Great newspaper article on Seth Feroce

[hifrommike65]

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/vall.../s_682407.html

[MattO8929]

Good article.

[Kyle Witherspoon]

Crazy to turn pro in less than a year. Good job!

[MsGuns]

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/vall.../s_682407.html

I posted it in his Q&A on MD!

[Jude2]

Nice article. Congrats to him.

[MiamiMadePunk]

Next time, try to post up the article at the Rx forum and not just giving us links.


Local bodybuilder turns pro in record time

By Tamara Girardi, FOR THE VALLEY NEWS DISPATCH
Saturday, May 22, 2010
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As an amateur bodybuilder and the reining Mr. Pittsburgh, New Kensington resident Seth Feroce still met resistance when he announced his hope to become a professional bodybuilder.
Feroce had intentions of earning his pro card by winning the light heavyweight class at Nationals in November, less than a year after his first amateur competition.
That had never been done before.
His competitors, their fans and even some of his supporters thought his goal was too presumptuous, but Feroce knew what he wanted.
He and his coach put a plan in place to train five to six days a week. The schedule included 45 minutes of cardio at 5:30 a.m., an afternoon weightlifting session at Webb's World of Fitness in Penn Hills and another 45-minute round of cardio in the evening.
His pre-competition daily diet is even more intense with 12 ounces each of chicken and lean ground beef, 36 ounces of tilapia and more than two dozen eggs.
"Training just consumes your entire life," said Feroce, a 2003 graduate of Kiski Area High School. "You could say it's almost selfish, but it's exactly what I wanted to do."
The November competition is the most prestigious of its kind. It draws about 550 competitors. Some guys attend year after year, hoping that if they spend the year working harder it might be time for them. There were some favorites going into the competitions.
Feroce wasn't one of them.
But when his name was called as the victor, he silenced his opponents and made a name for himself in the industry as the only competitor to earn his pro card in less than a year, and he did it at the young age of 25.
"They say you hit your peak in bodybuilding around 33 or 35 years old," Feroce says. "That's when a lot of guys turn pro, so with me being so young, there's a lot of hype. I don't buy into it though. I just love lifting weights."
He has loved lifting for a decade, and although he has only been competing for a little more than a year, he has been working toward these moments since high school. With his victories, he has impressed a lot of people, including Steve Blechman, publisher and editor-in-chief of Muscular Development magazine.
The magazine offered him a contract for several photo shoots each year. The March issue, which currently is on sale, features a 12-page spread of Feroce, nicknamed "The Ferocious One," and an article summarizing his win at Nationals.
So far, he has flown to California for two photo shoots. The most recent shoot consisted of two 10-hour days.
"We took pictures for an hour or so, then I got to relax, grab something to eat and drink, and then go back at it for another hour," he said. "Steve wanted pictures for half the year to use in the magazine and online, so we shot for two days."
As part of his contract with Muscular Development, the most popular bodybuilding magazine on the market, Feroce also spends time on the magazine's online forums, answering questions from fans and youngsters aspiring to join the ranks.
"I have a really large fan base. It's wild, really cool," he says. "A lot of people online are asking when I'm going to get a cover shot (on the magazine). Having a fan base might help with that."
But Feroce is eager to help the fans, too. He said that when he was growing up, interacting with bodybuilders was unheard of.
"Interacting with the professional athletes is the whole concept behind this," he says. "As a kid, I always thought bodybuilders were superheroes. I never had the chance to interact with them. These people do, and they're very grateful."
Now that Feroce is a professional, people are wondering when he'll make his pro debut. He has several competitions this year to choose from, but he hopes to debut in August. After that, he'll take on one more show in 2010.
"You can do as many shows as you want, but this is very demanding. It really eats you up physically, emotionally and mentally," he said.
Although he works out year-round, the 10 to 12 weeks leading up to his competitions are more intense -- both with dieting and exercise. In the off-season, Feroce weighs about 230 pounds. His competition weight is under 202.
"That's where bodybuilding becomes dangerous. You really have to know what you're doing and understand how your body works," Feroce says.
To drop the extra few pounds before competition, Feroce starts cutting his two-and-a-half gallon water intake in half, day by day until the last day of the show when he's barely drinking any water at all.
"The last couple days of the show are make or break time. If you do something wrong, you can look like you didn't diet at all."
He loses two to three pounds of water weight right before the shows.
With a goal of making his professional debut in August, Feroce will get more serious about his workouts and diet in April by cutting out refined sugars, cutting down the portions of each meal and doing more cardio.
When it's time, he is confident he'll be ready to go.
"I've always wanted to compete since I started lifting weights at York's gym in New Kensington back in high school," he said. "It's a very critical sport, just getting on stage to be critiqued. If I get up on stage, I want to be sure I have everything. I just trained year after year to make sure I had everything I needed. It turned out 2009 was my year."