I’ve written somewhere here on the blog about my tendency while working out to compare myself – my physique, my strength, etc. – to guys of my similar body frame and age. When I see a guy around my same size who bench presses substantially more than me, I feel slightly bitter or jealous, and I typically rationalize to myself why he’s stronger than me. This is partly a function of age. I did this sort of thing much more when I was 20 than I do today. Now I’m more in my own bubble, and I’m more likely to just admit to myself that the guy is more genetically gifted than me. But there’s still a slight tendency to think that maybe he’s on the juice or maybe he has more free time to work out or maybe he has a workout partner and I don’t.
I don’t feel competitive in this way with guys who are either much bigger or much smaller than me. I weigh in at 180. I’m not even in the same ballpark as the guy who weighs 240 and benches 400. He’s off my radar. I’ll perhaps notice his strength but it creates no internal response. The dirty little secret here is that guys compare themselves at the gym (and plenty of other places) to other guys, and I’d argue that those of us who do this (nearly all of us) focus more on guys we are more outwardly comparable to in terms of natural body frame.
This comes to mind through Tyler Cowen who links to a paper titled “Increased aggression during human group contests when competitive ability is more similar”. The abstract:
Theoretical analyses and empirical studies have revealed that conflict escalation is more likely when individuals are more similar in resource-holding potential (RHP). Conflicts can also occur between groups, but it is unknown whether conflicts also escalate more when groups are more similar in RHP. We tested this hypothesis in humans, using data from two professional sports competitions: football (the Bundesliga, the German first division of football) and basketball (the NBA, the North American National Basketball Association). We defined RHP based on the league ranks of the teams involved in the competition (i.e. their competitive ability) and measured conflict escalation by the number of fouls committed. We found that in both sports the number of fouls committed increased when the difference in RHP was smaller. Thus, we provide what is to our best knowledge the first evidence that, as in conflicts between individuals, conflicts escalate more when groups are more similar in RHP.
It seems logical to apply this team-level tendency to individuals. While my gym mirror jealousy (or confidence) is a civilized version of an aggressive and evolved instinct, it makes sense that we’d spend our competitive energy on foes who more closely rival us. We’re essentially looking for the chinks in their armor, or their hidden strengths. If you’re David, despite the myth that small guys can out-scrap big guys, it’s pretty much a waste of blood and sweat to go up against Goliath. If you’re a big guy you really have nothing to gain by confronting a little guy. It’s the guys near each other in size that know that the other one is a greater threat in terms of the possibilities of a confrontation. And we try to determine what they’re all about.
Like this:
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The vanity of small differences. Kind of like Welsh nationalists torching English vacation homes but completely not noticing Nigerian or Paki settlers.
If you are a small boned man, you can at least console yourself with the fact that your daughters will likely be prettier than the big boned man’s daughters.
Stocky guys with short arms have better leverage for bench pressing than tall lean types. The tradeoffs abound though for every body type.
I do this too. Just the other day I was waiting on the overhead press bench from a guy who was similar to me in frame. I sit down and he’s using less than half the weights I use, and I do quite a few sets/reps. Feels good.
PA,
Or, ideologues eating their own before addressing people who are far on the other side of the political spectrum from them. I see this among libertarians and anarchists and white nationalists too. The joke I’ve heard from a few libertarians who run in D.C. circles is that they agree on 99 percent of issues but want to stake out ground on that 1% difference.
Reym,
Yep, it’s always done with a bit of a scoff like “heh, this weak chump.” This all is actually one of the reasons I prefer to work out at a gym rather than at home. I’m competitive like this and think that over the long run there is an upward pressure on the amount I can life or how long I can run. If I worked out by myself or at a gym with fewer people I would probably slack off more.
I do the same thing and I think this is fairly common for guys to do.
“If you’re David, despite the myth that small guys can out-scrap big guys, it’s pretty much a waste of blood and sweat to go up against Goliath. If you’re a big guy you really have nothing to gain by confronting a little guy.”
Exactly.
A big guy fighting a little guy can only lose status. If he wins it will be no great feat of arms. If he loses the shame and reprise will be great.
On the otherhand, a little guy fighting a big guy can only maintain or gain status. If he loses, no big deal. If he wins, well, then no one will fuck with him.
Nothing beats working out with a good partner who will push you hard.
Moved to a new town recently and am seriously considering putting up a flyer in my gym for a workout partner.
Yeah, workout partners do help. You can’t get that big without one. I work out solo but that’s mostly because I don’t have a set workout schedule. I just go whenever and am not really good about meeting up with people for get togethers of any sort.
Makes me wonder if it is a better strategy to have a work out partner similar in size and strength to you or to have one that is much stronger. This creates the dilemma of nobody wanting to have a weakling as a workout partner because you’re giving them more than they’re giving you. I’m sure people have thought about and written about this, but it’s an interesting venture into game theory (the economic type, not the Roissy type).
(cheeseman42 here)
Honestly I don’t think comparative size is that big of a deal for workout partners(within reason of course). Sure, the more similar the better because it becomes a neck and neck competition.
My workout buddy in highschool was quite a bit weaker than myself. We would have to change out weights everytime we switched(which goes quick with two people changing them). However we were both dedicated and serious. We would push eachother hard and not let the other slack. We would call eachother “weak”, “pussy”, etc… if one of us wasn’t giving our all. Those sessions are still some of the best workouts I’ve ever had.
“The tradeoffs abound though for every body type.”
It’s true. Tall, broad shouldered men might be considered the physical ideal, but they rarely can do pull ups or run fast. Smaller guys always crush them on those two things.
The same applies for women. Except for fat, I find all different body types can be appealing on women. Hayden Panetierre is built totally differently from Cameron Diaz and they both have nice bodies.
Why do guys go to the gym alone but women always need a team, kind of like going to take a squirt in a bar, women need a posse men can usually handle it alone
Many animal species organize naturally into hierarchies, because it is one of the most stable forms of society. Deviations from the proper place in a hierarchy are met with a quick warning, and a short but fierce beatdown if they fail to fall back into line. Conflicts (challenges) do not occur when there is a clear difference in power, because in that case there is no need for conflict; the outcome is clear. Conflicts mainly happen when the real power balance within the hierarchy changes so that the power relationship is no longer clear – that is to say when the two parties are roughly equal and need to determine the relative position within the hierarchy.
Modern society (i.e. rules and manners) limits these conflicts, so the hierarchy is not so clearly defined and many people inflate or otherwise confuse their ranking and act out of line without receiving a beatdown, but at heart we are still animals living in a social hierarchy, so the base instincts are still there.
Yep. I compare myself to the boxers and MMA fighters at my weight, but their real walking-around weight is twenty pounds heavier than their fighting weight. I compare myself to guys I encounter at my white-collar office job and decide whether I could take them in a fight. I’ve done this since adolescence.
@Dan Fletcher: “A big guy fighting a little guy can only lose status. If he wins it will be no great feat of arms. If he loses the shame and reprise will be great.”
Just like that scene from “White Men Can’t Jump” where Woody Harrelson challenges Wesley Snipes to a game of one-on-one.
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@jc:
Women go in groups because they’re not serious about actually working out. This is actually pretty consistent in general, support groups = excuse to fail.
Ha! I do this too. I assuage any feelings of inadequacy over amount of weight lifted by others with set after set on the pull-up bars, four sets – 20-15-12-10 rep sequence. (the last ten are hard) (I weight 200, 6ft tall, age 47 – good strength to weight ratio) (and my ballet-thin daughter can crank out 15 pull-ups easy, but she doesn’t like to do it around men – she did this in middle school and won most reps – it intimidated her boy classmates.)
@Californio. That’s very good on the pull-ups (palm forward, I take it) and double what I do, and I’m still ahead of many, many guys I’ve encountered. I just installed a pull-up bar in my garage and hope to get back to 20 reps. I believe pull-ups are one of the single best measurements of upper body strength. I once was at a gym along side a former NFL center. He could do two.