Episode 41: Take pride in what you’ve built

By Ron Harris

The Internet haters were at it again. Actually, they seemed worse than ever and I chalked it up to the summer heat wave much of the USA was experiencing. When it’s 98 degrees and oppressively humid, they were all probably going through a gallon of Haterade a day. This provided them with all the carbs, electrolytes, and bitter, spiteful negativity a hard-working hater posting anonymously online craves.

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A Bodybuilder Is Born: Generations

I had dropped off my sixteen-year-old princess (except in this case I am not the king, other than maybe King Midas), Marisa, at the 5 o’clock Zumba class at our gym. Marisa was just days away from her first of what would probably be at least three senior proms. She was nearing the end of her sophomore year. As I knew she was bound to do, Marisa had grown bored with weight training and was on a Zumba kick. As far as I could tell, it was basically a type of Brazilian dance form of cardio involving a lot of ass-shaking and hip-grinding. I had never watched an actual class, but many times I had watched the infomercial as I did my cardio, mainly for the visual stimulation of the suggestive movements.

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Episode 39: Eating clean is a privilege

Occasionally someone will ask me, what’s the hardest part about being a bodybuilder? I always say the same thing – the eating. Once you are fully committed to the bodybuilding lifestyle as I have been now for over twenty years, food is no longer for pleasure. Food is fuel to support great workouts, and then it provides the necessary building blocks for the recovery and growth of the muscle tissue you broke down during intense training. Not just any food will serve these purposes, either.

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Episode 38: Where the mind goes, the body follows

I hadn’t seen much of my client Jared’s father, Jeff, in a long time. Aside from passing him driving around town and waving hello, we hadn’t had a conversation since he witnessed in horror as I inhaled several large cups of ice cream smothered in sugary toppings following my last contest over six months ago. Jeff was 53 years old and had competed a couple times in 1978 and 1979, right around the time the movie Pumping Iron had inspired a whole generation of Arnold wannabes to take up bodybuilding. Until that landmark movie, the sport was literally so underground that men were about as ashamed to buy a bodybuilding magazine as they were a porno mag.

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Episode 37: Free weights are the cake, machines are the icing

It was a time of uncertainty, and our gym was in chaos.

Maybe I am being a bit dramatic, which wouldn’t be unusual. What was actually happening was that the owner of my gym had realized a couple years ago that paying an outrageous monthly lease made no sense if he could build his own gym that would be far bigger and with more amenities such as a swimming pool, indoor track, basketball and racquetball courts, a kids gym, and to top it off – a barbershop. Around the same time, the owner of the other big gym in town had the same idea and had launched into his own construction plans. This had me somewhat concerned that only one of these two mega-gyms would eventually survive.

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Episode 36: What will you get from bodybuilding?

Jared and his big lug friend Hunter were training together once again after not having shared a workout since football season started back in September. Hunter went to high school in the next town over, and his team had finished with an equally unimpressive record. I doubted MTV would want to make a reality show about either squad anytime soon. Then again, who knows? Their latest hit was something called “Jersey Shore,” where a house full of cocky, vain, horny young guys and girls who basically got drunk, partied, had random casual sex, and got into bar fights.

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Episode 35: High reps have a purpose

The holidays were upon us at last. Spirits were high all around. A monster of a blizzard had dumped a foot and a half of the light, fluffy stuff on my town on December 20^th, ensuring that all-important White Christmas Big Crosby sang about. As for the Blue Christmas in the Elvis song, we even had that covered with the release of the blockbuster film Avatar, with blue aliens in 3-D.

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Episode 34: Loosen up, or keep it tight?

It was arm day. This was a very recent change to my training program. My arms, as any of my longtime readers are sick of hearing about at this point, have always been a source of immense frustration and disappointment to me. With any other muscle group, my hard work has always eventually translated into growth, sooner or later.

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Episode 33: The absolute best time to grow

Those of us who have been bodybuilding for much of our lives – well over half, in my case – recognize that our earliest years of pumping iron were very much like the “Honeymoon Phase” in a marriage. In those thrilling days, it’s all fresh and new. You are getting bigger and stronger all the time.

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Episode 32: The True Meaning of Victory

From the expressions on the faces of Jeff and his son Jared as they greeted me in the lobby of the theater as I was leaving, you would think I had just lost a loved one. They both looked like they wanted to shake my hand and softly murmur, “Sorry for your loss.”

And technically, I had lost. At the Team Universe in New York City, the contest I had trained and dieted so long and hard for, I had only managed to place ninth out of thirteen light-heavyweights.

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