Tom Prince

[diesel158]

He said it was caused by taking large amounts of Advil for years at a time.He said he was also taking Celebrex(for joint pain) and that also contributed to it.

 

[massnup]

Hmmm, Is everyone positive that its even him? I haven't seen the flex and read the article with it saying that its him or not.

 

[HUTCH]

He said it was caused by taking large amounts of Advil for years at a time.He said he was also taking Celebrex(for joint pain) and that also contributed to it.

remember reading and article in a mag when he first got sick...he said he use to go through a bottle of advil a day!!!...

 

[AWN2004]

Damn, Its hard to beleive its the same guy Just looking at the two pictures in this thread.
So What exactly is wrong with him? His Kidneys?
I seen MG mentioned Kidney failure.... I Guess they Just quite working on Him?
Thats terrible man...I didnt realize I guess How sick he was or How Bad that could be. Was there Not some warning signs? Or by the time he knew they were Just to far gone? Thats a bad deal

I read some interesting stuff about the warning signs he was ignoring. He talked about it after the fact. He said in early 2001 he started noticing signs of kidney problems but ignored them. He says he would get weird pockets of water collecting in places and just thought he needed to dry out more to get rid of them. He mentioned he didnt get bloodwork done on a regular basis either which he wishes he would have.

 

[Massive G]

Damn, Its hard to beleive its the same guy Just looking at the two pictures in this thread.
So What exactly is wrong with him? His Kidneys?
I seen MG mentioned Kidney failure.... I Guess they Just quite working on Him?
Thats terrible man...I didnt realize I guess How sick he was or How Bad that could be. Was there Not some warning signs? Or by the time he knew they were Just to far gone? Thats a bad deal

Raj, he had a lot of other things going on too, he actually was also in congestive heart failure as well guy was really close to death. This isn't a slam on Tom, but should be a lesson to some what can happen if you go to extremes with the drug use and huge bulked up bodyweights.
Here are the original Flex articles on it, lots of truth in it. I am not sure of his exact condition today but he is on dialysis and needs a transplant.

"This is an interview Tom did with Flex magazine in January 2004. Even after all he went through, at that stage Tom was still toying with the idea of doing one more show.


To hell and back...now what? In 2003, Tom Prince's life nearly ended. This is his story.

Flex, Jan, 2004 by Greg Merritt

SYMPTOMS

Something wasn't right. Tom Prince always suffered more than most guys when prepping for a show - sacrificing sleep, energy and his voice in some cosmic exchange for striations. Sometimes in the depths of a diet, he caught a cold or flu bug, as others do when their defenses are down. But this was different. The symptoms were odd - itchy skin, dry tongue, swollen ankles, labored breathing - and they lingered throughout the end of March and into April.

He tried to ignore the warning signs, confident he'd wake up one day and they'd be gone. In the midst of dieting and training for the 2003 Night Of Champions on May 31, Prince was determined that nothing would slow him down. Antibiotics quelled the problems for a few days, but soon the symptoms were back and worse than ever.

Prince was perpetually fatigued more than two months away from the NOC much more so than he should have been in even the final low-carb days. Training partner Bob Cicherillo had to drop him off at the front door of Gold's Gym Venice, because Prince lacked the energy to walk from the parking lot. He could always find the strength to push a weight for the 10 seconds of a set, and he remained nearly as strong as ever, but between sets it was all he could do to stay awake. One day, he couldn't do even one minute of cardio.

The gym ethos is to block out pain, to revel in it even, to push on through and grow stronger for having anguished. For better or worse, no bodybuilder embraced that ethos more than Tom Prince. One of the world's strongest trainers, capable of three reps of shoulder presses with 455 pounds and seven reps of 900-pound hack squats, he had suffered greatly for his physique. Possessing a rebuilt shoulder and knee and chronically sore joints, he downed painkillers by the fistful to make it through another workout. Still, his low-rep attack rarely wavered. It was that never-give-up mentality that kept him from the doctor too long. It was that, and it was the fear of what the doctor might say.


DIAGNOSIS

The nosebleeds were the worst. They sometimes wouldn't stop for hours, and his blood was as thick as syrup. On April 10, a little more than seven weeks before the Night Of Champions, Tom's wife, Rebecca, dragged him to a local hospital. After a doctor did a checkup and took his blood, Tom and Rebecca waited. Prince was anxious to get this behind him, confident he would reach the shape of his life and win the NOC.

When the doctor returned, she pulled Rebecca aside and said in a hushed voice, "I want you to be calm. There's nothing to be too scared or worried about, but you need to take Tom to the emergency room right now."

Prince overheard and asked, "You mean right now, right now? Or are you talking, like, tomorrow?"

The doctor answered firmly, "No, right now." She showed Prince his lab report, circling a number. "See that right there? That's your creatinine level. See that 6.9?"

Prince already knew what a normal creatinine level was. He knew it wasn't supposed to be any higher than 2.0 for a man of his musculature.

"What's failing?" he asked.

"5.9."

"So am I having kidney failure?"

"Yes."

Prince went numb. He sighed. He looked at his wife. Tears streamed down Rebecca's face. Prince held her hand and told her everything would be OK, but it was just something people say at times like that. The truth was he wasn't certain of anything anymore.

Tom and Rebecca drove to a nearby restaurant and ordered ice cream. Prince had been dieting, after all, and he knew then that the diet was done. What he didn't know was just how close he was to dying. If he had, he never would have stopped on his way to the ER. Meanwhile, Rebecca had already gone from devastated to dauntless. "You can only surprise her for a minute," Prince says. "She's tough as hell in tough times."


CRITICAL CONDITION

The waiting room of the hospital emergency ward was full of the sick and injured, staring morosely at the floor. When Prince showed the staff his lab report, he jumped to the front of the line and was whisked into the trauma area. After his chest was x-rayed, Prince was guided to a bed and a spray was squirted in his mouth. He asked what the x-ray showed.

"You're in heart failure, too," the doctor answered.

That was the lowest moment, the one where Prince truly wondered if he was facing his final hours. Heart failure! He didn't know then that heart failure could be a consequence of persisting acute kidney damage. Water starts to build up in the feet and ankles. The water had increased to such a degree in Prince's body that, at any moment, he could have literally drowned in his own fluids.


TREATMENT

The mouth spray contained nitroglycerin to relieve the heart problems. Immediately, the medical staff put Prince on a diuretic to purge his body of excess water. They also administered medicine to bring down his skyrocketing blood pressure and antibiotics for yet another problem: bleeding ulcers.

A few hours later, the diuretic was doing its job and Prince was feeling much better. By the time Cicherillo visited the hospital the next day, Prince felt nearly normal. Still, he looked close to death. The gregarious man known as "Angry Bob" saw his training partner lying in a bed, hooked up to electrodes and oxygen, with tubes taped to him and going every which way. Cicherillo didn't care if he ever traded sets of leg presses with Prince again. He just wanted to trade barbs with him until they were old and gray.

Prince lay in the hospital bed for days, contemplating his wife, his two children from his previous marriage, his friends, his bodybuilding career and his uncertain future. He asked how he could have done this to himself. Rebecca sneaked in fruit and Nutri-Grain bars to supplement his "kidney diet" of hot tea and lettuce. "If I was dying. I didn't want it to be of starvation." Prince jokes.

He went on kidney dialysis for five days in a row. After the third day, his creatinine level was down to 3.9 - still dangerously high, but it meant his kidneys were functioning at about 50%, compared to the 15% they were at previously. The doctors said it was rare for a patient to recover so dramatically, so quickly, but then it was also rare for a 34-year-old man to have kidney and heart failure. One week after he was admitted to the hospital, he was released, facing an uncertain future of thrice-weekly dialysis treatments.


CAUSES

When Prince heard the horrifying news of his kidney failure, he immediately thought it was from the bodybuilding drugs he had been ingesting and injecting for years. A doctor in the emergency ward asked if he was taking any recreational drugs.

"Well, I don't smoke or drink, but there are a few steroids and things I take," Prince answered.

"Tell me every steroid you've ever taken," the doctor said, her pen poised over a form.

"Ever? You're gonna need another pen."

When Prince recalled his every bodybuilding drug, the length of the list shocked even him. Despite his quip about pen ink, he hadn't truly realized how great the quantities had become. Still, it wasn't the anabolic steroids, growth hormone and similar substances that alarmed the doctors. Those, they said, were predominantly filtered out via his liver and shouldn't be affecting his kidneys so drastically. It was the eight Advil tablets he swallowed two or three times per day to cope with his joint pain that truly made alarm bells ring. Doctors explained that he could go into kidney failure simply from megadosing painkillers. (Advil recommends using no more than six tablets over 24 hours, to see a doctor if using other drugs and to discontinue use of the analgesic after 10 days.)

Prince was stunned. How could he, a 300-pound bodybuilder who regularly self-injected steroids, be felled by over-the-counter ibuprofen? In addition to the excessive amounts of painkillers, the doctors blamed his kidney troubles on his off-the-chart blood pressure, and they theorized that his high-protein diet might also have contributed - although, if his kidneys were otherwise normal, protein would rarely cause complications on its own. Prince believes the steroids and similar drugs contributed to his high blood pressure. "It wasn't one thing. It was everything together," he says.


PREVENTION

Prince realizes now that his kidneys may have started to falter nearly two years prior when, while prepping for the 2001 Mr. Olympia, he had the peculiar problem of water "pocketing" in odd areas of his body. Kidneys work to filter waste products from blood and maintain the body's water and electrolyte balance. Unusual water retention can be an early sign of problems.

Prince's biggest regret now is that he didn't have a blood test performed sooner. "If I had to do it over, I would've gone to a doctor a couple of times per year," he states. "They could have caught it much, much earlier. I can think back to when I used to have headaches a couple times per week, and that was as early as '99. I think that's when I first started having high blood pressure and didn't do anything about it. My first blood test on April 10 cost only $80, and it took an hour to do. That seems like a paltry sum of money and time for your health. One of the biggest messages I want to get across to all bodybuilders doing drugs is to get regular blood tests. I'm afraid most guys won't do it, because, like I didn't want to know, they don't want to know. But maybe my story will scare them enough. Maybe my story will save someone's life."

For those who fear medical professionals will condemn them or fail to comprehend the unique aspects of a bodybuilding lifestyle, Prince says that all the doctors and nurses always treated him with the utmost respect and concern. In addition to the need for semiannual blood tests, he also wants to caution bodybuilders against abusing any drug, from over-the-counter painkillers to steroids. He knows all too well the fallacy of the bodybuilding mentality that if two is good, four must be twice as good.

Prince was 23 when he did his first steroid cycle. His dosages were low at first, but through the years, he gradually raised the quantities when he felt his body had become accustomed to the previous amount. By 2002, he was spending more than $4,000 on a range of 13 drugs (not all anabolic steroids) for a 16-week contest cycle. He now knows it was overkill, and it almost killed him. What's worse, he knows of bodybuilders at the local novice level who are using and spending twice as much.

"It's crazy," he says. "There's no advantage. It's fear that kept me doing it, and fear that keeps a lot of guys doing even more - fear that you'll lose and you could've done more. The thing is you can fill up a cup only so much. Once it's full, that's it. It's like eating 3,000 grams of protein a day or training legs 10 hours straight. It doesn't do any more good, so it can only be bad."

Prince hasn't been reborn as a disciple of "Just Say No," but he does point out that bodybuilding drugs are vastly overrated. When he did his first steroid cycle at age 23, Prince already weighed a muscular 242 pounds (at 5'8"), thus highlighting that the three most important factors for muscle growth are genetics, hard work and a proper diet, generally in that order. As Cicherillo puts it: "All the drugs in the world won't make a pit bull out of a Chihuahua."


RECOVERY

Throughout the spring and summer of 2003, Prince continued dialysis three days per week; he should be off dialysis by the time you read this. His kidneys are working at approximately 80%, good enough to function on their own but probably not good enough to make it through a normal lifespan. In all likelihood, Prince will need a kidney transplant. During a highly emotional phone conversation, Tom's younger brother, Scott (his only sibling), offered to be his donor.

One week after he returned home from the hospital, Prince was back in the gym training with Cicherillo. Sitting at home made him feel like a sick slug. Slowly, his energy returned. The doctors upped his daily protein intake from 100 grams per day to 250. His weight went back up to more than 300. In August, drug-free for four months and having purposely shed a few pounds, he weighed 285 with as much muscle as ever.

The hardest part is training without painkillers. His elbow and shoulder joints ache, but he still labors through the workouts. All the while, Cicherillo encourages him to use lighter weights and higher reps. "The biggest challenge for Tom won't be physical," Cicherillo says. "It's mental. Now it's a whole different agenda. The mentality has to change from being the biggest, strongest, toughest guy in the gym and throwing around ridiculous amounts of weight. It's a whole different career now. And, in my opinion, accepting that is going to be the biggest obstacle - being able to say, 'You know what? That was a chapter that's now gone. I'm not going to be able to do 700-pound squats and 90-pound dumbbell curls anymore.'

Lying in the hospital bed, Prince first thought he would never compete again. Then he briefly flirted with the idea of competing natural, perhaps I even giving up his pro card and entering the 2004 NPC Team Universe Championships. By July - with his blood pressure under control, his kidneys out of the danger zone and his blood getting tested regularly - he had settled on a new strategy: competing again but with only a minimum amount of bodybuilding drugs (less than one-third of what he used before for a precontest cycle). If his health is still strong, he will begin preparations for the 2004 Night Of Champions in late January.

"I look at it as a challenge to see how good I can get on a reduced contest cycle," he says. Prince aims to prove to everyone that the drug intake is out of control and unnecessary, if not counterproductive. He'll also be extremely careful. "As my blood data comes in every two weeks, if there's any sign that something's going wrong, I'll stop my preparation instantly. I'm trying to be optimistic, but not so much that I'll just ignore whatever comes my way or whatever I see."

Prince plans to compete at a lighter bodyweight than in his previous pro shows, where he was around 260. He'll probably be less than 250, maybe even less than 240. "I saw Victor [Martinez] win the NOC at around 235," he says, "and he's an inch taller than me. That kind of gives me hope. I can't be as ridiculously big as possible anymore." Perhaps that's a good thing, as some say Prince displayed his best shape as a sub-240-pound amateur.

One of the invaluable lessons Prince's ordeal taught him was to cherish each moment. That includes every workout, every meal, every joke with Cicherillo. It also includes the challenge of preparing for a contest again - the same show he was striving for one year before when his life was altered forever. "If my next show is my last one, I'd like it to be the NOC," he says. "And wouldn't it be a great ending if I won it and then retired?"

At the end of the interview for this article, Prince is nearly doubled over, laughing the loudest at one of Peter McGough's typical (and potentially libelous) bodybuilding tales from way back. The best ending to Prince's story won't come at the Night Of Champions. It has nothing to do with sets or reps or bodybuilding awards. The best ending will be Tom Prince laughing that same hearty guffaw 50 years from now.

KIDNEY DAMAGE WARNING SIGNS
* Fatigue, weakness
* Nausea/vomiting
* Lack of appetite
* Difficulty concentrating
* Insomnia
* Dry and itchy skin
* Swollen feet, hands or ankles; leg cramps
* Foamy and/or darkened urine
* High blood pressure

If you experience several of these symptoms, consult your doctor immediately.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Weider Publications"

 

[Massive G]

"When the posing stops: Tom Prince's kidneys failed him—his heart didn't.


Flex, May, 2004 by Greg Merritt

[PART ONE]

I never met Mohammed Benaziza or Andreas Munzer - top IFBB pros in the 1990s, both now dead - and I've yet to meet Michael Francois or Don Long or Dennis Newman, all of whom suffered major health problems that dramatically shortened their careers and nearly their lives. I've only once spoken to Orville Burke, weeks before he lapsed into a coma, and have exchanged few words with Flex Wheeler - the best bodybuilder to never win the Olympia and now, like Long, a kidney transplant survivor.

Tom Prince is different. Prince is someone I speak with in Gold's Gym, Venice, nearly every day, and when we talk, it's rarely about hack squats or carb loading. Prince is the first pro bodybuilder that I considered a true friend. That's why it crushed me when his kidneys failed in April 2003. That's why it made me question much about modern bodybuilding. It's why I was conflicted about the controversial article I wrote on Prince ("To Hell and Back ... Now What?," January 2004) and still more conflicted about writing the article you're reading now. But whether you see the journey detailed here as courageous or reckless, noble or futile, his tale needs to be told, now more than ever.


RENEWAL

Prince's kidneys failed during his preparations for the 2003 Night Of Champions primarily because of the painkillers and bodybuilding drugs he took in large doses for many years. He overcame critical condition quickly, but he couldn't recover entirely. After dialysis treatments from April through September, his kidneys healed as much as they would. They now function on their own at 90%. Barring a transplant or advancements in medical science, 34-year-old Prince is jarringly realistic about his future: "It means in all likelihood my kidneys will give out early. I'm not going to live to be 85 years old. I will probably die younger than normal, 65 or something like that, but 65 is better than 35."

He returned to the gym shortly after returning from the hospital. By August, he had adjusted his workout volume downward. "I started doing that when I noticed there was a difference between being clean [off steroids] and not clean [on steroids]," Prince explains. "I went for a long time and I couldn't tell anything. I was still over 300 pounds and as strong as ever, but walking around at that weight was getting hard on me, like carrying around 50 pounds of bricks. I did cardio for three weeks and went from 305 to 285. My strength eventually went down about 15%."


TORMENT

The worst part was training without the megadoses of ibuprofen that had partially masked his pain for years. "I didn't know that I was going to feel every injury I ever had," Prince remarks. "Both shoulders, my right elbow and both knees were just killing me. Between being clean and not taking any painkillers, I just had to suffer through it. I remember coming home and Beck [his wife, Rebecca] saying, 'You're out of your mind.' I'd ice my shoulders every night, and I'd put a frozen pack on my left knee, just trying to hold it together."

The left shoulder is the worst; Prince will require surgery this year to replace the crumbling socket. "If I roll over on it in the middle of the night, I wake up screaming. My shoulders are so bad that I was literally whimpering doing warm-up pulldowns with 50 pounds. I couldn't get my hands above my head. There were days when Bob [Cicherillo, his training partner] would come in 20 minutes late, and I'd still be warming up."

For the first time since he picked up a barbell at 16, Tom Prince questioned why. "The one thing I thought I'd have till the day I die is my love of training. I love being in the gym so much that I never thought anything could get in the way of that, but when everything hurt like that, that was the first time I questioned why I was going through it."


THE VOYAGE

Prince originally planned to make his comeback at the Night Of Champions, but he later decided on the Ironman Pro Invitational in Pasadena, California, instead. "There are two things I have going at the Ironman," Prince said 12 days before the contest. "One, I'm at home [he lives in Marina del Rey, California], so if, God forbid, anything happens to me, even at the show, I'm here near my doctor. Two, I honestly don't know if I could make it to the Night Of Champions with the way my shoulders are. I don't know if I could train for three more months in this much pain."

Prince began his diet on November 23, four days before Thanksgiving. The early stages weren't much different from other contest preps. "All I've been telling myself the whole time is I want to diet and get in shape and be good enough to take pictures, and if I happen to look good enough to compete, I will," Prince said on February 9. "It makes it easier for me mentally if I don't feel like I'm forcing myself to compete, and I say that in terms of what I'm taking and all that I'm not taking. If I feel I've got to be competitively great, then there's a lot more temptations to take other stuff."

By "stuff," he means anabolic steroids and similar drugs that are common in pro bodybuilding. Prince took only 20% of the amount he did when preparing for the 2001 Night Of Champions, where he placed third, and this time he had monthly blood tests to closely monitor his health. "It's so little, it's almost comical. It's less than what girls take. And the thing is, I don't think I needed to take anything. I kept all my muscle. I definitely could've taken a whole lot less over the years than I did. You get into a thing where every year you bump things up a bit. So if you start out taking a little and you bump it up a little every year, it adds up to a lot."


DUSK

Throughout January, the diet took its toll. In February, when he had reduced his daily carbohydrates to 350 grams and his calories to 2,700, I frequently encountered Prince slumped over an unpopular machine near the entrance of Gold's Gym, waiting for Cicherillo to complete his cardio. "My blood sugar has been crashing while I've been doing cardio every day. Then all my energy just gets sucked out. It absolutely destroys my wife," Prince said of his contest preparation. "She hates it now. I had to really talk her into it, basically almost beg her to let me do it. Halfway through the diet, I had to ask her to please be supportive and help me, because I can't do this one by myself."

As with other diets, he couldn't sleep. When he finally fell into slumber, he woke at 3:30 AM and then he could barely force his eyes shut again, so he sat like a zombie watching television, whittling away the hours until Rebecca woke.


FEBRUARY 19

Two days before the Ironman, I watch Cicherillo and Prince pose in a Gold's Gym mirror. At 270, Prince is massive and his limbs are shredded, even if he still carries a little water in his back. Dramatically reducing water levels is especially dangerous for someone with unhealthy kidneys, as a key kidney function is regulating internal water and electrolyte balance. Unwilling to risk diuretic use, Prince had to dry out the old-school way: restricting water and sodium. This sometimes left him lightheaded.

The night before, he felt so close to fainting that he downed Gatorade and macaroni and cheese to infuse his body with the electrolytes and carbohydrates he needed for consciousness. "It was the third time during this diet that I had to stop everything and do the exact opposite of what I thought I should do. This diet has really been an adventure. It's been so frustrating, not knowing how my body will react day to day."


FEBRUARY 20

The day before the contest, Prince weighs in at 276 pounds (clothed) - his heaviest contest weight ever. Walking back to the hotel after the press conference, his lungs start gurgling. The horrible death rattle signifies flash edema. Fluid is in his lungs, which means his kidneys are not regulating his water. Most of the night, while Rebecca comforts him, he kneels on the floor and leans against the bed to take pressure off his abdominals so he can breathe freely. He just wants to hold on. He doesn't care about placing; he just wants to step onstage one last time.


FEBRUARY 21

Fifteen minutes before prejudging in the crowded pump-up and dressing room at the Pasadena Civic Center auditorium, Prince and Cicherillo oil each other's backs. Prince's breathing grows more labored as he pumps up. He tries desperately to hold on. But he can't stand straight. His lungs are gurgling.

In the final moment, when the competitors are called to the stage, competitor number one can't go. As the others file out, competitor number one sits in a chair and leans forward against a counter in front of the mirrored wall, struggling for breath. Minutes earlier, the room was writhing with flexing quads and pumping pecs. Now, after a mad dash from the press pit, I find only Prince and Wheeler and 21 gym bags. Wheeler is the one person who can truly commiserate with Prince, having attempted to compete himself with unhealthy kidneys one year prior.

After Wheeler leaves and while an IFBB expediter tries to find Rebecca in the auditorium, it is only competitor number one and me. The air is thick with Pro Tan and posing oil. Over the intercom in the hall, NPC President Jim Manion is calling out competitors for the first comparison: "Dexter Jackson...Lee Priest..."

"I didn't do anything different, no diuretics or anything, but the closer I get to the show, the more water I hold." Prince's voice is sometimes breaking. "It's just the stress of everything - the stress on my kidneys. Yesterday, I was praying that some of the water would leave so I'd feel better by the show. I just thought I'd wait for the last minute; I'd give it as long as I had to. Fuck, I even put the oil on. I don't think I looked that bad, all things considered."

When Rebecca arrives, Prince holds her hand. "Go ahead and say it."

"Say what?" she asks.

"Say, 'I told you so.'"

She bravely forces a smile. "No. It's all behind us now." She strokes his head.

"See why I love her?" Prince says to me, choking back tears.

They leave through a side exit, out into the rain. Water, water, everywhere. "Quarter turn to the right," says Manion's voice, now somewhere far away. I watch the doors close behind Tom Prince's broad shoulders and his bodybuilding career.


DAWN

Prince initially thought he would require dialysis treatment, but, back in his hotel room, his breathing calms. The following morning, he feels much improved. For him, the stress of bodybuilding competition is over forever. He will see the doctor soon, but for now the worst has passed.

Prince feels both sad and relieved to retire from competitive bodybuilding. "This whole diet, I learned a lot about myself," he states. "Basically, I learned I can force myself to do anything. But this isn't the bodybuilding I grew up loving and wanting to do. Having to make all these ridiculous allowances for your own health, that's not bodybuilding to me. I don't know what the fuck that is, but that's not bodybuilding. I don't mind the challenge of something being hard. For me, being hard is what makes it fun. Not everyone can be a pro. It's supposed to be this great challenge, but it's not supposed to be like torturing yourself."

Does he regret having tried to compete one final time? "I knew it was going to be nearly impossible for me to do it, but I still had to give it a shot. No matter what happens now, I've got an answer. Think of all the things in your life you can say ‘what if?’ about. Well, I've got a conclusion. I have closure on this. I wanted to do another show, and I just couldn't do it, but at least I know I couldn't do it, rather than spending the rest of my life wondering what if I could have." One can't help but hope Prince doesn't wonder, on some still sadder day: What if I hadn't done it? As if realizing this himself, he adds, "Any good athlete thinks he can overcome his body's limitations. We can't, but we think we can."

Prince has given up competing, but not bodybuilding. He will continue helping competitors, writing articles and, of course, training. He looks forward to being a "smaller version" of himself, pegging a lean 240 pounds as a possible target - still a massive tally for someone 5'8", but significant downsizing for the man known as The Thing. "I want to find a look I can shoot for," he declares. "You have to always be striving toward something or what are you lifting weights for? It's like getting in a car and going OK, I want to drive but I have nowhere to go."


YESTERDAY

Looking back over more than a decade in competitive bodybuilding, Prince has many fond memories, mostly about the people he interacted with. Turning professional by winning the 1997 NPC National Championships (his only overall title) was the proverbial dream come true; he says the 2001 Night Of Champions, where he finished third but probably deserved first, was the one show, amateur or pro, where he came in exactly the way he wanted to.

His favorite moment came at the 1995 Nationals. It was only his third competition, following the 1993 amateur Ironman and the 1994 Florida State Championships (at both shows, he won the heavyweight class but not the overall).

"Everyone thought I was out of my mind," Prince says with a laugh. "You can't do the Nationals for your third show. Nobody knows who the fuck you are. Then they had the first callout, and I made the top five. It was Don Long, Edgar Fletcher, me, Curtis Leffler and Toney Freeman. They put Don, Edgar and me back [in line], and they ran through the rest of the heavyweights.

"So we're off to the side leaning on a table, and the expediters tell us we should get back in the lineup. I figured they were just going to line us up and let us all go. Then Jim Manion says we're going to have one final callout, number 73 and number 93, and that was me and Don Long, and in a flash, it hit me: Holy shit, you're gonna be in the top two of this lineup, and that means one day you're going to turn pro! I've got the biggest smile on my face, chewing on my tongue, almost giggling. Me and Don Long - the favorite! Everybody knows who this guy is, but nobody knows about me.

"Don had like a hundred people in the audience, all wearing T-shirts that said '100% grade-A beef, Don Long.' I had my wife and two of my friends, and I could hear my wife yelling. She's got this soft little voice, but I could hear her. We got done with prejudging, and my wife came running up to the stage, and I actually reached down and pulled her up to the stage, and I wouldn't let her go from my side. I couldn't actually talk to anyone after that, I was so emotional. All the way back to the hotel, I kept crying. I was so blown away that this was really happening. I went back to the room and lay in bed for like an hour crying with my wife. I saw it all then. My dream had come true."

 

[Massive G]

"Flex, May, 2004 by Greg Merritt

[PART TWO]

TOMORROW

When I spoke with Prince 12 days before the Ironman, what he was most excited about was Rebecca's commercial property management business. The timing for its launch couldn't have been worse. She quit her real estate job and started the company last April, just after Prince's return from the hospital. The business was financed by his bodybuilding career and then, suddenly, everything seemed in doubt. Less than a year later, the company is thriving, with Prince looking forward to the day when he and Rebecca run it together.

"Everything she talks about when she comes home is super interesting to me," Prince effuses. "It's so great that I don't use my body at all. It's all mental. I could be a buck-fifty and do this - not that I want to be a buck-fifty, but it's just that you don't have to be physical. I never expected to win the Olympia or the Arnold or make $700,000 a year or whatever Ronnie Coleman or Jay Cutler make. The only thing I ever hoped for from bodybuilding financially was that it would allow me to open up other doors or maybe it would allow me to make enough money so that I could put that into something else. And basically that's how it's working out, so I couldn't be happier."


THE CHASE

Two days before the Ironman, when Cicherillo and I watched him pose, Prince had as much muscle as ever, maybe more, and enough cuts to make the posedown. From ankles to shoulders, front to back, his side chest pose was still the thickest in the world. With that impromptu routine, he scored his final bodybuilding victory.

There comes a time for every athlete to move on. For most of us, the decision is easy. We don't make the high-school team, or we do but no college comes courting. Or we compete in a couple of bodybuilding shows and realize our talents lie elsewhere. For the elite professional athlete, the decision rarely comes easily. Even when their skills diminish, they're still among the best in the world. They're still defined mostly by the game they play, and they still love to play the game.

For better and, in the end, for worse, Prince had to push himself to the limit just to know where the limit was. I ask him again about his regrets. After a pause, Tom Prince, retired pro bodybuilder with both a graduate degree in English literature and a love of 450-pound shoulder presses, answers as only he can.

"I feel like Captain Ahab chasing Moby Dick. Eventually, after Moby Dick destroys the ship, Ahab dies never having figured out he can't win. That's why it's the great American tragedy. He doesn't realize he's going to die. He thinks he's going to win the whole time, though you know he's going to lose the whole time. Thinking back over 18 years and all the injuries and all the painkillers, anti-inflammatories, all that, I was doing everything I could to mask the pain, but eventually something had to break down. Something's going to go. I've been hearing that for eight years now, and they were right. I realize now I'm the star of my own tragedy. I chased the whale .... I chased the whale, and finally the whale attacked. And I basically only figured it out when it was too late."

Author's note: Of the top five heavyweights in the 1995 NPC Nationals, only Toney Freeman has not suffered a critical illness. Severely dehydrated, Edgar Fletcher had been rushed unconscious to a hospital during the 1993 USA Championships. Don Long had a kidney transplant in 2002. Curtis Leffler died of a heart attack in 1998; he was 36.

"All men live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life."

Herman Melville, Moby Dick

COPYRIGHT 2004 Weider Publications"

 

[bigfatandugly]

Of the top five heavyweights in the 1995 NPC Nationals, only Toney Freeman has not suffered a critical illness. Severely dehydrated, Edgar Fletcher had been rushed unconscious to a hospital during the 1993 USA Championships. Don Long had a kidney transplant in 2002. Curtis Leffler died of a heart attack in 1998; he was 36.



COPYRIGHT 2004 Weider Publications"

unreal.

and for what?


BFU

 

[oswlsj]

Massive

Good post and way to bring clarity to this issue.

 

[BigBastard]

I hope that we can all learn from Toms story. Also I hope that Tom recover his health.

 

[Vander_V]

I wouldnt call him agreat ahthelete or even an ahthelete, he abused pain meds mixed with AAS, thats what I call physical abuse especially in high amounts, his physique looked unhealthy and bloated at times when in the high 280-300 i think he took this sport to the maximuum extremes risking his own health and life at times, nothing to salute or honor here, just my opnion.

 

[rAJJIN]

I wouldnt call him agreat ahthelete or even an ahthelete, he abused pain meds mixed with AAS, thats what I call physical abuse especially in high amounts, his physique looked unhealthy and bloated at times when in the high 280-300 i think he took this sport to the maximuum extremes risking his own health and life at times, nothing to salute or honor here, just my opnion.

I guess everyone has there opinion.
Its easy to say Looking back or as an outsider looking in On someone Admitting his faults and Mistakes...Im sure Looking Back he would Have changed a lot of things... I say good for Him for speaking up and being honest. He could have Just went and crawled under a rock somewhere and disapeared But he Is saying Hey, This is what I did wrong and this is what the Dr.`s told me....where Im at Now from it.
Im not going to Kick a man when he is down.
I Think he Looked pretty damn good in that First Picture there in this thread.
But I do agree it sounds Like there was plenty of warning signs he Just ignored them and pushed it to far for to long.

I can deffinatley see How its possible a guy could get caught up in this and Think he is Invincible...Ignoring the warning signs HOPING or Pretending they will Just go away..

 

[Massive G]

I guess everyone has there opinion.
Its easy to say Looking back or as an outsider looking in On someone Admitting his faults and Mistakes...Im sure Looking Back he would Have changed a lot of things... I say good for Him for speaking up and being honest. He could have Just went and crawled under a rock somewhere and disapeared But he Is saying Hey, This is what I did wrong and this is what the Dr.`s told me....where Im at Now from it.
Im not going to Kick a man when he is down.
I Think he Looked pretty damn good in that First Picture there in this thread.
But I do agree it sounds Like there was plenty of warning signs he Just ignored them and pushed it to far for to long.

I can deffinatley see How its possible a guy could get caught up in this and Think he is Invincible...Ignoring the warning signs HOPING or Pretending they will Just go away..

Good post Rajj, I feel the same way. People need to take note.

Steroids are safe in sane doses-200 400 or even 600 mg's a week never fked anyone up, it's the term people stay on the compounds and raise the doses over time and things just complicate when they add in a variety of anabolics and then add in fat burners and et all anti-e's .
I have routinely seen guys blood work whose testosterone (free levels) are 6-8000 ng/dl and they are on a gram a week of test. People have to establish the fact like TP said the cup is full at this amount of juice and not exceed it. But nobody really does that unless they have been there and done that and know what I mean.

 

[Vander_V]

Good post Rajj, I feel the same way. People need to take note.

Steroids are safe in sane doses-200 400 or even 600 mg's a week never fked anyone up, it's the term people stay on the compounds and raise the doses over time and things just complicate when they add in a variety of anabolics and then add in fat burners and et all anti-e's .
I have routinely seen guys blood work whose testosterone (free levels) are 6-8000 ng/dl and they are on a gram a week of test. People have to establish the fact like TP said the cup is full at this amount of juice and not exceed it. But nobody really does that unless they have been there and done that and know what I mean.

I agree completely, 400 is the perfect amount, when I hear some people being up in the 1000 to 3000 i just cant believe what Im hearing the problem is nobody is intune with there body and organs , nobody will see a Dr on a regular basis to know exatly whats going on and how much to take, only blood tests and checkups can keep u in check with where u need to be .

 

[Massive G]

I agree completely, 400 is the perfect amount, when I hear some people being up in the 1000 to 3000 i just cant believe what Im hearing the problem is nobody is intune with there body and organs , nobody will see a Dr on a regular basis to know exatly whats going on and how much to take, only blood tests and checkups can keep u in check with where u need to be .

your exactly right and blood work only works if people pay attention to it.
I know a lotta guys that get bloodwork through direct labs and they will ignore the liver enzyme, heamtocrit, and cardiac readings. Very easy to fix.
for cholesterol and liver stop the orals
donate blood to keep the hematocrit under 50
eat a fairly clean diet and take natural chlolesterol supps -fish oils vitamin D niacin and red yeast rice (natural statin)
keep the BP down using natural supps (hawthorne berry) and keeping sodium down
If BP is a problem get on meds to control it
stick to the basics a lower dosed test deca cycle will put plenty of mass on anyone save the tren if used at all for brief periods during contest prep as well as the oral like winstrol and var and tbol etc all.

 

[n8ia]

one of my favorite trainning pics is of tom deep in offseason trainnning at Golds with the hammer flat bench loaded to the hilt with plates. Hardcore i have never been able to find that one again.

 

[noname103]

Not exactly a pretty look but definately a freak its amazing how much different the head looks after it loses all the girth of the neck and extra flesh around the jaw. Thats the one thing I hate all the bloating of the face that you kind of just get used to and don't realize how bad it was until you see pictures. Tom for example went from a 23inch neck with cheese hanging off his jaw to having an actual face.