Friday, February 27, 2015

No Such Thing as too Much?


Body builders form an identity by trying to surpass their body’s natural limits and continuously change those limits. Their thoughts have to be around being bigger, and stronger, most of the time. However,  when most people lift something heavy and think that is when  they will stop lifting or that will be my limit, a body builder must train until that object or weight becomes light or easy to lift.

Body builders make me think of gymnasts and dancers. They are trying to change the way their bodies move in way that changes their capacities as humans. Body builders have this physique with muscles that appear everywhere. Dancers and gymnasts are flexible to the point that makes someone wonder, what is a body capable of?
These sports seem to have the same thing in common. One must be excited to excel and master a new skill or be able to lift more weight. However, there is also the factor that in something like body building or gymnastics, one cannot be satisfied with the personal limits one has modified.

A gymnast and a body builder have to always be looking for more. When a person is redefining his or her own limits to become better and do more, that person is working hard and gaining skill. Yet is that ever problematic? I wonder if sometimes a person could be more fulfilled if he or she has a certain goal and was able to be satisfied at that point. Still, it seems hard to imagine that there is an easy point in which an athlete would want to stop improving. Is that just part of our nature as humans? Can it be destructive?

I think this push to surpass all limits has something to do with the increase in steroid use among athletes such as body builders. They are redefining their limits, but perhaps there is a point at which a person must stop. Maybe there is an inevitable limit of the human body. 

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