No Guts No Glory: Bloated Bodybuilders
I might be the only person in bodybuilding who doesn’t have his panties in a bind over the so-called“gut problem” with IFBB bodybuilders. Every forum I visit and every radio show I listen to, it seems like everyone wants to rehash and belly ache over the Arnold Classic lineup of distended stomachs. Arnold himself even went so far as to call them all 8 months pregnant. Well newsflash, if you want to push the limits of bodybuilding, guts come with the territory and there’s nothing that’s going to stop it. Remember little Kai Greene who won the Shawn Ray Classic in 07’ only to transform a year later at the 2008 Arnold Classic? I rest my case, there’s nothing wrong with a gut.
So where does this love fest for non-bloated bodybuilders come from in the first place? The obvious answer is the “classic” physiques of the 60’s and 70’s. But the better question is why do all types of fans alm
ost unanimously say they prefer that style of physique over the current IFBB pro? My first guess is because it seems somewhat more attainable. The delusional minds of gym rats across the world feel the physiques of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sergio Oliva, Larry Scott, and Frank Zane all seem more attainable than Dorian Yates, Ronnie Coleman, Jay Cutler, and Phil Heath. Guess what dreamers? The odds of looking like Arnold or Ronnie are about the same – slim to none.
My other theory on why those physiques of yesteryear are so popular is of the assumption that those guys were on less gear than the pro’s today. While that may indeed be true, it’s an intriguing reason as to prefer one generation over the other. It’s one thing for the local bodybuilder to take anabolic steroids and HGH, but ask him to take as much as a modern day IFBB pro and he’ll think you’re out of your mind. It’s as though those classic bodybuilding fans are ok with pushing the chemical boundaries, but don’t you dare step over the line because you’ll become a lab experiment. Where’s the logic in that thought process? Any way you shake it, if you put drugs into your system, small or large amounts, you’re taking a risk.
So what exactly causes these bloating guts we’ve seen the past 15 years? We’ve heard everything from Insulin, Growth Hormone, and oral anabolic steroid abuse. There’s the “these guys stuff themselves with excessive calories,” camp. But my all-time favorite is the night before a contest diuretic/carb-up screw ups or as it’s known amongst the guru’s, “Food Poisoning.” I
think I’ve gotten food poisoning once in the past 10 years yet these pro’s tend to get it before every major contest they enter. You’d think they’d steer clear of the rancid tilapia after the 3rd incident, but I digress. You can’t single out one of these problems for the guts, because it’s actually the result of all of them. They all create a massive amount of toxicity in the body. These toxic materials are in the drugs, the food, the diuretics, the training – it all causes the body to store toxins that cause bloating. And since the modern bodybuilder can’t do anything in moderation what do you get? Big bloated guts full of baseball sized abs.
But I go back to the constant romanticizing of classic physiques. In case nobody got the memo, you can’t have a 5’9’’ 250lb bodybuilder dry as a bone and perfectly lean. It just won’t happen. What old schoolers never want to mention is that the guys from the 60’s and 70’s weren’t even close to the size of today’s guys, but more importantly weren’t even half as shredded. Once Gaspari lifted up his trunks for poses from behind it was game over.
It’s not that bloated stomachs are new. Dorian had one. Jean Pierre Fux and Markus Ruhl had massive ones. Basically anyone who went over 250lb was destined to get one. Even the upper echelon of IFBB pros today have them in guys like Cutler, Heath, Centopani, and Wolf. The one who has yet to get a belly is Shawn Rhoden, but he doesn’t pack the punch on the scale that the others do.
So what actually happened in Columbus at the Arnold? Well many things are to blame. Any way you shake it the lineup in Ohio was full of second tier bodybuilders. Outside of the top 3 nobody in that show should have a realistic chance of qualifying for the Olympia. Johnnie Jackson and Hidetada Yamagishi may sneak in by virtue of the point system or luck out by winning a weak lineup later this summer, but if the Olympia is truly a ‘Best of the Best’ show my money would
n’t have them in it.
Even our 4 time champion Dexter Jackson was called out for having a little extra protrusion. Dexter has been known for years that he never had to suffer to get into condition for a show. The Blade would diet for 6-8 weeks and be the hardest guy on stage, but in early 2012 he slipped and it looked as though that was the end of the road for Dexter; but then, all of the sudden, he reformulates his strategy and resurrects his career and is now on a 3 show winning streak. So how did he do it? Well, Dexter is nowhere close to 250lb and considered a ‘mass monster.’ Soaking wet I have him between 215-220lb, but without his superior genetics for conditioning he obviously upped his game in some aspect or another that has created a new and improved Blade—but with the expense of having a few extra inches around his mid-section. For a guy who started as a bantamweight and goes onto win a Mr. Olympia and 4 Arnold Classic titles, it’s safe to say the guy has pushed it to the limits as much as the Cutlers, Heaths, and Colemans of the world.
If you keep in mind that the Arnold lineup was weak this year, it’s fairly common sense to understand why the guts seemed out of control. Like I mentioned earlier, everyone has a gut. This is nothing new. It’s the ability to control the distention while posing that many of the second tier bodybuilders fail to do. Certainly some didn’t help themselves, namely Marcus Haley with his ridiculous stomach rolls during his posing routine. While others forget that there are cameras on them at odd angles during their back double biceps shot that calls for the stomach to be pushed out in order to get the most detail while posing. Nonetheless, it’s about stomach control and some guys have it. Some guys don’t.
So I ask, “What is the big deal with the guts?” We know why they exist. We know why some guys can control them and some guys can’t. And we know that if you want to be the biggest, freakiest, driest bodybuilders in
the world—i.e., compete at the Mr. Olympia contest—a gut comes with the territory. If fans don’t like it then they had better start lobbying the IFBB to add on a ‘Classic Men’s Bodybuilding’ division where vacuum poses and 5% body fat can be drooled over. In the meantime, I’ll take the bloated bellies and anatomy chart striations all day long!
Until next week, follow me on Twitter @MattMeinrod or you can read my archived articles at www.MattMeinrod.com
