There was a time when enhanced bodybuilders’ only real focus was on what worked. They didn’t really care why it worked. Their bodies were all the proof they needed. If you needed to settle an argument about training, nutrition or enhancement drug use, you just had to compare bodies. The individual with the smaller body could be dismissed with a ‘bro, do you even lift?’.
Bodybuilders of this generation had no need for science. Their disconnect from the scientific world was hardly surprising. Bodybuilders had been demonstrating the effectiveness of steroids for many decades, while scientists were busy denying that steroids even built muscle! Scientists faffed about and ummed and ahhed, while bodybuilders were busy making massive gains. Can you believe that some scientists were still denying that steroids worked up until the year 2000? Bro, have you even seen a bodybuilder?
In recent years things have changed. Bodybuilding has entered what has been termed ‘an age of enlightenment’. Bodybuilding is now not just about what works, but also how it works, and you need to use some scientific terminology (and preferably reference a few PubMed abstracts) in your explanation. It is no longer enough to walk the walk. You must talk the talk as well. The shift towards more science-based practice was the reason the term ‘broscience’ was created in the first place: so it could be contrasted with ‘real science’. The ‘bro’ prefix is about belittling knowledge. But broscience is not necessarily inferior knowledge. It is just different knowledge. And sometimes broscience is actually ahead of the science (the fact that bodybuilders knew about the effectiveness of steroids decades before scientists clearly attests to this).
The days of pure broscience are behind us (some may say thankfully), but it is not time to dismiss broscience altogether. If we define broscience as experiential knowledge (as I do) then broscience will always be part of bodybuilding. This is because science has not explored the practices of bodybuilders, and is probably never likely to. Let’s face it, scientists aren’t interested in what happens if you combine this compound with that, and add a bit of slin and growth, whilst using this training protocol, and following these macros. Scientists will likely never be interested in overcoming plateaus in hypertrophy and eeking out maximum gains. Scientists are interested in steroids up to a point, and that point is typically how they can be used for repair, not enhancement. Scientists are interested in detecting enhancement so that sport is ‘fair’, but not typically in the benefits of these drugs beyond that. It is doubtful that scientists will ever prioritise adding extra muscle to an already well-muscled body. With all the holes in scientific knowledge it is impossible for bodybuilding practice to be purely science-based. That’s why one of the bodybuilders I spoke with came up with this updated definition of broscience that acknowledges that these days broscience combines experiential knowledge with science:
Bro-science: A practical template for bodybuilding based on a combination of the available theoretical scientific evidence (as correctly or incorrectly interpreted by the individual themselves, or by third parties) and the results of self experimentation and the experiences of others who have experimented on themselves or others before, in order to come to a working applicable whole for purposes of training, nutrition, supplement or image and performance enhancing drug use.