The body pneumatic

Part 4

by Stephen Heuser

Training for competition makes you weaker. It also makes you smaller.

People think they understand bodybuilding when they realize it's superficial, that it's the acquisition of a quantity of muscle that can't be used to do anything at all. But just as important is the awareness that bodybuilding is almost totally illusory -- "smoke and mirrors," as Richie Maynard puts it. Not only are the tans fake (they come from a dye called ProTan, painted on with sponge applicators) but the guys on stage are not, for the most part, any stronger than their gym buddies in the audience.

At Berklee, I see competitors roaming the auditorium, off-stage, wrapped in hooded sweatshirts and varsity jackets and sweatpants. I suspect they're trying to conserve warmth, compensating for low blood sugar, but O'Hearn says I'm wrong. "You know why sweatshirts?" he says. " 'Cause you feel small. I felt real small and fragile when I was dieting. You're in there and you're big and strong, but that's not how you feel."

What you do feel, apparently, is sick. "It's a sadistic sport," says Richie Maynard. "The day of the show, probably a few days leading up to the show, is probably the best you look as far as skeletal muscle goes. And it's probably the closest to death without closing the coffin you're going to be."

O'Hearn himself weighs between 227 and 228 pounds most of the year; after eight weeks spent purging his diet of sugar, complex carbohydrates, and finally even water, he weighs in backstage at 193. He pops the top on a Coke and drinks it; the sugar races through his bloodstream, his veins bulge out like ropes, and he walks on-stage for the judging. He's barely able to stand. But he's never looked better.

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Stephen Heuser can be reached at sheuser[a]phx.com.