Top Mr.

I didn't learn anything startling from reading Joe Weider's Mr. Olympia: The History of Bodybuilding's Greatest Contest, but this old title did contain a few "behind the scenes" episodes and conversations I didn't know about.  I've followed the Mr. Olympia since the 1970s, when a young Australian bodybuilder named Arnold burst onto the scene and brought bodybuilding out of the dark dungeons and into the mainstream.  Now there are gyms everywhere.

For those who don't know (or who might want to know) the Mr. Olympia has been, since the mid 1960s, the pinnacle of bodybuilding competitions . . . though the sport at the top levels is now so saturated with steroids, growth hormones, and diuretics that one has to wonder what the point of the training, diet, and sport is really about.

I competed in a "drug-free" competition almost exactly ten years ago where, over the span of four months of twice-a-day training, dieting, and aerobics, did achieve the best shape of my life.  I was forty, and in the months prior to my competition dieting I was doing 350 pound bench presses, 1200 pound leg presses, and 450 pound deadlifts.  I was my own trainer, dietitian, instructor, and motivator and I was nearly always the first person at the gym in the morning and the last one to leave at night.  But Becky said I would never have a "six pack".  I proved her wrong.  Might have to dig out some of those old photos to prove it. After the competition, she really seemed to like me.  Couldn't keep her hands off me.  And my kids looked up to me, too, and didn't think I was a loser.  Those were the days.

I also wrote a few essays about my "competition" experiences . . . which I found hilarious (what's not to laugh at when you see a bunch of oily men and women prancing around in G-strings?).

I didn't end up being Mr. Anything . . . I'm just Mister Boring.  But I have never stopped pursuing strength, persistence, consistency, and, as Mr. John Wesley would have said . . . the pursuit of perfection.  Gotta keep moving.  I've actually never stopped training since I was twelve years old and started in my parents' basement (nearly forty years of non-stop training).

Oh . . . and a thousand extra points to anyone who can name the Lebanese bodybuilder, and one-time Mr. Olympia, on the cover of Weider's book.  I'd know that back anywhere.  (Hint: it ain't Arnold.)