The Endless Pursuit of Progress - Sam Sulek (4K)

If you weren't doing bodybuilding, what do you think you'd be obsessing over instead?

I think I- I mean, it would have to be something. But honestly, my, uh... I was kind of lucky starting off body... Uh, I, I wouldn't even say bodybuilding. Y- the only, uh... And this is something people say anyway, "If you don't compete, you're not a bodybuilder." Like, it's a little... Because when someone does their first show, you know, they kind of want to express this, like, you know, glamour about it.

Elitist.

It's like, "I'm a bodybuilder because I competed." You just... But I, I kind of leaned into that. So before I actually competed, I was, uh... I'd always described myself as like just, I'd say, a lifter 'cause I... It's... The point wasn't more so to compete in bodybuilding. Like, when I'm working out arms, so I'm not thinking like, "Okay, I need my arms to be a little bit bigger so that I can beat this guy on stage." I guess, more so, I want them to be bigger for me, and then that kind of played into once I w- was at a certain level, like, "Okay, now is about time to compete." Like, it was always on the list, but it wasn't, like, the point.

Mm-hmm.

Especially not in the beginning.

Mm-hmm.

For me, I'm like, "I just want to get big." I, uh, I did gymnastics when I was, like, 11 to 16. I think I was good, but I wasn't, like, gonna be college level scholarship. I l-... Like, no Olympic... But I... Like, it was fun. And there was one guy named Connor who was... He's the older dude, and now I might not look at him the same way, but at the time, he was nuts. He was huge.

Mm-hmm.

So we all... Whenever we'd do, like, strength or conditioning, that's how... I think that was probably some of the seed that got planted, because I was doing, like, four hours a day, like middle school, early high school.

So you already had one obsession.

So I... That was, like, it. Like, every... It wasn't... And I never had to be dragged to do it because, like, I was excited. It was fun. So once I quit doing that, to switch it with the bodybuilding just happened to be something I was already kind of interested in, and it just fit perfectly.

Mm-hmm.

Like, we would talk every summer where some of the guys would be like, "Okay, this summer, we're actually going to work out," and we never did it. But once I actually quit doing it, that's what I replaced it with. But if it wasn't bodybuilding, let's say there was a alternate universe Sam where I've got the itch where it's like, "Oh, it'd be awesome if I could play guitar like Rob Scallon." He's a, he's a, he's this YouTuber who's, you know, into guitars and everything. Or just anything. Like, that could have been it, but it happened to be like, "Okay, I'm gonna get into working out really serious."