#4: Bodybuilding History 101

Ah the fitness industry, what a fascinating world.

Whether you’re a buff dude looking to impress his gym crush with a new PR, a self-proclaimed guru in possession of all the answers or the new celebrity trainer eager to sell you the latest 15-minutes circuit for instant abs, there’s really space for everyone.

When the first Mr Olympia was held in 1965, the fitnesses community was extremely niche and mainly inhabited by the elite, la crème de la crème. To outsiders it must have felt like a cult, the initiation ceremony being mixing those mysterious powders with water and shaking vigorously.

Arnold was considered the peak of human evolution, tall, muscular, with an exotic accent. People would marvel at his intense workout and crazy lifts, wondering how did he get so strong and muscular. Must’ve been all that milk, right?

Then the ‘80s came along and it was all head bands, leg warmers and neon colors. They were bold, they were loud and they were fun.

The bodybuilding scene was growing and becoming more accessible to the “normies”. Lee Haney, who ended up being crowned Mr Olympia 8 times, was probably the most renowned name in the industry at the time as Arnold shifted his focus on acting after winning his last and very controversial title in 1980.

As bodybuilders were getting bigger by the year yet still perfectly aesthetic, gym culture was becoming a global phenomenom and everyone tried to uncover its mysteries by buying tapes and magazines.

The ‘90s saw the rise of Dorian Yates as the undisputed king but also a shocking moment when a life size superhero walked on stage with amount of muscles never seen before.

I believe that was the moment a crack split the industry and people started thinking:”That’s too much for me”

Regular gym goers wanted to get more muscular and lean but when size started pushing human boundaries it raised concerns about health, suddebly a  bigger bicep peak didn’t feel so important.

So the bodybuilding scene started giving up to its darker nature and we saw an increasingly worrying obsession with getting unnaturally big. Often times this derived from a latent body dysmorphia fueled by steroids, which were both mainstream and the worst kept secret in gym culture.

The end of the millennia and the start of the new one saw just one guy sweeping trophies left and right: Ronnie Coleman.

If Dorian was big, nothing could prepare the audience for Ronnie, a dense and immense freak of nature that rocked the stage and stole all our hearts with his genuine personality.

His presence was the consolidation of the direction taken by the sport and its definitive departure from the values of the health and fitness industry, now more completely broken up into individual “divisions”.

As the industry kept producing the next mass monster to claim the Olympia title, dissociation amongst fitness enthushast and professionals that gravitate around these fields grew wider and wider, labelling the open division as “too extreme”.

Today things haven’t changed for the open division which, although still relatively popular amongst the sport’s fanatics, it doesn’t seem to attract a particoularly large audience, but it seems like people are turning their attention to the past and demanding a comeback of the classic aesthetic look they made is fall in love in the first place.

This desire to admire more aesthetic physiques and a return to armonious shapes allowed the rise of the Classic division, today arguably the most popular thanks to the impact made by 6x Olympia Champion Chris Bumstead.

As fitness influencers from all corners of the world take control of the scene, the hope for the future is to see this mindset cementing, a return to the real roots of bodybuilding.