Muscular Athlete Advantages

For most sports (team sports especially), there are many advantages to being a muscular athlete. Bodybuilding, power-lifting, wrestling and other strength sports are not the only ones that promote getting jacked up. Here's why today's athletes have gone old school and are using weight training to put on pounds of muscle.

BETTER BALANCE

Building muscle size by means of regular weight training, a high-protein nutritional regimen, and proper amounts of rest greatly affects an athlete's performance on the playing field (or grounds, or ice, or... well, you get the picture). One positive benefit for the muscular athlete is that his/her slightly wider frame more likely will result in better balance on the pitch. Better balance translates to more control and better vision.

STRONGER STANCE

This is the most obvious advantage of a well-built athlete. A hockey player, for example, can hold his/her ground better when faced with a collision-type challenge from the opponent if he/she is slightly more buffed. Conversely, a thinner athlete could probably get the wind knocked out of him/her or be easily pushed aside with less effort from the opponent.

CONFIDENCE

I've heard all too often the expression "A bodybuilder is a little child in a gorilla suit", which implies that anyone who puts that much effort into getting big actually feels small inside (meaning has no confidence and is insecure). With all do respect, the people that have made this comment are clearly envious (because putting others down as a known fact is a clear sign of jealousy)... so nobody's perfect. Now that I've said my piece, I'll explain how confidence benefits the muscular athlete. Firstly, A well-developed physique attracts attention from the crowd as well as other athletes, and for professional athletes especially this fuels their ego. They feed off of the energy and attention of the spectators, athletes, media, and so on. Secondly, a person will probably think twice about challenging an opponent who is bigger, most of the time for fear of getting hurt. Muscular athletes know this and so it also fuels their confidence.

DISADVANTAGE OF THE MUSCULAR ATHLETE

An athlete who has become too massive may likely experience a regression in his/her agility & speed, as well as have trouble breathing with increased intensity. I don't think that this happens often as most (if not all) of the Mr.Olympias are probably not thinking about crossing over to sports like soccer or tennis. An athlete has to continuously be conscious about how he/she is feeling as his/her body undergoes physical changes as well as how those changes affect overall performance within their sport. This way, if performance begins to decline then the athlete could start working towards actually decreasing muscle mass. Still, for most athletes of team sports, muscular development is encouraged as more seems to be better.

MYTH

Muscular athletes are not flexible. That's not necessarily so. Flexibility has a lot more to do with whether or not an individual stretches, than with whether an athlete is big or not. Although I do get a decent stretch while actually working out with weights, I'm not extremely flexible because I rarely stretch for the sake of stretching.

I don't believe that the size of someone's muscles has anything to do with the degree of flexibility. Flexibility often gets confused with range of motion. It's true that a bodybuilder may have less range of motion due to the bulging muscles but he/she may still be able to do the splits... as seen often in high-level competitions where the most massive bodybuilders in the world compete.

CONCLUSION

So, there you have it... It seems that there are an overwhelming number of advantages over disadvantages for becoming a muscular athlete. Of course, muscular doesn't mean fat, so stay lean.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Drugs are everywhere in sports, not only bodybuilding or power-lifting. If you happen to be an athlete participating in a sport that encourages the use of drugs to enhance muscle size (or to lean down for that matter), be strong in your determination to stay natural, and work towards getting the results you want rather than taking the easy road.

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