The fitness industry and YouTube are dominated by the bodybuilding community. The majority of the fitness centers, gyms have pictures of big, ripped bodybuilders who themselves are not fit. Social media takes it further with constant bombarding of pictures of ripped, shredded physiques. The meaning of fitness is now aesthetics, biceps, triceps, pectorals, sorry chesticles, abs, bulking, cutting, chicken, rice, broccoli, zero salt, zero sugar, keto diets, whey protein, creatine, BCAAs, mass gainers, fat burners. On the other hand, actual fitness aspects like strength, endurance, stamina, agility, flexibility, and overall health do not matter.

Competitive bodybuilding principles, techniques are simply copy-pasted on average people who do not wish to do that in the slightest. Extreme concepts like bulking, cutting, no carb diets, low salt, sugar, useless supplements see being normalized. Bulking and cutting are done by competitive bodybuilders to build big muscles and then get ripped before stepping on stage. They eat huge amounts of food during a bulk and then go on a low salt, low-calorie diet before the competition.

Average people do not have to step on stage. They do not have to follow extreme methods like bulking and cutting unless they are very lean or very fat, to begin with. A normal person does it need to eat 6 or meals a day. Eat until the food gets rises to the throat. Consume an insane amount of protein and extra take protein supplements upon that. Wake up in the middle of the night to eat extra food. All of this will result in the person getting fat. The person will then follow an extreme low-carb diet, eliminating salt, oils, and other demonized ingredients, deprive himself of all his favorite foods to get rid of the extra fat.

In the case of bodybuilders, they have good genetics, training lifestyle, and steroids which allows them to put on huge amounts of muscle. When they bulk, most of the food goes into building muscle and not fat. When they cut, they get shredded while maintaining most of the muscle. Average people cannot put on huge amounts of muscle like competitive bodybuilders. Average people cannot train 6 times a week, eat 6 meals, sleep for 10 hours, and somehow avoid all stress. A person might get one meal break in the office, not allowing the time to get six meals a day. If average people bulk like bodybuilders, they will get fat, unless the person is very skinny, to begin with, or experiences newbie gains. Eating extreme amounts of protein will just cause environmental pollution and not extra muscle gain. Instead, a lean bulk or recomp is much better. Even if extreme bulking will build more muscle, average people do not have any hurry. Most of them do not even want to build that much muscle. They do not have to step on stage. A lean bulk will avoid an unnecessary increase in permanent fat cells.

Extreme cutting is not beneficial to anyone. Bodybuilders have to get to a single-digit body fat percentage which requires extreme methods. If average people follow such methods they will suffer and if they get lean, they will rebound and gain back all the lost fat. A low carb and low salt diet will cause water loss which results in weight loss. It does not assist fat loss in any way. This has been explained in detail in the video on sweating. You can watch it here:

Bodybuilders remove carbs and salt from their diet to lose water from their bodies and achieve a dry look on stage. Why should an average person do that? Why should an average person avoid all the foods he likes and torture himself? It will cause more harm than good. Do get inspired from bodybuilders, but do not follow their extreme methods. Live a little. Enjoy your food.

Another thing that comes with bulking is avoiding cardio as it causes muscle loss. Too much cardio can cause muscle loss but little cardio does not. Instead, it will improve heart health which is what most people will prefer. Sadly, walking is now considered cardio. Walking is a part of life. It is one of the first things a mother teaches her child. Walking is essential for survival. Do not follow workouts that restrict you to a wheelchair.

This will not end. There are many more examples of bodybuilding techniques being imposed on normal people. Useless supplements, overemphasis on isolation exercises, every day is bicep day, steroids.

Apart from these techniques, the ideal body standard has become extreme to the extent that it is unachievable. Arnold, Stallone, Carl Weathers brought bodybuilding and ripped physiques to mainstream movies. Now social media is doing the same. Social media just promotes the photos which get more likes and shredded bodybuilders do get a lot of likes. The thing is that if you are ripped like Rambo, you cannot perform like Rambo. It is extremely difficult to sustain and feet good at single-digit body fat. At that point, even normal workouts will feel difficult, forget about lasting a day in an actual war, like Rambo. Real soldiers, who are super fit, are nowhere close to the leanness of Rambo.

But now, being shredded, single-digit body fat is considered normal. 5% body fat all year round is the new ideal. People have started to filter everything by bodybuilding standards. They look at everything from a bodybuilding perspective. An excellent physique like Chuck Norris would be considered soft. Tom Hardy’s Bane is considered fat even when he has visible abs. Muhammad Ali, with the face cropped, would be trolled with “do you even lift” comments? Strong men are being roasted with comments like “did you forget to cut.” People cannot accept that strongmen have different goals. They feel that everyone should be ripped like bodybuilders and practice bulking and cutting. You are either with us or against us. You are either a bodybuilder or do you even lift. Look at old Hollywood or Bollywood actors. Look at the leading men from westerns, spy films, dramas, or wrestlers. Eg: Clint Eastwood, Marlon Brando, Rowan Atkinson, Sean Connery, Clint Walker. None of them are shredded. They are all between 11% to 20% body fat. Wrestlers are above 20% body fat and yet they were considered the ideals of strength and fitness. 18% to 20% body fat is a perfectly healthy place to be at. Do not let social media and stupid influencers fool you into believing that it is fat.

Make health your priority. Fitness should help you in your life. Your entire life should not be dedicated to fitness. Your day should not revolve around the gym.

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