Muscle: Confessions Of An Unlikely Bodybuilder By Samuel Wilson Fussell
Posted August 9, 2008 at 8:39 PM
I don't like to tell many people about this book. Not because it's bad, but because it's so awesome. By knowing about it, I somehow feel like I'm in a sort of secret club - a club whose only dues are the knowledge and appreciation of the book itself. It's a silly mindset to be in, I know, but one that I have a hard time shaking. Maybe it has something to do with the manner in which I was introduced to the book. One day, over 10 years ago, my English teacher, Mike Stanitski, pulled me aside as class was letting out. He told me that he had a book he thought I might enjoy. And, which that statement, he handed me his very own copy of Muscle: Confessions of an Unlikely Bodybuilder.
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It was a Friday. I remember that very clearly because I had a book report due for Mr. Stanitski the following Monday. What a crazy time to be handing a student an extra curricular book. It was as if he was saying, without words, that this book was more important than the outstanding report; that there was something here, something that couldn't wait even three more days. I don't know why he picked me exactly. I certainly wasn't the only student in his gym class. I felt selected, as if I were carefully chosen amongst the eligible to be the next bearer of this book.
I started reading the book that day on the bus ride home and couldn't put it down until I was done with it, late Saturday night. It was mesmerizing. Part depressing, part inspirational, part warning; it was gritty and unflinching, but it was elegant and well crafted. Written by an Oxford educated Literary major and the son of two English professors, it demonstrated a mastery of the English language; definitely not what one would expect to find in an autobiography about bodybuilding.
Over the years, as it was passed on to me, so have I passed this book onto others that I thought would appreciate it. And, while I have enjoyed the secrecy of this club, I am beginning to feel that keeping this book to myself is too greedy. I am sure that there are others out there that would feel about this book as I do, and I know that were our positions reversed, I would be grateful for being included. So it is with some hesitation but much benevolence that I pass this book on you.
. . . .
Introduction
You spot them on the streets of the city and, increasingly, in the malls and parks of the suburbs. Sometimes they band together. Mostly, they walk alone. Bodybuilders. You know the kind. They strut like no others, holding their elbows wider than their shoulders, legs far apart. I know, I was one of them.
For four long years, I trained four hours a day, six days a week with them. I broke whole wheat bread with them. I filled my body with steroids alongside them. I lived with them. And, finally, I competed on stage against them.
The following is an account of my journey - what I did, what I saw, what I felt. Those in search of a steroid primer or an exercise manual are advised to look elsewhere; my purpose is different. Part ditty, part dirge, I sing of arms and the man, of weight rooms and muscle pits, of biceps and triceps, bench press and low pulley rows, of young and old, woman and man, straining and hoisting iron to the boom box sounds of Top 40 record stations in bodybuilding gyms across the land.
I sing of dreamers and addicts, rogues and visionaries. And I sing of my own solitary pilgrimage into this strange world. A world filled with wrist straps and ammonia, BIG Chewables and "the juice." A world governed by a savage force that swallowed me whole from a bookstore in New York City, and did not relent until it had chewed me up and spit me out 80 pounds heavier and 3,000 miles later on a posing dais in Burbank, California. I was swabbed in posing oil and competition color, flexing with all my might, when I came to, a sadder and wiser man.
. . . .
What an introduction. Even now, reading it for perhaps the 10th time since it has come into my possession, I am overcome with a desire to read the book again. This is not unusual; I reread the book every year or two. Every time I am feeling down, or in a rut, I dust it off and take a day to go through it. It always leaves me satisfied and inspired. Every time that I read it, I come away with something new. Whether it's a new point or a new passage to underline, it's a book that keeps on giving.
If the introduction above was not enough to pull you in, I'd like to share with you a few of my favorite passages below.
. . . .
(Page 25) It was simple at first - at least, so I thought. By making myself larger than life, I might make myself a little less frail, a little less assailable when it came down to it, a little less human.
(Page 31) It this "no pain, no gain" adage were true, then, I would learn not just to accept pain, but to embrace it.
(Page 43) There was a beautiful simplicity about it. I pushed the iron, and my body grew. The harder I worked, the better I felt. My routine brought order amid chaos.
(Page 48) There wasn't enough pomade, mouthwash, deodorant and talk in this world to eradicate my sins, but what if I created a shell to suppress them? What if my armour not only kept the world out, but kept me in?
(Page 61) Iron made sense to no one. To no one, that is, but me. All I knew was that I had found a sanctuary in the gym, and the more I trained, the better I felt. Out on the streets of New York, I'd found nothing but impediments, red lights, and stop signs everywhere. Inside the gym, I saw only green. ... From exercise to exercise I'd go, feeling as if I were driving a car on a dark, wet night in the city. Suddenly, the stoplight just ahead turns green, the next one green, and green again. YOu don't need to brake for even one light. All you see is the road before you. You're not quite sure why, but you're going at the right speed at the right place and time. You take a quick look at the speedometer. Just to memorize the reading. But there's no need. Just keep it going, another light, another block, another weight, another exercise. Green, green, green.
(Page 61) It beat the street. It beat my girlfriend. It beat my family. I didn't have to think. I didn't have to care. I didn't have to feel. I simply had to lift.
(Page 73) I had always been told that to grow up meant to stop wanting those things you can't have. But everything I'd learned from bodybuilding taught me to fight this notion. You can become the person you dream of being, bodybuilders say. You can defy both nurture and nature and transform yourself.
(Page 80) On my off days, I grew impatient, yearning to speed up time and start the next day's workout. The more I trained, the more desperately I needed to train. My body ached for the pump. I couldn't live without it, that burning sensation acquired through bombing a muscle area. At first it feels like someone rubbing heat balm on the particular muscle you're working, it feels almost numb; then the analgesic spreads. Within minutes, you feel your whole body glowing, as if you're the sole source of illumination in a dark world. You can't help but smile. And it was the pump that kept me going, endorphins running to the rescue whenever I called. If Sisyphus gets a pump from his eternal exercise, I assure you all this time he's been a happy man.
(Page 82) I longed for that conviction, the ease and peace of mind that would come from the simplistic belief that there is a top and a bottom in this world. Top and bottom, black and white, good and evil, positive and negative, big and small, I retreated into a narrow world of dichotomy. I no longer had questions, only solutions, and they all pointed to the weight room.
(page 97) In the final arena, there will be no judges, only witnesses to my greatness.
(Page 194) I didn't need to see passerbys doing double takes to be aware of my own movements, to watch myself - this huge, ungainly creature, suffocated by a world of his own making. In the end, "the Walk" I did, the being I had become, felt stifling, limiting, claustrophobic, far from liberating, as it had once been on the corner of Fifty-third and Second back in New York.
. . . .
My work here is done. I only ask that as I have given it you, you must pass this onto others that might enjoy it.
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Reader Comments
I'll definitely give it a gander.
Im Gonna recommend this to my brother , thanks for sharing :D
MOst of the body bilders I know, whether on TV or in peson sem to be taking muscle mass intakes......what other confession coud one make !
I have had the pleasure of Sam's company countless times over the past years and reading this, after knowing the man, this read is shocking and exciting. The man in the book is driven to an anything goes kind of mentality. The Sam Fussell I know is smart, funny and engaging. Your everyday nice guy. Your everyday BIG nice guy, but a good neighbor kind of person. Now knowing the two sides of Sam, this book is even more interesting. I have the opportunity to see the Jekyll and the Hyde of the author.
@Bill,
That's so awesome that you know him. I'd be flattered if you might pass this blog entry along to him; I'd get a kick knowing that somehow, somewhere he's reading it. This book has been an awesome part of my life.
I agree, it's like a special club, those of us who appreciate Sam and his book. I was just as engulfed in "bodybuilding" as Sam was. It was VERY difficult to return to being "mortal" after nearly a decade of being a super-human. He did a terriffic job telling his story, the story of thousands of would-be Arnolds, and I would be honored to some day shake his hand and say "well done and thanks for your courage and honesty." I reread his book every year or two myself. It's too bad that he hasn't written anything else. Or has he?
@Sean,
I think maybe he wrote another book, but not on the same topic. There's really not that many good books out there like this, especially non-fiction. I've read some decent fictions ones, but they are scarce.
This book is surely for my son as he is a bodt building freak. And am impressed with the way you share the important details with references to each page.
I've reasd a few pages of the book and i fel its inspiring but at the same time gives a a truely insight into the mind of obession to become something more than ones-self....Sams book is pushing me and driving me to become more myself. Excellent read and i will come back with more soon.
@Sandhu,
Glad you're liking it. It still remains one of my favorite books.
