When is the line crossed?

Greetings All,

    I found myself contemplating the other day, “When exactly do you become a bodybuilder?”  Is it technically when you start training like one?  Is it when that’s what everyone perceives you are?  Some scream you are not a true bodybuilder until you step out on stage in a competition.  I honestly don’t know.   

    The same could be said for the question, “When exactly do you become a nerd?”  Is it when you start talking fervently about Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica?  Is it when that’s what everyone perceives you are?  Some say that nerds are just born that way.

    I am told that perception is everything, but can one perception trump another?  If you are a nerd who gets into bodybuilding, do people forget the nerd perception all together?  Vin Diesel (action star extraordinaire) has the persona of big muscled tough-guy, but in real life he has very geeky passions (D&D, computer games, and I am told LARPing). 

    When is it that that line is crossed?  I am going to go with a combination of inward and outward perception.  You won’t be a bodybuilder until people around you see you as such, as well as you seeing yourself as such.  The same goes for being a nerd (not in a derogatory sense).  My problem is when have I successfully blended the two?

Super Jerry

The Charles Atlas Way

Greetings All,

    Has anyone ever read the old Charles Atlas Ads?  They always showed a skinny guy getting sand kicked in his face by a muscle bound bully.  After a pathetic verbal confrontation, skinny guy gets his ass whipped.  Mean while skinny guy’s girlfriend makes incredibly helpful remarks like “Don’t let him hit you,” or afterwards “Don’t let it bother you little boy.”  Skinny Guy then buys Charles Atlas’s book and, apparently in the course of like a week (15 minutes a day), transforms into buff guy.  Buff guy returns to the beach and sucker punches muscle bound bully (whom inexplicably does not retaliate) and wins doe eyed coos from his (oh so loyal) girlfriend.

    What messages can we take from this add?

1.        Crowded beaches always have bullies who want to start a fight.

2.       Girls like you for you until a guy with muscles comes to challenge.

3.       The other guy is less motivated to workout than you are.

4.       Putting on muscle is easy and won’t change who you are at all.

5.       Retribution always works out the way you plan.

    Why didn’t skinny guy just learn how to play the guitar?  If he’s into girls that airheaded, it would have been a whole lot easier.  Or he could have just grow his hair out and become a sensitive ponytail man. 

    As campy and ineffective as it was, I suppose Mr. Atlas could have purveyed his business with worse messages aimed at boys and younger men than “Have muscles, will not be f*cked with”.  Survey says?

 Super-Jerry

The first "Great Reveal"

Greetings All,

    I have my first little therapeutic exercise this weekend.  Some friends and I will be going to a local amusement park and one of highlighted areas will be the water park area.  How’s this therapeutic?  Well, it will be the first time in nearly 15 years since I have appeared in public with my shirt off.  Considering that my costume for the forthcoming Dragon*Con is very revealing in the upper torso area, I figured I would need to get passed the self consciousness.  My trainer says I have nothing to fear because the fruits of my labors are evident.  I on the other hand, pessimistic to the end, envision everyone pointing and laughing.  I know it’s not rational, but feelings aren’t based on rationality.  Still, I am going to do me very best to let such petty fears go and just enjoy myself.  I will get some pics of the experience and post them.  Nobody laugh, please!

By the way:  Here are a few “progress so far” pics from last week’s chest and back workout.

Super-Jerry

"Supernatural" Bodybuilding?

Greetings All,

     So I heard about this organization called the Supernatural Bodybuilding Federation.  When I first heard this title I was a little dumbstruck.  Not being a regular member of the bodybuilding community, I mistook the meaning all together.  I was envisioning a bodybuilding competition where werewolves, ghosts, vampires, zombies, etc. go to compete.  Wouldn’t that be an ugly scene?  The werewolves would probably be trying to tear the throats out of the other competitors, while the vampires wouldn’t be able to get a good pump going (owing to the fact that their hearts don’t beat).  Ghosts might have a bit of trouble with their stage presence considering they are semi-transparent.  Zombies would have trouble with the pose down when their flesh starts to fall off; however they wouldn’t suffer any water retention problem (maybe a little bloating).

    I just wonder if the founders of that organization didn’t realize that their choice of name was ripe for jokes and sarcastic comments.   Come on guys!  We are trying to break the dumb muscle-head stereotype here.  They should change the name to the “Strictly Natural Bodybuilding Federation”.  That way they wouldn’t even have to change the logo.

Super Jerry