Muscle for Life

Bodybuilding is a strange sport that requires a special type of masochism. If you want to make it in the big leagues, you not only need great genetics but you also have to micromanage your nutrition, beat the shit out of your body with absurd amounts of training, and do enough drugs to make Jordan Belfort blush. It also makes for a rather isolated and lonely life spent mostly in the gym grinding away to add that next pound of muscle, and even when you make it to the professional level, it doesn’t pay all that well. And so I’ve often wondered why people choose to become bodybuilders and what it’s really like to dedicate your life to the sport. Well, a couple months ago, I was invited to attend a podcasting event put on by my buddies at Mind Pump and interview the ex-pro bodybuilder Ben Pakulski. In case you’re not familiar with Ben, he was an Olympia-level competitor who used to step on stage at 280 pounds and walk around in the low 300s during the offseason, and in this interview, I got to ask him about what