There was a time in my life when bodybuilding was everything.

As a teenager and into my twenties, I was drawn to the iron like a moth to flame. I wanted to be bigger, stronger, and, like most young men, I measured my worth by the plates on the bench press. The goal was simple: more weight, more size. I didn’t think much about how I moved or what I was neglecting. And like many gym bros before me, I skipped leg day more times than I care to admit.

Nutrition? I never connected the dots between the gym and the kitchen. I ate whatever I wanted and never linked it to anything I was doing in the gym—or to how I felt or performed in life. I didn’t understand recovery, volume management, or the importance of movement quality. I trained like what I thought a bodybuilder would train like—but without any real education behind it. The pursuit was purely superficial—ego-driven, lazy, and misguided.

Worshipping “Function”

As I got deeper into my career as a physical therapist and strength coach, my mindset shifted significantly. I came from an athletic background—basketball in my earlier years—and as I transitioned from athlete to clinician, I began to view bodybuilding with a more cynical eye.

Then I discovered CrossFit and the broader world of so-called “functional training,” and it felt like a revelation. For the first time in years, I was moving dynamically, competing again, and feeling athletic. Olympic lifts, gymnastic movements, and timed workouts scratched the competitive itch and gave me purpose beyond aesthetics. It reconnected me with the part of myself that thrived on performance and challenge.

But in embracing this new paradigm, I swung the pendulum too far.

I started to resent bodybuilding—viewing it as outdated, vain, and even counterproductive. It represented a period of my life I had outgrown, or so I thought. “Functional training” became my religion, and hypertrophy work was sacrilegious.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but my disdain for bodybuilding was never about the training itself. It was about what it represented in my life. I associated it with immaturity, insecurity, and a lack of knowledge. What I didn’t see was the sophistication and versatility it actually offers when approached with intention.

An Expanded Perspective

In my forties, as I started taking on more athletic pursuits—more CrossFit, more pickup basketball, more BJJ—my body started sending a clear message. Slowly at first. A few warning signs here and there. But eventually I realized what was happening: I wasn’t recovering the way I used to. I was feeling more beat up than built up. There was always some nagging joint irritation or soft tissue flare-up. The accumulation of load without balance was catching up to me.

That’s when bodybuilding reentered the frame—not as a replacement, but as a rediscovery.

What I once dismissed as vanity now revealed itself as utility.
What I once viewed as shallow began to show real depth.
What I once cast aside has become essential—not because it does everything, but because it fills in what other methods often leave out.

The Versatility of Bodybuilding

Of all the benefits bodybuilding brings to the table, perhaps the most valuable is its versatility.

You can go heavy or light, push hard or dial it back. As long as you’re applying appropriate intensity to the target tissue, there’s value.

For a body in midlife—still active but less forgiving—this flexibility is gold.

Key variables that can be manipulated within bodybuilding include:

Intensity variations

You can stimulate the same muscle using high-load, low-rep work (e.g. 5×5 squats) or low-load, high-rep protocols (e.g. 3×20 leg extensions). Both can drive growth if intensity is sufficient.

Exercise Selection

There are countless ways to stimulate a muscle—none inherently better, just different tools for different contexts. You don’t need the perfect movement—you need an entry point that lets you challenge the muscle safely and effectively.

Tempo & Range of Motion

Bodybuilding emphasizes variations in tempo and range of motion—slowing down a rep, pausing at the bottom, or extending the eccentric phase. These subtle changes shift the demand on the muscle, improve control, and expose weak links. It’s a powerful way to reconnect with areas that have lost coordination, stability, or proprioception. By manipulating how and where tension is applied, you’re not just training muscles—you’re refining movement.

Strengthening Through Stretch: Hypertrophy & Tendon Resilience

Among all the ways bodybuilding demonstrates its versatility, one of the most impactful is its ability to strengthen muscles in lengthened positions. A growing body of peer-reviewed research suggests that training at longer muscle lengths may offer unique hypertrophic benefits compared to training at shorter lengths—even when the overall range of motion is similar.

Recent systematic reviews and experimental studies have consistently shown that exercises emphasizing a stretched muscle position can lead to greater gains in muscle size. This effect has been observed across various muscle groups, including the quadriceps, hamstrings, triceps, and calves, highlighting a potential advantage of incorporating movements that challenge muscles in these lengthened positions.

Why might this work?

Training at long muscle lengths appears to increase passive tension within the muscle, which may enhance activation of the mTORC1 pathway—a key signaling route associated with muscle protein synthesis and hypertrophic adaptation.

Why is this important?

The benefits go beyond size. Slowly and deliberately loading a muscle into a stretch—then contracting out of that position—builds resilience at joint angles that are often the most susceptible to strain or injury. Over time, this strategy improves mobility, reinforces control in weak positions, and builds strength where most people are least prepared.

It’s an efficient approach that checks multiple boxes at once: more hypertrophy, more usable range, and greater control in the positions that matter most.

Filling the Gaps

In my clinical experience, staying engaged in familiar athletic pursuits is vital for preserving confidence, identity, and capability with age. But over time, their repetitive demands can create blind spots—neglected areas, overused patterns, or imbalances that limit resilience and long-term progress. Bodybuilding helps fill those gaps by providing controlled, targeted loading that promotes movement variability, joint control, and tissue-specific resilience.

In this way, it hasn’t competed with the activities I love—it’s complemented them. Bodybuilding has given me the tools to sustain those pursuits by shoring up weak points, reinforcing undertrained areas, and supporting recovery without losing momentum. It isn’t a step back—it’s the structure that has allowed me to move forward with more confidence and greater consistency.

The Clinical Lens

Over the past 20 years as a physical therapist, my perspective on fitness has evolved dramatically. Early in my career, I viewed bodybuilding-style training as overly rigid, even harmful—focused too much on aesthetics at the expense of function, and potentially contributing to dysfunctional movement patterns or overuse injuries. But over time that view shifted. I’ve come to recognize bodybuilding as one of the most scalable and adaptable tools in the rehab and performance continuum. When applied with intention, it offers precise, targeted loading that can restore joint control, build tissue resilience, and reinforce movement competency in ways that many other training styles can’t.

Here’s why:

Muscle Building: Sarcopenia is real. Building and maintaining lean tissue is non-negotiable for healthy aging.
Injury Workarounds: You can always find a variation that works. Hypertrophy training is incredibly modifiable—angles, tempos, ranges of motion can all be adjusted.
Body Control & Proprioception: As muscle size and force production increase, contractions become easier to feel and control, enhancing your ability to sense and coordinate movement with greater precision.
Education on Relative Intensity: One of the main principles of hypertrophy training is helping people safely understand what “hard” actually feels like. It’s much easier—and more effective—to approach true muscular failure in a controlled, targeted setting where the focus stays on the working muscle.
Progression Frameworks: Whether it’s reps, load, tempo, or rest intervals, bodybuilding provides a structured, measurable path forward.
Inclusivity of Movements: Unlike more dogmatic systems, bodybuilding allows for value in both complex and simple movements. A well-executed bicep curl can be just as therapeutic as a Turkish get-up, depending on the context.

"And" Not "Or"

In my opinion, one of the reasons bodybuilding is often misunderstood is the tendency to view it in isolation rather than as part of a larger, integrated fitness process. It’s easy to dismiss hypertrophy training when it lacks balance or context—but that’s not a flaw of the method itself, rather a limitation in how it’s applied. Adopting an “and” not “or” mindset allows bodybuilding to complement other training styles, enhancing both performance and longevity.

This isn’t unique to bodybuilding—it applies to any training method.

CrossFit, yoga, Olympic lifting, Pilates—none of them are inherently good or bad. They each offer something unique. But they’re incomplete on their own.

If your only exposure to bodybuilding is chest day, arm day, ego lifting, and mirror selfies, of course it’s going to feel empty. But when you understand its full utility—when you respect the stimulus and the structure—it becomes a powerful tool in a well-rounded practice.

Training and Nutrition: Better Together

Bodybuilding doesn’t just complement nutrition—it demands it.

The relationship between training and nutrition in this context is like peanut butter and jelly, or peas and carrots—they just make more sense together. When you're following a program designed to build your body, it naturally reinforces the behavioral consistency needed to eat with structure and intention.

Personally, I use both the Renaissance Periodization (RP) Hypertrophy and Diet Apps to guide my training and nutrition. The structure of the workouts aligns seamlessly with targeted dietary strategies—creating a feedback loop that supports muscle growth, recovery, and long-term sustainability.

Each rep in the gym creates a stronger reason to hit your protein target, stay hydrated, and prioritize recovery. Likewise, each well-planned meal reinforces your efforts under the bar.

This synergy creates momentum. You're not just working out—you’re building something. And that sense of direction makes it easier to make aligned choices, both in and out of the gym.

Body recomposition requires more than just effort—it requires alignment. And nothing aligns physical change and daily discipline quite like the pairing of hypertrophy training and nutrition done with purpose.

No Graduation—Only Evolution

I used to see myself as someone who had “graduated” from bodybuilding into higher-order movement. But that hierarchy was a myth. There’s no graduation—only evolution.

Now, I see bodybuilding not as a phase to outgrow but as a meaningful component of a more evolved training philosophy.

It’s allowed me to move away from the binary thinking that kept me rigid. Instead of “training like an athlete” or “training like a bodybuilder,” I now ask: What does my body need today? What’s going to move me forward?

Sometimes it’s intensity.

Sometimes it’s isolation.

Often, it’s both.

Closing Thoughts

My return to bodybuilding isn’t about leaving past training philosophies behind—it’s about expanding them. Each phase of my athletic journey has added depth to how I view movement, and bodybuilding has become a key part of that expansion. No longer just a pursuit of size or aesthetics, it now serves a more strategic role: supporting joint integrity, enhancing recovery, and offering a focused way to build resilience where it’s needed most.

Bodybuilding doesn’t check every box—but it’s a powerful tool. One that’s often misunderstood in many training circles. It often gets framed as “not functional,” but at this point, that word has become so vague it’s lost much of its meaning. A better question is: Is it useful? And when applied with intention, it is undeniably useful—for rehab, for performance, and for aging well with strength and confidence.

References:

Maeo, S., Sakurai, H., Kusagawa, Y., Wu, Y., Huang, M., Sugiyama, T., Kanehisa, H., & Isaka, T. (2022). Triceps brachii hypertrophy is substantially greater after elbow extension training performed in the overhead versus neutral arm position. → European Journal of Sport Science. https://doi.org/10.1080/17461391.2022.2100279
Pedrosa, G. F., Simões, M. G., Figueiredo, M. O. C. F., Lacerda, L. T., Schoenfeld, B. J., Lima, F. V., Chagas, M. H., & Diniz, R. C. R. (2023). Training in the initial range of motion promotes greater muscle adaptations than at final in the arm curl. Sports (Basel), 11(2), 39. https://doi.org/10.3390/sports11020039
Pedrosa, G. F., Simões, M. G., Figueiredo, M. O. C., Lacerda, L. T., Schoenfeld, B. J., Lima, F. V., Chagas, M. H., & Diniz, R. C. R. (2021). Partial range of motion training elicits favorable improvements in muscular adaptations when carried out at long muscle lengths. European Journal of Applied Physiology, 121(7), 1787–1799. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33977835/