Life Balance - Travel, Bodybuilding, Home

**tbjoe** · 05-14-2014, 02:55 PM

One thing I've never been able to discuss much is with bodybuilders who must travel. I have to exert enormous effort to keep up my bodybuilding schedule along with my work (and home), and both 'roids and food are incredibly difficult to keep up with. Love to hear personal systems, stories, or advice.

My normal schedule keeps me on the road globally roughly 2-3 weeks a month. Last six months include Bogotá, Perth, Sydney, Melbourne, Amsterdam, Detroit, Dubai, Riyadh, Chicago, Boston, NYC, Seattle, Nashville, Shanghai etc. Upcoming will be more of the same if not worse. I have a pretty good list of adequate gyms by city as I visit (LA Fitness Shanghai (Yao Ming owner) vs Quads Chicago vs Doherty's Melbourne), so I can handle the location.

I rotate from injectables to prescription creams when I travel (I accumulate the scripts so I can dose at 5-6x normal level for cream to keep my levels steady on the road, but that's an entire other thread), but it does become complex to maintain a particular cycle type (bulk vs lean). Any advice on travel planning with cycles?

Lastly is food. Where do I start - some days I have to survive on bags of M&M's peanuts because I can't get food on an airplane, arrive in a strange city where restaurants are closed, or there is food I dont' recognize. Restaurant food is invariable super-high carb and salt, and getting MRP protein drinks is crazy outside the US. Days of under 1500 calories. Sleep cycles blown over and over and over again. Any advice on heavy travel and managing food?

Thanks. Enjoying the forums.

**Times Roman** · 05-14-2014, 04:04 PM

Years ago, I was a traveling photographer. My region was from Bakersfield, to Southern Washington, to western Nevada. I would spend one week at each location. I lived out of hotels for about two years or so. And I was serious into weights, which is pretty normal for me. I had a 68 Dodge Charger, and the back trunk was fairly substantial. I would put a couple of hundred pounds of weights in there, a cut down bar I'd use as a dumbbell, barbells, and a variety of small equipment. I'd set up my weights in the hotel room, and work out every night after work. This was back in the early 80's, my pay sucked (although the other "benefits" were fantastic) and all I could afford was to stay in Motel 6. it was a little cumbersome if all I could get was a room on the second floor, which meant many trips up and down the stairs carrying weights.

Sometimes I'd bring back a girl to my room at the hotel, she'd see the weights, and think I was nuts. But most of them grooved to the idea, and being a photographer, well, there were some good times to be had.

So I laugh at some that think just because they travel no time for lifting. There is always time. It's just a matter of priorities.

This was back in the day, really, before AAS became popular, before PH, and our knowledge of body building was not so wide spread. There were not nearly as many big guys back then as there are now. So I was more of an anomaly is what it boils down to.

Anyways Joe, you are not the only one!
---Roman

**Rwy** · 05-14-2014, 04:24 PM

Its gotta be a tough thing to juggle. I work from home and take a couple hours out of the day to train

**Capebuffalo** · 05-14-2014, 05:10 PM

Originally Posted by Times Roman

Years ago, I was a traveling photographer. My region was from Bakersfield, to Southern Washington, to western Nevada. I would spend one week at each location. I lived out of hotels for about two years or so. And I was serious into weights, which is pretty normal for me. I had a 68 Dodge Charger, and the back trunk was fairly substantial. I would put a couple of hundred pounds of weights in there, a cut down bar I'd use as a dumbbell, barbells, and a variety of small equipment. I'd set up my weights in the hotel room, and work out every night after work. This was back in the early 80's, my pay sucked (although the other "benefits" were fantastic) and all I could afford was to stay in Motel 6. it was a little cumbersome if all I could get was a room on the second floor, which meant many trips up and down the stairs carrying weights.

Sometimes I'd bring back a girl to my room at the hotel, she'd see the weights, and think I was nuts. But most of them grooved to the idea, and being a photographer, well, there were some good times to be had.

So I laugh at some that think just because they travel no time for lifting. There is always time. It's just a matter of priorities.

This was back in the day, really, before AAS became popular, before PH, and our knowledge of body building was not so wide spread. There were not nearly as many big guys back then as there are now. So I was more of an anomaly is what it boils down to.

Anyways Joe, you are not the only one!
---Roman

Grooved to the idea? Your age is showing TR.

Photographer? News ? Magazines? Free lance? How cool was that ?

**Dpyle** · 05-14-2014, 05:14 PM

Originally Posted by Capebuffalo

Grooved to the idea? Your age is showing TR.

Photographer? News ? Magazines? Free lance? How cool was that ?

Maybe Roman had the original "casting couch"

**Times Roman** · 05-14-2014, 06:13 PM

Originally Posted by Capebuffalo

Grooved to the idea? Your age is showing TR.

Photographer? News ? Magazines? Free lance? How cool was that ?

Photographer as in Portrait. I would take portraits of families, children, etc. Here's my dirty little secret. Many single women would bring their children to get their portraits taken for the holidays, birthday, etc. By taking great shots of the kids, and seriously complimenting the mom by saying how great her kids are, the more she'll think you are a great guy and think of you as someone that would be a great father figure. And someone she will want to know better. She knows you are in town only for a little while. But you play it up big, and during this flirty stage, mention to her you only live X hours away, and you will be back in town very shortly, and oh, by the way, what are you doing tonight?

....loved that job! =)

**Times Roman** · 05-14-2014, 06:15 PM

Originally Posted by Dpyle

Maybe Roman had the original "casting couch"

another dirty little secret? I had a rather pathetic little apartment for when I was home on Sunday and Monday. My casting couch was my bedroom, and I had the flood lamps all set up with the diffusers, camera equipment, all set up.....

....I'll let your imagination fill in the blanks.

**Times Roman** · 05-14-2014, 06:17 PM

Joe,

I just realized I hijacked your thread. My apologies. Wont' happen again

---Roman

**tbjoe** · 05-15-2014, 02:05 AM

Well, my experience is similar, in a different dimension. I've been photographed a lot, and the images are easy to find on the web. When I'm visited in a hotel, the usual experience is "OMG you're much bigger than your pix." Sometimes they flee. Sometimes they cry. Sometimes they become completely compliant zombies. Always fun.

As we all know, when you're alone and juiced, it's extremely difficult to get sex off the mind 24x7

**lovbyts** · 05-15-2014, 03:11 AM

Originally Posted by tbjoe

Well, my experience is similar, in a different dimension. I've been photographed a lot, and the images are easy to find on the web. When I'm visited in a hotel, the usual experience is "OMG you're much bigger than your pix." Sometimes they flee. Sometimes they cry. Sometimes they become completely compliant zombies. Always fun.

As we all know, when you're alone and juiced, it's extremely difficult to get sex off the mind 24x7

This is starting to sound interesting... I think we need more details.

Im thinking tbjoe = to big Joe?

**tbjoe** · 05-15-2014, 02:28 PM

(blush) I meant my muscle size. Well, all muscles, not that one. Well, that one too. (groan)

**Capebuffalo** · 05-15-2014, 02:43 PM

This is an impressive resume tb. Welcome

About tbjoe
Biography:
33 Years of Bodybuilding, Gathering good info to gyms around the world (travel extensively for work).
Interests:
Bodybuilding, Photography, Travel, Literature, Music
Age:
51
Height:
5'9"
Weight:
245
Body Fat %:
8%
Training Experience:
33 years

Any advise for longevity in the sport?

**tbjoe** · 05-15-2014, 08:51 PM

Well, the short story is that I'm "Sheldon" from "Big Bang Theory" so I am obsessive - find it hard to throw out workout records which go back for years, I am absolutely disciplined and consistent about going to gym, and that's how I've been since I was 18 or so. (Like Sheldon I went to Caltech, studied far too many things, and have to suppress being a constant ****ing know-it-all).

My family is/was all grossly obese, and I decided at a very early age, like around 5 or 6 I didn't like that. I obsessed on a TV show (cartoon) called "The Mighty Hercules" (or as I pronounced it, "Perkulebes"), and as well old Steve Reeves movies, and Reg Park. I can remember as clear as day seeing the movie "Black Sunday" by Mario Bava, where huge Italian Bodybuilders put a devil's mask (unpleasant to say the least) on the witch at the beginning of the movie, and I was hooked.

70's I was hooked on Pumping Iron and the magazines, but could not work out at a gym because I was too young. I was the super-smart kid in school that was annoying, and waited until I could leave my corner of Appalachia. At 17 I could go to "Center Street Gym" in my small town, a revelation. I already had big shoulders that annoyed football players and the like. I was never skinny, but the word at the time was "husky".

During the 80's I was at Caltech and went to Doug Brignole's gym in Pasadena, and as well depending where I rented in the summer "The Gym" in Ventura, Gold's Venice, or Jim Morris in West Hollywood. That decade I was trying to figure out how to lift at all, and arrogantly thought I could just figure it out on my own. Owner Dan Mackey of "The Gym" in Ventura coached me a bit and helped me figure out a routine that worked. I have pix back from when I was 18, just starting out. I loved going to the gym and getting the hell out of Caltech, the people are literally like in the TV show Big Bang Theory. 87-88 Lived in Borneo, and went to a local gym, and had to start adapting my routine to unusual equipment.

During the 90's I lived in Paris and Amsterdam. Went to Wieder gym in Paris, along with Club Med Gym chain, and finally Espace Vit'Halles by the Centre Pompidou (I did music research in an underground office, if you can believe it). Wieder was big, Club Med smaller, and Espace quite small. Amsterdam really only had "Splash". I learned this decade to make the most of limited resources. Dropped a lot of Acid in Paris, smoked a lot in Amsterdam. Started meeting other bodybuilders like myself; we are quite isolated I find. End of decade people started staring at my build on the streets.

Moved to Houston '00, and went to a small local gym, there weren't any big iron gyms in the city. Most people assumed from my build I used 'roids, but I didn't until around 2006. Around 2004 my body started changing for the worse, and I set concrete goals which weren't to reproduce the look I saw in the 80's. I read Vitruvius "De architectura" which postulated ideal body size and proportion, calculated what I should look like according to invariants (my wrist size) and then set out to do precisely that. I realized I had serious dysmorphia. I was as big as (or bigger) than my trainers, as they forced me to measure myself comparing to other men, instead of my spreadsheet. I felt paradoxically both fat and tiny. I began having all my clothes custom made, where my tailor gasped when he found I had 22" arms. I overshot my goals - my waist dropped too much in proportion to the rest of my body and my shoulders became freaky but I kept rebalancing to my goals. Became a CEO around 2008 and but began an intense period of business travel which now has lasted almost a decade.

My one comment is really: I planned to go the gym as part of my life, and I did so very, very early on - like you get up, brush your teeth, get ready for the day, my gym is now for 33 (35) years part of my routine. I don't have wild crazy goals, I just have very measured consistent goals which I inched towards - I want to hit 275 in the coming years. I reached out for help and advice when I understood that others had better information and wisdom than I had, so I never became discouraged - it took a lot to overcome my natural intellectual arrogance. And I was humble, and always shared what I knew with guys at the gym, any age, shape, and size, but - only when they asked. I praised and encouraged when there were clear realistic successes and was silent when criticism was not going to help (except when someone was going to hurt themselves). Being my size tends to be daunting to other people, so I'm careful to defuse being overbearing, only make jokes about myself, and to try to counteract stereotypes of bodybuilders which are unfortunately too common. Strangely, being kind is very motivating.