The Golden Age of Classic Physique Building: The Classic Ideal

What made the Golden Age of Classic Physique Building "Golden" was a conscious effort to emmulate the classic ideal. This can be seen quite clearly in the physique photography of that era (from 1940 - 1959).

Take a look at the above photo. It shows Clancy Ross (Mr. America 1945, Pro Mr. America 1946, Mr. USA 1948) on the cover of the March, 1956 issue of Joe Weider's Muscle Power magazine. Clancy is shown next to a classical Greek column. This is a clear attempt to portray bodybuilders as exemplifying the classic ideal of a muscular, powerful, symmetrical, yet attractive body. There is no glorification here of "freaky" size. Many other examples of this kind of physique photography can be found from the Golden Age of Classic Physique Building.

In the Golden Age of Classic Physique Building (before the advent of steroids), a classic physique was valued as the ideal. Today, that ideal has been lost in the mainstream bodybuilding world. Our mission here at Classic Physique Builder is to bring it back - if not to mainstream competitive bodybuilding, then to regular guys who want to build a fantastic physique and have no interest in using drugs. Many would be proud to have an all-natural, classic physique like that of Clancy Ross!