the 6+ hrs a week in the gym most bodybuilders do. That's just for able bodied people with high executive function. Add in neurodivergence and disability and the "ideal" body is literally unobtainable.
I want to be pretty, but I also don't want to contribute to inaccessible beauty norms. This is a tension that I'm not sure has a good answer, but I at least want to hear chacha's thoughts on it.
I don't mean weightlifting, which can obviously be fine, I mean bodybuilding - i.e. deliberately adding significant extra muscle to your body.
Are there doctors that will say bodybuilding is a healthy activity? Seems like it would be pretty unhealthy for your heart.
I mean, bodybuilding is just weight lifting with an emphasis on doing lots of sets of isolation movements, as opposed to a few sets of compounds movements. Both make you stronger, and most people do both. Powerlifters do bodybuilding so they have more muscle to use, and bodybuilders do power lifting so they can do their isolation heavier.
Most people also dont just gain and gain and gain, they cut fat periodically so they're not a ton heavier, they're just replacing fat mass with muscle mass.
It's only really with steroid use that you start to get unhealthy amounts of muscle packed on, most people have a genetic limit to how big their muscles will get.
IDK about muscle itself but I know that show-prep shit where you starve and dehydrate is awful for you.