TIL: Our species began in the Bronze Age, when everyone was ripped.

The Bronze Age got its name from all the bronzer people used to show off their gains.

The Bronze Age collapse happened when they ran out of cinnamon to make bronzer
- I knew the whole "sea people" thing was bunk. No one could ever even tell me where they came from.
After that came that stuff with the lazer raptors in the viking age
- Kung Fury really is a great documentary about that topic!

The vast majority of the population were slaves, who had to be well-muscled to lift heavy stones to build all those beaux-arts star forts of the Tartarian Empire. Then there were the barbarian warriors, who needed the musculature to effectively wield a zweihänder. If you saw a skinny dude, chances are he was an evil wizard.

I assumed they all had Annunaki personal trainers.

Pronounced pectorals came with the invention of the bench press I am pretty sure. They could be yoked for sure but likely not like that

Back then they couldn’t pump iron, had to pump bronze.

The bronze was discovered during research into more efficient gym machines.

Of course, they were all on the paleo diet!

I'm convinced that's a promotional image from Conan Exiles and I won't hear any dissenting opinions.

I mean... How inaccurate is this, really?

I mean, the Neolithic period got people farming I guess, but it's a tough sell.

Is the issue that the folks are in anachronistic clothing and have gym bodies instead of working bodies?

It's basically ignoring at least 4,000 years of human civilization prior to that. The stone age is generally when people start talking about the origins of humans, despite us existing for a couple hundred thousand years prior to that.
- I suppose I'm not conflating "rise" with "genesis". Human organizational structure was slow to ramp up and I don't think the bronze age is a terrible place to draw a line and say "this is where things start to heat up".
The biggest issue I see here is a man with clearly a great enough surplus of food to bulk. That wasn't happening unless you had access to a large farming community supporting you at the expense of most others and at least a rudimentary knowledge of nutrition.

YEAH I KNOW HIM. HE PLAYS FOR THE LAKERS RIGHT

This is a good time to plug a book: 1177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed: Revised and Updated (Turning Points in Ancient History)