Old School Rules at the 2008 Ontario Championships

Last December, I wrote about Andrey Yashenko as part of our "New Faces" series. At the time, 41-year-old Yashenko had just won the Overall titles at the Ottawa and Western Ontario Championships, as well as the Masters class at the Eastern Ontario Championships. The amazing thing was that before those competitions, he hadn’t competed in 15 years.

Yashenko, who is originally from the Ukraine, obviously has the talent to win shows back to back against a roster of much younger competitors. And as I said in the article, he has the potential to go far in this sport. In fact, I wrote "…he could become a provincial champion as early as next June."

Well, it’s July 1, and I feel as though I successfully predicted the future. On June 21, Yashenko entered the OPA Ontario Provincial Championships and won both classes he competed in – the Light-Middleweight division as well as the over-40 Masters Lightweight division. But that wasn’t all – he won the Overall title too. Without doubt, Yashenko can be very proud of these accomplishments.

I refer to Yashenko as an "old-school bodybuilder," but that’s not because of his age. Even though he’s now 42 years old, he’s still younger than I am! Rather, it’s because he has the type of physique that was in style in bodybuilding from the ‘70s to the early ‘90s. This is evidenced by his ample muscle size balanced off with superb shape and incredible definition, something you don’t often see today. We’re talking about a Frank Zane-type physique.

Frankly, his look is in direct contrast to the size-at-any-cost mass monsters that came into style in the mid-‘90s and still continue to rule the stage. Nowadays, it’s not uncommon to see someone Yashenko’s height weighing 230 pounds or more, whereas Yashenko is probably 170 or 175. However, while the sheer volume of those mass monsters might seem impressive to some, it’s usually at the expense of shape and definition. Furthermore, it’s not uncommon to see these same overweight guys sporting massive bellies that could put beer-drinkers to shame. (Ironically, eight-time Mr. Olympia, the king of the modern-day herd of pro belly-builders, guest-posed at the Ontarios this year. Coleman has looked as if he is pregnant since about the year 2000, the time when he got really big. Too big. Someone like Yashenko may weigh 80-100 pounds less, but, I think, looks far better.) For me, bodybuilding is not about how much you weigh or whether you’re the size of a refrigerator. It’s about what Yashenko displays – a combination of size, shape, symmetry and definition. This is the old-school way.

Yashenko’s win was a good one for Ontario and, likely, for Canada as well. Ontario has the largest competitor base of any province in Canada and, as a result, produces more national-level champions than anywhere else. And because so many champion bodybuilders come out of Ontario, the province often sets the tone that the rest of the country follows.

In my opinion, Yashenko’s old-school type of physique is what this sport needs right now. We don’t need any more guys with waists larger than Santa Claus’s. Instead, we need more of the chiseled perfection that Yashenko displayed at the Ontarios this year. Now, let’s wait and see what he brings to the national-level stage – maybe later this year. I suspect this isn’t the last that we’ve heard from Andrey Yashenko.

...Doug Schneider, Publisher
das@seriousaboutmuscle.com

Doug Schneider is the publisher and chief photographer for SeriousAboutMuscle.com, BodyBuildingLive.com, and SeriousAboutFitness.com.