Penúltimos Días

El último número de la revista Flex, especializada en fisiculturismo, trae un artículo dedicado a Evelio Costales, que con 19 años se ha convertido en la nueva revelación del bodybuilding. Por cierto, Costales es nieto de un ministro de Batista.
El artículo es por suscripción y no puede leerse online, así que lo reproduzco abajo.
(Este curioso link lo manda Ariana Hernández-Reguant, “dedicado a todas las lectoras de PD”, y acompañado de una queja porque el apartado porno del blog excluye a las chicas.)

Is Evelio Costales the next big teen?

With any luck, a 19-year-old kid from Cuba with great genes and a woeful surname just might herald a teen bodybuilding revival.

By Shawn Perine

Some say bodybuilding is fast becoming an older man’s sport.

At least that’s the way things look to them circa 2008. For proof, bodybuilding fans over 40 might tell you how, back in the ’70s and ’80s, the teen division of most shows was flooded with entrants, whilethe masters division–if there even was one–had more trophies than competitors. Compare that to the 2008 NPC Teen National Championships, held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, July 18-19. There, 28 youthful bodybuilders vied for top honors in their division. Not a woefully pitiful number exactly, except when compared to the 164 masters competitors who showed up for the Masters National counterpart at the same event.

So, if you’re a 42-year-old FLEX writer who has watched this trendtake shape over the past quarter century, you might even find yourself among those who, in his darker moments, wonders aloud if the days of body-building prodigies have gone the way of the eight-track. Then you meet Evelio Costales.

* LOST

In Cuba, you don’t want your last name to be Costales. Not as longas the Castro brothers are running things, anyway. But it wasn’t always this way. The story goes that way back before Fidel Castro decided that he had a better way of running the country, the Costales name brought with it respect and the riches that often come with respect. As a member of President Fulgencio Batista’s cabinet, a medical-school-educated policymaker named Evelio Costales was a prominent figure on not just the national but the international stage.

However, when Fidel and company overthrew the Batista regime some five decades ago, Evelio Costales suddenly found himself out of work,along with the rest of the Batista government. Costales was deported to Puerto Rico and the surname of the family was unofficially blacklisted by the Castro government.

Flash forward some 30 years, and Evelio Costales III (our teen bodybuilder’s father) is following in the footsteps of his grandfather, both as a man of medicine and a man of conscience in Cuba. Unable to sit by idly and watch as his homeland was further subjected to oppressive governance, he protested the administration of the same man who made his grandfather’s life so difficult. Despite holding the honor of having been a nationally ranked (and, therefore,
propaganda-friendly) martial-arts competitor, the third Evelio Costales was demoted. Nolonger allowed to carry on his career as a biogeneticist, he was assigned a job as an ambulance driver.

Of course, stripping a man of his profession isn’t exactly the best way to get him on your side. Costales’ voice of dissent grew ever louder, until, in 1996, he found himself and his family a one-way ticket to the United States. Cuba’s loss became bodybuilding’s gain with two generations of Costales men.

“I was seven when we came over here,” explains Evelio Costales IV as we stand near the front entrance to Gold’s Gym on a cool July morning in Venice, California. “First we went to San Antonio, Texas, for a year. It wasn’t so great. My dad was a biogenetics researcher in Cuba and my mom was a psychologist. We had a lot of money, but when we came over here, we had nothing. We lived on welfare for a year.

“An old college friend of my father helped us get to Miami,” he continues. “When we got there, my dad got a security job at a mall and my mom started working at a restaurant, so things were looking up.”

The fourth Evelio Costales is just three days off his impressive win at the 2008 NPC Teen Nationals and still showing the form that wonhim the title. Dressed in a dark tank top and basketball shorts, he reveals a shoulder span that’s disproportionately wide for his 5′8″ frame, with brisket arms hanging from them. His traps arch cleanly up from rounded shoulders and his pecs fold neatly at the front edge of his armpits. His body belies his 19 years, if not his face. I decide that Evelio IV bears a striking resemblance to Eric Bana.

* FOUND

I notice a man who must be Evelio III snapping photos of me
interviewing his son from 20 feet away. I pause to introduce myself;
he smiles and shakes my hand rapidly, then steps back into his role as
unofficial interview photographer (FLEX lensman Pavel Ythjall served
the role in an official capacity). At 53, Evelio III is clearly a
seriousbodybuilder himself and dressed to highlight his impressive
physique. Yet, here at Gold’s, even with a FLEX magazine writer and
photographer at the ready, he defers to his son. This is his moment to
shine. Dad’s pride is overflowing.

“Have you met Chris Cormier yet?” I ask Evelio IV. The bodybuilding
legend and Gold’s Venice habitue is filling one of the park benchesin
front of the gym. “Not yet,” replies the son. We make our way over and
I introduce the new Teen Nationals champ to Cormier. “How old are
you?” he asks Evelio.

“Nineteen.”

“When you start competing?”

“At 17.”

“Like me. When did you start lifting?”

“Fourteen, but I wasn’t really serious.”

“You were just dicking around with weight for other sports, right?”

“Pretty much.”

“Let me see your waist. I hear you got a small waist.”

Evelio lifts up his shirt to reveal a sub-30″ midsection.

“Damn!” Cormier exclaims.

“You have any advice for Evelio, Chris?” I inquire. “You know, we
bring the Teen Nationals winner out here every year to do a shoot,
meet the guys and maybe learn something.”

“Yeah. You gotta get the reps in. Lots of reps. Don’t worry about the
weight. And full range of motion. Don’t do any of that half-rep sh–t.
You’ll see guys doing those little baby reps, but don’t you do it.”

“I’m trying to build up my calves,” offers the new champ.

“Yup. You gotta do your reps and go all the way up and all the waydown
and they’ll grow.”

I suggest we get inside so we can grab a few shots of Evelio lifting.
Chris and Evelio shake hands.

“Good luck to you, man. You look great. You have a great physique,”
Chris tells him. He means it.

* HOOKED

“My dad started me out lifting when I was 14,” Evelio IV explains
inside Gold’s, Evelio III still snapping away. “I didn’t really like
it at first, but after a while the girls were like, ‘Oh, wow!’ and
then I was pretty much hooked.”

On his 15th birthday, Evelio’s gift from his father was a gym
membership. By the following year, he’d developed so much muscle that
he began taking seriously the suggestions that he try his hand at
competing. At 17, he entered his first show, a Musclemania event in
which he placed second in the teen class. That was two years ago.
Before taking overall honors at the Teen Nationals, he entered three
more contests–in 2007, the Southern States, he was runner-up and
received a special award as most-promising teen; this year he won the
teen division of the Miami Championships; and he improved his standing
at the Southern States in 2008 as the teen light-heavy-weight and
overall winner. In three years, he had entered five shows and the
results were twoseconds and three firsts. Not a bad start in a sport
he had to be coaxed into.

“Ahhh! A fellow teen champ!” The unmistakable baritone of Robert
Cicherillo echoes through the first room of Gold’s as the 1987 Junior
Nationals champion greets the latest heir to the Teen Nationals
throne. “Welcome, my brother, to the mecca!”

Chick is the unofficial mayor of Gold’s Venice–the keeper of the
flame. He’s a holdover from the days when Venice really was
bodybuilding’s epicenter, where you would find no less than a
half-dozen bodybuilding stars training at Gold’s at any given time.
Always glib, ready to meet and greet at a moment’s notice, the gym
couldn’t ask for a better ambassador, even if they paid for one.

“Let’s find some other pros,” Cicherillo suggests. Mayor Bob
leadsEvelio through Gold’s three massive rooms on a search for
bodybuilding royalty, but unlike 10 years ago, none are to be found.
We do happen upon wrestling icon “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, however.

“Let’s get some pics with Stone Cold!” says the mayor. The wrestling
icon obliges, shooting quips back and forth with Chick all the while.
Evelio is enjoying himself. Dad is beaming. Pavel Ythjall’s flashdraws
the attention of pretty much everyone training at Gold’s that day.

* REELED IN

“The kid’s good,” Cicherillo remarks to me as Evelio confers with his
dad a couple of chest machines away. “He’s got potential-wide
shoulders, narrow hips, big arms. He could actually make it.”

Evelio rejoins us and I tell Cicherillo about Cormier’s suggestionthat
Evelio use a full range of motion. “He’s absolutely right. Chris knows
how to train, and his rep range is perfect … for him. That’s the
thing you have to remember, that what’s a full range of motion for you
might not be a full range for someone else. That’s why watching other
people train can be misleading.

“Take a guy like Jay Cutler. He’s so thick that he’s got a relatively
limited range of motion compared to a guy who’s 100 pounds lighter.
It’s all about finding what works for you.” Evelio nods his head as
his dad cranes his neck to hear the mini-seminar.

“Of course, one of my most famous pieces of advices (1),” Chick adds,
“which also happens to be included in one of my Bobservations (2), is
‘In bodybuilding, it’s not about how much you can lift, but how much
you look like you can lift.’ Most young guys coming up get it intheir
heads that they always have to keep increasing the weights, nomatter
what. Big mistake. Once you start concentrating on the weight, you
stop concentrating on the muscles, and bodybuilding is about building
muscles, not necessarily just lifting heavy weights.”

We head back to the first room to take some photos in front of
themirror by the back wall. This is the mirror where every Gold’s
great–from Flex Wheeler and Paul Dillett to Cormier and
Cicherillo–has been photographed. The natural light that pours in
through the chain link fence that serves as an exterior wall in that
section of the gym is perfect for revealing subtle details while
highlighting overarching angles.

Evelio takes off his shirt and begins hitting shots for Ythjall’s
lens. Cicherillo stands behind the young bodybuilder, making slight
adjustments to an arm here, a comment there. “I feel like Joe Weider
with Robby (3)!” says Cicherillo as he hovers.

It’s in front of the mirror that we finally get a good look at
Evelio’s thighs. He had mentioned to Cormier that they were among his
best bodyparts, and he wasn’t lying. The kid has crazy thigh sweep, a
rarity among even Teen Nationals winners.

“My calves need work,” he says, sheepishly.

“Give’em time,” I offer. “You have to be patient with calves.”

Evelio is directed to an incline bench, where we grab some obligatory
training shots. Evelio tells me that he’s added 12 pounds since the
weigh-in at the Teen Nationals, which would put him at 193. Still,he
looks a good 20 pounds heavier than that, in a good way.

Cicherillo has to run to catch a meeting at nearby Rose Cafe (4) with
Olympia head honcho Robin Chang. Chick always has something goingon.
He’ll catch up with us later at the Firehouse restaurant.

Before we head out for a quick stop at Jay Cutler’s Max Muscle to
visit with its affable owner, Dave Bourlet, we spot Armin Scholz
squeezing through the front turn-style, along with his training
partner, Matt Malotki. We get in a few shots of German giant Scholz
and the teen champ together. “You look good. Good luck to you,” says
Scholz. “Thank you very much,” replies Costales. Both the official and
unofficial photographer snap a few shots before we leave Gold’s.

* DETERMINED FUTURE

“That definitely won’t be happening to me. I plan on being in
thissport for a very, very, very long time. I don’t see how I
couldn’t.”

We’re sitting at the front booth of the Firehouse and I had just
mentioned to Evelio Costales IV how a good percentage of teen champs
in recent years have seen their bodybuilding careers fizzle before
they’re well into their 20s.

“I plan to be in this for a long time. Really, it’s like second nature
for me at this point. From learning the basics, to reading the
magazines, to working with [personal trainer] Pablo Mills and being
atthe store [Costales works at Huge Supplements in Miami, Florida] 10
hours a day, I’m starting to really understand bodybuilding and I know
what I have to do to keep improving.”

Each time the subject turns to Evelio’s future in bodybuilding, his
eyes narrow and he speaks more rapidly. Clearly this is a serious
matter for him. I ask him about his plans for the next few years.

“I’m actually thinking about doing the USA or Nationals next year,” he
says. “Not with the idea that I’m going to win. Just to be compared to
some of the top guys. This year, I was near the bottom of the light
heavies, but by next year I think I can be near the top. So I think I
could make an impact as a 20-year-old guy in his first national-level
show and place well. After that, I’d like to turn pro and be doing
some of the smaller pro shows in two or three years. Then, in maybe
four or five years, I’d like to be standing onstage in a show like the
Arnold or the Olympia.”

Ambitious plans for sure, considering that only a handful of guys that
young have stood on an Olympia stage–the last was Shawn Ray in 1988,
who placed 13th in the O the day after his 23rd birthday. Still,
nothing indicates to me that the preternaturally muscular kid sitting
opposite me is a wide-eyed dreamer or bit talker. He’s focused
andintent, yet brimming with the energy youth at one time affords us
all.

Veteran character actor and dedicated gym rat Danny Trejo comes infor
some Firehouse fare. Evelio recognizes him immediately. “He’s that guy
from the movies!” We grab a few shots of the two together.

“Where you from?” asks Trejo.

“Cuba.”

“You live here?”

“No, in Miami.”

“Oh. Well, you look good man. Real good. Keep it going, man.”

“Yeah. Thanks a lot.”

After another stop at Max Muscle where we chat up the
always-effervescent Cathy Lefrancois, who fills us in on a recent trip
to Vancouver, we head back to Gold’s, where all of us are parked.
Evelio III tells me how he’s considering going back into competition
(he entered afew shows some years ago) as a master. Just what we need,
I think, another masters competitor. But at 53, his physique looks a
dozen years less. His skin is taut, and his muscles are full and
round. “The kid takes after his father,” Cormier had noted earlier in
the day.

When we reach Gold’s parking lot, we say our goodbyes. Evelio IV tells
me he plans to come back to Gold’s the next two days to train. He’s
looking forward to getting to know Los Angeles, or at least the west
side of it, a little. He glances upward at the palm fronds, with that
serious gaze of his, but with a glimmer of enthusiasm in his eyes.
Evelio III beams at the boy who takes after him. Whose shoulders are
broader it’s hard to say, but suddenly bodybuilding’s future looksa
little brighter to one 42-year-old bodybuilding fan on that July
afternoon in Venice, California.

* FOOTNOTES

(1) Anyone who’s a regular listener of Pro Bodybuilding Weekly, the
Internet radio show Cicherillo cohosts with Dan Solomon, will hear
Chick pluralize the word “advice” every time he uses it. It has
nothing to do with his literacy-it’s his insider’s nod to Arnold
Schwarzenegger’s mispronunciation in the film Pumping Iron. Now you
can consider yourself an insider.

(2) Bobservations is Cicherillo’s editorial, which appears in FLEX.

(3) As in Robinson. Several iconic photos taken by the late Art Zeller
exist of Joe Weider offering advice to Robinson in the gym.

(4) Although the Firehouses is Venice’s de facto postworkout hangout
spot these days, way back when, Rose Cafe held that honor,
hostingoatmeal and omelet meals for the likes of Arnold
Schwarzenegger, Franco Columbu, Mike Katz and Ken Waller.

BY SHAWN PERINE SENIOR WRITER