4’5 BODYBUILDER’S INCREDIBLE MOTIVATIONAL STORY!
hey guys we’re super excited to be here at the la fit expo it’s our third year in a row and what we’re going to be doing today is we’re going to be launching a tasty pastry it’s a low carb pop tart it’s got three to four grams of net carbs and we love this show this is our best place to be in la i’m dave palumbo founder of species nutrition i created species nutrition with one mission in mind to provide bodybuilders and serious athletes with no-nonsense supplements that work and are backed by science from my earliest bodybuilding days i believed in only putting the best in my body and that lives on in the species nutrition line of products we use only top of the line formulations dosed for maximum results and the best flavoring systems available i put my name and reputation on every bottle of species nutrition products if you want to be your absolute best join the evolution so welcome back to live with brought to you by species nutrition i’m dave palumbo and today we have a very special guest i’ve been so excited to get him on this show as far as i know he’s probably the shortest bodybuilder to ever win an overall title in both classic physique and men’s open bodybuilding on the npc amateur level of course the guy i’m talking about you guys have probably heard me mention them before hector gabriel amador here with his two trainers tomo marjanovic and our good friend andrew mcconnell welcome guys thank you dave thanks um amazing amazing that’s the only thing i can say because you’re fine four foot not five foot four foot five inches tall this is your first bodybuilding show ever and you won not only men’s open body building overall but classic how’d you do it where’d you come from tell us your story well i didn’t know how we did it the only thing i could say turn hard and you will follow the structure of my my goals um in the back when i before i start with bodybuilding i read a lot of books for all school i get both parties one b appear um uh arnold schwarzenegger i don’t always book the giving um all square sides basically increasing and when i get my certified intelligence um there we go we lost here for a second all right let let me take you back a little bit okay 10 years ago you started bodybuilding okay which when you were 14 years old now you were given a diagnosis by the doctors that basically you were going to be in a wheelchair your whole life what what explain to our audience exactly what your medical condition is do you have um a lack of growth hormone in your body why are you so short first of all what and then what was the the uh the diagnosis that led them to tell you that you wouldn’t walk the name of my disease this plasma skeleton is when they send your bone they can uh they don’t grow properly their reforms um serious culiosi um i suppose we don’t exercise they compare most of the people in puerto rico but then the doctrine protocol they say my diagnostic uh they say like a chrysler so if i’m exercising or i draw something like they broke and don’t have uh you know you don’t kill them so as my mom also they wanted me a lot of surgery for my scoliosis my neck because i have corpse and a lot of people left me doing bully take me picture the school and i don’t know a teacher they give me opportunity sport it was very hard for me and very hard for broccoli rules and my mother wants also to do surgery so i start reading and you and books and youtube do commentary for how can i exercise a therapy exercise for medicine how i can start you know make my muscle stronger so i can protect my my bones and then by the by the meantime i do those exercises i get stronger and stronger so how the nose of what i am yeah so you have a dysplasia of your bones where actually they call it brittle bone syndrome like the the person who you can fall down and your bones could break right that brittle yeah so they were afraid that if you exercise you did sports that you were gonna you were gonna basically be breaking bones and and and fall apart essentially yes yeah and you said i’m not going to take this diagnosis i’m going to go out and i’m going to start strengthening my body yeah i remember when i started i start with a plastic donut for dosboxing that you buy for twenty dollars right however they start with pooch or running the park um a lot of people love me and also the school you wanna do a body village how tall were you how tall were you at fourteen fourteen wow and four four playing four four feet four foot yeah four first one that’s it wow that’s crazy now um did you along the way during this 10-year journey to where you got to now which you looked amazing by the way um did you did you injure yourself did you break any bones did you have any injuries along the way because i realized the right technique when i do the exercise and discipline myself when i’m doing because i want to tell me that i don’t want to get injured but by the time yeah sometimes i feel sort of pain but never i have injury before never it’s interesting because a lot of guys that are short you know like you’re below four five feet tall have weird proportion like that you know sometimes their upper body is big and they have short legs or their arms are not long enough you’re like perfectly symmetrical i mean is that like just by sheer luck or i mean is that just good genetics what do you think that’s attributable to i don’t know like i said that god america because i don’t want to be here like say everybody in worship and no many exes i just think i’m like those guys only play playstation and that’s it but that’s what i can say i know i don’t have explanation for that and when you went back to the doctor after they gave you this diagnosis and you start as you’re starting to increase and get stronger and stronger um what what’s the doctor thinking about all this during this time is he is he telling you keep doing what you’re doing or does he think you say does he tell you like you’re crazy what you’re doing when it um like when they saw me they say they know how to explain like an explanation what happened to me wow it’s crazy there’s uh there’s our good friend there with angela de batin backstage and and they’re on their knees and and they’re about the same height as you that’s amazing now when when you went all right so you you obviously you set up this isn’t here that’s a good i want to this picture this is a great picture so just to give people an idea of um of what you guys what you look like next to the other competitors and when you’re backstage pumping up all right getting ready to go on stage and you’re looking at all these guys and you’re the by far the shortest guy out there no one’s even close to you do you have any inkling in your mind that you have a chance at winning the show well like my coach would tell me and put my mind uh i go to do my best there i gotta do well and when i try and say whatever you think i wanna win right and whatever they wanna win no matter what oh yeah no presents anybody i just spoke on my my popping back stage um for people i have to do in the game i said this is my game so no choice i want to bring something to my house i want to be something you know i don’t know how to feel win show my memory control to be the first a small bodybuilder to be approved one day and go to one olympia you won the overall all you got to do is win the bantamweight class of the nationals and you’re probably by far what did you weigh on stage at four foot five you could you could do the women’s lightweight class and still make the weight class it’s crazy uh andrew when you train this guy what kind of weights is he using in the gym if i tell you what i believe i thought i thought i started to everybody one day i was doing chest and he asked me coach can you help me yeah i’m doing shoulders sure so i walk in next to him and he has a 80 pound dumbbell at the floor i’m looking i’m i’m getting very nervous because i hope i’m thinking myself please don’t try to show off don’t hurt yourself now and he get maybe one one meal carbs that’s it so i put the weight in his in his legs and he basically curled i found dumbbells and he said i got her and he pushed 12 reps with 80 pound dumbbells with that eyes wow uh i don’t even know what to say that’s like having that’s like having one of himself in each hand almost yes yes and the other day he sent the video oh he’s squatting 315 for eight four or five for three reps i’m like don’t do this again you sure you’ve got brittle bone syndrome i think maybe they’ve just diagnosed you or something i know i know definitely that’s incredible and uh i see this waiting to go off caesar don’t do four or five anymore he is he’s you know i mean he’s training the way he likes he likes to use a lot of reps a lot of volume he’s simply similar to middles he don’t even know who milos is but he can be very similar to him he jumps two other machines he goes to the gym at the time there’s nobody there he jumps with squats on squat hex squats he’s he’s like and i think in a way safe you know you got good genetics got good genetics you didn’t even realize it you thought you got handed you thought you got dealt the bad hand and then when you actually went to the gym you realized you had a good hand actually yes yes yes yeah he’s amazing like the way he lives in the gym i’m not the only one everybody stops you’ll see he believes because we don’t believe you know i love this picture by the way with brandon curry mr olympia my favorite picture he looks like you make brandon curry look like shaquille o’neal i know he looks special yes he’s actually 5 10.
who’s that who do you think is that was that was the tallest mr olympia arnold i guess yeah i think so i think we got to get him a picture with arnold right wouldn’t that be great i don’t know that’s the plan because that’s my goal to be yeah i have two people the guy given a chance um picture with him right now try to be in the olympia what so now what’s the uh the next show are you guys gonna go to nationals i mean you might as well right or usa or whatever because i mean uh he’s just got to win the bantamweight class although i mean those guys are going to be obviously better than probably the guys he went up against in tampa but you know especially with this crazy kovid year we got going on here natomo what’s what’s going on with the gym you guys the gym’s open no problem the gyms are open here we got no problem um that’s that’s where i met him only a week before the tampa pro show what’s aspire rejuvenation clinic give us a little that’s my it’s my clinic it’s a clinic that deals in hormone replacement therapy we do anti-aging medical weight loss yeah we’re uh we’re here in orlando another one in pittsburgh pennsylvania and we’re going to be expanding out to more of the country as we go through hopefully away from covis yeah exactly are you sponsoring uh hector yes uh so i met him only a week before the tampa pro and they were asking for a sponsorship you know a little further out and yeah so florida state and they were looking for a small sponsorship somewhere to cover his costs and when i saw him you know because they told me you know there’s a little guy yeah and i’m thinking in my head same thing you probably thought most people thought the proportions are probably going to be off you know i mean so when i hear he’s under five feet i’m like all right proportions are gonna be off it’s gonna look a little funny maybe but let’s see what he has and the guy puts a posing routine on and it was unbelievable i’m looking at him and i’m like you just posed better than 90 of the bodybuilders i’ve seen on stage at pro shows the last 10 years who taught you how to pose uh was it for me the best person you said who told you that a pose did you learn yourself or did someone sit down and teach you oh teach me well no nobody i just look in the video tutorial paris i i saw the jumbo party libra look at this shot i have up on the screen this is an amazing shot how big is your waist like like 15 inches his waist looks like it’s the size of some guy’s thighs or probably smaller than some guy’s thighs i do a lot of um fasting uh abs and normal accessory for my corn so like a twist old-school exercise for my sure practicing my vacuum how big your arms what how big are your arms i don’t know i’m like i don’t know it was actually like a measurement i never made it looks good looks good 13-inch arms on you is like a 27-inch arm and like a six-foot guy you know now now that you’re asking me i actually want to take your measurement yeah you got to do we got to do measurements on this guy it’s funny because my i have a good friend of mine vin vinnie brasco i know if you know him he’s about a a small guy bodybuilder and he’s he just got in the guinness book world records he’s four foot one um but you might be the first guy ever to get your pro card uh under five feet or well maybe not marvin ward is probably 411 but yeah 411 and four foot five is a big difference though that’s seven inches unbelievable so you will see him at nationals in in or in miami yeah that’s the plan that’s the plan yeah we asked the judges uh to get a feedback if you should take time off do they leave the usa and then george just told me normal oh definitely not i want to see him in the nationals okay now um what do your parents think about this um hector me well your parents your parents my parents oh my friend they give a lot of support especially my mom always with me all my process and the before and now they’re so happy to to make my dream control did they did they think you were crazy when you first started [Laughter] because i’m sure you’re eating a lot of food were they were they okay with buying you all that food you’re eating and all the protein shakes when i say another there you go i i was going to ask you are you a big meat eater or chicken eater fishy what’s your what’s your protein source of choice um i like chicken is my i also fish from most stable not not too much but sometimes when i have to like it’s a nasty fish it’s a dirty fish too it tastes good like i imagine you know he probably has to eat a lot less food than like like a bigger competitor would what’s a typical like protein portion and like carb portion for for hector as opposed to like you know someone like you know who’s five foot ten and three hundred pounds no no not necessarily well that’s not training him he has some some paper that someone gave it to him was was real bad he weighed 98 pounds and uh i started doing his diets and training tell me what to do give him more rest you don’t want to rest you know don’t tell him to rescue training straight to the vegetables every day oh really he doesn’t think okay okay but coach if i don’t train somebody that’s going to be training somewhere i say no you’re fine yeah yeah but uh i start just by earning food to his diets uh he went from 98 99 pounds to 120 diet he was dying i’m i’m feeding him more clean food right he’s putting weight one thing well he was over training is what you’re saying is that that was the thing yeah and uh by the portion he do the six ounces wow that’s not a problem yeah i tried to go more but he feels too bloated yeah i don’t know six is a good number you know he’s probably doubling his his weight in protein probably i’m sure yeah i put the numbers together i’m trying to get the shoe up and this is what i believe and works well for him you know six times a day he’s eating yes six times six ounces all right here’s the question that everyone wants to know no one cares about the body i want to know when you’re four foot five and you got a physique like flex wheeler okay what kind of women do you attract tall women short women what’s what’s your type for woman i don’t really right now he’ll take them all no seriously though do you like ball you like tall women or do you like short women i pray for somebody you know go with my hand hand by hand with me the bad news process my life and give me support also in this sport because i don’t want somebody else to give me support in this sport because i love this right and they’re right there’s a lot of competitors out there i work with some girls that are under five feet tall i mean would that be something i mean you could if you can date a girl who’s like six-foot you’re gonna be like people gonna think you’re a kid you know but uh i’m trying to get your date hector come on give me some information here can contact you now you have a great uh youtube i mean excuse me instagram account i’ll pull that up on the screen here some people could see it it’s hector motivation and i like that because we want to see motivated uh obviously you motivate a lot of people now here’s the question when you do nationals i see oh this is i didn’t even see this picture this is a great picture because you were very emotional this is when you won yeah yeah what were you were you crying i had to say both i say thank you guys because i i couldn’t believe him really i couldn’t believe it uh i did all that i tried to i cried when i saw it and i wasn’t even up there with you i was crying congratulations man you overcame the odds even if you don’t ever do another bodybuilding show which we know you will you you beat the odds already my friend you should be proud yeah i’m proud of all your helpers there and trainers and because you know what it was a team effort and you guys you guys kick butt now here’s the question you’re doing nationals are you going to do classic physique are you going to do men’s bodybuilding can you do both at nationals i hope so you know i thought you could i don’t i think it were before i don’t know if you can now i don’t know if you can yeah they always make they’re always changing the rules i don’t see why you can’t but you know what they don’t let you do both in pros you have to pick one in the other i don’t know why bodybuilder for sure yeah it’s going to be if we’re getting if we have to pick one we’re going to go bang bodybuilding you think that would be the case because it’s banned away but you know what he looks so good in in classic too he’s got a classic physique it’s i’m almost like well you know the only problem is he might be too much shorter than the shortest class guys right and i think i think the it’s as weird as it is uh it was weird sounding as it is i think the lineups are deeper in classic physique now you probably unfortunately you’re probably right yeah then they are bodybuilding so especially in those lower class levels yeah yeah the lighter classes without without respect to anybody i already did a little research for the various nationals usa and north america and i see a lot of those blunt awaited guys for a second they all look great but i think he got a better chance they got their proportion is not as good as his because a lot of those guys are too tall here’s the question though here’s the question on the height weight charts because for for those who don’t know in classic physique for your given height you can only weigh so much do they even go down to four foot five no so what’s this they stop at 411 i think is the shortest i saw on any chart and what and what’s the weight for that uh undo 140 something i think it was 137 or something like that it doesn’t sound like the proportions are correct at that lower height they probably did probably no one was mathematically gifted enough to figure it out relevant because you know who who’s going to do these divisions well hector congratulations on the big the two big wins i should say and the qualification for nationals and i’m looking forward to seeing you at the miami nationals and hopefully winning your pro card uh at the young age of 24 and overcoming all the odds and having a tremendous tremendous story to tell uh thank you for sharing it with us no thank you for doing interviewing it’s operation thank you again absolutely and uh for all of us here at rx muscle i’m dave palumbo with hector gabriel amador for live with we’ll see you next time
