Why am I not bigger or harder than I am now? This makes my mind reach quite a ways back...
When I was 19-20 all I wanted to do was turn pro. I was highly motivated internally and by my peers.
We had local greats like DeMayo and a bit later, Matarazzo for inspiration, and it really helped.
I had a lot of good words from mutual friends in that crowd and it felt validating, that I could do well.
Like many at that time, I got a call from Lou Zwick and we started talking and I eventually ended up working for him briefly.
He saw potential, but once he knew I wanted to write and had submitted some work to him, he encouraged me to abandon professional BB.
Whether his motivation was kindness to steer me away from something I would not ultimately achieve or truly thought I would have a better life giving 100% to school and a "normal" career I will never know.
We did keep in touch for years later, even when I first lived in Japan in 95-98 he was still trying to get me to move to CA and work for him.
I also remember being backstage at the 89 Nationals and talking to some fellow competitors. It is quite blurry now, but I know we talked AAS and I learned I was not taking "enough".
My immediate feeling was I didn't want to. I spent most of my time hanging out backstage with the one natural kid who felt like a fish out of water, poor kid.
Then around this time AAS got scheduled and a lot of things changed. People I knew got popped.
I had been moving some small amounts to cover my own costs, but I didn't feel comfortable anymore.
All this compounded and I felt being a professional BB was not the way to go.
I never, ever stopped training though. When I first stayed in Japan in 94 I had no gym for a month. This was the longest break in my life...
Fast forward to moving to Japan in 2007. I learned that AAS were not really illegal or hard to get, and after finding out my T was horribly low, I self-prescribed with the blessing of my GP.
This is when I discovered PM. I quickly regained most of the extra size and strength I had lost, which was about 10lbs at this time, as I maintained well naturally.
Then in later 2008-09 I separated and got divorced. Doing so in a foreign country and having no family, losing that I had (including custody of my then 2-year old) I felt alone and poured myself back into BB.
With the guidance and support of many great PM people I started improving again and was moving more weight than ever and looking and feeling good.
In 2018, Japan had its first ever IFBB pro-qualifier and on a whim I took a shot at it, dusting off the old posing trunks (of course I did buy new ones!).
This went better than expected, but I wasn't happy with the final results - suffering food poisoning backstage amongst other things - so I did it all again in 2019.
I did better, but realized I could not improve further, and this was the deciding factor for me.
So why aren't I better than I am now?
- It's a conscious choice. I have been asked by a lot of people here when I am coming back on stage, some who want to be there with me again, but I declined.
- I am too old now, and it's too much a risk to my healthy anyway.
- If I can't improve each time, it makes no sense to me to keep pushing.
I do know however, that I could have improved if I were younger and if I had pushed the food and drugs more.
I was always consistent, and always enjoyed pushing myself (intelligently) in my training.
As previously discussed, genetics is the limiting factor but 90% will never put in the work consistently and long enough to find out where that limit is.
How much better I could have been I do not know, and I do not have any regrets.
.gif "IP Gear")
