Lee Priest, a former competitive bodybuilder at the highest level, recently discussed the decline of physiques in bodybuilding in the new era.
When Lee was competing, multiple guys in the lineup could have won the top shows like Mr. Olympia.
Nobody knew who was going to win because they were all excellent.
Now there are maby 2-3 guys who have a real shot at the title.
Even in amateur shows back in the day, the quality of bodybuilders was more; better guys were competing in the smaller shows.
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Bodybuilders in the old days also competed in more shows than bodybuilders now; some bodybuilders only compete at the Olympia and do not compete at any other shows, while bodybuilders in the old days competed at least in 3-4 shows every year.
Lee Priest: So what is the cause of this decline in bodybuilding?
Lee believes that many factors come into play; bodybuilders today don’t compete as much, they take more drugs, don’t train as hard, and generally are lazier.
Most guys where pros in their early twenties and retired by 32, early ’30s now guys are turning pro and pumping a whole lot of shit in there to get big really quick. I think really people are trying to get too scientific when it comes to training and drugs, rather then just stick to the basics and train a bit more because people are trying to train less now rather than train twice a day or hit the body part twice a week. Everyone now is like over 45 minutes and you are overtraining so it’s like if you are a pro bodybuilder, lets just say you trained in the morning, I got a contract and I got money, I train in the morning 5 o clock 45 minutes by 6 am Im done, then for the rest of the day what do I do? Sit around and eat, watch tv because some of the mentality I can’t do too much because I might burn muscle so I got to sit around, I just think people are getting lazier.
Lee brings up a valid point. However, he also believes that today’s bodybuilders get rewarded too much for being big, while bodybuilders were more aesthetic back in the day.
Everyone tries to get bigger and bigger but lacks the quality of symmetry and a well-balanced physique.
If the judges rewarded the guys with a more aesthetically pleasing physique in the shows, it would be a different ball game.
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Lee Priest explains what happened.
They add too much size, take it too far and lose their shape and symmetry. They become blocky.
