Pro bodybuilders strive to get the ultimate physique, By: Chico Harlan

Craving the 'V' shape

July 26, 2006, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Speaking generally, people's torsos should not be shaped like Vs. Most anybody, with the help of, say, some Colonel Sanders recipes, can pull off the O shape. Enough dieting or running can trim folks, at least briefly, into the I shape. But the V is an unmatched anatomical improbability. Word is, Michelangelo needed three years to sculpt David only because it required far less effort than sculpting himself.

In Pittsburgh last weekend, some 340 bodybuilders -- Vs and near-Vs -- congregated for the NPC Teen, Collegiate and Masters National Championships bodybuilding competition. Judging began Saturday morning in a Sheraton Station Square ballroom, and the stage, where bodybuilders flexed, emerged like a rabbit hole to some new realm of possibility, one in which the human physique observed no rules.

But that's one of the contradictions of bodybuilding. To become a rippling, striated V, David Hawk, 19, of Ross, observed rules for almost every minute, and certainly every bite, in his life. Mr. Hawk wanted to arrive at the bodybuilding show as one of the most physically striking teens in America, and so 16 weeks before the event, he began strict dieting. (Basic rule: If it tastes good, you can't have it.)

Ten days before posing, he limited himself to meals on scales: 400 grams of protein and 75 grams of carbs, nothing more. (A normal daily diet contains roughly 50 grams of protein and 300 grams of carbs.)

He'd wake up at 6 a.m., jog for 40 minutes, eat eight Egg Beaters and a half-cup of oatmeal -- "That's 26 carbs right there" -- and then consume the first of three daily protein shakes at 10:30 a.m. He'd break from his job at the Wexford Saturn dealership for a chicken and broccoli lunch, completely plain. He'd eat something similar for dinner. Five of every six days, he'd spend 2 1/2 hours at the gym.

Mr. Hawk's dad, also Dave -- or Big Dave, as the family calls him -- had been a pro bodybuilder. In his prime, he was a human martini glass, a 55-inch chest atop a 31-inch waist. "I used to sniff cookie bags and get a rush," Big Dave said of his pre-event dieting.

Describing the motivation behind the dieting and lifting, Big Dave always said that the dedication necessary in bodybuilding translated, when applied properly, to other parts of life. Mr. Hawk said he began bodybuilding back at North Hills High School because he loved the way his buddies gawked at his father's physique. Those who know both Hawks guessed that the son, who graduated high school in 2004, relished the sport as a way to bond with his father.

"The hardest part about bodybuilding is peaking for one day," Big Dave said.

The day approached. On Thursday, Mr. Hawk arrived at the Sheraton for his weigh-in, needing to be no more than 176 1/4 pounds, the ceiling for his weight class. He woke up at 178. So he ate some egg whites and peanut butter for breakfast, then denied himself food and water until the evening weigh-in. He ran on a treadmill, sweating water weight. He tried to spit a few more ounces out the window en route to the Sheraton.

On Friday, after making weight, he (and family members, helping with the hard-to-reach places) smothered his body with three coats of tanning lotion, because muscles and veins ripple better on dark skin. He shaved all body hair, except for the short, platinum-dyed spikes on his head. He slept, on the eve of the show, with his legs propped on pillows, to drain water from his ankles and calves.

Saturday morning, Mr. Hawk found himself in a room with hundreds of hyper-dedicated, over-tanned bodies. While waiting to pose, he lay face-up on the carpet in the back of the ballroom. His family and girlfriend stood nearby and chatted quietly. He wore loose-fitting track clothing, for fear of brushing away his fake tan, and again, he propped his ankles on a chair. He wanted to win very badly, at least with what little energy he had left.

Thirty-five teens competed in six weight classes -- Mr. Hawk was one of three middleweights -- and almost all had prepared with, at minimum, Creatine and glutamine and amino acid supplements and many, many 10-ounce portions of tilapia.

It's tough, for that reason, to converse with bodybuilders about their sport on the day of a competition. Ask one of the V-shaped men about bodybuilding, as he lounges during the judging, his stomach drained of all but a few ounces of fluid, and you're more likely to receive a dreamy description of General Tso chicken.

Bodybuilding, in the moments at once its highest and lowest, becomes a force of deprivation.

So here's a brief description of the event, from novice eyes.

Before appearing on-stage, bodybuilders -- both male and female -- retreated to a warm-up room equipped with 16 mirrors, umbrella lighting and a fold-out table holding peanut butter, honey, and a mini-skyline of rice cakes. Early Saturday morning, with women 35-and-older appearing first, several dozen muscle-bound ladies crowded the room. One performed push-ups, to help her veins flush thick. A few lifted small dumbbells, and another covered herself, for a show-off shine, with PAM cooking spray.

A man appeared for roll call. A good third of the women, aided by testosterone supplements, responded with voices just as deep as his.

In bodybuilding, steroids and other risky supplements long ago lost their taboo status. Mr. Hawk doesn't allow himself to use them, nor do most of the teenage amateurs, but pro bodybuilders depend on steroids, or similar substances, to assist muscle growth and speed recovery. Big Dave took them "on and off," he said, during his pro career. He doesn't regret it, either.

The National Physique Committee, which sponsored the Pittsburgh event, runs random drug tests at some 100 of its 300 annual shows, NPC President Jim Manion said.

"Honestly, they are either doing steroids and we can't catch them, or I don't know what," Mr. Manion said. "But bottom line, there are so many good supplements out there now, you can get really built without taking steroids."

Bodybuilding is a pursuit rife with contradiction. The 1,000 attendees in the ballroom Saturday night saw the finished products, the perfect physiques, but that only masked the imperfections behind them. When Northeastern University sociology Professor Alan Klein infiltrated the bodybuilding world for what would become the definitive book on its subculture, he discovered a genus of fragile egos, narcissism and exaggerated masculinity.

Many bodybuilders, Dr. Klein said, build the perfect physique to shelter them from deeper imperfections -- shortness or stuttering or poor relations with fathers.

"You get a pump [in the weight room], you feel strong, but it doesn't mean you're strong in an existential or psychological way," said Dr. Klein, whose book, "Little Big Men," was published in 1993. "Compensating for weakness is something all of us deal with; that's what we have evolved on. But doing it through bodybuilding is the flimsiest compensation, because it's a veneer."

Then again, bodybuilders will explain their motivations with straightforward rationales. Like marathoners, they torture themselves physically, banking that the bodily benefit and rush of accomplishment will make it all worthwhile. Money almost never sweetens the net result. For being named Mr. Olympia, the most prestigious title in pro bodybuilding, the prize is only $155,000.

But to arrive at that physical summit, or anything approaching it, the bodybuilders agreed on another contradiction. Attempting to look their best, they feel their worst. "You're up their on stage," one pro bodybuilder told Dr. Klein, "and you're actually closer to death than life."

On Friday, 24 hours before he'd appear on stage, one 44-year-old competitor collapsed in his Sheraton hotel room and died soon after. Anthony D'Arezzo of Johnston, R.I., had battled a weakened heart for almost a decade, a friend said; this was the first event of his planned comeback.

But the strain of dehydration and severe dieting may have caused him, as fellow bodybuilders later speculated, to pass out. An Allegheny County medical examiner's autopsy ruled that Mr. D'Arezzo died of a cardiomyopathy.

"An hour before he died I took pictures of him," friend Dave Palumbo said, shaking his head. "He looked really good, too."

"You put your body through so much stress, always trying to get it tighter and drier," Mr. Hawk said Saturday, after digesting the news. "But you know, what you think looks like the healthiest is actually the unhealthiest."

Backstage, minutes before Mr. Hawk appeared for his morning judging routine, the father glanced at the son. "It's about presenting your body as an art piece," Big Dave said.

After Mr. Hawk zipped through the morning judging, flashing his seven compulsory poses, he returned for the evening event, spiced with more showmanship than the sterile morning show. Bass-heavy music from rapper J-Kwon ripped from the speakers, and the emcee introduced the first of the three middleweights.

"From right here in Pittsburgh, let's hear it for competitor No. 103, Mr. David Hawk."

Self-consciousness melted away. In his solo moment, Mr. Hawk flexed the muscles that his middleweight competitors couldn't match. A six pack? Mr. Hawk had all six, plus defined muscles to the right and left. His biceps were a tower of tiers. When he flexed his back (a trick in itself), a normal plane of human flesh suddenly sprouted a mountain -- promontories for each little muscle, for the trapezius, for the rhomboid minor, for the teres major, for the infraspinatus, for all those bodily components that normal human beings never coax aboveboard.

He easily won the trophy for best in his weight class; he'd sensed that chance early Saturday. Mr. Hawk, though, hoped for the overall teenage title, too. And by the time the six most-muscular teens -- one champ from each weight class -- posed together, the 26 friends and family in Mr. Hawk's cadre pinpointed him as one of the two best.

Every person rooting for him had his or her own sacrifice story. His mother, Tracey, had equipped her kitchen with measures and scales and plenty of chicken breasts. His girlfriend, Kristin Smyers, had watched Mr. Hawk turn in recent weeks into a hermit. The overall teen winner would earn a trip to Los Angeles for an interview and photo spread in "Flex" magazine, an industry bible.

"Hawk! Hawk! Hawk!" the audience briefly chanted.

Then the emcee announced the winner. Not Mr. Hawk. Some 19-year-old from Miami who'd picked up bodybuilding only 1 1/2 years ago.

Later in the Sheraton hallway, James Seymour, the overall teen champ, explained his quick story: how he'd met a drug-free bodybuilder at his home gym; how he'd fared well in two prior events; how he nonetheless dreaded a decision down the line, about possibly turning pro and facing the pressure of steroids.

Mr. Hawk, meanwhile, met his family in the evening din of the hotel lobby. That's the problem with bodybuilding, his father explained -- you deal with subjective judging.

"I'll be all right," Mr. Hawk said.

"I'm just hungry."