Of course there is a significant time distance between those photos - Ruhl’s is from Miss Olympia 2000, Chalamet’s is from 2024

  • bennypr0fane@discuss.tchncs.de
    10·
    24 hours ago

    I’ve always wondered if those muscles actually work. I mean, they look like all the strength they give you will simply be required to move that mountain of flesh around, with little surplus remaining for, you know, moving other stuff.

    • GalacticGrapefruit@lemmy.world
      2·
      48 minutes ago

      I’m not a bodybuilder. However, two of my family’s closest friends were competitive Natural Olympia bodybuilders.

      Bodybuilding is not healthy for you, long-term, even without abusing steroids (which was the practice my friends did in pursuing this art form - yes, it is an art form).

      The way they explained it was that in the ‘off-season’, focus was put toward gaining and maintaining mass, which put tremendous stress on ligaments and tendons. Inevitably, knee and hip surgery, or even back surgery was in their future, even if they were careful (and they were).

      During the competition season, focus shifts to losing dangerous amounts of body fat. Competition requirements for men are different than women’s condition reqs, largely because of natural body fat distribution. It still gets dangerously low, to the point where metabolism, cognition, memory, reflex, coordination, sleep, mood, all of that starts taking a hit. Not to mention, to get the kind of striation the person on the left is showing requires deliberate dehydration.

      In the off-season? He could probably lift a car if he had to (and spend weeks babying his rotator cuff because those tendons aren’t meant to handle that kind of pull force). On-season? You could knock him over with a stiff breeze.

      My friends eventually retired when they were in their 30s, because they both wanted to be able to have biological children. They’re doing great, they have two very cute daughters.

    • nova_ad_vitum@lemmy.ca
      23·
      23 hours ago

      If you’re asking if a high level bodybuilder is strong, the answer is absolutely yes. That guy will bench press 400 pounds for reps .

      If you’re asking whether their strength to weight ratio is the highest a human can get them the answer is no, not even particularly close. Turns out that the exercise approach you need to achieve hypertrophy (muscle soze growth) is different from what you need to achieve strength gains, though they’re obviously related.

      Plus Timmy’s dick likely works way way better.

    • MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip
      4·
      23 hours ago

      It’s simplified (because i forgot the details) but basically, they are mostly the initial kind that needs more space and didn’t get replaced with the effective kind. This also only happens to that extent, if you help it with chemicals.

  • Major_Tsiom@fedia.io
    611·
    2 days ago

    It’s the diuretics. When bodybuilders are ready for a contest, they are very dry and have ragged looking faces. In off season, they don’t look like that, but I think it takes its toll over time anyway.