Generation Iron Page #2

one piece of my body

that's undeveloped.

I'm gonna develop symmetry,

conditioning,

and I am going to whup

the ass of anyone

that stands there believing that

all it takes is genetics.

Hard work beats

talent all the time.

Well, that's what he's thinking.

He thinks that hard work

is gonna beat talent.

When talent

actually works hard, it's over.

There's nothing that that other

person can do about it.

That confidence has lead Phil

to achieve a greatness

few can dream of.

But pride and arrogance

have been the downfall

of many great men.

Kai never had a family.

His mother abandoned him

when he was a teenager.

And from that point on,

he was raised

by various foster parents,

moving from home to home.

Kai grew angry

and aggressive over time.

Before long, he found himself

in a juvenile detention facility.

His story would have ended there

if he hadn't discovered bodybuilding.

The feelings of being unsafe,

feeling unsafe,

constantly under threat.

I remember I was in the process

of being restrained while fighting,

my shirt had gotten torn

in the midst

of the whole demonstration,

I'm taking the rest of the shirt

and throwin' it off.

"F*** that, what?"

You know, you go through this

whole display of "I'm powerful,

I'm angry, I don't care!"

You do this thing, and it was

some time after that

the teacher, I had bumped

into him again maybe

a week or so,

back in population.

He had said, "Hey, you know,

you got a physique on you!

How you'd like

to think about competing

against teenagers your own age?"

I thought it was a joke.

Back then, I never even used

to think that I would

probably ever even

get out of being

in institutional placement.

It's a lot easier for me to have

been identified as an animal.

Going to the gym and training,

it was probably

the single most important

therapeutic choice

I could make on my own.

And the people that were in my

life have long since moved on.

The one thing that's remained

consistent is still, you know,

your focus towards achieving

this ultimate goal.

Texas.

Wide plains.

Open spaces.

Scorching heat.

Branch Warren leads

a simple life

away from the hustle and bustle

of the city.

I tore my quadriceps tendon,

and it completely detached.

No one's ever come

back from injury,

you know, that injury,

especially that fast.

Most people,

it ends their career.

I did it in six months.

And that was an accident, right?

I was walking

in the parking lot...

in a thunderstorm.

And...

I slipped and fell.

So, you never know

what kind of curve ball

life's gonna throw

at you, right?

Some people cry and b*tch

about it like little girls,

you know, and be babies

about it.

A man, he has issues.

He sets it aside,

he focuses on what he...

what his job is

and gets it done.

I put my faith in God.

You know, I learned

from a very young age

that no one owes you anything,

and there ain't nobody

gonna give you a damn thing.

But you can have anything

you want

if you work hard enough for it.

What's up?

Gotta take care

of business in the gym.

You're with the boys,

so you gotta do what you gotta do.

And when you come home,

you don't bring that home to your family.

Metroflex Gym.

Built inside an old warehouse.

Produced many of Texas'

greatest bodybuilders,

including the great

Ronnie Coleman,

eight-time Mr. Olympia.

Now it serves as a training

camp for Branch Warren

and his training partner,

Johnnie Jackson.

Yeah, baby!

One more, go!

Yeah!

Come on, get some.

Nobody beats you.

Huh?

I grew up in that gym.

I mean, from learning how to fight, to learn

how to train, to learn how to be a man.

I don't think there's one bodybuilder

on this planet that's competed...

or even dreamed of competing

that hasn't dreamed of being Mr. Olympia.

For 20 years, man, I go to bed at night

thinkin' about it, and I wake up

in the morning

thinkin' about it.

I think about it when I train.

I've accomplished everything in this sport

I set out to accomplish.

I've got one contest

left to win.

I'll eat dirt if I have

to eat dirt to win this, so...

I don't care.

You know, you're goin'

against the 15-20

best bodybuilders on the planet.

We all wanna win.

And I'm doing everything

in my power

to make sure I win.

Get out, move.

Out of my face.

Let's go.

Branch is one of those guys

who just,

I've never seen him do

anything right,

or efficiently, he just works

hard at everything.

You look at him train, you're like,

"Man, I don't know how you

still have any joints left."

And that's why

it's easy to pick on him.

There's just no intelligence.

There's no, like, it's pure work ethic, man,

which is great.

And that's probably nine

of the top 10s of guys in the IFBB,

is they're doing the same crap,

day in, day out,

year in, year out,

not gettin' any better,

but then they think the result

is gonna be better.

Well, news flash for ya,

it's not gonna happen.

Take a smarter approach,

take a different approach,

you know, get better at it,

which is why I need...

if I wanna compete with these

guys and beat these guys,

I need to take the most precise,

educated, scientific approach possible.

The great thing about

this machine

it's gonna give us,

you know, any ounce

of fat that he loses, any ounce of muscle

that he gains, it's gonna track it.

It's extremely sensitive.

Ben's faith in his scientific

approach to bodybuilding

is complete and unquestioning.

He has no shame in comparing

the failure

of his opponents'

training philosophies

to the efficiency of his own.

You ask him to push himself to a certain

level, and he finds a way to push past that.

And we're tryin' to kill

him in the gym,

you know, we're really trying

to push him mentally.

That's perfect.

That's perfect, right there.

Squeeze harder.

That's it, squeeze harder.

That's it, perfect!

That's exactly what

we want, man.

That... those last three,

four reps,

you were activating maximal

amount of muscle.

That's exactly what

we need for growth.

Bodybuilding is the most

fascinating sport

there is in the world.

And in fact, this whole laboratory is

dedicated to studying bodybuilding.

Even NFL linemen, they get big.

And they get a lot of muscle.

But how in the world

can you get massive

and get shredded

at the same time?

This is completely

counterintuitive

to even science.

So, to study how do you do that

is phenomenal.

I remember it clear as day,

Flex Magazine,

I was 15 years old

at the YMCA in Toronto.

And the guy sitting

at the front desk brought one in.

I looked at the cover of it, and I was like,

"Man, that's disgusting, that's gross.

Man, I never wanna look

like that."

For me, it was more

along the lines of,

well, I achieved my goal,

now, what's next?

And I achieved my goal,

and what's next?

So, first I wanna be

190 pounds with abs.

Did it.

Wanna be 210 with abs, did it.

And I just keep pushin',

and pushin', and pushin' it.

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