What is the hardest thing about being a professional bodybuilder?
To find balance as a family man. Bodybuilding is a difficult and time-consuming endeavor. Guest posings take away from family time in addition to food prep, gym time, and even the commute to the gym is time consuming. And let’s not even get into pre-contest prep, the amount of time doubles or even triples. All the time consumption takes me away from my children. I love them very much and when I can’t be with them, it hurts me deeply. When it’s the last two weeks before the show, I don’t want to be bothered. I only want to eat, train, and sleep. I know it’s difficult for them, but I do this so they can have a better quality of life
What is your easiest body part to develop? How do you keep it in proportion with your other body parts?
My easiest are by far my shoulders. I’m gifted in that body part in that they grow easy, but I still push it to the limit. As far as proportion goes, I make sure that my lagging body parts get a lot of intense work. My back is a prime example of this. I’m not finished with it by any means, but I have accomplished a lot with it since I’ve been on the pro circuit as far as size and detail are concerned. One area that I have been paying a lot of attention to are my legs. I’m excited to see what happens.
You have tremendous back detail. What are some of the exercises you do to bring out that detail. Do you do them in the off-season?
The question is what don’t I do? The thing is that you can’t build detail in the off-season, only serious muscle. But to answer your question, I do every back exercise imaginable: pullups, different variations of lat pulldowns, barbell rows, dumbbell rows; you name it, I do it. The main thing is that the back is a large muscle group. When you train it, train it! No two workouts are the same because things change each week. If I’m still recovering from a previous training session, we scale it back. If I’m fully recovered, we hit the gas and do what we need to do.
What makes a good bodybuilder? What qualities make a good pro bodybuilder?
You have to work to realize your dream. Surround yourself with positive people who want to see you succeed and someone that knows more than you to coach you. You have to have something that mentally gets you going even though you don’t feel that you can. For me, I promised my mother I wouldn’t fail so that’s what gets me going in the gym. And the fans push me also. I think every bodybuilder at every level has some sort of fan base and it only grows the higher you get in the sport. I feed of their energy and enthusiasm when I’m low on my own. Now to make a good pro, take all those qualities and multiply them by 10. It’s not an overnight process. – FLEX
