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IronLife.Com Up & Coming Star Of The Month - Brian Lynch
by Sachet IronLife.com Staff Writer & Admin @ www.ProActiveHealthNet.com
I spotted Brian's pictures in the bodybuilding forum at http://www.FortifiedIron.net when I was dropping off my Question of the Month for the Ironlife eZine. I don't know why, but I suddenly feel like a deer on the side of the road frozen in headlights. Honest, I only read these boards for the articles!
Anyway, he's known as Beeza on message boards and you can usually catch him at http://www.FortifiedIron.net in their bodybuilding forums. I was quite impressed with the progress he has made as a natural bodybuilder and asked him to answer a few questions. Please note that I started Brian's interview in October, but life got in the way between us due to classes, work and holidays.
I will be updating Brian's progress in the future because he has alot of heart and determination to live this lifestyle and I like his attitude. In fact, just to give you a peek into the way he thinks, his philosophy on life is: "Enjoy every moment you possibly can and leave no regrets. Life is too short for letting the small things bother you."
Brian Lynch Profile
Name: Brian Lynch Jr.
Age: 19
Height: 5'8"
Weight: 175-180 lbs.
Educational background: Automotive Vocational High & School HVAC-R Technology College Program
Favorite quote: “Hope is when we feel the pain that makes us try again.”
Brian Lynch Interview
- Sachet/IronLife.com: What year in college are you currently attending Brian?
- Brian Lynch: Freshmen year at a two-year community college. (Hopefully transferring to a 4-year engineering school once completed.)
- What are you studying in college and in what fashion do you plan to use your degree?
Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning & Refrigeration Technology. Hopefully, in 2 years I will be transferring to an engineering school for mechanical engineering. Upon graduating as a mechanical engineer, I’d like to find work designing HVAC-R systems.
- You have some pretty good goals set for yourself.. it's nice to see! So what are your hobbies aside from working out?
Most of my free time is spent studying or being with friends. However, when time permits I like to work on cars, play guitar, read fantasy books, and play video games.
- Which activities or sports have you participated in?
Growing up I always played soccer, basketball, and baseball right up until my sophomore year in high school. At this point, I went through some rough times and quit all sports for roughly a year. My junior year I stumbled across a boxing gym about 30 minutes from my house and boxing instantly became my new love. It is still my favorite sport, but unfortunately due to time constraints with college, I’m unable to train at the boxing gym I use to.
- How did you get involved with bodybuilding?
I was always overweight growing up and dreamed of one day becoming muscular and physically fit. I never really thought about bodybuilding until I was finally fed up with how I looked and did some Internet searching. I stumbled across several bodybuilding websites, and they motivated me enough to start working out. Since then (Almost 2 years ago), I have never looked back .
- What do you suppose caused your weight problem? You played sports, so it's not as though you were sedentary.
Extremely poor diet. I would just get done playing a soccer game and immediately head to Burger King or McDonald's for the dreaded Big Macs and Double Whoppers. I wish I had some control of my diet back then. I guess I was too young to realize what I was actually putting into my body.
- If you go the traditional route when you're older by getting married and having kids, do you think you'll be more aware of your children's nutritional program since it caused you to a slight weight problem growing up?
My kids most definitely will not be eating any form of “junk food”. I’ll monitor it very closely. Instead of chocolate milk they will get chocolate flavored protein powder mixed with milk etc.
- And they'll be getting weights for birthday presents! j/k What's your training schedule look like day by day?
My current training program is the 6-Week Periodized High Volume/Frequency Hypertrophy Program outlined by my friend Kyle Coleman (Owner of FortifiedIron.com). Once this program is completed I will be working with him and hopefully transforming myself into a competitive 185lbs in the next 2-3 years.
Starting in the beginning of November I will be on a 4-week bulk, 2-3 week cut schedule to help keep my body fat under control. During the 2-3 week cut period I will be doing cardio four times per week (after my workouts.) I have no specific schedule besides what Kyle develops for me on a weekly basis, but I typically train 4-6 days a week with varying intensity and volume.
- Periodization, along with longer breaks between sets seems to be gaining in popularity among natural bodybuilders. You appear to gain and maintain lean mass, which is the healthy way to go about bulking and you also have a fantastic base for a guy your age. I was reading somewhere that calorie overdosing (extreme bulking) is a detriment to muscle growth and more often than not, causes setbacks because it's mostly fat gain. Seems to me that gradually adding calories through clean food increases would be the way to go once you find you need to compensate for your new weight and muscle gains. What are your favorite and least favorite body parts to work out?
I like working out legs and back, and I think it shows because they are two of my better bodyparts. I really don’t like working my biceps, and that also shows because they are probably my weakest attribute.
- Well, that just shows you're really not in this for fluff appeal! But, just so ya know.. ~Women love strong biceps~ What inspired you to take it up a notch and start training to compete?
I was closely following the progress of my friends Layne Norton, Ted Fletcher, and Skip Albury through their contest preparation. I became friendly with them, and flew down to Florida to watch their June 20th competition. I was amazed at how they looked and from that moment on I knew that I just had to compete.
- Pictures don't often do bodybuilders justice unless you have a professional photographer at the show. It's great that you had the opportunity to see their final 'product' in person and you were able to attend the competition after following their contest prep. You also recently competed in your first show and did great.. how would you describe that experience?
Competing was one of the best experiences of my life. I had times when I wanted to quit and thought I couldn’t handle the 2x a day cardio at 4:30am and 8:00pm anymore, but my girlfriend at the time wouldn’t let me quit (contest preparation will put your significant other through hell too). When I finally stepped on stage it made everything worth it. There is no better feeling than the feeling of such an accomplishment. I’m a mentally stronger person because of it and it has carried over into other aspects of my life.
- Other than carb depletion what was the hardest thing about competing? (Practically every picture of Brian after the competition showed him woofing' down handfuls of cookie crisp cereal.. he wouldn't let go of the box *lol*)
For me the hardest thing about competing wasn’t necessarily the carb depletion (I handled that pretty well); it was the total calories I was eating for an entire day. My final two weeks of contest prep I was hovering around 1500 calories a day while working out 4x a week with cardio 2x a day every day. The psychological games were brutal and it was hard to keep pushing forward when I felt like a zombie. I felt so terrible that I began to think I wasn’t making any progress and my efforts were useless. It was tough to work through.
- You may not need to go to that extreme with carb depletion if you utilize them at specific times during the day, but you would know your body better than anyone. In your opinion, do you think bodybuilding will ever be recognized as a respected sport as long as steroid use is in the picture?
I have nothing against bodybuilders that choose to use steroids and honestly don’t think bodybuilding will ever be a mainstream sport whether or not there is steroid use. In general, people just don’t understand the amount of dedication and hard work it takes to chisel and mold your body into a perfect sculpture. I have friends and family that don’t understand and think it’s stupid, but let them think that. It’s my passion and nothing will change that.
- I can't believe I'm about to say this, but stranger things have happened. Someone once made the comparison between guys who aren't genetically gifted to become competitive bodybuilders are like guys who are 4 feet tall trying out for a NBA team. Most guys wanting to be pros automatically start taking steroids without having a clue whether or not their cells are predispositioned to accept them or not. Most of them stay 'on' for years during the time their bodies are maturing naturally. Plus, if they've upped their clean food intake when it was crucial for mass gains, stayed properly hydrated, consistent with workouts and getting enough sleep, how do they know what their true potential was without them? If they didn't have the necessary receptors to accommodate steroids anyway, they were useless. Anyway.. who are your favorite bodybuilders and what makes them your favorites?
Arnold, of course, is one of my favorites, but overall I would say Milos Sarcev is my favorite bodybuilder. His physique is perfect and very proportional. He is someone I definitely look up to, and I like to think that maybe someday(20 or 30 years down the road) I can come close to looking similar( but I doubt it will happen). I try not to idolize the really big guys like Ronnie Coleman and Markus Ruhl because it just isn’t realistic for me to EVER be able to come close to looking like them.
- It's not impossible to have a chiseled body through proper nutritional manipulation and consistency. Do you think it's possible for natural bodybuilders, such as yourself to compete successfully against guys who are juicing?
It can be done, but the amount of time it would take for me to do it would be 2-3x as long to put on the same amount of muscle (probably longer). If you look at some of the top level NGA professional bodybuilders they are enormous, but when standing next to top level NPC competitors they aren’t as big. It’s all of matter of how far you want to push yourself and what goals you want to achieve.
- Well, it's truly a lifestyle to you.. if you think about it, what's the difference how long it takes? Your mass would be true, solid mass. Any plans to do another show in the near future?
I would love nothing more than to do a final show as a teen, which is actually the day before my 20th birthday. It’s on May 8th in Boston MA. But, I really do need some size to compete with the big boys, so right now it is kind of up in the air.
- I hope you do that final teen show.. you can never have enough stage experience! Size will come Brian.. you still have changes happening with your body as it changes from young man into man, so that in it will help if you let nature take its course. Do you take any supplements? If so, how would you rate them and are there any others you are thinking about using?
I take whey protein, creatine, ICE or Nitrojet during workouts, and various vitamin and minerals etc. (Although the amount of money I spend will be drastically cut down next semester in school because of lack of funds.) I’d say the only real necessity is whey protein and dextrose post-workout. All of the others are just an added bonus, although I do like Nitrojet and ICE during my workouts. If I had more funds I would be using Neurostim and GO in addition to what I already have.
- Can I make a suggestion? If you suffer from energy loss during workouts, try eating 'good' carbs low on the glycemic chart before your workout, it might help. Since you have quite a bit of knowledge behind you now, what advice would you give a teenage guy just starting out in bodybuilding?
Don’t follow the hype of supplement companies and muscle magazines. Stick to the basics and you will do fine.
- That's excellent advice. When do you feel it's a safe age for a young guy to start using weights?
As early as possible, but only if someone is they’re to guide and help them with using proper form etc. I really hope that when I have kids they choose to be weightlifters and I can be there to guide them through it. I really think the earlier they start the better. I believe serious weightlifting benefits an individual in all aspects of their life whether it is in sports or in overall self-discipline. It’s incredible what an impact bodybuilding has had on me.
- It was a pleasure talking to you Brian.. you have a bright future ahead of you!
* Article by Sachet IronLife.com Staff Writer & Admin @ www.ProActiveHealthNet.com.
* Back to This Issue's Frontpage
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