Sometimes winning a show becomes a competitors only focus
and that can have more negative results than positive...
if that is your ONLY focus.
Now I'll go way back to when I had competed and tell you a story.
I joined a Gold's Gym when I was 18 and went every weekday at around 7pm.
One night I was there working out and Paul Roma the wrestler asked me what I wanted to do and I said "one day when I'm ready I'd like to compete".
He looked right at me and said "you could compete now".
In my head I was thinking that I'd get slaughtered in a show.
Finally at 20 years old I was working at a World Gym and committed to doing my first show.
I dieted so hard and strict and I started at 210lbs and ended up under 190. I was very thin and my goal was just to be the most ripped since I thought I wasn't going to be the biggest.
Now I had started my diet 16 weeks out and 8 or 6 weeks out my younger brother decides he will do the show too. I'm in the Open Tall division (A.A.U. days it was height classes) and I'm up against 8 older experienced men.
My brother is in the Teenage Division and I think it was 2 height classes and he beat one guy and gets a trophy and then beats the other class guy for the overall and wins a second trophy that is six feet tall. So he has two trophies and is overall winner.
I ended up with a 2nd place trophy out of 8 guys.
Look at me - - - I was thinking about entering a show for freakin' 2 years and dieted for 16 weeks and while my brother only jumped in 8 weeks out.
The next year I enter an NPC show East Coast Iron Classic and I get 3rd place.
Then I do the A.A.U. Mr CT and get a 3rd in the Junior Division (under 22) and 3rd in the Open Division. (Three 3rd place trophies how am I doing'...)
So I was never a "winner" in a show and I never got a Pro Card my first time out...
but what I did get was a phone call and asked to take over the shows from the promoter who was running them all those years before.
I had sold so many tickets that the promoter took notice and at 22 years old started running shows in Connecticut.
One of the first things I did was improve the production level of shows and I also added picture frames to these giant wood trophies we used to hand out. I wanted to add the picture frame because regardless of placing it's how you end up looking that matters.
To me it wasn't about just the focused on the win anymore.
I improved my physique every show and my placings were lower each time because I was in bigger shows against more people each time. The final show I entered my a Worlds show in CA and ended up 5th place out of 22 guys. Thing is the following year is when my show became Fitness Atlantic and really blew up because I learned going to so many events.
There is always good stuff that comes out of doing a show for me it turned more into a business than a sport. That's just how it happened and wasn't planned.
I meet so many people that do one show and are done just like my brother. This year will be 26 years for me since my first show.
When people ask me "How can I win?" I've trained a lot of winners but at the end of the day it all depends on who shows up. It depends if there is one person or 22 people in your class.
Afterwards, what you do next?
You going to stop or retire?
Years ago a competitor stuck around longer than today. Today most people stay in fitness for two years and are done.
I like seeing people with a roomful of trophies with all different placings and think it is amazing when people become true coaches and trainers. People in the game for years. Even the YouTube guys crushing it - I think most of them are great.
So when people come to me with asking ways to win I just think that was once how I felt as well.
I'd ask the same question back in the day but now I know there is always something bigger than winning a trophy or a Pro Card.
Nobody knows if they will win.
First: Show up in shape,
Second: pick an awesome show with a crowd,
Third: take photos with the best photographers,
Fourth: regardless where you place positive things will come out of it.
As we say...
"Your Physique is Your Trophy"
I hope this email doesn't sound like a rant. I'm very okay with people wanting to win shows they enter and feel they should train that way. I just want to point out to you that you never know the outcome and it is always bigger than a plastic trophy because you walk around with it every day.
Brian
(Photo: Oct 1998)
