Rich Piana - Mr California

IS THIS GUY THE BEST?

There’s not been a crazy bodybuilder feature here since Gregg Valentino or Zack King Khan but this guy raises the bar among even this esteemed company. He has more than his fair share of web haters who highlight his use of synthol (essentially an oily implant solution you inject into specific muscle fibres for increases in size). As you can imagine, many see this as cheating, and to be honest, due to its controversy, the blog hesitates to even mention it. It is named only because (a) cosmetic enhancement is a fascinating subject in its own right and (b) Rich openly discusses his performance enhancer use on camera, which is as rare in the sport of bodybuilding as rocking horse shite.

We know they all do it but only he admits it so a man has gotta owe him fat respect for that alone.

Let’s forget all those trim dieters weighing their egg whites for a perfectly balanced physique. This in a sense is what true bodybuilding was meant to be like: Morphing into a Mutant. Leaving humanity behind. You wanna be an average package with the same old boring predictable look, or you wanna be a freaky monster? Take the Incredible Hulk. You think he would win a contest if the stage could hold him? He’d come dead last. But whose name would the crowd be calling? Hulllk, Hulllk, Hulllk…

Drugs are only another optional piece of the jigsaw to maximise your natural genetics and hard work. In Rich’s case, I reckon, the final part, after many years taking care of everything else. Imagine sweating your ass off to build a house then having to put up with derision just because you added an extension not to everyone’s taste. And all the while the name callers have barely built anything themselves. The main word beginning with D here is dedication. Negativity is estranged from commitment and consistency.  This is what choosing a path and following it looks like.

Hey, make your own mind up about him. All I can vouch for personally is that this guy got my mate lifting weights again. That’s the bottom line. One look at Rich 'Mr California' Piana enjoying his bodybuilding life and his cosy little lazy layoff was over. He ate some toast and jogged straight the gym in his jeans. The good news is that we can all be Rich Piana in our own way. How? Well, by looking different to everybody else. By keeping freak in mind. And for those of you who may be wondering, freak is an endearing term in the muscle community.

This video is a marriage of inspiration. Not only are they bringing a true freakazoid to our screens, but they are doing so by the expertise of Alex Ardenti and Mustafa Yazicioglu. Alex is a rare master of motion with the lens and Mustafa’s grungy on-your-feet piano speaks of funk and dance, a genuine breath of stylish fresh air. Let’s celebrate a fusion of talents in their own right and revere this marvellous mixture of muscle and music.

a schmoe feature
* FREAKY BICEPS BABY *

Alex Ardenti

I firmly believe that when I die and ascend to Heaven on the back of the monster from The NeverEnding Story, God will produce a tablet with a screen on (no, not an i-pad), and show me a condensed video of my life. If I’m right, then surely a video of this importance can only be made by Alex Ardenti.

I hope that you might understand what I mean even if bodybuilding doesn’t appeal to you in the slightest. The subject could be gymnastics, rowing, or dinner ladies doing the hokey cokey, and I would still hold these videos in the same high regard. For those who can relate, these are the weightlifting equivalent of Rocky videos. I’ve always said that quality footage needs very little else apart from skillful camera work and ace music.

You could point a camera in one spot, come back later, and I suppose you could call it a movie. Anything goes, I guess. But this is genuine footage, where the camera is busy, busy-busy-busy, zooming in and out fast like a bouncy ball, sliding to the side, slowing down, speeding up, jerking around, going into black and white, sharp focus, soft focus…I don’t know the lingo, but I know what I mean, and I know what I like.

There’s always something happening. Every single shot. Every transition. Effects, touches, sequences. With Alex, montage is king. You just know that painstaking hours of work have gone into embellishing less than 3 minutes of screen time. It’s all about the timing. And the music, of course. In both cases, for me, because it’s rare, and fitting, the music is exceptional, the icing on the cake. Videos like this deserve their own special music. They are too passionately created to simply slap someone else’s melodies over.

Absolutely outstanding. The benchmark for camera work. Take a bow, Alex Ardenti!