Which physique did Spartans actually have? Was it more important than their armor?

Nothing Ever Happens Shirt $21.68

Yakub: World's Greatest Dad Shirt $21.68

Nothing Ever Happens Shirt $21.68

  1. 9 months ago
    Anonymous

    Considering the spartans ate clean, didn't lift weights and did a lot of cardio, they were probably ottermode

    • 9 months ago
      Anonymous

      Subsistence agriculture is not conducive to gaining good lean mass. Likely they were scrawny. Even in WW1 the military noticed tons of men who were too small to serve because of malnourishment and that is with the increases in food availability. Just imagine scrawny short turkish looking guys and you get the idea

      BEEF + FIGHTING = BIG and JACKED
      At any given point in history.

    • 9 months ago
      Anonymous

      >didn't lift weights
      Wrong. They didn't lift barbels, but they did lift heavy shit. Their shield, equipment, and weapon weighted more than their bodyweight realistically.
      Weightlifting is also not the only form of resistance training. They wrestled a lot and obviously did intense manual labor.
      I believe psychological conditioning also played a role in their hormonal profile.

      >do you have any idea what a helm + shield + spear + sword weigh?
      Do you think people who hike are jacked? I go hiking with more gears than their soldiers would ever carry and I'm not magically getting fricking jacked all over.

      Lol you've no idea how heavy their equipment was. Also, you pack it up in a nice comfortable bag, try swinging it around on a pole and acting fast and in co-ordination with it.

      https://i.imgur.com/ut8WZao.jpg

      Based. Kyriakos is of PONTVS decent. Most IST Greeks.

      • 9 months ago
        Anonymous

        It should be noted that in Ancient Greece the aristocrats weren't exactly like the modern perception of decadent fops sitting in palaces, detached from reality, which is born of French Revolutionary rhetoric from the 18th century. The aristocrats of antiquity led from the front in the pastures and farm fields as well as in battle, according the ideals of the time. Hard work and physical strength were highly important to the ruling class in Sparta particularly, which held aristocratic rule as the ideal form of government over democracy and monarchy. Livestock herding would have been done on foot too in Ancient Greece, so good cardio.

        • 9 months ago
          Anonymous

          Obviously. Aristocracy literally means "rule of the finest". However let's not ignore that in many city-states at their peak, slaves were doing most of the labor, allowing men and women alike to focus on more refined pursuits.
          This is something that's stayed true, more or less, until present day capitalism.

          Even if that weren't a /misc/ meme, the Peloponnese - especially in mountainous central region around Sparta - didn't get much direct occupation by Turks at any point during Ottoman rule.

          Don't ask him why he's got light brown eyes.

  2. 9 months ago
    Anonymous
    • 9 months ago
      Anonymous

      Puts the 300 Spartans myth into perspective.

  3. 9 months ago
    Anonymous

    Subsistence agriculture is not conducive to gaining good lean mass. Likely they were scrawny. Even in WW1 the military noticed tons of men who were too small to serve because of malnourishment and that is with the increases in food availability. Just imagine scrawny short turkish looking guys and you get the idea

    • 9 months ago
      Anonymous

      >Likely they were scrawny
      think the frick again.
      do you have any idea what a helm + shield + spear + sword weigh?
      short, yes, scrawny, absolutely fricking not.

      also, check out picrel. not about spartans, but athenians

      • 9 months ago
        Anonymous

        >Socrates was fricking ripped
        For the standards of that time period. Even nowadays with gyms, supplements and all the knowledge we have, getting a good looking physique is far from a priority for soldiers. The most important things for the Spartans were being strong enough to wield their weapons and shields and having good cardio and mental resilience to move long distances on foot with their equipment plus sustain long battles. Besides that, most of their training consisted of combat practice

        Some of them probably look pretty good and were bigger than the average, but most of them were probably not really muscular for today's standards.

        • 9 months ago
          Anonymous

          >For the standards of that time period
          i direct your attention to the statues of the period
          again, they were short, yes. but ripped. very ripped. properly fricking ripped, not just a skinny ottermode or whatever.

          > Even nowadays with gyms, supplements and all the knowledge we have, getting a good looking physique is far from a priority for soldiers
          modern soldiers don't rely on physical strength. they rely on tech.
          granted, an m16 is probably about the same weight as a sword, but you're not swinging it around like a madman, trying to splinter shields and whatnot

          >strong enough to wield their weapons
          aka perform extremely demanding physical exercise while weighted with like 60-70lb of gear
          again, remember, those dudes were not just lugging the shit around for several miles, they also had to fight with all that shit on them
          think kickboxing with a 30lb backpack + a 20lb weight on one hand (shield) + a second 20lb weight on the other (spear).

          also, try to imagine what rowing in a galley would do to your body. keep in mind, that shit was not like todays competitive rowing
          the rows were long, thicc, made of wood, wood which would obv absorb extra water
          and you had to do that for hours and hours on end
          imagine the physique of a rower like that.

          no, anon. those dudes were EXTREMELY ripped.
          a modern natty BBer would have to be extremely top tier to match them.
          ofc non-natty BBers would mog them in mass.
          and every modern white person would mog them in height, but that's a different story...

          • 9 months ago
            Anonymous

            those were statues of wrestlers not of soldiers, there's a very big difference.

            Plus they were not fighting with 70lbs of gear, they were fighting lightly equipped with boiled leather armor if they were lucky and long ass sarissas which they would not be maneuvering around with.

            Their lack of maneuverability is what allowed the manipoles of the Romans to outflank and destroy them especially over uneven terrain.

            • 9 months ago
              Anonymous

              >Their lack of maneuverability is what allowed the manipoles of the Romans to outflank and destroy them especially over uneven terrain.
              isn't that bc they were a phalanx

            • 9 months ago
              Anonymous

              >wrestlers, not soldiers
              Just about every male citizen was a soldier.
              >Sarissas
              Anons are clearly talking Greeks, not Macedonians. During the Peloponnesian War combat was focused around heavily armored hoplites with some auxiliary cavalry and archers. Part of the reason walls were so effective in Greek warfare was that it was basically impossible to scale a wall in heavy armor.

              >Their lack of maneuverability is what allowed the manipoles of the Romans to outflank and destroy them especially over uneven terrain.
              isn't that bc they were a phalanx

              By the time the Romans would have been fighting the Greeks, the Greeks would have been fighting with sarissas which are massive (~30 ft) spears. These were historically extremely effective against the Greek hoplites and the Persians but the Romans BFTO'd them because they fought in a loose array called a Maniple and sarissas are extremely hard to maneuver.

        • 9 months ago
          Anonymous

          > nutrition
          They had food, probably better quality than our current slop
          > exercise
          They lifted heavy shit. SDL 5x5 isn't really a technological breakthrough
          > steroids
          Alright they didn't have that.

        • 9 months ago
          Anonymous

          >getting a good looking physique is not the priority for most soldiers
          I was a marine 0331 and you are wrong

          • 9 months ago
            Anonymous

            Shut up you stupid fricking boot

      • 9 months ago
        Anonymous

        >do you have any idea what a helm + shield + spear + sword weigh?
        Do you think people who hike are jacked? I go hiking with more gears than their soldiers would ever carry and I'm not magically getting fricking jacked all over.

        • 9 months ago
          Anonymous

          There's a difference between hiking and marching. You have the option to relax. I was at the natty limit from ruck marches alone when I was a soldier.

          • 9 months ago
            Anonymous

            >I was at the natty limit from ruck marches alone when I was a soldier
            no you weren't kek

            • 9 months ago
              Anonymous

              Yes I was. Granted not everybody else was. I'm a gigamanlet so it's harder for me and, jacked as I am, they thought I was just being lazy and loaded me up with more weight and made me ruck more often. I basically failed every single march and got hella gains from it every time. Since the statues look like me I can only assume they went as hard as I did.

              • 9 months ago
                Anonymous

                how does rucking train your triceps biceps or chest?

                Yeah but in blood injection type? I think it was reproduced indeed in 1934 but could not be used for muscle enhancement purpose at that time. A well explain and documented video about this: https://youtu.be/MupFMhiSlJk?si=jakW7WcbkbJKsNdJ

                The first half of silver era was - for me - natty

                i'm not watching your shitty video and you realize you don't need to inject test for it to work right or are you being ovtuse and moronic on purpose

              • 9 months ago
                Anonymous

                It has to do with his potentiality. The first molecules used experimentally were ingested but testosterone was in fact destroyed in the stomach so it was pointless and resulted in no gains.

              • 9 months ago
                Anonymous

                Good point. I did a lot of pushups too.

      • 9 months ago
        Anonymous

        I do think, too, that classical soldiers were pretty ripped actually. Olympic sports usual practice then the war with equipment should be fck hard. Imagine walking with 40kg several hours then prepare to fight. Generally, they used to run at full speed toward the ennemy line to avoid slingers then pushing for hoplitic fights. Imagine the cardio required and muscle too to do this. I think they were kinda like bronze era/silver era BB easily.

        • 9 months ago
          Anonymous

          Huh, and all while not being roidtrannies. Almost like you can make it without cheating.

          • 9 months ago
            Anonymous

            I mean yeah everyone natty can achieve bronze era looks, I think we can all agree on that. Beginning of silver era too. They didn't have golden era muscle mass neither modern era ofc, but bronze/silver with very high cardio performance, I do think it was achievable.

            • 9 months ago
              Anonymous

              bronze era yes but test was synthesized in 1934 if you think any was natty after that i got a timeshare to sell you

              • 9 months ago
                Anonymous

                Yeah but in blood injection type? I think it was reproduced indeed in 1934 but could not be used for muscle enhancement purpose at that time. A well explain and documented video about this: https://youtu.be/MupFMhiSlJk?si=jakW7WcbkbJKsNdJ

                The first half of silver era was - for me - natty

  4. 9 months ago
    Anonymous

    Given we know their diet was primarily barley, eaten either as bread or a porridge, supplemented with pork, figs, olives, cheese, and wine, and that we know their fitness routine was focused on running, wrestling, and long distance marching with 60+lbs of kit, we would expect them to be "skinnyfat" by todays standards.

    When engaging in formation fighting individual strength only matters insofar as being able to actually march to the battlefield, and individual skill only requires being disciplined enough to maintain formation. One-on-one combat has never been a focus of any organized military in history, and the purpose of training it is the same as it is today: to instill an aggressive mindset while also making them used to the physiological responses to fighting.

    • 9 months ago
      Anonymous

      >A special dish for the Spartans that was offered at meals. It was a type of soup that took some getting used to because of the taste. Basically, they cooked pork with blood and salt and accompanied it with barley bread. They believed it gave them strength.
      >Cheese
      >Olives
      >Barley
      So basically High Protien and High Carbs.

      >Spartan Spears were 12-14lbs
      So their arms and shoulders were swole.

      >According to Plutarch, as the young Spartans grew, they were required to exercise more and more to build their bodies. As Donald G. Kyle notes in his book Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World, Spartan youth had to present themselves for regular inspections in the nude, and boys who didn’t look sufficiently fit were flogged.
      GET SWOLE OR GET BEAT!

      • 9 months ago
        Anonymous

        Literally this, their main meal was black soup (pork in pork blood broth seasoned with vinegar) 24/7. They got more protein than most of the world at the time and being remembered for mogging the frick out of their enemies isn’t really a modern fabrication.

      • 9 months ago
        Anonymous

        to Plutarch, as the young Spartans grew, they were required to exercise more and more to build their bodies.
        >>As Donald G. Kyle notes in his book Sport and Spectacle in the Ancient World, Spartan youth had to present themselves for regular inspections in the nude, and boys who didn’t look sufficiently fit were flogged.

  5. 9 months ago
    Anonymous

    They looked like Louis Cachet.

  6. 9 months ago
    Anonymous

    They were pedo gays. Absolute subhumans

  7. 9 months ago
    Anonymous

    Like heptathletes, you fricking pseuds

  8. 9 months ago
    Anonymous

    warriors of Sparta where an aristocratic class, on campaign they probably ate more meat than other soldiers of their time. Kings leading armies where noted to sacrifice animals so often that a law where every pig litter born would be required to give one to the royal pens.
    Make no mistake, they ate animal sacrifices, it was a connection with the gods.

  9. 9 months ago
    Anonymous

    I have marital family from Sparta and they are big framed people in the modern day. Large hands, thick forearms, etc. The region within Sparta's historic sphere of influence is rich for agriculture and livestock and the Spartans in their classic Peloponnesian War period were an aristocratic minority fed by the lower classes, so they likely weren't lacking nutrition.
    My guess is that they were big and muscular but not necessarily super shredded. They wouldn't have had bodybuilder physiques but definitely not scrawny.

    • 9 months ago
      Anonymous

      >I have marital family from Sparta
      Sparta + 70% Turkic admixture kekekekek

      • 9 months ago
        Anonymous

        Even if that weren't a /misc/ meme, the Peloponnese - especially in mountainous central region around Sparta - didn't get much direct occupation by Turks at any point during Ottoman rule.

        • 9 months ago
          Anonymous

          Cope.

          • 9 months ago
            Anonymous

            There are plenty of dudes in western parts of Anatolia and European Turkey that look just like that. Compare to people in eastern Anatolia and Asiatic Turks who look nothing like that.
            Do you ever wonder why Mexicans and European Spaniards look different?

            • 9 months ago
              Anonymous

              >plenty of dudes in western parts of Anatolia and European Turkey that look just like that.
              We're turning up the cope are we?

              • 9 months ago
                Anonymous

                Those Spartan relatives I mentioned mostly have blue eyes.

                Obviously. Aristocracy literally means "rule of the finest". However let's not ignore that in many city-states at their peak, slaves were doing most of the labor, allowing men and women alike to focus on more refined pursuits.
                This is something that's stayed true, more or less, until present day capitalism.
                [...]
                Don't ask him why he's got light brown eyes.

                True enough, but even the Princes of Troy tended the herds so they were at least more hands-on than modern aristocrats. This would apply in particular to Sparta of all city states.

        • 9 months ago
          Anonymous

          this is accurate
          also, its quite obvious to most greeks which of us has a lot of that middle-eastern admixture and who doesn't
          i feel sorry for them, they ugly.

          t. Greek

  10. 9 months ago
    Anonymous

    There is this, from Xenophon's Hellenika:

    >And again, believing that to feel contempt for one's enemies infuses a certain courage for the fight, Agesilaus (Anon's note: Agesilaus II, King of Sparta, reigned during the classic era of Sparta when it was at the height of its military power) gave orders to his heralds that the barbarians (An: generic term for foreigners, in this case referring to Persians) who were captured by the Greek raiding parties should be exposed for sale naked. Thus the soldiers, seeing that these men were white-skinned because they never were without their clothing, and soft and unused to toil because they always rode in carriages, came to the conclusion that the war would be in no way different from having to fight with women.

    So the Spartans apparently mogged their dyel enemies during this period.

  11. 9 months ago
    Anonymous

    They were described as tall and lean, and didn't eat much. Usual soldier build.

    https://spartareconsidered.blogspot.com/2011/09/physical-appearance-of-spartans.html

  12. 9 months ago
    Anonymous

    They ate a diet rich in athletic greens powder

  13. 9 months ago
    Anonymous

    Fricked up towards sport and militarism and propably didn't look that much diffferent from Greek statues IRL.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *