Superman's weightlifting program

[darth malice]

Has superman's physique ever been explained in comics? Is his body mass just due to his powers or did he have to work for his muscles?

I picture him in the barn lifting tractors or maybe the barn itself. Or maybe he runs to the train yard and lifts locomotives.

[Sean Whitmore]

Has superman's physique ever been explained in comics? Is his body mass just due to his powers or did he have to work for his muscles?

I picture him in the barn lifting tractors or maybe the barn itself. Or maybe he runs to the train yard and lifts locomotives.


Back in the very early Byrne days, it was implied that Superman was muscular just by virtue of his origins. Though he did keep weights and stuff in his apartment to explain how Clark could have such a good physique.


SEAN

[Lester C.]

Look every superhero is the DC universe is ripped the way one only achives through a combination of fantastic genetics, all day weight lifting, and a proper diet of zero carbohydrates high protein steroid fueled diet. My theory is that during Zero hour Hal Jordon rewrote the laws of the physical universe so that everyone looks like an Olympic God. This is funny because in Rucka’s Wonder Woman all the Olympic gods look like ordinary people so there is a balance in the DC universe.

[davids]

In was one of a series of tales about the golden age superman and his wife lois. They were second story in some superman books. Anyway after many years of no one taking him on superman ran into some one who cleaned his clock. SSince no one was really pushing him he let him self go a bit!

His wife lois put back in training, lifting over size weights, running around and around the tack.
Lois yelling, {Use that vibration trick to prevent sonic booms the Flash taught you!"

Got back in shape in record time and thumbed the same bad guy who caused all this.

[mgs]

I think superpeople should have to work to achieve their physical status, I mean, it's kinda crazy to just have them be that way, just because. That's one thing I always liked about the x-men, in the comics, you could see them training and such. Sure, supes may have great genetics b/c of his origins, but that should only take him so far.

[prand_2002]

Every body in the hero community works out. Other wise they wont look good in tights. And we wont be reading about them.

[CAPWOLF]

I remember supes had a nautilus machine...in his apartment...if he doesnt work out he gets saggy just like the rest of us

[Lester C.]

I remember supes had a nautilus machine...in his apartment...if he doesnt work out he gets saggy just like the rest of us
The result you get from machines and weights is based on resistance the weights have on your pushing and pulling mussels. While Superman may not be at his golden age power level, when he was flinging around planets, he still hundreds if not thousands times stronger than you or I. Superman trying to bulk up on those machines is the equivalent of you and me bulking up flexing a wet noodle. Maybe he performs his anaerobic exercises by wrapping Diana’s lasso, which according to recent issue is infinite in length, around the moon.

[kane]

Well, Superman lifts planes, trains, ships etc all the time.

[davids]

And hard farm work is sure to put on the muscel!

[Mr. Croup]

It was mentioned in Lois & Clark that Kryptonian bodies metabolize something like 90% of everything they eat. If this is canon, Clark would really have to pig out to get fat. Maybe he has special weight machines in the Fortess, that is if he still has the Fortress.

[Headhunter]

I figured Clark just kept weights around, so people wouldn't ask questions.

[TheDarkestHorse]

And hard farm work is sure to put on the muscel!



I know originally he did have superpowers as an infant. He couldn't get shots or even get his hair cut w/o the needle or scissors breaking. Did this get retconned at some point? All kryptonians are Supes-level powerful, presumably as a result of the conditions of the planet (gravity, etc), aren't they? So it wouldn't really make sense for him to be a 'normal' child. I'm not as knowlegable about all this as some of you on here, so feel free to enlighten me if I'm wrong about this.

[davids]

And he was not adopted. Baby ka-el arived on earth in a birthing matrix [artifical womb] since kryptonians didn't procreate in the normal way [or i fear have sex] So clark was born right here in the USA [makes him a citizen and he can be prsident some day!] The kents who had been trying for years to have a baby[a few mis carraiges and one still birth] Found clark just as a terrible blizrd struck and they wre snowed in. Their neiebors asumed their son was a in home birth so all that apoption carbabge went out the door.

Clark had no powers at this young age, he could get hair cuts and knee scraps and his pre school shots.
[in the silver age they took baby clark to a blind doctor so he could fool the doctor into giving martha the shots so clark could go to school.

Silver age clark hair and neard didn't grow, today clark shaves with his heat vision and cuts his hair using a reflective surface of his birth matrix.

Clark was an outstanding foot ball player in high school[powers began to develope as he stored nore and more solar energy!]

HE quit competing because of his un fair advantage.

side note= Byrne had intended that a pregnant and dying Lara arive on earth[kryptonite poising] and have her die after giving birth to her son. But not before begging the kents to raise and love her son as her own!

[Rik]

davids is correct. I might add:

It's never been established one way or another, but it's assumed that the solar energy he absorbs causes his muscles to stay well-developed without exercise. There was a storyline some years back in which he started absorbing TOO MUCH energy, and he began to swell up and look like the Hulk.

Byrne also established that Clark keeps weights and exercise machines in his apartment to explain his physique. This kind of worked against him the first time Lois visited; she tried out some of the weights and was surprised that they were too light for a man his size, not much more than what she herself used in a workout. This was supposedly because, with his enormous strength, he couldn't tell the difference. (Which is silly; a few minutes in a gym observing would be enough to give a pretty fair estimate as to how much weight the typical male bodybuilder uses in a workout.)

Golden age Supes (early 1940's), did have some massive weights and spring-type exercise machines in his Fortress.

http://superman.ws/tales3/secretcitadel/?page=2

[TJ Shoun]

Look every superhero is the DC universe is ripped the way one only achives through a combination of fantastic genetics, all day weight lifting, and a proper diet of zero carbohydrates high protein steroid fueled diet.


Exactly.

It always cracked me up that all these superheroes have these incredibly perfect physiques yet you almost never see them weight training or fretting over their nutritional program.

Farm work and/or the occasional super-villain tussle won't cut it either. That may keep you "in shape", but it won't provide the stimulus for musculatre that well-developed and bodyfat that low.

There's a huge difference between being "in shape" and having a contest-worthy physique, which is basically how all male superheroes have been drawn since the Silver Age or so.

I've been amateur bodybuilding for 14 years (since I was 14 years old) and I can honestly tell you that it takes hard training 4 to 5 days per week with constant and continual attention to nutritional intake - 6 or 8 small meals a day providing an ultra high protein content.

It takes a huge chunk of my time and energy to prepare my daily meals and train every week - but you rarely see superheroes doing any of this. Guys like Supes or J'onn J'onzz you can explain away due to their powers and enhanced metabolisms but guys like the Punisher, Batman, and Daredevil would, in reality, have to spend massive amounts of time to maintain that much muscle mass while having a bodyfat percentage low enough to be that lean.

I think it basically just boils down to the fact that most writers (or would it be the artists?) have no idea how much work, effort, and time it takes to have a magnificent physique. And hell, some people will never have a great body, no matter how hard they work, simply because they don't have the genetic foundation for it.

But hell, who wants to look at superheroes with fat, or even just average bodies? So I can swallow some suspension of disbelief when it comes to this. :D