Body Types

                                        Body Types

The roots of bodybuilding go all the way back to ancient Greece. It was the athletes of ancient Greece who used to train in the gymnasiums (Greek for "naked place"); however, they did not use resistance training as a form of body modification but rather a means to improve at the sport they participated in.

The most notable of such athletes was Olympic wrestling champion Milo of Croton who reportedly would carry a calf on his back every day until it became a bull, thus demonstrating progressive resistance as a means of developing strength.

The "Grecian Ideal" would also go on to influence modern day bodybuilding as the aesthetic standard that modern bodybuilders would aim to achieve.

It was in 11th century India that bodybuilding as we know it first arrived on the scene. It was back then the Indians would use primitive dumbbell weights carved from stone for the sole purpose of getting bigger and stronger, it is also reported that by the 16th century weight lifting had become a national past time in India.

By the mid-19th century weight training as a means of improving health and increasing strength was becoming increasingly popular. People began to be exposed, to what was to become known as, the physical culture: through the travelling strongmen of the time. The strongmen would entertain crowds with feats of strength, such as lifting and pulling massive weights. However, it was purely the feats of strength that the audiences were interested in; the actual aesthetics of the strongmen was not important -- this would all change with the arrival of Eugene Sandow.