Subject: ANBC Nationals 1998--Die Verwandlung From: (Rick Silverman) Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1998 00:22:31 -0800 I know I've been missing in action. It's been a busy year, but certainly in the past several months, not only work has been overwhelming, but also preparation for a couple of contests, the ANBC Nationals and the MuscleMania. In an effort to stay true to form, I have written a synopsis of the first of the two, and the second will be forthcoming. I hope you find these amusing and even instructive. I am trying to catch up on my weights reading...I'm only about a month behind. Any responses should be sent directly to me as well as posted as you desire, as I am a bit behind, and work remains hectic. Happy reading...and happy lifting! ANBC Nationals 1998--Die Verwandlung (The Metamorphosis): Franz Kafka, where are you? "Gregor Samsa ist ins Kafer geworden." As I recall, that's how it starts--Gregor Samsa turned into a bug. Certainly many have read Franz Kafka's well-known story, The Metamorphosis, about the man who wakes up one morning to find he's turned into a cockroach. Few, however, have had the opportunity to experience such a transformation first hand. The sudden realization than you have gone from being a proper member of society to an apparent pariah, an outcast--a bug--can leave one lost and confused. And yet this is very nearly how I felt after prejudging at the recent ANBC Nationals competition in Boston on November 14. It is a feeling for which I'd have been well-prepared in my first year of competition, still fairly green and unclear about how my physique compared to others on the planet. Others, that is, in the drug-free bodybuilding world. Sure, I've competed in a few non-tested shows and had no concern over the lack of interest in my comparatively human form--relative to the super-charged, super-human forms which often surrounded me. But in the company of other vertically challenged individuals, who had considered their bodies far too sacred to assault with certain classes of chemicals deemed undesireable (and illegal) in the sporting world, I actually could hold my own. By the nature of the competition, placing me against other tall guys, the balance of my physique and the way it was put together seemed to outweigh the relative delicacy of my frame and overall structure, keeping me competitive against individuals carrying more weight (and more waist!). Having spent a year since my last venture into the competitive arena (where I took second in my class at the ANBC Nationals in Pittsburgh) putting on a few pounds of off-season weight in order to take advantage of the muscle-building potential offered by lifting heavier weights, I had high hopes of presenting even greater balance--improvements in my back, hamstrings, arms, areas which I'd found to be weak spots. Indeed, my plan had seemed to pay off. I spent at least six or seven months plodding around at a bodyweight of 230 pounds, watching my waist go up toward 34 inches, ripping the crotch out of several pairs of boxer shorts and one pair of Khakis (fortunately, that occured after I finished seeing patients!), stuffing my body with up to 4500 calories a day, and avoiding aerobic exercise like the plague. By the end of summer, I was ready to begin the process which would take my weight down toward the 200 pound mark and rid my body of the layer of fat that had accompanied gains in muscle, so that I'd be fit for the competitive stage again. The process was not as easy as it had been in the past. Part of this was due to the fact that I had more to lose, and part was due to demands at work. After six weeks with nearly five weeks of preparation to go, I realized that I needed to go into overdrive and instituted two cardio sessions a day, eventually spending two hours in this activity daily. I also cut my carbohydrates more than I had ever done in the past. I was strict unlike I'd ever been before. And slowly but surely, the leaner, meaner me emerged. In the last two weeks of preparation, I followed closely the dietary demands of my "advisor", Susan, who had helped me in my previous contests, but whose advice I had only partly adhered to in the past. This time, I was set to do it her way, anxious to achieve the ultra-ripped result I knew she could get for me. By Thursday prior to the contest--the theoretic low-point in my physical appearance--I seemed to be on the money. Even carb-depleted, my muscles were still reasonably full, though I felt flat as a pancake. My cuts were sharp and my skin was tight. She sat down with me to plan the next 48 hours, and I made mental notes of what I could eat, looking forward to when I could dig into the chocolate, which would provide me with some concentrated carbohydrates as the hour of prejudging approached. When I woke up at 6 am, I looked in the mirror, relieved to see that nothing bad had occurred. In fact, all sorts of good things were happening to my body. I don't think I'd ever seen the detail in my legs like I saw then, and the skin over my abs was thin and tight. Having never been a terribly vascular bodybuilder, I was even surprised to see some veins in spots I'd never noticed before. I attended to my preparations cautiously, fearful that if I did anything too drastic, I might adversely influence all the work that had gone into creating this moment. I showered, applied a final coat of tanning solution, which left my skin a nice even brown color. I loaded my food into a cooler, and headed into Boston. Arriving there, I sat through the competitors' meeting, nibbling on a rice cake, and afterwards visited with friends that I'd only seen at these bodybuilding events. My girlfriend arrived. Jimmy, my "trainer", arrived. And gradually, the time to pump up and stand before the judges arrived. I kept my clothes on while pumping up, partly to stay warm, and partly to keep things covered until it was closer to the time to go out. I looked at my competition and felt intimidated, as I nearly always did. There is such a huge psychological component in contest preparation, since as the fat disappears to reveal all of the cuts and striations in the muscles, they also shrink. You shrink. Clothes that were once snug hang off of you. You look, in fact, like you're wearing someone else's clothing, unless you maintain two wardrobes--the contest wardrobe and the off-season wardrobe. I have small closets at home, so I look like I stole my clothes from some big guy. And looking around the room at the guys pumping up, I'm sure that I've shrunk much more than they have. Nothing I can do about that now, though, except "pump up like a bastard", according to plan, and feel as big as I can feel. Jimmy applied my oil and made a number of encouraging remarks, pumping up my psyche, while I pumped up my muscles. They called for us to line up, and we headed up to the stage area. I thought confident thoughts. I thought big thoughts. My goal was to project hugeness, hardness and go for broke. There were fourteen competitors in the class. Obviously, the class would be looked at briefly as a whole, and then split into two groups which would generally reflect the top half and the bottom half. We were shuffled around in the line-up to create a semi-circle to allow for everyone to be seen together. We were directed in quarter turns. And then we were told to step back on the stage. The head judge paused momentarily and then started calling out numbers, having instructed us to step forward if our number was called. "Fifty-two", was the first number called. My number. I was elated. My experience had been that the top half of the class was generally brought out first, and often the person whose number was called first was placed in the center for comparisons, a reflection of quality. I stepped forward as other numbers were called out. I kept my air up, kept my legs tight, shoulders back...and I smiled and smiled and smiled. As I stood there, I tried to see who else was coming to the line, and I suddenly realized that what seemed to me to be the "bottom" half of the group was assembling around me. I kept smiling. I wasn't totally clear on what was happening, and as this was the first group that had been split up, I wasn't sure how the judges were planning to do comparisons. All the same, I had an aching suspicion that something had happened to my body while I wasn't watching, and I had not made the cut into the upper half of the group. As we were directed through quarter turns again, I proceeded as if everything were okay. I felt that I was giving it my all, and feedback from my friends in the audience confirmed that I was posing well. But as I posed--and smiled--I wondered what was happening. Had I smoothed out? Was I that much smaller than everyone else? I couldn't imagine that my symmetry or shape had really changed, and this initial division should have been made on symmetry, or so I thought. One of my strengths is my symmetry. At least it was before today, when I seemed to have turned into a...cockroach or something. As we completed our mandatory poses, I thought--well, maybe they'll keep me out to compare me to the rest of the class. I'm tired, but that's okay, since I usually look better and harder the longer I pose. I kept my hopes up until we were instructed to leave the stage and the other group was brought out. I looked down at myself. I looked out at them. Clearly, they were bigger and harder, and I was just a shrunken mess. My mind had been playing tricks on me for the past several days, and I was really way off. But that couldn't have been the case, since the people who help me were watching. Susan would have told me I looked like crap. She's brutally honest, and her candor is what kept me on the bicycle for two hours a day for a month. Jimmy hadn't said anything while I was pumping up, but he wouldn't have told me until afterwards, since he wouldn't have wanted to cut into my confidence. Well, it was simple enough to find out what was wrong. I'd just ask after we were done. And indeed, a few moments later, the entire group was reassembled on stage for a few final poses and then we were lead off. I tried to smile, but had difficulty. I was anxious to find out what I had done wrong. Was I really that far off? Smooth? Flat? I wasn't sure what it was. I walked down to the pump-up room and collected my belongings. Going back upstairs, I ran into a friend and fellow competitor and asked him what was wrong, what was my problem. He shrugged and said that maybe I could drop a little more water or something. Okay, so I was smooth. I don't know how it happened, but that must have been it. When I walked out and sat down with my friends, Jimmy, Jacquie and Nancy, they seemed troubled. Probing for an explanation, they commented that my legs weren't as sharp as they'd been just a day or two prior to the contest, but I wasn't so far off that they could explain the judges' decision for not comparing me with the top of the class. It didn't make sense, and I suspect it won't ever make sense to me. And this is the trouble with a sport like bodybuilding. As a competitor, one needs to be prepared for a catastrophe of this nature. Since the judging is subjective, in large part, what is pleasing to one panel of judges one day may be entirely uninteresting to a different panel. Nonetheless, barring an actual metamorphosis--a deterioration in the overall shape and quality of my physique--it remains difficult for me to imagine that I shouldn't have been compared with the top of the class. Then again, maybe they didn't like the color of my posing trunks. As for the rest of the story, I'm not sure where I placed in the end. Top ten, but not top five. I won "Best Poser" for my routine, done to an original bodybuilding rap tune that I wrote and produced just for the occaision. The crowd seemed to be amused by the words as well as the action, and the roar of the audience when I did my stomach roll managed to elevate my downtrodden spirit. It is, after all, that part of the event which I enjoy the most. I miss performing, and other than lecturing to medical students and residents, this is all of the performing I've been doing lately. Afterwards, I went with Jacquie and some friends to have sushi, and before I drove home, I stopped at the Bova Bakery in the North End and bought a Napoleon and a canoli, which I had finished before I passed through the toll booth on the Mass Pike. I managed, over the next twenty-four hours, to put about ten pounds back on, eating and drinking somewhat indiscrimanately, before settling in to preparations for the Muscle Mania. I'm less enthusiastic about the second contest, knowing that it's really a bit out of my league, but a couple friends talked me into doing it, so I figure I'd go a little bigger, a little smoother, and just have some fun. It's much easier to take that approach when you don't have any expectations anyway. As for the future, I don't plan to compete next year at all. I need a little time to deal with other things in life. I'll guest pose at Nancy Andrews' contest in the spring, if she still wants me to, in spite of my remarkable verwandlung. I know, though, that few cockroaches have ever performed at bodybuilding contests in the past. I think I might actually demonstrate some improvement with my crab most-muscular pose, as a cockroach. I'll still talk to student groups about the perils of drug use in sports, and I'll try to do my best to be an example of what they can achieve without drugs. And maybe...just maybe...I'll manage to reverse the tragic changes in my physique and metamorphosize back to the symmetric, well-shaped bodybuilder I once was. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Richard T. Silverman, M.D. Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery University of Massachusetts Medical Center richard.silverman@ummed.edu http://www.ummed.edu/pub/r/rsilver/Index.html