 "What it takes to be Mr Olympia, the world's top bodybuilder")
It was a few minutes before midnight when Mr Olympia, the top bodybuilder in the world, finished his workout at a nondescript gym in a tired strip mall. He lifted one of his 22-inch biceps and flipped the light switch, tapped the alarm panel and turned the key to lock the glass front door.
He hauled out a sturdy black trunk, the kind with shiny metal edges and a buckle for a latch, and opened the trunk to his white Mercedes.
“Mr Olympia Phil Heath Parking Only,” the sign in front of the car read. “All others will be crushed.”
Heath is 36. He wants 10.
“Barring injury, I’ll smash it,” Heath said during a break in his workout a bit earlier. “I’ll get to 10. The question is: Can I continue to be a better version of myself?”
Heath wriggled the trophy case into his trunk. It barely fit. He shut the lid and drove the dark, empty streets toward home.
Heath is an unlikely Mr Olympia. He grew up on playgrounds in Seattle playing basketball. His backcourt mate on the 1998 state championship team at Rainier Beach High School was Jamal Crawford, still in the NBA. Heath, just 5 feet 9 inches and a naturally chiselled 175 pounds, got a Division I basketball scholarship at the University of Denver. He majored in business and averaged 1.3 points over four seasons.
Heath looked for another athletic outlet when college ended. He found it in bodybuilding magazines and the university recreation centre. Heath beefed up to a chiselled 200 pounds and soon began winning regional bodybuilding competitions.
He was genetically bequeathed with good bodybuilding genes: narrow joints and long attachments for proportion and big muscle bellies for bulge. That earned him a nickname, The Gift. By 2005, he was a professional bodybuilder. In 2008, he qualified for his first Mr Olympia. In 2011, he won it. And every one since.
Now Heath is a walking muscle chart, as if lifted from the wall of biology class. He competed at the last Mr Olympia at 248 pounds, a symmetrical knot of bulges on top of bulges in places that most men never dreamed of bulging. The bundle is cinched at a 29-inch waist.
When he flexes he expands, like a rippled blowfish. The front of his thighs are something a balloon artist with too many balloons might create. His arms look like gnarled oak. His relatively narrow shoulders, once a drawback, are broad knots of deltoids and trapeziuses. His back is a relief map of impenetrable terrain.
“I produce a three-dimensional effect that others don’t have,” he said.
Armbrust Pro Gym, owned by a friend and open to Heath at all times, is filled with thick-limbed men and more weights than machines. Its grunginess gives it an authenticity that Heath likes.
A wall is decorated with photographs and magazine covers featuring Heath. He pointed to one and noted the striations within his biceps. “Detail on top of detail,” he said. He pointed to his quadriceps and noted the “different dimensions of crevices.”
Heath’s girlfriend, Shurie Cremona, scrolls her phone for a photograph of Heath on stage next to another competitor at Mr. Olympia. One man looks like the most muscular man in the world. The other is Heath, who is more — how to put it? — striated and creviced.
People sometimes walk up and touch him, as if unsure if he is a man or a machine. Heath gets nervous every time he strips to his posing trunks. He is rarely satisfied with what he sees in the mirror. He is persistently worried about imperfections others might find, too.
“It’s not just one body part,” said Robin Chang, vice president for events at American Media, which co-owns Mr Olympia with Weider Health and Fitness. “Some athletes have huge legs or a great pair of biceps. Phil beats you not with one pose, but with every single pose.”
Heath has 1.8 million Instagram followers, 300,000 Twitter followers, a global fan base and a growing portfolio of muscle magazine covers. He competes in just one competition a year, Mr Olympia, for which he won the $400,000 first prize this year. He spends the rest of the year staying in shape and flying hundreds of thousands of miles for appearances, conferences and meetings. He has five sponsors, led by Ultimate Nutrition, a supplement company. All told, he earns more than $1 million a year.
Heath eats six or seven meals a day. He is divorced, but he has found in Cremona someone who will do his food shopping and meal preparation, on top of being a travel partner and business adviser. She spends $1,000 or more a week on his food, mostly at Whole Foods, and spends roughly six hours a day in the kitchen.
Daily, Heath usually eats five to six pounds of protein-rich meats — filet mignon, chicken, turkey, salmon and tilapia, mostly. He consumes up to 75 grams of carbohydrates in the form of grits or oatmeal, white or brown rice, and various types of potatoes, including sweet potatoes. Mornings might bring 16 ounces of scrambled egg whites. He tries to drink two gallons of water a day. His off-season weight usually reaches 275 pounds or more, still chiselled.
© 2016 The New York Times News Service
He hauled out a sturdy black trunk, the kind with shiny metal edges and a buckle for a latch, and opened the trunk to his white Mercedes.
“Mr Olympia Phil Heath Parking Only,” the sign in front of the car read. “All others will be crushed.”
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Heath bent his legs — each thigh about 32 inches around, bigger than his waist — and lifted the black case. Inside was his latest Mr Olympia trophy. In bodybuilding, it is called the Sandow, and Heath has won the last six, most recently in Las Vegas in September. Arnold Schwarzenegger, still the world’s most famous bodybuilder, won six in a row, too, and then a seventh a few years later. Two men, Lee Haney and Ronnie Coleman, have won eight.
Heath is 36. He wants 10.
“Barring injury, I’ll smash it,” Heath said during a break in his workout a bit earlier. “I’ll get to 10. The question is: Can I continue to be a better version of myself?”
Heath wriggled the trophy case into his trunk. It barely fit. He shut the lid and drove the dark, empty streets toward home.
Heath is an unlikely Mr Olympia. He grew up on playgrounds in Seattle playing basketball. His backcourt mate on the 1998 state championship team at Rainier Beach High School was Jamal Crawford, still in the NBA. Heath, just 5 feet 9 inches and a naturally chiselled 175 pounds, got a Division I basketball scholarship at the University of Denver. He majored in business and averaged 1.3 points over four seasons.
Heath looked for another athletic outlet when college ended. He found it in bodybuilding magazines and the university recreation centre. Heath beefed up to a chiselled 200 pounds and soon began winning regional bodybuilding competitions.
He was genetically bequeathed with good bodybuilding genes: narrow joints and long attachments for proportion and big muscle bellies for bulge. That earned him a nickname, The Gift. By 2005, he was a professional bodybuilder. In 2008, he qualified for his first Mr Olympia. In 2011, he won it. And every one since.
Now Heath is a walking muscle chart, as if lifted from the wall of biology class. He competed at the last Mr Olympia at 248 pounds, a symmetrical knot of bulges on top of bulges in places that most men never dreamed of bulging. The bundle is cinched at a 29-inch waist.
When he flexes he expands, like a rippled blowfish. The front of his thighs are something a balloon artist with too many balloons might create. His arms look like gnarled oak. His relatively narrow shoulders, once a drawback, are broad knots of deltoids and trapeziuses. His back is a relief map of impenetrable terrain.
“I produce a three-dimensional effect that others don’t have,” he said.
Armbrust Pro Gym, owned by a friend and open to Heath at all times, is filled with thick-limbed men and more weights than machines. Its grunginess gives it an authenticity that Heath likes.
A wall is decorated with photographs and magazine covers featuring Heath. He pointed to one and noted the striations within his biceps. “Detail on top of detail,” he said. He pointed to his quadriceps and noted the “different dimensions of crevices.”
Heath’s girlfriend, Shurie Cremona, scrolls her phone for a photograph of Heath on stage next to another competitor at Mr. Olympia. One man looks like the most muscular man in the world. The other is Heath, who is more — how to put it? — striated and creviced.
People sometimes walk up and touch him, as if unsure if he is a man or a machine. Heath gets nervous every time he strips to his posing trunks. He is rarely satisfied with what he sees in the mirror. He is persistently worried about imperfections others might find, too.
“It’s not just one body part,” said Robin Chang, vice president for events at American Media, which co-owns Mr Olympia with Weider Health and Fitness. “Some athletes have huge legs or a great pair of biceps. Phil beats you not with one pose, but with every single pose.”
Heath has 1.8 million Instagram followers, 300,000 Twitter followers, a global fan base and a growing portfolio of muscle magazine covers. He competes in just one competition a year, Mr Olympia, for which he won the $400,000 first prize this year. He spends the rest of the year staying in shape and flying hundreds of thousands of miles for appearances, conferences and meetings. He has five sponsors, led by Ultimate Nutrition, a supplement company. All told, he earns more than $1 million a year.
Heath eats six or seven meals a day. He is divorced, but he has found in Cremona someone who will do his food shopping and meal preparation, on top of being a travel partner and business adviser. She spends $1,000 or more a week on his food, mostly at Whole Foods, and spends roughly six hours a day in the kitchen.
Daily, Heath usually eats five to six pounds of protein-rich meats — filet mignon, chicken, turkey, salmon and tilapia, mostly. He consumes up to 75 grams of carbohydrates in the form of grits or oatmeal, white or brown rice, and various types of potatoes, including sweet potatoes. Mornings might bring 16 ounces of scrambled egg whites. He tries to drink two gallons of water a day. His off-season weight usually reaches 275 pounds or more, still chiselled.
© 2016 The New York Times News Service