Ideal Proportions

In thinking about the way we classify and categorize bodies, the issue of metrics and measurements is key. Of course, subjective evaluation, aesthetics, and social perceptions are all part of the way metrics and measurements come about; however, there are wide variations in all of these ways of classifying. When looking at contemporary bodybuilding images, the freakishly huge, obviously steroid enhanced body jumps out immediately. This was not always the case, though. While poking around online for general perspectives on aesthetics and measurement, I ran across an entry at the Sandow Museum. (Eugen Sandow was an early bodybuilder, and the museum preserves artifacts from historic periods in bodybuilding.) The article hit on something that is obvious, but I hadn't thought about until I saw it: the ideal Greek form, sculpted and muscular, was quite different than todays ideal. I won't repeat all of the detail here, but it's at Sandow Museum Ideal Greek Body Form web page.

This made me decide to take my own measurements. Measurements for the Greek ideal are scaled from measuring the circumference of the wrist. Why? What is it about the wrist that it can be used as a universal key for this measurement? Clearly, it only holds for men (since the male body was the object of aesthetic for the Greeks.) I also noticed that the measurements described by the Greeks are the same ones we use today to classify bodies through measurements for determining body fat percentage (with the exception that the Greeks didn't measure the shoulders, and we do now).

So, here are my measurements (in inches), compared to the ones that would make me a proportional Greek ideal. Note: This is not to say that I aspire to embody the Greek ideal, but it is an implicit cornerstone of the Western historical aesthetic, and thus a useful frame for comparison.

Body Part	Greek Ideal	My Current	Difference	Percentage
Wrist	7	7	key	n/a
Shoulder	n/a	52.5	n/a	n/a
Chest	45.5	45.5	0.0	0.0%
Waist	31.85	39.0	+7.15	+22.4%
Hip	38.68	40.25	+1.57	+4.1%
Bicep	16.38	14.25	-2.13	-13.0%
Forearm	13.19	12.25	-0.94	-7.1%
Thigh	24.12	24.0	-0.12	-0.5%
Calf	15.47	17.0	+1.53	+9.9%
Neck	16.84	18.25	+1.41	+8.4%