Learn Hardcore German: Viele Bloggerinnen schreiben inzwischen ehrlich über Muskelkater und schlechte Tage, nicht nur über perfekte Körper. - Many female bloggers now write honestly about sore muscles and bad days, not just about perfect bodies.

Blogger is grammatically masculine and can mean:
- one male blogger, or
- bloggers in general (traditionally a “generic masculine”).
Bloggerin is the feminine form (one female blogger).
Bloggerinnen is the plural: “female bloggers.”

In this sentence, Bloggerinnen suggests the speaker is explicitly talking about women who blog, not bloggers of all genders in general.

Why is it viele Bloggerinnen and not viel Bloggerinnen?

viel (without -e) is used with uncountable or mass nouns:
- viel Wasser (a lot of water)
- viel Geld (a lot of money)
viele (with -e) is used with countable plural nouns:
- viele Bücher (many books)
- viele Bloggerinnen (many [female] bloggers)

Because Bloggerinnen is a countable plural noun, you must say viele Bloggerinnen.

What exactly does inzwischen mean here?

inzwischen can mean:

by now / by this point (a change compared to the past)
in the meantime / meanwhile (during a period of time)
often close to nowadays in everyday language

In this sentence it suggests a development over time:
“Many female bloggers now, as opposed to earlier, write honestly about muscle soreness and bad days …”

Why is the word order schreiben inzwischen ehrlich and not something like schreiben ehrlich inzwischen?

German has relatively flexible adverb order, but there are preferences.

Here you have two adverbs: inzwischen (time/aspect) and ehrlich (manner / how they write).

A common rule of thumb is: time – manner – place, and within the “middle field” many native speakers prefer a flow like:

Verb – time/aspect adverb – manner adverb

So:

schreiben inzwischen ehrlich sounds natural.
schreiben ehrlich inzwischen is not wrong, but sounds unusual or marked in this context.

You could also move inzwischen to the front for emphasis: > Inzwischen schreiben viele Bloggerinnen ehrlich …

Why is über followed by the accusative here?

über is a two-way preposition (Wechselpräposition) that can take either accusative or dative, depending on meaning:

local meaning (“over, above, on top of”)
- accusative for movement: Ich gehe über die Brücke.
- dative for location: Ich stehe über der Treppe.
topic meaning (“about, regarding”)
- always accusative: ein Buch über die Geschichte, sprechen über Politik

In this sentence, über = “about” in the sense of topic, so it takes accusative:

über Muskelkater und schlechte Tage (accusative objects)
über perfekte Körper (accusative object)

Why is there no article: über Muskelkater und schlechte Tage, not über den Muskelkater und die schlechten Tage?

German often drops the article when talking about things in a general, nonspecific way:

über Liebe sprechen (to talk about love, in general)
über Probleme reden (to talk about problems, in general)

Here the bloggers write about:

Muskelkater as a general type of thing (muscle soreness, not one specific episode), and
schlechte Tage as bad days in general.

If you said über den Muskelkater und die schlechten Tage, it would sound like you mean some very specific, previously known muscle soreness and bad days.

What does Muskelkater mean, and is it really “muscle tomcat”?

Muskelkater means muscle soreness or post-exercise muscle pain.

It is a single noun: Muskel (muscle) + Kater (tomcat / hangover).
Historically, Kater in this sense is related to the idea of discomfort (as in a hangover), so Muskelkater is more like “muscle hangover,” not literally “muscle tomcat.”

Grammar points:

Gender: masculine (der Muskelkater)
Case here: accusative singular (after über)
Normally used in the singular; there is a plural Muskelkater too, but it’s rare.

Why is it schlechte Tage and not schlechtes Tage?

Because Tage is plural, and German adjective endings must match gender, case, and number.

Tage = plural, accusative (object after über)
There is no article (die, meine, etc.), so the adjective takes strong endings.

For plural, strong declension, nominative/accusative ending is -e:

schlechte Tage (bad days)
perfekte Körper (perfect bodies)
alte Bücher (old books)

So schlechtes Tage is wrong; -es is used for neuter singular, not for plural.

Why are the adjectives schlechte and perfekte both ending with -e?

Both Tage and Körper are:

plural nouns
in the accusative case
without a preceding article (zero article)

In this situation, adjectives take strong declension with the ending -e:

schlechte Tage (accusative plural)
perfekte Körper (accusative plural)

More examples with zero article, plural, accusative:

teure Handys kaufen (to buy expensive phones)
interessante Filme sehen (to watch interesting movies)

Why is there a comma before nicht nur über perfekte Körper?

The part nicht nur über perfekte Körper is an added, contrasting phrase. The main clause is complete without it:

Viele Bloggerinnen schreiben inzwischen ehrlich über Muskelkater und schlechte Tage.

Then the sentence adds a contrast:

, nicht nur über perfekte Körper.

The comma marks this as an extra element, similar to English:

“..., and not just about perfect bodies.”

If we used the full nicht nur … sondern auch construction embedded in one clause, the comma rules could look different, e.g.:

Viele Bloggerinnen schreiben inzwischen nicht nur über perfekte Körper, sondern auch über Muskelkater und schlechte Tage.

Isn’t nicht nur usually part of nicht nur … sondern auch? Why is there no sondern auch here?

Yes, very often nicht nur appears with sondern auch (“not only … but also …”):

Sie schreiben nicht nur über perfekte Körper, sondern auch über Muskelkater.

In your sentence, the structure is flipped:

Main idea: Sie schreiben über Muskelkater und schlechte Tage
Then an added contrast: nicht nur über perfekte Körper

It’s like English:

“They write about muscle soreness and bad days now, not just about perfect bodies.”

So the full pattern nicht nur … sondern auch is implied but not fully spelled out; that’s acceptable and natural when the contrast is clear.

What case are Bloggerinnen, Muskelkater, schlechte Tage, and perfekte Körper in?

Bloggerinnen – nominative plural, the subject of the sentence
- Viele Bloggerinnen schreiben …
Muskelkater – accusative singular, object of the preposition über
- über Muskelkater schreiben
schlechte Tage – accusative plural, also object of über (same prepositional phrase)
- über Muskelkater und schlechte Tage
perfekte Körper – accusative plural, object of the second über
- nicht nur über perfekte Körper

All nouns governed by über in the “topic” sense are in the accusative.

Why is Körper in the plural here, and why doesn’t it look different from the singular?

Meaning first:

perfekte Körper = “perfect bodies” (plural).
The bloggers used to write about idealized bodies in general, not about one specific body.

Grammar:

Körper is a masculine noun: der Körper (the body).
Its nominative and accusative forms are the same in singular and plural:
- singular: der Körper (nom), den Körper (acc)
- plural: die Körper (nom + acc)

With zero article and an adjective, only the adjective shows plural:

ein perfekter Körper (singular)
perfekte Körper (plural)

So the fact that you see perfekte tells you Körper is plural here.

Could I also say Inzwischen schreiben viele Bloggerinnen ehrlich …? Would that change the meaning?

Yes, that is perfectly correct:

Inzwischen schreiben viele Bloggerinnen ehrlich über Muskelkater und schlechte Tage, nicht nur über perfekte Körper.

The basic meaning stays the same, but:

Viele Bloggerinnen at the beginning slightly emphasizes “many bloggers” as the topic.
Inzwischen at the beginning slightly emphasizes the change over time (“nowadays / by now”) as the topic.

Both versions are natural; it’s mainly a difference of emphasis and information flow.

Could I use von instead of über to mean “about” here?

In many contexts, über is the standard choice for “about” in the sense of topic:

ein Buch über Musik (a book about music)
einen Artikel über Politik schreiben (to write an article about politics)

von can sometimes translate to “of” or “about,” but it usually suggests:

origin/source: ein Buch von Goethe (a book by Goethe)
possession/relationship: die Meinung von meinen Eltern (the opinion of my parents)

In your sentence, schreiben über Muskelkater und schlechte Tage is the normal, idiomatic way to say “write about muscle soreness and bad days.”
schreiben von Muskelkater would sound unusual and not idiomatic in this general-topic sense.