Reddit reviews Manthropology: The Science of Why the Modern Male Is Not the Man He Used to Be

I have to first nitpick that you provide a bad example with Mark Ripptoe being stronger than Arnold, if you look at their powerlifting records here and here respectively. If you take a look at the strongest people in the world, judging either by strongmen meets or by powerlifting, they are generally rather large. Not as large as their bodybuilding counterparts, but still very large. Before the topic of steroids is brought up, consider the size of men before the invention of steroids, like Clarance Ross.

The other point to make is that for Arnold, or any other bodybuilder steroids or not, to make his body look nice they must be very strong. The effort of building that body also makes you look very large. Most elite powerlifters don't have as low bodyfat or the concentration on symmetry as bodybuilders, but they are still very large. Take for example Konstantin Konstantinovs (I use him as an example because he does seem to keep a lower body fat).

One last point, if you look at the history of weight training the Greeks actually pioneered it at least as early as the 5th century(PDF warning). Another great resource for the strength feats of the ancients is Manthropology which has really cool stuff.

well, to be fair, people were stronger in the distant past

> IIRC There's no hard evidence in regards to the softening of our culture.
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> That doesn't mean it's not true, I personally do believe it plays some of a role.

Relevant book here--> Manthropology

They did a recent episode where they talked about this book and it was so ridiculous I just had to skip the episode. Threw up a couple red flags as well.