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Interview Q&A Series with Ben: Personal
Height: 5’10”
Off-season bodyweight: 310lbs
Contest bodyweight: 275lbs
Started training in: 1998
First contest: 2005
Best results: 2nd place Arnold Classic 2013, 4th place Arnold Classic 2012, 2nd Place Flex pro 2012.
1.Why did you start training?
I started training to get faster for sports. I play baseball, hockey, football.
2. What did you look like before touching the weights?
I was 160lbs at 5’10” and was a long distance runner and vegetarian. Skinny, and fat.
3. What was your first gym experience?
The YMCA in Toronto. I think I just look around and pretended I had some clue how to use the equipent
4. What kind of sports did you do before?
Baseball, hockey, football, volleyball.
5. Who is your role model in bodybuilding?
Currently, Jay Cutler is the ideal role model. When I started it was first Lee Priest, then Dorian Yates.
6. How many times do you train weekly off-season?
Anywhere from 4-8 workouts a week in the offseason
7. How many times do you train weekly during contest season?
Anywhere from 6-12 times in the offseason.
8. What are your favourite cardio exercises and how much time do you spend doing them weekly?
Favorite and cardio dont go in the same sentence unless its to say my favorite dessert is cookies, so my fat ass needs to do cardio when i eat too many.
9. How can you make your cardio sessions less boring?
I try to meditate. Use the time to focus, think, and shut off the world. I usually only do HIIT cardio now so my cardio time has dropped a lot from what it used to be.
10. What is your favourite bodypart and with which exercises do you train it?
Ive learned to love them all. Once you learn how to train, it becomes exciting becomes growth is controllable.
11. What is your favourite exercise and why?
Deadlifts. Heavy, hard, uncomfortable.
12. What is your favourite bodybuilder breakfast?
Beef, broccoli, coconut oil
13. What is your favourite bodybuilder meal?
Same as breakfast.
14. What is your favourite cheat food?
Oatmeal cookies
15. What can you do if your daily schedule changes unexpectedly and you have no time to eat quality food?
Depends how hard im training at that time. If im training hard, I will eat anything. If its a downtime from training i’ll likely just wait for when I can eat something decent.
16. How much is your daily protein intake?
Anywhere from 300-500grams. Again, depending how hard im training
17. What is your favourite supplement?
Scitec Hydrolyzed Beef. Chocolate Almond goodness.
18. Which protein is the tastiest?
Chocolate Almond heaven
19. Which supplement stack do you feel the most effective?
Creatine, BCAA, EAA.
20. Which supplements can you recommend for the beginners?
Same as above plus greens.
21. Do you have any training philosophy?
Mi40.
22. Do you have any special training method?
Mi40
23. Do you have any special nutritional tip?
I eat less carbs early in the day, and most in the evening and post workout.
24. Do you carb-load before contests?
Yes. Ive done as much as 1500g of carbs per day for 3 days.
25. Did you have any serious injuries during your career? If yes, how could you cope with it?
Na, always minor bumps and bruises but nothing terrible.
26. What do you do for preventing injuries?
Train properly.
27. Which was the most beautiful day of your life?
The birth of my two children. Benjamin and Presley.
28. Which phrase do you like most?
Success lies outside the boundaries we set in our minds.
29. Which phrase do you hate most?
I cant.
30. What kind of girls do you like?
Ones with brains.
31. What would you do if you were not a bodybuilder?
Entrepreneur.
32. What else would you like to tell us about yourself?
When i retire i’ll probably move somewhere remote and live with as few possessions as possible. But I might keep a private plane to get me around.
33. How many contests have you entered and at what places have you finished?
I think its 15 total now. I’ve been anyhwere from 11th to 2nd in pro shows.
34. How does you diet look like? With supplements.
I eat protein and fats for breakfast and before workouts.
The rest of the meals are dependent on my training load.
My supplements are heavy in and around the workout. Everything focused on maximizing the pump, and minimizing muscle breakdown.
Creatine, BCAA, EAA, carnitine, whey, Vitargo, glutamine, electrolytes. All I use is Scitec.
