VlaudTheImpaler
tl;dr
Most definitely.
But besides that, did you skip over everything else I wrote? All the reasons that I explained having a body like Anny's model does in current days world of abundance wouldn't be feasible in an post apocalyptic pandemic situation? Here, let me remind you.
Do you know how hard it is for females to gain muscle mass? Let alone men? Women actually have to work far harder than men to get the same exact mass as a man... If they even can. Men have far more muscle density, pound for pound. Larger bones and tendons and ligaments < where real, lasting strength comes from since bulky muscle fatigues much faster than tendons. To achieve this without juicing they would need to be on a very strict rigorous workout regime. There would be lots of downtime during recovery. Finally, you would need a very specific, HIGH quality diet to reach and maintain that mass. Those women in that pic, if they aren't juicing are most definitely taking the highest quality sups and vitamins on the market. Let alone an abundance of specific healthy foods and a strict meal plan.
In todays world of abundance where these things are easily available, this could be doable. But in a post apocalyptic world where the world and environment make the plans, not you? Where you need to be on your game and can't spare recovery days due to zombies and other crazy people and any other emergencies that would come up in that kind of situation? Where because of all of that you wouldn't be able to train those specific muscle groups as rigorously as you would need to because you need to be ready? IMO, I absolutely don't think so.
Go find me a real world example of tribes, or people who live in an environment where it is survival of the fittest, where the women are big and muscular. It costs a lot of fuel to maintain that mass. Truth is, that females function MUCH more efficiently in survival situations with less muscle mass and at much less of a fuel intake than they do with more mass. This is why all these tribal women who actually do stuff men do, look slender or less bulky. Because their bodies naturally perform MUCH more efficiently this way and it is dangerous for them to try to unnaturally perform outside of that range.
If you want some real world examples in real time, go watch Alone. There are several female participants from the second season on. Watch how they just melt away and their muscles become much leaner and FAR less bulky even though they are in a survival of the fittest situation and literally have to struggle every day to stay alive. You can easily compare to the men here, who lose mass as well, but on average not nearly as much. And due to having more muscle mass in general, and being able to pack it on faster when they DO have food due to the way testosterone works where it increases mass by increasing protein muscle synthesis, you'll see how they can last longer than females who are wasting away along with them. They can just produce far more muscle for their body to devour. Which I believe is why people aren't fussed about Joel so much since it is far more believable for him to look bigger. In fact, speaking on his forearms which I've seen brought up, hand strength in men is a particular area where men excel greatly.
Hand-grip strength of young men, women and highly trained female athletes - European Journal of Applied Physiology
Hand-grip strength has been identified as one limiting factor for manual lifting and carrying loads. To obtain epidemiologically relevant hand-grip strength data for pre-employment screening, we determined maximal isometric hand-grip strength in 1,654 healthy men and 533 healthy women aged 20–25...link.springer.com
Your forearms are a huge contributor to your grip strength. So for Joel it makes sense. Especially when you think about it in context with everything I've said. Men grow muscle faster due to testosterone. The one thing that men do workout ALL the time, even if they aren't training, is their hands. They are constantly moving them and gripping things. More activation in that area is going to mean more mass. More muscle mass, especially continual repetitive movements which would also strengthen tendons as well are going to cause more vasculature, which also grow easier in men. Thing is, our bones keep growing all our life. But areas with more vasculature are going to grow even more. So men who do more with their hands, even when not on a training regime, are just going to continue to have larger forearms and hands throughout their life because that area is going to keep growing faster than others. If you look around you at some of the older service men or manual labor workers who otherwise look unfit, you'll see this. Which is why Abby's forearms look so frigging ridiculous. To achieve that would be crazy for a real woman. Let alone maintaining it in that environment.
And before we go in circles again about the roids since it doesn't seem like you are reading my posts...
And yes. I believe lots of male athletes even take roids at some point or other. Let alone women.
Here's the rub. Steroids aren't a one time solution either. You will lose any gains outside of your natural genetic potential if you go off of them. Also, here is a good article, among hundreds, on why so many athletes don't get caught. Lots of athletes go on roids or hormones of some kind for long lengths of time while competing and only get caught mid way through or even towards the end. So you can imagine how many people are just slipping through the testing.
