Korraās Muscles: An Essay
Hello everyone reading this. I wanted to start out by saying that my post about writing this was a joke. At first. I made a smaller analysis post about Korraās muscles already however people seemed to really want this essay. And have Seychelle Gabriel read it for some reason. And I thought to myself: well why the hell not actually try to write this properly.
Before writing this essay I had 0 clue about muscles as far as anatomy, training, muscle mass, maintaining muscles, the proper diet etc. So I wanted to learn a bit about all that so this could be as accurate as possible.
This took a long time to put together and write so I hope this was worth the wait and please enjoy reading this as Iāve put a lot of time and effort into making it good so I hope that it will please you.
THE LEGEND OF KORRA INTRO:
Ā Iām sure everyone reading this knows what TLOK is because if you didnāt why the hell would you be reading this? But Iāll sum it up anyways.
The Legend of Korra is a sequel/spinoff of The Last Airbender. The good one, not the movie. TLOK was created by Bryan Joseph Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino, aired from 2012-2014., and it follows Avatar Aangās successor Korra as she struggles with being the Avatar in a world that no longer seems to have a need for an Avatar as well as struggling with learning how to be human. On her journey she faces many villains and makes many fiends as well. And a love interest or two. Or three if you count Bolin. TLOK was meet with some controversy when it first aired but got lot more popular when it aired on Netflix in 2020.
Before we talk about Korraās glorious muscles we must talk a bit about Korra herself.
Who is Korra? Well as I already stated all of you probably know who she is already but I wanna make sure everyone understands how amazing she is before talking about her muscles.
Korra was born in the Southern Water Tribe. Sheās the daughter of Chief Tonraq and his wife Senna.
Shown to be the polar opposite of her predecessor, Korra was hotheaded and brash in her childhood and teenage years.
Raised in the White Lotus compound she never interacted with anyone her age and spent her time training, both physically and bending.
After arriving in Republic City however, she had to learn about being human. Compassion, humility, friendship, love, found family, public dislike, opposition, fear, hope and more.
In her short time as a fully fledged Avatar Korra changed the world in many ways: bringing back the Air Nation, opening the spirit portals, defeating Vaatu, helping out the Earth Kingdom go trough a regime change in Ruins of the Empire.
Korra herself changed in many ways and went trough a lot in those few short years. Losing her bending, being separated from her past lives, being poisoned and almost killed, PTSD, depression, being crippled. She got trough all of that. And so did her muscles so lets finally talk about them cause thatās what youāre all here for.
Korraās overall physical built is one of the first things that sets her apart not just from other previously seen characters in Avatar, but also from the majority of female characters in animation.
Korra is very muscular for a woman, a fact acknowledged in the show itself by Mako and Bolinās grandma Yin. Korraās strength is displayed numerous times throughout the show, weather it be in fights or normal activities, such as when she picks up and hugs Tenzin and his kids with ease in season 1.
Korra is built like a fighter, a martial artist. Which makes complete sense given her upbringing and way of life. Of course her body sufferers a lot in the 3 years of her recovery in the South Pole after her fight with the Red Lotus. However trough training, she is eventually able to recover.
When it comes to her biceps and back muscles, one of the things about her most fans lose their minds over, its really no mystery as to how she got to where she is. Sheās had years of training to develop them and like before those too are noticeably smaller after her 3-year recovery period. But more on that later.
One of the things about Korraās physique people donāt talk about as much are her legs. Unlike her other muscles, Korraās legs are always covered and due to being a fighter she wears baggy pants for easier movement, so we never actually see her leg muscles. However that doesnāt mean they should go unnoticed, especially considering that those were the ones that suffered the most in her recovery since she couldnāt walk or even move them.
As previously established Korra has the built of a martial artist so its only safe to imagine that her diet reflected that.
Typically a martial artistās diet includes a balanced amount of protein, vitamins, carbs and fat in your meals. Martial artistās eat food speeds up metabolism, but builds muscle and can keep one energized.
Now the world of Avatar is very different from our both animal and plant vise, and when taking into account whatās available to us and not to the Avatar world, such as protein shakes, vitamin supplants, multivitamin pills etc.
Korra is a Water Triber meaning that a good amount of her diet should consist of meat and fish.Ā
According to Edmund Searles in his article Food and the Making of Modern Inuit Identities, a mostly meat diet is āeffective in keeping the body warm, making the body strong, keeping the body fit, and even making that body healthyā.
Korra spent most of her life in the White Lotus compound so its pretty safe to assume that her meals were such that gave her a lot of energy as well as built up her muscles, and that it was in a large part, a meat and fish type of diet because of her heritage and place of living.
However Korra has also lived with Tenzin and his family on Air Temple Island. Tenzin as we know is an airbender like his father. And airbenders have very different diet compared to the Water Tribes.
Airbenders have a vegetarian diet as we know from Aang and from Tenzin. Airbenders are pacifists and as such they donāt like to harm another living thing. Because of that their diet would mostly consist of rice, vegetables and fruits as well as nuts because they are high in calories and nutritional benefit.
Because of the balanced diet of the Air Nomads we see that Aang as well as Tenzin are pretty well built individuals themselves therefore Korra, after she begins living with Tenzin and eating more of the Air Nomad cooking, is still able to stay perfectly fit. That and we can also assume that while she was staying there she still ate some meat and fish as well as Republic City food.
As for Korraās diet for her biceps, that would require a lot of high-protein foods. Those would be available in abundance both in the Tribe as well as in Republic City as those would include: eggs, various fish, vegetables, fruits.
Back muscles require a healthy spine plus a work out routine but lets stick to food for now, for that Korraās diet would consist of: vegetables, salmon, herbs and spices, dairy products and fruit. Since it was shown that Korraās diet habits plummeted during her recovery so did her back muscles. Once she got back to her feet and started being more active once more she ate more and got her muscles back.
Leg muscles require a a lot of meat, low fat dairy products, grains and fruit as well as starchy vegetables.
Korra could easily balance her diet in Republic City, especially since it has a large assortment of food.
Korraās training began early in her life. She was already able to bend 3 elements at an early age, so she also had to train from an early age to master those elements.
Korra trained in the White Lotus compound for 12 years where she pursued the bending arts.
Along with the bending arts she also pursued martial arts and later on when she moved to Air Temple Island she learned how to move like an Airbender and integrated that into her fighting style.
Along with her White Lotus and Tenzinās training she also trained with Mako and Bolin for the Pro-Bender Tournament. Pro-Bending mixes bending and MMA elements into one sport.
MMA fighters train heavily with weights to built their built muscle as well as strengthen their bones. This is something we can clearly see the results from with Mako and Bolin. Theyāre been Pro-Benders for a while and they have a very strong built. Bolin has larger muscles than Mako however, which could be to to the fact that Mako as a firebender moves quicker and is a lot quicker on his feet, while Bolin is more like a tank. Strong and sturdy.
Korra had many forms of training over the years which is why her body isnāt just one certain type. She incorporates everything sheās learned into her life, fighting style, bending as well as types of training that she does.
In short, Korra was trained for 12 years in Fire, Water and Earth bendings specifically, along with the martial arts skills that come with those. After moving to Republic City she not only had the chance to learn Airbending and its martial arts but also learn about other types and techniques. Her training might have been very different from Aangās but its just as effective.
Korraās biceps probably required a lot of training just on their own. I mean look at those guns!
For this I just want you to imagine her bicep workout routine: towel curls, chair dips, elevated push ups, regular push ups, pull ups. All of those are bicep excesses that Korra could easily do anytime, anywhere.
For her back muscles sheās most likely do push ups with and plank stands with one arm raised since those are great for back and abs workout and balance challenge, too. As well as push up holds for muscle build up.
Leg muscle training while important in her training in general is especially important during her recovery period. She lost all her leg muscles and had a lot to make up and those would consist of various squats and push-ups, as those are great exercises to build strength and muscle mass.
Ā Now lets compare Korraās physique and muscles to those of her peers, or in this case her friends: Mako, Bolin and Asami. Two of which are pro-benders and one of which is a mechanic and a martial artist.
First lets look at the brothers:
As stated before since theyāre both Pro-Bender, at least for a good amount of time in their life, Mako and Bolin have a physique thatās fairly similar to Korraās in some ways.
Toned and defined muscles, built for fighting. Like Korra they too trained for the purpose of battle. Although for Korra it was training under the White Lotus, learning proper techniques and for the brothers it was on their own and for a time with the Triple Threat Triads.
Bolin for example is a lot more focused on his upper body muscles. He is pretty much built like a tank due to him being a heavy hitter and also able to take quite a bit of hits. He and Korra have that in common. Korraās upper body strength, biceps and back muscles, while smaller than Bolinās in comparison have the same amount of force behind them. However Bolin is also hard to knock down as due to being an Earth Bender. Earth Bending takes a lot of heavy and firm stances and as much lower body strength as it does upper body strength.
Mako isnāt as buff as his brother but he doesnāt really need to be. Heās a lot lighter on his feet in fights and doesnāt use as much raw muscle strength in his bending. This is something that differs him from both Korra and Bolin as those two sometimes put a lot of strength behind their punches.
Unlike Korra, Mako and Bolin, Asami comes from a rich family and despite Korraās initial impressions of her Asami is far from a helpless rich city girl.
While not muscular like her friends Asami can more than handle herself in fights, using her martial arts skills and wits more than her psychical strength. Asami prioritizes her martial arts skills rather than her muscle built, and because of that she is built very differently from Korra but that doesnāt mean sheās any less helpful in battle.
And with those comparisons I will conclude this essay. This was very fun to write and I hope you enjoyed reading (and looking at all the pics).
