The making of… Bodies Made Easy DVD by David Rylah.

This DVD “David Rylah’s - Bodies Made Easy” began many years ago when I was only 14. I was your typical 14 year old, played many sports, hung out with my friends just loved life but I knew I was going to do something different with my life than the norm. You know, go to school, go to uni, get a good 9-5 job, I knew that wasn’t for me.

It all started when I walked into a newsagent one afternoon after school and saw a Muscle and Fitness magazine. I straight away picked it up and opened to somewhere in the middle which had an arm workout pictorial with Victor Richards, and he looked amazing. From that moment I knew what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to train and build a great physique so that one day I could live a life like the men in that magazine. I wanted to be on covers, in training articles, getting sponsorship, do training DVD’s (videos at the time); I wanted to make a living doing what these guys were doing.

I took that magazine home and tried to get my parents to buy me a gym membership but they insisted I wait till I was 16 as they thought I was too young. They did however buy me a small dumbbell and barbell set, so my training started. My goal wasn’t purely just to get big; my goal was to build the most perfect physique my genetics would allow. I read that first magazine, and every other magazine I could find, from cover to cover trying to learn as much as I could and applying it to my training. I trained in my bedroom using chairs as make shift benches. I did this for 2 years before I joined a real gym but I learned so much about training and nutrition during that time. Then once I was in the gym with more experienced bodybuilders around me I’d ask questions and watch very intently. By the time I was 18 I knew 80% of what I know now and had started seeing the results that I knew I would need to achieve my dreams.

I still had a long way to go so I just kept training and training, fine tuning things as I learned more about training and nutrition and more about my body. I started competing in bodybuilding competitions at age 21 and placed 2nd in the Queensland Juniors, I also subsequently started doing photo shoots. These were skills I desperately needed to learn if I was going to be successful in the US fitness modelling industry, which is the place to be if that’s what you want to do. Over the years I competed in many competitions with my best results being Queensland IFBB heavyweight champion and 2nd place Australian IFBB heavyweights.
While travelling in the US when I was around 26 I had my first opportunity to do a training shoot with Muscle and Fitness magazine. It happened by luck, I was performing in a show in Las Vegas and a member of the crowd gave me a card and said give them a call as they were looking for fitness models. I didn’t feel as though I was ready yet but couldn’t let the opportunity pass.

Now anyone that thinks it’s easy will get a rude shock if they ever do such a shoot. It went for 8hrs and I couldn’t train for a week afterwards! They had me using close to max weights to make the shots looks good and had me doing slow reps with a pause at the bottom and a pause at the top so the photographer could get clear shots. It was an awesome day and they looked after me very well. At the end of the shoot I asked what would I have to do to get a cover? Their response, ‘get bigger and harder’.

So back to the gym with that one goal in mind. If I was going to make a career out of the fitness industry and be able to do things like books, DVD’s, seminars etc and live the life I’d dreamed I needed to get that cover and many others. So I kept chipping away and constantly trying to improve. At 29 I felt I’d finally built the physique I needed for that cover. I organised a photo shoot down at Coolangatta on the Gold Coast and got the shots I knew I needed. Using that same business card I sent an email saying I believed I’d gone and done what they needed and attached a couple of photos. Now the waiting game.

Well I didn’t have to wait long, the next day I got a reply asking if I could be on a plane the next week. I was shocked and excited all at the same time. I wasn’t going to be ready in a week so we made arrangements for a few weeks later and I was on a plane to L.A. That shoot was an amazing experience and the cover was everything I’d hoped for. Now it was time to capitalise on that and get more covers and articles which when you’re in the U.S., in shape and the new guy in town isn’t too hard. So I ended up with more covers and several interviews.

Once back in Australia I had to now make all that work for business and slowly put things together. I’d written a script for a training DVD after my first shoot with Muscle and Fitness but had it put away until the time was right, I felt the time was coming. I still felt I needed more exposure to give it a better chance but I started fine tuning the script and working out the logistics. I also wanted an investor, someone with great business skills that loved the bodybuilding industry; this would give the DVD a much better chance of success. They always say two minds work better than one.

I found an investor from the U.S. He was a pharmacist who ran a chain of chemists but also loved to train. On a trip to L.A. we met and had a very long meeting and everything was set in place, where we would shoot, sponsorship proposals, a list of film crews to choose from, when we were going to shoot, marketing etc etc. I was to go home, and train hard to be at my peak while we organised all the details and then fly back in 2006 to shoot. Well that all crashed when something happened with his business and he went bust. For now my dream had to be put to the side.

Then came Campbell Lennox, national general manager of Harvey Norman. He had a love for training and during a search on the internet found my website which is how I get a lot of my personal work for both one on one and online programs. I had been helping him out with training via email as he lives in Sydney and I live on the Gold Coast in Queensland. Campbell was coming to the Coast for business and organised a PT session with me. Several months earlier I’d done a small survey with my online PT clients to learn more about what they really wanted to know, so when Campbell and I met he asked me how that training DVD had gone. I told him how my investor fell through and that the DVD was on hold for now.

And that’s how our partnership started. Campbell straight away said he’d be interested in investing if I was to go ahead and of course I wanted to make this DVD so very badly. The DVD was back on track! The plan was to film a few weeks before the 2007 IFBB Australian titles. I’d be in shape but it wasn’t too close to my comp so as to impinge on my preparation. We spent several months planning and plotting to make sure everything was set in place. I also sent out sponsorship proposals, we got some excellent sponsors which can only help a project of this kind.

Then it came to the filming week, everything was set. The plan was to just do my workouts as normal so the viewer got to see it as it’s done for real, nothing was staged. Doing this though made it very difficult for me, not only did I have to train normally as I would 4 weeks out from a show (which is very intense and focused), but I also had to engage the camera, give as much useful info as possible and make sure it was articulate between breaths. It was an amazing experience.
 
By the end of the week I was worn out, I’d had headaches from putting myself under too much pressure, I had a tooth infection and was put on antibiotics and had done a slight tear in my left hamstring. I was beat up by the end of the 7 days but was satisfied with what we had captured on video. We put the footage away for a few weeks so I could concentrate on the competition and then after a week's holiday it was time to put all my efforts into editing.
For most of the following year I worked in my spare time editing, firstly on my own with pen and paper then in the studio with the professional editor. I have a new found respect for these guys now. The DVD is around 4hrs, to get 4hrs of footage to sync together where there’s a camera change every ten seconds or so is a mammoth job. Then there was the DVD cover and all the details that go with that, finding a replicator, building a website, setting up accounts and contracts, figuring out our marketing strategy, legal’s etc. Then the authoring of the DVD and having a clip made!
To say I’ve learned a lot is an understatement. It’s been an experience all right. I’m very proud of what I’ve done and will never be one to say ‘what if’ because I actually followed through on my dream and did it. It wasn’t as simple as this story indicates, there were many many obstacles over the years and at times I thought “what am I doing”, but I can now sit back and say ‘I did it’!! I will always have a huge sense of satisfaction with that.

( For more information on David’s new DVD “Bodies made easy”, please click here for A-1290DVD which is available from GMV. David has been one of the most professional bodybuilders I have ever done business with. GMV had the privilege of doing the authoring of this DVD for David and also make the clip. I highly recommend this DVD to everyone from beginners to professional competitors. It has a message for all who lift weights and aspire to improve their bodies. Wayne Gallasch, GMV.)