4. Perfect Square Pecs

Extreme: Muscle Men

In the lobby of Caesar’s Palace Hotel in Las Vegas there’s a modern-day shrine to a 2000 year old adonis - complete with perfectly square pecs. Michelangelo’s David. 17 feet of white marble beefcake. This is an ideal that bodybuilders can only aspire to. And in the 80s bodybuilding scene, a particular image of perfection emerges and begins to transform what American culture thinks of as a desirable man - one that’s bulked up and defined.

But in the 1980s, the supersized muscular body isn’t approved of for everyone. Host, historian and fitness expert Natalia Mehlman Petrzela explores how strong, muscular women’s bodies were policed, while gay men were excluded from mainstream gym culture, instead forging a strong and vital subculture.

In this atmosphere, for many, steroids seem to offer the perfect quick fix route to “perfection”. And there’s money to be made - the steroid ring built by Dillon, Duchaine and Jenkins is making money hand over fist. But can this Supersized American Dream last forever? Someone is watching them…

Featuring former owner of Gold’s Gym Ed Connors, former bodybuilders William Dillon, Joe Troccoli and Sandra Blackie, personal trainer and author of Muscle Boys: Gay Gym Culture Erick Alvarez, and Dr Harrison Pope, Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Presenter and Executive Producer: Natalia Mehlman Petrzela Producer: Caroline Thornham Assistant Producer: Mohamed Ahmed Editor: Katherine Godfrey Production Manager: Cheree Houston Sound Design and Mix by Daniel Kempson Original Music by SilverHawk, aka Cyrille Poirier Executive Producer: Max O’Brien Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke

A Novel production for BBC Radio 4

Featuring clips from: It Happened One Night - Frank Capra, Columbia Pictures Remarks on Physical Fitness, 30 March 1962 - President John J Kennedy, White House Audio Collection Bob Paris interview - The Oprah Winfrey Show, Harpo Studios

Episodes are released weekly on Mondays. If you’re in the UK, you can listen to the latest episode, a week early, first on BBC Sounds https://bbc.in/3ybDcHO