Pumping Iron, Politics & PED’s! Louis Theroux’s Extreme Bodybuilding: My Review Part 2

In the last video, I looked into Louis Theroux’s exploration into the extreme side of the late 1990s bodybuilding scene from the male side of things, and Part 2 will look at Theroux’s take on the sport from the female perspective.

The contrast couldn’t be more stark and Theroux explores why women would choose this lifestyle given the stigma, lack of financial rewards and the often necessary competitive evil of PED use to achieve and maintain a level of hypermuscularity.

Theroux travels to Charles Peeple’s farm in Connecticut, where Peeples has transformed his family estate into a surreal version of the Playboy mansion for female bodybuilders.

A self-proclaimed “activist for female muscle”, Peeples personifies what bodybuilders would otherwise label “a schmoe”, and he single-handedly provides some of the creepiest and cringiest moments of the episode.

A derogatory term with sleazy connotations, Schmoes typify socially inadequate men who sexually fetishize muscular, powerful, and dominant women.