Fitness | University of Helsinki professor Pekka Posio has a rare hobby – it drove him to publish revealing photos on social media

Lotta Heikker’s in the newsletter Cheered up (Otava, 2024) tells the stories of adults who fell in love with sports at an older age.

One of them is Pekka Posio.

In civilian life, Posio works as a professor of Ibero-Romance languages ​​at the University of Helsinki. In his spare time, he practices fitness sports in the men’s physique series.

Men’s physique is a judging event. The goal is a muscular, but still athletic and aesthetic body. The contestants pose in front of the jury only in shorts, which is why the series is often also known as the “shorts series”.

Posio only found his way to the sport in his forties.

“As an adult, I always liked going to the gym, but my enthusiasm for more purposeful training was born in 2020, when I just wanted to lose weight and get in better shape. A very typical middle-aged project, for which I decided to enlist the help of a personal trainer.”

The fitness project turned into a racing hobby thanks to the contribution of Posio’s personal trainer.

“He competed in the sport and I asked him what it would require of me. Turns out it wouldn’t be impossible at all. The goal was agreed to have the first competition in a year, and it came true in 2022. I was 41 years old when I competed for the first time. I have no competitive sports background from childhood or youth. Until I was forty, my attitude towards all competitive sports was somewhat negative.”

Position the profession does not necessarily coincide with his hobby in his imagination. University-educated people often prefer endurance sports such as triathlon instead of powerlifting and bodybuilding.

“The reception in the work community has been surprisingly curious. In the beginning, I only told my closest colleagues about my hobby. For the next race, I spoke more openly and by then I had also started to publish bold pictures on social media. Some people in the close circle were a little surprised that you suddenly got excited about something like this.”

“Nowadays, the hobby is occasionally brought up in coffee table discussions. For example, co-workers who are starting a gym hobby might ask for advice.”

Sothose bold pictures. On his Instagram account, Posio actively publishes pictures of both his scantily clad competition performances and various art projects, where even nude photos of him have been taken.

“Yes, their publication was exciting at first. When you are in a public profession in a certain way, I thought about what can be published. And nowadays I’m pretty careful about what I post; for example, I only publish nude photos in an art context. Latest project, Esa Kapila In my opinion, Helsinki Nudes is of a very high artistic standard, so I was happy to participate in it.”

According to Posio, the feedback on the pictures has been mostly positive.

“There are very few inappropriate contacts. That presence on social media kind of belongs to this genre.”

Posio feels that the fitness hobby has improved his overall well-being.

“Of course, you will have to move a lot, and at the same time, through the hobby, you will take care of things related to nutrition and rest. At the same time, this has been a good counterbalance to the day job, which is so different in nature. I’ve also noticed that the species community is really tight, even though it’s about individual species in itself.”

However, in Posio’s eyes, the hobby is not without negative aspects.

“This is a type of judging, the results of which are the result of the jury’s subjective evaluation. You have to learn to live with it, even though it is very personal when your own body is the subject of criticism. In my very first competition, the ranking was worse than I had hoped; it took a surprisingly long time to recover from that disappointment. Learning to live with the jury’s decisions is an important skill for the rest of life as well.”

As another negative aspect of the sport, Posio mentions weight loss for competitive events.

“I usually lose 8-10 kilos and it takes about three or four months. It’s a disciplined job. My own losses are still quite moderate, some may drop twenty kilos.”

To the top looking at pictures of trim athletes, a familiar thought might creep into the mind of an outsider; does body modification happen with completely natural means?

According to Posio, it is important for the public to know the truth.

“Competitors of Suomen Fitnessurheiltu ry are subject to doping testing. A 10,000-euro fine follows for speeding, which is quite a large amount. It is very important for me to compete in a doping-tested series.”

According to Posio, there are a lot of operators in the gym and social circles whose results have not been achieved with pure flour in a bag.

“The general public may not realize how common it is. People easily get the wrong idea of ​​what is possible to achieve with natural means when they look at pictures of certain fitness influencers.”

Correction on October 4 at 2:40 p.m.: The article incorrectly wrote about academics, when it was supposed to write about university-educated ones.