There is a saying in bodybuilding, “The sport isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon.”
This statement has proved to be true for brand new IFBB Pro Lloyd Dollar. The 39 year-old sports performance coach turned pro at the NPC Nationals this year, nine years after his first national level show, the 2003 NPC USA’s.
“I was up and down all the way through the national level,” he said. Dollar described said he always had a connection with bodybuilding.
“I was a typical little kid and I was fascinated with it,” he said. Dollar ended up playing football throughout his high school years and eventually became one of the top running backs in the nation. He was heavily recruited, but settled on attending Union College in Kentucky.
“Being as that I was from a small town, it was a better fit for me,” he said.
After graduation he worked for the Disney Corporation and little did he know he was about to get his first real introduction into bodybuilding.
“One of my co-workers said her fiancée was a bodybuilder,” he said. Dollar exercised his skepticism but she persisted and pulled out an issue of Flex Magazine with her fiancée in the pages.
“ I look inside and she showed me a picture of Deke Warner (IFBB Pro League Judge),” he said. Shortly thereafter Dollar and Warner began working together. Warner passed down his years of training, posing and diet experience and Dollar soaked it in.
“He wanted to show me that bodybuilding was a sport,” he said.
Moving through the national level hasn’t been easy for Dollar, but he never gave any thought of giving up going for professional status and enlisted the help of IFBB Professional Fakrhi Mubarak. After placing 13th at the 2012 NPC USA’s, Mubarak said something that Dollar took to heart.
“Fakrhi told me when we hit the stage at Nationals, I wouldn’t be the same bodybuilder. He was one-hundred percent right,” he said. Dollar knew he would have a good chance in turning pro the longer he stood onstage.After placing second to Justin Compton in the heavyweights and receiving his pro card, reality set in for him as he thought there may be some who believe that second place does not deserve a pro card.
“The one thing I’ve learned is there is a fine line between first and second place. Immediately I thought I have to prove to people that I deserve what I got,” he said.
Dollar hasn’t selected his first pro show, but he is considering the Pro Bodybuilding Weekly Championships in Tampa, Florida.
“Its right in my backyard and gives me time to make improvements,” he said.
And if Dollar knows one thing, it’s how to improve.
Editorial Note: Dollar would like to thank his wife Jill Dollar, Fakrhi Mubarak, Mike Yurkovich and his company X2X Clothing.
