Elmer Bench has always been into weightlifting.
As an athlete and coach, the Laurence Manning Academy social studies teacher, weight-training instructor and football coach has always worked at his fitness.
But in January, his training took a different turn when he entered the Gold’s Gym Transformation Challenge.
“We had to take before and after pictures and show the transformation of our bodies, and then they compare the pictures across the country,” said Bench, who ultimately won the top prize and $6,500 in the 40 to 49 division.
His uncle, Todd McFarland, was the year’s previous winner and had persuaded Bench to take on the competition.
“I got injured last year and tore my pectoralis major at the Cross Fit gym in Sumter,” he said. “I couldn’t do a lot during the summer and got out of shape, and my uncle told me about this contest and that I’d be a good candidate to win it by showing a real transformation.”
Bench began an entirely new way of exercising and training.
“If you know anything about lifting weights, training as a body builder is different than training as an athlete,” said Bench. “Training as an athlete, you’re working on strength and athleticism. You’re shaping and forming your body when you train as a bodybuilder. You’re wanting to look a certain way. You’re wanting to have definition.
Before, where Bench was more focused on trying to improve his bench press and working his reps as fast as he could, these days he focuses on each individual muscle, “trying to chisel it and trying to make it pop.”
“I design my workouts around that,” he said. “Instead of focusing on the explosive movement of each rep, I focus on each rep and squeezing it out. You focus more on the squeeze, not that explosive part of the movement.”
Bench’s diet has also transformed. It is mostly high-protein with moderate carbohydrates and sometimes high fat.
“The only thing I eat is chicken, fish, vegetables and, occasionally, brown rice,” he said. “I also eat a lot of eggs. Depending on which day it is, if it’s a high-carb day, it will be low-fat. If it’s a low-carb day, it will be high-fat and high-protein.”
Bench said he measures everything he eats.
“I’ve got it down to such a science now that I can look at a piece of chicken and tell you about how much it weighs,” he said.
Ultimately, Bench consumes six meals per day. He said a typical breakfast starts at 5 a.m. with five eggs – yolks and all – half an avocado and half a cup of brown rice. He then works out and has a protein shake afterward. Later in the morning, he will have a six-ounce piece of chicken, another half of the avocado and half a cup of brown rice.
“So, by midday, I’ve already eaten the equivalent of three meals,” he said.
His family has also adopted some of his new lifestyle changes.
“Susan (his wife) has lost 30 pounds herself by following the diet,” said Bench. “And it’s helped her in the fact that she doesn’t have to take as much of her high blood pressure pills anymore.”
Now that Bench has won his first technical bodybuilding competition, he has no plans to slow down. He is gearing up to compete in a local event in September at Weldon Auditorium.
“I’m going to be involved, but I haven’t 100 percent decided yet about the categories,” he said. “I know I’m probably going to do the physique portion, but I don’t know about the strength portion. But I am getting into competitive bodybuilding.”
Bench has also started the process of working toward certification for personal training with the National Association of Sports Medicine.
“I’m going to take it to the next level,” said Bench.
To be certified, Bench will have to complete a 10- to 16-week course and then pass a comprehensive exam. Modules are offered online, he said.
He said he wants to help train others to feel as good as he does.
“I’ve had probably 100 people ask me what I’ve been doing or how they can do this or that,” he said. “I enjoy passing along what’s been passed along to me.”
“This whole transformation has opened my eyes as far as being more health conscious,” Bench said. “When you’re an athlete, you eat pretty good, but you don’t eat as well as a bodybuilder does. You’re eating for the performance as an athlete. The night before a game, I might pound an entire plate of nothing but complex carbs. I don’t do that anymore.”
But Bench does allow himself one solitary cheat meal each week: It consists of chips and salsa and fajitas on Sunday afternoons after church with his family at Yucatan.
“During the challenge, I went 84 days without a cheat meal,” he said. “Now, I do the cheat meal once a week. I think one of the things that trips people up who do cheat meals is they might take the whole weekend and cheat; that’s the mistake they make. They say they will do good for the work week, but they’re going to fail. They’re not going to do as well because they went against that diet the whole weekend.”
Between now and his next competition in September, Bench is in a “lean-bulking phase.”
“I lost 54 pounds during the challenge, so I lost some strength,” he said. “Every pound you lose, 60 percent is fat and 40 percent is muscle. A lot of people don’t realize that.”
Bench works out seven days a week.
“For at least three hours a day,” he said. “Sometimes I will go two a day. But it’s not like that during football season when I’m coaching. From August to November, I work out once a day in the morning.”
For the Gold’s Gym challenge, he worked out with his uncle and had help from trainer Brian Savage at his uncle’s home gym in Lawrenceville, Georgia.
“I traveled there four or five times and we also talked through text and over the phone,” said Bench of his training. “I joined the gym there for the duration of the competition and transformation.”
As part of his prize, Bench was part of a photo shoot over the weekend.
“It was pretty exhausting,” he said. “It was from 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. one day and we had to workout pretty much the whole time.”
