LA Fit Expo

It’s been a crazy busy couple of weeks, but thanks to a rare snow day things slowed down a little bit yesterday.  I was glad that it snowed so I would have a valid excuse to sleep in, and I was happy that it warmed up enough so I could get out of the house and to the gym shortly after noon!  It was the best of booth worlds!

But, I want to back up and talk about last weekend and my trip to LA for the LA Fit Expo.

 Diana and I arrived at the Luxe hotel on Friday mid-afternoon.  After a nice late-lunch/early-dinner we settled in for nap, after which we headed down to the Convention Center to help the Ironman crew set up the booth.  Helen worked us really hard, but Ironman has such a great staff that it was really fun.

 On Saturday morning we arrived at the Ironman Magazine/Home-Gym.com booths about 15 minutes before the expo opened.  I spotted Jamie Eason at the Bodybuilding.com booth just one aisle over and I told Diana that we had better go speak to Jamie and get a photo with her before the expo opened.  It was a good decision.  The entire time the expo was open the line for the bb.com booth was ridiculously long!  In addition to Jamie, bodybuilding.com had some more friends of ours…Michelle Hanson (2010 Tx Shredder Classic Figure Overall Champ), Amanda Harris (aka Barbie Barbell), Shelsea Montes (IFBB Bikini Pro), and Nick Scott (bodybuilder/ballroom dancer extraordinaire).

Once the expo opened it was non-stop action at the Ironman Magazine booth for 2 days!  I was so busy autographing magazines, answering training questions and just chatting with fans and friends that I never got out of the booth to see any of the rest of the expo.  I know it sounds really lame, but by the end of the weekend my spinal erectors and hamstrings were extremely sore from signing autographs!

We even had super heros in our booth!  Ingrid and Heather attracted a lot of attention….as you can imagine.  I felt compelled to take a break from my busy schedule and get a photo with them.

I felt really fortunate to get to meet Danny Hester who was doing demos of his GFlex at the Ironman booth.  Danny has easily one-upped the TRX system.  It’s not even close.  Danny gave me a quick primer on the GFlex and sent one back to Austin with me.  It has so many applications everyone should own one!!!

And, Diana and I debuted my Texas Shredder Contest Preparation Guide to the Stage DVD at the Fit Expo.  They’re now available at www.TexasShredderClassic.com and soon on our new website www.Shredderbuilt.com

I finally got to meet Greg, my taller look-alike.  Maybe we’re brothers and my dad doesn’t know about him?  Greg and I looked a lot more alike before he shaved his goatee.

And it’s always great to get to visit with the Ironman readers!

One of the super cool moments of the Fit Expo for me was finally getting to meet Ironman writer and great natural bodybuilder Eric Broser and his beautiful girlfriend Robyn Balliet.  Eric took the light-heavyweight title at the Ironman Naturally.  They’re a really nice couple and we’re hoping they come to Austin for the Texa Shredder Classic on May 7th.

Although we didn’t get home until almost mid-night on Sunday, then the alarm clock went off at 4:50am on Monday, it was such a fun weekend that it was well worth the lost sleep and all the work.  I highly recommend the LA Fit Expo!  It’s such a blast and such a wonderful way to kick off the bodybuilding season!  Thanks to John, Michael, Helen, Terry, Corky, Warren, Steve, Jonathon, Ruth, Lonnie,  and the rest of the outstanding  people on the Ironman Magazine staff working my butt off for 2 days flys by way too fast.  I can’t wait for next year!!!