Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger born July 30, 1947, is an
Austrian-American actor, former bodybuilder, film producer, businessman, and
former politician who served as
the 38th governor of California from
2003 to 2011. As of 2022, he is the most recent Republican governor
of California.
Schwarzenegger began lifting weights at the age of 15 and went on to win
the Mr. Universe title at
age 20, subsequently winning the Mr. Olympia contest seven times; he remains a prominent
figure in bodybuilding and has written many books and articles on it.
Arnold is, I promise you, very fit for a man his age, and
nowhere close to obese (let’s just dismiss that right away as a ridiculous
notion). But there is a difference between normal physical fitness and the
unnatural sculpting of the body and muscles that Arnold used to do back in the old days.
You see this? (photo above) This is not
a normal human body.
There is no professional
athlete in the world who looks like this. This physique only comes
from a very specific type of workout that is designed not to increase strength
necessarily but to produce a very particular appearance. It strips away as much
fat as possible and grows the size of the muscles to a sometimes absurd degree.
The results can be striking but it doesn’t
give as much strength as you might think. And once you stop doing the intense
training and dieting required to maintain that appearance, it goes away. The
muscle definition smooths out, and subcutaneous fat starts to build up. But
that doesn’t mean you’ve become
unfit. You just aren’t torturing your body to an unnatural standard
anymore.
Arnold Schwarzenegger may not have the
physique of a Greek god anymore but I think he looks damn good for a 74-year-old and certainly does not look obese or unfit.
Schwarzenegger was pictured going for a bike
ride just a few weeks ago. Not bad going considering that the only thing many
people his age are capable of riding are mobility scooters.
Even the
great Terminator must succumb to the natural aging process. Arnold may look a
little haggard these days, and may have gained a few wrinkles and lost a lot of
muscle mass but he is still in commendable shape for someone who is almost
three-quarters of a century old and definitely does not fit my idea of what an
obese and unfit person looks like.
