Bodybuilding competitions have always been a top attention drawer and a box-office hit in the United States and elsewhere in the world. This discipline has also produced a number of big names in Hollywood. Not everyone knows though that this discipline is not generally accepted by sports governing bodies as a legitimate sport. Hopes of bodybuilding becoming into a legitimate sport is pinned down by drug controversies, which has hounded the discipline and the bodybuilders themselves.
Tainted with drugs
According the sports governing bodies, accepting bodybuilding as a legitimate sport would somehow tarnish the sports community as a whole amidst reports that some bodybuilders are actually using drugs to enhance their physique.
While there may really be some bodybuilders using enhancing drugs like steroids, there are those who developed enviable muscles and toned bodies the natural way.
True enough, there are really those who cheat in bodybuilding competitions. What else is new? Even outside the bodybuilding circle, there are cheats, and use of drug enhancers too. In fact, most (if not all sports) are tainted with drug controversies.
There are sport events, professional at that, that ends up in brawl because of the players’ unsportsmanlike behavior and yet it continues to reap patronage, popularity and revenue. There are many other sports rocked with the controversy brought about by an athlete, who has been found using illegal drugs to enhance his performance during the games. There are sports disciplines that were subjected to probe because of illegal gambling and game fixing.
And yet, they remain a legitimate sports discipline, generally accepted and recognized by international sporting organizations like the International Olympic Committee.
Punishing all for the sin of a few
As clamor grows for the inclusion of bodybuilding as a legitimate sport, so is its popularity and general awareness of what has lately been happening in the bodybuilding circle.
Efforts have been made to rectify lapses in the past involving musclemen into drugs, but it just seemed not enough to convince the sports governing bodies to reconsider.
To these sports governing bodies, there is just no way men, would be able to develop huge muscles without going into drug enhancers, even in the midst of a jam-packed auditorium where the general paying public show their acceptance by patronizing bodybuilding tilts.
Repackaging the image of bodybuilding
Amidst controversies hounding their bid to become a legitimate sport, there have been steps taken to repackage the reputation of bodybuilding.
From simply “bodybuilding”, the discipline is now being referred to as “natural bodybuilding” To the people behind the discipline it is far more different that what used to be. It’s all natural, as the new label says.
Natural bodybuilding has made a sweeping claim that greater majority in their circle are there for the right reasons. On top of the “right reasons”, they claim to have professionalism and right attitude in and out of the arena.
All natural
Accordingly, the men and women behind “natural bodybuilding” have internal safety nets in place to ensure that the methodology that their “athletes” is into is all natural. How natural could “natural” be?
The new musclemen who form their frontline are equipped with the right approach to training and a disciplined mindset, allowing positive yields insofar as physical conditioning is concerned. No drug enhancers, but longer hours spent on training, body toning and weightlifting. Claims of a more comprehensive nutritional program is also said to be in place.
