How Much Do Professional Bodybuilders Make?
Bodybuilders combine time, discipline, and great genetics into what they hope to be a very lucrative career, but how much do professional bodybuilders make? The top elite professional bodybuilders can make $500,000 or more per year. However, there are probably fewer than twenty-five people in the sport that garner that kind of salary. The other ninety-five percent of professional bodybuilders have jobs outside of their training regiment to pay the bills.
Eugene Sandow, known as the father of modern bodybuilding, unintentionally began the sport to showcase his physique as a part of his strength demonstrations back in the early 1900s. He believed that the perfect body type resembled those of the ancient Greek and Roman marble statues, so he trained and developed his body to match those proportions. Realizing that people enjoyed his displays, he later created other business ventures based on his bodybuilding, including selling the first home gym equipment and participating in endorsements with his image and name.
Sandow organized the first bodybuilding competitions and presented the winner with a bronze statue of himself. This same bronze statue is presented to the winner of the Mr. Olympia competition, the most prestigious body building competition today.
How to Become a Professional Bodybuilder
Amateur bodybuilders can consider themselves professional bodybuilders when they have entered and won qualifying competitions. This enables them to carry a pro-card from the International Federation of Body Building (IFBB). For this reason, many people can earn pro status in the IFBB and consider themselves professional bodybuilders. Unfortunately, this status alone does not entitle the bodybuilders to a lucrative salary.
How Much Do Professional Bodybuilders Make?
Salary for the Top Tier
Where Does the Money Come From?
- International Competition Winnings $300,000 - $400,000 per year
- Endorsements $100,000 - $200,000 per year
- Appearances $4,000 - $5,000 per appearance
Other Ways Professional Bodybuilders Make Money:
- Modeling
- Opening a gym
- Writing books
- Training others
The Reality Second Tier
A small number of professional bodybuilders can still command a decent salary of around $75,000 - $100,000 per year. However, this money does not come from competition winnings but from appearances and endorsements that the bodybuilders manage to acquire.
Reality for Everyone Else
Training for bodybuilding competitions must take place year round. While most bodybuilders maintain a heavier weight through most of the year, approximately sixteen weeks before competition they need to alter their diet and exercise regiment in order to cut and sculpt their muscles for competition.
The strict diets and exercise regiments require extreme discipline. Many bodybuilders dream of the type of success achieved by Arnold Schwarzenegger, the majority of bodybuilders will never see it. These people are dedicated to bodybuilding but make very little money at it. By not placing high in the competitions, they don’t win money and aren’t attracting any endorsements. Bodybuilders without college degrees or other career aspirations often become trainers at a gym or bouncers at a bar. Ronnie Coleman, who won Mr. Olympia eight times, actually kept his day job as a police officer in Arlington, Texas, even after he became successful in bodybuilding.
How much money do professional body builders make? Whether professional bodybuilding is a sport or a male beauty pagent remains up for debate; however, those few who are fortunate enough to rise to the top of the competitions stand to make hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, over the course of their bodybuilding career. For these lucky few, life is good. Other lower ranked bodybuilders can make a good living by promoting themselves and venturing into other bodybuilding related business. Everyone else that loves bodybuilding keeps a full time job and trains for competitions before or after the job that pays the bills.