Fort native aims at national bodybuilding title

By Rick Volman
Thursday, June 23, 2011

It has always been a dream of Doug Ewasiuk to compete for a national title; and this weekend he has a shot at landing a spot at that level of competition.

The Fort Saskatchewan man is one of two local residents who will compete in the Alberta Body Building Association's provincial competition this weekend in Edmonton. He won the right to compete in the event after taking first place in the Northern Alberta qualifier earlier this month.

"I don't know if it was a big surprise to win at zones," he said. "I've busted my butt and have been blessed with good genetics, I guess," he said, with tongue in cheek. "It's been a long term goal of mine to compete at a national level. So, I hope to do well at provincials and I plan to bring my best physique to the show."


Doug Ewasiuk, the northern Alberta heavyweight division winner, hopes to achieve a long-term goal of reaching the nationals this weekend when he competes in the Alberta Body Building Association's provincial competition this weekend in Edmonton.

That physique is largely the product of a discipline that sees Ewasiuk take to the gym six days a week to pump iron for two hours each day.
But, he adds, body building is not all about grunting, groaning and endless repetitions in the gym.

"Eighty per cent of it is diet," he said. "If you can stick to the diet, you can do it."

For Ewasiuk, his pre-competition diet revolves around a tight 16-week regime of portion control and with every meal being weighed and limited to 4,000 calories to keep his 207 pound frame trimmed out at 3.5 per cent body fat.

"I eat the exact same meals, the same thing every day," he explained. "Just before a competition I'll load up on carbohydrates and high fats to trim out."

For Ewasiuk, it's a regime he knows well as he took up body building in 1993 before taking a 10-year break then reintroduced himself to the sport in 2006.

"A buddy of mine got into it and I wanted to go back to the gym anyway because I was getting tired of going through the old photos and looking at what I used to be," Ewasiuk said. "It was getting to be a case of the older I got, the better I looked."

Ewasiuk said if he should he qualify for nationals, it's unlikely he'll compete this fall. He'd rather focus on the 2012 competition, he said. "It's too excessive to try and do it all in one year because there's not much of a break in the training and diet," he said. "To try and maintain that level is not very safe. You are very susceptible to injury or illness. You only want to stay at that level for competition."

He added waiting a year will also allow him to build more mass and refine his form in order to be successful at the national level.

"The judges are really good at providing feedback and I need to work on some of my larger body parts," he said. "I want to get a little more thickness in my body if I want to compete at the national level. There's a lot of big dudes out there."

The year delay in competition will also put him on a less constrained diet as he builds to a larger form.

"You need to get some back into the body because it protects your joints and ligaments," he said. "It's also hard to make gains in muscle mass without the fat."

"It's quite the science," Ewasiuk said.

From Fort native aims at national bodybuilding title - Fort Saskatchewan Record - Alberta, CA