'ANB 2013 AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL NOVICE TALL CHAMPION'

WAIT, WTF?!?!?! TALL?????

Thats right bitches, I, Sean Aron Mclaney, have been classed by an International Bodybuilding Federation, as TALL!!!!! Hahahahahaha!!!!! Screw winning the National title, I'm tall!!!! I'm a real boy now!!!!

AND, on top of this, to put the cherry on the top, that very same weekend over in Sydney in a Coles supermarket, a women asked ME to reach something for her on the top shelf because I was TALL enough to get in down for her. DAMN STRAIGHT!

Anyway, so yeah, I'm tall now. Oh and I won some Australian National Bodybuilding title too.
THE END!!!

JUST KIDDING!

So I'm not gonna ramble on like my last post. That was my first ever comp and something both Jess and I have talked about doing for so many years and I wanted to share that experience with you lot. Even though I'm sure you opened up my blog on your tiny little iPhone and went F%&K reading all that garbage and gobbledygook; wheres the pictures. I may as well be posting a new episode of Mr Men. I did have a Mr Perfect T-shirt once and a Mr Strong plus a Mr strong teddy that Jess and I strapped to the back of our motorbikes when travelling across the USA and Canada. I miss that teddy. We had to part ways when we were ditching excess weight to cycle India and South East Asia.

So this will be a lot shorter, I hope, you hope!

After much deliberation, number crunching and scraping as many pennies together as possible, not to mention the $500 prize money I won for winning the Western Australian Overalls title, the help from my gym (24/7 Power Fitness in Wanneroo, literally the most awesome gym ever) where Kerry and Andre paid my contest entry fee and finally, to seal the deal, an extremely generous up-front payment from 2 of our clients, I got my ass over to Sydney to compete in the ANB Nationals.

To save money I stayed in a hostel, which turned out to be full of drunks, druggies and noisy bastards, partying 24/7 out in the hallways and blasting really bad German techno crap all night. I lucked out with the 3 other room mates I had (4 beds per room, 2 bunk beds) as they were all pretty cool and really interested in my competitions. Only downside was they were constantly smoking weed day and night so I was worried that if I got drug tested as its a natural comp, I'd test positive for Marijuana!!!

So this time round I was on my own; no Jess to literally do everything but get on stage for me. It was pretty damn hard. I had to cook and pack all food here in Perth and fly over to Sydney with it, otherwise I'd get my food completely wrong having to do it all last minute over there. Even so, things still werent perfect and I was having to guess weights and measurements and make adjustments to my meals to fit the situation as the kitchen was crap in the hostel and I was missing quite a few ingredients.

How this affected my physique, I'm not too sure. All I know is that I feel I didnt bring a physique nearly as good as I'd hoped for and I couldve looked a whole lot better. I was just lucky that everything seemed to go my way on the day and I came out on top.

This show was different than the WA titles. The Nationals are dragged out over 2 shows to replicate the pro shows. The morning show, aka the prejudging', entailed all I think 15 of us in the Novice Tall category (tall @ 176cm, still makes me laugh) getting onstage at 11am for 2 rounds- the 8 mandatory poses and the 4 symmetry quarter turns. Then they call out the top 6, which I was in, and we go through it all again. It turned out to be between myself and another guy named Treg. Out of all the guys on stage I think I was just about the smallest up there, in terms of bone structure and of course height. I noticed Treg when I first got on stage, his back was massive and his legs were covered in veins like spider webs. Bastard! Thats what i was after.

So we stood up front and went through all the poses again, both of us now dripping with sweat, tan running in the eyes too. Ever since I was like 9 years old I've had a 6 pack, even when I was a chunk @ 96kgs I still had a 6 pack sitting on top of a gut, and I think thats what tipped the scales. Treg and I were unbelievably similar but I had him on abs I think. The funny thing is he turned out to be English too, but unfortunately for him from Newcastle, up north (I'm from the South) and I think the judges knew that and marked him down. hahahahaha!!! I hope he's reading this!! Bloody Northerners!!! My Dad's a northerner too mate so we cant all be perfect.

But he was a top bloke and with a truly genuine smile and hand shake told me I deserved it and looked awesome. I'd done it, achieving literally EXACTLY what I've always wanted to achieve in my first bodybuilding season. I won the Novice WA title, the Under 80's WA title, the Overall WA title, the Best Novice Posing Routine WA and to top it all of the big one, the Australian National Novice Tall title too. I still cant believe it.

Actually the night time show was where the winner was announced. We had to wait around for 7 hours without knowing the winner for the finals. At 6pm we each went on individually and did our 60 seconds posing to music where I completely forgot my routine and just made it up on the spot. Then all the competitors in my division had 60 seconds of free posing against each other and then they awarded the winner.

So having won that division I now had to wait a further 4 hrs for the Overalls which I KNEW i could not win as I'd seen 3 of the top behemoths in Australian Natural Bodybuilding. If you get a chance, look up on Facebook, 'Nathan Wallace', this dude has the physique I'm after. His glutes are revoltingly impressive and something you have to see to believe. All I can say is next to these monsters, including the guy that won it, Mike Waddington, who again has an arse about as big as the whole of me,  felt extremely insignificant so just pissed about and had a good time up there posing with them. What an honour and such a great experience.

So it was now like 11:30pm, I then spent the next hour getting a ride to the train station with the WA event organiser and a train back to the hostel. I then spent the next hour getting the tan off of me. So by now its about 2am. No time for the victory cheat meal that all competitors crave for their entire comp prep. I could barely sleep as I was up at 4:30am to get the train to the airport for a 6am flight where I met up with Tash, the woman that won the Overalls in WA and came to Sydney for Nationals too. She's trains in the same gym as me and came 2nd. I think she deserved 1st though.

When I caught the escalator to the terminal at Perth I was dazed like a zombie from literally 4 days with no sleep, but as soon as I saw Jess waiting for me I felt like I'd just woken up from the best nights sleep of my life. She was beaming with pride and gave me the biggest hug and pulled the trophy out of the bag I was carrying it in. What was funny was the whole terminal started clapping and shouting congrats, even though they had no idea what the trophy was for.

When Jess heard I hadnt had my victory meal, she took me straight to the Dome Cafe for a slice of their UNBELIEVABLE apple pie, with ice cream and cream. My God, it was amazing and the cappuccino went so well. Then we smashed a Nando's whole chicken and chips later on which I've been craving for weeks.

So thats all folks! This year is all done. Not only did I do well but our clients who competed did amazing too. We had Michael Palmer win the INBA Novice title in May and just miss out on the Overall too. Matt Francis came 2nd in the INBA Male Physique category and rocked a sick set of abs and a pair of legs that I needed at Nationals. Karla Marks (hope I'm allowed to write about her, she's a bit James bond about her job. Don't send someone to 'whack' me Karla) she came back from her first show 2 weeks later to win the INBA Female Fitness Short division and then also went on to win the Overall too at the Perth Fitness Expo. Her genuine smile and grace won her those titles, and a rocking body with sick abs!!!

A big thank you to everyone of you who read my blogs. Whether they were interesting or not, I couldnt care less. I'm sure one person enjoyed them. Up to now I've had over 2000 viewers of my blog believe it or not, from all over the World. Weird huh.

So heres some pics to finish on. I havent got the pro ones up yet, but I will put them up on our 'OPTIMUM PHYSIQUES' facebook page if you wanna see them later on. Just 'LIKE' the page.
Until next time, if there is a next time, bugger off!!!! Hahahaha!!!! Bye Bye!

 CITY GYM, SYDNEY

 Ewww, got veins?!?! 

 The Venue, The Marconi Club

'THE BIG DAY'

Wow, what a day! Where do I start? Lets do away with the suspense, in case you don't know, and jump straight to what you wanna know.

In short..........I won everything!!! I'm still gob smacked even now and the day keeps running over and over again through my head. Now the long bit, very long, so if you're not interested in the ins & outs of the day then just skip to the photos and maybe the last paragraph.

First up I won the Novice Men's Division where there was 6 of us. They stuck me right on the end so I had to turn inwards a bit on the stage to counter being so far off to the side. We all hit our 8 mandatory muscularity poses and myself and another guy were called up to the front to do all 8 poses again as a bit of a pose off I think. He looked great though, big veins through his chest (something I don't have, yet) and good arms too but I must've done something right as the judges picked me as the winner. Everyone was apparently asking Jess, 'Who trained him to pose so well?' See, I knew being vain and spending all those long hours in front of the mirror would pay off! The guy who came 2nd, Mehran I think his name was, congratulated me later and said my posing was flawless and I had an unbelievable physique, which I though was pretty awesome of him.

I also won the award and another trophy for Best Posing Routine which was a shock as Jess and I made it up in about 15 minutes one afternoon. I posed to the first 60 seconds of 'The Pretender by the Foo Fighter'. I think that went down a treat with the judges and the crowd, that slow opening riff where I started with a few crouching poses and then BANG, drum beat and into Dave Grohl's husky voice, pumped me up to knock out some power poses stood up. I enjoyed it far more than I thought I would and had zero nerves at all. In fact, 60 seconds goes so fast and you only really get 10-12 good poses.

I was back on stage just 15 minutes later for my next division, the Under 80kgs, where there was just 3 of us so they stuck the juggernaut of a young guy in the Over 90kgs I think on stage with us too. Even though he wasn't in our division, the judges moved us around so he was side by side with me, I think to make it easier for the Overalls later on. He was a solid 90kgs or so and I'd say a good 6ft 3", huge arms, big chest but needed to be a bit leaner, so I had him on conditioning. Not that it mattered at the time coz he wasn't in my division. Good fun though and he was a nice guy too so we had a bit of fun with it and a joke afterwards backstage.

So as I won my Novice division I had to hang around and compete one last time in the Overall division, where all the winners from every division of the day come back to fight it out, well, pose it out, for the title of ANB WA Men's Overall Bodybuilding Champion 2013. Lucky for me and I suppose the other guys too, I won 2 divisions so there were only 9 of us on stage instead of 10. Slightly better odds for everyone. We had to wait for a 45 minute intermission which was slightly annoying as we all started to cool down and lose vascularity and energy, but it happens at all shows to build suspense I suppose. The bad thing was I started chomping into the bowl of gummy bears or whatever they were (awesome is what they were!). But it was soon time to pump up, again, and for Jess to stat smacking my tan in, again. I actually started to enjoy this part and I'm pretty sure Jess did too. Of course she did! She got to smack my toosh, lucky girl.

It was pretty funny here coz just before hitting the stage I drink around 350mls of water and chomp on 1 or 2 Reece's Peanut Buttercups, cant reveal why. Its a secret. The looks on the faces of the other 9 guys as I finished off my 1 gallon bottle of water for the show was priceless. Some were looking at me like I had no idea what I was doing and how stupid I was drinking water when I'm supposed to be dehydrated and not drinking water at all for the past 2 days! Others were confused, some curious and a couple were eyeing me up like they'd be stranded in the desert for weeks. But I was the only guy eating and drinking anything. Screw that! This sport fits my life and my methods; nothing drastic and nothing dangerous.

Also, one trick we use with our clients is to keep your flip flops (thongs, jandles, whatever you know then as) on right up through pumping up and only take them off just before stepping on stage. So I took it a step further and kept mine on even when lining up to walk on stage, then last minute when my foot left the cold floor and touched the wooden stage, off they came. It literally takes just a few seconds to lose all vascularity on a cold floor, don't want that, but again I was the only one doing this. Even the main bodybuilder of the organisation, Aaron Braithwait I think his name is, was taking the piss outa me for it. But every time I stepped off stage with yet another trophy he said to me 'Must be the flip flops mate. Maybe I'll start doing that too'.

Anyway, it was a really tough line up because the big guy was there again plus 2 other guys that won their divisions tonight and 2 weeks ago in the INBA, plus a guy that was shredded in the Under 70kgs and I think has competed a few times, and of course the guy that is the face of this comp and is even on the bloody poster advertising it, Craig Winters.

The pose down was fun and I ran straight to the middle of the stage and smashed out a few of my best poses that made the crowd cheer every time I hit them. I could hear Jess and all her family and a few friends and clients screaming what poses to hit. Kelly shouting to pull my art round to get my tricep out, Jess telling me off for not smiling again (she says I look beautiful when I smile!), I gave her a smile and a shake of my ass to reward her for reminding me. Then the wait for the MC to announce the winner and to my shock, a banshee like screech from Jess and a roar from the crowd, they said my name, for the 4th time of the day, but this time as ANB WA Men's Overall Bodybuilding Champion 2013.

First things first, I went down the line of guys and shook all their hands and they all gave a pretty genuine congrats back. The trophy was unreal, HUUUUUGE. I've never won a trophy in my life; now I have 4 massive ones. I also won a huge tub of WPI by International Protein plus a t-shirt, a bag and some premade drinks by the same company. It was a great feeling shaking the guys hand for photos from the company, I felt like a celebrity. I mentioned to him that a friend of ours is pretty much the face of his company, Pedro, and he knew of him instantly. 'Ahhhh Pedro Relvas, over in QLD, yeah that guys a twat!!!!!' Hahahahahahah!!!! Just kidding Pepe, they love ya. Who doesn't?
I also won a $100 voucher for X2X Clothing and a giant cheque for $500. I've always wanted one of those, since the first time I watched the film 'Happy Gilmore'.

 So by this stage I was screwed. All the pumping up, tensing my arse off, repeat, over and over again, had drained me. But I wasn't done, oh no. Being the overall men's winner meant I had to do promo photos with all the event organisers and sponsors and some of the big names in the comp, like the guy on the poster Craig Winters. Then came the awesome part, my own personal professional photoshoot with AMPT IMAGING. I had like 30 minutes of photos with this dude and geez he's a magician with that camera and the lighting. He showed me the first pic as I was sure I looked like crap by now and WOW! I thought I was looking at Flex Lewis. I looked 100kgs and just not like I expected at all. I think the Reece's Buttercups and the Gatorade Jess shoved in my hands and the look of 'GET ON WITH IT BOY!' spurred me on a bit.

Not done yet! The final pose for the photoshoot ruined me. I was down in a sideways lunge, getting screamed at by Jess, Kelly, Les and the photographer to squeeze my quads whilst doing a front double bicep pose. I struggled to get back up so had to walk my hands along the floor to my feet, push my body upright and use my very tired lower back to straighten up, only to see Xavier Wills from RX Muscle Australia smiling at me with his photographer and I think girlfriend too, Holly Heard. They both interview and photograph some of the big names in bodybuilding so as tired as I was and just wanting to sit down, I couldn't pass up an interview with these two. It was pretty awesome him asking me all these questions and getting filmed, made me feel like one of the big dogs at the Mr Olympia. I can see why people keep coming back year after year in this sport. You feel famous, not something many people get to experience in our lifetime.

So next was carrying all the loot out to the car and getting home. Luckily for me, I brought an entourage of 13 people and being famous, as I am now, people carry your shit for you. I still got relegated to the back seat for the drive home though. Even champion bodybuilders lose out on the front seat to Nan!

We all went back to our new apartment and had a well deserved BBQ, but first of all I had to get this bloody tan off. Two packets of baby wipes, a shower and an hour of so later and I only had about a third of it off! Screw it, I need food. But I now had the dilemma of what the hell do I eat? Having won both of my divisions and the Overall meant I qualify to compete in the Australia wide ANB Nationals over in Sydney in 2 weeks, where all the winners of each city or state competitions congregate to compete against each other for the title of ANB Mr Australia 2013. But with just 2 weeks, not even that now as its Thursday as I'm writing this, that doesn't leave long to improve my physique to a National standard and also it means last minute prices for flights and hotels so its gonna cost an arm and a leg. But, the advice we always give our competitors is that you shouldn't bother going to Nationals unless you smash your comp and win your division as the standard at Nationals is unreal. Much to my shock, I did win and won well so if I'm to take my own advice, looks like I'm going to Sydney. Have to try pull some money out my arse. Maybe I can gigolo for the next 2 weeks to pay my way........? Or maybe Jess can........? Pretty sure she'd do better than me. BABY! Put on ya shortest mini skirt, ya lowest cut top and go make us some money woman!!!

We'll have to wait and see, but haven't got long to decide. All I know is that at the end of the day I was well and truly shattered beyond anything I've felt in a long time, yet I couldn't sleep as my mind was recollecting the long yet amazing day. What a dream start to bodybuilding, literally winning everything I could've won and getting lots of freebies and stuff. Cant wait to see the pro photos but for now here's a few from the day with our camera. If you wanna see more, then 'LIKE' our 'OPTIMUM PHYSIQUES' page on Facebook and you can see a load that Jess and her family took throughout the day. The pro photos will also be up on Facebook, you'll wanna see those.