Lean Dean Tornabene - IRONMAN MAGAZINE Article Release

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Beverly Hills, California, United States of America (Free-Press-Release.com) June 15, 2011 -- You hear the echo of clanging weight plates as you cross the street from the parking lot—ringing out like Tibetan sound bowls and stimulating an adrenaline surge. The silhouettes of the greatest bodybuilders in the world come into focus as you approach. Now you’re fired up and ready to tear the gym apart.…

Training at Gold’s Gym in Venice, California, during the ’80s was a fantastic experience. The atmosphere was electrifying and certainly the most hardcore at the time. The cast of characters included the who’s who of bodybuilding, sports, wrestling, powerlifting—even Hollywood. Contest season brought world-class athletes vying for the Nationals as well as pro bodybuilding.

Over the years they’d come and go, but some names and faces stand out. Dean Tornabene, a former Mr. America and National Powerlifting champion—the only athlete ever to achieve both titles—is one such name. His desire for a comprehensive knowledge base so he could effectively construct fitness and nutritional products led him to complete a national chiropractic curriculum and study under a master herbalist. Dean’s education and career give him a unique perspective that he’s exploited with unprecedented success.

Though Dean started as an athlete, his competitive drive, vision and disciplined business practices equipped him to capitalize fully on his ideas. His inventions have generated more than $500 million in sales, and the supplements he’s formulated have generated billions for numerous industry leaders.

Now past 40, Dean recently whipped himself back into photo-ready shape to celebrate the launch of his latest venture.

DY: How did you get started in bodybuilding and fitness?

DT: I competed in a number of sports growing up, but I was really into boxing and powerlifting as a teen. I was even an Olympic hopeful in lifting, believe it or not. My interest in training got me reading all the training books, articles and magazines I could get my hands on. Growing up in Pittsburgh, the East Coast’s mecca for bodybuilding at the time, I met and befriended Jim Manion about the time he was putting together the NPC. We trained together, and he gave me pointers and helped with diet, nutrition and training.

Not too long afterward, I started competing and won a number of local and state titles, including Teenage Mr. Pittsburgh, and placed in the top three at the Mr. Pittsburgh the same year, when I was only 19. I ended up moving to Los Angeles to attend college in 1981 and placed second in 1982 at the NPC Nationals. That put me on the map, and I started writing for Weider publications and began personal training at Gold’s in Venice. Things took off from there.

DY: I remember you as the first or one of the first personal trainers at Gold’s, Venice. What’s the story behind that?

DT: I was working out at Gold’s in Venice, and it was exactly like it’s been described—hardcore and crazy. Personal training was in its infancy because there were a lot of misconceptions about weight training, I had managed to pick up a number of clients at an exclusive private club, but inevitably they’d ask me what I was doing and where I trained. So I told a couple of them I’d take them to Gold’s. I remember asking the management at Gold’s if I could bring in people to work out. They were kind of perplexed by what I was asking. I explained that the people I brought in would buy memberships but that they wanted to pay me to show them how to work out.

Frankly, they didn’t think anyone would pay for that, so they didn’t care and let me do it. I remember a lot of other guys who worked out there shared that view until they saw how many people would actually pay. Next thing you know, all these guys were “personal trainers.”

DY: You had a pretty impressive list of clients: Pierce Brosnan, Sylvester Stallone, Peter Strauss, members of the Jackson family, Dolly Parton, Thelma Houston and Mickey Rourke. Tell us about some of the celebrities you trained.

DT: I’ve been fortunate to train a lot of very talented and, in most cases, really good people. I have a number of great stories. One I can share involves Pierce Brosnan. After he was picked to be Bond, it was my job to get him in shape. It was a big deal, and he worked really hard. We had a grueling schedule, but he was never late to a workout and expected the same of me.

One day, though, I came home right before I was supposed to train him, and I found my 10-foot pet Burmese python had escaped from its tank and, worse, appeared to have eaten my neighbor’s dog. He was lying in the courtyard of my building, unable to move with this huge lump of whatever he was digesting bulging out. So I grabbed him and pulled him into my house. I explained to Pierce why I was late, but it took us another 15 minutes before we could train because he laughed so hard he was winded. I felt bad a few days later when my neighbor came by and asked if I’d seen her dog. I ended up donating the snake to the zoo because he got too big.

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