The Excalibur Bodybuilding Show

Charleston, SC
August 23, 2008

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By now, everyone is pretty much aware that after his huge injury at the Cincinnati Pro Am in August 2007, Marc Bartley set out on a crusade to lose weight and get in shape.  The doctor told him after surgery that to begin putting heavy weight on that leg to early would risk tearing it again.  There was so much damage the first time around that to do it again would leave no room for a good repair.  With this in mind Marc contacted Shelby Starnes at Troponin Nutrition and sought advice about how to diet.

Shelby is a competitive bodybuilder who works with people trying to get it together to compete.  And boy did he ever get Marc in shape.  To read Marcs training logs over the past year go to www.elitefts.com.

Now, on to the show this weekend.  The first thing that became evident to us was that everyone was really excited that Marc was doing this show.  The SC State NPC chairman Tres' Bennett invited Marc over on Friday to get some last minute tips and tricks about posing.  Marc didn't start learning hardcore posing techniques until the Thursday before the show.  We both thought that posing would be the easy part - boy were we wrong.  He did well though for such little practice! With Tres' help, he improved even more before the show.

Saturday started with 2 more coats of pro-tan and then a layer of competition tan in the hotel.  Then we were off to pre-judging.  There were a lot of people from Columbia there in the morning and seeing their faces when Marc walked on stage was priceless.  But it was great to see them: Joe Lyons, Kevin Antley, Lee Lipscomb among others. We also ran into Dutch - a good friend - and noticed that he was wearing Marc's 1107 squat t-shirt.  That was really cool.  The support was awesome. 

The night show was even more fun as the excitement from the competitors spilled over into the crowd.  At 9:30 Marc went on stage to great applause and did his posing routine. It had been pretty obvious from the morning that he would take either 2nd or 3rd.  There was one guy in his class, Ruben, who was just to perfect to lose to anyone.  In fact, Ruben won the whole show.  But there was some stiff competition between Marc and a few other guys.  In the end, Marc took 2nd in his weight class and got a huge trophy for all of his efforts. 

Congratulations to Marc on the end of a 10 month journey.  We are all very proud of this accomplishment.  After this, who knows what his next challenge will be.  Someone this morning suggested he look into Pie Eating Contests....we shall see!

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