Mar 09 2009
Fitness, moderation should work in concert
What I know about nutritional supplements I learned from my grandmother, an Italian immigrant whose fitness regimen included planting season, weeding season, harvest season and canning season, and cranking the homemade-pasta machine. She was no taller than a tomato plant, which lent her stealth as she combed the garden with a Daisy air rifle and an ancient, half-blind dog named Manooch, hunting woodchucks. Nana was a formidable strop of leather and she lived vibrantly into her 87th year. Her advice was to have a taste of everything — but not too much. Indulge, but do not overindulge.
I thought of Nana yesterday as I wended my way around the Arnold Fitness Expo in the Greater Columbus Convention Center. It is billed as “The Sports-Fitness Experience of Your Life!” It is drawing 170,000 fans this weekend to five venues. Given that more than 17,000 athletes — including martial artists, race-walkers, weightlifters, wrestlers, fencers, cheerleaders, dancers, archers, arm wrestlers, ping-pong stars, runners, joggers and so on — it is appropriate to bill this thing as big as the promoters want to. In terms of the sheer number of events and competitors, The Arnold rivals the Olympic Games in scope. And it is here, the first weekend in March, every year. Only the All-American Quarter Horse Congress is a bigger annual draw in Columbus.
On display are thousands of physically fit athletes who are committed to their sports. For many, The Arnold is their biggest stage. Good for them.
At the heart of The Arnold, though, are the bodybuilders, aspiring bodybuilders, and their suppliers. They comprise the roots of the event, which was a muscle competition before it cloaked itself in fitness.
Among 700 booths on the expo floor, a relative few are related to nutrition my Nana might comprehend. For instance, there is an industry display pitching chocolate milk. In another booth, a guy is selling bicycles. In another, they are using real fruit to make juice. But the vast majority of exhibitors are peddling stuff that only extremists understand. Want to apply your own competition tan? Buy a self-tanning applicator — essentially, the same kind of spray-gun they use at Maaco — and get bronzed. The deluxe model costs $650, paint included.
Above everything, this is the Super Bowl for nutritional-supplement dealers. Their products not only have eye-popping names, they are often sold by fitness models clad in bikinis and spandex suits. I have nothing against models, but there was something that seemed awfully strange about this whole scene, with these sirens luring customers to products that will fix your cartilage, provide evolutionary nutrition and “anabolics that will shoot your gains right through the roof.”
No doubt, many of these manufacturer’s reps and their products are reputable. I chatted with one. I asked him about the name of his product, which implies wholesomeness, and he said, “What does it mean? It means what’s listed on the label is in the jug. With a lot of these things, you never know.” He went on to say that he is a “natural” bodybuilder, as in drug-free, which puts him in the minority in his sport. He estimated that 60 percent of his fellow competitors are unnatural. And he knows them when he sees them.
Under the belly of this beast are performance-enhancing drugs. Promoters complain that modern bodybuilding is unduly criticized for past transgressions — of which there are many. Arnold Schwarzenegger himself was for steroids before he was against them. His event has a long history of steroid controversies. Beyond his purview, it is taken for granted that The Arnold is an annual bonanza for steroid dealers. I wish it weren’t so, not in my town.
There are some huge men and women ambling down the sidewalks in Columbus this weekend. I won’t deny anyone their musculature if that is their thing. I won’t deny that a lot of hard work goes into sculpting those bodies. But I can’t help but wonder what else goes into it, and whether these behemoths are what anyone might call “fit.”
My grandmother would say, “gobbo dosso,” a pejorative that means “hunchback” or “hump of a camel.” It implies a lack of sound thinking and, in this case, overindulgence. Too much. Too much.
Source -Â http://www.columbusdispatch.com
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