[Mat]

"Bodybuilding is a great sport because you compete against yourself, you use your own body and sculpt it towards something you strive for."

Then surely you would not need to use any performance enhancing drugs....else you are not using only your own body to achieve a result that you strive for.

Should you really want to compete against yourself and push your body to the limit (I admire that) you should do it totally clean.

If you manage, it is the product of your own work and there is no better satisfaction.
Hiowever, if you do it using other methods (drugs...) then you will never know what you were capable of without that extra help.

My point of view is not one of a bodybuilder but of an active runner / triathlete who finds nothing more unfulfilling that athletes trying to achieve something by using performance enhancing drugs..it is totally spoiling the game

[gilleshk]

So let me get this straight according to your reasoning...gossiping with the girls and drinking beer at the pub will get you fame, fortune and babes and working out won't?

Who's that fellow that no one knows, the governor of that tiny state in the US... Mmm what was his name again? He was some kind of obscure actor that got paid a paltry 30 million in his last movie.

Even the clowns of wrestling make a pile of money. Not a very good reflection on society but there it is...if that's your standard of success.

Never mind the health benefits of exercise, never mind that athletic people on average are more successful than fatties and what exactly prevents you from socializing at the gym?

You want to argue that two hours at the gym is not worthwhile and two hours drinking beer at the pub is? That's what you'd like to say?

[gilleshk]

Originally Posted by Mat

My point of view is not one of a bodybuilder but of an active runner / triathlete who finds nothing more unfulfilling that athletes trying to achieve something by using performance enhancing drugs..it is totally spoiling the game

I don't blame people that take drugs, if you're going to put millions of dollars at stake, what do you expect athletes to do?

In a sport like triathlon, I couldn't care less if the guy next to me is on EPO or stimulants or anything else because it should be about bettering yourself. If you manage to do that than who cares what the other guy does? If you make it about winning then people do whatever it takes and that will never change. The only thing you can control is what you choose to do.

[Hamton]

Originally Posted by gilleshk

You want to argue that two hours at the gym is not worthwhile and two hours drinking beer at the pub is? That's what you'd like to say?

This topic has nothing to do with just going to the gym and being fit - it's about body building and using drugs to enhance that.

Do NOT equate body building with "being fit and going to the gym". I go to the gym, I try to keep fit, I realise the obvious health benefits of being slim and athletic rather than over weight. That has nothing to do with body building!

Originally Posted by gilleshk

So let me get this straight according to your reasoning...gossiping with the girls and drinking beer at the pub will get you fame, fortune and babes and working out won't?

Don't exaggerate.

Gossiping with the girls earns you friendship, possibly love (which leads to marriage and procreation, which many say is the entire purpose of life), and makes you a more popular guy in the office which benefits you career.

Drinking beer at the pub can also do the same, though possibly replace girls with guys, remove the marriage part, but enhance the career bit if you happen to be drinking with work colleagues.

If you're a quiet guy who doesn't talk with people in your office and never goes out for a drink, you'll have less friends, a lot less chances of finding love, and there's a good chance your career won't develop as well if you're not popular enough to build up more contacts and get promoted quickly...

I mean seriously, that shit's basic "Being a Human 101", if you haven't mastered that yet, better hurry.

Originally Posted by gilleshk

Who's that fellow that no one knows, the governor of that tiny state in the US... Mmm what was his name again? He was some kind of obscure actor that got paid a paltry 30 million in his last movie.

Talk about a desperate example. 80s Action Hero... yes, because if you spend years body building, it's completely likely you'll become a movie star and go on to govern California.

Arnie is pretty much the exception that proves the rule. He's the one in a hundred million freak occurrence, who also happened to ride a wave of 1980s "muscle action hero" trends.

Chances of becoming a world famous multimillionaire and Governor of California from body building; approximately somewhere between 1 in 100,000,000 and 1 in 6 billion...

Chances of improving your social life, friendships, love life, career (thus, money) by talking with colleagues and having a drink; pretty damn good.



So Giles then... based on your priorities and disregard for the value of socialising, I assume you have no social life, no friends, no love, no neck, no career prospects as the bosses think you're the strange guy who thinks going out for a drink is pointless... but... err... you can lift really heavy boxes and admire yourself in the mirror even though all the girls would much rather go off with Jude Law.

[gilleshk]

So you can draw a nice line between drinking beer and socializing but bodybuilding and going to the gym are unrelated?

And according to your logic, one has to go to the pub and gossip with the girls at lunch to be friendly and pick up a mate? If you don't do that, you're obviously single and a loner?

As to bodybuilding and drugs they are a separate issue. It's like saying that if you go to the pub to drink, you must be an alcoholic...

There are many degrees of bodybuilding just as there are many degrees of drinking. It doesn't have to be extremes...

When actors workout in the gym for months to get the right look, they are body building. Shaping their bodies to make it look the way they want. If you spent a bit less time gossiping, you might learn that it doesn't have to be just about volumes particularly with females.

And once again, what exactly prevents you from socializing at the gym? Is there some special code that says no talking?

[gilleshk]

Originally Posted by Hamton

Chances of improving your social life, friendships, love life, career (thus, money) by talking with colleagues and having a drink; pretty damn good.

I can only have pity on you if you think that someone needs to drink to be popular and have friends

[Hamton]

Originally Posted by gilleshk

So you can draw a nice line between drinking beer and socializing but bodybuilding and going to the gym are unrelated?

Most people (aside from the desperately alcoholic) drink beer to relax and socialise with friends. That's kind of the point of a pub, a public house for socialising...

By contrast, no way near "most people" go to the gym specifically to become body builders. Unless you're being super pedantic about the definition of body building.

If you say running on the treadmill for an hour or doing a hundred sit-ups is the same as trying to body build to become the next Mr Universe, you've got silly definition of body building. By that definition, eating 100 Mars Bars also counts as "sculpting your body".

Many, many people go to the gym to LOSE weight, to keep fit, or just to be slightly toned and athletic.

That is absolutely no the same thing as body building in the commonly regarded sense.

Originally Posted by gilleshk

And according to your logic, one has to go to the pub and gossip with the girls at lunch to be friendly and pick up a mate? If you don't do that, you're obviously single and a loner?

No. According to your logic, drinking with friends at the pub and talking with girls are absolutely pointless pursuits.

All I've said is that they're actually incredibly worthwhile pursuits.

You don't have to drink with friends, or talk with the girls (by the way, I talk with everybody, not just the girls... it just happens that at least 50% of my colleagues are women and most of my wife's friends are women, and I don't see "talking with girls" as some odd behavior like you clearly do).

But if you think those things are pointless as socialising is worthless, then clearly you don't value socialising, and if you don't socialise... well yes, you're going to have some major fucking hurdles in your life in regards to friendship, contacts, love, career prospects...

Originally Posted by gilleshk

And once again, what exactly prevents you from socializing at the gym? Is there some special code that says no talking?

This topic has nothing to do with going to the gym! It's about body building and trying to gain Hulk-like proportions through the use of drugs!

Even ectomorphic-little-me, who TALKS WITH WOMEN, and goes to PUBS, has a gym membership. Heck, I might even be fitter than you, I spend every other day running either on a treadmill or a pitch... that doesn't make me a bloody body builder though. Gym != body building. Stop even making it part of the argument.

[Hamton]

Originally Posted by gilleshk

I can only have pity on you if you think that someone needs to drink to be popular and have friends

So err... you just sit there in the corner, quietly, isolating yourself from your friends and being a recluse?

You don't have to drink alcohol, and it has absolutely nothing to do with getting drunk. It's about not being a bloody social ingrate. You can drink a coke, you can drink water, no where in the book does it say "you must drink 10 pints of Stella and get rat arsed".

But, sometimes getting drunk doesn't hurt. It makes you do things you wouldn't otherwise do.

[gilleshk]

Like making an ass of yourself?

So let me get this straight...in your universe, there are a variety of people that go to the pub and not all are alcoholics but bodybuilders are all dumb, arrogant muscle head who do drugs with no social skills doing something worthless and getting no benefits from the exercise. Well that sounds like a balanced and fair view...

And this might be a very hard concept for the jolly pub going fellow that you are but there's a significant part of the local population here that rarely set foot in a drinking establishment and prefer to go and eat for example and guess what? They have friends and they get ahead too...

[Hamton]

Originally Posted by gilleshk

Like making an ass of yourself?

Dude, you're the one here who has said "drinking and talking with the girls" are worthless pursuits. So... you see socialising as worthless. Well done there.

Originally Posted by gilleshk

So let me get this straight...in your universe, there are a variety of people that go to the pub and not all are alcoholics but bodybuilders are all dumb, arrogant muscle head who do drugs with no social skills doing something worthless and getting no benefits from the exercise.

You ignore your own bloody arguments.

You seem to value body building. You don't seem to value socialising. One can only conclude from that, that YOU are a dumb, arrogant muscle head who condones drug use and has no social skills.

That's probably completely wrong. But you're anti-socialising and pro-body-building, so that's the obvious conclusion one can draw.

Originally Posted by gilleshk

there's a significant part of the local population here that rarely set foot in a drinking establishment and prefer to go and eat for example and guess what? They have friends and they get ahead too...

I KNOW. I do so myself every single day - you don't think I eat lunch in the pub every day do you? 90% of my friends here are local Chinese, my wife and friends practically organise their lives around yum cha...

...Infact, I've NEVER SAID anything to the contrary, you've just inserted this as an argument against me completely randomly.

Guess what - half of yum cha is drinking (tea!). Guess what - talking with the girls at lunch is usually over yum cha. Guess what - "drinking" doesn't just mean beer...

Stop being so bloody ignorant.