Victor Martinez: The Next Mr. O?
Can Victor Martinez Pull off an Upset at the Mr. Olympia?
Ronnie Coleman has said it himself. The man currently competing whom he sees as the next heir to his Olympia throne is Victor Martinez. We at MD have been talking about Victor's practically unlimited potential and over the past year, we've definitely seen glimpses. Even though he's won two pro shows before, few expected Martinez to make the top five last year at the Olympia- but he did, showing the best condition since he'd won the 2004 GNC Show of Strength. A few months later, he took third at the Arnold behind Dexter Jackson and Branch Warren in a very tightly contested contest. Now, Vic is just a couple of days away from the 2006 edition of the Mr. Olympia, and based on how the Dominican Dominator is looking at this point, the bodybuilding world could be in for a shock. I was talking to Steve Blechman about this last week after he'd seen Victor, and he was predicting a finish as high as second. This is in no way meant as a diss on Jay Cutler, Dexter Jackson, Gustavo or Gunter, but merely recognizing that if Martinez hits the stage in his best condition ever, the only man who could dominate him is a 300-pound shredded Coleman. Don't think so? Let's look at some leaps in placing that have happened at the Olympia before.
Ronnie went from ninth in 1997 to winning the next year. When Jay nearly beat Ronnie in 2001, his highest finish had been eighth place the previous year. And in the
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RH: Hey Vic, how's it going? Sorry to have to do this while you're carb depleting.
VM: No, I'm not carb depleting this time.
RH: You sound pretty tired. Do you want to do this tomorrow during the day?
VM: No man, I'm a night person. Daytime wouldn't be good.
RH: You're working with Chad again this time, right? And you worked with Chris Aceto last year?
VM: I'm working with Chad, but last year was a mess. I only worked with Chris for part of the show, not all the way. It was a big mess. The whole final part of the prep had no structure to it. I just did my own thing, and I had the court case going on still. It was just a disaster all around.
RH: All things considered, you still looked pretty good and made the top five.
VM: I was way too flat. I did that on purpose because after the New York Pro, where I missed my peak badly, I talked to a judge and he told to try not carbing up so much and see what happens. I figured I would try it and see where I placed. I did pretty well, like you said, but I look at the pictures and I was so flat it's disgusting. I looked tired. My body was just beat up from doing too many shows and all the stress from my personal life. That shit affects your physique, trust me.
RH: I haven't seen the new pictures, but a few people have told me you're looking better than ever. How would you rate the way you look now versus the way you looked at this point out from last year's Olympia?
VM: You can't even compare. Night and day. I'm at least 25 percent better overall. My legal stuff is all settled. I had Chad working with me for the entire year, and I have great companies- MD and MHP- behind me. All that made a big difference.
RH: This has been the first year you've prepared for the Olympia with no distractions, right? How much of a difference has that made?
VM: Actually, I lost my mother a couple of weeks ago.
RH: What? Oh my God, I'm sorry, I had no idea. I haven't read about it anywhere. Was she sick for a while?
VM: She had cancer for eight years. But shit happens. You just have to stay on track and do what you have to do. Pro bodybuilding isn't like some corporate job where you can take time off and mourn and get paid. I had to choose between dealing with it and going ahead with the show or breaking down.
RH: Darrem Charles' mother was murdered like a week or two before the Olympia a couple of years back, do you remember?
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VM: Yeah, and he showed up and competed and did his best. My mom always wanted me to compete and win. She never told me about how much pain she was in, especially toward the end.
RH: Well, at least you have a big family and you can lean on each other.
NM: Naw, I don't need to be consoled. I don't need to be hugged and patted on the back. Right now I'm like a freight train barreling down the track. When the show is over, that's when I'll let myself feel all those things, but not now.
RH: You stayed a lot lighter and closer to contest condition in the off-season this time. Was that hard for a guy like you who likes his pizza, rice and beans?
VM: It really wasn't so much like that. I was getting too heavy before because I had a problem with rebounding too hard after contests. My weight never got a chance to settle. I would blow up to as high as 290 or 295 a couple of weeks after competing at 245-250, and then I would have to kill myself to get back in shape. This time my weight settled around 280 in the off-season because I had a longer break. I didn't do the May shows, so I had between the Arnold and the Olympia for an off-season- almost seven months.
RH: Do you have to eat a lot fewer carbs in general to stay at 280 for an off-season weight?
VM: The main thing I stayed away from this time was Italian food. It's funny that I can eat Spanish food all the time and keep my portions on stuff like rice and beans pretty small. But when I eat Italian food, I just put the pasta away like it's going out of style.
RH: There's this thing like a potato that my wife's family from Cuba always makes- yucca. Do you eat that?
VM: Oh yeah, I eat that for breakfast as my carb source in the off-season all the time.
RH: So, you went lower on carbs overall this year. Did you cycle your carbs, with low and high days?
VM: No, I've done that before and it sucks. On the low days, you're miserable and looking forward to the high day, and then on the high day, you can't enjoy it because you know you have a few days of misery ahead of you all over again. I just kept the carbs at a pretty moderate level the whole time, not crazy high, but not crazy low.
RH: Did staying leaner make it easier for you to diet down this time, less painful overall? Did you have to do less cardio?
VM: The diet wasn't really bad. I mean, I didn't have any cravings, which is unusual for me. I was doing more cardio and at a higher intensity. I would walk on the treadmill at four miles an hour in the morning and at night, aiming for 400 to 500 calories each time to burn, depending on how I felt.
RH: What was the biggest change in your training, would you say?
VM: For most of my career, when I got ready for shows, I would go to the gym twice a day. I would do cardio in the morning, then come back in the early evening and do weights and then cardio again. But this time, I split it into three sessions. I did cardio in the morning, weights in the late afternoon and then cardio again at night. It actually made the days go by a lot faster.
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VM: The main thing I liked was I would just do the weights and then get out of the gym instead of having to hang around and do the cardio too. I think everything is more effective if you take a little less time and really focus on one thing. Between I would be playing video games, watching movies and reading.
RH: With the weight training, what was your goal? I think it's safe to say you have all the size you need and everything is in balance. You don't really have any weak body parts.
VM: I didn't want to add any muscle this year, except to bring my hams and calves, which I did. I'm just trying to refine what I have and add muscle maturity and detail. Let the other guys keep trying to add five or 10 pounds for every show and ruin their lines. I ain't tryin' to do that.
RH: Why is it so hard for some guys to nail that combination, while a few guys seem to hit it most of the time?
VM: It's more of a mental challenge than anything else. It takes an incredible mental intensity to diet that hard and do all the cardio you need to, but be smart enough to know when you need to back off. This year I was really driven by seeing all the gifts some guys were getting. I know I've beaten most of them at one time or another, and I have no intention of letting them beat me at the Olympia. But another factor with hitting that perfect combination is being able to adapt. Your body isn't the same every year, so you can't follow the exact same diet and cardio plan you did for this or that show and expect it to work exactly like it did before.
RH: How sick are you of hearing about how you have yet to really nail it with that super dry, grainy look? And while we're at it, how dangerous is it to get that look, even for just a couple of days? Don't you have to be totally dehydrated?
VM: Yeah, the dehydration can be dangerous, so you have to be really careful and pay attention to how you're feeling. But just being that low in body fat is unhealthy. It weakens your immune system. That's why I feel sorry for these guys doing all these shows over the past few weeks. You can't hold your body fat that low for that long without suffering. Their bodies have got to be tired, and that will show onstage. They spread themselves too thin. I could have done one or more of those shows, but I know if I did it would jeopardize what I want to look like at the Olympia. And right now I'm so happy those other guys did those shows, and not me. Maybe they needed to pay off some credit card bills or get a sponsor, I don't know. It's sad that these are professional athletes and they're scrambling for money like that. But thanks to MHP and MD, I wasn't quite that desperate to ruin my chances at the Olympia. I always think about my health and longevity, too. Competing in a lot of shows takes a toll on your body.
RH: But why are guys like Darrem and Dexter able to do show after show and not get worse?
VM: You sure about that? Darrem hasn't been looking as good lately as he used to. His body is starting to show the strain from doing a million shows. It even happened to Dexter a few years ago, and Orville Burke beat him, so he backed off from doing too many shows. He took a whole year off between the Arnold in '05 and '06. Those guys are human too. Jay took a year off to focus just on the Olympia and he came back looking a lot better.
RH: What did you weigh last year at the Olympia and do you have any idea, give or take a few pounds, what you'll be this time?
VM: It's weird, but I'll probably weigh almost exactly the same- 250- but I'll look so much better this time. Another year of training has given me more muscle maturity.
RH: You had that partial pec tear right before the Arnold. How was your training any different since then as a result? Have you avoided certain exercises? Do you go a
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VM: Really, the only exercise I've had to stay away from is the flat barbell bench press. That's the exercise it happened on. I did do it a couple of times just to face the fear, but my days of doing 400 to 425 pounds on the flat bench for sets of 10 are over.
RH: What did you think of the IFBB suspending Lee Priest from competing in the Olympia because he did the PDI show?
VM: He's suspended? [At this point I briefly filled him in.] Well, I don't feel bad for Lee Priest. He's made a lot of money, he's gotten a lot of gift placings at shows whether he realizes it or not. He's always had big companies behind him and he's got a huge fan base. But he didn't stay loyal to the organization that allowed him to have this great career he's had. I like to see guys who stay loyal get rewarded, because loyalty is very important to me. Maybe it's because I've had so many people betray me over the years.
RH: So, you didn't go to the PDI show.
VM: I didn't even know where it was. I was busy training, dieting and doing my cardio for the Mr. Olympia. All I can say from the few pictures I saw is that I would have hated to train and diet that hard to stand onstage with a bunch of guys...
RH: Some of whom couldn't win a local show looking the way they did?
VM: Right.
RH: Here's a hypothetical for this weekend. Say for some crazy reason Ronnie is off. I don't know, maybe he gets food poisoning or something. For the sake of argument we'll assume Jay, Dexter, Gunter and Gustavo are all in perfect condition and so are you. Where do you see yourself placing?
VM: That's not in my thoughts. Jay has only been super-hard once or twice, ever in his career. I'm looking at Dexter as a force to be reckoned with. He's a very tough competitor. Gustavo is a good bodybuilder, but he's overrated. He puts himself up on this pedestal that no athlete in his position should. He thinks he's way ahead of everybody, but he's not. He's right there with a bunch of us. It's not like Ronnie, who really is at a different level. When Ronnie's on his game, he's very, very hard to beat. He can even be a little bit off and still tough to beat. Gustavo isn't that great. I'm also looking forward to the guys like Melvin and Troy doing well this year. They weigh between 220 and 230 but give the illusion of weighing over 250 with the incredible shape they have. But basically, if Ronnie's way off, I'm looking forward to smoking a big cigar to celebrate winning. I've been hearing his voice in my head all year, saying how I'm the next Mr. Olympia. It's the sound of sweet success. I've used that comment of his the right way, not to relax, but to work even harder to prove him right.
RH: Let's go with another imaginary scenario for laughs. Ronnie wins this year and announces his retirement. Let's say Jay wins next year. Do you think Jay has the potential to hold on to the Olympia title for at least a few years or would you or someone else cut his reign short?
VM: It would be a short reign. Jay's been around a long time already. There's only so much time you can sit home doing nothing between contests. Eventually, he'll want to dip his hand in the cookie jar.
RH: I have no idea what that means, but let's move on. Last year the IFBB announced they would be penalizing big guts and rewarding better V-tapers. In your opinion, has that mandate been followed?
VM: No, they haven't been true to that. You still see a lot of guys with big guys and blocky bodies doing well. I don't need to name names, everybody knows who they are.
RH: The two-day format of the Olympia this year. Hate it, love it or don't care one way or another?
VM: I love it because like I said before, I'm a night person. I always hated the noon prejudging because it meant I had to get up at the crack of dawn to start getting ready for it. I usually wake up at 9 or 10 in the morning physically, but not mentally until around 1 p.m. Everybody who knows me knows not to call me before then- I tend to get pretty annoyed. I like to do my cardio, read the paper, figure out what I have to do that day and plan it out. I actually like doing my morning cardio because I know I get to eat right afterward.
RH: How about the show moving up a whole month from where it's been in late October. Did that work out better or worse for you than the normal time it's held?
VM: That's also good. It gives us a longer break between the Olympia and the Arnold. A longer rest is better for the athletes.
RH: Do you get "postpartum depression" after you compete? I mean, you train and diet your ass off for how many weeks? Then, boom, it's all over suddenly.
VM: It's 13 weeks, but not super strict and lower carbs until eight weeks out. Yeah, I know what you mean. When you're getting ready for a show, your days are so structured from the time you wake up until the time you go to sleep. When it's over, I don't know what to do with myself. It feels weird. I hardly go out anymore to clubs, so that's not what I do. You can find new business ventures to focus on. After the Olympia, you have the holidays and you can enjoy those. You feel guilty eating "bad" food, but you know you deserve it, and your body really needs a break from that strict diet. It's easier to deal with if you did well at the contest.
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VM: I've gotten out of shape very fast on previous occasions, but I'm trying to chill out on that. I'm trying to take at least two weeks after a show to start really eating and by then, I'm usually not feeling like I have to eat the whole world. I'm 33 now and it's harder to lose body fat, so I have to be careful not to get too fat anymore.
RH: How badly do you want to win this show as compared to other shows you've competed in and I mean this particular year of the Olympia?
VM: So bad I can taste the tears of joy that will stream down my face when I win. So bad I can feel my knees buckling as I hit the ground like Ronnie does. I can feel that check for $155,000 in my hand and hear my name announced.
RH: OK, good luck. I'd be there to see you, but my request for a press pass was denied!
VM: Yeah, I heard.