Issue #100

The Victor Martinez Interview by: JohnathanDoe

Recently one Sunday afternoon, my girlfriend and I headed up town Manhattan to visit a diamond in the rough. This diamond I speak of is top-level pro bodybuilding competitor Victor Martinez’s shiny new gym.

As you walk down the hardened, brown concrete jungle streets of Sherman Ave. in Washington Heights, you will pass # 104 and your eye is unmistakably drawn to an oasis of color and light. Brilliant silver diamond plate lettering, colors of blue and red, huge plate glass windows all encompassing the ever prevalent letter “V” in the center of the building, which so valiantly signifies victory, v taper, viva and, of course, Victor Martinez.

We arrive with Victor’s trainer of several years Victor Munoz for a bit of a workout. Munoz puts us all through painful yet very satisfying routines. I use a couple of machines in Martinez’s arsenal (ones which I’ve never used or seen before) which hit angles not often enough stimulated. These machines aid in the aching of my quads and glutes for days to follow.

Martinez pumps his hamstrings and then his biceps. His arms grow to mountainous proportions. The fullness of his muscles, combined with their sweeps and peaks, are breath taking.

Finally, we finish. Victor and I make our way to the front counter and plop down on a couple of stools and start chatting, as I sip on my recovery drink.

So now what you’ve really been waiting for, my interview with Victor. It goes a little something like this…

JohnathanDoe: So Victor, I have to hand it to you. This is really a great gym. Beautifully done. Did you design it yourself?

Victor: Thanks. Yeah I pretty much designed the whole thing. From the diamond plate lettering outside and the coloring to choosing all the machines.

J: Speaking of colors they are great. The silver and blue outside are very cool. And the gold and red inside are very warm.

V: The red and gold I borrowed from Asian philosophy. Red is for strength and gold is for wealth. And the silver and blue with all the glass outside makes my gym look like a diamond from the corner of the block.

J: It surely does and is. And this hand painted outer space mural on the wall, here at the juice bar… Where does that come from?

V: I’ve always been fascinated by outer space. I love the planets and the stars and the mystery that surrounds them. Many times in life I feel like I am from another planet. Or maybe I am on Mars. If you notice the mural gives the effect that you are on Mars looking out at our solar system and out at Jupiter. Jupiter’s my planet, man.

J: Why Jupiter?

V: Look at it. It’s huge. Earth is like a speck of dust compared to it. It would swallow the earth without even knowing it. And it’s surrounded by mystery. Is it solid? Is it a ball of gas? Who really knows for absolute certain? If I ever got a tattoo it would be something from space. One of the things I enjoy is checking out deep space photos online and learning about what’s out there.

J: Wow Vic. I mean in just a couple of minutes you are already revealing yourself as an intellectual. I love it! So you’re not just some big muscle head! Now back to that tattoo thing. This intrigues me. How do you feel about tattoos and other body adornments in bodybuilding?

V: Well, I have always thought about tattoos. And if I didn’t have to worry about judges taking points away due to what they may refer to as distractions, I would have them. I always wanted a huge lion across my entire back. That’s my sign. Leo. Or sometimes I think wouldn’t it be cool to trace all of my veins in black.

J: Again I have to say wow. Now lets go back a bit to what inspired your whole bodybuilding trip. What was it?

V: There are a couple of things really. One is that I got into lifting weights as something to do after school. I started with a few weights in my bedroom, and here and there I’d pick things up for a few dollars from friends around the neighborhood. Soon I had a whole bunch of steel plates, dumbbells and bars in my bedroom in my parents’ apartment.

Lifting the weights was a means of escape for me. Escape from the rigors of everyday life in the neighborhood. My father wasn’t so happy with it. My weights took up too much space, made too much noise and he thought I should be doing something more productive with my spare time. Despite his feelings I didn’t let that stop me from doing what I needed to do.

Oh, and there was the whole comic book hero thing and WWF thing. I always admired the way comic book heroes looked. They were always big and muscular. And the British Bull Dogs. I wanted to look like the British Bulldogs tag team wrestlers. They had big chests, traps, shoulders and big guts. I swear I just wanted to be big and even have a big gut! So much so that, when I learned that you shouldn’t eat just before bed, I would gorge myself and then go straight to sleep. I tried very hard but I just could never get that bloated look.

J: Oh yeah. The rest of us bloated bellied freaks really feel badly that you couldn’t get fat. Anyway, who is your favorite super hero?

V: Wolverine.

J: OK, he’s got that whole bad ass personification, is muscular and strong as hell, is misunderstood by most, yet is compassionate and sensitive. He is more real a man as compared to lets say superman or batman because he doesn’t fly or have a billion dollars in resources for his bat devices. He is more human. I can see your attraction.

Vic, circling round to your gym again for a minute… how did you pull off this little jewel?

V: It wasn’t easy. The odds seemed to be really stacked against me. It seemed that everyone said I wouldn’t make it. I didn’t have a whole lot of money, but it all just made me even more determined.

Gaining the trust of the building owner to allow another gym to be opened by a local kid from the neighborhood was difficult. Especially when the previous gym owners were not successful. Fortunately I had some help from the neighborhood, when I had several people vouch for my character.

It took tens of thousands of dollars just to get the building. This was achieved by pooling some money I had saved over the years, money from my partner and a few grand we had already achieved through pre-sale memberships. So now we had the building, but we still needed to remodel. So with about 30 grand in credit on credit cards, we bought all of the building supplies, most of which we bought from Home Depot.

Of course we couldn’t afford to hire someone to do all the work, so I did most of it myself with the help of a few friends. I found myself working until the wee hours to make things happen. One night while working, some guy was walking by the gym, he paused and said out loud that I was not going to make it. He said that the previous gym had ripped people off and that I would do the same. And then he walked off. I stayed that night until 2 or 3 in the morning painting. His comments were my fuel to keep going. I wasn’t going to fail.

Back to the money… sometimes my partner and I would be so broke that we would buy our groceries on credit cards. We had so little cash. Things were really tight.

So, one night at the gym working, I came to a realization of just how difficult it was getting. We were out of money. At that point I said “its going to take a miracle to finish this place”. That same night around 9:30, this guy walks in. He comes in and looks around and then asks if we needed money to finish the place. “Hell yeah” I said, “who are you?” Then he replies that he is a loan officer. So I say “How about 50 grand?” His reply is “How about 60?” My thought was “Wow” a bank just walks through the door and offers me money. I had never had a loan for anything before and here is one offering me help. It was just crazy, man.

The next day I started the paperwork. As my paperwork was going through its processing, I got on the phone to Flex equipment. I assured them that I was going to be approved for a loan in a few weeks. On my word they processed my order for all of the equipment. Two weeks later, I was approved for my loan. A few weeks after that, my equipment showed up and I was in business.

It was just crazy. Hard to believe sometimes.

J: Fascinating. Do you believe in God?

V: Yeah, I believe. I said I would need a miracle and I got one.

J: So now, a year later, everything is going well?

V: Oh yeah. My payments are on time. My members are happy, and for $200 a year membership fee, if they have a complaint they can go home and complain to themselves. Besides, there’s nothing to complain about. Things are cool here. The thing that I will focus on here, in the future, is finishing the basement. That will be for aerobics, boxing and power lifting.

This gym has been an uphill battle just like many things in life can be. You have to work for everything. If it was just handed to you, there’s a good chance you wouldn’t appreciate what you had. So I have been working and battling and, believe me, I appreciate what I have.

J: It’s refreshing to see a humble man, such as yourself, especially in the bodybuilding circuit where there are so many ego-maniacs.

So Victor, you are not competing this year in the Olympia. Why?

V: I need time to recuperate and grow. I want to be fresh next spring. I want to do the Arnold. That would be the next show for me. Every time you do a show, your body undergoes stress. I did the NOC and achieved my goal for this year. Now I want to clean my system out for some months, before starting a training regimen for another show.

Also a lot of the guys who will do the Olympia go on to do other shows after, and will also do the European shows. By the time the Arnold comes around, their bodies will be fried. Not me. I’ll be fresh. I’ll be ready.

J: That sounds most logical. Your health is more important than a few grand and a trophy. So what does your nutritional advisor, Chris Aceto, think of this plan?

V: I like Chris. One of the main reasons I chose Chris is that his focus is not on mega drug doses to get you to where you need to be. And I respect his knowledge on nutrition. Another plus is he is on the east coast and, finally, he is very selective of the people he works with. He doesn’t work with just anyone, therefore he doesn’t have a ton of pros under his guidance. I would think, if someone has several pros under him, there would have to be some conflict of interest somewhere amongst them. With Chris, it’s not like that. Bottom line is, I respect all the guys out there, but Chris just made more sense for what I need right now.

When guys like Chris Aceto for nutrition and supplement guidance and Victor Munoz for my training choose to work with me, I am honored. These guys don’t work with everyone. We are all working together for a common goal. And since the goal is my winning, I never want to give them less than 100%.

J: Victor, your interview gives great insight of a stoic man of mass proportions. And I don’t mean just a mass of muscle sweeps. I also mean mass proportions of intelligence, integrity, pride, morality and honor. We need more people of such solid and diverse character in our society.

In conclusion, is there anything that you would like to add?

V: Yeah. If all of the “main stream”, “normal”, “everyday” non-athletes would only apply a little bit of thought to their initial observations of bodybuilders, our society would be so much more open to us. I mean so many people automatically think, when they see me, that all I am about is steroids. And “hell, if I took steroids I could look like that, too!”

Well, there is a hell of a lot more to being a bodybuilder than taking an injection. There is a huge psychological and physical discipline that is involved. From intense training with weights, cardiovascular activity, diet and the scrutiny of just being a person with huge muscles on the street, every day, is a challenge.

We are all different. It’s these differences that make life interesting. We all just have to open our minds and try and understand who and why each of us is who we are. This is one of the reasons I love NYC. There are so many different people. If we were all the same, life would be boring.

J: I couldn’t agree more. Thank you, and all the best to you in the future.