MUSCLES, MEN AND MASCULINITY

MURRAY DRUMMOND

Paper presented at the AARE conference Newcastle November 1994

According to popular lore, was built through the efforts of male muscle. Legend depicts Australia’s formative years to be a period where rugged outback settlers battled nature and the odds, in a struggle for survival. Men were revered and held responsible for this pioneering and forging of new land. Similarly, the development of Australian industry is deemed as being the product of male initiative, although not displaying the same brawn qualities of its pioneering predecessors. Exercise, vigor, and the building of strength and physical power are ways in which contemporary men have brought some of this image back into their lives.

Sociologists and anthropologists argue that now, more so than any other period in history, muscles have become an important part of masculine identity in western culture. However in the quest to attain this muscular physique, men must work their bodies in a physical manner. Therefore, muscles have become synonymous with sport and exercise. However, many men abhor physical activity, often as a consequence of bad childhood experiences with sport, and there are men who simply do not have the time to exercise due to work commitments. For men such as these, life can involve a constant battle with their own conscience as they struggle with their decision not to exercise in the face of negative social regard and criticism.

The benefit of muscularity is instilled into boys from an early age. Boys may suffer if they can’t or won’t accept the obligation to develop a “manly” physique. Muscular, athletic boys are generally well accepted by peers and have a positive self-concept. They are often paid more attention by teachers at school as a consequence of their outgoing, confident personalities. They are also popular with girls. A muscular, athletic physique can lend to many positive outcomes and boys learn this quickly.

This paper will investigate the importance of muscles in the development of masculinity throughout the lifecourse of men. It will examine the lives of twelve elite level sportsmen, from the sports of , surf and triathlon, to discover what emphases these men place on the size, shape and muscularity of male physiques and the way they perceive masculinity, including their own. The data is derived from interviews with twelve elite level athletes involved in my Doctoral research. An analysis of the information provided by the athletes indicated that self-esteem was the ultimate underlying factor these men regarded most highly. The importance of a positive self-esteem was paramount to each group of athletes and it appears the men I interviewed chose sports which would help them develop a positive self-esteem. The athletes tended to emphasize aspects of their sport that provided them with personal positive outcomes.

Examining each group collectively, differences became apparent. The bodybuilders relied on the visible appearance of their muscles, that is the hyper-muscular development, and body image to create their positive self-esteem whereas the triathletes regarded competition and their race results as a primary influencing factor. Living the life of a surf lifesaver and immersing oneself in the sub-culture appeared to be a significant factor in the development of the surf

lifesavers self esteem. However, almost every triathlete and surf lifesaver interviewed made reference to their lack of physical size in comparison to bodybuilders. They also inferred a desire to attain a larger physique at some point in their life, most likely once they have finished competing in their respective sports.

It was made clear that the triathletes and surf lifesavers did not approve of the hyper-muscularity displayed by bodybuilders although, they did envy the manner in which the sport allowed these men to attain such a size. Triathletes and surf lifesavers do not develop a large physique due to the excessive amounts of aerobic activity involved in their training and racing, nor would they want to carry such a heavy weight over many kilometres. According to the triathletes and surf lifesavers, bodybuilders can afford to be muscle-bound because they are not “real athletes” since it is not a “real sport”. These sentiments were reinforced by Terry, who is a professional triathlete with a very lean, but extremely well toned, physique. Jokingly he claimed that most of his friends regard him as “scrawny”, a fact that I would argue heightens the insecurity surrounding his lack of muscularity by drawing attention to this physical deficit.

Yeah I s’pose. I mean I s’pose there is something. Yet I know myself that I'm good at what I do, so, I don't need to look like the way they look....I s’pose there is some sort of thing "oh gee it'd be good to be as big as that" but yet if I was as big as that I couldn't do what I do. People say when, you're in the gym, "Oh look, you wanna put a bit of beef on or something" and I say ....I've just gotta say, "well I don't need to because I'm an endurance athlete..I do sport.. I don't wanna be carrying around a 120kg frame like you've got" ....but I s’pose if I gave up the sport I'd probably want to look a bit more muscle bound than I do. If muscularity is a major factor in the development of a man’s self esteem, one would imagine bodybuilders to have a positive self esteem as a consequence of their large physique and the hyper-development of a perceived masculine attribute. This does not appear to be the case. The bodybuilders seemed to be insecure about their physiques claiming that they do not have good bodies particularly in regard to size. They seemed content with the shape and symmetry but it was size which was most important to them. Losing size was a major fear that each bodybuilder acknowledged and learning how to cope with this loss of size was a battle. The deep seated insecurities held by these men concerning their physiques did not simply occur over a short period of time. They all lacked a positive self image from an early age therefore these feelings of inadequacy have had time to develop over a significant period. Mark has been a bodybuilder for seventeen years and is grateful to bodybuilding for changing his life. For years he was small and weak with little self confidence:

I used to play football for East Perth, used to play cricket, always good at all the sports. I was always up, like running for fairest and best and things like that, but mainly coz I was always like the underdog. I always tried that much harder than everybody else, you know to sort of prove a point....I didn’t take up bodybuilding as a sport, I took up weight lifting so that I could....first of all, I had asthma very, very bad. When I was 21 I weighed 42 kilos so I started training so that I could, you know, get healthy and sort of you know improve my breathing capacity. No intentions to sort of become a bodybuilder whatsoever.

There are times in these men’s lives when they are comfortable with the way they look, though the feeling of impending doom rests heavily on them with the fear of losing physical size through injury or illness. Be that as it may, it is the word “plateau” which bodybuilders fear most as this signifies a cessation in growth. Anything less than what they are doing at present to maintain their physique will amount to a

decrease in size.

In his autobiography Muscle: Confessions of an Unlikely Bodybuilder, an outstanding account of the world of serious bodybuilding, Sam Fussell recounts the horror of facing up to the human reality of bodybuilding and admitting to being a victim of the “plateau syndrome.”

But by September of 1986, two years after I had first embraced iron, something went wrong. I ignored it at first. After all, the Medco (weighing scale) was frequently unreliable. I upped my food dosages and supplements, but without effect. The cruel fact was that my body had stuttered, then stopped growing. My training diary recorded the problem, the tape measure confirmed it. I was stuck with 17-inch arms, a 17-inch neck, 16-inch calves, a 48-inch chest, and 26-inch thighs. Months passed without a gain of even 1/16 of an inch. In an agitated state, I confessed my problem to Sweepea. He looked at me sympathetically, then bit his lip. “Plateau,” he mumbled. It is the word bodybuilders fear most. Somehow, some way I had to break through it (Fussell, 1991, p.85).

The only way for the body to begin growing again is to change elements of their training regime. Usually this would mean changing the exercises the bodybuilders were performing or changing the amount they were lifting or even changing their diet. However, in many instances it meant changing to a cycle of steroids. Paul, a bodybuilder, suggested that the most important aspect of his sport was constant improvement and he believed he had remedied the problem of the dreaded “plateau”:

Constant improvement. If I don’t see improvement I ask myself “what am I doing this for ?”....You always go through periods of improvement and then go through periods of plateau where there is no improvement. After a plateau you forget the improvement you had, you forget the weights you were lifting, the size you were, unless of course you keep records of all this, which I don’t like to do. So, therefore during this plateau you also tend to drop off in strength, you will also regain that strength when you put more work into it, and therefore you will start to get better, you know you will start to improve. Again with me I had tended to take the easy way out in that when there are plateaus and I feel as if I’m lifting, lifting as best as I can, I will then go straight to the steroids because the steroids will give me the dramatic increase in strength, dramatic increase in size. I can stop the steroids at any stage, usually after 4 or 5 weeks, I can maintain the majority of that increase and basically I can start, start at a new base level. So, therefore I can build from that new base level whereby before my base was lower, my size was lower, my lifting amount was lower, I can then boost that right up and start at a different level and then start again from there.

When I asked Paul what will happen when he stops improving, his reply was candid:

Where do I go ? I basically try and make excuses for the reasons why I am not improving number one, I look towards supplementary activities or different sports that will complement what I am doing or that will be complemented by what I am doing, (pause) that basically I don’t delve on it too deeply at the moment. I know that I have got the steroids there if I want them. I know that I don’t train very hard anyway and basically I can convince myself that if I trained harder I would improve. I haven’t reached, the end whereby I don’t think there will be improvement, I still think there can be improvement, very much so.

Having the appropriate genetic bodybuilding gene pool is a very conscious aspect of the sport in that it lies heavily on the minds of these men. Being endowed with inappropriate bodybuilding genes from one’s parents was a major nemesis they had to deal with. However, they

all seemed to take solace in the fact that almost every bodybuilder has at least some body part that is not as responsive to training as others. Therefore they perceive the body as being made up of specific compartments. These compartments are regarded as individual in orientation, as in the parts of a machine, and they are seen as responsive or non-responsive to weight training. In this way the men can develop positive notions about themselves and their bodies by acknowledging gains in different body parts. Paul appears to be typical of the bodybuilders interviewed with the manner in which he compartmentalizes his body when asked to describe his physique:

Well it’s not perfect and I don’t think any bodybuilder will ever describe it as being perfect. Moderately big arms, big chest, small legs, but strong body.

This description of the body is vastly different from the way in which the triathletes and surf lifesavers described themselves. Rather than deconstruct their body into parts, they tended to view their own body in its entirety such as being tall, lean, stocky, slightly overweight and so on. They did, however, regard their bodies as machines but unlike the bodybuilders, they perceived the parts of their machine to be working in unison. This they argued, together with the right fuel, was essential for the optimum performance of their machine. Gary, a surf lifesaver known for his intense commitment claimed:

Am I like a machine ?....Yeah a little bit. I don't think I'm a bit of a robot or anything but, yeah you definitely use your mind to push your body, and unless you put in the right petrol in the tank you won't be going anywhere.

Importantly the bodybuilders were able to justify their commitment to their sport by citing developmental gains in specific body parts. Bodybuilders are very critical of their own overall physique however,and find degrees of contentment in acknowledging the good body parts they have worked hard to attain or were genetically “gifted” with. At least in this way they can be marginally satisfied with the way they look. Fussell provided a good example of the way bodybuilders take heart in not being gifted with “the right” genes. Most of these men seem to dwell on the well documented bodybuilding folk lore which claims how Arnold Schwarzenegger was genetically dealt unusually small calves, yet the hours of pain and torture he spent in making them grow reversed this genetic disposition.

From the moment I started lifting , I was all too aware of my calf deficiency. My solace was that it had once been a shortcoming for Arnold as well. He solved the calf crisis by cutting all of his long pants at the knee to expose the problem. Bodybuilding lore had it that he gained two inches in one year, working that much harder in the constant shame he forced himself to suffer (Fussell, 1991, p. 77).

What does all of this mean ? Why are muscles so important to men and their masculinity ? Where do we begin the analysis of this social construction phenomenon ? According to Klein (1993) what better place to centre discussion of the social construction of masculinity than on the body ? Heavily muscled bodies have traditionally been identified with and held strong appeal for men. In many ancient societies, warriors and gladiators were adorned with sculpted armor that depicted a highly muscular torso. In like manner, current popular culture heroes are defined in such forms as Swarzenegger’s Terminator, or Stallone’s Rocky and Rambo characters These hyper-muscular almost comic book figures idealize the mesomorphic male form, making it a cultural ideal. This also rings true for those men in society who do not wish to have a mesomorphic physique. However, their idea of what should be appropriate in society has been influenced by the culture we live in. Connell emphasised the manner in which the male body receives its masculinity through culture and society by claiming that:

The body-as-used, the body I am, is a social body that has taken meanings rather than conferred them. My male body does not confer masculinity on me; it receives masculinity (or some fragment thereof) as its social definition (1983, p.83).

Fashion is another cultural factor which often emulates traditional muscular form by designing clothing that empasises wider shoulders whilst tapering in trimmer at the waist. In short, suggested Klein “the equation of gender, muscularity, and power was/is immediate and pervasive” (1993, p.241).

The social definition of men as holders of power is translated not only into mental body-images and fantasies, but into muscle tensions, posture, the feel and texture of the body. This is one of the main ways in which the power of men becomes naturalized (Connell, 1983, p.85).

Therefore muscles are perceived to be a form of power and a muscular body is perceived to embody power. Since muscles are idealized as a masculine attribute, men are perceived to be powerful. However, a contradiction to this argument arises when the man has very little muscular development or definition. Despite being a man and having all the biological organs that render him male, he does not embody the same sort of power that is possessed by a physically larger, more muscular man. Muscularity is linked to physical potential. Therefore those men with powerful builds are regarded as being more dominant, independant, assertive and self-confident. A psychological questionnaire, the Spence and Helmreich Personal Attributes Questionnaire, identified masculinity grouped with traits such as self-confidence, independence, activeness, competitiveness, and superiority. These traits were not associated with endomorphically (heavily), or ectomorphically (slimly) built men.

As was noted with the bodybuilders interviewed, goals set in relation to the way the body should appear are rarely met. Klein argued that:

The satisfaction that results from becoming more muscular, however, also seems to be lessened by the continued frustration of trying to reach an unobtainable goal. Cultural ideals seem forever to outstrip the individual’s ability to meet them (1993, p.242).

In a competitive bodybuilding sense the same type of occurrence is prevalent within a wider cultural perspective. Bodybuilders are constantly striving for a better looking physique and as such they will never reach their goal of perfection, for who is to say what is perfect and when will these men be content with the physiques they have structured ? In response to being asked whether he was happy with his body, Geoff, a world class bodybuilder, emphasised the plight of bodybuilders:

No. I mean as long as I’m a bodybuilder I’ll never be happy with the way I look I guess. I dunno that’s just me. Always looking on improving. I guess my body is at a competitive level. It’s probably, it’s symmetrical in the sense that I don’t have many bad body parts nothing, then again I don’t have any outstanding parts that sort of overtake everything. I guess my symmetry is very good.

The increased cultural attention given to the male body and the increasing demands being placed upon men to achieve a mesomorphic physique are pushing men to become more concerned with their body and the way it appears. As a consequence, bodily dissatisfaction and a preoccupation with weight and physical attractiveness are likely to be experienced by an increasing proportion of men. This preoccupation may lead to obsessive body altering behaviours, in the form of weight training, dieting and exercising and may drastically affect the quality

of their life as they pursue a dream that is unattainable. Clearly, bodybuilding as a subculture has taken the concerns of the muscular male body to the point of extreme. However, as Klein suggested:

Although this is a social and psychological study of bodybuilding subculture, it is at the same time a study of masculinity. Whereas typical men are seemingly different from the bodybuilders I describe and analyze in these pages, bodybuilders are, without a doubt, like all men. And, although I may seem critically oriented in my interpretation of bodybuilders, I am at the same time critical in my analysis of mankind-all men, including, perhaps particularly, myself (1993, p.6).

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