But depending on your definition, bodybuilding may or may not be a sport. So call it a competition if you prefer, because I don’t think anybody can argue with that. In fact a lot of us in bodybuilding use that word competition bodybuilding a lot more often than we say the sport of bodybuilding.

I call it a sport, because to me it’s my sport and I think that if something has a physical component and there’s competition involved, then it’s a sport. Bodybuilding has that. Some people say, well that’s not a broad enough definition, there has to be skill, there has to be athleticism, but who gets to decide the definition of skill or athletisism? The Olympic committee? High schools and universities? Some all-wise, all-knowing authority? Who gets to decide. Why don’t we just decide for ourselves and call it whatever we want to call it.

I think that some people would argue against bodybuilding being a sport because they say the judging is too subjective. And for sure there is a degree of subjectivity but in bodybuilding the criteria for scoring are very very clear. It’s not vague like some people think it is, the criteria are very specific and easy for a professional to judge just by looking at the physique.

Sometimes the decision is close, but how is that so different is that from something like diving or gymnastics? There’s a panel of judges watching a diver dive or a gymnast do a floor exercise and you look at the scoreboard and you see all the judges don’t give the same score do they? Why can’t they all give the same score if the criteria for winning are cut and dried? So there’s subjectivity in those kinds of sports too.

I think it’s a silly debate and I don’t think the debate will never end. I consider bodybuilding to be a competition AND I consider it a sport and beyond that, I consider bodybuilding an art. And it’s an art in more than one sense of the word – because the process is an art and end result is art too.

Tom Venuto is a lifetime natural (steroid-free) bodybuilder, freelance writer and author of the #1 best selling diet e-book, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle and the #1 Amazon best-seller, The Body Fat Solution (Avery/Penguin books). Tom has written hundreds of articles and has been featured in IRONMAN, Australian IRONMAN, Natural Bodybuilding, Muscular Development, Men's Fitness, Men's Exercise, Exercise for Men and on hundreds of websites worldwide. Tom is also the founder and CEO of the Internet's premier fat loss support community, the: Burn The Fat Inner Circle. To get notified of updates to TomVenuto.Com, subscribe to the free newsletter at: www.TomVenuto.com/free_newsletter.