When you glance at some of those old black and white pictures of Arnold Schwarzenegger, taken in the original Gold’s Gym in Venice on Pacific Avenue, what’s most noticeable about his physique is his massive chest. It is full and thick and when he does his side chest pose it swells up and seems to stick out a mile. Just standing there relaxed it appeared thick and dense like two massive slabs of beef sitting on his rib cage.

In fact a lot of the old school guys had thick chests back in the day, Lou Ferrigno, Serge Nubret, Franco Columbu, but it seems these days very few bodybuilders have that really impressive chest development. Thick, sweeping chest muscles have been overtaken by monstrous front delts making it obvious where all the pec muscles went.

When Arnold was growing up, everyone trained chest and biceps and didn’t pay as much attention to other muscle groups, like shoulders for instance. Since shoulder muscles were weaker, they didn’t take over all the work when training chest. Stretching the shoulder girdle and chest was a common practice years ago in an effort to expand the rib cage and increase the overall measurement of the chest. Inadvertently this created more flexibility through the chest and shoulders so when a bodybuilder performed a full range of movement on his chest exercises, his chest muscles were flexible enough that the load was not as easily transferred to the shoulder muscles which would then do much of the work.

When chest muscles are not very flexible they can only stretch so far before they will either tear or the load will be transferred to another muscle group or connective tissue in the shoulder joint. If you are doing dumbbell presses for instance, as you lower the dumbbells to your chest you will reach a point where your chest muscles cannot stretch beyond. If you continue to lower the dumbbells past that point then the shoulders will take over most of the work. If that happens you will feel tightness in your shoulders at the lower part of the movement and after doing the set your shoulders will feel pumped and burning. When you over-stretched at the bottom of the movement your shoulder muscles took over the workload. You thought you were training your chest and just doing your best to perform a full range of movement but instead you have just trained your shoulders, which explains why your shoulders grow but your chest doesn’t.

One obvious solution might be to perform partial movements when training chest (meaning not lowering the weight all the way down to your chest). While partial movements have their place in an advanced training program, your chest muscles won’t be getting much work if the range of motion is limited by inflexibility. The further a muscle group has to travel when performing an exercise, the more work it does and the more it will grow. Muscle inflexibility will stop your progress cold.

Increasing flexibility and Range of Motion is the goal

• Muscle tissue can be trained to be more flexible by stretching regularly. But it’s always important to ensure your muscle tissue is warm before you try stretching it. For the next 4 weeks, do 3 sets of pushups to warm up and stretch for a couple minutes between each warm-up set. For the first set of pushups just go 2/3 of the way down to keep your shoulders out of the movement until you are more flexible. After stretching between the 1st and 2nd set, the rest of your pushups should be full movements.
• Stretch between every set during the entire workout.
• Since your chest has not been doing all the work during your chest training you will have to teach those muscles to contract through the entire movement because they are used to your shoulders taking over at the bottom. Start with a weight about 50% less than you normally use and add weight each set. Be prepared to use a lot less weight than you have been doing because you will perform your reps slowly going the same speed up and the same speed down like a hydraulic piston.
• When you get to the bottom of the movement feel your chest muscles stretch and then don’t go beyond to the point where you feel your shoulders stretching. As you get more flexible you will be able to go deeper but you will always gauge the depth you go on your chest exercises by whether or not your shoulders are involved in the movement and not how far the weight travels.
• Don’t use weight training as a stretching exercise, stretch between sets and after you train. Using your sets to stretch your chest muscles will just involved your shoulders in the work.
• Finally, lay off your front delt training for 4 weeks while you do this chest specialization program. They could probably use a break anyway while your chest catches up.
• Train chest 2 times a week for 4 weeks then return to your normal training cycle.

Day 1

Day 2

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Shock Treatment Series: Part I

It’s easy to think that bodybuilding is just about building big muscles and getting lean enough to show them off. It’s easy because getting big is easy and so is getting lean, or at least it’s easy compared to balancing all that muscle development so that your body is symmetrical and proportionate. The problem with easy is that one day you look in the mirror and realize you have lagging muscle groups that seem so far behind the rest of your body that you think they will never catch up.

Size for the sake of size is meaningless. We’ve all seen those guys with one or two incredible body parts and nothing else. Building a well-developed body that is both symmetrical and balanced is what bodybuilding has always been about.

That’s easier said than done because despite how much hard work you do sometimes, there are muscle groups that simply refuse to co-operate and grow. This series of training articles is designed to help solve any problems you may have with one of those stubborn muscle groups.

Build Those Stubborn Calves

Calves are the one muscle group that almost everyone trains incorrectly. Isolating the workload on muscle groups that have only one fulcrum (one joint involved in the exercise) like seated calf raises for instance is theoretically the most direct way to train a muscle group and in most cases that theory holds true. Calves are a different animal, pun intended, because of how the lower leg is constructed so just isolating the movement isn’t enough to necessarily make them grow.

The Gastrocnemius muscle or calf muscle is attached to a tendon that attaches on the other end to your heel (your Achilles tendon). The Achilles tendon is very strong and if you train your calves improperly it is very easy for some of that workload to be transferred from the muscle to the Achilles tendon. That will logically result in a lot of work with very little return in the way of calf muscle growth.

If you have calves like a homing pigeon and no matter what you do they refuse to grow, then try these four things for 8 weeks and just see if those calves don’t start turning into cows.

• Keep constant tension on the calf muscle during the entire set
  

  When you are training calves you want to avoid movement that will transfer the load onto your Achilles tendon from your calf muscles. The best way to do this is to keep constant tension on the calf muscle through the entire set by keeping your calf flexed as hard as possible through the complete arc of movement. This will be hard to do the first few times you try as you need to teach your muscles to stay contracted while they move through the movement of the exercise. It’s easiest to learn this by starting with seated calf raises. Position yourself in he calf machine and remove the safety placing the load on your calves. Reach down and feel your calves as you apply tension to your calf muscles by flexing them. Slowly raise the weight keeping your calves flexed. When you reach the top of the movement flex as hard as you can for a 3 count then slowly start to lower the weight while keeping the muscle tight (this is the tricky part). You will really need to go slow and concentrate on keeping your calf muscles flexed. By holding your hand on your calves you will be able to tell if the tension goes away or remains through the whole movement.

• Don’t over stretch during your calf exercises
  

  When you stretch your calf muscle as far as it will stretch under a load, it becomes hard to keep tension on the muscle and if you can’t keep tension on the muscle then it can’t contract as hard as it possibly can, stimulating growth while you lift the weight. If you over stretch on the bottom you will take the workload off the calf muscle and distribute it elsewhere which will result in a lot of work with very little calf muscle growth. You only need to lower the weight a little but not all the way to get enough work done to grow.

• Don’t bounce to get higher on your toes at the top of the movement
  

  So often you will see a bodybuilder bouncing at the top of the movement trying to get a peak contraction. Since the Achilles tendon and not the calf muscle is being used to lift the weight into position there is very little benefit from getting the extra height. At very best you perform an isometric contraction at the very top of the movement after the weight has been bounced into place and isometric contractions are not effective for building size. As you perform your calf raise with tension on the calf muscle through the whole movement you will reach a point at the top of the movement where you cannot go any higher without bouncing. Don’t Bounce! When you are at the top of the movement just hold the contraction for a 3 count then start back down again. Getting as high as you can on your tip toes by bouncing is completely ineffective for building calf size and just because your muscles are burning doesn’t mean they are being stimulated to grow, it just means you have a high amount of lactic acid in your muscles from metabolizing glucose. You can get a burn and not have stimulated your muscle effectively enough to grow.

• Keep your movement slow and steady – same speed up, same speed down
  

  By performing each calf exercise with a controlled, steady pace, it is much easier to keep constant tension on the calf muscle and you need that tension to be able to contract hard enough to stimulate growth. Think of your car for a minute. It will go 60 miles an hour but it takes a few seconds to get there. Your muscles will contract very hard but that is not instantaneous. If you keep tension on the muscle all the time it is much easier for that muscle group to contract near 100% of it’s capability much quicker. The harder you can contract through a movement the more that muscle group will ultimately grow. Theoretically, the purpose of weight is to force the muscle to contract harder by adding resistance but in the real world the load is not always handled by the muscle alone. Keeping tension on the muscle will help focus as much muscle building tension on those stubborn calf muscles as possible.

Sample 8 week calf program – train calves no more than 2 times a week for 8 weeks

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Add a muscle-building twist to your next workout with these five innovative uses for the power rack.

You’re probably familiar with the power rack - a tall, metal-framed structure usually found in the free-weight area of the gym. It’s also likely that, if you include barbell squats in your training routine, you’ve done them within the confines of one.

However, outside of squatters, most power racks see about as much action as the local library on a Friday night. With this article, we at ProSource are hoping to change that, introducing you to five other exercises you can perform in the rack, for your back, chest, traps, shoulders and legs. There are many others - indeed, there are multiple options for every body part - and once you get a taste of its worth, we’re sure you’ll find your way to the rack in almost every workout. Sure beats an evening of amateur poetry reading, doesn’t it?

1) Bench Press Partials

The power rack can play a valuable role in improving your bench press max, allowing you to focus on a specific portion of the range of motion by setting the safety rods at a corresponding height. For example, say you’re having trouble getting 315 pounds through the midpoint of the rep to full extension. To work on it, place a flat bench in the power rack, and set the rods so they “catch” the barbell just below the midpoint. Then put 315 on the bar and try anywhere from three to five sets of 1-3 reps each in the upper range of motion, pressing the barbell from the supports to full extension. Rest the barbell on the rods between each rep. After a few chest workouts that incorporate these partials, you may find your strength has improved enough to allow you to get 315 on a regular bench.

2) Behind-the-Back Shrug

The power rack is a great place to do standard barbell shrugs. And it’s an even better place to do a variation favored by eight-time Mr. Olympia Lee Haney - behind-the-back shrugs. By setting the safety rods just below your typical shrug range of motion, an awkward part of the exercise becomes easy: Picking up the barbell to get into starting position. Simply bend slightly at the knees and grasp the bar behind you with an overhand, palms-facing-back grip. Another benefit of doing this move in a power rack? You can rep until complete failure, as you can put the bar straight down without having to maneuver it onto hooks or dropping it to the floor.

3) Seated Military Press

Seated barbell military press stations are quickly becoming a rarity in health clubs, both because of insurance reasons and an unfortunate lack of popularity among the lesser motivated among us. However, as long as there is a power rack present, you can still perform this excellent delt-building exercise. Place an adjustable bench that goes all the way up to a sitting position, or a low-back seated bench, in the rack. Set the two barbell support pins at a point above your head, where you can lift the bar off of them while seated, and insert the safety rods at a point just below the bottom of your range of motion. Not only can you do military presses in the rack, but you can do them without the need of a spotter, which is a necessity in a traditional military press station - if you fail, just drop the bar to the strategically-placed rods, and you’re free and clear. Heck, maybe the disappearance of military press stations isn’t such a major loss after all.

4) Three-Quarter Rep Deadlift

Deadlifts from the floor are one of the most effective exercises you can do for your legs, back and as a synergistic power generator through your whole body. But, similar to the bench press, you can work through the upper range of motion by setting the rods - in this case just below your knees - to help you improve your max. Three-quarter rep deads are also a solid stand-alone exercise for use during your back routine; this range is where your back sees most of the action in comparison with your legs, which generate much of the force needed to lift the bar from the floor.

5) Inverted Pull-Up

This back exercise, a variation of a traditional pull-up, resembles an upside-down push-up. Set the two pins at a height 6-12 inches above your hips and lay a barbell across them. From there, get under the bar in a plank position, grasping it overhand style. Your whole body, except the heels of your feet (which remain on the ground throughout), should be off the floor in the starting position. To rep, pull yourself up until your chest touches the bar, then lower and repeat.

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The Item: Career Updates/Highlights

The Scoop: Athlete to Andrew: The May 2008 issue marks the second time the pecs and biceps of Musclemania Pro Morris “Mo” Mendez have emblazoned the cover of Muscle & Fitness Magazine. I hit up Mo for his reaction. “The new cover is hot! I look full, cut and symmetrical. Friends and fans in different countries say it’s a fresh, appealing and obtainable look for the general public. ‘Action hero quality.’ Ha! Show me the money!” The future action hero (with four international covers to his credit) pumps iron at Gold’s Gym in Bloomfield, CT, and earned his pro card at the 2000 Fitness Atlantic/Musclemania in New Haven. His last competition was the 2005 Musclemania Worlds In Hollywood. “If time allows me to train mentally and physically, my next competition will be the Superbody in Miami.” Mo plans to hit Africa and Argentina for appearances. “I like guesting in different countries because they appreciate you more, especially where they find it impossible to look like a Ronnie Coleman or a Jay Cutler. I’m proof you can look just as good with patience, time and dedication.”

The “So What?”: The 198-pound, model-athlete expressed frustration being a big man in a giant man’s world. Even with a rising profile and a marketable physique, Mendez currently has no sponsors. “It’s tough to get a sponsor to pay you what you want for your hard work,” he laments. Then he laughs. “As a natural bodybuilder, your competition is those monsters. They want you to look like that, but I’m a suit-and-tie man. I like to look good in my clothes.”

* Photo courtesy of Muscle & Fitness

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The Item: Magazine Contract Signing

The Scoop: Just announced: IFBB Pro Kai Greene inks a multi-year contract with Team MD. This week on “No Bull” Radio, Kai said he signed with Muscular Development over other suitors, because “MD has gone a long way from the beginning to extend a wonderful resource for me to reach out to the fans and tap into a readership that is unparalleled. I deeply appreciated that, particularly at a time when I wasn’t getting a lot of love.” Following his first victory at the 2007 IFBB Colorado Pro Show, Greene packed on 30 pounds of solid muscle and now hits nearly 300 pounds in the off-season. Last month, the flexible and ferocious force I dubbed the “Lion Slayer” in “The Art of War,” my posing and presentation series, placed 3rd at the Arnold Classic. The posing phenom is now keenly focused on slaying competitors in his hometown at the IFBB New York Pro (May 10).

The “So What?”: Kai, who admitted to being moved to tears by his latest MD cover, was in a crew left contract-less when Pinnacle/Kemistry cleaned house and released all of its sponsored athletes at the end of 2007. Recently, day-in-the-life videos posted online showed Kai still surviving on humble means while continuing to chase his pro bodybuilding dreams. With other endorsement deals also looming, has the gravy train finally rolled into his subway station?

* Photo courtesy of Muscular Development

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The Item: TV Appearance/Philanthropy

The Scoop: Just Announced: Muscle-heads meet gear-heads when 8-time Mr. Olympia and retired IFBB Pro Ronnie Coleman and Bio-Engineered Supplements and Nutrition Inc. (BSN) make an exclusive appearance on the popular cable TV show American Chopper. The episode will document the building of a custom fabrication, one-of-kind BSN-themed chopper. The show will feature cameo appearances by BSN execs, the girls of BSN, and Team BSN athletes Anthony Presciano and King Coleman (who made his emotional, official exit from the muscle stage at last year’s Mr. O. in Vegas). Tune in to TLC this week (April 24th) to watch father and sons - the Teutuls - and the Orange County Chopper (OCC) crew build the badass BSN muscle bike.

The “So What?”: BSN also commissioned a replica of its bike and will donate 100% of the proceeds from its sales to the Warrior Transition Unit of a New York hospital. “We really wanted to do something to give back to the soldiers who put their lives on the line every day protecting our country,” says BSN Co-Founder and VP Scott James. “We shot the bike’s unveiling at a soldier’s monument in West Point, NY, near the Keller Army Community Hospital and it made us all feel really proud.”

*Photo by Raymond Cassar

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The Item: Endorsement Deal/Contest Promotions

The Scoop: Recently Announced: Retired IFBB Pro Kenneth “Flex” Wheeler inked a deal with HeadBlade, Inc. One of the most impressive bodies to grace a muscle stage lends his head as an endorser of the sportily designed skull-scraping razor. He joins a smooth-domed fraternity that includes IFBB Pro Toney Freeman and MMA Top Dog Chuck Liddell. “Flex will help expand our lifestyle brand with his regular training and appearances at various competitions,” says Todd Greene, President of HeadBlade, Inc. The company will be a presenting sponsor at the 2008 Flex Wheeler Classic in July. Wheeler, who now sports tatted-up biceps, runs with the rowdy MD crew and proclaims to be “the Ultimate Natural Freak,” is also a martial artist that wowed the bodybuilding industry for nearly 25 years until 2001, doing full splits on stage at 5′9″and 245 pounds. Wheeler says, “After being introduced to HeadBlade two years ago, I have never considered using any other product to shave my head.”

The “So What?”: “2007 Arnold Classic Champion Victor Martinez has been confirmed to be at [the Flex Wheeler Classic}!” says Flex, who reportedly spoke with Martinez at the Arnold Classic, the site of Wheeler’s deal announcement, and received direct confirmation that “he will not only be able to attend and participate in the Superstar Seminar, but he states that he will be completely rehabbed from his knee injury and will also guest pose at the night finals!”

* Photo by Raymond Cassar

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By John Davies

By definition, to isolate is to set something apart, detach it from others or other environments.

Within the exercise world, the notion of “isolation” is for the most part the norm in virtually every avenue. Exercise facilities are designed in carefully laid out plans with machinery that focuses on certain isolated muscle groups, in essence leading the user from “station to station” so that they can “workout” in an orderly assembly-line like fashion. Typically to the side there is a “cardio” area with treadmills, elliptical, rowers and stair-climbers and a much smaller area for general floor exercises. Depending upon clientele and size limitations, a club might further offer a separate room that houses fitness, yoga and any assortment of this year’s (decade’s) top exercise class. With this well laid out plan, individuals will enter the facility and proceed through their workout in an orderly and predictable manner ensuring each aspect of their body’s development “in isolation” (whether intentional or not). The expanding home gym environment is much the same with cleverly engineered exercise equipment that features multiple stations so that you can; you guessed it, isolate your muscular development.

At this stage of an article on fat loss I would typically mention to the reader that given that the world’s obesity is growing at alarming rates and health care costs associated with this problem are devastating government and corporate budgets, action is needed. Since this problem has come at the same time as the “exercise revolution,” isn’t it abundantly obvious and quite logical that one of the greatest obstacles to improving “health and fitness” is the health and fitness industry itself? Simply stated, what is being “done” and recommended is far from what is needed.

As you consider this peculiar problem, you will begin to realize that part of the weight management problem stems from the fact that physiologically nothing occurs in an “isolated” fashion is the body. In fact, I would go as far as to say that somehow the modern exercise industry somehow derailed itself, took isolationist work out of context and forgot the synergistic effect of a properly laid-out plan that will have a greater effect than individual sections ( “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts”). I should also point out it is not the chief culprit in creating the enormous problem but part of a series of pratfalls that has complicated the issue and without serious changes it will be irreversible.

How and why the “isolationist” approach came into fashion is anyone’s guess. However it relates heavily to our topic of fat loss. While the rationale may be very well steeped in the development of the fitness industry, the elimination of the “small” independent gym and the gradual movement towards (expensive) exercise machinery, the acceptance of this broad training model (isolation) is deeply entrenched in society and any dissenting voice is far outside the norm.

Yet this is where it gets interesting. Through somewhat of a grassroots program, you’ve seen the public, likely without considering it, move towards a broader notion of “exercise” and begin to return to protocols which stress “harmony”. Whether it be “boot-camp fitness” classes that merge fitness and strength training through compounding lifts and non-conforming objects in a high intensity setting or even a Pilates^TM or Yoga class, there is a growing segment of the public that is starting to implicitly realize that as you abandon notions of strict isolationist work in a stabilized manner, health and fitness can be attained in a fun, addictive and engaging manner. I’ve even seen this emerge through my writing career. When I first started to discuss the classic Olympic lifts and training complexes they were virtually unseen and now are rather common-place throughout the field. This trend will continue to grow as it spreads to the major gym chains and gains notoriety in the major fitness magazines as well. Slowly small sections of the public are starting to see that the lessons of the past will solve the problems of today.

With this in mind I want to approach our fat-loss regime using the firm backdrop of promoting health, fitness and total body wellness / internal strength with a regime that will utilize movements to promote total body harmony. The route to promoting fat loss is in essence the optimizing of hormonal conditions, primarily dealing with growth hormone, thyroxine and cortisol. For a weight management program to be truly successful it must address these facts and approach the issue with a three-pronged attack in the following areas:

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Combine your back and chest training into a pair of powerful muscle-building workouts.

In recalling a few of the famous (and infamous) duos throughout history, a truism emerges - they are often stronger together than separately. Abbott without Costello? Bert sans Ernie? Cheech minus Chong? Hell, Wile E. Coyote would be nothing more than a demented desert drifter without his raison d’être and nemesis the Road Runner.

That same pattern holds true in weight training as well. Many bodybuilders smartly pool their biceps and triceps exercises into one workout, and “leg day” generally infers a collection of moves aimed squarely at the quadriceps and hamstrings, which work in concert to flex and extend your legs and the hip and knee joint.

Along those same lines, your chest and back also work synergistically - as the muscles of your chest flex, muscles in your back extend, and vice versa. Thus, it makes some sense to take advantage of this link, driving more blood into your torso for a better muscle-inducing pump.

The two workouts we provide here are meant to be cycled each time your “chest and back” day comes up in your own training split. (We also provide a sample split you can use.) The first workout is meant to be done heavy, aggressively pyramiding up the weight on the first six exercises to near max levels at the end. The second regimen switches back and forth between chest and back movements, and while you’ll still pyramid up the weight, instead of using more explosive reps as in workout one, you’ll take each rep through a slow and steady rep cadence - two seconds up, one second pause, three seconds down. The following is a quick walk-through of each training session.

Workout #1: You’ll begin on the incline barbell press, starting with a light warm-up set of 15 reps before pushing up the poundage from a 10-rep set to a nine, eight and finally a five repper. From there, you’ll follow suit with two more presses, flat and decline, hitting your chest from top to bottom along the way.

After that pectoral thrashing, it’s time for three back moves following the same rep pattern, attempting to really max out on the last set of each by tackling as much weight as you can handle with good form for five reps.

The session winds down with four more moves, alternating between chest and back, finishing with three sets of deadlifts. Often, you’ll see deadlifts performed early in a routine, but we use it here as a finisher - the weight you use is not as important as nice, solid reps and perfect form, giving your back one last blast before wrapping up and sitting down to your post-workout meal.

Workout #2: Unlike Workout #1, which focuses on ratcheting up your strength levels, this training session keeps the rep range a bit higher, and focuses more on developing a muscle pump (while still having you move challenging amounts of weight). You start with a bodyweight-only superset that pairs two classic exercises, pull-ups and dips. On the dips, be sure to lean your torso forward instead of remaining upright, which helps focus the attention on your pectorals instead of your triceps taking the full brunt.

Next, it’s four basic and effective exercises, two back interspersed with two chest moves. Do them all as straight sets (completing all the sets of one exercise before moving onto the next), and performing each rep in the slow 2-1-3-second pattern previously noted in the article. To finish with a flourish, you’ll do another superset, this time pairing back extensions with push-ups, both to failure.

If your chest or back training hasn’t been quite up to par of late, and you haven’t built the size you’ve wanted in those two areas, this training strategy should wake them both out of their doldrums. Leaving no part of either muscle group untapped, you’ll find it a challenge at first, but over a few weeks you’ll find yourself feeling more powerful and moving more weight than ever before. In no time you’ll be thicker and more impressive - front to back.

Workout #1:

Heavy

* Week to week, switch off which group of three exercises you start your workout with, the chest exercises one week, the back the next.

Workout #2:

Pump

Sample Training Split
You can cycle the above chest and back workouts into your own split, or if you want a new split to try, here’s an example that incorporates both of the workouts above.

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The Item: Career Updates/Highlights

The Scoop: Athlete to Andrew: I scored scoop from IFBB Pro Andy Haman, who appeared at WFC Fight Night at the Denver Coliseum for an autograph signing on Saturday. Next up, guest-posing stops at the Southern Colorado Championships (May 10th) and the Carla Sanchez Fitness Fiesta (Oct 15th). Haman earned his pro card at the 2007 NPC Masters Nationals, winning the Super-Heavyweight Class and the Overall title. “I’m training INSANE!” the ever-energetic muscle manic tells me. “I enjoy my time in the gym more and more as I get older! Still strong with a 625-pound flat bench!” Iron Head Haman plans to bring his iron pecs and quads to the stage at the Houston Pro on July 4th. The spiky-haired beast will then celebrate his 42nd birthday onstage at the Europa on August 16th, followed by the Atlantic City Pro in September. He calls this three-show circuit the “BING-BANG-BOOM!”

The “So What?”: Iron Head is banging his head on the iron door closed by producers of American Gladiators. He’s shocked, as am I, that his recent online campaign to drum up support for his hilarious, electrifying character “Shock!” didn’t get him a slot on the show. “SHOCK! IS STILL ALIVE! Unfortunately, the Gladiators didn’t pick me at the final callback; but, it was a great experience and the casting producer hopes to call in the future. He said no one has run a 40-yard dash at 275 lbs as fast as I did! I ran it in 4.8 seconds. They loved my Shock! character, but I think I was just too muscular and too hardcore for TV. Who knows? Maybe next time.”

* Photo courtesy of Andy Haman

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