OREM — Nicky Reed steps back from the bronzed specimen like a sculptor scrutinizing her masterpiece. She cocks her head to see how the light and shadows play on the flesh of her muscular subject.
Spying an uneven spot, she dips her rubber gloved fingers into a jar and smears Ron Osborne's chiseled physique with another glob of Dream Tan.
Reed gently works the brown cream into every ripple and crease of her friend's hairless body, massaging it to a uniform glow. She even dabs some under the edges of his bright red Speedo-size trunks to erase any tan line. She does his face last.
Osborne looks as if he has just emerged from a copper mine.
It's exactly the effect he was after.
"The darker you are, the more your cuts and everything show," the 45-year-old bodybuilder says.
A faux tan is the finishing touch on months of lifting weights, pounding protein and downing nutritional supplements for a contest where image really is everything.
"This is a show sport. It is about vanity," said Loran Brumley, a West Valley police officer. "You're going up on stage; you're flaunting everything."
It's also a sport that takes discipline.
Brumley and Osborne, a master sergeant in the Air Force, were among 72 amateur competitors ages 17 to 50 in the recent Utah Cup Bodybuilding, Fitness and Figure Championships at the McKay Events Center in Orem. About 1,500 spectators, paying $15 apiece, attended the evening finals, organizers say. The National Physique Committee, the sport's governing body, sanctioned the event.
Contest promoter Matthew "Biff" Boswell says that's a good turnout for a Utah show. But the 24-year-old Texan stationed at Hill Air Force base plans to pump it up even more.
Through his Buffenuff Productions, Boswell wants to promote shows in Utah "the over-the-top, the larger-than-life Texan way. That's the aura I want to bring."
And with Arnold Schwarzenegger assuming the role of California governor, bodybuilding has an icon with a high profile in politics as well as Hollywood. Bodybuilders say that bodes well for the sport everywhere.
Local gyms are packed with people pumping iron and admiring themselves in the mirror. But the state isn't a hotbed for bodybuilding's competitive side. While anyone who improves his or her looks with weights is a bodybuilder, few shed nearly every stitch of clothing to compare physiques on stage.
Murray resident Dave Evans' biggest fear before his first contest in October was "getting into that little Speedo thing."
Boswell said he realizes he's up against a perhaps disapproving community, but he wants to bring it out to the public "so it's not 'Ooh, taboo.' "
There is beefcake in a bodybuilding show, but it's not Chippendale's. There is cheesecake, but it's not burlesque. Thongs aren't allowed. Suits must cover 50 percent of the glutes. Striking the "moon" hamstring pose results in disqualification.
"I think it's pretty tasteful, if you ask me," said Evans' wife, Jamie, who competes in the figure contest, an alternative to bodybuilding for women. "It's not a meat market."
Says Dave Evans, "It's not a sexual thing. You're trying to display the hard work you've done."
Kenny Milne's hard work started when he bought his first weight bench at age 9 after admiring what he saw in muscle magazines.
"You look at some of them, and they look outrageous," he said. "But I thought it looked good. I wanted to be like that."
Now 10 years later, the 19-year-old Clearfield High graduate is like that. Or at least darn close.
Milne was a man among boys in the teenage division in the Orem contest. Not only did he easily win that category, he captured the title in the novice heavyweight class, the open heavyweight class and the overall.
The first-place finish landed him a photo shoot with a fitness and bodybuilding modeling agency. Heady stuff for a first-time competitor.
"I had a lot of fun," said Milne, who works at Gold's Gym in St. George. "It was a good experience."
Intense training for a contest begins 12 weeks out. And weightlifting is only part of the preparation.
For example, there's the hair removal thing.
The only smooth part of a bodybuilder is the skin. And that means shaving all body hair. Or at least any hair that might show. Shaving the head is optional, though many bodybuilders do because it makes their bodies look bigger.
"The illusion of being larger than you are is very important," said Bryan Haycock, a Riverton exercise physiologist who writes for muscle magazines.
It's no different, he said, than ranchers shaving the hind quarters of bulls to make them look leaner at auction.
"It's the same thing. Instead of animal husbandry, you do it to yourself," he said. "You build your muscles, you parade around and someone judges you."
For all their bulging biceps, rippled abs and eye-popping pecs, bodybuilders are thin-skinned.
It's not that they can't take criticism, though some handle it better than others. They have to be somewhat hardened emotionally, not to mention physically, to pose under spotlights in a suit the size of Mighty Mouse's cape before a discriminating panel of judges squinting for their every flaw.
A competitive bodybuilders' epidermis is literally thin. It makes every flexed muscle and protruding vein look like it's going to pop out of the skin.
Some contestants thin their skin with diuretics, a dangerous practice that's known to cause heart attacks. Others down gallons of distilled water in the week preceding a contest and then hardly a drop 24 hours before show time, which results in all of the fat-retaining sodium being sucked out of the dermal layer as the liquid is excreted.
"That basically shrink-wraps your muscles," Evans said.
A bodybuilding contest is a snapshot in time. The months of military presses, leg curls and dips along with a disciplined diet void of sweets culminate in a few minutes on stage where contestants try to look their ripped best.
The Orem competition did not feature those supersize hulks who fill the pages of muscle magazines, the ones who push as many anabolic steroids as weights. There were no testosterone-boosted "she males" squeezing the femininity out of the "weaker" sex.
But that doesn't mean there were no steroid users in the group. Haycock, who has judged competitions, had little trouble pointing them out, adding "it is not cheating."
Though steroids are illegal and in the same classification of drugs like heroin, professional bodybuilding has all but given up on testing. Usage is rampant at the sport's highest level where a bigger body means bigger money. Unless a contest is specifically advertised as "natural," Haycock said, steroid-induced muscles are not only accepted but expected.
Boswell did not require urinalysis at the Orem contest because he said it runs as much as $2,000 a test. Competitors will be subject to a polygraph exam for the "Natural Utah Cup" next spring, he said.
Local amateurs, who compete for trophies not prize money, say they favor the natural approach.
"I don't go for any of that acne-making stuff," said Pleasant Grove resident Todd Clawson, 22. "I want to be healthy, in shape and look good. If I want to live long, (taking steroids) kind of defeats my purpose."
Bodybuilders' diets do include a variety of nutritional supplements, including protein powder, creatine, glutamine and vitamins. The bodybuilders lift, run, bike and hike.
And eat tuna.
Sticking to a high-protein, low-carb diet void of sugar and fat may be the hardest part of training. Rather than three big meals a day, bodybuilders eat five or six small ones to keep the metabolism going. The idea is to get as lean as possible. Competitors will drop about 20 pounds in training.
"You want to bring out as much dense muscle as possible," Milne said.
At the show, Milne checked in at 212 pounds — 18 pounds under his normal weight — after feasting on acres of sweet potatoes and an ocean of tuna fish. The worst side effect? Tuna breath. That, and an overwhelming desire for a really good meal.
Many bodybuilders break the bland diet in a big way on contest day: They pig out on junk food. Milne munched chocolate chip cookies, baby food and cupcakes back stage.
Sugary foods provide quick carbohydrates and raise glycogen levels, which makes muscles look bigger.
"It's a weird sport," said Brumley, who ate spice cake and waffles for breakfast before show time.
By the end of a competition day, the only thing on a bodybuilder's mind is that really good meal.
"I went out to Chili's right afterward and had some steak fajitas," Milne said. "I gogged down on them, man. It was delicious."
Amateur bodybuilders, by and large, are regular people with jobs and families. Working out and eating right is part of their lifestyle. But it does not consume them.
Dave and Jamie Evans are affectionately known as "Ken and Barbie" at the gym where they work out together five or six days a week. Jamie, 35, who competed as bodybuilder a decade ago, persuaded her husband to enter the bodybuilding contest.
Dave Evans, 46, laughed at first but then decided, "I like to break stereotypes." He has one arm.
A water drilling rig chewed off his left arm just above the elbow 19 years ago. It hasn't stopped him from tying his shoes, playing guitar or lifting weights.
Evans rigged a harness for his stump that links to the pulley on a weightlifting machine, allowing him to work the chest and back on both sides of his body. His pecs and lats are remarkably symmetrical, a quality important to judges.
The Qwest customer data technician ended up taking one third and two fourths in three categories in his first contest.
"I was elated," he said. "I wasn't expecting to place at all. I was just doing it for the heck of it."
Dori Townsend works out for mental health as much as physical health.
"When I first started doing this, I did it for vanity. Now I do it for sanity," she said, noting she comes from a family genetically prone to big legs and large butts.
The married 40-year-old mother of two teenagers has neither. She exercises two to four hours a day while working full time for a home health-care firm. She's as lean and muscular as a woman can be without the benefit of testosterone. But "I'm not over the edge."
"Bodybuilding is a lot of vanity," Townsend said, who has six titles to her name. "That's why you have to try to find a balance in a sport that is so shallow."
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