Bodybuilding by Josh Meltzer

The air in the room is thick, and burns in the nostrils.

“It’s the smell of battle,” says 8-year veteran Roanoke bodybuilder Jerome Hamm (not pictured). “Like you’re just slappin’ it on. Physique to physique combat. I call it the pit.”

In the backstage pump-up room at the Mt. Rogers Bodybuilding Show at Northside High School on November 19, a dozen competitors at a time layered with pungent-smelling tanning and posing potions manage in a final few pushups, a couple dozen arm curls, and a few poses in a small vanity mirror leaning against the wall. In just moments they will each get 60 seconds to impress the judges on stage.

Alan Harshaw (left) and Robert Williams (right) from Falls Church, Va., watch as Alfred Thompson from Burke, Va., shows off veins on his arms that protrude like roots on a well-worn hiking trail. Though perhaps envious of Thompson’s vascularity, Harshaw, 45, would be the big winner of the evening, taking home four heavy bronze trophies and the privilege to compete with the pros in his next show.

Hamm says the time they spend in the gym is the fun part of bodybuilding. “I look around the gym, and I see a lot of people who have the potential to be bodybuilders,” says Hamm, “But hardly any of them will be able to put up with the diet.”

“If I get down to like 3 to 5 percent body fat, and I eat an M&M, it’ll show up,” Hamm says with a chuckle.

“Bodybuilding is a lot harder than people think,” Hamm says. “Try flexing your legs as hard as you can, your arms as hard as you can, your abs as hard as you can, and your pecs as hard as you can all at the same time. Oh yeah, and on top of that, make it look easy.”

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