Community

More in Motivation

Competition can bring out the best in you. Provided you are a competitive person by nature then competition will force you to level up at the risk of feeling the burn of defeat.

Having said that, even if someone were to lose a competition, it can always be framed as a learning experience therefor competition can expose weak areas which can then be strengthened.

The NPC Texas Legends Championships had some great competitors come out for a very early season national qualifier. At many competitions we try to elevate the competitor experience and give back in terms of apparel and training accessory give aways as well as putting all the winners on the global platform to further expand on our mission of changing the world through fitness.

Sunday at Destination we had the opportunity to catch up with Leehna (figure winner) Armon (mens physique winner) DJ (classic physique winner) Mariana (wellness winner) Rachel (bikini winner) Montrel (masters physique winner) and Chad (classic physique winner).

All of these champions brought their best and have very different backgrounds with very potent passion and purpose driving them to compete and level up on their own lives with fitness as a common ground.

Talk with Champions - NPC Texas Legends Winner Interviews

Brittney Bejar contacted Olivia Gravengaard to get help with her eating. With other aspects of Brittney's life giving her the inner perspective of "never being good enough," she developed an over bearing and rigid structure on things that she could control like her eating and social life.

Just 4 months ago Brittney jumped at the possible opportunity of change. It was all or nothing in her head, going form one extreme to the other. Restrictive eating to eating 6 times a day. From that point Brittney experienced extremely fast progress thanks to her new found fondness of bodybuilding and proper nutrition as well as her proactive approach to keeping herself outside of her comfort zone.

Tangible Improvement - Brittney Bejar

The body cannot live without the mind... unless one considers merely existing as living. The body cannot live much like opportunities, goal attainment and leveling up is damn near impossible with a poor outlook and mindset.

Before Nathalia Melo became a world class bikini pro winning the Bikini Olympia and international identity and brand she had to have a vision, a burn the boat mentality and a work ethic to match her vision.

We get a bit more back gourd on Nathalia here and learn that she married her husband Roger and made another huge "burn the boat" move when she relocated to Ireland. Burning this metaphoric boat this time opened up her horizons and brand to a massive European audience and ultimately paid off huge dividends. Long story short, it was all worth the risk BUT the risk is nothing without the mentality to expect it to pay off and to expect to work for it.

Set Your Mind & Make It Happen - Nathalia Melo

It's get busy living or get busy dying. Retirement is a concept that means work for 60 years and then start living your golden years. This makes no sense when you have all the strength and vigor in your earlier years. For Bo Jones, competing, turning pro and competing on the pro stage is part of what he considers living.

What is living: "It's feeling. That's the one thing that separates being dead and being alive. Its emotion, experiences, friendships, happiness and sadness. Everything wont always be great but then again everything wont always be bad. Living is doing things and experiencing things to the best of your ability."

Here Bo links up with Ray Baker at destination in route to his 2021 competitive season. Ray has a very unique approach to training and posing. Posture is key with a lot Ray prescribes and he explains briefly why he has Bo start with several things before hitting the horizontal leg press.

Stay Competitive - Bo Jones

More in Sustainability

At Better Bodies, we’re dedicated to making the world a better place by creating a positive impact in any way we can. That’s why we’ve taken the initiative to move over to sustainable choices in materials wherever we can.

All Better Bodies products have 100 % recycled polyester labels. Our hangtags and accessory header cards are made from 100 % FSC ( https://us.fsc.org ) registered paper as well as taking it one step further to remove all plastics laminates so that they can be easily recycled and repurposed. They are also custom-shaped to reduce waste in production.

Better Bodies is all about a better world for everyone. We’re happy to have you along for the ride!

Better Bodies Values

More in Training

The v-taper is all so important when it comes to competitive bikini competition hence another pro tip on how to engage the lats.

This time I perform the dumbbell pull over. For these I don't like to use a flat bench. I perform these on a slight incline, place my hands flat on the dumbbell face and keep my arms rigid as I stretch and contract my lat muscles.

Use a slow and controlled motion with these and try to feel it engaging in the area you are working.

The lats are super important in the shoulder to waist ratio and the tight waist you want to show on any stage. Try these out and let me know what you think.

Dumbbell Pullovers - Jennifer Ronzitti Pro Tip 4

More in Destination

Divine Master has had natural ability and talent for athletics since starting calisthenics at 8 years old. He excelled in football, lacrosse and basketball, played semi pro football for 3 years which finally segued into bodybuilding. Expectation was and has always been very high on Divine himself. Being just good enough was never an option.

Divine turned pro and qualified for the Olympia in the span of the same year. Since 2016 he has learned a lot outside of the actual physical realm of what it takes to be a truly the whole package and world class professional.

He is a top contender in any pro contest he does now. In this interview with Michael Johansson they discuss the physical side of the sport but also the mental aspect and how big of a role being aware of your energy can play in goals.

Stay tuned for more from Divine as he prepares for the 2020 Mr. Olympia competition.

Destination Live With Divine Master

In bikini we want to accentuate the appearance of a tapered waistline and performing lat pulldowns properly can help you do that.

When using the bar attachment on the lat pulldown machine, I pull straight down with my elbows as if I am pulling straight for the floor. I don't pull my elbows in or back but straight down and try to keep from pulling with my biceps at the same time.

"I don't have a genetically teeny tiny waist so I build my body around the waist to create the look I want."

Lat Pulldowns - Jennifer Ronzitti Pro Tip 3

Leading up to Olympia 2020 we will release a series of Pro Tips from 

_"To enhance the illusion of having a smaller waist for bikini competition I use exercises that hit the vertical plane of my abdominals."

Jennifer Ronzitti shows 2 of her favorite abdominal exercises including the reps she performs and a tip on pushing yourself as much as possible.

Vertical Ab Training - Jennifer Ronzitti Pro Tip 2

We have all heard this saying before. We are also aware of doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. The point is that Guy Cisternino has lifted HEAVY ASS WEIGHTS for years however 2 shoulder surgeries and wear and tear on his joints later... its time to change it up in the name of longevity.

 team up at Destination for a chest workout built by John Meadows. The idea is similar to the way hunter and Bryan train in that they don't waste energy on the "warm up" sets and then give an all out effort on "working sets."

Needless to say it kicked both Guy and Jeremy's ass here. Check it out and leave your thoughts on the session.

Mr. Olympia Chest Training with Guy Cisternino and Jeremy Potvin

What does it take to turn pro? Loving the process will be a huge advantage to facilitate and expedite becoming a true professional in any trade you choose.

. Both turned professional in the IFBB this year. Christina won the overall in bikini at the IFBB North American and Olivia won the overall in figure at the NPC Jr. USA.

Both Olivia and Christina work extremely demanding jobs in healthcare with shifts ranging from 12-14 hours and most of the time never getting breaks and ALWAYS on call with an immense amount of responsibility and human lives in their care. They share with us the demands of their professions and the discipline it takes to still continue to set goals and then steps they execute to make sure they ALWAYS make progress towards them.

Check out the full video and follow Christina and Olivia. Stay tuned for more from these gals.

Discipline Prioritization & Competition - Olivia Gravengaard and Christina Heath

More in Behind the Seams

A simple yet revolutionary idea in the early ‘80s led to the creation of Better Bodies. It all started in the city of dreams.

New York City in 1982 was a city of contrasts. Uptown versus downtown was one of many. 23rd street seemed to be the ”border” between two very different cultures. Below 23rd street, outliers and artists were repurposing empty storefronts into punk palaces and warehouses into art houses. Rents, by today’s standards, seem mythic. You could move to downtown Manhattan with little more than a backpack and score an apartment and a job in a week. Artists flocked to the city, transforming it into a dream factory.

The New York fitness scene seemed to reflect the same de facto border, fancy health clubs uptown, hardcore men’s gyms downtown. Women were often confined to health clubs and aerobics studios. The only place where the two sexes could train together was at health clubs, which often served as little more than a place to chat rather than train. At the time, Better Bodies founder Brian Moss worked at the American Museum of Natural History. “I was an instructor. I gave school children tours through the museum.”, says Moss. He trained at a men-only gym, he loved the hardcore nature of the gym, but something was missing.

While sitting at his desk at the museum during lunch breaks, Moss spent his time sketching out his thoughts on a “new” gym concept. He wanted to open a hardcore gym, a REAL gym, that welcomed everybody equally. A place where women were not only allowed but were truly welcome. While that may seem normal today, at the time, the idea was radical. The benefits of strength training were only just being discovered by women. In 1982 in the era of leg warmers and jazzercise, having muscle wasn’t considered “feminine”. He knew they were out there – women that wanted to train hard. Women that wanted to be strong. Brian Moss believed they were overlooked and needed to be included. Not seeking to be treated differently, but rather, equally.

After months of back-of-the napkin notes, Moss finally had a logo sketched on a piece of stationary. He then saved, borrowed, and begged for $60,000 to open Better Bodies. Moss then found an affordable 4,000 square feet location in Manhattan’s “Flatiron District”, known for its large turn of the century industrial spaces. On a hot August day, him and his training- and business partners; Mike Alalof and Ben Rodriguez, rented a box truck and drove to Matty Ferrigno’s gym in Brooklyn. The elder Ferrigno (Lou’s father) had been building and selling equipment from the gym’s basement. Moss and his partners picked out the basics; squat rack, power rack, bench press, barbells, and dumbbells. Just the essentials. At 12 West 21st Street on Labor Day of September 1982, Better Bodies Gym flung its doors open.

It was Moss’ goal to create an atmosphere of inclusion, a gym without judgement. Among the early gym members there were artists, DJs, writers, poets, bodybuilders, musicians, office workers, fashion designers, producers; people from many different tribes and different walks of life. “These were people that came from very different backgrounds and places, but we were all equals when we wore gym clothing.”, says Moss.

Like most gyms during that era, they had apparel for sale at the front desk. According to Moss “it started with the basics, T-shirt, tank top, shorts and sweatpants. Offered in black, white, and heather gray.” The design was simple, just the logo. The clothes themselves were off-the-shelf “blanks”, no special fit, certainly nothing that was made for a muscular physique. Nothing like that existed at the time. But Moss had a solution: scissors. “I often cut the T-shirts into tank tops. Everybody wanted me to cut their shirts. I had a technique where they turned out just right.”

Around the New York fitness scene, wearing a Better Bodies T-shirt meant you were serious, you were part of a NEW tribe and people wanted to be part of Better Bodies. All the notable bodybuilders and serious fitness celebrities of that era visited Better Bodies when they were in town; Lee Haney, Ronnie Coleman, Dorian Yates, and many more. The apparel may have been basic, but the professional bodybuilders got something special not offered to the public: their shirts got a custom patch sewn on that marked them as part of TEAM Better Bodies. The addition of the word ‘TEAM’ to not only the Better Bodies logo but to bodybuilding itself was a unique and notable creation. “When you’re on stage competing, you’re by yourself, but everything leading up to that moment takes help from other people. Training partners, friends, lovers, family, even the person at the front desk of the gym, they’re all a part of your team.”, Moss tells. The ‘TEAM’ graphic was silk screened onto bits of scrap fabric, and Moss had a friend’s grandmother hand-sewing them onto already-existing Better Bodies apparel. Today, every fitness brand seems to have a ‘TEAM’ associated with it, but that all started with the original: Team Better Bodies. By initially limiting the ‘TEAM’ patch to the pros, Moss was “priming the pump, before releasing the concept to the public”.

It’s possible that the Better Bodies brand might not have ever achieved the success it did without the first-ever hire at the gym: Gladys Portugues. “She came in one day with an acquaintance as we were building out the gym, I don’t think she was even looking for a job. It was serendipitous, fate maybe.”, says Moss. At the time, Portugues was already working as a trainer at an uptown health club. She was unknown in the fitness industry, but Moss spotted something special in her. Within a year of hard training she booked her first magazine spread, and more quickly followed. Any time Portugues had a photoshoot or guest posing appearance, Moss would make sure she was wearing some Better Bodies apparel. According to Moss, “as her popularity rose, so did the popularity of the brand. She was one of the catalyst’s for the brand’s popularity.” Portugues graced the covers of Flex, Shape, and Muscle & Fitness, which was a feat rarely achieved by a woman. Her appeal eventually crossed over into the mainstream, with photo spreads in magazines like Vogue. Gladys Portugues eventually left her position at Better Bodies and went on to marry Jean-Claude Van Damme, but her mark on both the Better Bodies brand and fitness industry remains; she helped make women with muscle acceptable.

Soon, phone calls and mail orders for apparel started coming in from all over the US. It quickly became apparent that Brian Moss hadn’t just opened a gym, he had started a movement. Regardless of your sex, color, or creed, if you trained hard and loved the gym, Better Bodies was your team.

None of the adventures Moss enjoyed when he conceived Better Bodies were planned. He and his team were young and fearless and New York rewarded it. Fondness for the gym and its clothing remains wide and deep today. Moss, who became a popular bodybuilding photographer after selling the gym in 1997 considers its success charmed. “It was a magical time.”, says Moss wistfully.

If you want to know more about Brian Moss, visit 