Chapter 6. Bodybuilding
Most of us males, at one time or another, have felt like Joe, the scrawny little wimp in the old Charles Atlas advertisement who was humiliated in front of his girlfriend on the beach when the muscular bully kicked sand in his face. As you’ll recall, Joe sent away for the Charles Atlas bodybuilding course, then came back to the beach with large, bulging, rippling muscles. When the bully returned, he was extremely impressed and suggested that Joe should also apply oil to his body so that it would have a satiny gleam, and perhaps shave his armpits. Before long, they were very close friends and often helped each other select posing outfits.
You may feel that this is the kind of story that “only happens in comic books,” but in fact it can happen to you, too—provided you have the discipline, drive, endurance, and just plain old-fashioned guts required to procure the necessary steroids.
Ha ha! Just a little fitness humor there. You don’t need to ingest pharmaceutical substances to develop a major body; you simply have to follow the simple-to-follow instructions in this chapter. But first, let’s answer some commonly asked questions about bodybuilding.
Q. I’m a man. How large should I let my muscles get?
A. This depends on the size of your head. See, your body has only a certain number (21,796,349,582) of cells. Each of these cells can be either part of your body or part of your head. This means if you make your body bigger, your head has to get smaller. So you should cease your muscle development as soon as you start noticing the warning signs of severe head reduction, such as:
Buying lawn ornaments
Having trouble following the plot on “Dukes of Hazzard”
Answering to the name “Vinnie”
If you already meet any of these criteria, you probably shouldn’t do any bodybuilding at all. Of course, if you already meet any of these criteria, you’re probably still trying to figure out how to get this book open.
Q. Can a woman such as myself engage in bodybuilding?
A. Of course! Although experts have discovered that a woman can never achieve the large muscle mass and definition of a Mister Universe, she can still, with patience, dedication, and hard work, make herself look grotesque. Or she can simply have large, realistic depictions of centipedes tattooed on her face.
Q. Once I become huge and muscular, will I still be able to operate a telephone?
A. Push-button, or rotary dial?
Q. Push-button.
A. Probably.
Now that we’ve answered your commonly asked questions, let’s take stock of your current body. Take off all your clothes and stand in front of a mirror, and let’s make an objective, professional, scientific assessment. Go ahead! Don’t be shy! We can’t help you if we can’t see what we’re working with!
(PAUSE)
So! That’s your body, eh? Hahahahahahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Excuse me. I’m not (choke, gasp) laughing at you, really. I just, ummmmm, I just thought of something funny somebody said to me in 1967. Anyway, looking at your body, I would hahaha hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha hahahahahaha! Excuse me. I would say that you hahahahahahahahahahahaha! Whew! Put your clothes back on, okay?
Using this scientific assessment of your current bodily needs as a guide, let’s look at the various kinds of bodybuilding equipment.
Weights: A Stupid Idea
Forget about weights. For one thing, they’re very heavy, and for another thing, they wreck your body. Look at what they do to your big-time weight lifters, who have turned into 400-pound hairy sweaty shapeless grunting masses of tissue. And the men are even worse. No, you want to take the new, high-tech, scientific route to a better body, with Nautilus equipment.
How Nautilus Equipment Works
Originally designed as a way to keep professional football players from having sex before a game, Nautilus equipment has become an extremely popular bodybuilding aid that not only is costly but also takes up a lot of room. This is because it’s actually a series of machines, each specifically designed to develop one of the major muscle groupings (the abductors, the transponders, the trapezoids, the isobars, the quatrains, the bivalves, the Social Democrats, and the gerunds). The idea is that you work a grouping until it can no longer respond to signals from your brain, then you move on to the next machine, and so on until you’ve worked all your muscle groupings, at which time you signal the attendant, by blinking in a prearranged code, that you wish to be bathed.
I can’t go into great detail here about how the various Nautilus machines work, because it would soon become obvious that I don’t know.
The Trouble with Nautilus Equipment
The trouble with Nautilus equipment is that to use it, you have to join either a spa or a professional football team, which means you’re going to spend a lot of time enveloped in other people’s bodily aromas. So what would be ideal, if only such a thing were possible, would be if somebody would develop a totally new amazing scientific affordable bodybuilding device that you could use in your own home.
Announcing a Totally New Amazing Scientific Affordable Bodybuilding Device That You Can Use in Your Own Home
I am very pleased to be able to announce at this time a major breakthrough in the field of home body devices: the Dave Barry Total Person Workout Device. I’d tell you how good it is, but I’d be violating numerous federal statutes, plus I think you’ll be even more convinced by these actual testimonials from imaginary satisfied customers:
“Your Total Person Workout Device has completely changed my life! For example, I can no longer discern colors!”—A.B., Detroit, Michigan
“I was being constantly hassled by vicious youths in my urban neighborhood. I sent away for your device, and within a week they had stolen it!”—C.D., Toledo, Ohio
“What have you done with my wife!”—L.M.N.O.P., Eau Claire, Wisconsin
What’s the cause of all this excitement? It’s a device that actually costs less than a new home yet yields results.
Both models come in an attractive designer cardboard box telling you which end is supposed to be up and whether or not you should drop it (no). The price is just $799 for the Basic Model and $1,099 for the Really Nice Model, the main difference being that we check the Really Nice Model for vermin. Of course, if you are in any way the least bit dissatisfied with your Device, you simply have to write an angry letter to the employees at your state Bureau of Helping the Consumer, who probably won’t be there because they get just about every other day off for cretin holidays like Arbor Day.