The weight room is a world of comparison for dudes. Why? Because it's easy to quantify how strong you are, which leads to comparisons an eight year old could make. When the guy next to you benches 225, and you are maxing out at 190, the comparison immediately follows that that guy is 35 pounds up on you. When you're dealing with a quantifiable weight, every dude knows his stats: how much he can deadlift, squat, bench, etc. Then the comparison begins.
Almost every guy lifting is looking for that 'intelligible body' full of athleticism, muscle, and physique. The crazy thing is this idea of a pursuit without a terminus, as Bordo puts it. It doesn't matter how strong a guy is, how high he can jump, or how much he weighs: he wants to improve. Hit your goal of benching 200? Good. Now raise it to 225. You've got a 30 inch vertical? Fine. Make it 32. Since there's no "peak performance" defined by culture, the bar just keeps getting raised.
Not only that, but much of lifting that guys do really doesn't have much to do with athleticism, but how they want to be perceived by culture, corresponding to other oriented emotional economy. Like Robin said in class, sit-ups and ab workouts are really only for image on dudes. To be athletic or strong, having defined abs is totally unnecessary. But guys work at it. Why? Because they want to be perceived according to that "intelligible body" we talked about. Perception drives much of what goes on in the weight room, and we run after it without an end in sight.
Phil brought the guys in. Thanks, Phil. If you care about 'self image,' and everything you see looks way better than you--well--it's a pursuit without terminus.
ReplyDeleteAnd it moves PRODUCT!