06 The judge's voice rang out "Front double biceps"

The judge's voice rang out from the darkness over the sound system. "Front double biceps."

My detached consciousness out over the audience began to feel like it was holding its breath. The part of me that was still inside my body was on full alert. I felt an unprecedented level of control and connection with every cell in every muscle fiber. All of the nerve endings in my skin were alive and on fire. The subtle movements of the air around me felt like fingers on my skin, caressing gently, feeling the hardness and density of my mass. Starting in the "relaxed" bodybuilder position, which, as I have said, is far from relaxed, I did actually relax my shoulders and arms, allowing them to fall slowly to hang at my sides. Well, as close to at my sides as was possible given the bulk of my lats and arm muscles competing for space alongside my torso. Everything felt as if it was in slow motion, though as I saw myself from outside it looked normal. I felt the sheer weight of my arms hanging there, pulling down from my shoulders. I lowered my chin until it stopped, sitting on the protrusion of my upper pecs. As my eyes gazed down over the expanse of my chest muscles, I realized that I actually couldn't see anything of the rest of my front, except the cords of my quads bulging out from the front of my thighs. Some little part of my brain found this funny and wondered if women have the same problem with their breasts. Raising my arms 90 degrees out to my sides, fists clenched and cocked forward, I paused. Biceps and triceps tensed, forearms bulging, a crazy network of veins appearing everywhere, I allowed the judges and the audience to take in the width of my shoulders and lats flaring out and up from my 30" waist. I tensed up my quads, my feet slightly off center and shifted the bulk of my torso slightly off to the left. This was my favorite pose as I thought it showed off the extremes of my proportions the best.

I continued to contract my biceps, pulling my forearms up to a 90-degree bend. Each of my 24" upper arms grew and swelled, the softball-sized rocks of my biceps coming into razor-defined view. Looking at myself from the front, the depth of the muscles was clearly visible, even from out over the audience. From the inside, I flexed as hard as I could, thinking not about bending my arms, but about tightening the muscles—contracting every fiber as much as it could. The bulk of my forearms and the rocks of my biceps collided, stopping my elbows from bending any further. I exhaled quickly and tightened all the muscles in my core, showing comic-book character definition in my abs and obliques. And then I smiled. The look on my face was one of quiet confidence. One that said I've worked hard and I am awesome to behold and I know it. I couldn't see anyone in the audience clearly, but I did see the glint of a pair of eyeglasses. I focused my gaze directly on those lenses, wondering who was behind them and what that person thought of the muscle on display for their review.