MUSCLE CHURCH: Our Father, the Iron

Most of us proud meatheads fall into two categories with bodybuilding, we love the freaks like Ronnie Coleman or Roelly Winklaar or we champion the classic physiques of Frank Zane or Dexter Jackson. In the history of the Olympia we’ve seen that the judges tend to prefer a mix of both from year to year, but when the points get added up-they often don’t reward competitors with physiques in the middle. Such is the case with Cedric McMillan, the man who wins EVERYWHERE except the Olympia and there really isn’t a good reason why.   Cedric McMillan, champion bodybuilder and proud member of the United States Army McMillan came on to the scene a little over a decade ago winning his pro card in 2009 and won his first show in 2011. Since then he has competed in thirty IFBB Pro League shows and won eight of them, including winning a little show called the Arnold Classic (Columbus) in 2017. In fact, other than two early outings at the New York Pro, McMillan hasn’t finished lower than sixth pla...

  On the surface it would be easy to dismiss anyone competing up into a bigger or more competitive pool of contestants, especially for their first time doing so. Of course, to dismiss Flex Lewis, the “Welsh Dragon” and seven time winner of the 212 Mr. Olympia title for any reason, might be a poor bet to make. But is this year’s Olympia the best place for the Dragon do tread into open water? Maybe it’s the perfect time. This year’s contest is stacked, and while the favorites are the defending champ Brandon Curry and returning seven time champion Phil Heath, the last two years have shown us that the static that once held the Sandow in place for years and year, might have lost its grip. With two new champions in the last two years, the rise in competition could be the perfect place for a dialed-in Lewis to not only make a splash, but make history. Though he ran roughshod over the 212’s for years, he was almost always among the largest contenders-or at least those appearing to be t...

With a new venue, a new date and a new owner, the Mr. Olympia contest for the much-maligned year of 2020 is one of change in a year of firsts. Thanks to the chaos and tumult of the COVID-19 pandemic, the event will now be hosted at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas the weekend of December 18 th , but smart money says that the changes end there. With the announcement of “The Gift” Phil Heath coming out of semi-retirement to compete, this contest comes down to Heath and two other athletes, the current champion Brandon Curry and former Mr. Olympia, Dexter “The Blade” Jackson.   As of this writing, the list of athletes looks very deep and on paper this could be the most competitive Olympia in recent years. Last year controversy struck when then-champion “Flexatron” Shawn Rhoden was hit with sexual assault allegations and not allowed to compete, and that cleared a lot of room for Curry to come in and win both nights, earning the Sandow. Rhoden won’t be competing this year and that’s probabl...

--> Some thoughts on setting yourself up for success and avoiding some major markers for failure. There are much more complex and complicated things at play these days compared to the dingy weight room of my rural high school in 1997. Social media is awesome, but so many people, myself included, don’t seem to figure out the negative effects of it until it’s too late. Aside from the constant desire to remain connected and the endless battles with trolls, we get exposed to so many messages and that alone can skew our perception of what we want and who we are. Instagram is the de facto social network for fitness and training, but it’s easy to forget that most of the major players in that realm do that for work, because their job is to be models and spokespersons for products. I’m sure that many of them would love for you to achieve your goals, but at the end of the day they need followers and engagement in order to make a buck. These perfect bodies performing incred...

Hey everyone! This was written about a week or two after last year's Mr. Olympia and I was wanting to do some more analysis of IFBB contests but it never really took off for me. However, I'm going to incorporate that into the blog this year. So I present some thoughts on the contest last September, specifically about Big Ramy. I'd love to know what you think so leave a comment on the bottom! Spoiler alert, there's a new Mr. Olympia in town and rarer still he beat the reigning champ. By now everyone knows that Shawn Rhoden beat Phil Heath in Sin City last weekend, but almost as interesting is the question of what happened to Big Ramy AKA The Next Big Thing. In 2017 the Kuwaiti bodybuilder was runner-up to Phil Heath in the Mr. Olympia and received much of the same criticism that has followed him throughout his IFBB career. Not many argued that as Heath came in like a wrecking ball and though he had put on some size, he was not spilling over and his symmetry and condi...

--> “Now that’s what I call posing!” Most people have heard Arnold Schwarzenegger’s classic line from the 1977 film Pumping Iron when a thick and mustachioed Ed Corney is posing while the Oak looks on, whispering to the camera. Corney’s pro bodybuilding career wouldn’t reach the heights of either Schwarzenegger or Lou Ferigno, the film’s primaries, but his role in the film would put his classic image in the public consciousness and his physique and posing would place him in the upper echelon of bodybuilding elite. Corney passed away on New Year’s Day 2019 and with him we lost one of the rarest of all relics in the annals of competitive bodybuilding, a man whose career spanned three decades. He first competed in 1968 in the Mr. California and last took the stage in 1998 at the Arnold Classic in the Master’s Division. Though not a frequent winner or even a perennial favorite, Corney was revered for being one of, if not the, best poser of all time, on any level. The...