> People find muscle sexually attractive

I can believe that it's true on average and that it can be useful for lots of people. I wonder if nowadays that's still something biological, or rather cultural indicator like pale skin in middle ages, or tanning more recently, that a person has much free time on his hands so is socially above average.

> associate it with power in social situations

I never seen anyone doing that. I never seen person with above average muscles in position of power. Is there some research about this?

There's this guy called Arnold Schwarzenegger who had a bit of muscle and a bit of power.

Also an actor. Not the first one in power. Not the most powerful of them. The previous one wasn't a bodybuilder as far as I remember.

Bit of laugh for you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlLpCh-lE54&feature=player_de...

Yeah, I heard he was an actor. I watched some of the movies he was in, but I didn't see any acting. :rimshot:

Anyway, getting back to your original point, correlation between height and income is well established (e.g. http://www.apa.org/monitor/julaug04/standing.aspx) It doesn't seem unreasonable to suppose that other aspects of an imposing presence, like muscularity, would also effect income. (Up to a point. I think there is social pressure against excesses of muscularity.)

Height correlates with income; an appearance of health and vitality is likely important; but I highly doubt muscularity beyond what you'd get from a normal healthy lifestyle and good genes will have a positive influence on how others judge you in the world at large (at the gym or similar context is different, of course).

I don't know what research has been done, but my own snap judgements of unusually muscular people tend to be negative; couple the muscles with an exaggerated strut and they go strongly negative.

I joke that I wear my coke-bottle glasses to avoid been mistaken for a professional rugby league player. It's half true. The stereotype of a meathead is neatly offset by the stereotype of an arch-nerd.

I have really bad genes, this is why I have to lift to look like someone with good genes.