These are all characteristics of the optimal male body.
The few studies that have been published pointed to male athletes facing immense amounts of pressure, regarding their physique. These pressures often come from coaches and the athletes themselves. While mental health education for athletes is lacking, it’s being brought more into discussion, Associate Professor of Psychology Prof. Jennifer Harriger said.
“I think that there’s like the ideal body type,” said Jalen Frantal, senior cross country runner and sports medicine major, “like, abs and like a big upper body and to be shaped and nice legs. And I don’t think that there’s really any sports where that’s like, practical.”
Specific body types serve a purpose to particular sports in which male athletes participate.
“I’m a believer in if you have the ability and you can perform, then it doesn’t matter what you look like,” Gunnar Groen, redshirt sophomore baseball pitcher and junior advertising major said. “However, I do know that there is pressure for male athletes to be absolutely ripped.”
Harriger said it is well known in the athletic and scientific communities that male athletes face pressure to compete at high levels while also maintaining a certain physique.
Psychological and Social Pressure
“I think there’s a lot of pressure, particularly at a collegiate level or a professional level to win,” Harriger said. “[It] doesn’t matter what else is going on in their life, winning is the most important thing. I think if you also add the body image issues on top of that, that can create quite a bit of pressure for those athletes.”
Body issues of the physically fit can stem from different factors.
“You have to make some body image choices that you didn’t necessarily didn’t want to make, but you have to do because it makes you better,” Frantal said.
Although it isn’t realistic, the athletes still can be self-conscious.
A Pepp Post poll of 40 students found that 70% of current and previous male athletes have experienced physical insecurities. It was found that 28 of those students said 60.7% of male athletes are insecure about their abs, 39.3% for arms/shoulders and 35.7% for legs.
Research Points to Pressure
There are few research studies results about male athletes and their body image, but a 2007 study by Trent Petrie of the University of North Texas found that college-age male athletes experience the most weight pressure from their coaches. Those athletes that are symptomatic and asymptomatic for eating disorders average their coach’s pressure 3.53 out of 5, Petrie wrote in the Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology.
The study revealed that male athletes do face pressure from within their sport. Eating disorders may show up in male athletes, but have different psychological predictors than females.
“I think one of the things we’re finding is that there are some different factors for male athletes than there are … for female athletes in terms of disordered eating,” Nick Galli, associate professor of health and kinesiology at the University of Utah and mental performance consultant said.
Eating disorders may show up differently between the two genders, with steroid use more common among men, Harriger said.
“We’ve been finding more recently that males really do struggle with body image concerns,” Harriger said. “Female athletes may struggle with restrictive eating or wanting to lose weight, and you’re more likely to see male athletes struggle more with steroids use or wanting to gain muscles and using inappropriate muscle building strategies to go about that.”
Steroids, protein supplements and vitamins can replace meals and allow male athletes to gain muscle, but the effects can quickly go south.
“In the fall, you want to be so strong and big and you’re taking all these supplements,” Joe Caparis, senior baseball catcher and sports administration major said, “then in the spring, when you see your weight just dropping, you feel so weak because you’re not working out as much because you’re playing so much. It can take a toll on you.”
Mental Health Education
Educating the athletes may provide other solutions to boost their competition level.
Student athletes said they wished their coaches gave them more information related to maximizing athletic performance (e.g., proper nutrition and how to get good/more sleep), Thomas Paskus and Dr. Lydia Bell wrote in the 2016 NCAA GOALS Study.
Harriger said those who work with the athletes are recommended to inform them that they are more than just someone who plays a sport.
“I think that there is a lot of education that is missing for coaches, athletic trainers and other personnel that work with athletes,” Harriger said. “In that [education] there should be a focus on performance, absolutely, but also on ensuring that athletes are getting any mental health treatment that they need, focusing on rest and ways of helping athletes feel as though the way that they look or their performance is not necessarily indicative of who they are as a person.”
Harriger said coaches’ treatment of their players needs to be approached holistically rather than only as an athlete.
Understanding and informing the players about toxic masculinity may decrease the negativity surrounding players in power sports, such as baseball, football and ice hockey.
“Combat sports can get a way where there’s this certain definition, rigid definition of what it means to be a man,” Galli. “And if you don’t fit with that, then you’re kind of you’re ostracized or even despised in some cases.”
Discussion in Competition Settings
Despite hiring a new athletics therapist, Alex Cushing, the same poll found that 67.5% of male athletes do not talk about healthy body image with their coach.
Since the coaches and trainers are spending quite a bit of time with the athletes, they are now taking the athletes’ mental health into consideration, even if the athletes are not coming to them directly, Stew Gonzalez, strength and conditioning performance coach said.
“[Mental health] is something that we are aware of now, and that’s definitely kind of changed a lot of coaching styles,” Gonzalez said.
Robert “Tubbs” Pike, associate director of sports performance, said trainers are trying to implement more time for mental health.
He recommends the Headspace app to athletes for meditation. He also sets aside the last 10 minutes of every workout for athletes to do what they please, whether that is napping or using the app.
“A lot of the research that’s out there helped me to say, ‘Hey, if you really buy into [meditation] and really give it a go, there’ll be some benefit with you, at some point,’” Pike said.
Even though male athletes may be facing roadblocks due to pressure, the mental health game is changing, and so should the attitude about them experiencing heavy pressure to maintain certain body standards.
Allison Levens completed the reporting for this story in Jour 241 in Fall 2021 under the supervision of Dr. Elizabeth Smith. Dr. Littlefield supervised the web version of the story.
