How Dexter Jackson Defies Time & His Rivals
Ageless Dexter Jackson
How the 46 Year Old Phenom Defies Time & His Rivals
It would be hard to argue that any pro bodybuilder, past or present, has had a better career than Dexter Jackson. Let’s look at some statistics. Dexter turned pro back in 1998, and recently wrapped up his 17th season competing in the IFBB. He’s competed in 76 pro shows, a record in the modern era. Only one other man competed in more, and that was Albert Beckles, who also happens to be the oldest man to win a pro show in 1991 at the age of 52. But with all due respect to Beckles, he only managed to win eight pro shows out of 85, and never won the Olympia. Dexter did win the Mr. Olympia in 2008, and set the all-time record of Arnold Classic wins earlier this year at five. The Blade’s total pro wins now tally 24. Only one man ever won more, and that was Ronnie Coleman with 26. The thing is, Ronnie retired years ago and Dexter is still going strong. Last year, at the age of 45, he won four shows alone!
As of November 25, 2015, Dexter turned 46 years old. Not only is his longevity in the sport astounding, but also his consistency is unparalleled. At an age where nearly all other pro bodybuilders have either long since rode off into the sunset or are hanging on as shadows of their former selves who don’t realize their time is gone, Dexter Jackson is still kicking ass and taking names. The man just came damn close to beating Phil Heath and getting his Olympia title back in 2015. He’s a man I have the deepest respect for and always enjoy the opportunity to speak with for the MD readers. Here’s a record of our latest
RON HARRIS: You are different in many ways from most other bodybuilding champions. The last four Mr. Olympia winners before you earned the title in 2008, going back all the way to Lee Haney in 1984 and including Dorian, Ronnie and Jay, all started competing at over 200 pounds. In the case of Lee and Jay, they were heavyweights even in their first contests as teenagers. Yet you are famous for starting out back in 1991 as a 135-pound bantamweight. You added over 100 pounds of quality muscle after you won your first overall title. Can you think of anyone who’s accomplished anything remotely close to that in terms of mass gains since they began competing?
DEXTER JACKSON: No one else has done that, and I think it’s why a lot of the readers feel like they can identify with me a little more. I wasn’t huge from the start. It took me a long time to get as big as I am now.
People talk about your longevity in the sport and rightfully so, but your persistence is equally impressive. No man who ever won the Mr. Olympia ever took as many attempts to win— nine— as you did. Yet until that last one where you did win, is it true that you never believed you could win because you always thought of the Olympia as a big man’s contest? And do you still think it is?
The Mr. Olympia was a big man’s show for a very long time, but I saw an opportunity with Jay as the champion at the time. He didn’t seem to be getting better. He was getting worse. And I knew that if Jay tried to match me on condition for the 2008 show, he would lose some of the size that made him so dominant, and I would beat him. That’s exactly what happened. Since I won, the Olympia hasn’t been a big man’s show, really. Phil has plenty of mass, but he doesn’t have the height and the overwhelming factor like Ronnie, Dorian and Lee Haney did. Maybe a big guy will come along soon and bring it back to that, who knows?
I want to put your longevity into perspective for the MD readers, in terms of the other Mr. O champs. Lee Haney competed for nine seasons as a pro, from 1983 to 1991. Dorian’s pro career was even briefer, eight years from 1990 to 1997. Ronnie competed from 1992 to 2007, 16 seasons, while Jay had 15 seasons from 1998 to 2013, as he took off all of 2012. You just wrapped up your 17th season in the IFBB, and you’ve never missed a year. You’ve competed in 76 pro shows. How in God’s name have you not burned-out yet, mentally, physically or both?
I think it’s because I didn’t have to do a lot of the stuff that most of the other guys did. For many years I didn’t do any cardio at all, and even now I just do 30 minutes a day in my prep. Other champs have had to do as much as two to three hours of cardio, and that takes a toll on the body just like the weights do. I have always kept my workouts shorter and I took full rest days. My workouts would be 60-90 minutes long, and I spent many years training only three or four days a week. That gave my body three or four full days to recover. After contests, I have always taken a full two months off when I don’t go near a gym. So you could say I paced myself. Your body can only go at full throttle for so long before it breaks down. Taking your foot off the gas and coasting for a while is essential if you want to keep doing all this for many years. I recognize that my genetics and my metabolism have played a big part. I never went up and down 30-40 pounds once or twice every year like some other guys. And I do love training. I will train until the day I die. As long as the fire is burning and I love what I do, I can keep going.
I don’t want to make this all about your stats, but you do have some nice ones. You have the record of Arnold Classic wins at five, and you only need two more pro wins to tie Ronnie’s record of 26, then one more to beat that. That’s pretty likely to happen before you hang it up. The only record you won’t get is Mr. Olympia wins. Do you wish you had more than one Mr. O title, or are you satisfied with that one considering everything else you’ve accomplished in the sport?
I am satisfied to have one, but I would still love to get another one. It’s the toughest contest in the entire sport, and only 13 men have ever won it. That’s a very small and elite group to be part of. And I also know it was a fluke that I won in 2008. If Jay had come in at his best that year like he did the year after that, I wouldn’t have beaten him. If I retire with one Mr. Olympia title, five Arnold Classic titles and maybe the most pro wins of all time, I would be plenty happy with that.
Your son Dexter Jr. plays professional arena football for the Tampa Bay Storm. I imagine his training is very different from what you do. Still, do you ever train together?
We never have. We both have busy schedules, and I am out of town so much. We mainly see each other at holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I’m not working out then. But he’s funny. He’ll call me up and say, “Hey dad, I got 315 on the bench for five today!” I tell him that’s cool, let me know when you get 405 for 12 like I did.
Your daughter Myah is also a standout athlete, having played basketball for the U.S. Air Force. You mentioned almost a year ago that she was starting to show an interest in possibly competing in Figure. Has there been any progress with that?
No, she’s focused on doing well in basketball and finishing up her school. After that she goes off to serve in the Air Force.
I think I recall you telling me that there have been some other standout athletes in your family too.
I have two sisters and three brothers. My sister Gayle set records as one of the best female high school basketball players in Florida. She averaged 37 points a game, and now she is the first woman in Florida to coach a boy’s high school basketball team. My older sister Nancy was excellent in track and softball, and all three of my brothers were standouts in football, basketball and track. I am the only one who became a professional athlete, but my whole family are sports fanatics. If you go to my parents’ house, ESPN is usually on the TV.
Getting back to how far you’ve come, we talked about your physique. But let’s talk about a real case of “started from the bottom, now we’re here.” People see you with the luxury cars and the expensive watches now, but you were really struggling in your final years as an amateur. Give the readers an idea of just how rough things were for you and your family back in the mid- to late ‘90s.
I had my son and my daughter, plus my girlfriend’s two sons that I was raising with her. The six of us were living in a two-bedroom apartment with no furniture. We slept on the floor. She was working two or three jobs to pay the bills and so that I could focus on trying to turn pro. Our game plan was for me to turn pro and then I would start making good money for us. But in the meantime, it was rough and there was no extra money at all. Going into the 1998 North Americans, I had a pretty good job I had been at for a few months. But I said, if I win, I’m not coming back there. I won the show, and never did go back. I had this idea that as soon as you turned pro, the money just started pouring in. Lo and behold, that was not the case! You have to prove yourself first.
How did you get your first contract and start making money after you turned pro?
Right after I won, my attorney and I sent out packages to a few supplement companies with my photos and résumé. MuscleTech showed immediate interest. I started getting ready for the 1999 Ironman Pro while I sent off a letter trying to get invited to the Arnold Classic. They did invite me, at which point I decided to skip the Ironman even though it was just a week before, and most of the guys used it as a warm-up. Looking back, I feel it was a mistake. If I had done the Ironman the judges would have known who I was the next weekend in Columbus. I still got seventh place at the Arnold, which was my first pro show. But I feel like if I had done the Ironman first, I would have been in the top five.
A couple of months later, I did the Night of Champions and took third place behind Paul Dillett and Pavol Jablonicky. MuscleTech contacted me right after that, and I ended up being with them for over 10 years. Soon we had a TV and furniture and some nice things at home, finally. The best part was walking past my daughter’s room and hearing her talking to one of my girlfriend’s sons about how we had gone “from rags to riches.” For some reason that just stuck in my head and I always cherish that memory. My girlfriend’s friends didn’t have much to say, though. They had been telling her to leave me for the last of couple years and now they saw I wasn’t such a bum after all.
Speaking of family, you have two children. Ronnie is over 50 and might have 10 kids before he’s all done. How about you? Any chance you might become a father again, or are you definitely all done?
First off, I have two kids, but I raised three. I’ve been with Gale for 11 years, since her daughter Celine was 5. Also, I am pretty sure Ronnie has more than 10 kids now. As for me, I’m good. I’m a grandfather now, and I am all done having kids.
Speaking of Gale, how much of a part has she played in your career and in making your life better in all ways?
I don’t even know where to start. She’s an amazing woman and she has supported my career so much. What other woman would encourage her man to take off for months at a time across the country just to train for a contest, because she understood what a difference Charles Glass makes for me? Leave me and my daughter behind? Very few. Gale does a lot of the work with my Team Blade contest-prep business and with my contest promotions— let’s say most of the work! She’s also a busy soccer mom with Celine, who is now a junior in high school. I am blessed to have found a woman like Gale.
You spend a good half the year away from your home in Florida to train with Charles Glass at Gold’s in Venice. How hard is it for you to be apart from your family and friends for so long? How hard is it for them?
It’s very hard being away from Gale and my mom. I am a momma’s boy, and not ashamed to say it! But they understand that this is my job, and I have to do what I need to do. I can’t even tell you the role Charles Glass as a trainer has played for me these last few years. If it weren’t for him, I probably would have retired.
You told Peter McGough that if you ever suffered a serious injury that made it impossible for you to ever be 100 percent onstage again, you would retire. How are you able to train as heavy and as intensely as you do without at least coming close to injury every once in a while?
It’s because I have learned to make adjustments, and Charles has helped a lot with that. In my younger years, my training was based around all the heavy compound movements with barbells: squats, bench presses, deadlifts, military presses and rows. They worked very well for me and they did allow me to gain most of the mass I have today. But they started taking a toll on my joints. If I had insisted on doing all those, I am sure I would have gotten hurt badly by now. But I have switched to a lot more machines and dumbbells, and don’t do any of those movements I mentioned. I can still go heavy and train with intensity using machines, and that’s kept me safe.
Another thing that I’ve mentioned before is that if I ever feel a tweak like I might be about to injure something, I won’t train that body part at all until everything feels 100 percent. I don’t care if that takes a month or two. Forget all that mess about “no pain, no gain.” I have seen so many guys get hurt and they’re never the same again. I know that muscle has memory. If I don’t train an area for a while, anything I lose will come right back. Finally, I have to say I’ve been blessed. Some injuries really do happen because of bad luck. I’ve been lucky.
People love to talk about your age, because it is so unusual for a pro bodybuilder to still be in his prime at 45 or 46. But be honest, do you even think about it in those terms, and are you getting sick of hearing how old you are all the time?
No, it’s all good because it makes me feel good to know I am beating all these younger dudes! And I never think of my age as being a bad thing because I am still in my prime. Most guys in their 40s lose overall fullness or start losing their legs. Not me. Training smarter has allowed me to stay on top for a lot longer than I ever thought I would.
Your career has already been so long and distinguished, that anything from this point on really is just icing on the cake. Are you starting to put a time limit on how much longer you’ll keep doing this, or are you going to ride it out as long as you’re staying on top?
Like I said earlier, the fire is still burning. One reason is that even though I am competing against all those other guys, I am always competing against myself. I will look at pictures after every contest and ask, how can I be better than this? I am never completely satisfied with my physique. I always see something I can improve. When that fire goes, I will be done.
Another thing that I use as a gauge is how I place. As long as I am still placing in the top five at the Mr. Olympia, I know I still belong onstage. Once I slip and start losing to guys who have no business beating me, I will know for sure it’s time to say goodbye.
Last question. You’ve been around competing since the ‘90s, which many feel was the end of the “Golden Era” for the sport of bodybuilding. The Internet changed everything, and now we also have so many other divisions competing for publicity, endorsements, fan support and participants. Are you glad you got into the sport when you did rather than starting out in 2015?
I am so glad. There were so many more opportunities for bodybuilders back then. There were a lot more shows held in Europe we could travel to. Like you said, there are so many other divisions now and bodybuilding doesn’t have the same status it did in the ‘90s. I am fortunate to have been part of the sport in very different eras, and I am very happy I got into it when there was still some of that magic left. But I also feel blessed to still be here and part of the sport after all these years. I still love it.
Dexter’s Pro Wins
2002 British Grand Prix
2003 Show of Strength Championships
2004 Iron Man Pro
2004 San Francisco Pro
2004 Australian Pro
2005 Arnold Classic
2006 Arnold Classic
2007 Australian Pro
2008 Arnold Classic
2008 Australian Pro
2008 New Zealand Pro
2008 Romanian Pro
2008 Mr. Olympia
2011 FIBO Power, Germany
2011 Masters Pro World
2012 Masters Mr. Olympia
2013 Arnold Classic
2013 Australian Pro
2013 Tijuana Pro
2014 Dubai Open
2015 Arnold Classic
2015 Arnold Classic Australia
2015 Arnold Classic Europe
2015 Prague Pro