Just happened on a vid of Iggy Pop half naked on stage. I of course had seen him many times in that state (or naked), but here , with the lighting, it was really striking. This guy has an incedible body, not muscular ugly like gym bitches, but very very fit, superhero or greek statue proportions-like. Yet, I just cant see Iggy Pop doing a massive amount of sport.
So, how come Iggy Pop is that fit?
He looks freakish, like a survivor of some Stalinist work camp in Siberia. Doesn’t look superhero or Greek statue at all. As to why? Drugs, probably.
Nah, he’s fatless but it’s muscles under his skin, not bones. That’s what I find impressive in his physique. Drug addicts never struck me as having such body types (though he’s probably a morphine or heroin addict).
There’s on online Men’s Fitness article that quotes him as saying the only exercise he does is some Tai Chi and a couple hundred yards in the pool. So I gotta think it’s mostly just starving himself due to drugs. Heroin is a great diet drug, if you don’t mind the side effects.
But if you starve yourself, you lose muscle as well as fat. Heroin addicts just look skinny usually, muscleless. He isnt like that.
One man’s “freakish” is another man’s “hot.” My guess is that you don’t like thin people in general. I do, and all things considered he looks great. If he has a body like that without trying . . . and hes over 60 . . . he is blessed.
“Once a drug user, always a drug user”?
Iggy cleaned up back in the early 80s. He’s been clean since then.
He’s in good shape because he eats well and exercises hard.
That’s exactly my point. I dont specially fantasize on thin people, but that a drug addict, twice my age, that barely does any sport, has a body some people would kill for blows my mind.
You mean he doesnt do drugs any more? Judging by his rumblings that’s even scarier.
So, he really does a lot of sport? (and he is blessed with a good body type to start with I guess).
I have nothing against thin. I do think looking like you’ve been starving yourself for years looks creepy. It’s the difference between say, Angelina Jolie and Kate Moss.
Terry Gross asked him this question in an interview a few years back and part of his deadpan, even slightly pompous-sounding answer ( he always seems to sound like he is talking down to people to me, something about his tone of voice ), was that “he has sex a lot” :p.
Okay, just breezed through that part of that interview clip again ( easily found on search ) and he doesn’t sound as pompous the second time around. But his answers were Tai Chi, swimming and a lot of sex - no weight-lifting.
I did a google image search and he looks pretty awful to me. He has a 6 pack in a lot of the photos, but that’s just a matter of low body fat. Just because he is thin doesn’t mean he’s fit.
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My dad is the same way - he’s extremely underweight due to illness (something like 40kg at 5’4"ish) and even though he is very weak, his low body fat means that he has visible abs and good definition for what little muscle he does have. His muscles haven’t completely wasted away because he still uses them for everyday activities like walking and lifting things - and Iggy Pop has probably retained even more muscle, given that he’s far more active than my father.
He has what I call “old guy muscles”. They are the kind of muscles that develop over years of hard labor, and never fully disappear. He use to get pretty physical onstage.
The cluster of blown nerves near his upper pect looks hideous.
I have a friend who is very fit, no fat, only dry muscles. They do not exercise, they’re basically like that by nature. They always get comments about how they must lift weight or do this or that, but nope!
I’ve known Jim / Iggy since the 1970s. He’s always worked out. He’s a hatha yoga devotee. He was never on heroin as long as his mythology makes you believe he was. That was done in the mid-70s. He still did coke on and off for a long time, but that didn’t interfere with him working out. He also used steroids to some extent. But Iggy is a weird combination of health freak and wastrel. And of course he’s old now and goes to bed early. The party days are long gone.
Hey, thanks for the straight dope on that, Gutterdandy. I figure anyone who’s on a “real name basis” with him is believable.
He probably gets decent cardio just performing.
He played a week at Bookies Club 870 in Detroit in the later 1970s and I talked to him frequently – I think I attended every show that week. I even interviewed his parents on the phone – sweet people who loved their son. Jim can’t wear a shirt for too long, and is just too naturally wired to just sit around on his ass. He was still doing yoga daily up to very recently, anyway. He’s always been aware that the bod is part of the whole Iggy package.