Victor Martinez is known in the business for his well-proportioned physique. His flowing lines and chiseled mass give him the appearance of being — to use a well-worn expression — “something Michelangelo carved out of stone.” In an era of bodybuilding when gaining mass for the sake of mass has become de rigueur, Victor Martinez carefully places new muscle on his physique in such a way as to not only make himself a bigger bodybuilder, but a better bodybuilder.

“I like to lift heavy,” Martinez explains. “When I first started, I focused on powerlifting. It was one of those things where the other kids would ask how much you could bench rather than how big your chest is. So in the beginning, it was just about lifting heavy rather than lifting to look like a bodybuilder. But even to this day, I love the feeling of lifting heavy barbells and dumbbells. It doesn’t feel like a workout until I’ve lifted some big weight. From very early on, one thing that was important to me, as far as training goes, was form. I used to watch Arnold Schwarzenegger training in Pumping Iron, and I’d look at experienced guys in the gym and pay attention to the form they used. Then I would visualize what I had seen them doing and I’d do it myself. When I saw guys doing those quick half-rep bench presses, I knew their form was bad because Arnold would bring the bar all the way down to his chest and all the way back up. So I learned to train the right way, lifting through a full range of motion and never using a weight that I couldn’t handle."

"One time I did ignore good form,” he admits. “I was training with a powerlifter and going too heavy for the leg press on this old machine that was missing ball bearings, and I popped my knee. I thought it was all over. Fortunately, I was OK. But I learned my lesson and went right back to training correctly.”

“I train five days a week,” Martinez says. “The cycle can vary from three days on/two days off to four days on/one day off to five days straight. It all depends on how I’m feeling that week.” He continues, “I focus on one major bodypart per day and hit my calves every two days and my abs twice a week. If I train my abs more than that, I find that they tend to grow too big.”

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