Mr. Olympia crowns the sport’s top professional men
Bodybuilding uses progressive resistance to grow muscle via hypertrophy, then shows it in judged poses for conditioning, size and presence. Novices lifting about seven hours weekly may add roughly 8–15 pounds (4–7 kg) of muscle in a year before gains slow. IFBB’s Mr. Olympia names the leading pro; NABBA’s Universe has been a top amateur meet since 1950.
Unlike powerlifting or calisthenics, the pursuit aims mainly at appearance rather than function. Contest preparation means stripping body fat, then combining carbohydrate loading with dehydration in the final stretch to sharpen definition and bring out veins; most competitors also tan and shave. Progress slows with experience, falling to perhaps 1 to 5 kilograms a year after five years of training. Some athletes take anabolic steroids to grow and recover faster, despite serious health risks.
Strength feats are ancient, with stone-lifting contests held in Egypt, Greece and Tamilakam, but Victorian strongmen cared little about looks and often carried sizeable bellies. The German showman Eugen Sandow, promoted in England and managed by Florenz Ziegfeld, turned muscle display into entertainment and is remembered as the father of modern bodybuilding. He sold dumbbells, spring pulleys and tension bands to the public and staged the first contest, the Great Competition, at the Royal Albert Hall on 14 September 1901, judged alongside Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; William Murray of Nottingham took the gold statuette. America's first big show, promoted by Bernarr Macfadden at Madison Square Garden over the new year of 1904, crowned Al Treloar, whose posing Thomas Edison filmed two weeks later.
Magazines, supplements and physique contests spread the sport in the 1950s and 1960s, and Canadian brothers Joe and Ben Weider founded the IFBB in 1946. Television made stars of Jack LaLanne and Steve Reeves, and the 1977 docudrama Pumping Iron put Arnold Schwarzenegger, Franco Columbu and Lou Ferrigno in front of a wide audience. Jim Manion set up the National Physique Committee in 1981, now the IFBB's amateur arm.
Steroid use rose from the late 1960s. The IFBB introduced drug testing partly in hopes of joining the Olympic movement, yet most professionals kept using, and Congress placed anabolic steroids on Schedule III in 1990. That same year wrestling promoter Vince McMahon launched a short-lived rival, the World Bodybuilding Federation.
Source: Bodybuilding
