The bones in his knuckles feel like they are being ripped out of his fingers. The joints in his wrists feel like they were in shackles the night before. The painful sting in his elbows sends chills up his arms. The throbbing bones in his knees and legs are constantly telling him to lie down, making every step more painful than the one before. Senior Jared Azuma does not listen — he has to clear five tables in a minute at the Sunset Grill.

It was April 13, the day after his fifth-place debut in a bodybuilding competition, and he was paying the price for months of working his body to the max. Though every joint in his body felt like it was about to explode, Azuma was in the best shape of his life.

   

Bodybuilding is not the only way he pushes himself. He takes his busy schedule to the extreme.

A normal day for Azuma includes running in the morning, an 8 a.m. physical therapy class, a Brothers 4 Brothers meeting at lunch, lifting in the afternoon, an intramural soccer game in the evening and busing tables at the Sunset Grill on the weekends.

Headlining that schedule is his passion: bodybuilding. Azuma is not one to be grunting and groaning around campus in a muscle shirt though. He usually wears his long brown hair in a pony tail, clad in a long-sleeved T-shirt and sweatpants. While he is proud of his body, those clothes hide layers of muscles underneath. He could destroy anyone who messed with him but chooses to do just the opposite.

“Jared is a very genuine person with great morals,” his roommate, senior Phil Gomez, said. “He holds high standards for himself, which I believe is very hard to come across, especially in young adults.”

So, while his muscular body and long hair may resemble that of the biblical hero Samson, he was not always the strongest guy around.

As a sophomore at athletic powerhouse Don Bosco Prep High School in Ramsey, N.J., Azuma said he was one of the smallest students at 4-feet-10-inches tall and  90 pounds.

“I was like a runt,” he said.  

As a baseball and soccer player, Azuma said he knew he had to make up for his small size somehow. A combination of that small size and a high school friend inspired him to start lifting weights at a gym in his hometown of Wood-Ridge, N.J.

After starting college, his passion for working out grew so much that his peers started noticing his great body shape. After a friend, senior Kuang Chen, had done a bodybuilding show, he suggested Azuma do the same. Azuma said he was sold in an instant.

Twelve weeks of extreme mental and physical preparation followed, leading up to his debut last April.

The night before the competition, Azuma’s family came to visit him. His mother said she was worried about her son’s condition after his harsh diet and work out.

“I was so amazed at what he was surviving on,” she said, “I was concerned, actually.”

The next day though, concern was far from her mind, as she saw the result of Azuma’s hard work onstage.

“I looked at him and could not believe it was my son,” she said. “It was amazing to see him up there and remember how small he was as a child.”

But at the competition, the now 5-feet-7-inches tall Azuma was flexing onstage, clad in red performance shorts, showing the world his tan, shiny and rigidly cut muscles.

“It’s rewarding standing up onstage and showing off all the work you put in for the last 12 weeks,” he said.

After a respectable fifth-place finish, Azuma felt like he could push himself even more.    

Today, he is going hard in the latter stages of his preparation for his second competition Oct. 25.

“I feel really disciplined this time,” he said. “I haven’t cheated at all.”

That means it has been a long time since he has indulged in his favorite candy, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.

The little food he does eat is important. He said 75 percent of bodybuilding is dieting. Scheduling meal times, the food to prepare and even sleep can make or break a bodybuilder’s success.

For breakfast, Azuma eats three or four egg whites, cottage cheese and skim milk. Lunch features brown rice or tuna fish with nothing on it. For dinner, he boils chicken but is experimenting with chicken fried with Pam cooking spray.

Azuma is constantly working with Chen on the different poses that are part of the competitions. Being videotaped by Chen allows Azuma to find the best angles to shape himself so that his muscles look the most defined. While he said the poses of the professionals are difficult to learn, they are what make the competitions more individual.

“Everyone does the same fundamental pose, but it’s different in every way,” he said. “Everyone has their own little modification. It leaves a little bit of room to be unique.”

With less than three weeks to go, he is at crunch time.

During the last week of training, Azuma will push his body as hard as possible. Three days before the competition, he will stop drinking water to look as dry as possible. The lack of moisture in the body makes the muscles stand out during the performance. Dehydrating comes with a price though. The most painful aspect is the day after dehydration, as the water leaves every joint, leaving no cushion between bones. His muscles become harder as the three-day period goes on. His comfortable weight is 170 pounds, but he was down to 152.3 pounds for his first competition. His body fat was at 3 percent.

“Dehydrating is very mentally fatiguing,” he said. “When you’re dehydrated everything is rough, you get headaches and stuff, but you have to do what you have to do.”  

Azuma’s love for bodybuilding keeps him pushing his body to the limit. With his next competition fast approaching, he will be working at his highest intensity.

“It’s something I like doing for myself,” he said. “I like seeing how much I can push myself to be better than I was before.”