I remember it like it was yesterday. The year was 1993. Dorian Yates marched onto the stage at the NPC Bev Francis Atlantic States weighing a mind-boggling 285lbs. His back was so thickly muscled that it looked like it belonged to an alien from a science fiction movie. His calves resembled cartoonish tree stumps that uprooted themselves at every step he strode. But it was when Yates hit that first front lat spread that my body went so numb that the only words I could utter from my lips were some incomprehensible gibberish. People in attendance that night at Hofstra University were all dumbfounded. Yates had set the new standard. In fact, he 
upped the bar into the ethereal heavens. Lee Haney had set a record in 1991 with his 8th consecutive Olympia win, but he did it at a bodyweight of 245lbs. Yates would go on to win the Mr Olympia in 1993 at a gargantuan 265lbs. In one single swoop, the man they called “The Shadow” had bulldozed the 80’s mindset that 300lbs was just some mythical number. The 1990’s became the new era of mass monsters and 300 was its calling card.
It was at this guest-posing that I promised myself that I, too, would one day weigh 300lbs. And in 1995 I achieved that goal, weighing 305lbs prior to dieting down to a ripped 258 at the NPC Jr Nationals. I, convincingly, won the heavyweight class at that contest and everyone wanted to know how I did it. The simple answer to that question had its roots in the fact that the true limits of muscular development are only those imposed by the mind. What the mind can envision, the body can achieve. Dorian Yates unlocked the limits on my mind and enabled me to take my physique to a place I never thought possible.
Flash forward 2 years to 1997. I, distinctly, remember the day I met IFBB Canadian Pro Bodybuilder Greg Kovacs for the first time. Why, you may ask? Well, it’s because I was never so intimidated by the sheer size of another bodybuilder in my life. At almost 6’2”, Kovacs had already far surpassed the 300lb barrier in the offseason and was competing at nearly that weight onstage. He was one of the largest men I had ever met in person and he was equally kind-hearted and warm, all at the same time. We instantly hit it off and became fast friends. We’d spend hours talking about diet and supplements and gear cycles; on 
the phone and in person. We both were just as obsessed and devoted to finding the fastest, best, ways to get monstrously huge. While I was happy topping out at 315lbs, Kovacs had decided that his Pikes Peak would be the never-before-discussed 400lb mark. Personally, I thought he was searching for the mythical white unicorn. After all, how could any human being weigh a lean muscular 400lb? But Greg had no doubt about it; he was gonna get there, and then some.
Looking back at what I did and how I felt when I first hit 300, I now realize I was a man possessed with doing whatever it took to achieve my goal. Part of what it took was eating 6 food meals and 6 protein shakes per day. That worked out to downing some sort of nutrition almost every hour that I was awake. I would eat so much food that by the end of the day I couldn’t even stand the idea of having to swallow another calorie. Likewise, once I hit the 300lb mark, I was so winded just from carrying my new body around that my favorite part of day was, honestly, bedtime. In fact, I would often fantasize about how good it was going to feel when my body finally hit the pillow every night. Quite a life, huh? But hey; I weighed 300lb!
Fast forward to 1998, and Greg Kovacs was sitting at the MuscleTech booth in Madison 
Square Garden at the Mr Olympia contest where Ronnie Coleman would, eventually, stun the world and win his first of 8 Mr Olympia contests. At that show, Kovacs was tipping the scale at roughly 420lb and he was so big that he could barely move. Back then, Greg used to carry around his own battery operated fan to keep himself cool at booths, on planes, and in restaurants. In fact, Greg and his wife (at the time) bought me my very own fan as a gift. And that fan (that everyone used to make fun of) saved me from sweaty plane rides more than once in my travels. But to get a true idea exactly how huge Greg Kovacs was, you’d have to see him in person. At his biggest, he could barely fit into the passenger seat of my 5 series BMW; even with the seat reclined all the way back. He was so enormous that when walking with him in a shopping mall, people didn’t even notice me (at 315lbs). His body was so massive that he even broke a fiberglass Jacuzzi tub in his condo while trying to climb out of it.
What most of you are probably wondering; however, is how the heck did Kovacs became the first and only man to ever weigh a lean 400lbs? Well, the formula is very simple; train with the heaviest weights any many in the history of the sport of bodybuilding has ever lifted, consume some sort of high protein meal every hour around the clock, and sleep and rest as much as humanly possible. No one lived bodybuilding more than Greg Kovacs. No one was more passionate about bodybuilding than Greg Kovacs. No one was so single-mindedly determined to be the largest, most muscular, man in the world more than Greg Kovacs. And because of these emotionally charged, passionate, doubtless beliefs; Greg Kovacs became the 400lb muscular freak he envisioned.
However, on November 26, 2013, 44 year old Greg Kovacs dropped to the floor and lost consciousness while at his home on the outskirts of Toronto, Canada. He died while the paramedics frantically worked on him for over 20 minutes. Kovacs was recovering from cardiac surgery to repair his mitral valve just two weeks earlier and, from the text message he sent me 3 days prior, he was “feeling great”. Unfortunately, “great” to a bodybuilder who routinely lifted insanely heavy weights and who lived and trained through injuries and pain, doesn’t really qualify as medically reliable data. I believe that what Greg was truly trying to tell me was that he was at peace.
While Greg Kovacs never had the successful competition record of Ronnie Coleman or Dorian Yates, he probably made as much money from guest posing and endorsement deals. I remember Greg telling me that Europeans would routinely pay him $10,000 plus 2 first-class plane tickets and 5-star hotel accommodations for him to guest pose. But Greg never cared about money or material possessions. As long as he had enough cash to pay for his food and supplements; that’s all that mattered to him.
His sister Kristina Finbow remembers her brother in a similar light: “Greg set the bar so high for himself, he not only jumped over it; he had room to spare. He never expected anything from anyone. He had dignity and respect for people; but didn’t expect it back. He was funny and generous and kind and giving. Greg didn’t care about money. He lived his dream.”
And while it appeared on the outside that Greg was a single-minded individual, what most people will never know is that Greg had scholarship offers to college for his mathematical prowess, he sang opera, and he’d give his last dime to any friend in need. No, these are the things that only his close friends and family knew; but it’s also what made Greg so passionate and methodical about everything he did. And, unfortunately, just before Greg had made the successful transition into the next stage of his life; one in which he planned to dedicate himself fulltime to coaching aspiring bodybuilders and physique athletes, his life was cut short.
While Greg Kovacs’ heart was his greatest, most powerful, bodypart. . . in the end, it was also his most vulnerable. So I pose the question, was breaking 400lbs a 
double-edged sword for the Canadian Colossus? In one sense, it immortalized him as the biggest, most powerful, bodybuilder of all time. In another, it may have shortened his life by many years. I’m certain, if given the choice, Kovacs would have chosen the bodybuilding fame and accolades over a more mundane, yet lengthened, mortal existence. However, the question is still a troubling one. Is there a limit to what the human body can sustain? Is too much muscle a genuine threat to long-term health?
2012 Arnold Classic Professional Strongman Champion Mike Jenkins passed away in his sleep just 2 days after Greg Kovacs. Jenkins, like Kovacs, weighed an enormous 405lbs (although nowhere as lean as Kovacs) at the peak of his career. The 29 year old powerhouse worked at the Milton Hershey School for Troubled Youths, he co-owned Gamma Cross Fit, and he was married to his schoolteacher wife Kerri. The Bros vs Pros 7 Strongman Champion also had a burning passion to be the World’s Strongest Man (a feat he was very close to accomplishing), but his life was also cut short way too early. Was the 400lbs just too much for his heart to handle?
400lb Jeep Swenson who portrayed Bane in 1997’s Batman and Robin movie was the most massive man to routinely walk the streets of Venice, California. According to Venice Gold’s Gym regular, co-author of The Underground Steroid Handbook, and prior owner of Champion Nutrition, Michael Zumpano, “When people would see Jeep barreling down the block back in the 90s, they’d turn and walk the other way”. While the tattooed Swenson was one of the most intimidating men of all time, he was also one of the kindest. His life was also cut short on August 18, 1997 because of heart failure, and I have to believe that the 400lbs he routinely carried on his frame had something to do with it.
Professional Strongman OD Wilson missed becoming the 1990 Worlds Strongest Man because at 400lbs he lost the last event; a 200meter race with 220lbs on his back. Can you imagine what it must have felt like to run 200 
meters dragging along 620lbs? According to his Wikipedia page, “Wilson set multiple world records throughout his career, at the 1989 Armed Forces Championships, O.D. Wilson squatted 1002, benched 552, and deadlifted 876 pounds for a then, all-time total record of 2430 pounds. Wilson's weight at that meet was measured at 399 lbs, while his height was measured at 6'8”. It is believed he had one of the biggest quadriceps muscles ever , measuring a phenomenal 42 inches. Wilson's shoes size was 18 and his ring size was 26, while the ring size for the average adult male is between 10 and 12.” On October 29, 1991, while being interviewed on a radio program just a few weeks after the 1991 World's Strongest Man competition, Wilson complained of chest pains and went outside for some fresh air. Within moments he collapsed and died of cardiac arrest, he was just 37 years old. It seems very likely that 400lbs was just too much for the man they called, “Nightmare”.
Trevor Smith was a maniacally, passionate, bodybuilder who felt it was foolish to compete in his first bodybuilding contest until he hit an offseason weight of at least 400lbs. Smith extoled and promoted his Beyond Failure Training System along with his Nuclear Nutrition supplements as a way to push past the perceived boundaries of what is humanly possible and into the realm of the super human. Trevor, eventually, hit that 400lb mark and along the journey he hefted some enormous weights in the gym. While his life was sadly cut short prior to his ever stepping onto a bodybuilding stage, he’ll be remembered as one of the pioneers that knocked down the mental barriers to muscular gains. Whether or not Trevor Smith would have lived a longer life had he weighed less will never be known for sure; but his legacy as one of the biggest, most innovative, bodybuilders in our era will live on for years to come.
While breaking 400 seemed to be the ultimate achievement in human strength and muscularity, it also proved to be the undoing for the brave few who dared to tempt the iron fates. The human body, after all, is not a machine. It’s made of parts that break and, ultimately, cannot be repaired. So I pose the question, have we finally reached the limits of human size and strength? Or will future athletes find ways to trick the body into accepting ungodly amounts of muscle mass while, positively, adapting to the enormous strains on the human organ system? I guess that’s what testing limits and finding new technologies is all about. The original seafaring explorers (prior to Christopher Columbus) routinely lost their lives trying to cross the Atlantic Ocean. When new, more durable, ships were built, the long arduous journey was finally made possible. Many of the naysayers back on the European continents thought the dead sailors were falling off the edge of a flat world; but the innovative captains knew better. They dreamed and obsessed about finding a way to sail “around the world”. Perhaps, Kovacs, Jenkins, Wilson, Smith and Swenson are not the crazy risk-takers most of the world thinks them to be. Instead, they may have been the daring visionaries that will, ultimately, pave the way to a new improved super athlete that’s bigger, stronger, and more muscular than anything or anyone we’ve ever seen before. For now; however, they’ll all go down in the history of the iron sport as pioneers who proved that “400” was only a limit of the mind; one that they all surpassed en route to achieving greatness in their respective iron disciplines.
