SecondFocus Blog

Jay Cutler was not the only guest poser at the Orange County Muscle Classic this year. I will show you who challenged Jay in a little while.

And he was not the only pro among the big crowds that came out to watch 170 competitors. The seats were filled for both pre-judging and the evening finals. This was a great show and a lot of fun. Watch for more in the Pro/Am BodyBlog and photo galleries. And come back here shortly for more details too.

The next stop for me will be on Saturday, April 28th at the NPC Orange County Muscle Classic in Anaheim California. This is one of the biggest and best shows on the West Coast for the year. And the guest poser is some guy named Jay Cutler who I hear won the Olympia just recently!

Last year there were 150 competitors, with about 75 figure competitors among them. And these people come from around the country to do this show. This is top notch competiton and these athletes have been building muscle, leaning out and prepping for this one for some time. Also on hand you will find some top companies ready to hand out some goodies. You will find Kemistry, Met-Rx, Pure Protein, LaBrada, Player’s Body Gear, Vyotech, Team America Fitness and John Scott’s Nitro. And of course your favorite company, BodyBuilding.com!

So you have to come to this show. Check in at the show website at MuscleContests.com for more information and tickets. But you can also get tickets at the door. So whether you come out for the pre-judging or the finals or both, I know you will have a great time, talk to some great people, see some great bodies and have a lot of fun! And you never know who else will be there!

I will be looking for you!

I am always amazed to find so many people I have met coming by and joining BodySpace. For me it makes it great fun because I typically just see most of these people at the competitions. We all become friends but we don’t see each other very often. What made me think about this is that I just ran across the BodySpace for Pia Marlen Johnsen.

Pia is an IFBB Pro Figure Competitor who I first met in Culver City California at the IFBB Pro Figure Competiton. This show is typically called "the Cal" because it is the California Bodybuilding, Figure and Fitness Championships and it is one of the biggest and best shows of the season on the West Coast.

Anyway I remembered I had shot this photo from that show with Pia front and center and it has always been one of my favorite photos from a figure competiton. So I thought I would share it with you. And you can find Pia right here on her BodySpace. Tell her you like her photo here on my BodyBlog.

This year the Cal as in the California Bodybuilding, Figure and Fitness Championships will be on May 26th and again in Culver City CA. Check it out here on the schedule. You should be there!

And I will keep posting more photos of people who you can find right here on BodySpace. Maybe it will be you! Thanks!

This seems to be a really popular ad for BodyBuilding.com running in many magazines over a couple of months now. And it is one that I have been receiving requests about the behind the scenes as to how it came to be.

Like so many ads this began as part of a discussion as a need to put together something different specifically for the women’s magazines such as Oxygen and Muscle & Fitness Hers. We have been looking to make ads more fun because we know that we are all hit with so many ads on a daily basis that it would be nice to be more entertained by them. During our discussions the concept for this ad emerged. And one of the first things is to plan it with rough sketches from the art department at BodyBuilding.com.

Then it is up to me to plan the actual shoot, find a location, cast for my models, arrange for props and wardrobe, the right lighting equipment, and even arrange the permits and insurance for the location. The date is set and in between a lot of discussion and thought. And it all must fit within a production budget. The day comes, everyone from the models to assistants arrive and we start.

Now you just can’t put a bunch of people in a location and take pretty pictures, it won’t happen. Here one of the models and my good friend, Cara, stands in the area we will shoot so we can see what we have for lighting. The first thing to see is that it is too dark, very uneven and will be prone to a lot of shadowing. We wanted some bright colors for this so light would be a very important factor. So what is a fairly small area required a rather substantial amount of lighting gear in lots of locations and different angles, above, below, behind and to the sides. Once we got set up, it was off to shooting.

Here it gets tough because I needed four girls to fight over a bikini for hours. They got warmed up and it wasn’t before long when they started to have just too much fun. And they get paid for this.

And I had to personally get down and dirty to show them one of the scenes I was looking for. My good friend Shaela was more than happy to push me around in the interest of getting the job done.

I had the girls alternate on the floor, in pushing and fighting positions. Yes they continued to have a ball. Oh well, my shoots are pretty well know for being a lot of fun for the models.

We did draw a pretty good crowd outside watching the goings on inside the store. We were right on Palm Canyon Drive in Palm Springs, California on a warm sunny day. And the store owner and the employees got to watch a great show. In the end it all worked out just great.

My models pushed and shoved, pulled hair and grabbed at arms and legs. But they had nothing but fun and left good friends. Two of the models I had worked with before and known for a few years. One model I had known but had not worked with and one was brand new with me but she fit right in. From left to right we have Cara Basso, Hannah Gordon, Lauren Elaine and Shaela Luter. Cara is an accomplished actress, dancer and a very well known yoga and health instructor. Hannah you might remember as the very popular hostess from the FitShow. Lauren Elaine is a very successful model and actress having appeared in many ads and music videos. And Shaela has been in many magazine layouts in the bodybuilding and fitness business as well as many exercise videos. They were all great, we had a lot of fun, they will always remain my friends. And we put together a fun shoot and a fun ad.

Thanks for visiting and keep coming back for more!

Have you ever thought what it is like to travel as a pro in this business? Can you imagine what it is like to be that big and have to travel on an airplane? Especially when first class is not an option! Or as my buddy, Bob Cicherillo says, you have to alternate between which sides of the aisle you sit on just so you have even bruise marks on your arms from the service cart banging into you.

And then there was something like coming to the Boise Fitness Expo for Toney Freeman. Arriving in the middle of the night before the Expo, the airline decided that Toney’s luggage deserved some extra travel time and it did not get to him into well into the next afternoon. Guys like Toney have to eat a lot of fun and often. They get hungry, really hungry, always hungry. And you have to travel with your food. Showering and a change of clothes becomes a true luxury. And even the stress of not knowing if your belongings are going to arrive at all is painful. Toney powered through it, put on his game face and at the end of it actually had a good time. And we had a good time having Toney around. But just someting like that reminds you of what it can be like behind the scenes of being a pro.

The Boise Fitness Expo is bringing in the top people in the business from around the country. You will see lots of the supplement companies going all out, personalities like Jay Cutler, our own Bob Cicherillo and Jamie Eason. Top women’s bodybuilding star, Dayana Cadeau came in early to work out at Gold’s and impress the media.

So this look like it will be fun. Keep watching here for more and Thanks!

Don’t tell anyone I gave this to you. But you can watch out for one of the lastest new free wallpaper downloads from BodyBuilding.com later today of my good buddy Jerome "Hollywood" Ferguson. If you haven’t met Jerome in person you have really missed something. He is one of the most enthusiastic and positive thinking people you will get to know in bodybuilding. And if you see him workout, you will find out he is one strong guy.

Watch for Jerome at the shows in the BodyBuilding.com booth. Introduce yourself and take a few moments with him. You will be happy you did! And watch for the new wallpapers right HERE!

Just a few months ago world famous trainer to the bodybuilding stars of the Olympia stage, Charles Glass, had no idea that behind closed doors we had a plan for him…. Dog Training.

It started out like this; we were all sitting around a conference table at BodyBuilding.com in Boise Idaho back in November. One of the big topics was our print magazine ads and the photography for them. And one of the many ideas that came out of that meeting was using Charles Glass and using him to be training a cat running on a treadmill in a gym. My position was that if you want a cat to run on a treadmill I could get it done but a dog might be easier. And so it was agreed that a dog was it, and an English Bull Dog was the choice. So as I returned to Southern California, the art department went to work on designing a concept and I went to work too. We needed a gym that would be empty, that was part of the concept, and an English Bull Dog that could run on a treadmill. And I had a time rush looking like we were going to need to shoot this within a couple of weeks. We did it.

Now this was not an ordinary English Bull Dog but an actual actor, and a veteran of many big time television commercials and major ad campaigns. It took some looking but I found the right dog. And then I was lucky enough to have a great gym to use, Iron Bodies in Costa Mesa CA. And so it was set for the Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend. Our own world champ, Bob Cicherillo, gathered up Charles Glass, and our star dog arrived on set with an entourage of two trainers and the owner. They did not however arrive by limo and the press was not invited.

The first thing we had to do was to make sure that our stars, the dog and Charles understood each other. So Charles used a sure fire method that he uses with all Olympia champs, bribery with small food items.

And then Charles explained in depth his training methods and secrets so we would get off on the right paw. Charles did tell me afterward that the dog was quicker to learn and grasped the concepts better than many of his clients.

We did both upper and lower body that day including some bench press.

Preacher bench curls of course are great for biceps, front biceps only.

And of course we got in some cardio.

I did manage to take a few photos along the way while being careful not to fall on Bob from my positon on the ladder. And Bob managed to take it all in and picked up a few training tips himself.

Actually we had a lot of fun and it was one of the more creative bodybuilding ad shoots we had seen anywhere. Bob was actually a lot of help coming up with some really good ideas along the way. And Charles Glass showed himself to be a really good actor. The BodyBuilding.com team told me that they could not stop laughing out loud while they watched the frames of the shoot go by. It is funny. It was not just showing up and taking photographs of a dog. It took some planning, the right people, the right place and the right dog. And it all worked out.

Thanks for taking a look and keep coming back for more!

Many of you have seen the latest BodyBuilding.com ad in the magazines. Yes BodyBuilding Bowlers! Another one of many ads we have been doing that is much more fun. I thought you might like to know some of the behind the scenes on this one. This is the photo that the ad was built from.

We did this a few months ago, print ads take a lot of lead time for publishing and as well they take a lot of production time for us. First is the concept and some design by the team at BodyBuilding.com. Then it comes to me and I have to bring that into an actual shoot. First of all we had to get bowling shirts made. It wasn’t that easy to find what we wanted and big enough. And although they were XXL, the guys still had to cut the sleeves open in the back with scissors to get their biceps in!

Then I had to cast the shoot. If you don’t immediately recognize the team, we have from left to right; Robert Hatch who at almost 300 pounds right now is really serious about getting his pro card this year, Eric Domer who is a rising NPC competitor as a super heavy, IFBB Pro JP Fux who retired a few years as a top Olympia candidate and a real mass monster, and IFBB Pro Idrise Ward-El who might be in the best condition ever.

Along with casting I had to rent an actual bowling alley, get everyone on the same schedule and line up my support people and all of the right gear. With that I had to decide how I was going to shoot the scenes. Much of the shooting was done from down the sides of the alley but that could have been somewhat limiting. So we came up with the idea of shooting right down the alley from the perspective of the pins.

That idea represented a new set of problems. First off I did not want to be the target of a team of super heavy weight bodybuilders throwing a 16 pound ball at me with as yet unknown and questionable bowling skills. And then I found out that we could not stand on the alley. It turns out that alleys are specially prepped and oiled. So I would have had to pay for that and the time the alley was out of service. That would be costly. So we came up with another idea. I had my set builder design and build a rack that would hold a camera over the alley but would stand in each gutter. That worked and we actually suspended 6 thousdand dollars of camera and lens just an inch above the level of the ball rolling under it. We fired that camera remotely. As a side note each of the cameras also had to fire a rather substantial amout of lighting for each scene.

Well it worked out great and we all had a lot of fun, even me despite working pretty hard at this one. The actual ad photos would have the magic of the computer remove extra wires and things but the bowling is real! And by the way one of the guys is really a pro level bowler. Guess who it is. And there is an IFBB Pro out there who actually almost went into the pro bowling business instead of bodybuilding. So for all you trivia gathering people in the sport, guess who that is!

Keep watching here for more and THANKS!