Iron Game
Veteran
[h=1]Hunter Labrada[/h][h=2]The 24yr Old Is Following In The Footsteps & Reps Of A Bodybuilding Icon[/h]
SON OF A GUN – 20” VARIETY
Hunter Labrada was born on May 17, 1992, at the family home in Houston, Texas. His parents are legendary bodybuilder Lee and his wife, Robin. Later on, Hunter was joined by brothers Blade and Pierce, who are now 19 and 16 respectively. Realizing that his father was an all-time great was a gradual process for Hunter, as he remembers, “As I grew up I noticed medals, awards and photos on display in the house and learned that Lee [he always calls his dad Lee] used to compete in this bodybuilding thing. I never had any idea how great he was because he never told me. Then as I got older, I realized … Wow! He competed at the absolutely top level and nearly won the Olympia twice, in 1989 and 1990. I came to understand that he wasn’t just a bodybuilder; he was one of the best bodybuilders ever. It really came home to me when I went to the 2004 Olympia when I was 12 years old. I walked around with him, and so many people recognized him and asked for photographs and said so many wonderful things about him that it underscored that Lee was a true and highly revered bodybuilding great.
“Now that I am a competing bodybuilder, I realize more than ever how incredibly difficult it was to achieve what he did at the highest level. Even more incredible is that he was taking on and beating guys who were 50 pounds heavier than him. [At 5’6”, Lee’s contest weight was around the 185- to 190-pound mark.] So whenever I walk into my parents’ house and see those seven Olympia medals and all the other awards, I truly appreciate how much work and dedication he harnessed to his God-given talent.”
He adds, “Lee never pushed bodybuilding on to me, and from about the age of 5 until I was 12, I played a lot of hockey— ice and roller— and then in seventh grade, I played my first season of football and that’s when I started lifting weights to improve my game.”
Lee recalls the 12-year-old Hunter: “He was about 5 feet tall and weighed about 90 pounds. I was thinking, this poor kid, I hit the genetic jackpot while he got the bottom of the barrel. And then when he got to 16 he just blossomed, just started growing. He got taller, wider and started putting on muscle; he got stronger all round but particularly in the legs. This happened really rapidly, and the weights he was using at the time were for football, not bodybuilding. This growth and strength spurt really piqued my curiosity as to how much he could develop. From thinking he’d drawn the short straw in the genetics sweepstakes, I changed my mind and began thinking of him as a real wild card who has now turned into an incredible up-and-coming young bodybuilder with pro potential.”
AS ONE DREAM FADES, ANOTHER BLOSSOMS
In 2010, Hunter graduated high school in Houston, and won a football scholarship to Bentley University in Massachusetts. He was 18, and the 12-year-old runt of the litter was now 5’9’ and weighed 205 pounds.
Hunter confesses, “I was head-over-heels in love with training for football and playing football.”
His father followed his lifting progress but didn’t direct it, as Hunter was blessed with a great strength coach at high school. But in his last year at high school, he sustained a hamstring pull and hip fracture that meant he couldn't play football in his first year at Bentley. Sidelined from the football field, Hunter began to concentrate more on weight work in the gym, and reconstructed his routine away from focusing on the explosive lifts that aids gridiron performance and changed to more of a bodybuilding routine.
From being head-over-heels in love with football, his passions began to change. He explains, “It was a gradual change, but when I saw how much I was improving physique-wise by following a bodybuilding routine, it made me ponder as to how much progress I could make. It finally sunk in that I was more in love with being in the gym every day, and my football dreams began to fade.” And so he made the decision not to pursue his football endeavors at Bentley, and instead focus on being a bodybuilder.
FAMILY FEUD FOR THOUGHT
Looking back, Hunter states, “It was a massive decision because my whole family, and Lee especially, was just as crazy about football and watching me play. I knew it wouldn’t be a popular decision among the family, but I knew I was going to have to stick by it. Lee told he didn’t want me to stop playing the sport I had loved, and then regret years later that I didn’t take it further. It tends to surprise a lot of people whenever I say Lee wasn’t doing backflips when I decided I wanted to bodybuild.”
But as the months went by, Lee could see his first-born was really committed to bodybuilding, verified by how he was fast improving his upper body to be on a par with his legs. Of Hunter’s life-changing decision, Lee asserts, “What finally sold me on his decision was when he said to me, ‘Look, my heart is not in football anymore.’ I could see in his eyes that he was totally serious. It made me think back to that time in my life when I decided to be a bodybuilder, how important it was to me then, and how now it was so important for Hunter. So I gave him my blessing and looking in the rearview mirror today, it was the right decision. More than that, let’s say he made the right decision.”
For Lee, that father-son episode made him think back to when he was 18. “That was the age when I told my father I wanted to be a bodybuilder. I was like 150 pounds and I told my father I would be Mr. America by the age of 24, and he laughed. (Lee did win the IFBB version of Mr. America, the NPC Nationals, in 1985 at age 25, and then a couple of months later, won the middleweight division at the World Championships to turn pro.) From his initial skepticism, my father became my number one fan, so history sort of repeated itself.”
Although Hunter was fired-up 100 percent to be a competing bodybuilder, he didn’t want to rush into it and has shown extraordinary patience and maturity, belying his tender years, in plotting his path. “From the get-go, my ambition was not to just compete but to eventually be a professional bodybuilder. I knew that was a journey that couldn’t be completed in a huge rush. I didn’t want to destroy my body trying to get big for the sake of it, like you see a lot of kids do. Lee ingrained into me that bodybuilding is a marathon, not a sprint.”
He was 18 when he made that pivotal decision in 2010, and with remarkable patience he didn’t compete until 2016 when he was 24.
Ask Lee about that patient approach and he will tell you, “I can count on one hand the number of bodybuilders I have seen in my lifetime who have as much year-round discipline as my son when it comes to training and diet. His commitment is incredible.”
HUNTER GOES HUNTING
For his debut, Hunter zoned in on the 2016 NPC Branch Warren Classic, staged in Houston last July 16. He expounds on his choice, “After six years of preparing, I didn’t want to do a low-level backwoods type of show. Branch’s show is a big national qualifier, so I wanted compete at a good level and be tested— I didn’t want any sort of empty victory.” He laughs, “Of course, with most of my family being in Houston, I would have been borderline disowned if I’d have picked a show to which they all couldn’t come.”
Hunter’s contest prep for his debut was 16 weeks. From an off-season high of 251, he sculpted his physique down to 223 contest-ready pounds and won the heavyweight division and the overall.
How does he remember the day? “In the end, it all happened quickly once I started warming up backstage. Looking around, I could see that there were at least two really good competitors who had done their homework. Onstage, you don’t know what you look like in comparison to others but when I was always in the center for my callouts, my confidence grew. My mindset was, OK, I’m here to fight for first place. When I got off-stage, Lee— whose opinion I obviously trust, he would never BS me— told me, you got this.”
And what was it like for Lee, watching his son stride out for the first time onstage, replicating a walk he first took over 30 years ago? “It was just coolest experience because in a way I was reliving my past— it was like déjà vu, seeing him doing the same thing I did all those years ago. I was really impressed with the whole package, his physique, his presentation and his onstage demeanor. I could not have been more proud of him.”
Four weeks after his Houston victory, Hunter competed in the San Antonio Extravaganza, where he found himself in the superheavyweight class (above 225 pounds), which he won but didn’t take the overall. His postmortem on that: “I’m not one to make excuses for myself, but after dieting 16 weeks for the Branch Warren contest, the extra four weeks for this one just seemed like more than my body wanted to put up with. Despite following the same diet and peaking protocol, I wasn’t nearly as sharp or conditioned as I was at the Branch. The result is a learning experience, and is just another one of the hundreds of things I will find out about my body. I can say this, it has lit a fire under my ass heading into this off-season.”
FORWARD INTO 2017
With 2017 now here, Hunter has not decided on what his next contest foray will be. Brutally honest, he says, “Even for the Branch contest, I think I was holding five or seven pounds of surplus water and fat. Instead of going up to 250 in the off-season, I aim to stay around 242 and then compete at a full and peeled 225 pounds, having rid myself of the surplus I carried last year. I am still excited about taking the next step of the journey to a pro card.”
Hearing this, Lee comments, “ I think that pragmatic approach tells you how honest and intelligent he is and with his level of motivation, I have no doubt he’s going to reach his goals. I just thank God for the privilege of being able to pass the torch on to Hunter”
The last word is with Hunter and as you might expect, it is family oriented: “I couldn’t ask for someone to be more supportive or have more knowledge than Lee. He talks about my dedication but I got that from somewhere you know, that somewhere being my genetic inheritance. Lee kept his nose to the grindstone all those years as a pro bodybuilder and then went straight into launching Labrada Nutrition, and turned it into the force it is today. That force provides for the family and all our employees, who we treat as family as well. But over and above everything, the one thing that always impresses me and sticks out in my mind is what people say about him that has nothing to do with him as a bodybuilder. Namely, that he has always been a class act who is very kind to everybody he comes into contact with, and he always has time for fans and for everybody. I think there is no higher praise than to laud someone for being an all-round kind human being who really cares about people. I follow his example and aspire for the same to be said about me.”
Hunter, I think that sentiment is already being felt by those who have interacted with you, and we look forward to at some point in the future for the Olympia emcee to bark out, “And our next competitor from Houston, Texas … Hunter Labrada!” And so the family business continues.
SON OF A FAMOUS FATHER
Hunter is asked if following in the footsteps of a bodybuilding icon with the same name is a burden. He answered, “Honestly, it’s not a burden. The way I look at it is that having such a famous father who had such an incredible physique gives me a goal to strive for. It motivates me rather than inhibits me. I think it is so cool that I am the second-generation Labrada bodybuilder. I’m continuing something my dad started. God willing, I may be able to compete one day at the level he did and if I don’t make that level, I won’t see it as failure. I’ll still know I gave it everything I had to try and reach that goal.”
POSING: FATHER KNOWS BEST
What is the dynamic of their relationship in all things bodybuilding? Lee answers, “I don’t directly oversee his training or nutrition. I am more of a resource for him to tap into, to share ideas along the lines of what do you think of this or what you think of that? By the time we got to the point where he was ready to enter a contest, he was pretty much well-versed in all aspects of training and nutritional information and is very much his own man.”
Hunter suddenly jumped in, “On the other hand, Lee was definitely 100 percent the person responsible for overseeing my posing. We did posing practice two to three times a week from 10 weeks out, and then the last couple of weeks it was daily. That definitely was a crucial component for me and I just couldn’t get better coaching on that front from anyone else on this planet. How awesome is it to have Lee Labrada instructing you on posing?”
The question of posing prompts Lee to reveal, “I go to a lot of NPC shows around the country and when I go backstage, I always get a warm reception from the open class bodybuilders. But the guys in the Classic Bodybuilding division go crazy when they see me. They run up to me and tell me how they learned to pose by watching my routines. I just hope posing, which has been somewhat of a lost art recently, will go through a renaissance with the introduction of the classic bodybuilding class.
SON OF A GUN – 20” VARIETY
Hunter Labrada was born on May 17, 1992, at the family home in Houston, Texas. His parents are legendary bodybuilder Lee and his wife, Robin. Later on, Hunter was joined by brothers Blade and Pierce, who are now 19 and 16 respectively. Realizing that his father was an all-time great was a gradual process for Hunter, as he remembers, “As I grew up I noticed medals, awards and photos on display in the house and learned that Lee [he always calls his dad Lee] used to compete in this bodybuilding thing. I never had any idea how great he was because he never told me. Then as I got older, I realized … Wow! He competed at the absolutely top level and nearly won the Olympia twice, in 1989 and 1990. I came to understand that he wasn’t just a bodybuilder; he was one of the best bodybuilders ever. It really came home to me when I went to the 2004 Olympia when I was 12 years old. I walked around with him, and so many people recognized him and asked for photographs and said so many wonderful things about him that it underscored that Lee was a true and highly revered bodybuilding great.
He adds, “Lee never pushed bodybuilding on to me, and from about the age of 5 until I was 12, I played a lot of hockey— ice and roller— and then in seventh grade, I played my first season of football and that’s when I started lifting weights to improve my game.”
Lee recalls the 12-year-old Hunter: “He was about 5 feet tall and weighed about 90 pounds. I was thinking, this poor kid, I hit the genetic jackpot while he got the bottom of the barrel. And then when he got to 16 he just blossomed, just started growing. He got taller, wider and started putting on muscle; he got stronger all round but particularly in the legs. This happened really rapidly, and the weights he was using at the time were for football, not bodybuilding. This growth and strength spurt really piqued my curiosity as to how much he could develop. From thinking he’d drawn the short straw in the genetics sweepstakes, I changed my mind and began thinking of him as a real wild card who has now turned into an incredible up-and-coming young bodybuilder with pro potential.”
In 2010, Hunter graduated high school in Houston, and won a football scholarship to Bentley University in Massachusetts. He was 18, and the 12-year-old runt of the litter was now 5’9’ and weighed 205 pounds.
Hunter confesses, “I was head-over-heels in love with training for football and playing football.”
His father followed his lifting progress but didn’t direct it, as Hunter was blessed with a great strength coach at high school. But in his last year at high school, he sustained a hamstring pull and hip fracture that meant he couldn't play football in his first year at Bentley. Sidelined from the football field, Hunter began to concentrate more on weight work in the gym, and reconstructed his routine away from focusing on the explosive lifts that aids gridiron performance and changed to more of a bodybuilding routine.
FAMILY FEUD FOR THOUGHT
Looking back, Hunter states, “It was a massive decision because my whole family, and Lee especially, was just as crazy about football and watching me play. I knew it wouldn’t be a popular decision among the family, but I knew I was going to have to stick by it. Lee told he didn’t want me to stop playing the sport I had loved, and then regret years later that I didn’t take it further. It tends to surprise a lot of people whenever I say Lee wasn’t doing backflips when I decided I wanted to bodybuild.”
For Lee, that father-son episode made him think back to when he was 18. “That was the age when I told my father I wanted to be a bodybuilder. I was like 150 pounds and I told my father I would be Mr. America by the age of 24, and he laughed. (Lee did win the IFBB version of Mr. America, the NPC Nationals, in 1985 at age 25, and then a couple of months later, won the middleweight division at the World Championships to turn pro.) From his initial skepticism, my father became my number one fan, so history sort of repeated itself.”
He was 18 when he made that pivotal decision in 2010, and with remarkable patience he didn’t compete until 2016 when he was 24.
Ask Lee about that patient approach and he will tell you, “I can count on one hand the number of bodybuilders I have seen in my lifetime who have as much year-round discipline as my son when it comes to training and diet. His commitment is incredible.”
For his debut, Hunter zoned in on the 2016 NPC Branch Warren Classic, staged in Houston last July 16. He expounds on his choice, “After six years of preparing, I didn’t want to do a low-level backwoods type of show. Branch’s show is a big national qualifier, so I wanted compete at a good level and be tested— I didn’t want any sort of empty victory.” He laughs, “Of course, with most of my family being in Houston, I would have been borderline disowned if I’d have picked a show to which they all couldn’t come.”
Hunter’s contest prep for his debut was 16 weeks. From an off-season high of 251, he sculpted his physique down to 223 contest-ready pounds and won the heavyweight division and the overall.
And what was it like for Lee, watching his son stride out for the first time onstage, replicating a walk he first took over 30 years ago? “It was just coolest experience because in a way I was reliving my past— it was like déjà vu, seeing him doing the same thing I did all those years ago. I was really impressed with the whole package, his physique, his presentation and his onstage demeanor. I could not have been more proud of him.”
FORWARD INTO 2017
With 2017 now here, Hunter has not decided on what his next contest foray will be. Brutally honest, he says, “Even for the Branch contest, I think I was holding five or seven pounds of surplus water and fat. Instead of going up to 250 in the off-season, I aim to stay around 242 and then compete at a full and peeled 225 pounds, having rid myself of the surplus I carried last year. I am still excited about taking the next step of the journey to a pro card.”
The last word is with Hunter and as you might expect, it is family oriented: “I couldn’t ask for someone to be more supportive or have more knowledge than Lee. He talks about my dedication but I got that from somewhere you know, that somewhere being my genetic inheritance. Lee kept his nose to the grindstone all those years as a pro bodybuilder and then went straight into launching Labrada Nutrition, and turned it into the force it is today. That force provides for the family and all our employees, who we treat as family as well. But over and above everything, the one thing that always impresses me and sticks out in my mind is what people say about him that has nothing to do with him as a bodybuilder. Namely, that he has always been a class act who is very kind to everybody he comes into contact with, and he always has time for fans and for everybody. I think there is no higher praise than to laud someone for being an all-round kind human being who really cares about people. I follow his example and aspire for the same to be said about me.”
SON OF A FAMOUS FATHER
Hunter is asked if following in the footsteps of a bodybuilding icon with the same name is a burden. He answered, “Honestly, it’s not a burden. The way I look at it is that having such a famous father who had such an incredible physique gives me a goal to strive for. It motivates me rather than inhibits me. I think it is so cool that I am the second-generation Labrada bodybuilder. I’m continuing something my dad started. God willing, I may be able to compete one day at the level he did and if I don’t make that level, I won’t see it as failure. I’ll still know I gave it everything I had to try and reach that goal.”
What is the dynamic of their relationship in all things bodybuilding? Lee answers, “I don’t directly oversee his training or nutrition. I am more of a resource for him to tap into, to share ideas along the lines of what do you think of this or what you think of that? By the time we got to the point where he was ready to enter a contest, he was pretty much well-versed in all aspects of training and nutritional information and is very much his own man.”
The question of posing prompts Lee to reveal, “I go to a lot of NPC shows around the country and when I go backstage, I always get a warm reception from the open class bodybuilders. But the guys in the Classic Bodybuilding division go crazy when they see me. They run up to me and tell me how they learned to pose by watching my routines. I just hope posing, which has been somewhat of a lost art recently, will go through a renaissance with the introduction of the classic bodybuilding class.
