The people with good joints sit over here thinking they're better than everyone, the various types of strong people sit at the tables over there talking shit about how their selection of lifts is the one true test of strength and that the other selection of lifts is for pussies and whining about how hard coaching their hobby is, the people who like kettlebells sit in their own area talking about how bad it is to have weights on either end of a handle instead of hanging underneath, crossfitters write fanfictions about their favorite professional athlete beating people who say that crossfit isn't a good way of getting good at crossfit, and the functional people move through strange DYEL patterns in a corner mumbling to themselves about how everything but sprinting is dysfunctional. But if there's one group they all love bashing more than any other, its bodybuilders. And as a hybrid athlete (I like both building muscle AND using it to do stuff), it pains me to admit that they have a point.
Lets face it, bodybuilding has gone full... ..funny I should mention how different things were back when I was in high school, we spoke about things a little differently back then... ...but progress is a good thing, so lets just say that bodybuilding has gotten to be doubleplus ungood. Say what you will about functional patterns, but it isn't causing people in their 20s and 30s to keel over right and left, go infertile, or need to be on medication for the rest of their lives. Even in the bizarre, atomized, hyperindividualist synthesis of don't-ever-criticize-anyone-for-anything-because-hurting-feelings-is-a-crime nanny-state leftism and the most autistic “WHY DO YOU CARE WHAT ANY OTHER PERSON DOES LIKE HOW DOES THIS PHYSICALLY AFFECT YOU PERSONALLY???????!!!!!” caricature-of-capitalist libertarianism that we call a culture in 2024, with an increasing push to normalize steroid consumption, there's still a consensus, albeit dwindling, that fitness activities probably shouldn't result in formerly healthy young people straight up dying. Unless maybe its something cool like rock climbing or mountain biking where it's like, “Yeah, I can totally see how you could die doing that, makes complete sense to me.” But the reality is, there's pretty clearly something majorly wrong with bodybuilding today.
And it isn't even just the health risks, the obvious issues with putting people who may actually be near death or giving themselves infertility (which is also death, just one that takes longer and allows you to walk around for a while.) up on a pedestal as the ultimate examples of health and fitness. A lot of folks are pretty nihilistic these days and are fine with all that stuff if they can look the way they want to look in much the same way that a lot of young people spend all their money on ridiculously overpriced luxury consumer goods because they've completely given up on ever being able to afford a home and have a family. But worse from that perspective, even the bodybuilding look has been tarnished by the fact that it has become a very open secret that bodybuilders muscle often ranges from underwhelming to counterproductive in terms of performance. Yes, I know that large enhanced bodybuilders do have strong muscles. But they get injured all the time doing absolutely goofy stuff that just should not injure a person. They are strong in a sense, but trying to actually do anything with it is rolling the dice in many cases. Their strength is in many cases... ...and there's really no better way to put this, not functional! It can't be used effectively! What term would you use to describe strength that can't be used effectively? I think it works well.
So far I've picked on enhanced bodybuilders for reasons that should be obvious. And it should also be obvious that that particular shoe best fits heavily enhanced bodybuilders taking extreme doses, so if that particular shoe doesn't fit, you must acquit if you'll forgive me splicing some metaphors to make yet another reference to the lost epoch when I grew up. But natural bodybuilders aren't completely blameless either unfortunately. While natural bodybuilding is obviously way more functional than enhanced bodybuilding as it is fundamentally healthy and all the muscle built can actually be used for stuff without tearing off the tendons, it does deserve some criticism for two reasons:
First, competitive natural bodybuilding is not actually healthy. This is because of the absurd leanness standards required for competition. I don't know whose decision it was to make striated glutes a requirement for competition, but that standard is fucking idiotic. No one cares whether a man's glutes are striated, and if you do, keep that shit to yourself. I don't want to know that about you. It's clearly just “If we can't get as big as the enhanced guys we can at least starve ourselves as lean.” logic, but it completely misses the point. Today's mass monsters have to get insanely lean because with their proportions, anything less will just look fat. Look at them in the off season, even with actual low bodyfat percentages, our brains perceive them as fat because of their balloon like proportions. But that isn't an issue for naturals, or for the less enhanced. The silver and golden era guys never had striated glutes and they looked great! Most naturals even LOOK better at 8-12% bodyfat than shriveled up in competition, and they're certainly healthier and perform better. Idiotic competition standards make a very positive thing less “functional.” If you're decreasing your strength, health etc. to look a certain way that doesn't even look good in many cases, sorry, that's not functional.
And even among non-competitive social media bodybuilders there is room for criticism unfortunately. This is because many of them have made deliberately avoiding training for function and purely training for visible muscle a point of pride and ingroup status signaling as a way of separating themselves from the dreaded “powerbuilders.” Now there's nothing wrong with wanting to build muscle, it is one of the best, healthiest, and most functional things you can do! The problem is the hostility to other forms of training. In the worst case, this will lead to short term gains cut short by lack of proper attention paid to silly “performance based” concerns like having good joints. In the best case scenario, this simply results in the deliberate avoidance of exceedingly low-hanging performance fruit. If you're already going to the trouble of consistently doing hypertrophy training, doesn't take that much additional effort to choose movements that are effective for that goal and also provide performance benefits, whether that be joint health, range of motion increases, or even, yes, functional strength.
“NOOOOOOO, yOU cAN't sAY fUnCtIONal sTreNGth, rEguLAr HYPERtrophy tRaInING IS fUnCtIONal!!!!111” Yes I can you lightswitch brain, functionality isn't binary, either +functional or -disfunctional. Is all hypertrophy training functional to a certain extent? Sure, as long as you aren't just growing the tissue with a bunch of turboroids that are just building giant muscles that won't stay attached to the tendons if they contract hard. But that doesn't mean all hypertrophy training is equal, because some merely builds muscle, while others carry additional benefits whether that be range of motion, tendon strength, or even the skill of strength. You really think a guy who built his back from machine rows and back extensions is going to be as capable as a guy who did zercher deadlifts. (And yes, Zercher deadlifts are an effective hypertrophy exercise, arguably the best in class pull from the floor citation: the universe revealed it to me.) Or that the guy who built his quads from leg extensions will be as capable as the guy who did Sissy Squats? Knock it off, there absolutely is such a thing as more functional training.
But it DOESN'T have to be separate from hypertrophy, and in fact shouldn't be, because being a DYEL dork swinging some kind of wizard staff connected to a cable isn't functional at all. Bodybuilding SHOULD be synonymous with functional training, and that's how it used to be. The bodybuilders of yesteryear combined hypertrophy training with strength and mobility in a harmonious union of useful physical fitness. They built their physiques to look good at the beach performing athletic stunts! They didn't try to differentiate themselves from powerlifters, they trained with them and tried to beat them at their own game! Unfortunately, somewhere down the line, these wholistic bodybuilders were replaced by mere musclebuilders with an aversion to the development of anything save pure muscle tissue. This is a lazy mentality on the part of the musclebuilders for obvious reasons, but worse, it enables and excuses laziness throughout the rest of the fitness industry! “Post Fizeek.” “Oh, well, I don't train like a bodybuilder, I train for athleticism!” Ah. And that is why you need to be way less jacked than the average collegiate wrestler or gymnast, makes sense! “Bodybuilding is dysfunctional, I train for function and longevity.” Yeah, wouldn't want to end up like Jack LaLanne, (pictured on front) would we? But unfortunately, musclebuilders have done enough damage to the reputation of bodybuilding that these excuses pass a surface level analysis from anyone without extensive knowledge of the history of physical culture, and were able to facilitate the fragmentation of of physical culture into a bunch of squabbling and far too often, DYEL cliques.
There's plenty of blame to go around, for alleged “fitness enthusiasts” who were all too happy to jump on an excuse to avoid the intense training and objective visual comparison of results inherent in bodybuilding as well as for the “bodybuilders” who focused on muscle to the exclusion of all else and thereby gave everyone else this excuse.
But the reality is, a true bodybuilder ought to be able to perform, ideally in a bunch of different ways, from heavy lifting to athletics. At its core bodybuilding is just generalist training with no particular specialization, balanced development of all muscle groups through full range of motion to meet a wide range of demands combined with low (but not starving) bodyfat for sleek athleticism. Which also means that most serious fitness enthusiasts ought to look something like bodybuilders, at least the natural variety. Unless you explicitly need extreme weight reduction for something like rock climbing or obesity for something like sumo or press specialization, being lean with well developed muscles would probably be very synergistic with your goals. That doesn't mean you should diet down to 5% bf and put on fake tanner, I'm sure as hell not going to do any of that nonsense, but if you're not trying to maximize your muscular development and keep bodyfat to a healthy minimum, chances are far better that you simply don't want to go to the trouble than that you need to avoid it for performance reasons. And that's ok, you don't have to come up with a bunch of copes to explain being DYEL. Not everyone has to be that committed to fitness, there are plenty of other things to do in life. But all involved cliques need to cut out the copes about the types of training they don't feel like doing.