{"id":1953,"date":"2013-09-10T07:48:35","date_gmt":"2013-09-10T11:48:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.wabash.edu\/fyi\/?p=1953"},"modified":"2025-12-10T10:37:51","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T15:37:51","slug":"tutorial-trip-muscle-make-the-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/2013\/09\/10\/tutorial-trip-muscle-make-the-man\/","title":{"rendered":"Tutorial Trip: Muscle Make the Man?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fifteen students in Professor Shamira Gelbman\u2019s freshman tutorial traveled to Beach Grove High School last Saturday to attend the NPC Natural Circle City Championships, an annual bodybuilding competition run by the Scientific Exercise Training Team collective.<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Professor Gelbman and freshman tutorial class.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dr. Gelbman\u2019s tutorial is called \u201cBodybuilding: Does the Muscle Make the Man?\u201d and the students in it are examining the history of bodybuilding since its origins in late nineteenth-century strongman spectacles and grappling with several controversial issues related to the practice of bodybuilding and its role in contemporary society. The trip to the Circle City Championships helped kick off their studies by providing an opportunity for hands-on engagement with bodybuilders in a contest setting just one week into the semester.<\/p>\n

As first-time bodybuilding show attendees, the students had a lot to take in. \u201cAt the beginning I had started to kind of feel weird watching it,\u201d Conner Marshall reported, \u201cbut it became more understandable as it went on.\u201d For Riley Lefever, the individual posing routines especially drove home the commitment bodybuilders bring to their sport: \u201cYou could tell through their passion all the work that went into preparing for just one competition.\u201d Yan Wu, who was already a bodybuilding fan before coming to Wabash, had never before attended a live bodybuilding event. \u201cI have watched many videos about bodybuilders,\u201d he said, \u201cThis show gave me a more exciting experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"photo<\/a>
Class with competitor Darnell Griffin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Between the morning \u201cPrejudging\u201d and evening \u201cFinals\u201d events, the class headed to Downtown Indianapolis for lunch, a run up to the observation deck of the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, a quick trip to the Circle Center Mall, and a chance encounter with Jon Pactor \u201971. They used this time to discuss and reflect on what they had seen at the morning show. Deryion Sturdivant, for example, remarked that he had \u201cnever realized how strenuous bodybuilders\u2019 routines on stage are,\u201d and Conner Marshall pointed out that \u201c[while] some of the female divisions had the poses of bodybuilding, [it seemed] more like a pageant set-up for the females.\u201d Many were impressed with the Masters age-class bodybuilders, especially the two \u201csixty and over\u201d competitors, which they had not expected to see.<\/p>\n

For most, the highlight of the trip came at the very end of the day, when Darnell Griffin, an Indianapolis-based bodybuilder who won the men\u2019s overall championship title, agreed to pose for individual and group pictures with the class. Griffin caught not only the event judges\u2019 eye, but the students\u2019 as well. \u201cThe other competitors were defined and some were big to an extent,\u201d Michael Rynkiewich said, \u201cbut none close to Darnell.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Fifteen students in Professor Shamira Gelbman\u2019s freshman tutorial traveled to Beach Grove High School last Saturday to attend the NPC Natural Circle City Championships, an annual bodybuilding competition run by the Scientific […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"w_featured_image_url":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2013\/09\/Class.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1953"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3788,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1953\/revisions\/3788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/fyi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}