A-4039DVD Bertil Fox Seminar & Posing 
by Matt Canning

The Bertil Fox Golden Bodybuilder Awards

Right off the bat Carl Brown and Jane Molloy came out to pose. They were both very fit although Carl was obviously no Bertil. Nice classic physique but lacking the sheer size Bertil had. Some of GMV's classic titles feature these guest posers and I sometimes wonder where those bodybuilders are today. As muscular as some of the guest posers are, none ever seem to compare to main man of the DVD. In Mike Quinn's DVD, towards the end when all the amateurs were posing, Mike really made them all look like amateurs by the time he came out on stage! The pair posed to "STILL" by The Commodores and had quite a classical posing routine - it was along the lines of figure skating. The same emotions went with it. The crowd seemed to enjoy the posing and the pair came back to do some more poses with the crowd clapping. Personally I just wanted to see Bertil get to the money. But the added features are good additions.

The announcer then announced the main attraction of the show - the bodybuilder's bodybuilder - BRUTAL BERTIL FOX. He came out to the stage and sat down wearing a track suit and looked wide and thick. I really don't understand the comments about Bertil being structurally narrow. I can see this in his back double biceps pose, but from the front? No way. He reminded me of Gary Strydom in that manner - thick and wide, just not so much from the rear when hitting a back double biceps pose. When Arnold and Bertil were sitting together Bertil looked to be far wider than Arnold, and we all know how wide Arnold was. However, that was Bertil during the offseason, and Bertil is considered to be much like Dennis James as the king of offseason mass!

The crowd started asking Bertil questions where he jokingly said that he was 160 pounds. Of course he was joking around. Bertil said that Steve Reeves movies had a great influence on him as a child and he wanted his physique thinking that is how a physique should be. I would tend to agree - Steve was around 6'1 and 210 pounds with a 29" waist. Fantastic physique. He was also confident and handsome and in the movies appeared to be the traditional bodybuilder and strongman - something Arnold said Bertil could be and something that I think Bertil wanted to be from his Steve Reeves inspirations!

More questions were asked and Bertil was asked about hobbies outside of bodybuilding. Bertil spoke about it but seemed primarily focussed on bodybuilding - hard training and strict dieting. Say what you will about Bertil's personal life, the fact remains that he was one of the most amazing bodybuilders ever and one of my favourite classic physiques. Somebody who I feel was highly underrated in his time. And off topic and possibly controversial, I have to say that Bertil's unfair placings in bodybuilding probably didn't help the outcome of his life. Sometimes all it takes is being screwed at something you love to ruin your motivation in life which eventually leads down the slippery slope of poor decisions. Bertil spoke about supplements and said: "I take everything - especially if it's free." He was asked if supplements worked and looked at his right arm and said "Well...". LOL. Excellent point Bertil!

Bertil said that Rich Gaspari had a lot of vascularity but not that much muscle density - ???? Maybe Bertil was smoking some crack from the crack pipe Ronnie keeps saying Jay has. Rich Gaspari was INCREDIBLY dense in muscularity. Much more than Bertil was even at his best. They both were about 5'8 or so but Rich was denser than Bertil - and Bertil was damn dense so that's saying a lot! I think that Bertil possibly just wasn't sure what the word "density" means in reference to muscle.

Bertil went on to say that Larry Scott was ahead of his time and impressed Bertil a lot.

Bertil said that Sergio Oliva was an idiot to try to compete again and turn the clock back. Sergio's performance at the 1984 Olympia was not that great, but his conditioning improved by far in 1985. Unfortunately so did the competition and Bertil's eighth place finish remained.

He said Father Time hasn't caught up with [Albert] Beckles yet, but will. haha, to this day at AGE 75 Albert is still bench pressing 130 pound dumbbells in the gym on the flat dumbbell press for chest! I can't quite do this at 24, and I would hope to be ALIVE at age 75, let alone being that strong!

Bertil said Tom Platz had great legs and that's it. LOL. Tom had fantastic legs, and I do admit his upper body lagged behind his legs a fair degree. Ahh well, that is mostly about genetics. What can you do to bring up weak points like that? You have to do the best with the hand you were dealt, and I think that Tom's training intensity is proof that he definitely did exactly that.