Last week, I reviewed Muscle: a writer’s trip through a sport with no boundaries, by Jon Hotten. While I enjoyed reading this book, I felt that Hotten did not really work very hard to get properly under the skin of the sport he chose to report on. Neither did I feel that he worked very hard on being a writer.
In stark contrast, Muscle: confessions of an unlikely bodybuilder, by Sam Fussell, is truly an exceptional work (affiliate links: UK, US
Sam went into the role of a bodybuilder to the very bitter end, including the force feeding, the steroids, the posing and the fake tan. He took his bodyweight from 170lbs to 250lbs over a couple of years, benched over 400lbs and squatted 545lbs. He also writes like it’s his job.
Muscle, the real version
***
How does it all begin?
Well, the book begins in the mid-1980s. A tall, skinny New Yorker with English professors for parents has just come back from an English degree at Oxford University, in the UK. I think it’s safe to assume that he’s therefore an intellectual of some sort.
We meet Sam just as he takes up residence in an appartment in New York once again, incidentally sickly and weighing only 170lbs at a towering height of 6’4″. He is also afraid, very afraid.
New York in the mid-1980s was, by all accounts, a rough place to live. Sam lives in fear of the crime, the EDPs (emotionally disturbed people) and the constantly aggressive atmosphere. He is, by his own account, unprepared for these surroundings.
Sam decides that he needs to build a suit of armour to protect himself from the cruel city. If only he can balloon out into the size of Arnold, he reasons, all his problems will be over. In a short space of time, he makes his decision and thus begins the long road to his dream physique.
***
How does it carry on?
Sam plucks up the courage to go to the gym to attain his dream physique. On arrival, he is cautioned by the gym owner to stay away from the animals doing bodybuilding, which is seen as a form of perversion. This was all before bodybuilding went properly mainstream. But Sam doesn’t stay away from them because he believes they are perverted, though, he stays away because he is too afraid to approach them.
The only help Sam can get comes from the Men’s Health crowd. They direct him towards the machine weights, done in circuits. Through sheer effort, he gains 15lbs and regains his health.
Gradually, his effort earns him the respect of the real lifting crew who live in the squat rack and they put him through his paces, put him on a double split programme (2-hours twice a day, three days on, one day off) concentrating on the bench, squat and deadlift and within two years he is the toast of the gym.
Sam eats 5,000 kcal a day, mostly of carbohydrates and protein, while avoiding fat in the belief that it will develop body fat.
To take things to the next level, Sam moves to California and meets other, bigger lifters. They introduce him to the darker side of bodybuilding, the drugs and the seedy underbelly. Sam grows like a weed.
***
How does it end?
Sam finally decides on a show to compete in. He assesses his physique for proportions. Apparently, for a perfectly proportioned figure, the neck, arms and calves should be the same size and the thighs should each be half of the chest.
He begins to learn how to pose and selects his routine and his music. He considers the best ways to display his strongest points and hide his weakest points. He begins his cutting diet, which starts at 1,100 kcals per day and drops to 650 kcal per day for the final couple of weeks, mostly of protein and carbohydrates. Unsurprisingly, he is as weak as a baby and has terrible mood swings.
At the end, Sam wins his heavyweight class and considers that he has achieved a physique much better than that of Eugen Sandow, better than that of the 1940′s bodybuilders such as Clancy Ross or John Grimek but only at a par with the 1950′s bodybuilders such as Bill Pearl. The 1960′s and 1970′s that Arnold ruled were far ahead of him still.
Interestingly, Sam stops lifting after his competition and, at the time of writing his book, had not gone back to it. Towards the end of his contest preparation, he began to have doubts as to why he was doing it all. He felt that the pharmaceuticals were taking an unpleasant toll on his body and that the mental stress was unpicking his sanity rather than building the suit of armour he so badly wanted.
***
And what became of Sam Fussell, then?
Interestingly, most of the online references I can find suggest that Fussell dropped off the map after writing this book. However, he has written an academic contribution to a selection of essays, called Bodybuilder Americanus. Other than that, I am drawing a blank.
***
Strongly recommended
Apparently, many people have lauded this book as the Bonfire of the Vanities of the bodybuilding world. It is without doubt one of the most well-written books I have ever read about fitness, strength or health. Whether through nature or nurture, Sam Fussell is an awesome writer.
It is a tremendously detailed and involved book that takes you on a trip from a frightened, skinny youngster to a cynical, beaten up old lifter who has been there and done everything to get where he wanted to go, only to find that he didn’t like it when he got there.
It’s a Gulliver’s Travels experience, where at the beginning, everyone is much, much bigger than he is and he can’t relate to them. By the end, he is much, much bigger than everyone else and he still can’t relate to them.
In short: read this book.
