When Brad Gwinn is not making espressos at Starbucks, he is
juicing it up in the gym.
When Brad Gwinn is not making espressos at Starbucks, he is juicing it up in the gym.
Gwinn, who graduated in the Live Oak class of 2002, has already turned heads as an amateur natural weight lifter.
The 19-year-old Morgan Hill native and resident had his first taste of fame after winning the Mr. Live Oak competition in his senior year.
He was invited to travel to Australia and New Zealand to compete for Team USA in November after coming in second in the Novice Tall Mr. and Mrs. Hollywood competition.
Gwinn, who is sponsored by Gold’s Gym, is looking for additional sponsorships. Because he is an amateur, he doesn’t make me money. He competes for the love of the sport and has to pay his own way on the trip.
It was actually a back injury that helped get Gwinn interested in body building. In October of his senior year while finishing his graduation requirements through independent study, he injured his back after lifting a heavy object at work.
“I turned my upper body before I moved my legs and I felt a couple pops in my back,” Gwinn said.
The injury put him out of work about seven months as he went through an extensive three-month physical therapy program with Fritter, Shultz and Conlan Physical Therapy in Morgan Hill.
“From there I learned quite a bit about the development of muscles and how important it is to stay fit,” Gwinn said.
When Gwinn recovered, one of the first activities he did was to compete in the Mr. Live Oak competition at the end of the year.
“I wanted to do it in my junior year,” Gwinn said. “I kind of chickened out. Maybe stage fright. I wanted to do it in my last year. It was kind of like a personal thing for me to prove I could do something and overcome an injury that was pretty harsh.”
Gwinn received accolades from the judges.
“One of the judges told me that I should continue with it,” Gwinn added. “And I just kind of kept training from there on.”
Gwinn has competed in several Amateur Bodybuilding Association competitions since then.
He was the first place teen in the Hercules competition in Corona, won third in the Novice Tall category of the Silver and Black competition in Oakland and took second place in teen division of the Western Nationals in Sacramento.
The Novice Class is a mix of age groups divided by height.
Gwinn grew up watching his older brother compete in the Mr. Live Oak competition, and Gwinn has been going to the gym with his dad since he was 12 years old. He competed for the Live Oak track and field team his junior year and played football and baseball when he was young.
At 6-foot-3, building up mass is a hard thing to do, Gwinn said. He tips the scales at 186 pounds right now, but hopes to be up over 200 pounds by the end of the year. His plans don’t include any extra Big Macs though.
“Right now I am trying to gain mass,” Gwinn said. “That is something I lack with my height. A lot of the other people are under six feet, so it makes it harder for me to compete with them.”
Gwinn Trains with Dan Montijo from Gold’s Gym of Morgan Hill. Montijo, 50, has been training others for 12 years. The last time he competed was 10 years ago when he came in third in the Mr. Gilroy competition. Although, he does plan to get back into the competition scene.
“He was very lean when he came to me,” said Montijo, who has been training him for about a year. “He did have some muscle tone to him. But I’ve sculpted his body as I’ve been working with him.”
Gwinn has potential to eventually go to the next level, Montijo said.
“He is very susceptible to putting on muscle size,” Montijo said. “He is capable of becoming a pro. He is a natural body builder. He is not going to become like the freaks you see in the magazines because that is not real. He will reach his full potential if he keeps training and doing the stuff he has been doing.”
The workouts vary from day to day, Montijo said, and are much more strenuous than the workouts he uses for other people. Sometimes Montijo will have his student do super sets and then mix in heavy weights.
“We work on a push pull method,” Montijo said. “Your body parts are all attached. The chest is the biggest muscle. Then you got the deltoids and triceps, which all work in conjunction. We start off with chest then go to shoulders and triceps. The whole time we’re working all the groups of muscles all along. The fatigue and the burn increase, and it takes very little weight to get a good burn on the triceps.”
Gwinn said he doesn’t like to mix his upper body and lower body workouts on the same day. He will normally work out three days a week.
“I try not to overtrain, and I try to compensate for days I miss,” Gwinn said.
He is not on a specific diet but tries to eat healthy.
Gwinn said the most he has bench pressed is about 215, but he focuses on repetitions not on the amount.
“He has got a great work ethic,” Montijo said. “Being as young as he is, he is really mature as far his ethic goes. He is not one to complain. It seems like every other week he is seeing something different, and it is all motivating him to go further.”
Gwinn is already looking forward to when he can turn pro in about three years.
“I want to go as far as I can with it,” Gwinn said. “I don’t have any plans of ever quitting. I finally found something I really enjoy. I hope I still enjoy it like I do now when I get to the professional level.”
