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Prachtig verhaaltje van T-Nation. Props for Pinada.
Where O' Where Have All The Asses Gone?
It's sweeping the country. It's a national health crisis. It makes my penis sad.
It's the de-assification of America.
I've published articles before about my appreciation/obsession with perky female be-hinds. I've noted that, all crude sexual humor aside, the butt is a great indicator of health, fitness and athleticism. These days, the sight of a nice rear-end is becoming rare, and to me this further indicates the rapid decline of general fitness.
I'm not necessarily talking about a perfect ass either, but any sign of an ass at all! The modern American butt is either lost in a globulous mountain of fat, or it's a limp piece of rump roast attached to the top of toothpick legs. Asses around the industrialized world are slowly disappearing in one way or another.
The problem is simply the lack of lean body mass. Fat or anorexic, LBM is at an all-time low because of poor diet and lack of exercise. Actually, forget "exercise." It's caused by an all overall lack of movement. . . of any kind!
And men are just as bad as women. I don't make a habit of looking at male butts, but it's difficult not to notice when 90% of the men walking around the grocery store are missing part of their anatomy. As you already know, the glutes and the rest of the posterior chain are key muscles when it comes to athletic performance and big weightroom numbers in several lifts. And women dig a round, muscular butt because it triggers primitive breeding urges.
Gotta love primitive breeding urges.
A few years ago I had the chance to meet running back Emmitt Smith before a Dallas Cowboys game. His glutes and hams were perhaps the most powerful display of musculature I've ever seen. They were practically frightening. But even many young athletes are losing their asses these days, maybe because they spend more time with the PlayStation than with the barbell.
Back to women. Have you seen the latest crop of Playboy Playmates? Not very impressive. Besides all being fairly generic looking (is Hef cloning them or what?), most of them seem to have left their cabooses back at the grotto. They're thin, but they have no LBM. They're starting to get that high-end porn star look -- anorexic with fake boobs -- rather than the curvy girl-next-door look that made Playboy a success.
On a recent visit to my alma matter, Hardin Simmons University in Abilene, TX, I was shocked at what I saw (or rather, didn't see): young college girls, in the prime of their lives, sporting tanned love handles hanging from the sides of stylish low-rise jeans. . . and absolutely no sign of an ass. Most weren't fat (give them a year or two) but they were unhealthy looking -- tanned, bleached, adorned, yet flabby and shapeless. Zero noticeable LBM.
I was sad, and so was my trouser buddy, Willy Wonka.
Anyway, while prepping for an interview with Dr. Art De Vany, author of Evolutionary Fitness, I came across a blog entry of his that covered this same topic. De Vany is 68 years old, 208 pounds and 8% body fat. He has some interesting ideas, though I don't agree with all of them.
Here's his take on the de-assification of America (from arthurdevany.com):
Buns
"Young women love them in a man. Evolutionary psychology tells us they should. Strong and solid buttocks are a sign of health and power in a male. But, buns seem to be shrinking these days. I am struck by the lack of glutteal musculature in males these days. The pants just hang on a lot of the softball players I see.
A male can't be powerful unless he has developed buttocks. They are the foundation of mobility for almost all athletic moves and they are the prime movers in any rapid or powerful move. Heavy lifting, sprinting, hitting or throwing all move off the drive from the legs and gluts.
Why are buns shrinking?
1. Too much sitting. Sitting cuts off the blood supply to the gluts and they atrophy. They just waste away from a lack of blood flow. Go into a truck stop and you will see men that may have started driving as young, tough truck jockeys whose pants just hang straight down from their belt after 20 years in the cab. Office workers are just as vulnerable.
2. Too little full body exercise. Deadlifts, squats, splits, power cleans, and overhead moves engage the gluts. Sitting in a leg extension machine does not. Hack squats on those slanted racks were designed to avoid developing the glutes by bodybuilders seeking a Steve Reeves look.
3. Not enough sprinting. Glutes are essential to a powerful and full leg drive. Jogging doesn't do it. Running at varying speed does to some degree. Long term joggers tend to have a tucked under pelvis, tilted forward from the base, probably to protect their lower back. This reduces engagement of the glutes.
4. Too much alcohol. Alcoholics have no glutes. Check it out. They do all of the above: sitting, not exercising, no sprinting. But, they have another problem. They are so malnourished, particularly in protein, that they consume their own muscle mass to maintain their overworked organs. Their organs are busy trying to detoxify their bodies and are overloaded.
One of the strangest sights I have ever seen was inside one of those bars that open at 6:30 in the morning. I was delivering beer kegs in one of my summer jobs and went into one of those bars to make a delivery. At 8:00 in the morning there were drinkers sitting at the bar. What strange creatures they seemed to my inexperienced eyes. They didn't speak, they croaked from free radical damage of smoke and alcohol to their vocal cords. They had florid faces (blood vessel damage, again from ROS). They had bloated bellies from protein deprivation and liver damage. And, they had no glutes.
With the stench, dark, smoky air, and bar lighting, I felt like I was in another world populated with strange creatures. I have never forgotten it.
I know two famous economists who drank themselves to death and a few who tried (high level economics is hard to do and economists are contentious, hard-headed people; economics seminars often are a blood sport). Out of respect, I won't mention their names.
In their decline, they manifested all the signs of these pitiful and strange people in the 6AM bar. Their florid faces gave them a look of health, they almost looked tan. Their bellies made them look robust. But, their glutes always gave them away; they were dying alcoholics.
So, women are right. Buns are good. They are a very reliable sign of health and power in a male; good genes and provision to a female in the evolutionary environment where buns would have been a powerful clue."
Sooo. . .
I'm off to go sprint.
It's sweeping the country. It's a national health crisis. It makes my penis sad.
It's the de-assification of America.
I've published articles before about my appreciation/obsession with perky female be-hinds. I've noted that, all crude sexual humor aside, the butt is a great indicator of health, fitness and athleticism. These days, the sight of a nice rear-end is becoming rare, and to me this further indicates the rapid decline of general fitness.
I'm not necessarily talking about a perfect ass either, but any sign of an ass at all! The modern American butt is either lost in a globulous mountain of fat, or it's a limp piece of rump roast attached to the top of toothpick legs. Asses around the industrialized world are slowly disappearing in one way or another.
The problem is simply the lack of lean body mass. Fat or anorexic, LBM is at an all-time low because of poor diet and lack of exercise. Actually, forget "exercise." It's caused by an all overall lack of movement. . . of any kind!
And men are just as bad as women. I don't make a habit of looking at male butts, but it's difficult not to notice when 90% of the men walking around the grocery store are missing part of their anatomy. As you already know, the glutes and the rest of the posterior chain are key muscles when it comes to athletic performance and big weightroom numbers in several lifts. And women dig a round, muscular butt because it triggers primitive breeding urges.
Gotta love primitive breeding urges.
A few years ago I had the chance to meet running back Emmitt Smith before a Dallas Cowboys game. His glutes and hams were perhaps the most powerful display of musculature I've ever seen. They were practically frightening. But even many young athletes are losing their asses these days, maybe because they spend more time with the PlayStation than with the barbell.
Back to women. Have you seen the latest crop of Playboy Playmates? Not very impressive. Besides all being fairly generic looking (is Hef cloning them or what?), most of them seem to have left their cabooses back at the grotto. They're thin, but they have no LBM. They're starting to get that high-end porn star look -- anorexic with fake boobs -- rather than the curvy girl-next-door look that made Playboy a success.
On a recent visit to my alma matter, Hardin Simmons University in Abilene, TX, I was shocked at what I saw (or rather, didn't see): young college girls, in the prime of their lives, sporting tanned love handles hanging from the sides of stylish low-rise jeans. . . and absolutely no sign of an ass. Most weren't fat (give them a year or two) but they were unhealthy looking -- tanned, bleached, adorned, yet flabby and shapeless. Zero noticeable LBM.
I was sad, and so was my trouser buddy, Willy Wonka.
Anyway, while prepping for an interview with Dr. Art De Vany, author of Evolutionary Fitness, I came across a blog entry of his that covered this same topic. De Vany is 68 years old, 208 pounds and 8% body fat. He has some interesting ideas, though I don't agree with all of them.
Here's his take on the de-assification of America (from arthurdevany.com):
Buns
"Young women love them in a man. Evolutionary psychology tells us they should. Strong and solid buttocks are a sign of health and power in a male. But, buns seem to be shrinking these days. I am struck by the lack of glutteal musculature in males these days. The pants just hang on a lot of the softball players I see.
A male can't be powerful unless he has developed buttocks. They are the foundation of mobility for almost all athletic moves and they are the prime movers in any rapid or powerful move. Heavy lifting, sprinting, hitting or throwing all move off the drive from the legs and gluts.
Why are buns shrinking?
1. Too much sitting. Sitting cuts off the blood supply to the gluts and they atrophy. They just waste away from a lack of blood flow. Go into a truck stop and you will see men that may have started driving as young, tough truck jockeys whose pants just hang straight down from their belt after 20 years in the cab. Office workers are just as vulnerable.
2. Too little full body exercise. Deadlifts, squats, splits, power cleans, and overhead moves engage the gluts. Sitting in a leg extension machine does not. Hack squats on those slanted racks were designed to avoid developing the glutes by bodybuilders seeking a Steve Reeves look.
3. Not enough sprinting. Glutes are essential to a powerful and full leg drive. Jogging doesn't do it. Running at varying speed does to some degree. Long term joggers tend to have a tucked under pelvis, tilted forward from the base, probably to protect their lower back. This reduces engagement of the glutes.
4. Too much alcohol. Alcoholics have no glutes. Check it out. They do all of the above: sitting, not exercising, no sprinting. But, they have another problem. They are so malnourished, particularly in protein, that they consume their own muscle mass to maintain their overworked organs. Their organs are busy trying to detoxify their bodies and are overloaded.
One of the strangest sights I have ever seen was inside one of those bars that open at 6:30 in the morning. I was delivering beer kegs in one of my summer jobs and went into one of those bars to make a delivery. At 8:00 in the morning there were drinkers sitting at the bar. What strange creatures they seemed to my inexperienced eyes. They didn't speak, they croaked from free radical damage of smoke and alcohol to their vocal cords. They had florid faces (blood vessel damage, again from ROS). They had bloated bellies from protein deprivation and liver damage. And, they had no glutes.
With the stench, dark, smoky air, and bar lighting, I felt like I was in another world populated with strange creatures. I have never forgotten it.
I know two famous economists who drank themselves to death and a few who tried (high level economics is hard to do and economists are contentious, hard-headed people; economics seminars often are a blood sport). Out of respect, I won't mention their names.
In their decline, they manifested all the signs of these pitiful and strange people in the 6AM bar. Their florid faces gave them a look of health, they almost looked tan. Their bellies made them look robust. But, their glutes always gave them away; they were dying alcoholics.
So, women are right. Buns are good. They are a very reliable sign of health and power in a male; good genes and provision to a female in the evolutionary environment where buns would have been a powerful clue."
Sooo. . .
I'm off to go sprint.
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