“Shut up and train. No pain no gain”: Corporality and ascetic practices among amateur bodybuilders

Abstract

This paper analyzes, in light of the most important contemporary theoretical contribu-tions on asceticism, the ascetic practices of amateur bodybuilders. Social relationships, sexuality and alimentation ways are reorganized around physical training, becoming a vector for all the daily routine of the trainees and shaping a typical lifestyle of the sub-culture.
The proliferation of training rooms and gyms, and the increasingly number of persons who usually attend those training centres, clearly indicate the centrality of the “practices of the body” in contemporary society. We understand that exploring the relationship of these actors with their body can provide important clues to understand new forms of engagement with the embodiment that have emerged in the present context, its causes and consequences.
With an ethnographic approach we have tried to research the shape of the embodiment for these actors participating in native contexts, emphasizing the observation of prac-tices; interacting with them and trying to bring out their points of view.