Buff Body Bros: Victor Martinez - The Drama, and The Triumph

There is something about Victor Martinez that just makes me giddy inside. For a muscle fanatic seeing someone like Victor, how could you not get giddy? Victor's body is a lovely and amazing mass of thick, juicy, muscled meat, and on top of all this, he is one of the most charming and most handsome athletes ever! With all these qualities, it's a no brainer as to why so many people around the world have become smitten with this first class bodybuilder. Yet having been ravaged in recent years by scandal, injury, and personal loss, his focus in competition has been severely affected, thus threatening his future in the sport. Can Victor find that new spark in order to pull it all together again?

Victor's star was officially born when he smashed the competition at the 1997 NPC New York Metropolitan Championships, taking the overall title as a Light-Heavyweight. He went on to become pro, being only the second Dominican bodybuilder to do so (the first being Tony Demenench, who turned pro in 1995.) Some of his most amazing career highlights have been winning the Arnold Classic in 2007 and finishing runner-up at the Mr. Olympia in that same year.

Despite these successes, he has had his share of hardships and scandal. In January of 2008, he underwent surgery to repair his left patellar tendon which ruptured when he was performing warm-up lunges. Because of the severity of his injury, he wasn't able to compete in either the 2008 Arnold Classic, or the 2008 Mr. Olympia. Before this time in 2007, he was involved in a steroid scandal where he was a part of an investigation by the Albany County District Attorney's Office and identified as an un-indicted co-conspirator. It was said that this was the reason as to why Arnold Schwarzenegger was allegedly embarrassed to hand him the runner-up trophy at the Mr. Olympia contest that year, as the investigation took place only days before the competition. In 2009 he was involved in even more steroid scandal which implicated him in the sale of steroids in the Dominican Republic. The allegation was that Martinez owns a supplement store in Santo Domingo "that allegedly sells anabolic steroids, where anyone can walk in and purchase steroids, protein powders and supplements." If all this drama wasn't bad enough, on July 2009, Martinez's sister Eridania Rodriguez disappeared from work at a NY skyscraper under mysterious circumstances. Sadly, she was found deceased 4 days later inside of a ventilation shaft on the floor where she was working.

Anybody could easily be rattled by all of these set backs, and even though no one is sure, it's easy to assume that these were the reasons that Victor struggled with his focus in his bodybuilding competitions in recent years. What a lot of people probably don't know is that bodybuilding is just as much a mental challenge as it is a physical one, and if both aren't working in harmony, you're not going to be successful. Victor has had a lot of struggles with this issue in the past, but as you will see in the following video, a newfound approach could change all that.