Few people really know what their bodies are capable of until put to the test.
JOHN VAN KLAVEREN meets some Geelong men and women who push theirs to the limit.
BODY building elicits immediate perceptions of muscles upon muscles, living in the gym, performance enhancing substances and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
And while these perceptions are based on some fact, there’s more to the body building sub-culture than meets the eye.
In these days of obesity epidemics, generally declining health and fitness levels and associated rising medical costs, yo-yo dieting and a weight-loss industry making squillions, they stand out like a pot belly in a gym.
The explosion in gyms and memberships from the health and fitness craze is in part a backlash to these increasingly worrying trends.
More people are running marathons, pumping iron and hiring treadmills than ever and all of them, to some degree, are ultimately involved in trying to build a different body for themselves.
Within that, a small but dedicated band of people in Geelong have taken the art and science of body building to its logical extension.
Calum Von Moger is an Arnold Schwarzenegger look-alike who, at 23, is already more muscular than Arnie was at the same age.
And it appears the Highton hunk is embarking on a similar career path, with the Mecca of body-building – the USA – calling loudly.
His magnificent physique, a You Tube clip – Mad Desire, with more than 500,000 hits – and a fifth placing in the Mr Universe competition in Greece has garnered Calum international attention.
“Yes, Arnie has seen the video, I’ve been told,” Calum laughs.
A high-profile body builder agent and photographer in Los Angeles has booked Calum for a three-week tour, including a supplement promotion contract, photo shoots in New York and Miami and a series of movie auditions in Los Angeles.
“I don’t know where it will lead but it’s a great opportunity,” Calum confesses.
“It’s all happened pretty quickly, it was all arranged in one weekend, but luckily I had nothing tying me down here, so I was able to grab it with both hands.”
And sizeable they are, too – shaking hands with Calum is like putting your digits in a bear’s paw.
But he knows his strength and thankfully doesn’t squeeze.
Calum still trains solo, just like he did as a skinny 13-year-old when an older brother first got him into a gym at Anglesea.
“I had no idea what it was about but I enjoyed it,” he recalls with a smile.
“We used to run to the gym owner’s house to get the key from the letter box, run to the gym and work out. If the key wasn’t there we would lift the roller door enough so we could slide in underneath.”
Calum had finished school when he bought his first muscle magazine and discovered the wide world of body building.
“I’ve still got that mag. It got me going, it kicked me along.”
That kick-along motivated Calum to enter his first competition, the Victorian teenage championships. To this day he still sounds surprised that he won.
Throwing himself into competition, he snared his biggest title so far, the junior Mr Universe in Austria in 2011.
From his now-international vantage point, Calum sees the perception of weightlifting and body building shifting for the better.
“It’s become a lifestyle that helps people with their health and fitness,” he explains.
“Not everyone wants to compete but more people are realising how life is better when you feel good about your body.”
Calum’s observation is backed up by one of the doyens of the body building scene in Geelong, Ingrid Barclay, who operates Corio’s Body Conquest gym.
“Science has opened our eyes to the use of weights in increasing speed, power and agility,” Ingrid notes, citing the enhanced use of weight lifting in the training technique of all major sports these days.
“Fifty per cent of my clients only want to go halfway when they start a program with me. They see the pictures of body builders on the walls and say, ‘Oh, I don’t want to look like that’, but their goals change as they progress.
“They develop faith, trust and a belief in themselves when they reach their goal and often shift the goal posts.
“One client could measure her progress by the clothes she wore, starting with baggy trackies, graduating to leggings and a T-shirt and finishing in shorts and crop top. It’s life-changing.”
As a 25-year gym veteran, international judge and promoter, Ingrid is a firm believer in the simple secret of weightlifting as the pathway to a better body and improved health and well-being.
“Diets and aerobic exercise just break down muscle tone.
It doesn’t help – yoyo dieters can’t succeed.
“We suffer paralysis by analysis when it comes to diets, tackling the obesity epidemic, dealing with health and well-being, so much is being written and said, there’s so much confusion.
“Lean meats, fresh fruit and vegetables and healthy fats are all you need. If it comes in a box or plastic wrap, its processed crap and you can’t out-train a poor diet.
“People think to lose weight they need to eat less food. But actually its counter intuitive – you should eat more and more often. Eating less slows the metabolism.
“The more lean muscle mass you develop, the faster your metabolic rate and you build lean muscle tissue by doing weights.
“We call it the Holy Grail. It is in effect a re-composition of the body.
While the Mr Muscle class is still the top division, body building competitions include a variety of categories such as men’s and women’s athletic fitness models and figure models.
Ingrid is proud of her team of body builders, like bikini model Stephanie Sanzo and others who have completely changed their body composition.
To give her team an outlet, Ingrid promoted a show called Conquest Classic at North Geelong’s Sphinx Hotel.
The show featured a mother of six and a two-time cancer survivor on stage before an audience of 450, many of them friends and family unfamiliar with body building shows.
“As the MC I could explain what they had been through to get there as well as the judging criteria,” Ingrid says proudly.
Another competitor who surprised herself at the event was flight attendant Courtney Scott-Cuthbert, winning the first show she entered along with partner Nathan James-Gray, both 24 and from Torquay.
“I always thought people were a bit crazy to do that body building stuff. Why do that to yourself?” Courtney laughs.
As a flight attendant, she has a lot of overnight trips and time off at awkward hours, so she was looking for a way to maintain her fitness that fitted in with her work.
Like Calum, she and Nathan train at Corio’s Derrimut gym.
“It’s easy to slip into a 24-hour gym somewhere and do a weights session. Being fit and healthy is a lifestyle change but we were encouraged by our coach to enter shows,” Courtney says.
“I’ve learned so much the last few years as I’ve come to understand the performance side of it. I’m studying for my personal training certificate and I hope to start my own business helping clients with diet and nutrition, when to eat, what foods and how much, because it’s so often where people go wrong.”
As a result of her early success, Courtney was approached by Next Generation supplements and offered a sponsorship, featured in body building magazine articles and advertising.
“It’s funny. I used to look through those mags and wish I looked like them. My girlfriend said the other day: ‘Now you’re one of them’.”
