Evan Centopani relates a pro bodybuilding lifestyle to smoking. Some people smoke and live to be 100… but that’s not the norm.
There are two sides to the term bodybuilding. On one end you have general bodybuilding. This isn’t specifically the competitive sport but just the act of building and improving your body to meet your health goals. On the other end you have competitive and pro bodybuilding. This pushes the body and human physique to extremes. While fitness and muscle is often associated with health – pro bodybuilding can become more dangerous. Just like any other pro sport, there are risks involved. In our latest GI Exclusive interview, Evan Centopani shares his thoughts on just how extreme and dangerous pro bodybuilding can be.
“For everything a bodybuilder does right, there’s probably something he does wrong.” This is the concise statement that Evan Centopani eventually gets to in our latest interview segment. During our talk via video chat, we asked Centopani if he thought bodybuilding was extreme. There’s no doubt that competing at a pro level involves certain risks (this is true of most professional sports), but just how dangerous could pro bodybuilding really be for an athlete?
Evan Centopani makes sure to point out that there are a lot of elements of pro bodybuilder lifestyles that are healthy. The strict dieting, the exercise, and the focus on recovery are all habits that any fit person should take inspiration from. The problem comes on the other end of pro bodybuilding. The mass amount of supplementation and possible PED use. Also the contest prep, which includes extreme cutting techniques and drying out your body, can be a very extreme and ultimately unhealthy cycle that bodybuilders need to go through every year.
But Evan Centopani thinks that this shouldn’t be something to scare people off. He uses smoking cigarettes as an example. Cigarettes are legal to purchase and consumed by millions of people across the globe. We know without a doubt that cigarettes are bad for your health – but a lot of people smoke them anyway. Why? Because the health risks are not 100% guaranteed to have a major effect on a person’s life.
Some smokers live to be 100 while others might suffer and die younger due to lung cancer. At the end of the day, the smokers who live long are not the norm. The health risks are very real – but each individual decides whether they want to roll that dice.
Is pro bodybuilding extreme? Yes. But just like many other sports, an athlete makes a choice. So long as the risks are made clear before jumping into the arena, it’s a right for each athlete to decide if they want to take their body to the extreme.
You can check out Evan Centopani’s full response in our latest GI Exclusive interview segment above.
