Philosophical arguments "against" weightlifting (yes, you read that right)

Philosophy Forums Society, Government, and Economics
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Prepare to read something really goofy. And stupid.

Context: I’m 16, been weightlifting for over a year now, and interested in philosophy for a little over 8 months. Recently I’ve been trying to find my morals and, if I may say so, succeeding.

While I’m not going to say what sect or lack of one therefore (it’d be useless), I generally feel aligned with the Christian God. I got to this point with philosophy.

This has affected my thought process towards weightlifting because:

A. What usefulness is the body (in either strength or aesthetics) when in the end it’s your soul, or rather, morals that matter (and your relationship with God)

B. Because of A (above), why exercise beyond what takes you to God’s image of health for you? Surely God, and a rational part of the weightlifter themself, don’t honestly think there’s any reason to exercise extensively to the point where you risk injury. In the end, does muscle even matter?

To clarify, when I speak of weightlifters I speak of people like Arnold Schwarzenegger (albeit he was juiced), strongmen like kyriakos “grizzly”, ETC.

What I’m trying to communicate here is that physical strength really does seem quite useless, unless you’re in some position where it’s an absolute requirement such as the military.

Otherwise than that it seems like the motivation behind weightlifters, especially bodybuilders, is either to become an object of lust ( look at my muscles girl! ) or become an object of jealousy towards other men… Both of which are morally stupid

Can anyone give me reasons to continue weightlifting?

Also don’t take this too seriously, I wrote this in 5 minutes

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Religious educational institutions have always encouraged fitness and health… think yoga, tai chi, sports… so you arriving at religion and fitness being mutually-exclusive, is unfounded.

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Yes, but I believe there’s a point when you can teach a certain muscularity or “strength” that doesn’t correlate to either physical or mental health… I can think of many people who are very muscular but incredibly unhealthy.

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Being unhealthy is a personal choice and isn’t a by-product of weight training, neither is becoming overly muscular -as again- doing so is a personal choice.

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You can’t say “The weights made me do it”, because the weights aren’t sentient.
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…but if you did, you could get away with it… because the weights can’t defend themselves.

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This seems to get at the real issue: it’s not about weightlifting, but the motivation behind it.

There are many reasons why someone might lift weights. I agree that a Christian god would frown on the ones you mention, because they are ultimately selfish and even cruel.

If instead your motivation is to stay healthy, to be prepared for anything, to relieve stress, or to train mental discipline, those seem more neutral or even virtuous.

I’d even argue that lifting weights to improve your looks isn’t immoral per se: suppose you want to improve your looks in order to make your significant other happy, or because the sad fact is that in our world looking good may get you access to opportunities that could enable you to do good. Call it “instrumental vanity”: not vanity for its own sake, but only to serve some greater end.

When you point to Schwarzeneggar and Grizzly, I think it shows you’re really thinking of weightlifting in terms of excess. But nearly any activity, when done in excess, and particularly when done selfishly in excess, will raise moral concerns.

But those concerns are distinct from the activity. Done for different reasons (“ad maiorem Dei gloriam” etc.), there’s nothing wrong with weightlifting.