BodyBuilding (IFBB and UNBA)

Competition Ready Kai Greene a few years back

Body Building True Physical State Intra-Competition

The bodybuilding world is a hard and exhausting world. In the image above, Kai Greene, is shown in his best shape. He is ready for competition and at first glance he looks happy and healthy but when you are actually in the sport you know that what you look like on the outside is not how you feel on the inside. The image brings forth feeling of strength, health and happiness and compared to their actual state of mind this is difficult to accomplish but the visual irony is undeniable when you take the time to dive deeper into their lives.

First, focusing on strength in the photograph, we have a man that looks like he is at his best. His muscles are large and well defined and his skin looks healthy and shiny. In reality, this man is going through one of his weakest stages of his career. While bodybuilding, many agonizing months are spent at the gym lifting and attempting to put on lean muscle mass. During this time you are eating as much food as you can while keeping it healthy and raw. About 2 months before competition these people start gradually removing the unhealthy food from their diet and cutting down on portion size to eliminate as much fat and sodium from the body as possible to start prepping for the event. This decrease in nutrients, while making the bodybuilder look like a picture of strength, has an immense toll on the body. A few days before the competition, water is slowly removed from their diet so the skin gets tighter and clings to the muscle. In this image, Kai Greene, looks like he is at his strongest but in actuality he is at his weakest.

The next aspect of this image that is deceitful is how healthy he looks. His hair is put back, his teeth are white and his body looks in perfect condition. His health looks at its peak. While bodybuilders eat the healthiest out of all sport competitors when getting ready for competition their food sources are substantially decreased. To compensate for this they take a great variety of supplements. On average, a normal, top grade bodybuilder takes about 43 pills a day of a multitude of vitamins, minerals, anti-inflammatory and various other health related items. While this may sound healthy, and it is, the main way of digesting pills is to swallow them while eating. When cutting, they don’t get enough meals to digest all of the pills so their body puts in more energy to their stomach to compensate and they feel tired more often. On the stage this may not show but the competitors feel the exhaustion and the malnutrition of their preparation and this is a huge factor when talking about how healthy they look compared to how healthy they actually are.

The status of the mind is a lot harder to see in these types of pictures and Kai would like you to believe that he is happy and having the time of his life. Most people don’t know that the largest strain on competing bodybuilders isn’t the strain on their body, but the enormous burden on their mind. Watching interviews and tapes of these men and you get a picture of who they really are, modern day philosophers. They stress mental philosophy over all other things because of the difficulty of their training. The great smile on his face shows that he is having a great time and he is happy to be there. Although this may be true that smile was probably hard fought. The amount of mental preparedness and determination is very high when you lift hundreds of pounds daily. One quote I like by this very man is when he talks about how he thinks Ronnie Coleman, a rival in the sport, lifts so much weight. Kai Greene says that he must have an extreme amount of rage to come from a slightly privileged background and still want to put 900 pounds on his back and stand up. In turn, a quote from Ronnie himself illustrates his own point, “Everybody wants to be a bodybuilder but no one wants to lift no heavy ass weight. But I do though.” After saying this he squatted over 800 pounds three times. The amount of dedication and mental strength cannot be shown in an image such as this but the amount of hard work can be shown.

When most people see this image they see a man who has superior physical qualities and a nice smile to match. The real effort and strength put into preparing for an event as simple as the photo shoot where this picture was taken is enormous. At first glance he might seem mighty and strong; towering above the rest but in actuality he has never been as weak as he is now.