The Daily News Journal in TN:
Curry pumped for the big time
Murfreesboro native a rising star in world of bodybuilding
By DAVID BOCLAIR
Brandon Curry's physique is anything but second-rate.
"Basically I'm a piece of art, and I work on it to make I want," he said. "You're working with your own body. It's like a sculptor working with a piece of clay, only this is probably harder."
"This" is bodybuilding, and despite the fact that he is nicknamed "The Prodigy," Curry consistently has come in second place in the events that matter most.
That's what happened last July at the 2007 NPC USA Championships and again at the 2007 NPC Nationals Championships in November.
Given that he has had only one full year of competition at the national level, those results are well beyond respectable. Yet in an effort to move up in class he has decided to move away.
Curry is leaving town this week and relocating to San Diego, which he hopes will be a critical step in ascending to the professional ranks — bodybuilding's version of the major leagues.
"It just makes me more available for publication situations; they basically can contact me a lot easier for events," he said. "One of my major sponsors is on the west coast.
"... I've always been sort of muscular, and I've always liked to train and lift. I just put all those pieces together to become a bodybuilder. It's a process I've been going through."
The 25-year-old MTSU graduate recently was featured on the cover of Flex Magazine, which proclaimed he is "Ready for the Big Time." His supporters include the reigning Mr. Olympia, and the internet includes any number of blogs and forum threads which talk about his pending professional success with certainty.
All that is left is for him to win over the judges, which conventional wisdom says he will do at this year's National Championships in July. A victory there automatically will earn him his pro card and will allow him to pursue the sport's most coveted titles, ones which have been won by the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lee Haney and Ronnie Coleman — each of whom is considered a legend.
"This year should be different," he said. "I have a lot more media hype going into this show. It helps a lot. Last year was my first year on the national level and I didn't have any buzz but I shocked a bunch of people when I got second. With the buzz and the publicity, it can influence the judges. And it helps build more fan base and gets you support.
"... I'm pretty much 10 years younger than most of the guys who beat me. I have to pay my dues, so to speak."
Those dues include five days a week in the gym. Locally, that is Olympus Athletic Club and Spa, where he also has worked as an instructor.
Although he holds a degree in exercise science, his approach to working out is essentially fundamental.
"I really don't keep track of time in the gym," he said. "I just kind of train and let my body know when I'm finished. When it's done, it's done and it's time to go on, eat and recover. It's a full-time job because it's not only that, you have to eat throughout the day to make sure you get the right amount of calories, you have to be stretching and loosening up.
"... I have training guidelines ... but when it comes down to it, bodybuilding is about knowing your own body because everybody is a little different. Once you reach a certain level of body awareness, you can kind of get intuitive about what's going on and how much is too much."
At 5-foot-7 1/2 ("They round it up to 5-8, typically," he says), Curry is shorter than most of the competitors he faces in the heavyweight division at the national level and will face in the professional ranks, which has no weight classes. It's the approximately 220 pounds he carries on that frame with a 29-30-inch waist that eventually could put him head and shoulders above the rest.
"It's just my natural structure, my natural ability to build muscle, keep a small waist and just create the illusion of what they call the 'X frame,'" he said. "Basically, bodybuilding had shifted to a phase of what they called the 'Mass Monsters,' guys who were unbelievably big but did not have symmetry in their stature.
"They're trying to change the game a little bit, and I'm one of the guys coming up who's more focused on ... a physique that's aesthetically pleasing and flows well."
Like a work of art.
