Flex_USA_JulyAugust_2017_2

LAST SET
HARD TIMES
HARD
TIMES
NEWS, VIEWS,
AND IDLE GOSSIP
AS I WAS SAYING...
The original Hard Times column
I wrote for FLEX debuted in 1993.
In those days, you couldn’t get
bodybuilding news from any other
source. The last article I wrote
for FLEX was in 2008. Surely
there’s never been a decade of
activity and overall growth like
what we’ve experienced since
then. Back in 2008, the following
divisions did not exist: men’s
physique, women’s physique,
classic bodybuilding, and bikini.
Back then, social media was
not the driving force and hungry
anything-goes beast it has
become. Ben and Joe Weider
have both passed, and Big Ramy
was not so Big Ramy. Anyway,
with this debut column (and they
say there are no second acts...),
as Dorian Yates’ lats say, “It’s
good to be back.”
KUWAIT AND SEE
The above headline is becoming more
and more relevant as bodybuilders
working out of the now world-famous
Oxygen Gym in Kuwait emerge with
exceptional improvement. The gym is
owned by Bader Boodai, who loves
bodybuilding. Big Ramy is the biggest
(in every way) name to represent the
gym, and in 2016 Ahmad Ashkanani, in his
rookie year, stormed to second place at
the 212 Olympia and in March won Arnold
Classic 212 honors to establish himself
as Flex Lewis’ biggest obstacle to taking
a sixth Olympia title.
But it’s not just homegrown Oxygen
members who are making waves. Many
top bodybuilders from elsewhere are
basing themselves there and coming away
The January
2008 issue
of FLEX
with great results. We’re talking the
likes of Akim Williams, Roelly Winklaar,
William Bonac, Nathan De Asha, Jon
Delarosa, Victor Martinez, and, maybe
the one who showed the most
improvement, Brandon Curry. Weighing
220 pounds, Curry was 11th at the Kuwaiti
Pro on Sept. 29 last year. In December
he went to Oxygen Gym, stationed himself
there for three months, and returned to
action in March at the New Zealand Pro
and swept to a straight first victory,
tipping the scales at 246 pounds—that’s
an increase of 26 pounds of quality
muscle in three months.
Of course there’s a lot of needling
talk about how Oxygen Gym is enabling
bodybuilders to reinvent themselves.
The truth is that the gym is a genuine boot
camp in which the trainees work to a
strict schedule of eating, training, and
sleeping, with no distractions. There
are no women in the massive gym and
no social life of consequence. Also,
each bodybuilder is assigned a trainer
who makes Sgt. Maj. Leroy Davis (Dorian
Yates’ old training partner) seem like
Mary Poppins. There is no magic water
out there; it’s a case of trainees focusing
totally on bodybuilding and peaking
for a contest and nothing else. Boodai
and Oxygen Gym prove that the three
most powerful drugs in bodybuilding are
eat, train, and sleep.
PER BERNAL
216 FLEX | JULY/AUG ’17