But how did we get here, and what did bodybuilders even wear before the thong ?
In 1986, Rich Gaspari waltzed on stage of the International Federation of Bodybuilding & Fitness Pro Championships and changed the sport forever. He wasn’t wearing more traditional bodybuilding trunks instead, he posed in a thin, red thong, a few inches shorter than his competitors’, that exposed his ripped glutes.
The judges lauded his physique for being lean enough to expose the striation in the muscles in his buttocks, and a new standard was set for competitive bodybuilders everywhere: To get a leg up on the competition, they wore a thong and flexed ass.
With the rise of ‘physical culture’ a movement in the 1890s of societal interest in good nutrition and keep-fit exercise we saw men wearing swimming trunks or small posing trunks in photographs.
The final leap into bodybuilding thongs came during a perfect storm of calorie counting, steroids and bodybuilding sponsorship that began to infiltrate the bodybuilding scene in the late 1960s.
