I considered the options. Golem—not bad. Grendel had a certain ring, too.
“Rocky Mountain Way,” Vinnie declared, before I could open my mouth. “He’s an award-winning powerlifter,” he added, “make sure you got that down, right?”
I left Vinnie, my publicist, with Spanky, and trekked off to the pump-up room. On the way, I spotted number 10, my morning rival. He returned my steely gaze with one of his own. His smaller brother, a wispy middleweight in the show, appraised my physique once, then whispered in his ear. Last-minute tips, I suspected.
As the lighter weights left for the stage, I was lost in my own world. If time ticked at all, it ticked outside me. Nothing mattered except getting my pump, feeling the blood course through my veins, growing ever larger before the bathroom mirror. Number 8, the chubster, came up to both number 10 and myself and told us that one of us would win that night. Good luck to you both, he said.
I was pumping up my arms, watching my biceps expand from my arm curls, when I noticed number 10 approaching. He came right up to me, and flexed in the same mirror. What insufferable hubris! I followed him to his towel and towered over him from behind. Then, rather than face him directly, I stood in front of his mirror, all but obliterating his image, and contorted my body into a vicious most-muscular. Point. Counterpoint. If it was war, then war it would be. If it came to blows, I would kill him. I would hang him by the chain dangling from the cistern above the commode.
Before a blow could fall, Spanky came rushing in for our weight class. The night show, nearly completed for the others, had just begun for us. The three of us followed Spanky and his clipboard to the edge of the stage. The rabid crowd, in anticipation of a bloody muscle-fest, had to be stilled by the unflappable voice of Mr. Pearl.
As we walked on stage, shouts of “Oh yes!” and “Sweet!” and “Beef!” filled the air. The three of us “stood relaxed” and beamed for a full two minutes. Then, at the MCs direction, we cleared the stage for number 8 and his posing music. While he performed his counterclockwise turn to “Love TKO” by Teddy Pendergrass, number 10 and I were both hard at work backstage, trying to keep our pumps. He did last minute pull-ups to achieve a V-look to his latissimus dorsi, I did push-up after push-up for my chest. Judging by the silence of the audience, number 8 hadn’t impressed. As they say in the gym, “You can’t flex flab.”
I was next. After all these years, my spot in the sun. I took a few deep breaths just off stage and adjusted my number. Bill Pearl introduced me.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he cried, “hailing from New York City and South Pasadena! A champion powerlifter, a personal trainer at Shangri-La Fitness Training Center. By day, Sam Fussell, by night, ‘Rocky Mountain Way’!”
I held my head high once more and resorted to the Arnold Mental Visualization Principle. I actually saw the skulls of my vanquished enemies crushed to dust beneath my feet as I made my muscular way across the stage.
Up on the dais, I drew to one knee, my head tilted down, where I remained, coiled like a sprinter in his starting blocks, for ten motionless seconds. “Giant in Repose.” Not a sound from the theater, save for Vinnie’s “like the fuckin’ orchid!” which he screamed from the wings. So far, all according to plan. I looked once to the side of the stage, signaled the sound man and the music began.
Slowly, I rose and spread the wings of my back into a front-lat spread. “One, two, swivel, three, four, swivel, five,” I counted to myself. I hit my arms extended Arnold pose, smiled, then let it flow into a side chest. One, two, swivel, three, four, swivel, five. After my diet, my chest was legitimately 52 inches. No one could touch me there. I turned my back to the audience for the back double-bicep shot and the back-lat spread, twisted into the one arm extended “breadloaf” pose and “Hair.” Forty-five of my 90 seconds were gone.
“Shaft!” Isaac Hayes sang on the soundtrack, as I made my final counterclockwise quarter turn, crunched my abs, flexed my legs, and pointed at my calves. As suavely as possible, I cradled my head in my arms, and gave them Steichen’s “Garbo.” I concluded with “Shake and Bake,” a maneuver which started first with the quivering of my legs, then my torso, then my arms, finally leaving my whole body shuddering on stage. But when the music suddenly changed beat, so did I, breaking off the convulsions to stand for four seconds perfectly still, before I crunched myself into a final most-muscular, extending my swollen arms toward the audience in the crab. I left the stage with a smile and heard the crowd roar.
I stood in the wings, sucking in air from the effort, and watched as Bill Pearl introduced my rival, number 10. He called himself “The Black Knight.” He had won his weight class at Mr. Midway City the previous year. I was up against a seasoned competitor.
Sure enough, his posing was polished. “Love Theme from St. Elmo’s Fire” was his selection, and it was clear at once that he had spent some time with a professional choreographer. He had me on this round. I knew it as soon as I saw him glide and heard the audience explode. His posing was so mellifluous, so fluid, that it exposed my rotate and stop, rotate and stop style. But despite my stiff and robotic turn, if I had built up enough of a lead in the morning, I might still win.
At the conclusion of his routine, number 8 and I filed back onstage for the final lineup and awaited the verdict of the judges. But first, Mr. Pearl announced, a pose-down between us all. Right, I thought. Remember the sage words of Macon, of Vinnie. Show your strengths, hide your weaknesses.
“THIS IS BODYBUILDING, SAM, USE YOUR MIND!” Vinnie screamed from the darkness.
Barely had the pounding beat of “Tough Enough” started before “The Black Knight” rushed over to my side and aligned his leg next to mine, thinking I would suffer in comparison. A mistake—if he had selected abs, I would not have gone into a direct comparison with him, conceding him the body part. But legs—that was another story. I smiled, shook my quads cockily, then flexed them with all my might right next to his.
Gamely, number 8 tried to squeeze between us and give his front double-biceps, the only pose he could manage without looking fat, but he knew it was hopeless. He retreated a few feet to the side, and spent the time disconsolately posing by himself. I stayed with my strengths, hitting a variety of side chests and arms, drawing attention to my size, and noticed with relief that “The Black Knight” wasn’t hitting any ab shots.
But when he suddenly turned around and began to open up his back, the crowd went with him. To compare my back with his would be pure folly, so I hit “Garbo” again, and then a few crunching crab shots, relying on my greater muscularity to pull me through.
Bill Pearl ordered the music to fade, and, like soldiers at parade rest, we resumed our “standing relaxed” positions in center stage. “The final results are in, ladies and gentlemen, and in third place, number 8!” No surprise there. He stared at the ground beneath his feet as he collected his trophy.
“The Black Knight” and I held hands now, both of us looking heavenward for support.
“And, in second place,” Bill Pearl thundered, “The Black Knight!” I heard a scattering of boos. “The Black Knight” accepted his trophy with a wry smile.
I picked up the first place trophy for my weight class, and waved to my crowd. The other competitors filed off, leaving me alone on stage to go through some of my best poses. Giddy from euphoria, I was also gasping, having posed furiously in one round or another for the last 10 minutes. But I would have no rest. At Mr. Pearl’s command, the three other weight-class winners (light, medium, and light-heavy) bounded on stage to join me in the final pose-down for the overall, six-foot-high trophy.
At a glance, I took them all in. The light-heavyweight had few muscles, the lightweight none at all. If anyone could challenge me, it was the middleweight, who called himself “Giant Killer,” the brother and coconspirator of “The Black Knight.” He had a symmetrical frame and good cuts, but I’d seen bigger racing jockeys. The pose-down would be
a formality, I was convinced.
As soon as I heard the music, I took charge. I stepped out of the lineup, and placed myself directly in front of “Giant Killer.” I flared my lats, and completely blocked him from the audience’s view. I wanted him to feel in total eclipse. It was a success. I wiped him out with my size. As he emerged from my shadow, and flexed his leg next to mine, I still had him. Then he hit a series of ab shots, to which I countered with my arms extended pose. I could feel him gaining on the audience. A group began to shout his name. I returned to my bread-and-butter, my most-musculars, but it was too late. The audience had chosen its winner.
I came in second place in the overall contest, losing, like Arnold in the 1968 Universe, to a man 70 pounds lighter than myself. I was Mr. San Gabriel Valley, heavyweight class winner, 1988. But I was not Mr. San Gabriel Valley of 1988. That proud title belonged to “Giant Killer.”
13. THE DIET
WE ACHIEVE OUR DIMENSIONS FOR VERY SPECIFIC REASONS WE OURSELVES ORDAIN.
—JIM HARRISON
The verdict was in. I was big, all right, but smooth. As smooth as a plate of glass. Back in the locker room of Shangri-La the next morning, I faced the mirror and realized the truth: I was fat. Not U.S. taxpayer fat, around 25 percent, like so many of my clients, but bodybuilding fat. Around 8 percent. It had cost me the overall title at the San Gabriel Valley.
I wasn’t really defined, I wasn’t really cut, I wasn’t really shredded. My abdominal section fairly shouted it. While some bodybuilders have plates of abs between which you could, if so disposed, stick your finger up to the first knuckle, my stomach looked bloated. There were minor ridges, but they were barely visible, and in the comparison round, next to someone like “The Black Knight,” who had the real item, my abs looked like they belonged to Friar Tuck.
If I wanted to satisfy the judges at next week’s NPC-sponsored Golden Valley, I would have to achieve an entirely different look, for, of the two contests, the Golden Valley was by far the sterner test. The NPC, or National Physique Committee, is the amateur branch of Joe and Ben Weider’s IFBB, the major professional league of bodybuilding. NPC bodybuilders are the best amateurs in the world, bar none.
Six days to go, and I needed to lose at least 10 pounds of fat. It would take that much in order to make my waist appear smaller and highlight my abs. My vascularity was not a problem, nor was my thickness, but my muscle separation was.
Moving my eyes down from my abs to my thighs, I realized that I needed to lose some fat there as well. The split that descends down the middle head of the quad was not quite discernible. The sartorius was not visible at all. I was further behind in my preparations than I thought. Vinnie and Nimrod agreed to meet me posthaste for a power conference.
The three of us convened at a table by the front counter of Shangri-La. My friends assured me that all was going according to plan. Sure, I had come in a little overweight for yesterday’s show, but I couldn’t peak forever, didn’t I know? I would peak this coming Saturday, they would see to it. Make no mistake about it, though, the next few days would not be coasting time. It would be “hellweek,” as Nimrod put it.
There was nothing to fear. I would be doing what all bodybuilders do in the week prior to a contest—depleting my system. Nimrod handed me my final meal plan. For the next five days, a thousand calories per day would be a luxury. I had to shut my carb intake down dramatically if I was to appear “shrink-wrapped” and shredded on stage Sunday.
This new diet cut in half the calories I’d taken when preparing for the San Gabriel Valley. My protein intake remained the same, but my carbohydrates were reduced by 90 percent. That eliminated oatmeal for breakfast—not to mention sweet potatoes, pasta, bread, and fruit for lunch and dinner.
“It’s a cinch, Sam,” Vinnie said. “Remember, this is buildin’ we’re talkin’ about here. The man who wins the contest is the man who is prepared to sacrifice the most.” Vinnie leaned back in his chair and smiled. “Just think of Renel,” he added.
If this was meant to inspire me, it didn’t. Renel Janvier did succeed in winning his light-heavyweight class at the 1988 NPC USA Championships, but the price was severe. In prejudging, thanks to the rigors of his diet, he fainted. Carted off in an ambulance and hooked to an IV through the course of the day at a local hospital, he returned, still sliced and diced, to win his class that night.
But Renel wasn’t the only builder skirting that dangerous edge. Death has come to more than one bodybuilder seeking the ultimate “shrink-wrap” diet, and, in 1988, it nearly claimed IFBB pro Albert Beckles. On the European Grand Prix circuit, Beckles ended up convulsing on the floor of a bodybuilding banquet in Munich, Germany. The sauna, the diuretics, the denial of sufficient food and even water—all took their toll. But if I could just make it through the starvation phase, by the end of the week my skin would look like wet gauze wrapped around breathing fiber, raw tissue, and straining muscle.
The same arguments I’d heard before, I heard again. Of course, I would get smaller during the next few days, but if need be, I could always “carb-up” before the show. I wanted to win, didn’t I? And even as I was shrinking, I would actually appear to be growing. If things worked according to plan, by Saturday my bigger parts would look even bigger so long as the fat vanished around my waist and my joints. Besides, I’d done it my way before, and I’d lost. This time I vowed to listen.
At least I would only have to worry about working out for the next three days. Lifting weights for the final four days before the contest would be counterproductive. I already had the size. I just needed the cuts, and the only way to get them was by dieting and posing.
So I started my final diet. On Sunday and Monday I ate the new diet, labored strenuously through my workouts, and slept like a baby. But by Tuesday, without adequate fuel, I began to lag. My two egg whites for breakfast were hardly enough. I worked out in the morning listlessly. I was far too hungry to give my exercises their needed concentration, and every time I began to fall into my usual lifting frenzy, I had to stop suddenly to keep from fainting. I was so weak that even when I halved the amount of weight I normally pushed, I barely got through the workout. And this time, it wasn’t the saber or my cannonball deltoids I visualized, it was food.
At the conclusion of the session, I could stand it no longer. I gave in to temptation and headed straight for Vern’s Bakery, around the corner from Shangri-La. “The Walk” I did was too weak to be its normal invidious self. It was now more of a stagger. The bakery was closed, but that didn’t stop me. Looking around to make sure I was unobserved, I inched my way toward the entrance. I bent forward, pressing my nose against the door, and inhaled the aroma from within. My eyes and mouth watering, I remained locked in position, my nose jammed there for minutes, until I saw Vern himself, keys in hand, laboring down the block under a great load of glazed donuts.
By Wednesday, the decrease of carbohydrates left me with so little energy that I stopped training altogether. No longer was the gym the focus of my life. Now it was the sofa. After I rose each morning, I lingered over my abbreviated breakfast, then weaved my way to the sofa, where I spent the remainder of the day, hallucinating and sleeping. Vinnie and Nimrod and Bamm Bamm tried to make me practice my posing, but I was far too weak. Even standing was excruciatingly painful. The soles of my feet, without their padding of fat, couldn’t take my body weight.
Once a day, I rested immobile on a stool as Nimrod coated my body with yet another layer of “Pro-Tan” and gave me encouraging words of support.
“You’ve learned the way, man,” he said, on what must have been Wednesday, coating my spinal erectors. My dry mouth opened, I felt the first trickle of tears.
Nimrod put an arm around my shoulder. “Really, man, we’re all proud of you.”
My mental state was as fragile as my physical condition. I couldn’t bear to hear another word. I cried like a baby, clutching Nimrod to my breast, rockin
g back and forth to assuage the unrelieved pain on the soles of my feet.
Gradually, everything began to break down. I can’t say exactly when this started to happen. But it definitely did happen, and it got worse as the week progressed. Wearing countless coatings of my competition color, three layers of clothes, and my arctic parka, I lay exhaustedly on the sofa I had once shared with G-spot. I was freezing all the time. My diet had seen to that. I no longer had enough body fat to protect me from the outside world. It was 70 degrees Fahrenheit outside; to me it felt like 40.
The entries from my journal of that week testify to the severity of my condition. As the days progressed, my handwriting transformed itself from neat, orderly precision to a wild, incomprehensible scrawl.
My sole solace was my inability to think about who and what I was. That kind of speculation required energy and a consistent train of thought, which were far beyond me. I barely remember Lamar and Macon visiting me for their pep talk. Gathering that I was “out of sorts,” as Macon put it, they both dropped in to raise my spirits and reaffirm the nobility of my cause.
Macon, adjusting the hood of my parka, said, “I know the contest countdown is tough, but I can’t begin to tell you what bodybuilding has done for us, Sam.”
I looked at them. Pre-iron, I might have laughed. Now, I was closer to tears.
Macon listed the virtues on the fingers of one hand. “We’ve got self-respect, pride, the Three D’s—”
“And improved elimination, Dad!” Lamar shouted, feeding Cuddles a Chewable.
“No, Lamar, don’t!” Macon whispered.
Lamar looked up, uncomprehending.
“Don’t feed Cuddles in front of Sam.”
In fact my elimination hadn’t improved. I hadn’t needed to use the toilet in five days. Thanks to my starvation diet, my body was feeding upon itself—which was precisely the plan, so long as it fed upon my fat.
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