The last several years with ever increasing frequency I am seeing killer bodies on both men and women. Much better overall tone than I ever saw 20 and 30 years ago. Have workout techniques improved that much or is a lot of this from chemical supplements?
My guess is that they are getting it the honest way through hard work but the frequency is kind of mind blowing.Supplements don’t have that much effect, and the ones that have an effect aren’t used that widely. It’s just more people working out, especially with resistance training.
Regards,
Shodan
I agree with Shodan, with a twist: There have also been pretty significant, evidence-based improvements in both nutrition and programming (ie exercise routines) over that time period, and this knowledge is available to everyone with an internet connection now, complete with forums collecting and discussing this wisdom.
I think there might be a hidden subtextual speculation here along the lines of “are performance enhancing drugs rampant or much easier to get now?” But the improvements in nutrition and programming are more than enough to account for it.
For example, there has been a drastic improvement in high school athletes over this same period driven by those improvements, to the extent that the top high school athletes are capable of breaking olympic records of 20-30 years ago, and it is very unlikely they are routinely on PEDs.
I suspect that it’s partially a regional thing, too.
I see way more athletic men and women close to where I live vs. even 20 miles away (Mesa, I’m looking at you).
In terms of frequency, I think there were more toned bodies on the street in the 80’s and 90’s than today.
Yet we’ve been told that obesity is on the rise and rampant. The question then is, is it just the neighborhood of the OP, or have the obesity-mongers been misled by lots of people in good shape who have high BMI?
I think it’s kind of a fad. When I was in high school (1970s) nobody worked out with weights unless you were a football player or some kind of bodybuilding freak. My son is now in high school and takes a Personal Fitness class a lot of his buddies work out. They research form for exercises, take nutritional supplements, etc., etc. This is anecdotal of course but there does seem to be a cultural shift.
A CBS News report from 2012 refers to a study by the medical journal Pediatrics, which found that among teenagers whose average age was 14, about 6% had already used steroids.
How is this possible? As Harrison Pope points out, “any 13 year old who knows how to use a computer” can inexpensively purchase PEDs from overseas manufacturers. Not only that, but lots of “natural” supplements actually contain some anabolic steroids.
So therefore you likely have millions of people who have used (or are actively using) PEDs, and since steroid use is a felony, nearly all of them are masquerading as "natural". And a recent study found that steroid use can cause a beneficial shift in metabolism many years after usage has stopped.Other people, unaware of the seismic shift occurring in the realms of sports and physique culture, assume that “modern scientific training methods” are responsible for the new breed of supermen.
To be clear, the “evidence-based improvements in both nutrition and programming” have been long known but the popular fitness press and physical fitness government standards and recommendations have focused on methods, tools, and supplements that are of poor efficacy, are counterproductive, or even harmful (e.g. situps, Nautilus-type weight machines, elliptical trainers, sugar-ladden sports drinks, ‘low fat’ diets, et cetera). Most of what people know about fitness training either comes from primary and secondary school physical education (often worse than useless), fitness club ‘traininers’ (varying quality and veracity), and from television infomercials selling junk devices or methods.
As an example of “old is new again” training methods and tools, interval training using free weights such as kettlebells and steel clubs has a very long history and is known to be an effective method of both physical conditioning for strength endurance and body composition. That it is suddenly a “new” thing (in about the last decade or so) is really a result of the promotion by a handful of people and facilitated by both personal and Internet marketing. With a little bit of coaching and learning the safe ways to use these tools, a person wanting to improve physical conditioning and body composition can do so with just 20 or 30 minutes of vigorous exercise a day versus the hours that gym rats put in or that government standards advocate as a “minimum” level of physical fitness.
However, even building muscles and cutting down body fat is not holistic fitness; there are plenty of apparently well fit athletes who are still damaging their bodies with poor practices, bad posture, and terrible dietary choices. It should be noted that BMI is such a misapplied metric of physiological fitness or metabolic health as to be virtually useless. It is entirely possible to be very fit and have a high BMI, or have extremely poor fitness and be well within the “good” zone. However, obesity and poor musculoskeletal conditioning are, in fact, rampant, often with people who aspire to exercise and be fit. This has not nearly as much to do with working out as people often believe, and even has less to do with diet than often assumed; it is instead a result of the sedentary lifestyle the majority of the developed world experiences in both occupation and leisure, and especially the car-centered culture of suburbia where there is little incidental physical effort on a regular basis. Just climbing the stairs instead of riding the lift or parking at the back of the lot to get a longer walk doesn’t cut it; we need both almost constant activity and to teach better methods of movement and posture.
As to why we see more people who are (or appear to be) more fit than in previous decades, it can be largely credited to the ‘muscle beach’ culture of Southern California and the resulting impact upon television and movie actors desiring (or being forced) to achieve a high level of apparent fitness in roles for which that is required or desired. Again, many of the things actors do to appear fit, such as rapid muscle hypertrophy, are not actually good practices that the general public should follow or can maintain but they do look good on the silver screen with bulging pecs and biceps. (In every interview in which Chris Evans is asked about his workout to play Steve Rogers, he bitches about the mass of food he has to eat and the gym time he has to put in to build up the superhero physique of Captain America, indicating just how unsustainable it is to maintain that kind of peak conditioning on a daily basis without the kind of constant training that will ultimately result in burnout or injury.) But it is certainly possible (and desirable) for someone with very average physical aptitude to develop and maintain a significant degree of physical strength and conditioning, which has benefits for longevity into senior age and mental acuity at all ages, with a fairly modest and well-varied workout routine even just using bodyweight and simple tools like kettlebells, clubs, rings, paralettes, or pullup bars. The fitness industry at large doesn’t promote this because it means you don’t need to go to a gym or buy thousands of dollars of machines and weights in order to be fit or even get ‘ripped’ (if you so desire) but with a reasonable amount of motivation and a little bit of training, anybody with basic physical capability and who will managed their diet can get a ‘killer body’.
Stranger
The bodies you see today are not the same as the weight lifters or trainers of the past. Training methods have changed.
Really? I think the data is that doping works and steroids are not ard for the recreational bodybuilder to score.
The data out there on there on the prevalence of steroid use by recreational bodybuilders and the simply vain is not simply great. But I suspect that there are more out there using than you seem to think.
In any case my personal experience is inconsistent with the premise of the op. IRL I do not see too many people with killer bodies and see lots of people who clearly do not exercise at all. Media portrayals of males, in particular of male heroes as models of masculinity, in particular has shifted lots though. Much more often more hypermuscular now.
Supplements ≠ P.E.D.s
When the op asks if l “chemical supplements” play a role, then, yes, performance enhancing drugs are part of that set.
I wasn’t very clear in my post, in general most people I see in So Cal are not all that fit, but it is far more common today to see these killer bodies worthy of magazine covers than it has ever been before. It has always been common to go to the beach and see a lot of folks in great shape but now they look like they are in training for an MMA match.
I think the gap is widening.
There are more people than ever who are very out-of-shape, but the folks who work out are more serious than ever. I see the same core group of people every time I work out - the dilettantes give up quickly and stop coming.
Another thing contributing to this is social media physical fitness movements. For young women, for instance, Bikini Body Guide has been a cultural phenomenon, and I’m sure there’s more. (The only reason an old guy like me has heard of it is because D18 Jr’s girlfriend got into it big time.) So the reason you’re seeing a higher prevalence (a perception which I share), is simply because more people are doing it. Whether or not they’re doing it better than previous age cohorts may not be the issue - there’s just more people to notice.
where exactly are you seeing these people? Have you been in a Walmart lately?
I frequently go running on a trail that passes near a fitness center and most of the people coming out of the fitness center do not by any means have “killer bodies” which I assume you mean indicates someone starved down to an unhealthy level of body fat so their muscles are visible.
I think a lot of it is social circles and peer pressure and such. Haven’t they done studies where if one member of a group of friends gains significant weight, the other members are that much more likely to do so as well? I imagine it’s similar for fitness.
I’d agree that the extremes are extreminating more. From my observations, starting in their mid-30’s, there’s a noticeable split between the people who take care of themselves and the people that don’t so much, and it gets more pronounced and extreme with time and age.
I’ve noticed the same.
I’ve heard only about 3% of the US population actually works out regularly and watches what they eat.
I’m not far from the beach in Orange County, CA (southern California) and I think this percentage is pretty accurate. If So Cal a Mecca for fit people, I can’t imagine what the rest of the country looks like.
From what I see, the vast majority of people just don’t care how unhealthy a life style they have or what they look like.
I am no talking about the amount of fit people as much as I am how extremely fit so many of the fit people are becoming. These same people 30 years ago would likley have been fit but now we are seeing extreme fitness, very low body fat with heavy muscle. What used to be worthy of a magazine cover is now a fairly common sight.