Crafting the ideal body: the role of injections in Brazilian bodybuilding

Résumé

Chronic injection of Image and Performance Enhancing Drugs (IPED) constitutes a complex, culturally significant, yet understudied ritual in competitive bodybuilding. This multi-sited ethnography, conducted in a Brazilian “hardcore” gym and its associated digital community, explores how athletes initiate, learn, and normalize injectable IPED use. Moving beyond pathologizing framings, the study interprets these practices as embodied rituals of self-formation and identity transformation rather than mere substance abuse. Through social apprenticeship, athletes master injection techniques that convert pain and biomedical risk into structured confidence and bodily control. Drawing on Victor Turner’s theory of liminality, the injection ritual emerges as a contemporary rite of passage that enacts symbolic death and rebirth, granting new social status and communal belonging. The findings show how these practices reconcile bodily vulnerability with the pursuit of an idealized physique, illuminating how ritualized injections produce symbolic mastery and enable athletes to navigate biomedical uncertainty while sustaining moral and social coherence.