The Buff Zone 7: The Academy of Meso-Massachusetts

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Kym Huynh
on May 2, 2008
in The Buff Zone
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I have a friend, let’s call him Casanova, who seems to have the uncanny ability to generate muscle-tissue en masse whenever he thinks of any sporting-related activity. For example, we took a couple of surfboards down to the surf for the weekend recently during a time when the waves rejoiced and decided that 12-foot was all the rage. After hours and hours of paddling, swimming and frolicking in the salty friendlessness of sea water, I rejoiced for the appearance of abdominal muscles, but looked curiously at Casanova’s sudden appearance of increased general musculature; in fact I could have sworn that said Casanova was growing right in front of my eyes. I should state that while rationale told me that epic growth is not only improbable sans the use of state-of-the-art steroids-that-have-instant-impact and that this was 99.9% more likely to be the universally adored pump, a phenomenon that occurs when blood rushes through your muscles and makes you appear larger, there is no denying that Casanova’s genetic makeup place him in the mesomorph category; the lucky people who are able to gain muscle and lose fat very quickly and have a physicality generally disposed towards looking like a soldier boy; which also happens to be the artist of my favourite song “Crank That”.

It was with joyous chagrin (after all, jealous is too heavy a word to use and I fear that the admission will be something akin to penis envy; which we must all avoid; after all we are in university now and hence mature) that I realized Casanova could spend two weeks in the gym and achieve what would take me months to achieve; the annoyance even more so by Casanova’s continual references to me as “Little Bitch” as a poke at my less-than-meso-tastic genes, but there was one saving grace that stopped me from encouraging Casanova to take the next mini-tsunami that was bound to come up sooner or later and then laugh at his eventual nosedive, Casanova broke his wrist a few weeks prior, 10 minutes into the year’s first surfing session, so this gave me some time to get ahead of Casanova in the gym department while his hand healed. A little ruthless? Perhaps, but when life gives you lemons, you make lemonade, and I reason that my less-than-meso-riffic genes would give me an edge on Casanova namely in the discipline, constancy and drive department whilst we battle it out in our arena of choice, the gym.

I must admit, I’ve been unscrupulous in my little competition with Casanova. I recently gave him a game called Call of Duty 4, an award-winning first-person shooter that has all the critics and gaming audience raving due to its beautiful graphics and plots, in the hopes that he would get skinny-challenged playing it. To date, the plan has ensured that Casanova has invested in over 2 days worth of game-play, earning him the title of the highly esteemed Commander, but there are still no signs of Casanova getting fat.

So is this tactic a little bit dirty? Probably a little yes, but don’t forget, when your masculinity is at stake and your competitor calls you a “Little Bitch”, you pull out the cannonball shooters and aim a little bit more below the belt. If you want to take away any pearls of wisdom in this column, know that all is fair in the battle of the biceps, triceps and lithe hip flexors.

It is with this thought that I pondered today why I was comparing myself to Casanova. I’m absolutely positive that comparison has no bounds; comparison occurs with nearly every other person out there and while we’re here let’s not forget the St Patrick’s College Club girls, who ranked themselves according to prettiness, weight and their popularity with boys and walked around their school with numbers on their wrists awarded depending how poppin’ they were; Hollywood would be proud. Would I feel better knowing that I had a better physique? Would a better physique equate to a happier me or is this comparison just a way for me to self-assess myself and motivate myself to performing static holds for extended periods of time? (It buuuurrnns. It Burrrnsss!)

Let’s face facts here; the comparisons are not just refined to the bodybuilding world. Sometimes, there is penis envy (there I said it!). Sometimes, there is academic performance envy and sometimes, there’s just that random envy where you wonder why someone else is so hot and with the right makeup, clothes, attitude and posture, you too could be just as hot if not more.

I believe that we compare ourselves, as a way of understanding our place in the world and in the bodybuilding world, the comparison is something that is undertaken meticulously. I have a theory that if bodybuilders refocused their efforts into the field of nanosurgery, we’d have some hot looking doctors and nurses out there and we would live in a world of multiple McSteamys and McDreamys and that their offspring would herald the coming of world peace.

In terms of physique however, comparison is a great way to measure our own progress, see what we are still capable of achieving, and some friendly competition along the way couldn’t hurt unless we are hyper-sensitive to the chants of “Little Bitch! Little Bitch!” It is with the greatest hope that one day mankind will be mature enough to develop thick skins to such comments, and rather than wilt away on the verbal onslaught, have the insight and wisdom to instead give the offender a highly addictive video game so they can become weight-scale challenged.

It is within the freedomistic confines of the creative Farrago office, looking out the window to my left at the autumn yellow leaves of the trees, and to Simon’s words of “Hailing times are happy times,” that I contemplated the possibility of life without comparison; but also remembered I needed to make a quick trip down to the plant nursery and purchase for two of my friends ficus plants to celebrate their new jobs. Life would be so much simpler, not only would we not need to constantly worry bout how we look and act, our productivity would shoot through the roof; just think about how much time we would save not worrying about the mundane things about life. Earthdom and life would be infinitely easier and less of a mental trauma without considering the following: Who has whiter teeth? Did they wash their hair and condition it? Is that lip gloss on that snaggle tooth and why does that person smell like a watermelon?

I must admit, seeing how easy it is for Casanova to grow provides me with many fist-shaking moments to the tune of 50 Cent’s “The Realest Niggas”. While I have been receiving comments lately about my changing physique and perceiving gains every time I look into the mirror and ask, “Mirror mirror on the wall,” the joy in seeing the metamorphosis is displaced by incredulity when I see twice the result obtained without so much as an afterthought by another. Damn that Casanova! Damn those meso-credible genes and damn my need to buy new jeans as the current ones I have are too big as I factored in the possibility that they might shrink in the machine dryer and thus purchased two sizes larger but alas they did not and now I have a really large pair of jeans.

I won’t lie, there is a bit of meso-envy here. Why is it that I cannot be as meso as Casanova? Why can’t I be meso-tastic, meso-riffic, meso-credible and anything else meso that can be attached to such a meso-nificant word? While I may be very proud of my progress to date and what I have personally achieved, one cannot help but wonder where they would be if they had that little extra help? Where would they be if they decided to eat that vanilla-flavoured ice-cream instead of the death by chocolate? What if they had been born with the inability to perform left turns like Derek Zoolander in “Zoolander” or were instead one half of a Tibetan Siamese twin separated at birth? And just what happened to my morning breakfasts anyway? It should go without saying that a life without comparison would be as crazy as the incredible weather conditions that rage around the Farrago office as I speak and almost as crazy as the Farrago editors’ mad dash around the office to inform everyone that winds from the Wizard of Oz and hail from the Himalaya mountains have arrived and brings with it the second coming of Jesus all done to some of the most funky dance moves I have witnessed to date.

When all is said and done however, Casanova constantly reminds me to eat; something I frequently forget to do and I realize is bad considering my desire to put on weight. I guess at the end of the day when all is said and done, there is really something there to the idea that we compare ourselves to others; for if we don’t, how else can we benchmark ourselves and see how we’re progressing overall?

So yes, Casanova may have meso-licios genes, but I will march on in the journey to godliness, for I will be the tortoise in Aesop’s fable of “The Tortoise and the Hare” and my consistency will win in the end so that one day, a fairy tale will be written about me, and it will begin like this: Once upon a time in a land far, far, away, there is a beautiful yet brilliant beast with biceps bigger than a billionaire’s seventh holiday home in Majorca, triceps thrice the size of a red triple-decker bus from London that it tempts all the senses, gluteals so gallant and ginormous that giants shiver in fear, and laterals so luscious that if the salmonella virus was a muscle, it would be that.

Although my genetics aren’t as freakish as Casanova’s, I will rejoice in the quote a good friend, Nat, said to me the other day, “I work out harder than you but I don’t look like I work out. You look like you work out. Do you know how much that hurts me?”

The Buff Zone 6: Mr. Orgasmic Schwarzenegger

Published
by
Kym Huynh
on April 2, 2008
in The Buff Zone
. 1 Comment

After inspiring speeches by Dr. Fiona Wood, Australian of the Year and creator of spray-on skin, inspirational feel-good movies that cement our responsibility to the world, talking with a quasi taxi man called Clive about the importance of following what truly makes us happy, and the too-many-coincidences-to-be-a-coincidence occurrence of crossroads, I was faced with a question that sat in front of me and teased me with its excellent musculature and overall general body tone. It enticed me to consider the holiest of holy questions that has plagued mankind (and now womankind; we must be supportive) since the beginning of our time on this world: Why do we make the choices we make and how, when faced with decisions that make such a profound impact on our lives, can we travel down paths when we have no reasoning to rationalize our decisions?

Just how do we convince ourselves that what we do is the correct thing? After all, if life itself is a series of decisions which we make not knowing at the time the impact it can make on our lives, how is it that we can approach them with such candour and that we only recognise the importance of them in retrospect? Do we knowingly find ourselves in such occurrences but let faith blind us in the belief that what we do will all turn out right in the end or do we really not have a grand plan and go through life floating from one possibility to the next like a worker bee until we land on the sweet, sweet, nectar-giving flower of our choosing and stay there or are we settling or do we land on a game of probability, hoping that the next one will be better than the last?

The latest bodybuilding competition has started and ended in Melbourne with competitors from all over the country competing for the title of champion in a pose-off that is part hypnotic, part hilarious and part savagely-strange. Yet, like a slow motion video of a young adult male taking a water balloon to the head (the splashes entangle hypnotically around his head) or slow motion anything for that matter, I could not tear my eyes away from the unfolding scene despite the repetitive nature of routines and musculature; after all there can only be so many shapes biceps and triceps can take unless you come from another planet; now entirely possible given the released UFO footage on YouTube that was withheld by government conspiracy theorists for the past 40 years.

I waited with bated breath, knowing how the day would eventuate but I watched helplessly nonetheless to the scene unfolding before me, not knowing how I felt and not knowing whether this was beautiful, wonderful or funny. It’s like a bad relationship; you know it is bad for you, but you hang in there hoping that at the last minute, when the timing is right and at the final crucial moment, someone will throw in a stone to divert the path to impending doom where all hell freezes over and you discover that you bought instant noodles at the corner store but have no cutlery to eat it with.

It is in watching this scene unfold before me that I considered just what was the motivating factor behind so many hours in the gym pumping iron; a DVD a friend lent me recently where Arnold Schwarzenegger famously claimed he was orgasmic because he had orgasms in the gym in the morning, at lunch when he ate, in the afternoon when he trained again, then at night in the comfort of his own home. An attempt to claim this as hype in the spirit of the documentary was later made by Mr. Schwarzenegger but I remain unconvinced. He just seemed a little bit too much like me at the time… endorphinized. (Those squat thrusts are really something.)

It is times like these where I sit down and ponder the question we all ask ourselves at one point or another. What is the reason for me being here? Do I matter or was I really just the first one with the fastest set of swimmers that won the race among a contest of thousands; and where is my record deal?

These questions are enough to send anyone around the bend of holy matrimony – lets face it, anyone who chooses to marry is clearly deranged and nonsensical – but with the new colourful board shorts and pendant I obtained from an Israeli backpacker in a Arabian Food Chain in Byron Bay, I felt sufficiently enlightened to ponder what really is my reason for being here.

In retrospect, I’ve had what many would call a funkadelic life, one that is so hip and happening in a far out hip and happening way; my dogs simply adore me. My biggest life challenge to date has been my battle with procrastination. I use to procrastinate a lot but I looked amazing doing so it balanced out. I’m floating cheerily on a river or merriment so where then, does this need to find something more come from? Am I approaching a stage where I need to take the next step and start questioning why? I don’t think I’m ready to start turning into a deranged lunatic just yet as I am in preference for being cryogenically frozen or could I possibly be going through a super early mid-life crisis?

But the truth is we can’t just trust that we will float forever. Destiny will lead us gently down a river and our life choices will determine which winding meander we take. Sooner or later, we nee d to take the paddle and screw up a little bit. Maybe even meander into the forest and dig holes with a trowel to dispose of our by-products least 50 metres away from water sources so that we can be environmentally friendly.

No matter how eloquently a dog may bark, he may never tell you that daddy never loved him like Mike Myers in Austin Powers’ Goldmember; a hilarious movie which unfortunately made me fall asleep in the last three times I tried to watch it. Maybe the fourth time will be lucky. We don’t know what the meaning of life is but we keep constantly asking ourselves this because we want something more. I am undoubtedly a stubborn creature and I’m sure I’m not the only one out there.

So what is it that makes someone try to survive when all is a funky melting pot of crappola? What makes man and woman think, “My life isn’t over yet!” Maybe the meaning of life is the ability to think beyond what you have; the pondering of what the meaning of life is.

Upon retrospect, my reason for being here is as good as any, including the girl in front of me in the red dress. Tonight, I will concede that life is good with a spoon of sugar and that the only thing worth living for is the BBQ sauce at TGI Fridays sent from the cooking pot of heaven itself.

The Buff Zone 5: The Perpetrated Bodybuilding Dream

Published
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Kym Huynh
on August 14, 2007
in The Buff Zone
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Proudly self-proclaimed Apple-nazi since roughly 2005, it is without surprise that I now have new, bright, shiny, and dare I say, extremely sexy Apple and with it, a heightened sense of my surroundings. While outside the gym I like to pretend that I’m the ultimate superhero who will save the world through practical application of physical prowess obtained through endless hours of pain, tears and sweat at the gym, I must admit that the introduction of this new technological wonder has brought along with it inspiration for so many things in life and more importantly it comes along at a time when life brings with it a fresh start on many things including the next instalment of what can only be assumed as mindless, nonsensical dribble which have struck a chord amongst a fervent legion of stalkers and self-confessed alcoholics; after all, any literary works become a masterpiece of hilaritical genius after a couple of pints.

It is here, waiting outside the gym for my new workout buddy that a moment of inspiration hit me like a revelatory burst of sunshine through clouds on a rainy day. Like a slow-motion entrance only seen in teen movies to the backdrop of feel-good songs like “Kiss Me”, so poignant was this moment that I had to pull out my laptop and write the next column straight away. What did it matter that I was currently homeless because I stayed at the Milano building the day before because I didn’t want to walk 15 minutes to my car in the dark, drive home for a few hours of sleep and then drive all the way back to University for early morning classes. What did it matter that I hadn’t brushed my hair that morning, opting for my curl’s Herbal Essence induced natural bounce? A spare set of workout clothes was being brought by my new best friend so I wouldn’t miss my workout. I was on top of the world and the call of the wild entices and lures me to my strangely attractive aluminium-brushed keyboard buttons.

So it is here that I consider an issue that is so pertinent that Bill Clinton himself would fall flat on his face in a religious induced fervour of confession. What do we do when life throws us a curve ball? Do we do what society and Oprah Winfrey or Dr. Phil tell us over and over again to get back up on that proverbial horse and try again or do we need to spend a requisite time in mourning before moving on? Or maybe, does life sometimes bring us such changes that all we can do is sit there and wallow in our own self-pity until a humanitarian reaches out from the sidelines and finds us in the middle of our hurricane – a line I shamelessly borrow from a song and offer at moments of silence on the belief that it makes me sound wise beyond my years.

After days of contemplation and soul-searching interrupted by bouts of random inspiration to start my own wizard rock band, it dawned on me that the answers I sought lay right in front of me. Short of calling up Oprah herself to tell her my revelation, I decided to contact Ricki Lake, the show I first watched and chanted “Go Ricki! Go Ricki!” to before the realisation that Oprah likes to make people cry and therefore amounted to much better television.

Bodybuilding as a sport has gone through a metamorphosis from being widely respected, to a freaky niche, to the more contemporary recognition that it brings with it many health benefits and is therefore used for conditioning in nearly every professional sport to increase performance. So it was with shock that I came upon a frank revelation recently that although we all like to think that we as bodybuilders have unlimited potential for growth, the truth that stared at me, challenging me and dare I say, teasing me with its super buff biceps was that our genetic makeup only allow us to grow so much.

The proof is everywhere. African-Americans dominate the international sprinting arena and clearly non-bodybuilding competitors from Somalia win nearly every long distance Olympic running event. How many Asians do you see play American football? How many Hispanics do you see wrestle in the larger weight classes at professional wrestling leagues and just how many Japanese do you see winning donut eating contests when faced with a beefy Texan from Wisconsin, Massachusetts whose son only just last week shot down a giant wild boar who coincidently had his congratulatory site sponsored by a Texan barbeque grill company? In application of legal terminology from my most-excellent legal education to date, the evidentiary proof is insurmountable. So why is it that we believe it when we are presented with photos of freakishly huge human specimens who promise us the same if we take certain supplements at strategic times in the day, eat as much food as we can possibly take, and throw ourselves into the clanking arena of metal on metal? Why do we believe such stories when they are not true?

The shocking truth is that the bodybuilding industry wants us to believe that we all can be just like Hercules or what Michael Jordan would look like if he spent years in the gym pumping iron, cycling anabolic steroids, dying his hair sandy blonde, enhancing it with hair extensions, and somehow taking after Michael Jackson and falling in a vat that magically made his skin white and then proclaiming to the world that the skin change is as a result of a rare skin condition called justwannabewhitelikemike-e-itis. It is a multi-billion dollar industry that relies on our continual belief that the results we want can all be obtained with strict discipline, a strict diet and the assistance of magic supplements that will pop our biceps and triceps like it’s hot. Unfortunately we believe this because we want to also believe that we can all be big but the undeniable truth is that we can only grow so much before we reach our physical limit given by our genes.

However, as a self-confessed fan of Oprah Winfrey and dare-I-say Dr. Phil, it is within the donating-induced euphoria I experienced when a billionaire tycoon donated to Oprah’s Angel Network on “Oprah’s 20th Year Anniverary DVD box set” a good friend gave me for my birthday (honest!) and of all strange things, a tea set (I swear I’m not making this up) that I realize with a wry smile that I needed to get out of this fitness funk I found myself in and jump back on the horse, and hopefully a muscular, ripped horse at that, one that I name Hugo and can summon at a mere whistle.

So it is with a newfound respect for the fitness Gods that I am once again mistaken for an escaped patient from the local psychiatric ward on an endorphin overdose and proudly proclaim that all is not lost for the good news is that we can all be buff and big. By using sound training principles, eating right and getting the requisite amount of rest, every person can make radical changes to his or her physique. True, some people will be able to just eat junk foot and lift a 5lb dumbbell in his dreams to become a smecksie beast but for the majority of us, we’ll have to put in the hard yards for months or years before seeing changes. But don’t give up and take heart because theory, anecdotal evidence, conjecture and the grunts of millions of men and womanly grunts of women everywhere can attest that we can all have buns of steel and the breasts of a Greek Goddess.

The Buff Zone 4: We Can be Heroes

Published
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Kym Huynh
on May 23, 2007
in The Buff Zone
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Sitting alone in bed at night with my trusted sidekick Big Ted, a name I shamelessly ripped of Play School when I was only 30cm tall, I question again runs HITTingly through my mind; why do we submit ourselves to “torture” (pleasure to some) to sculpting the perfect body? More specifically, I wonder whether bodybuilding is our vice, our poison, as a means to provide meaning in a world that continues to demonstrate no stability. Are we turning to bodybuilding as a means to provide some form of control in our lives to make us more secure, to make us feel like we’re in the driver’s seat, and to make us feel that despite being manipulated by a little string in the grand scheme of an unavoidable destiny, we steadfastly refuse to conform to the status quo, stubbornly raising our heads in defiance with a logic that defies all reason?

After all, if our goal in life is to reproduce, what is the point of working out long after we snare our women (or men) and start making devilishly cute children with the combined genes of our perfect partner? Is there another reason, despite the logical health benefits, that come from working out? After all, any sane person would suggest that subjecting ourselves to pain over and over again is not a pleasurable way to spend our limited leisure time in a society that increasingly demands more and more quality production from a decreasingly available time allotment.

Sure, we can suggest that those who work out are long term thinkers, visionary philosophers, who understand that the short time pain will pay exponential dividends later on, but like most people in this world, we expect short term benefits along the way to assure us that we are on the right track as evidenced by my undeniable urges to seek validation that my column musings are improving the lives of people everywhere.

Or could it be that we do so, for the prevention of the “what-if” scenario? What if one day, we found ourselves in the position that the only way to survive a maniacal bank robber shooting was to hurdle over 10 queue barriers Olympic style to tackle would-be robber while simultaneously saving an old lady’s cat from an oak tree while dialling 911 on the telephone to alert the local police department of current events; a feat that can only be performed by those who consider themselves Sparta?

While females are generally regarded to as the fairer sex, the classic male, discounting the relatively modern phenomena of the SNAG (sensitive new age guy) and metrosexual (someone who has sex on trains), is stoic. He is strong and he is the protector of the herd and he doesn’t take an insult to his damsel in distress lying down. He would sooner bleed to protect her honour than utter mumblings of apology and believes that pain is simply weakness leaving the body. He is, in other words, Sparta; the epitome of male alphaness who reeks of manliness so much that the world trembles in his presence. He also doesn’t believe in deodorant.

My theory is that as males, even in ancient civilizations and contemporary society, we grow up exposed to what the ideal male should be. Magazines, television shows and movies all portray men with the 6-pack abs and more recently, a natural 12-pack sported by Gerard Butler who played the role of King Leonidas in the movie “300”, a movie about Spartan King Leonidas who lead his army of 300 soldiers against the invading Persian army during the Battle of Thermopylae. If we grow up believing that the ideal male sports pectoral muscles that subliminally communicate to the opposite sex, “Here, let me hold that large TV set for you,” and arms that promise the ability to sweep a woman off her feet, our emotional development can only be severely lacking due to the constant messages of bigger pectorals, lower body fat percentages and heavier squats, bench presses and deadlifts, compound exercises that every bodybuilder should be well versed with.

In a world that demands our continual development, is our focus on the physicality merely because our emotional selves are severely retarded and thusly too hard to develop when easier gains can be made with our measuring tapes? Or do we believe that if we can control our body, we are grounded and sure of ourselves that it instils in us acknowledge that if we can change our own bodies, we can effect change in the wider community and then the world?

I like to think we fall somewhere in this medium, for if we, a race notorious for its procrastination, can discipline ourselves three times a week on a constant ritual homage to the Gods of discipline, this dedication and steadfast resolve to never miss a workout can be transferred to everything else we do in our lives; the dishes for mum, becoming top executives, and finally, saving the world. Yes gentlemen and ladies, we too, can be heroes.

The Buff Zone 3: A Little Bit of Freak

Published
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Kym Huynh
on May 23, 2007
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It is said that myths are mankind’s way of explaining what they cannot logically explain and so are made palatable to the common man by way of divine providence. For this very reason, the Gods do not have to explain how or why something occurs. To them it just does and requires no explanation, only acceptance. It is perhaps for this same reason that bodybuilders accept the common figures around the gym that defy logical explanation. They’re legends in themselves. A folklore passed from one generation of bodybuilder to the next that is often heard about but rarely seen.

As the contestants of the Pro/Am competition and bodybuilders everywhere can attest, they’ve heard these age-old stories over and over again. Sometimes in the gym, sometimes in the changing room and sometimes, on the bodybuilding.com message boards. Every so often, during one of our workouts, we come into contact with a character so polarized in one unique characteristic trait that they have become a legend unto themselves.

For example, there’s the screamer who will insist on releasing a supersonic burst of raw vocal energy so loud that Whitney Houston would have trouble making herself heard while singing a rendition of the sonically loud “I Will Always Love You” if they shared a room. Then there is the workout stripper-bunny who will firstly insist on annexing the cardio machines, then proceed to exclusively work out on it whilst removing select articles of clothing every five minutes until all she has are a two-piece bikini set. She will then start flirting with the nearest male trainer for the next forty-five minutes. Then there’s the always-grinning muscle-dwarf who proceeds to clang every 10lb dumbbell so loudly on the racks every time he finishes a rep that you’d think he was going for the power lifting world record despite his dubious lifting stats which begs the question, what is it that is so compelling about these people that we’ve immortalized them in drunken banter in between pots of the local beer on tap or between the top and bottom gaps of the shower room cubicles? Do we regale our captive audience with these tales as a way to pass the time, or is there a deeper meaning behind our reverent religious adherence to the accurate portrayal of their contentiously charming quirks?

Freak as a term has a multi-dimensional meaning. It can mean someone is exceptionally huge; for example, “Check out Adrian climb the wall using only his arms! He’s nature’s freak!” or conversely it can have the meaning that causes us to raise one eyebrow, a move which I can only do if I wink my right eye at the same time. In reference to the latter, while it is easy to secretly grin and categorically place our aforementioned stereotypes into the freak category who once upon a time, people paid good money for to see in a circus, one must begin to question, “Do we all have a little bit of freak in us?”

As a personal discovery, I had stumbled upon possibly one of the greatest discoveries of the 21st century, disabled toilets. They are without doubt the cleanest, experience low traffic, and posses extra amenities conveniently often neglected in public access toilets and showers. Shamelessly, I use these rooms to my advantage every time I finish a workout, for not only do they provide me with protection from the sight of old men who insist on partaking in the sport of naked shaving, the floors are eternally dry, a rare phenomenon that only occurs when swimmers don’t change in the same area as people who visit the gym.

One day, I discovered post-workout that someone had caught onto my idea of using these excellent hideaways as their own changing room. It was with chagrin that I walked to the public changing area, fuming that someone could have taken the area I had unofficially categorically labelled as my own. Gentlemanly that I am, I waited outside so I could deliver a heartfelt public lashing and make my practical claim on this area. In actual reality, far away from a dream land called fantasy, I had forgotten to take with me one of my sweaters which I had left up on the shower railings so I waited outside the disabled toilets despite the strange looks I was getting from people as they walked in and out of the changing rooms.

More recently, I paid a late visit to the gym on one occasion and with whilst taking my obligatory post workout shower in my secret room, the pleasant sound of a female staff/trainer rang out, “We’re closing gentlemen. Hurry up please.” With this statement, she proceeded to turn off the lights in the changing room. Night time with no lights in a dark room trying to have a shower equates to no fun. Frantically grabbing anything I could find in the dark, I was a sight to behold running out of the gym changing rooms, my hair in 60 different angles and undried with wet clothes haphazardly thrown on inside out in all sorts of strange and wonderful positions.

Some stories are so outrageous that we don’t know whether or not to believe them, but never so outrageous to be considered untrue, for in every story, there is a slight ounce of truth, an identifying mark that we connect with that reminds us, hang on a second, this could just have easily been us. At the end of the day, maybe we’re all just looking for a common freakishness that identifies with us and is able to communicate with us on a broad level. For if someone at my gym can come up with this quirky limerick at the suggestions board, then maybe his freakish ability for rhyme has benefited mankind after all.

“I find it a little bit strange
When I finish gym and go change
The shower doors won’t lock
Other men see my cock
Please fix if you could arrange.” - Anonymous

The Buff Zone 2: The Buffer Zone

Published
by
Kym Huynh
on May 23, 2007
in The Buff Zone
. 0 Comments

Sunday night and watching Carrie Bradshaw explain the intricacies of New York relationships, I begin to consider the relationships that define how bodybuilders interact with one another in contrast with what is normally seen between the male population in an everyday context. Most interesting to me is the breakdown of rules between male interaction, or dare I say, male bonding? Does bodybuilding allow us males to forgo the social fears of being perceived something other than straight among our peers and allow us an emotional freedom to interact with our peers without the constraints of commonly accepted social proprietary amongst males?

On the Iron Man wallpapers page are photos of David Henry, Toney Freeman and Mark Dugdale parading their gym-toned bodies for the world to see. Ironically, while their proud structures communicate a sub-liminal alpha-male status, their Zeus-like figures are framed by a 2 inch nylon-stretch bikini that could fit my 5 year-old nephew quite comfortably and make any botox patient jealous. This interesting dichotomy between alpha-maleness and the bikini that are usually only reserved for the die-hard partiers at the Mardi Gras and the fashion-challenged at local beaches provide a paradox that while is almost in-your-face in more ways than one, is commonly accepted. Does bodybuilding allow us to emasculate ourselves, served under the guise of a sport so masculine that it makes American football players look like they belong in the junior league?

The evidence is everywhere. At the 2007 Iron Man competition, vegetable-oiled men parade themselves in tight bikini-bottoms to an adoring crowd. In the photo gallery at bodybuilding.com, men observe and provide detailed critiques of other men’s bodies and in most cases, we post half-naked photos of ourselves on the Internet in the hopes that someone will tell us that we look a little bigger.

We all know that competitive beach volleyball players like the occasional arse slap every now and then. OK, maybe after every point they win, but served under the sport context, this is palatable by the general populace. From a bodybuilding context, why are straight bodybuilders allowed to look at quasi naked pictures of men, but still be considered straight? Is this a pandemonium or worse, a new threat to 21st century male heterosexuality? Or are the two extremes converging into a male hybrid ready to be embraced and universally adored by the world?

To the uninitiated, scratching under the surface of the bodybuilding community can be a scary experience. After the deluge of baritone voices and the clang of metal on metal, testosterone-induced grunts and stench of sweat, there is a common acceptance or sympathy that everyone is in the same boat. Perhaps it is this shared experience that has freed the male bodybuilder and allowed him to communicate openly with his peers. From this extremity, it is commonly accepted that perhaps, we are allowed to be a little emotional and emasculated, if it means at the end, we all become buff fitness-models who can draw the women like foreign bees to the air-vent in my room who stubbornly refuse to leave despite my best efforts.

Maybe without knowing, we are all aware of this unique phenomenon and while being unable to profess to it, we balance it by portraying a tough love mentality to each other as another way of saying, “Look buddy, I think you can really do it if you try. Common around the community are phrases like “Get off your arse : fatty, and “Shut up and squat, which is really another way of saying, “Go! Go! Go! You can do it! Flippant responses such as “O’RLY and “PITTB are really code for “I hear you! while responses to suicide threads such as, “Go ahead and die pussy, are really another way of telling another person that the only way they can become a better person in the long term is if they help themselves first. It’s a wooden stick, but strangely it works. This is what I refer to as the buffer zone. A zone that exists somewhere in the twilight zone, that translates our recognition of emotional responsibility into primitive grunts often accompanied by the eye-rolling of the female population and exclamations of “Men!

With the 2007 Iron Man about to start, it will be interesting to see how the competitors present themselves this year. Will the camaraderie of shared experience be more obvious that it was in previous years and will the future of bodybuilding incorporate highly choreographed routines that draw influences from callisthenics and jazz?

With the great selection of wallpapers now available to spruce up a desktop, there is no excuse for the die-hard bodybuilder to be ashamed of being a part of a movement filled with people who sympathize and work together to achieve a physique normally reserved for superheroes in comic books. Now if only my friends didn’t think I was gay for sporting a bodybuilding wallpaper.

The Buff Zone 1: Bodybuilding Obsession

Published
by
Kym Huynh
on May 23, 2007
in The Buff Zone
. 0 Comments

As I look at the astonishing physiques of 2007 Iron Man competitors David Henry (2nd last year), Toney Freeman (7th last year) and Mark Dugdale (5th last year), I can’t help but wonder what, if any, sacrifices were made to achieve their superhero-like proportions. Did they spend their lives meticulously planning what to eat, when to eat, when to sleep and when to workout? Just what exactly did they have to give up to achieve competitive status and could this undeniably attention-demanding “hobby be more than an interest so much that it can be considered an obsession?

As I sit here and contemplate this puzzler, I question in wonderment why little Johnson has been able to naturally grow an extra two inches in two months whilst the rest of my body; and by which I mean the most important area, my chest, has taken two years to grow this much. My mind wanders to a universal issue that confronts each self-proclaimed bodybuilder sooner or later; why are we so obsessed with this sport? Are we simply victims of this health kick of the 21st century where bodybuilding is the new black, or ironically, are we mindless addicts to a healthy activity so much that it becomes self-destructive, in an era where obesity is a soaring epidemic?

To answer this question, I looked inward as to why I started bodybuilding. Admittedly, my bodybuilding habits leave a lot to be desired and I’m probably the world’s worst bodybuilder, but as a self-proclaimed fitness junkie, it is an interesting contrast between why I shamelessly throw myself off huge rock ledges, and why I suffer hours of pain three times a week all for the goal of physical symmetry. And for what purpose other than to have the option of taking half-naked photos in the mirror because I’m too lazy to use the timer function on my digital camera, and then post them all over the Internet for everyone to see and have random strangers tell me that I look “a little bigger.

Without hesitation, I admit that the former is done in the search of adrenaline, the rush of adventure and the elation that occurs afterwards that often transforms me into what many people mistakenly believe to be an escaped patient from the local psychiatry ward on an endorphin overdose.

The latter? That’s an interesting one. At first, I reasoned that I was doing it for the opposite sex, after all, being a university student, I am constantly surrounded by very attractive members of the fairer sex. Then I realized hang on a second, maybe not. After all, if this was the case, once we, as males, are able to trick the opposite sex into marrying us (how clever are we!), we simply forgo the gym sessions and let ourselves go confident in the knowledge that the ability for a female to escape from a relationship is inversely proportionate to the achievement of marriage between two people.

I realize with a wry smile that I, like so many other bodybuilders, painstakingly monitor what we eat, when we eat and how we perform at the gym for more personal reasons, to make us feel attractive because maybe, just maybe, we get a rush from knowing that other people find us attractive.

This still doesn’t explain however why we look at ourselves in the mirror, measure ourselves for the umpteenth time and conclude that we still aren’t big enough. Do we simply, as a representative of a sect of the general populace, love ourselves with so much abandon that we put Paris Hilton’s music videos to shame? Do we get off seeing our own squat-perfected muscular butts while watching our pectorals perform the river dance?

To better understand this question, I asked a close friend, who tells me he does it because he no longer wants to be the fat kid, but despite maintaining a body fat percentage of 8%, which translates to pretty ripped, every time he looks in the mirror, he still sees the fat kid that greeted him in the mirror every year during his childhood. Personally, I want to eventually be so buff that the guys over at Abercrombie & Fitch say, “Oh dude! You’re so friggen ripped! Come model for us! to which I’ll reply, “Hell no!

So just how obsessed do we have to be to achieve our personal bodybuilding goals? Despite the health benefits of working out, the risk of being addicted can impact on our frame of mind leading to severe depression, negative self-image and low self-esteem effecting not only our psychological well-being, but also our physical health due to the possible abuse of our bodies. I don’t know if I’m addicted, but on reflection, I have been to the gym twice, been at an indoor rock climbing centre twice, and have spent half a day surfing at a local beach : and this was just in the last four days.

The question of whether each one of us is addicted to bodybuilding, is something personal that each one of us needs to answer and apparently isn’t as clear-cut as I expected. Sometimes, I don’t even know if I’m addicted to bodybuilding or just addicted to being so active but to be honest, if this is what it takes to achieve my bodybuilding goals, then guilty as charged.