It's all about discipline for Sault bodybuilder
Date: 12-07-2011
Posted by: Anabolic Info TeamCanada |
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Underneath a bodybuilder's bronzed and gleaming skin there burns a certain desire. An all-consuming need to have the biggest muscles, the most defined form, to be the leanest guy on the stage.?That's all fine, but to Chris Muncaster it's the discipline you need to get there that is the sport's biggest reward.
"It's the feeling that you've accomplished something," said Muncaster.
It has been about five years since Muncaster, 29, took to bodybuilding, pretty much on a whim.
"It was one of those things: get healthy, get lean, look good on the beach," he said. "I ended up falling in love with the sport."
At the time, Muncaster was running a juice bar and working as a personal trainer. He now owns his own company, Xclusive Private Personal Training.
He said bodybuilding has been a good way to hold himself "accountable."
"I'm not just saying it, I'm kinda doing it too," said Muncaster.
Since getting into bodybuilding, Muncaster has racked up a string of trophies, including placing first in the heavyweight division of the Northern Cup Challenge in the Sault in 2008. The next year, he was third in Northern Ontario championships in Sudbury, and the next year he moved up to provincials.
That's when things got serious.
Last month, Muncaster placed sixth at the Ontario Physique Association's provincial championships in the middleweight division (176 to 187 pounds).
It was his best showing yet, but bodybuilding is a funny thing, said Muncaster. No matter how well you have prepared, much depends on who your competition is.
"If I'd have come in looking like this last year, I'd have been at nationals," said Muncaster.
That's the former college athlete's goal. Either this fall or next spring he'll return to provincial competition with the hope of moving on, and getting sponsored.
"Pretty much, I want to do what I did this year again," said Muncaster. "It's one of those things you have to repeat again and again."
Muncaster is taking a more serious stab at bodybuilding now that he competes at the provincial level. In the last five years he has changed his body dramatically.
"When I played basketball, I was 150 pounds. (Now,) in my off-season, I'm 230 pounds," he said.
It takes between 12 to 16 weeks for Muncaster to prepare for a show. That's roughly the time he calculates he needs to work off what body fat he allows himself to pack on over the winter.
This year he took extra time off to work out and really drilled down on his diet.
With workouts three times a day and a diet that must be followed fastidiously, bodybuilding is a sport to which you have to dedicate yourself, "from the time you wake up, to the time you go to bed," said Muncaster.
He said for him it's not about stroking his ego by getting up on stage. Rather, it's the discipline that gets him there that is the payoff.
"Even though people think it's an individual sport, you need a good team of people to support you," he said, in his case, friends and family.
