Were ancient warriors ripped?

This is accurate in that there was no way they had access to the stable life environment and calories necessary to be "ripped". The average modern man would not be able to "beat" them, if you're thinking of Western men, however. They had still very practiced muscles and reflexes, if not capable of acquiring a similar level of bulk muscle.

youtu.be/Ja_DV6zvEqQ

They were just tougher in general, in every sense of the word. Their very way of life makes them liable to totally ravage some 21st century jabrone.

It depends how ancient we're going lad, plenty societies achieved large food surpluses with the advent of agriculture, abundances which would have been afforded to the warriors.
While they wouldn't have had access to steroids and in all likelihood weren't doing anything remotely analogous to contemporary weight training, don't make the mistake of thinking history is populated by idiots or that up until yesterday people were mainly famine victims lucky to live passed 5.
Hesiod, a contemporary of Homer describe a good feast:
>But at that time let me have a shady rock and Bibline wine, a clot of curds and milk of drained goats with the flesh of a heifer fed in the woods, that has never calved, and of firstling kids; then also let me drink bright wine…
I can think of far worse diets if your pursuing gainz.
For all we known Kykeon was a ye olde protein shake.
Ancient Greeks (I hate to generalize) took war, sports, and their physiques very seriously. Olympic athletes knew to abstain from sugars and heavy drinking while consuming a lot of meat.

>The average modern man can easily beat them.
Is nothing short of chronological snobbery expressed as retard babble.

High in protein. That's really all that matters for fitness, the rest is about incremental improvements and isn't that important. A perfect diet might make the difference between first and second place at the Olympics, but it won't matter much in general so long as you're getting enough protein.

today only a few people practice physically intensive activities on a professional level.

Since everyone back then was working out, the pool of fit people was much larger than today, allowing for more muscularly gifted people to become warriors.
While today we're limited to the few people who decided to work out seriously. So we might not see the peak god tier genetics can achieve.

I agree with this in that the Greeks, among others, certainly would have had some "ripped" soldiers. My earlier post about not having any was me reflexively thinking purely of Bronze Age societies; depending on when you set the cutoff for ancient I was incorrect.

The warrior aristocracy in bronze age societies was much smaller than in later iron age cultures, and there is no reason to doubt that they would have been well-fed.

I would imagine that food supplies were much more constricted, however, and that the vagaries of nature would have meant a greater degree of stockpiling, offering as sacrifices, or hoarded for the king. I just can't imagine that, while regularly well-fed by the standards of the time, the soldiers would have been capable of being "ripped" to a degree that we would apply that label to today.

Unless the rulers were very aware of nutrition science and had a policy of strong enforcement of protein production and strict collection of food that I am not aware of. Keep in mind no one at that time would have seen anyone "ripped", and even known such a thing as possible, until a high degree of organization.

You would be mistaken, bronze age societies operated a "palatial" economic system whereby all produce went to the palace before being redistributed. Also, lower population densities meant there was considerably more game available, hunting has always been a primary pasttime for warriors in every age, it would very much so for the chariot-riding elites of the bronze age.

You seem to think the past was some kind of Africa-tier shithole of constant hunger, but in fact famines were very rare in the civilized world, thanks to an invention known as "irrigation". Food surplus was not the limiting factor for most bronze age civilizations, disease and war were much more significant.

American football players are known for being incredibly brawny, but your point still stands.

From a Veeky Forumsizen that does HEMA, I can personally attest as to how I've been beaten many times by people I would consider DYEL. I'm sure the real answer, like most historical answers go, is "it depends". If they ate a lot, did lots of manual labor or intense training, got a lot of rest, and had good genes, then I'd wager their natty limit would look a little something like Ryan Gosling shirtless. At least until modern weightlifting gets invented.

I want to clarify, however, that their chests were probably a little smaller. Chest intensive exercises are actually pretty modern, as far as physical training goes.

"Targeted" exercise is a meme, people in the past were as capable of having big chest muscles as moderns are (barring steroid use of course).

YOU NEED 7000 CALORIES AND 200 GRAMS OF PROTEIN EVERYDAY TO BE RIPPED

So why are prisoners so buff?

lol no

They would mop the floor with any modern "man" especially western """"""""man""""""""

This basically. Assuming there wasn't too much artistic license, it looks like ancient warriors were fairly muscular, which isn't surprising.

>"but gladiators aren't warriors"

Obviously, but actual warriors fought in armor (even if it was just a gambeson or something), which obscures their muscles.

Bodybuilders are shit fighters, have you every watched Stunning Steve Austin's Broken Skull Challenge? Every winner is usually a lean mean fighting machine, bodybuilders carry extra weight which their bodies cannot handle well in extreme performance.

Bodybuilders have the most retarded bodies, they are merely aesthetic, plus most of them are juiced.

They were probably as ripped as modern soldiers, i.e. not bodybuilder style but they were probably very lean.

Mostly not. Most ancient societies had no professional army, just levies from the nobility and peasantry. This means that most of the time they didn't train for fighting but worked on their senpaitachi or wathever day job they had.

Granted, nanual labour before mechanization did make them strong but they probably would not stand out today with their huge muscles. Look at a random farmer from a third workd country and you get a good idea of what average ancient warriors looked like.

Fairly ripped, although not Arnold levels. They lacked the diet and "juice" available to body builders.

But they did have ridiculous stamina by modern standards

It's a fucking joke that people believe "you need 200g protiens a day to get muscle!!!!" because the people who believe that spend 1 hour in the gym lifting in a controlled environment with adequate rest periods, not having to push their bodies to its absolute limit.

Meanwhile ancient soldiers may come from an agricultural background doing hard labor, throwing around hay, hoeing in the fields all day. Now they become soldiers where they march for long periods of time and learn combat exercises. They aren't going to become Arnolds (who roided) but I'm willing to bet they could take on 2-3 modern average western men at once.

if no one was at arnold level in ancient world, then how the fuck did Greeks know how one would look like before creating ripped statues?

Show me an ancient statue that looks like peak Arnold.

>but I'm willing to bet they could take on 2-3 modern average western men at once.

t. has never been in a fight

2-3 modern average western men can probably take on any one person on the planet
you grossly underestimate the power of numbers

Look at that barrel chest, the romans were clearly abusing HGH.

See

>Kykeon
>kyke
>kike
kek

>2-3 modern average western men can probably take on any one person on the planet
LMAO

youtube.com/watch?v=XkINjqLet-U

Not him but you are wrong, even trained fighters like Conor would be afraid or wary of fighting more than two people in decent physical condition

i'm sure there's a hyper muscle thread on /d/ that can puncture the underlying assumption you're making here

Keep talking out of your ass faggot.

>dutch
>men

No, some probably, but not most
Being ripped doesn't mean you're going to kick someones ass. Ancient probably had more functional strength by virtue of their lifestyle. I'd say its pretty much the same, i highly doubt ancients were significantly stronger as many think, and I highly doubt modern people have that much of an advantage because of "muh calories"

>Assuming there wasn't too much artisitc license
the Romans may have practiced realism on busts during some periods but a fresco would have most certainly shown an idealized form of a gladiator or warrior

that aint a greek statue buddy

Conor isn't even good, plus he's a manlet.

>So why are prisoners so buff?
They really aren't, stop mistaking movies for reality.

Low test, low energy, better just end yourself.

>Modern man takes out a gun and shoots your physically fit warrior.
There is a reason why military requirements keep dropping user.

You've ever seen a prisoner in your life, or read a study about them? Or do you only know them from Gangland docos?

>The majority of prisoners (74%) and jail inmates (62%) were overweight, obese, or morbidly obese.
Source: L.M. Maruschak, Marcus Berzofsky and Jennifer Unangst: Medical Problems of State and Federal Prisoners and Jail Inmates, 2011-12, U.S. Department of Justice, February 2015

So, "buddy"? You asked for an ANCIENT statue, not a GREEK one, "buddy". So why don't you get fucked, "buddy", and leave the discussion to those of us who can read, hey "buddy"?

Nobody had access to steroids obviously, so the most elite physical specimens had to choose between being ottermode ripped or built. They couldn't maintain muscle mass while staying lean.

The difficult thing is being able to measure how high ancient testosterone levels were for men. Everyday they lived a masculine life

Don't really think so.

Probably depends heavily on who and when.
A 13th century knight? A Sengoku period Samurai? A Greek Hoplite? A Swiss mercenary?

Different cultures idealised different builds and their means of getting those builds varied too.
For example, there's quite a bunch of art of strongfat Samurai, but afaik there's art of lean ones too. Both builds probably had their perks.

How they really were depended on the individual at the end of the day. A knight in his late 40s probably didn't look all chiseled.