I'm branch Warren IFBB pro bodybuilder and gasp athlete welcome to my home this
is my trophy room
pretty much all the trophies I won through my 25-year career are around me in this room
Branch Warren was at a local gym trying to beef up for high school football when
national level heavyweight Marc Hamlin's spotted his potential before he knew it
was happening the 16 year old had won his first contest and became teenage mr.
Texas branch gave up his varsity position on the football even put all
his energy into training this was a 1992 Lee Labrada classic down to Houston
Texas I was 17 18 years old and that show I won the teenage class
the novice class and the open class well when I first started working out I did it for
football I grew up in a little small town of West Texas and I moved to the Fort
Worth area when I was in high school and I never seen a real bodybuilder so I use tp
sneak in this neighborhood gym I didnt have money to uh you know buy membership
so I'd sneak in my friend would open the back door we'd slip in I'd work out
and that's where I met the first real bodybuilder he's a huge guy about 280 pounds and he kind of took me under his wing showed me how to train and you
know suggested hey you're after I was 14 15 so by the time I was 16 he said hey you ever
think about competing he took me to a show I checked it out and I was like yea I
could do that so that's when he took me to Metroflex and I trained all summer
at metroflex and won that contest and the rest is history when the overall pose
down began it was clear that it had come down to who had done their homework the
only competitor with a size shape and cut the judges were looking for was
light heavyweight branch Warren at just 18 years old he has plenty of time to
plot his next move and remember when it comes to competitive bodybuilding the
teenage stars of today are the superstars of tomorrow all these teenage
nationals 1993 light heavyweight overall winner USA heavy weights got third that
year won the light heavyweights in the overall in the men's Lone Star 94 I was
nineteen so that was like the big show in Texas back then
at that point I'd beaten everybody in Metroflex except for Ronnie and uh this
guy mark who got me into training so uh earn my respect that year then we got a
NPC nationals this trophy back in the back and all the medals were hanging
from that's when I won my class at the Nationals that earned my pro card for me
when I turned pro it you separate yourself from everyone else and now that
dream I always had of being a pro bodybuilder now guess what I get to
live it
my first pro victory and it was in front of my hometown crowd here in Dallas so it's
the Dallas Europa and uh back in 2005 so that was my first uh what turned out to be the
first and many victories a week later I went to Charlotte and
followed up with my second victory this wasn't actually a trophy I got at
Scotland I went out there to guest pose and they were given out these things to the
winners I remember I said something to the promoter and he had me back the next year and I had my
wife and I went out there to guest pose they presented this to me on stage I'm sure
you guys have probably watched the movie Braveheart and William Wallace well
apparently there's a guy there in Scotland who still makes sword steel
like really makes him the old-fashioned way hammers them out and so he made a replica of
William Wallace's sword so I'm five foot seven you can get an idea of how big
this thing is so apparently William Wallace was a giant of a man this was second
place 2009 mr. Olympia this was third place 2010
I never took time to really enjoy the victories or think about the
accomplishments I mean it wasnt until recently I could look at pictures of
myself and be like well man I look pretty good when I was competing I would look
at pictures you know from on stage or while I was prepping you know progress pics and
I'd just get irritated and I'd just rip myself apart but that's what kept me
going if I I think I would ever got up and looked like damn I looked good
then my whole motivation for going the gym and training so hard you know being so
strict on my diet would have been out the window this was my third victory New
York Pro the first place this was a IFBB Europa this is another Dallas Europa
victory he has become one of the world's very best bodybuilders as Lonnie Keefer
just mentioned on the brink of a sandow trophy two years ago when he lost to
Jay Cutler and he's here in Columbus after earning many most muscular Awards
trying to win himself an Arnold Classic trophy and 130 thousand dollar check
that goes with it and I got to tell you it looks like branch Warren is very much
on track to do that I think he's even harder than this morning and as
certainly as you said he is in in the lead people ask me what was the most important
to me the 2011 Arnold Classic the 23rd Arnold I won it that was a big one to
me because I told myself when I was 18 years old I wanted to win the Arnold
classic fast forward several years and I finally made that dream come true
there's a lot of hard work and consistency and determination so uh I
followed that up the next year 2012 with another victory at the Arnold this was a
big one because winning it the first time is hard doing it a second time in a row is
even harder couple the fact with I tore my quad off the bone six and a half
months before the show I had to have surgery have it reattached you know
pretty much everyone told me I was done I don't think anyone had ever come back from
a quad injury like that that successfully before so and I was gonna
try to do it six and a half months so uh pretty much everybody told me I was
crazy but I had the last laugh thanks for watching guys this is my trophy room
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