My 2009 NPC Northern USA completion experience

It’s November 14th Saturday morning 2:30am and my alarm is yelling at me to get up and this time I’m getting out of bed to head to NY and not too pee

I arrive at my friend Eric Calvert’s house at 3:30am on time and we arrive in NY at 7am an hour ahead of check in. We found parking right out front and I decided to take a nap for an hour or so.

8:30 comes along and it is time to check in...

When we walk into the Tribecca Performing Arts Center, I was blown away by all of the people there to compete. This is the biggest show I’ve ever seen, never mind competed in and the size of everyone was so intimidating. Bodybuilding sure has changed in the last 17 years.

There were over 200 contestants and most were male bodybuilders; I would have to say a 4 to 1 ratio. Now remember there are 3 women’s events and only 1 men’s event, usually there are more total women competing than men, but not today.

With the Nationals this coming weekend we had a lot of talent competing to try and qualify, to re-qualify or even doing a warm up before the Nationals. There were some huge guys there. I’m talking HUGE.

The Nationals is where every competitor bodybuilder wants to get to. If you win your class in the Nationals you will be awarded a Professional Bodybuilding card, turning yourself into a Pro. This will allow you to compete in the IFBB (International Federation of Body Building); where in these competitions winning a placement in the top five wins you prize money.

But before you can get to the Nationals you need to qualify by placing in the top 3 of your class at one of these National qualifying shows. Qualification only lasts one year.

I stepped onto the scale at the weigh-in at 207.7 , the biggest I’ve every competed at and I’d have to say the best condition I’ve brought to the stage so far. I still feel I could have been a little fuller, I think I cut back on my water too soon, but that’s another story for another time.

I entered the over 35 heavyweight masters division class and the open heavyweights class, this is the first time I every competed as a heavyweight, so I was a little unsure of myself, especially after seeing how big everyone was.

I ended up placing 12th out of 25 in the Open Heavyweight Class and 10th out of 18 on the over 35 Masters Class.

I’m am extremely pleased with my placements, seeing this is my first year back competing after taking 17 years off from lifting weights all together and the caliper of the competition was incredible.

We ended up leaving after the pre-judging, seeing I wasn’t placing and receiving a trophy. I didn’t want to be coming home at 5am in morning. This show had way too many contestants and we didn’t even get out of pre-judging until 3:30pm. The night show wasn’t going to start until 7pm, the show would not have ended until at least midnight and we were 3 ½ hours from home

So that was my experience in a nutshell, It’s time to grow, so come next year I can do it all again…

See you in May for the Jay Cutler Classic

Time for a protein drink