The Dominican dominator: how Victor Martinez added 16 pounds of beef to win the Night of Champions and establish himself as a fast-rising star

Flex, Oct, 2003 by Shawn Perine

"I like to lift heavy," Martinez explains. "When I first started, I focused on powerlifting. It was one of those things where the other kids would ask how much you could bench rather than how big your chest is. So in the beginning, it was just about lifting heavy rather than lifting to look like a bodybuilder. But even to this day, I love the feeling of lifting heavy barbells and dumbbells. It doesn't feel like a workout until I've lifted some big weight.

"From very early on," he continues, "one thing that was important to me, as far as training goes, was form. I used to watch Arnold Schwarzenegger training in Pumping Iron, and I'd look at experienced guys in the gym and pay attention to the form they used. Then I would visualize what I had seen them doing find I'd do it myself. When I saw guys doing those quick half-rep bench presses, I knew their form was bad because Arnold would bring the bar all the way down to his chest and all the way back up. So I learned to train the right way, lifting through a full range of motion and never using a weight that I couldn't handle."

But even levelheaded Martinez succumbed to the allure of sacrificing form for weight. "One time I did ignore good form," he admits. "I was training with a powerlifter and going too heavy for the leg press on this old machine that was missing ball bearings, and I popped my knee. I thought it was all over. Fortunately, I was OK. But I learned my lesson and went right back to training correctly."

HOW DOES HE TRAIN? VERY CAREFULLY. It's this kind of careful consideration paid to every aspect of Martinez's life that's pervaded his training and diet regimens and propelled him to elite bodybuilding status. I asked him to lay out the exact offseason training program he developed to attain his present physique.

"I train five days a week," Martinez says. "The cycle can vary from three days on/two days off to four days on/one day off to five days straight. It all depends on how I'm feeling that week." He continues, "I focus on one major bodypart per day and hit my calves every two days and my abs twice a week. If I train my abs more than that, I find that they tend to grow too big."

Martinez's entire training regimen is described in detail elsewhere in this article. It's interesting to note that he likes to incorporate hardcore old-school exercises into his program, such as the clean and press, squats, deadlifts, pullovers and even single-arm standing dumbbell presses. "My first real gym was Elmo Santiago's place. Talk about old school! I learned a lot about real training there," Martinez explains.

Since his amateur days, Martinez has been known to retain superb year-round conditioning, whether competing or not. In an era when athletes have been known to put on as much as 70 pounds of excess adipose tissue during the offseason, Martinez is a trend-breaker.

"If I compete at 240 or so, I don't like to get any heavier than 275 during the offseason," says Martinez. "It's just that it's so hard to take off fat that I'd rather put on as little as possible in the first place." But like all bodybuilders, professional and otherwise, Martinez needs to continually grow muscle during the offseason. That means increasing muscle mass while maintaining a low bodyfat percentage. No mean feat, to be sure. I asked Martinez to outline a typical offseason meal plan.