Roman Fritz: the new rising star of junior bodybuilding

You are about to read the story on a rebellious, tall and skinny teenager who has become the new Junior Overall World Champion in bodybuilding: this is the story of Roman Fritz. The following informations come directly from Roman.  During his recent stay in Italy I talked a lot with him about his life, his sport career and about his projects.                                                                                                                                                                                                                        Roman was born in Garching, a suburb of Munich, Germany on April 13th 1988. An only child, Roman grew up almost always alone with his mother, since his parents separated when he was 11.  A “rebellious” teenager, the kind that doesn’t listen to anything and anyone, at school he was quite bad, so that his mom was forced to withdraw him into a college. And it is within those walls that Roman’s approach to sports started. In college, Roman, after class, gets bored a lot, thus began playing basketball by himself  for hours. And of course some of his fellows start to think that Roman is a fool. Roman goes from basketball to running. 

At the age of 14 Roman participates in the half marathon in Munich, using just under 1 hour and 50 minutes to cover the 21 km of the race. At the time Roman was almost as tall as he is now (180 cm), but weighed only 55 kg of shredded muscles. Too high and too thin. His mother is worried. So she obtains one barbell, two dumbbells and a bench and Roman began training in the basement. Every day. Even on sundays. Twice a day. Always the same 8 exercises, performed in the same sequence. After 6 months of this so “hammering” training Roman gained 10 kilos, reaching 65 kg. But the “turning point” came during Christmas 2003, when Roman receives as a gift the book “Joe Weider’s Bodybuilding Training”.  In a single day Roman literally “eats” the book, and begins to train just as the book explains, starting from when the mother remembers that his cousin was an instructor in a gym. Cousin Christian provides to Roman a free subscription to the gym. And within the next nine weeks Roman increases his bodyweight by another 1o kilos.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Three more years of very hard training and finally in 2006 for Roman comes the moment of his first contest: the Bavarian Championships where he wins the junior category. Roman recalls that in 2006 he had come to weight 94 kg of muscle mass but without the necessary thickness. In fact at the German Championships he comes in fifth place, behind smaller but more shredded juniors than him. Roman then think of participating in a next contest  only if and when he is ripped enough to win. Another year of exhausting workouts and Roman is back on stage in 2008. But this time he is absolutely the most ripped junior in the contest. This time (for the first time in his career) he weights 10 kg less than in 2006,  his contest bodyweight is 84 kg. But Roman is in top shape thus winning not only the Bavarian Championships, but also the Overall German National title.

The enthusiasm for this important success actually double the already enormous capacity for Roman to train up to his unhuman limit. The first rapid new improvements convince him to accept the biggest challenge possible for a junior bodybuilder: The World Championships, to be held in Poland in november 2009. This has been a year of sensational further improvements (within a year Roman will increase his muscle mass  of about 35 kg, to reach an incredible bodyweight of 118 kg) but it is also a year of many commitments: from the guest-posing at the German Championships to his first exhibition abroad during the Kent Classic Contest, England on August 30th. Then, it’s time for his 8 guest-poses at the Fibo in Essen. I have already spoken in detail about the junior World Championships. Just let me say that Roman came home from the World on monday morning…in the afternoon he went to the gym to train! Now that Roman has got the maximum possible in the junior category, one might wonder what will be his next target. Well Roman has already decided: the German Championships in autumn 2010 in the senior heavyweight class! All the best Roman, you deserve it!

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