Prep Files 2.0 - Why I Hate Bodybuilding (and Why I'm Competing Anyway)

Well, it’s official - I’m prepping for another bodybuilding competition.

I keep going back and forth with myself about the decision. On the one hand, I love bodybuilding as a practice, going to the gym and pushing myself and having a specific goal to work towards. On the other hand, I think I hate bodybuilding as a sport. I’ve always described myself as ambivalent towards it, but the more I learn the more I think it’s kind of terrible.

Right now, one of the hot topics in the bodybuilding community is that there’s a chubby girl planning to compete in a couple of weeks. For some reason, this is incredibly triggering to folks, some of whom are “worried” for her (because she’s still fat 2 weeks out, so obviously she’s going to do some crazy crash diet to try and get “stage lean”) and some of whom are straight up offended that she’s going to hit the stage without having “earned” the right to do so.

Do people not realize that we’re all paying to be on that stage?

There is literally no barrier to entry except money. Anyone can compete, as long as you pay for your card and your entry fee.

In some ways, the “pay to play” aspect makes it almost egalitarian, since literally anyone can sign up and compete, but the amount of money to be made from competitors encourages some very perverse incentives.

Coaches, for example. If you decide to compete, most bodybuilders will tell you that you need to get a coach. Your coach is basically the god of prep - they tell you what to eat and when to eat it, how much cardio to do, what workouts to do. If your coach tells you to eat 1100 calories and do 90 minutes of cardio every day, you’re supposed to do it, even if you feel like dying, because apparently that’s just what prep is supposed to be. There are good coaches and bad coaches, and the difference between the two isn’t their methods, but their results - if you won, you had a good coach, regardless of any damage you might have done.

And that damage can be serious, especially if you use performance enhancing drugs (PEDs), which a lot of coaches push because you basically have to take them to be successful. Just a couple of months ago a 20 year old competitor died of a heart attack after taking diuretics. A few years before that, a competitor was on life support after being pushed to work out more than 2 hours a day while eating less than 1000 calories - and her coach is STILL one of the “top” in the industry.

Bodybuilders often take a lot of pride in the extreme measures they take to get stage ready, which is frankly terrifying to me. YOU DON’T EVEN WIN ANYTHING. Literally! Unless you win a pro show, the most you get is a medal or statue and some swag.

What qualifications do you need to be a coach? None, as far as I can tell. A lot of people go straight from their first competition right into coaching others, and that coaching is usually between $250-400 per month. If you’re doing a 5 month prep that’s up to $2000, and you better believe they’ll tell you that even in the off season you should keep your coach.

It’s very cult-like in a lot of respects, with all the indoctrination, isolation, and ostracization if you do anything “wrong” that you might expect from a cult.

And yet…

And yet…

I love it. My last prep was challenging for me, but no more so than sticking to any diet for months at a time. Watching my muscles start to pop as I leaned out, stoning my bikini, figuring out posing, even the tan. I still look at my stage shots and feel an incredible sense of pride that I Did That - not to mention that I get to tell people I’m a bodybuilder, which is just neat.

Ok, not gonna lie, part of it is also that my last competition was right before the election, so it feels a bit like that was my last happy moment before the world went to shit. That’s not the most rational reason to do another show, but it doesn’t have to be, I guess.

I’m doing a much shorter prep this time around, 10 weeks vs. 20, and I’m a little concerned that I’m not going to drop the weight on time. But… well, who gives a shit? I just want to be up on stage, sparkling under all those lights.