Wee G

The View From Within - Problems with the Perception of Strength Sports.


As athletes we tend to look at ourselves as being “different”. We are proud of the discipline that we put in to the Iron sports, whether it be weightlifting, powerlifting, strongman or bodybuilding, and rightly so. We know all too well the years of effort required simply to get to a point where our peers will say “Yeah, he’s a strong guy”. And as you know, the props from other lifters are the closest most of us get to public reward. There is little money in the world of Irondom, even at the loftiest heights of world level.

In an interview world champion bodybuilder Dorian “the Shadow” Yates stated that he made around 1 Million dollars a year during his Mr Olympia reign, that’s including all contracts, endorsements, personal appearance income, income from writing, personal training etc. That is no mean feat, but in the same time frame Michael Jordan was estimated to make up to 56 Million dollars a year. That’s not to say that Michael does not deserve such reward, he does, but does he work any harder than The Shadow? Hell No!

It all boils down to public interest, which in turn dictates marketability. There is HUGE public interest in MJ even now in the twilight of his career. At his peak in the nineties he was everywhere in the media, flashing the trademark smile and telling the kids to “Just Do It”. Well kids, if your going to “Do It”, do it in boxing, do it in golf, do it in soccer, do it in American football...but don’t do it in the Iron game unless you fancy holding down another job while you do because you are highly unlikely to make an income solely as a competitive athlete.

Some examples.... Gary Franks, he of the 2500lb total in powerlifting, works full time as a strength and conditioning coach. His close competitor Ed Coan owns and operates Quads Gym, offering personal training services etc. In bodybuilding the former Mr Olympia worked full time as a police officer until he had won the title (the highest award in the sport) several times before he felt secure enough to quit his job. Can you envisage many times winner of golf’s US Open Tiger Woods working full time as a beat cop in order to make enough money to be financially secure? I thought not. It just doesn’t work in your mind because you look at a figure such as Tiger and you think “But he deserves it”. Doesn’t the Iron game deserve it?

Maybe, but maybe not.

Lets take a look at the public opinion of these athletes, the sports themselves and why the public interest in strength is not high enough to financially compensate the athletes. After that I will put forward a few suggestions as to how we can best improve the public perception of strength sports.

Starting with the negative side here’s my “top four” reasons why the public interest in strength athletes and bodybuilders is so small. It’s mostly down to people perceptions of strength; call them misconceptions if you will. The first is the worst.

They use drugs.

No ifs, no buts, no maybes. Strength athletes use drugs. The drug free strength athlete is the exception to the rule. Now some readers are going to be aggrieved at me for saying this but I agree wholeheartedly. Of course I realise that at grass roots level most athletes are drug free but take a look around! The top-level strength game is a drug culture first and foremost nowadays. Put ten strength athletes or bodybuilders in a room and dollars to donuts the conversation will turn to drug use. Look at forums on the net. Almost every forum has a section devoted to discussions on drug use, and in most cases this is the forum with the greatest traffic. Why is that?

Well to be blunt it is because most of the athletes realise that if they ever wish to rise to the top of their sport they are going to have to do what the guys at the top already are doing... use drugs. And so, to use a terrible pun, the cycle goes on. What can the strength world do to combat this public perception? Well, nothing. That’s right, absolutely nothing. We are fighting a losing battle on this front, the genie is out of the bottle and we can’t put it back in. As far as the public is concerned not EVERY athlete who is demonstrably strong MUST be using anabolic drugs. The problem is that the manner in which this strength is displayed will determine the public’s response. Grow a suit of muscles and you are “on drugs”. Lift a heavy barbell from the floor and you are “on drugs”. Run 100 metres in 9 seconds you are “an incredible athlete”. Run 40 yards in 4.3 seconds at a bodyweight of 310lbs to sack the quarterback and you are “a force of nature”. You see what I mean? We all know the linebacker could be on, the sprinter could be on, even the freaking distance runner could be on, but to the public until you have them pick up a barbell or stand around in their Speedos comparing muscles there is a good chance they are clean.

This even extends to strongman. As unbelievable as it may seem to our American readers, over here in the UK at least top level Strongmen are generally seen as drug free. Hilarious I know but that is the public perception. You know why that is the public perception? Because they don’t lift barbells often on TV and they don’t stand around in tiny little grape smuggler pants comparing muscles... therefore they probably don’t use drugs.

Hell at a strongman show I recently attended the compere actually said in to the microphone “ This is real muscle your seeing here...not fake bodybuilder muscles...you know I recently say a Bodybuilder hanging around outside a garage, he was looking for an oil change...just a little in joke for you guys there...hehe”. Hardly anyone in the crowd caught the Synthol reference but I did and sure I laughed but at the same time the athletes he was intoning as whiter than white included some of the top strongmen in the world. You telling me they are clean?? Well the crowd here was willing to believe it. Have a Strongman drop 40lbs of fat and stand on stage in his Speedos though and suddenly he’s a drug user.

Well, in summary, we the athletes know many of the top athletes in many sports are on something but in the eye of the public drugs, and especially steroids, will be forever linked to bodybuilding. So, if you are a bodybuilder and want to be perceived as being clean (whether you actually are or not) then keep covered up, keep a little fat, and keep off stage. Which, in a round about way brings me to point 2 in our public perception run-down.

Bodybuilding is a “homosexual” sport.

You heard me right. “There’s something funny with those bodybuilders Cleetus, somethun just aint right with them boys..they sure is pretty though”. The view from the inside is that bodybuilders are a pretty hardcore crowd, but from the outside they are a preening, squawking bunch of peacocks who are obsessed with their own physical appearance, and indeed that of each other.

How many other sporting subcultures spend the majority of time discussing what each other’s almost nude bodies look like? Exactly...none!

We all know there is a strong homosexual current flowing through the seedier side of bodybuilding (Chris Duffy’s porn career springs to mind), but it is simply swept under the carpet. Nobody wants to talk about and no wonder. Like it or not most people are homophobic, whether bodybuilders or not, and resent the implication that something they are involved in something that might be even the tiniest little bit “gay”.

Well boys and girls I’ve got news for you. As soon as you call yourself a bodybuilder you are under suspicion in the eyes of the public. So, what can you do about it?

Well, first off all don’t compete until you compete. What does that mean? It means keep your clothes on in public. It means don’t shave your body. It means you don’t need a tan in the off-season. It means the mirror with your reflection in it is NOT a work of art. It means that when your “buddy” flexes for you and you say “looking good big guy”... well, you get it. The general public sees the overt masculinity of some bodybuilders as a show. Every guy who isn’t happy with his own appearance wants to believe that that vascular monster they just saw walking through the mall in tiny little shorts and no top is a bit of a fruit. What we are talking about here is blending in - not easy when you're hyooooge BUT it can ALWAYS be done.

It’s a sad thing, but hey, it’s also somewhat true - tone it down and there's no negative attention. Wear normal, classy clothes. Let your arms hang at your sides for christ sakes. Leave your inch-thick-gold-rope-chain-hanging-over-a-ra-top outfit in the cupboard marked "90's!" and move on.

The next point in our appraisal of the view from outside is less seedy, but perhaps more important.

They can’t relate.

How many times have you been asked what you can lift by a member of the public? Usually if they know anything about lifting they will ask what you bench. If not, they’ll just ask, “What kind of weight can you lift?” Ask them “What lift?” and their eyes glaze over and they look kind of stunned. “There’s more than one lift...oh”. Anyway, regardless of what you can lift it is meaningless to most people. They can’t relate to weight.

Almost inevitably here in the UK when I am asked this question I have to put the answer in to a measure we use called a “stone”. A stone is 14 lbs and people here typically weigh themselves in stones, so a 140lb guy weighs “Ten stones”. If you bench 420 that is meaningless. If you say it in stones they now have something they can relate to. “I lift 420lbs, that’s around 30 stones” So now our ten stone Fred has something to go on. “Holy sh*t” says Fred, “That’s 3 times my weight...wow”. Can you guess the next question? That’s right. “Do you use Steroids?” Urrgghhhh!


The final reason for a lack of acceptance of strength ties in closely with the inability of the public to relate. It is simply the question “Why?” Ask yourself now “Why do I build my body?” or “Why do I want to lift big weights?” Neither task has any real value outside of itself that is immediately recognisable, as my buddy always says “hey man that’s what car jacks are for” In response we have to assume that most people lift for reasons that are not directly attributable to lifting itself. Many other sports are pretty darned pointless outside of themselves, but hardly anyone thinks to ask Maurice Greene why he wants to run so fast in the first place.

I don’t think many of us participate in the iron game for its own sake, when you get down to it most Ironheads really lift simply as a means of self exploration and self fulfilment. If your own experiences of self exploration and fulfilment relate mainly to Hustler magazine then maybe you won’t be following me here, but I and many others lift simply for the intrinsic satisfaction of testing oneself against what is essentially an unending task. Like Sisyphus we roll the stone to the top of the hill again and again and watch it roll right back down again every time, but in doing so we learn more about ourselves and our mental strength in one workout than most people do in a lifetime. The discipline and rigour demanded by the Iron game can be applied any where in life at any time and that is its true value.

The satisfaction of constantly striving to improve our performance is intrinsic, so when you ask me “Why?” I can say quite honestly that the feeling of surpassing your perceived limitations and advancing yourself that most people experience a few times in a lifetime is for me and countless other citizens of Irondom a daily experience and THAT is why I do it. You can’t argue with that.

How can we increase the ability of the public to relate to our sports? Simple, we encourage them to participate. I’m not saying that people need to compete to relate, but lets face it, the more people we can get in to the gym working out and watching their diet the better the public will relate to the more extreme aspects of the sports that some of us represent. In short, we need to open up the brotherhood of Iron to one and all.


If we are to do this we need to negate the effects of the current view of our sports by taking some of the actions I described above. Cover up in public, don’t show off, don't dress like a clown and act like a bully - be diligent and disciplined while remaining approachable.

Basically we each must make a great effort to lead a life that people can aspire to, not look down upon. If we can each do this, then we will see a rise in the acceptance of strength sports and bodybuilding by the public, a consequent increase in low level participation in strength sport offshoots like general fitness weight training, and hence a greater understanding again of our lifestyles.

As you can see it is circular. Every good example we can each make counts towards a greater acceptance. Every person we can encourage to work out in some form is a small step towards the universal acceptance of strength sports and bodybuilding. We might never lay the negative aspects of our sports entirely to rest but we must do everything we can on an individual level to show the real nature of Irondom. The discipline, the fraternity, the knowledge, all the good stuff we of Iron know and love is alien to most people. Do a little today to bring some of it in to someone’s life in a positive manner and maybe one day Powerlifting meets will be sponsored by Frosties and all the kids will want to “Just Do It” like that Mr Olympia guy. Well...we can dream, right?