Book review: Muscle, by Jon Hotten

My family and in-laws are a generous bunch and also thankfully seem to regard my obsession with lifting weights and healthy living as a largely benign pastime.  As a result, they are mostly happy to buy me books about lifting for Christmas without feeling that they are contributing to some sort of deviant practice.

Having said that, Muscle: a writer’s trip through a sport with no boundaries (affiliate links: UK, US), is definitely about dark and unholy activities.

Muscle is what it’s all about

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So what’s it about?

That’s a really good question and I don’t think that there is a satisfactory answer.  Having read the book in one sitting, over Christmas Day and Boxing Day, with gaps for lunches and dinners, I feel that I should be able to take away the overall theme or message.  But I don’t really think there is one.

In several aspects, there is a strong British theme for the book.  I suspect that was more accident than design, though, and besides it falls apart when Hotten’s travels take him to the US and when you consider that his main point of reference is an obscure Austrian bodybuilder who died in tragic circumstances.

Despite that lack of any overarching theme, there is a lot of interesting material in the book that I didn’t know.  Most of the real meat of the book is contained in two main sections, structured around a couple of chapters each.  The first one covers the old bodybuilding successes and current business successes of 6-time Mr Olympia winner, Dorian Yates.  The second one covers the Mr Olympia contest, how it is run, and provides some coverage of the 2003 contest itself and the main competitors.

These two chunky sections are glued together by a discussion of the tragic death of Austrian bodybuilder Andreas Muenzer (whose name Hotten cannot spell correctly), which is split into three parts for no obvious reason.  I got the unpleasant sensation that Hotten included this to play to the gallery, where the gallery is full of soft, white, opinionated and voyeristic Englishmen and women who relish hearing about people falling from grace, particularly people who are more muscular, better-looking and more successful than they are.

In short, it’s exactly the sort of book that a fat, out-of-shape, middle-class, middle-aged man in a suit might read in abridged form in a Sunday newspaper magazine and then convince himself that he now knows all about bodybuilding.  And that upsets me.

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What you’ll find…

If you’re still reading after that damning indictment, to help you make your mind up better as to whether this book is worth a small investment, here’s a quick whistle-stop tour:

• Ch#1: our trip begins with a section covering the life and death of Andreas Muenzer, an Austrian bodybuilder who died in tragic circumstances in 1996, possibly as a result of taking excessive amounts of diuretics.  While the intent of this chapter cheapens the overall feel of the book, the reporting is sound and the discussion of Muenzer’s life and training is interesting.
• Ch#2: next, we are introduced to 1997 NABBA Mr Universe overall winner, Grant Thomas, shown here in the final posedown and receiving his trophy.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb4G_93Q1lE

• Jon paints a sad picture of Grant as living in a “rabbit hutch” in the back streets of Cardiff, supported by his wife while he tries to win his pro card.  Despite this, Grant comes across as a dignified and dedicated lifter with a strong desire and determination to reach his goals.  It was nice to hear about another successful British bodybuilder.
• Ch#3: as the greatest British bodybuilder of all time, we now turn to look at the legend that is Dorian Yates.  We start with a brief reference to Testosterone’s Dead Pool, which rated Dorian as the second most likely to die, back in 1998.  Hotten notes that Dorian was clearly a lot smarter than they gave him credit for, though, because he’s still huge even now and he comes across as well-adjusted and successful.
• This chapter, and the two following, is made by Dorian, who is introduced by his business parter  Kerry Kayes to Hotten.  Hotten stands back and lets Dorian talk him through his successes and challenges.
• Ch#4: tagging along with Dorian, Hotten gets to meet Ronnie Coleman and witnesses him eat potato for breakfast.
• Ch#5: still tagging along with Dorian, we get a trip to the Arnold, which necessitates a discussion of Pumping Iron, and, of course, Arnold Schwarzeneggar.
• Ch#6: for some reason, at this point, Hotten reasons that we need to leave Dorian and return to the story of Andreas Muenzer and discuss his alleged steroid and diuretic dosages.
• Ch#7: having spent time researching Andreas Muenzer and interviewing Grant Thomas and Dorian Yates, Hotten now decides that he will give bodybuilding a try.  Hotten decides, for some reason, that a pre-contest preparation period of 16 weeks would be the best way to experience this.  He trains with Dorian at the Temple gym in Birmingham and lasts just 5 weeks before he gives up.  I don’t really know what to say.
• Ch#8: this interesting chapter covers the preparation for the 2003 Mr Olympia, which was run by Wayne DeMilia in Las Vegas, and is followed by two further chapters covering similar material and developing the same themes.
• Ch#9: this chapter follows on from the preceding one by discussing the major players at the men’s heavyweight class, Ronnie Coleman, Jay Cutler, Gunter Schlierkamp.
• Ch#10: having discussed the way that the Mr Olympia contest is prepared and the major competitors, we now have a report of the main contest.  In some respects, if the whole book had been a report of this contest, in the style of, say, Hunter S Thompson on the campaign trail, it might have been a truly great work.
• Ch#11: and finally, we predictably come back to the story of Andreas Muenzer.

So that was Muscle, by Jon Hotten.  I can’t see it being a book I return to in the future, unless I have a need to understand the workings of the Mr Olympia contest at some point.  But if you’ve read it and enjoyed it, please let me know.