'My fountain of youth': sculpting flesh, muscle
Date: 10-05-2007
Posted by: Anabolic Info TeamCanada |
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It starts with a "pfff" - the sound of Ron Mayhew's deep exhale as he flexes his muscles, holds the pose with determination for a few seconds, then releases it.
"What you do is blow the air out so the muscle becomes hard and you can show the striations," the bodybuilder said. A couple beads of sweat forming on his brow. "It's almost a workout in itself."
Without exhaling, he flexes his stomach muscles again, revealing more than a six pack. "Pfff." He flexes again - this time it's muscle on muscle.
Mayhew is one of 60 bodybuilders and fitness competitors expected to flex and pose at the Rebecca Cohn Auditorium this Saturday as part of the Nova Scotia Amateur Bodybuilding Association's provincial championship.
"A guy in good shape at the gym would probably have to lose between 15 and 20 pounds to actually step on stage," said Mayhew. "My body fat, when I am in a show, is four or five per cent. The average guy is around 20 per cent."
Standing in a Sackville Sports Stadium workout room, the 50-year-old - yeah, five-zero - does a run through his posing routine.
There is a mural of ballet dancers behind him, offering a strange contrast. Their delicate, pointed-toed grace flank his five-foot-nine he-man hulk. His tanned, golden-oak skin is clad only in the briefest of black trunks.
"It is really important that you have a flow between the movements and the hand positions," he said.
His daughter has been in ballet for 11 years, and he learned how to move watching her. "It's like a dance."
With less than a week to go before the show, Mayhew says he is already at his competition weight of 185 pounds. Two months ago, he was at 205, but a strict high-protein and low-fat diet has trimmed him down.
"Your memory kind of goes a little, and you are kind of drawn," Mayhew says about the effects of carbohydrate cutting. He owns Sportwheels in Sackville and admits doing work is a little harder.
Then, why put yourself through it?
"This is my fountain of youth," he said about bodybuilding. "When I turned 40, it was kind of like the change of life. I was on the couch thinking, 'What am I going to do here? Am I going to buy the Harley?'
"I decided to do something healthy."
Nursing a bad back from playing hockey, he started going to the gym to strengthen his muscles. Working out, he met some other guys who took care of their bodies, and started learning about the sport.
"Once I got my back in shape and my hockey started getting better, I said, 'This is great,'" Mayhew recounts. He entered his first competition in 1998, placing third. More than 40 shows later, he's competing on a world level.
"When I first got into this, I was really excited," said Mayhew, who lifts heavy weights four days a week and does cardio daily.
"It was a really challenging sport in the sense that not everyone could do it. I've met guys who drop out a month before the show. But, if you are strong-willed, and put your mind to it, you can do it."
Scott MacDonald knows he can do it. He started weightlifting as a teenager, but just started getting into bodybuilding about a year ago.
"I wanted to prove something to myself," the 31-year-old said.
He is getting ready for this week's competition - his first - by learning a few of the ropes from Terry Keys, the owner of Fitness City in Bayers Lake. Keys is teaching MacDonald about the body, and how to pose.
"Oh God, it is very hard to pose," MacDonald said. "People look at it and think it is easy, but it is really hard. I didn't think it was really hard."
With more than 60 shows under his belt, Keys started bodybuilding in his 30s and has been at it for the last 10 years.
"You have to think from your feet, up," Keys said about posing. There are 10 mandatory poses, and after that, you need to do side-by-side comparisons with other competitors.
"You can be up there for half-an-hour doing poses," he said. "Everyone knows how to train, but it is more than that. It is learning how the body works, how to diet, and how to pose and get your skin ready."
Mayhew is at that stage. Yesterday, he started carbing up, eating sweet potatoes and brown rice, to fill up his muscles. He will add fat to his diet today and tomorrow - which will take a couple days to build under his skin.
He has to be careful about when he does this, because tomorrow night is the all-important weigh-in. He wants to be in the middleweight class - between 176 and 187 pounds. His goal is 185 or 186 pounds, so he can be at the top of his weight division.
Mayhew also has to start getting his skin ready. Tanning cream will be applied to turn his golden-oak hue into a dark mahogany. Under the Rebecca Cohn lights, this will help accentuate every muscle.
At this point, where you place in the competition is completely up to the judges.
"You are a winner even before you get on stage because you are in some of the best shape of your life," Mayhew said.
