{"id":183387,"date":"2014-10-30T04:00:28","date_gmt":"2014-10-29T18:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=183387"},"modified":"2014-10-30T04:00:28","modified_gmt":"2014-10-29T18:00:28","slug":"galang-humbled-experience-guam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/galang-humbled-experience-guam\/","title":{"rendered":"Galang humbled by experience in Guam"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Gerald<\/a>
Gerald Galang poses for the judges during last Saturday\u2019s 2014 Michelob Ultra Bodybuilding & Body Fitness Championship and International Invitational at the Leo Palace Resort in Yona.
(Contributed Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nA humbling experience.<\/p>\n

This is how Gerald Galang sums up his experience competing in the 2014 Michelob Ultra Bodybuilding & Body Fitness Championship and International Invitational last Saturday at the Leo Palace Resort in Yona.<\/p>\n

The 22-year-old former Army personnel placed fourth out of 13 competitors in the short class (5-feet-5 and under) while his cousin, Aaron Tomokane, finished eighth among 13 participants in the tall division (5-feet-5 above).<\/p>\n

Japan had a 1-2 finish in Galang\u2019s category with Guam taking third, while in Tomokane\u2019s division, a local bet topped the category with two Japanese settling for the silver and bronze medals.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was already able to beat a lot of pros from Japan when I placed fourth. I was really surprised that I finished fourth but they showed me the scorecards and I saw it first hand,\u201d said Galang, who is now in the Army Reserve.<\/p>\n

Chom Star Gordon joined Galang and Tomokane in Guam as she competed in the Bikini division, while Jun Riodique and Tristan Ecalnea pulled out as the former failed to get clearance from his work, while the latter decided to join his family in Tennessee.<\/p>\n

Close to 70 competed in the different categories of the Guam tournament with 30 coming from Japan alone.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt least we made it to the Top 10. It was a very humbling experience that we were able to compete in Guam. It is an eye opening on our part and it has given us a lot of aspects (in bodybuilding contest) that we didn\u2019t know and not familiar with,\u201d Galang said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has helped us get the experience we needed in an international competition setting. This is my second time to compete but first in an off-island tournament,\u201d added Galang, who finished second to Vince Aldan in the 2014 Dee Clayton Classic\u2019s Open Physique division on Saipan last September.<\/p>\n

Galang said he will again join next year since he is still young and has more room for improvement. <\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been lifting and training for four years now. I started in late 2010 when I was stationed in Iraq and now it became part of my lifestyle and my passion,\u201d Galang said.<\/p>\n

He added the pros who joined the tournament in Guam were also supportive and even gave them tips.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe pros were all supportive and we thought that they will be unwelcoming and snobbish, that kind of stigma that they are pros and we\u2019re first timers. But they are not like that. Especially the Guamanians, they were excellent hosts and very welcoming. They were surprised that Saipan competed,\u201d he said. \u201cThe pros taught us a lot of new techniques on cutting weight, what we should do when we\u2019re cutting weight for more definition and what we should do when we\u2019re trying to gain more muscle mass.\u201d<\/p>\n

Galang added that overall they had fun competing in this year\u2019s edition of the annual tournament.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were able to gain more knowledge and got a taste of international competition and lifestyle of lifting and living healthy. The pros told me that if I just keep training, stick to my program and look for new techniques I can excel in the sport,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Galang noted that most of the Japanese pros are paid and supported by their sponsors just to compete.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost of them have been lifting 10 to 15 years now. They are getting paid just to advertise the products they use. It is sort of an advertisement and marketing strategy. That\u2019s why training and lifting are the only things they do. And they are ripped to the max,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s one competitor from Japan, Akira Hama, he is more than 40 years old and he\u2019s been lifting and competing for a very long time,\u201d said Galang, whose weight range from 138 to 140 lbs. during competition but reaches 155 in the offseason.<\/p>\n

\u201cAaron is at 160 lbs when he competes but his weight could reach 175 during the offseason. We bulk up during the offseason. That\u2019s when we eat a lot in trying to gain more muscle mass and we cut weight before each competition,\u201d Galang ended. (Jon Perez)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A humbling experience. This is how Gerald Galang sums up his experience competing in the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":183392,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[51,496,170,199],"class_list":["post-183387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-guam","tag-iraq","tag-japan","tag-sport-2-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183387\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}