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[MissKBuff]

"I just finished looking through the most recent edition of Flex Magazine and in it were featured two of the top pros training together. Both were in the off-season and to be honest they looked nothing like the chiseled and shapely bodies that so many of us see onstage. Instead they looked no different from any other really big guy that happens to be overweight. I remember as a young and aspiring teenager growing up in Trinidad, how excited I was at the prospect of professional bodybuilders coming to our country to guest pose and do seminars. The flyers would all herald their coming, with pictures of them onstage, or in photo shoots, looking so very much like the costumed characters in the pages of the comic books that inspired me as a child.

The arrival however always put a real damper on my excitement. Instead of the god-like and statuesque image that would be on the posters and in the magazines, instead I was always presented with an extremely large man (or woman) who invariably had a bit of a pot belly and looked more like a sumo competitor than the titans that imagined those that graced the stage to always be.

It was explained to me back then that in the off-season, pros would relax their diet somewhat and gain a few extra pounds to help them add on more mass for the next year. To my young ears, as impressionable as they were back then, it did not make any sense. The spectacle of seeing them onstage posing made it even worse, I was almost embarrassed for them, as they were almost always almost unrecognizable from the physique that you associated them with. It was in many ways the beginning of my disillusionment, as I, a young aspiring bodybuilder, didn't want to follow that path. Singers could their best sing all the time, because they are a singer, basketball players could play their best all the time because they are basketball players. A singer that could only sing several days out of the year would be laughable, as would a basketball player that could only work his court magic three to four times out of three hundred and sixty-five days.

Bodybuilding to me, should not be any exception, and in retrospect, that was the start of my own path within this path. Never mind the future heartbreaks that I suffered when I learned that drugs were standard for almost every professional competitor at the higher levels and that health was not ever a consideration in contest preparation, in both standard and drug free bodybuilding contests. That combined with the incredibly narcissistic mentality and what I learned over the years having been surrounded by bodybuilders, weight lifters and fitness enthusiasts at all levels of the sport pushed me even further into a world of my own making as far as my body is concerned.

I am often commented on for two things, my ability to train harder than seemingly possible and my ability to sustain my shape through perfect adherence to an incredibly strict diet over the course of what is now two years and counting. To many, I appear to be an anomaly, to others, there is staunch belief that my claims of being a drug free athlete are false and that there is some pharmaceutical explanation for my being as I am. Both beliefs seem foreign to me, as from where I stand, there is nothing that I have accomplished in this life that I do not see others being able to equal, if not surpass.

The training for me has always been something far from what most aspire towards. I never had any real merit set in being able to lift seemingly inhuman poundages, and to be frank, even though I can do so, focusing on that aspect ignores the reality that I have been immersed in for the past eighteen years. Failure is all that I really have to carry with me at the end of each and every exercise that I do. When I first started this path of pain and endurance my goal was always to be able to keep on going, no matter how heavy the weight was and how difficult the exercise. To that end, training to failure was initially an exercise in complete and utter frustration for one intent on going beyond all conventional ideas of human limitation.

That I was able to squat 315lbs for 8 reps at the age of 15 meant nothing to me, all that mattered when I came crashing to the floor at the end of that final brutal set was that I did not get 10 reps and that the next time I would see to it that the cold steel did not triumph over my spirit. By 19 a seven plate squat (on each side) meant nothing because I could only get 6 reps before succumbing to the crushing strain of having nearly seven hundred pounds on your back. True my friends, colleagues and fellow lifters had much to say about the tremendous accomplishments in strength that the once skinny teen was able to perform, but to me, it didn't matter very much, as it has always been personal battle, one where other peoples' opinion meant little. I learned very early on that the opponent that I faced looked just like me and moved as I did, and I focused on beating him, knowing that if I did, that in time I would be rewarded with the physique that I sought.

Time proved me to be correct, and I am grateful or all that I have been able to do with this once emaciated body, but it still is not enough, or perhaps it is, as I am still too focused on beating my last session in terms of intensity and sheer hard training to be concerned with something as trifling as how I look. To be honest, I don't really pay much attention to how I look anymore and it would be a surprise I am sure, for many people to know that I do not pose in front of a mirror unless I am either teaching someone else to pose or doing a shoot. When I am alone, it is something I never do, I have no reason to- as my outer being is simply an outer manifestation of what I am on the inside. I know the inside very well and so I do not need a mirror to tell me what the outside looks like. The novelty and self centeredness of it crept away a long time ago. I train because it is what I do, and I do not need a visual feedback to keep myself motivated. That being said, I am indeed at less than 5% bodyfat all year round, but again, it is nothing that someone else with the same amount of drive and determination could not do better.

As for the dietary aspect, I will admit that it is at times hard. Not so much with regard to temptations, or the rigors and stresses of life pulling me towards foods that I should not eat- that is not and never has been a problem. What is hard is a lifetime of being told that somehow there is something inherently wrong with you, that the very part of me that allows me to eat in a manner that sustains me and keeps me able to be strong and develop and sustain a championship level physique can explained away by something as negative as an obsessive disorder. I have heard it with regards to many things in my life, all of the things that I have excelled in and with all of the childhood dreams that I have made a reality, and I have heard it always from those that have long abandoned their own dreams and aspirations.

We do so much in this society to vilify traits that have the potential to allow individuals to sand out from the crowd. Had John Keats been treated for his depressive states we would not have the beauty of his poetry, had Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso and Ernest Hemingway been forced to conform to a 'normal' life, we would not have the wonders of their unique perspectives. There is not quality of human personality that makes us more inclined towards success, we all have individual gifts, and what is important is that those gifts be respected and channeled in a way that does some good.

Sometimes I pay them little mind, as it is hard to hear it from someone that has trouble walking up several flights of steps or from someone bound by a very real discomfort about their own body image- but it is hard to hear nevertheless. I do not have flashes of wanting to eat a donut or a bagel when I am offered, but I it does create some hurt when the person offering it makes the claim that what I am doing is not 'normal'.

Not being 'normal' is what has helped me over the years see myself be an outstanding success in all of my endeavors. The past few month have been very trying for me in terms of personal difficulty and stressful circumstances, in many ways I am today more stressed than I have ever been, and yet through it all I have not missed a meal, nor indulged in any foods outside of my regime, nor have I missed a workout. In many ways it is hard for me to understand why the hardships of life would lead one to justify abusing the body with the illusionary 'comfort' of unhealthy food and inactivity.

You see, this truly is who and what I am, it isn't a momentary phase captured on film, rather it is the very real manifestation of my lifestyle. For me, bodybuilding cannot be simply about the size of your biceps, there must be a spiritual growth that accompanies the muscular hypertrophy, there must be layers of envy, pride, laziness and lack of self control that melt away along with the body fat surrounding the abdominals. Without the peeling away of those unseen layers, what use is there in only focusing on something so inherently shallow?

Health, vibrancy and the ability to do anything your mind can conceive is the goal, the 'look' simply comes as an afterthought. It has been this manner of thinking that has shielded me from the temptation of using drugs to attain my goals, and it is the same spirit that makes sense of what it is that I do.

Thankfully I am able to touch so many others and help them believe in themselves and it is a responsibility that also sustains me. Without a a wider social context all that I have done would be absurd, it has to be more than just about me, what I do must be an inspiration to all.

Now perhaps you understand why looking in the mirror isn't so important to me, I clown around a lot about looking in the mirror, but I really don't. I do at least some form of photo shoot every other month and I am always amazed by the pictures, as I don't really stop to see what I look like anymore. In the end, that image is not what I use to define myself; it is only one way that others use to define me. The uncompromising adherence to a healthy way of eating, the tears that form in my eyes during the agonizing but mercifully brief training sessions where the word 'limit' has no physical bearing is very much how I define myself, as it is part of an unending routine that will end with my last breath.

Why Would You Need To Take A Break From Taking Care Of Yourself?

So all these years later I still have a problem with the idea that there has a be an off season, a period where you relax a bit with regards to diet and training. It is only logical if what you are doing has no bearing on your overall health and fitness in the first place, and isn't that supposed to be the reason why we do what we do? Somehow that part seems to get lost and others are all too eager to accept the model of mediocrity that remains. You don't need a break from taking care of yourself, and that is what you should be doing in the first place. That being said, I think it makes it much easier for all to begin to understand why it is that I have no breaks, nor do I look for them in any form.

Kevin Richardson"