STAR PROFILE!
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Some quick info :
Full name:Ronald Alan Harris
Age: 34 (turn 35 on Sept 21, 2004)
Height: 5-8
Training since: 1983
Competing since: 1989
Offseason weight: 230-240
Contest weight: 205-210
Currant residence: Boston, MA - USA
Occupation: Writer for bodybuilding magazines
Marital status: Married to Janet since 1991
Listens to: Godsmack, Rob Zombie, Marilyn Manson, Creed, Green Day, Rap
Motto in life: "Never let anyone tell you your dreams can't come true."
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ZONE:Tell us abit about yourself Mr Harris..who
are you?
RON: I'm a bodybuilder, a writer, a husband, and a father.
I am lucky enough to have made a career out of writing for bodybuilding magazines,
and have a fairly popular website, www.ronharrismuscle.com
ZONE:Man besides having a great physique I see your writing EVERYWHERE these
days!
I just love your stuff! How did you get into it?
RON:I actually started out in this business in TV production, working on the
ESPN show
"American Muscle" that ran for many years.
Through that show I made all the contacts with the athletes and magazine
editors that allowed me to start writing for the magazines.
I submitted an article to Ironman in early 1992, and they printed it.
That was the beginning. I started writing more for them,
as well as submitting to various other magazines. It wasn't until 2000
that I had enough steady work to make magazine writing my full-time career.
I get people asking me the 'secret' to being a successful writer in this industry.
There is no secret. If the editors like your work, you are reliable,
and can work pretty fast, you can make a decent living.
ZONE:How did you got bit by the iron bug in the first place?
RON:I was a very small kid and not athletic in the least.
Bullies would pick on me, and I imagined if I had muscles like the pro wrestlers
I saw on TV - guys like Hulk Hogan, Kerry Von Erich, "Superfly" Jimmy Snuka,
and so on, that life would be a lot better.
It was ironic because I was such an academic and artistic kid growing up,
always one of the best English students and voted Class Artist in high school.
I was pretty much the last kid you would expect to start working out.
Then when I got to college I read a Flex magazine and that was it.
I was hooked.
I knew I had to be a bodybuilder and I was prepared
to work as long and hard as it took.
And it did take a lot of time and hard work.
I first started messing around with weights when I was about
fourteen and weighed only about 90 pounds.
A lot of guys seem to relate to me because whatever size and strength
I do have came very gradually over a period of many years.
There are some pro's who were already winning contests within a year or less
of training.
Cutler went from 180 to 240 in his very first year of lifting weights at age
18.
I admire guys like that for what they have achieved with their physiques,
but I am also aware of just how genetically gifted the top guys and girls
in bodybuilding really are.
My genetics are above average, but nowhere near that really elite level.
ZONE:What is the best part of this sport?
RON:The best part of bodybuilding to me is the aspect of transforming
the human body into something that's really a work of art.
I think that's why you seem to have a lot of guys like me in it who share
an artistic background of drawing and painting,
a lot of guys who were into superhero comics as kids.
I also love the camaraderie that we have today in bodybuilding.
You always hear how there isn't any camaraderie in the sport,
but that's not entirely true.
I only see a lot of my friends twice a year, at the Night of Champions and the
Olympia.
And in spite of that whole controversy about my after-party articles,
I love going to Craig and Kelly's events.
If I am going to party with anybody in the world,
I want it to be with my fellow bodybuilders.
We are all brothers in iron whether we acknowledge it or not.
You don't look the way we do without an incredible amount of hard work,
discipline, and dedication.
It's great to be able to hang out with others who have dedicated
their lives to it the way we have.
We understand each other in ways regular people never will
because we have so much in common.
ZONE:And the worst part?
RON:There are a couple things that bother me about the sport.
One is the highly subjective nature of the judging.
We have all been to some shows where the decisions were just appalling.
But what can you do? It's a matter of opinion in the end.
Another thing would be the risks an athlete has to take to
meet the judging standards of 2004.
The whole thing about having to be dry and grainy or else you're not in shape
is crazy.
We all know you need to use diuretics to look like that,
and you have guys cramping badly and going to the hospital on contest day sometimes.
Also, I would say that a lot of the negativity on some message boards
from jealous and bitter people is upsetting.
There are some people who do nothing but insult, criticize, and ridicule others,
and some take particular joy in trying to make top bodybuilders feel horrible.
I like Mayhem because they will delete those evil posts
and ban people who are only there to cause trouble.
ZONE:What is your diet like? Both offseason & before a show?
RON:In the off-season I eat every two to three hours,
and will not hesitate to have stuff like pizza, ice cream, or Chinese food a
few times a week.
I probably take in about 400 grams of protein, 600 grams of carbs,
and 200 grams of fat a day in the off-season.
Once I start dieting obviously my diet gets a lot cleaner.
I start dieting gradually, just cutting back on junk, then eliminating all junk,
then starting to reduce carbs.
I usually have four solid food meals and four shakes a day pre-contest.
My protein goes up to about 500 grams a day, my carbs come down to 300
(100 on non weight-training days), and my fat stays around 100 grams.
It's still a lot of food, more than a lot of guys roughly my size are able to
get lean on.
Luckily I still seem to have some of that skinny runt metabolism working in
my favor.
I am rarely hungry when dieting.
ZONE:And what about your training. Offseason & before a show?
RON:My weight training doesn't change.
I keep the weights heavy, though they inevitably lighten up when
I get really lean and my bodyweight is lighter.
Right now I train Monday through Friday on this split:
Monday: Arms and traps Tuesday: Quads Wednesday: Chest Thursday: Back
Friday: Shoulders and hams Calves I hit twice a week, not on any specific day.
Abs, I confess, I don't do a whole lot for.
In the off-season I probably train them once a month.
When it comes to precontest training and cardio,
I am trying something out this year that is working really well.
I started out doing three cardio sessions a week, worked up to six,
and scaled it back down to three for the last five weeks.
I have had a problem in the past where I would end up losing
a lot of muscle in the last month before a show,
and I finally figured out that I needed to cut back on cardio near the end to
avoid that.
ZONE:Where do you think most people go wrong before a show?
RON:That's easy. You need to have a plan ahead of time, and stick to that plan.
Instead, most bodybuilders continue to ask different people for advice,
and get more and more confused and filled with worry and doubt.
You can't follow ten different pre-contest strategies at the same time.
Starting to change things near the end is almost never a good idea.
What can potentially happen is that the change may make you look
a little better, or a lot worse. Personally, I don't like those odds.
If you have been dieting for a while and are looking good,
why would you want to risk screwing that up and ruining what you worked so hard
for?
ZONE:Who is your biggest inspiration & role model through the years?
RON:As far as a human being in general, I would have to say my late father.
He was real old-school, a Massachusetts Yankee with a lot of ethics, morals,
and values that were already disappearing fast by the time
I was a kid growing up in the Seventies and Eighties.
In bodybuilding, I always admired really hard workers.
My first hero was Rich Gaspari, and later I would say Dorian Yates and Ronnie
Coleman.
Those guys all busted their asses to become champions.
Lazy is not a word you could ever use to describe any of those three bodybuilding
legends.
ZONE:As I said before you have a great physique tell us about your contest history!
RON:I appreciate the compliment, but I don't think I have a 'great' physique
in terms of competitive bodybuilding.
But I do think I have done a lot with the genetics I was born with.
I started competing in 1989 in the ANBC,
a lifetime natural organization with most of its
shows in the Northeast region of the USA.
Over the nine years I lived in California,
I also did the non-sanctioned show on Muscle Beach four times.
I won my class in it in 1995 and my friend Don "the Ripper" Ross presented the
award to me.
He died exactly one week later.
Don was one of the reasons I got into writing, so that will always mean a lot
to me.
My most recent events were:
2002 NPC New England 2nd place, Open Heavyweight
2003 NPC Orange Country 2nd place, Open Lightheavyweight
2003 NPC New England 7th place, Open Lightheavyweight
(very bad - overdieted and did too much cardio, then got food poisoning six
days before the show!)
2003 NPC Massachusetts State and Northeast Tournament of Champions 2nd place,
Open Heavyweight I am just a couple weeks away from the
2004 NPC Massachusetts State and Northeast Tournament of Champions.
Right now I look the best I ever have, so wish me luck!
ZONE:After all the interviews & articles about all different
bodybuilders which one do you remember the most & why?
RON:That's really tough to say because I have written a couple thousand articles
now.
I guess maybe the Star Profile interview I did with Sergio Oliva
a couple years ago was something I will always remember,
since he is a living legend in the sport.
ZONE:After reading the latest issue of Muscular Developement
I realized that all profiles where done by you.. How is it to work for MD?
..I mean it is a crazy magazine!! *S*
RON:I love working for MD, and Steve Blechman has been very good to me.
The magazine is outspoken and outrageous,
and says things other magazines are afraid to talk about.
The pro's have their columns in there in which they are free to express
their concerns and opinions on just about anything they want to.
I am so glad I started writing for them in 2002,
because they have become such a dominant force in bodybuilding magazines
over the past couple years.
People like to put MD down and say it's giving bodybuilding a bad image,
but they need to wake up to reality.
Bodybuilding isn't all about curls and eating chicken breasts.
Sex and drugs are part of our culture too.
ZONE:Anything you wanna add?
RON:I want to thank you for the interview, Zone.
I can tell from your posts on Mayhem that you are just as obsessed and passionate
about this crazy sport and lifestyle as I am.
I also want to add that I am very grateful to be able to make a living
in bodybuilding and have some degree of notoriety in it.
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FOR MORE RON HARRIS
CHECK OUT HIS GREAT WEBSITE AT:
www.ronharrismuscle.com
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