If you remember your High School math, an asymptote is a line that you get closer and closer to, but never ever reach.
In some sports, athletes can continue to get better and better. Eg: You could always increased your free throw percentage in basketball. But like it or not, bodybuilding is an asymptotic sport where every individual has a limit to the amount of muscle they can carry and the level of leanness they can achieve.
How do we know this? Through rigorous statistical analysis of the levels of muscularity achieved by the best natural athletes in the sport, we can generate a model to predict any individual’s muscular potential by means of suitable parameters. Specifically, individuals like Casey Butt have generated formulas based on one’s ankle and wrist measurement to predict one’s muscular potential.
If you don’t want to believe the science, then think about this:
Your rate of gains decrease with your training age. Every extra unit of effort is going to yield less and less results.
If you believe the above, it would make sense to approach physique improvements with a different mindset than the past. Instead of pushing for progress, the pursuit becomes one centred around refinement, and refinement cannot be forced. In other words, hold a maintenance mindset, and continue doing what you’re doing because it’s fun, not to pursue any particular goal.
It pays to be satisfied with your current state and stop worrying about constant improvement. You thus free up your mental resources for other pursuits.
The reason I say this, is because improving one’s physique can easily take an obsessive turn. That’s why you see bodybuilders getting more and more ‘dedicated’ to the sport as they get more and more advanced.
Why? Perhaps it’s because of the history of dedication in the sport. Perhaps it’s because of uncertainty; competitions are won in the offseason, a battle against others that unfolds within oneself. Perhaps it’s because of the intimacy of the sport; we all have a body, and building it up seems like something anyone can do. Perhaps it’s because of the inertia of habits coupled with a belief that you can always get more though hard work. Whatever it is, I don’t know.
What I do know is that doing that has caused a lot of people a lot of grief. If not, a set of compromises that have to be rationalised against to save the psyche.
I also know that many people can benefit from the virtues of bodybuilding, but not in the way that it is currently being practised.
Stagnation?
But one might say, “Is it not the nature of a sport to constantly improve?” Yes, and no.
No, because nature has it’s limits to how big or how lean a person can get, even with steroids. Trying to fight that is not going to pay off.
Yes, because improvements don’t have to be restricted to the simplistic goal of getting people big and ripped. For example, improvements can be made to smooth the path from scrawny to brawny. Areas like injury prevention and rehabilitation, dieting psychology and mindset, periodisation techniques, exercise selection, are just among the many topics that can be worked upon. The final goal which is to make the pursuit of bodybuilding as frictionless as possible.
Final Words
Some people who treat bodybuilding as a lifestyle may be insulted by my denigration of it to simply another pursuit in life. And well, they are entitled to think that.
I write this simply to remind myself that we need to define our goals and not let our goals define us.
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