A Bodybuilder Is Born: Generations

Ron Harris

Jared was going to hurt himself badly soon if he didn’t stop his slow but steady descent into the Land of Crappy Form. It’s true that he was young enough to bounce right back from all but the most serious catastrophes like full muscle tears or a herniated disk, but tempting fate is never a bright idea. Fate has a sick sense of humor. If you don’t believe that, turn on your TV or check today’s news online. You’ll see that a church roof caved in during Easter service killing 300 parishioners who had just finished raising the money to fix it, or that a whole school full of kids contracted meningitis from sharing the same drinking fountain during Dehydration Awareness Week.

This isn’t meant to scare you or make you think doom and gloom lurk around every corner like a big Grim Reaper ready to pounce and yell, “Gotcha, sucka!” I’m just saying that enough bad things can happen already without helping them along by being stupid. And my teenage client Jared was being an idiot lately whenever he trained with his buddy Hunter, he of the heavy bone structure and the brow that brought cave paintings, Ice Ages, and quests for fire to mind. Hunter was naturally a lot bigger and stronger than Jared. And Jared, by his own nature fiercely competitive, simply could not bear this affront to his fragile adolescent masculinity.

I have seen more than a few guys over the years struggling to keep up with or even outdo a training partner who is almost of another species when it comes to strength. I give them all an A for effort and applaud their positive thinking, but mind can’t always triumph over matter. If your maximum deadlift is 400 pounds, all the psyching up in the world isn’t going to make you pull 600 pounds. Using really horrible form and a shortened range of motion might allow you to transcend your actual power, but what’s the point of that? It reminds me of a little old bald man who was some kind of Eastern spiritualist. He used to demonstrate his channeling of holy power or something by ‘lifting’ truly outrageous weights. I use the term lifting very, very loosely here, as what he did was to move large amounts of weight a few millimeters on special, elaborate contraptions designed to facilitate such a stunt. One look at this wrinkled little man and you knew that he would have trouble actually lifting anything much heavier than a box of Depends® adult diapers, yet his legion of devoted followers were convinced they were witnessing miracles. As far as I’m concerned, the real miracle was that anyone would be gullible enough to fall for this claptrap. More recently, the geriatric television evangelist Pat Robertson made international news demonstrating his astounding power on the leg press, doing what amounted to less than half reps with a thousand pounds. Big whoop. You can see that any day at your local gym – it’s how a lot of guys justify being too lazy to squat. “I go real heavy on leg presses, bro,” they will inform you. Meanwhile, they are due in court the next day fighting a lawsuit – their legs are suing their upper bodies for lack of support.

Getting back to Jared, he had been throwing away just about everything I had taught him about proper form over the last couple weeks as he tried in vain to use all the same weights as Hunter, who outweighed him by about thirty to forty pounds. He was also starting to put on bodyfat for the first time since I had met him, surely the result of a desperate attempt to pile on bodyweight at any cost, with no regard to where that weight was coming from. I couldn’t watch this nonsense go on another minute. Today he had been arching his back like a damn bow and rebounding out of the bottom position on military presses because his foolish pride wouldn’t let him take any weight off. Since he had suffered a shoulder injury serious enough to bench him from the football team and knock him out of the gym just a few months back, this had really been disturbing to watch. It was time to intervene before it went any further.

“Jared,” I said, tapping him on the shoulder as he exited the locker room of the gym. “We need to talk.” I saw in his eyes immediately that he had a pretty good idea what the subject would be. I had been doing my own back workout while he and Hunter had been working shoulders and triceps, and he had caught my disapproving frown at least once across the gym floor.

“Yeah, see I have to get home because there’s this project for. . .”

“This won’t take long,” I assured him as I cut him off mid-excuse. “Have a seat.” I motioned toward the juice bar. He sighed, tossed his backpack to the ground and hopped up on a padded barstool.

“I’ve been watching your workouts for the last couple weeks, and I just don’t know what you’re thinking. So much of what I have been teaching you, you’re just pissing it all away.” He tried to look innocently unaware of my vague accusations, but the guilt was bubbling just under the surface of his face. Fine, I could play this any way he wanted me to.

“Why are you trying to use all the same weights as Hunter?” I demanded. “That kid is built for raw power – clunky, farm boy, husky, brawny power. His wrists are almost as big around as your ankles. His hips are so wide he looks like he could give birth to you. What makes you think you are supposed to be able to move as much iron as a bruiser like that?” Jared’s face changed. A scowl washed over it and his brows knit. I had struck a chord, which was my intention all along.

“I know all that, but I’m not gonna let him beat me! I can train harder than him, I don’t care how big his bones are or how much he weighs.” I shook my head.

“Jared, for one thing, you’re not training harder than him. His form is better and he uses a more complete range of motion. You were actually training a lot harder than him before, when you were using weights you could control and working your muscles to failure and beyond. Right now you’re working more of your joints and connective tissue than muscle, and you’re putting yourself at a ridiculously high risk of injury.”

“Yeah,” he interrupted, “but Hunter is going to be squatting 315 for reps any week now.”

“And?” I asked. Jared had no good comeback, so I asked another vital question, “Who cares? As I have tried to explain many times, bodybuilding has absolutely nothing to do with how much weight you lift. If that’s your thing, you can get into powerlifting, Olympic lifting, or Strongman competition. Bodybuilding is all about the physique. It’s always impressive to see someone like Ronnie Coleman, Johnny Jackson, or Branch Warren that is huge and also crazy strong, but it’s really got nothing to do with the sport they actually get up on stage and hit poses to compete in. I find it humorous when guys rip on great physique champions like Dexter Jackson for not training as heavy as they think he should, when the fact of the matter is; he’s training exactly the way he needs to in order to be the reigning Mr. Olympia. These misguided meatheads will brag that they can deadlift or bench press more than Dexter can, but meanwhile they would have to die and be reborn with much better genetics to ever have a prayer of building a physique remotely as good as his.”

“But you need to lift heavy weights to put on mass,” said Jared, who thought he had me on this point. “So getting stronger is important to growing.” The hint of a smirk stole across his face.

“Heavy is always a relative term,” I replied. “What’s heavy to you might be light to me, and what’s heavy for me is definitely light for guys like Ronnie Coleman. And if you sacrifice form in the name of simply training heavier, you won’t be stimulating much growth anyway. Bodybuilding is about working the muscle, and that takes a certain connection where you feel the muscle contracting and stretching during your reps to make it happen. One other thing. I told you to boost your protein and carbs with 50/50 Plus™ shakes and Parrillo Chew Bars™. What else have you been eating? And don’t lie – I can see you’re starting to get pudgy.”

“Uh, you know…pizza a couple times a week,” he offered.

“What, a whole pizza?”

“Yeah,” he confessed. “I’ve been adding a couple scoops of Ben and Jerry’s to my shakes too, and usually one of my meals every day lately has been either at KFC or the Chinese Buffet.”

“Not the Chinese Buffet!” I exclaimed. This place was literally around the corner from our gym, and I had done my share of gluttonous damage there myself. At least once, the owner would stomp over and yell at me, “You go now! You here two hour!”

It was actually possible to eat fairly clean there if you limited your selections to the teriyaki chicken sticks and plain white rice, but who does that? I was sure Jared had been piling his plate with the same crap I did: General Gau’s chicken, spare ribs, fried chicken wings, beef fried rice, and a dozen other things loaded with salt, sugar, and fat.

“Listen, if you try to match Hunter on sheer body mass, you are going to be a fat-ass very soon. I hate to puff up your ego and put him down, but you actually have much better genetics for bodybuilding. If you both dieted down right now, I have no doubt in my mind you would beat him hands-down. The poor kid probably should get into something where he will be rewarded for his strength, because his bone structure and big thick joints aren’t suited for building an impressive physique. But he seems to really love the idea of competing in bodybuilding, so I won’t be the one to shatter his dreams. Let him try it and see where he fits in, or doesn’t. In the meantime, you need to stop trying to be Hunter and just focus on being the best Jared you can be.”

“Yeah, I know,” he said.

“That’s what everyone says, so I really want you to think about this. You need to get back to training right and eating cleaner, from this moment on. Pinkie promise.” I held out my right pinkie, as the gesture of a solemn swear. Jared thought I was kidding, but this was something my kids taught me. Reluctantly, he put out his own pinkie and locked it with mine. Now he had to abide by his word. The crisis had been averted, and Jared was now back on the road to glory.