Why are bodybuilders today bigger?

Bodybuilders of the past worked to sculpt their bodies, while those of today are able to reach their genetic potential to develop maximum shape and lean body mass.

Bodybuilding is about developing muscle on an aesthetic body, and from this perspective, the larger physiques of bodybuilders have always been admired as long as they meet certain aesthetic standards.

But as the late Larry Scott, the first Mr. Olympia, once pointed out, in his day, most competitive bodybuilders did not have the genetics for a truly enormous physique.

Champions of the past such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sergio Oliva were big, muscular men, but they could not develop to the level of today’s giants, and this is where the controversies between the old and new “schools” begin.

Many bodybuilding fans in the early 1980s said in opinion circles that “there were no big men left.”

Little did they know that in the near future, bodybuilders such as Lee Haney, Dorian Yates, and later Ronnie Coleman would appear, and professional lineups in which weighing 113–115 kg would make a competitor a “small athlete” onstage.

What changed in bodybuilding?

The question we all ask ourselves is: what changed in bodybuilding to produce such advances in physical development, and why are so many bodybuilders much bigger?

Many attribute the change mainly to the management of performance-enhancing drugs, but although there have been advances in that field, those changes are not enough to explain how quickly or how far this development toward greater size has progressed.

For us, these are some of the reasons that have driven bodybuilders to become the giants of the 21st century.

Genetics became conditional

An important factor is genetics; there is no doubt that physically larger, more mesomorphic people tend to be more attracted to bodybuilding nowadays.

Until recently, the opportunity to earn good money as a professional bodybuilder was quite limited, and large, muscular mesomorphic athletes would probably have been drawn to sports such as American football, ice hockey, or wrestling, where they had greater chances of fame and higher salaries.

But bodybuilding gained more traction in the 1970s and 1980s when Arnold Schwarzenegger became so successful, winning Mr. Olympia titles, appearing in the book and film “Pumping Iron,” and becoming a major movie star.

The popularity of bodybuilders was also accelerated by the success of other movie icons such as Sylvester Stallone, Lou Ferrigno, and Jean-Claude Van Damme.

And as more and more actors and athletes began discovering the benefits of bodybuilding training, having large, defined muscles became a new trend—but not a passing fad.

Competitors in most sports in the 21st century tend to be stronger and more muscular because an increasing number of athletes in a wide variety of sports train seriously with weights.

In addition, bodybuilders also tend to prefer sports in which they can compete as individuals rather than as part of a team, since they do not want to have to depend on others’ performance to succeed.

So today, with more opportunities to make a living through sport, many people talented at developing muscle are drawn to becoming professional bodybuilders rather than team athletes as in the past.

The evolution of bodybuilders

Another reason for the emergence of the enormous muscularity we see in the biggest bodybuilders today is the evolution of training.

Training methods in the past were never developed by scientists or medical experts; instead, they evolved through the trial-and-error experiences of bodybuilders themselves. In this regard, we must also not forget the strong connection between training and sports nutrition.

For thousands of years, it has been understood that we develop strength through progressive resistance training. The Greek myth of Milo of Croton describes how a small boy lifted a calf every day for years as it slowly grew into a full-sized bull, and this effort eventually enabled him to develop incredible strength.

The first bodybuilders of the 20th century still trained like weightlifters, working their entire bodies in one session three times a week.

But then they learned how to better shape and sculpt all the muscles of the body, making their workouts more effective, as well as incorporating cardio and periodizing bulking and cutting phases.

In the 1970s and 1980s, this approach resulted in bodybuilders with much more complete and sculpted physiques than in the past, such as Arnold, who weighed 106–107 kg, but they were not as large as today.

This would not last over time… we have already discussed how the genetically larger bodybuilders began to feel attracted to professional bodybuilding…

But something else happened: the training methods themselves became much more effective and efficient, as did the sports nutrition linked to these methods, and this was the decisive difference at the physiological and neurological levels.