10th of Spring, 515 AV.
Only a few pages into the book, Matthew already felt he had a fairly good grasp of bodybuilding basics. He had been under the mistaken impression that bodybuilding was simply a method of enlarging the muscles in the body. While he was interested in creating a more lean and defined body that also contained a considerable amount of power, he was not interested in becoming a hulking mass of muscle. However, the more he read, the more he was enlightened about what exactly 'bodybuilding' was.
Hunched over a small table in the corner of the Wright Memorial Library, the Harlot was studying the first in a stack of books that Lisaelis had helped him find. According to this specific book, bodybuilding could more clearly be defined as using progressive resistance exercise and a focused diet to control and develop one's musculature. When worded like that, it became much more clear that bodybuilding was a form exercise that promoted control over how muscles developed. They could certainly be developed into large muscles, or they could be developed into what Matthew wished for, which was the slim definition. Pausing with his study of the current book, Matthew reached for a different book, one that was more focused on a variety of exercises. Flipping through the pages, he managed to find a number of pages dedicated to progressive resistance exercises.
A diagram of a human male body was on the first page, with various muscles labeled. Matthew knew a few of them from his medical education, but still read through them to refresh his memory and learn the ones he wasn't familiar with. The ones that he was currently most interested in was the Serratus Anterior and the Rectus Abdominis. There were also other muscles focused around that region, such as the Intercostals. Though he did not want to focus on them, he still wished to develop them a bit further, so he also committed the muscles found in the arms, legs, and back to his memory. It was quite an education in the human anatomy, though he was rather familiar with quite a bit of it already. His experience hadn't ever specifically focused on muscles however, so a lot of this was actually fresh material for him to try and absorb.
Progressive resistance exercise was the more professional term for strength training that focused on the skeletal muscles. It used the weight force of gravity to oppose the force generated by muscle. In short, it was as simple as lifting a variety of weights. Several more diagrams of the different weights could be found in the section as well. Now with two books open, Matthew took a bit of time to put the paper and ink he had brought along to good use. With quick and graceful movements of the quill, he sketched out a few of the diagrams for future reference, creating drawings that were so bad only he would know what they actually were. He also jotted down a few notes on the muscles and exercises that could be used to develop them, then reached for a third book. The original book had mentioned a diet. It was time to attempt to try and understand that side of things as well.