[bradarner]

A castle built on sand. The only way to take the premise of this claim seriously is to ignore data for the past 100 years.

When I was in the US military, we all complained about the Body Mass Index standards. They were based on the WWII era "normal". Men were smaller. Less muscle mass. Shorter. If the average fit American young man tried to fit into a pilot's cockpit from the 1950's, it would feel quite cramped. Like it was built for much small people. It was.

We have certainly climbed the Kardashev scale since the 1950's. To what degree is a matter of contention. But, all would agree that we have moved up the scale.

Muscle atrophy has not been correlated with the growth. The opposite seems true. The average American, both male and female, has more muscle mass than in 1924. A 2024 person spends significantly more time on average in a gym pushing their muscles to hypertrophy than in 1924.

In addition, it is likely that the romantic picture of the average laborer "bodybuilding" is fictive and ignores how muscle atrophy and hypertrophy works. Most laborers are NOT doing activity that leads to hypertrophy. They are staying well within cardiovascular zones of muscle activation. Hence, bodybuilders as we know them are largely a modern phenomenon. And they are certainly WAY more muscular.

Seems the model that underlies this claim is built on seemingly demonstrably false premises.

[loeg]

> The average American, both male and female, has more muscle mass than in 1924.

This is true, but sort of a sleight of hand -- obese people that don't exercise have more muscle mass than non-obese people who don't exercise, just to carry around all of the fat. And obviously the average American, both male and female, is more overweight/obese than in 1924.

(I agree with basically everything else you say, though.)

[bradarner]

Agreed, I was debating whether or not this was relevant to mention.

What I could have added was a caveat that sample non-obese people from each time would indicate that 2024 people have greater average muscle mass.

Personally, a more interesting question is whether growth along the Kardashev scale leads to a greater disparity in muscle mass vs body fat. The past 100 years would seem to indicate that it is possible. That being said, it could also be a uniquely American phenomenon. My hypothesis would be that avg muscle mass among French men has still grown over the past 100 years but I don't think obesity has grown to the extreme that it has in the USA.

[pino999]

Obese people don't have more muscle, especially if you look into the more extreme cases. Muscle atrophy seems to happen due to low insuline sensitivity.

And relative they are weaker in the sense that the ratio between strength and body mass is smaller than that of normal people.

And then we have the powerlifting community.

[naveen99]

by that logic, women would have more muscle mass then men, because they carry around more fat. Average american by definition is average. Overweight by definition is above average. BMI normal is outdated, just needs to move up.

[voldacar]

It's worth noting that the anatomic accuracy of classical statues like Laocoon, the Farnese Hercules, etc. indicates that there were at least some men walking around in antiquity with an amount of muscle mass that could only be developed by deliberate hypertrophy training of the whole body, as opposed to just getting muscle as a side effect of specific athletic training. It seems like these people were doing something quite similar to modern bodybuilding, goal-wise.

[pitpatagain]

Milo of Croton is often cited as the earliest recorded examples of a progressive resistance training program: "He would train in the off years by carrying a newborn calf on his back every day until the Olympics took place. By the time the events were to take place, he was carrying a four-year-old cow on his back. He carried the full-grown cow the length of the stadium, then proceeded to kill, roast, and eat it."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milo_of_Croton

[tom_]

It's also worth noting that the anatomic accuracy of the art of Tom of Finland, depicting men with penises in an anatomically accurate position, indicates that there were men with enormous bulging dicks in the early 1960s, enormous bulging dicks of a size and heft typically unequalled by the average man today. Could he have imagined a penis larger than he had ever actually seen? Impossible, of course. The human brain is incapable of bringing to mind anything that it has not seen actually put in its eyes' field of vision.

[tartoran]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gymnasium_(ancient_Greece)

[mhb]

Wendy, the bully whippet, would like a word:

https://www.timescolonist.com/local-news/wendy-the-whippet-f...

[antonygonsalves]

There is another, and in my opinion, a much greater flaw with the base argument - most predictions about the future are very, very wrong. The future is not only built on technological and scientific progress, but also on the generation and evolution of social mores and expectations. We are already seeing a scientific and cultural shift that celebrates being healthier, including working out to have more muscle mass and investing heavily in optimising this, and there is no way on how this will evolve in the future.

And for another argument, from a psychological perspective, we know that a healthy body in a vital component of a healthy mind - even with the development of excellent mind-silicon interfaces, we are probably a very, very long way from keeping minds healthy without a correspondingly healthy body (including muscle mass).

[nradov]

The major federal government food assistance programs came out of findings in WW2 that many potential recruits were literally malnourished and underweight. They had grown up poor and starving during the Great Depression. Beyond the human tragedy this was a national security issue. Some men were too small and weak to meet military standards.

[bradarner]

Indeed. Which would seem to indicate that positive growth along the Kardashev scale will lead to hypertrophy not atrophy, as conjectured by the OP. One could hypothesize that growing control of energy is highly correlated with the ability to empower a population to increase in muscle mass. Of course, history would seem to indicate that there can also be a correlation to increased obesity.

[RankingMember]

> The average American, both male and female, has more muscle mass than in 1924.

I don't necessarily disagree with your thesis, but I'd be genuinely interested in reading the source on this, unless you just mean because people are bigger overall they have more muscle as a function of weight.

[bradarner]

No, I do mean precisely the average muscle mass is higher. Granted we are dealing with statistics. There is inevitably a lot more context than just a myopic focus on this single fact.

Dated but still relevant: https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/evolution-bmi-values-us-adult...

This is particular relevant in the military because your fitness level is graded relative to you BMI. Hence, it is common trope one hears in the military. It is a practical question in the military. If the BMI is based on 1950's pilots and today's soldiers have a higher average BMI, then it can have an impact on promotions, fitness scores, health assessments, etc.

[karaterobot]

> A 2024 person spends significantly more time on average in a gym pushing their muscles to hypertrophy than in 1924.

What is this focus on hypertrophy? The article isn't about having prominent muscles, it's clearly about being physically fit in the sense that farmers and manual laborers are fit, not in the sense that actors are fit.

[brodouevencode]

Agreed.

Anecdotal: I helped my dad a few years ago do a lot of genealogy. He had pictures going back to the late 1800s for one branch of the family that just arrived from Ireland. Most of the men were shirtless and you could count every rib. There was very little muscle.

[lmm]

People who fled a famine so severe that it lead over 100% of that country's population to emigrate are surely a representative sample of a normal physique from that era, especially immediately after a week-long ocean crossing.

[maxerickson]

Y'all are talking about noise inside of stage 2 from the link. A lot of it just being due to economics.

[baranul]

"And I still have a hard time beating him in arm wrestling despite the 40 years of age gap."

Another example, from the article, that backs up what you are saying. Arm wrestling, is not a clear overall indicator of total strength or fitness. It's as much about technique, rules, psychology (through sh*t talking or facial expressions), and very specific muscle development than anything else. Doesn't show how much a person could lift or squat. Strength in one area, doesn't mean strength in another or if people in the past were "stronger".

[h0l0cube]

The faulty premise I see here is that squishy bodies will even be relevant as we climb the scale. Exo-suits are already a thing that can make us stronger in spite of muscle atrophy. And further up the scale, in-silico intelligence will replace the need for a highly inefficient body to power our highly inefficient brains. We could even down-throttle our consciousness to make journeys to distant stars. The future will be so abstract to us that we can’t even fathom what humanity will have become.

[HPsquared]

We already kind of have exoskeletons anyway: cars.

[begueradj]

Well, a popular French army soldier who trains the soldiers of the Foreign Legion said multiple times on his YouTube channel that a good soldier is "un chat soldat" (cat soldier): his weight must be between 60 and 70 kg only.

A cat soldier is the only one who can overcome all type of obstacles and is operational under all circumstances with high efficiency.

Spartan soldiers were too efficient are were known for eating little (not until they felt full).

[portaouflop]

The efficiency of the Spartan army is a myth, in fact there were quite insignificant; they basically won a battle once and after that were wiped out

[potato3732842]

>Most laborers are NOT doing activity that leads to hypertrophy.

Modern laborers aren't even allowed to. Just because you're jacked and can install semi truck tires by hand doesn't mean your boss wants to risk the insurance or OSHA dumpster fire that could arise if you throw out your back doing so.

[datadeft]

Having growth hormones in your ultra processed food helps