“If you do what you have always done, you will only get what you have always go”.

“Pain is weakness leaving the body.”

“I want to make the sport of bodybuilding popular and educate the youth about the goodness of bodybuilding. And achieve my best possible physique and reach the top most position for a natural bodybuilder.”

These are the phrases and his wish for a lifetime, he wrote this on his orkut profile description. Murali Vijaykumar is a 24 year old young, soft spoken and friendly man who widely known as Biglee Murali, is an IT professional from Chennai,Tamil Nadu. This is surely just a half introduction of this personality who grabbed the million eyes from his greasy and finely carved muscles on the stage of Mr. Tamil Nadu Body Building Championship in 2008. Though he won several awards and honors before but this one is the biggest and most prestigious for him till date, however his ultimate aim is Mr. Olympia.

Biglee Murali is a perfect show maker, not only in bodybuilding arena but also on a virtual network like orkut where he almost crossed the limit of adding friends in his orkut profile which is more than 900 and his fans are  touching the mark of 200.

He is also the moderator of many bodybuilding and fitness related communities of orkut, one such active community is Google Gym Exercisers which have more than 14,000 members participating in different fitness related discussions and sharing useful contents.

Murali Vijaykumar aka Biglee Murali’s interview is now on flockpost.com!. It’s my pleasure that Biglee gave his valuable time and answered my questions; this interview is surely a very useful resource for body building enthusiasts and also very inspiring and motivational. Biglee disclosed many memorable parts of his life, his views and his dreams in this interview.

Interview with Biglee Murali:

Please tell us you’re detailed but a short biography. Your childhood, your parents, school and college education and profession.

I was born to angels (my mom and dad). They were always supportive in whatever I wanted to do. My brother always gives me a helping shoulder in whatever I do. I had my schooling in Shri Anand Jain Vidhyalaya and did my engineering graduation in computer science from GKM College of engg. & Tech. I was a mediocre student in my school and college. I learnt classical music and other stuffs in my childhood like many children of my age, was a good athlete during my school days.

Is Body Building is something you would like to call “a dream come true”? or its started just by chance? Please shed some light on your introduction to the world of Bodybuilding?

As I said that I was a good athlete in school days. Once I saw a Tamil magazine for bodybuilding (MASTER) on a book stall and bought it with all the money that I had gathered during the month. It had the picture of “6 Times Mr. Olympia Dorian Yates”. I took it home and told my dad that I will be like this one day. My dad promised me that if get more than 90% score in my 12^th, he would allow me to join a gym. He knew what would drive me to study well …… I studied so hard and made 93% out of my exams and the very next day my dad enrolled me into a gym. And that is how I started bodybuilding. Yeah it was a dream at the beginning, but slowly it became my lifestyle.

From my little knowledge about body building, I guess it’s not a poor man’s cup of tea. You need to have good amount of money to bear the expenses. Is it true? If not, than how it is possible for an average middle class person to get into this game?

As you said it is a rich man’s sport. You need at least 150 rupees per day for your contest dieting alone (which lasts for about three months). That is the reason why I was not able to go beyond district or university level during my college days. My parents gave me a major part of their earnings so that I would be able to pursue my passion, but still needs were big. That is the reason why I am doing better in the field of bodybuilding after I started earning. My approach would be to save as much as I can for contests and spend it for the contest preparation and cut down the expenses during my off seasons.

Your latest and biggest win is Mr. Tamil Nadu 2008, how was the experience that time and what’s next in the card?

Every athlete competes in this world to win and when you win….. Man I was on cloud 9 and can’t express it in words. I believe in one step at a time. So now that I have won state championship I look forward to competing in nationals by 2010.

Murali, how your day starts? Would you like to share your diet and work out schedules?

I believe that variety keeps me more motivated towards my goals so I make small changes to my workout schedule and diet schedule often. I read the responses of my body and make constant modifications to make my gains optimal.

In off season I keep my carbohydrates and protein high. I take about 6 meals a day. Train for about 5 days a week. I don’t believe in quantity workouts but I believe in quality workouts so I don’t spend more than 45 mins in the gym per session.

During my contest preparation I keep my protein high and keep my carbohydrates and fats in moderate levels’ take about 8 meals a day, I train with weights for 6 days a week and do 3-5 cardio session per week.

Typically my day starts with a strong coffee like most of the Indians do. Then I spend about an hour in orkut, answer peoples through scraps and answer people in discussions. Then I have my breakfast and leave to office and I train in the evenings and come back home.

I train at my office gym and Masters Gym.

Being an IT professional how do you manage the time for your passion? Did you ever thought to take your passion as your full time profession?

I believe that if you love something you won’t be able to stay away from it and you will surely make time for it. When an It professional can make out time for fun and family why not for his passion???

What more a person can expect – “Passion becoming work and getting paid for it”. Yeah I will have an eye on it, but as of now I am happy with whatever I am doing.

What do you think about future of body building and body builders of India, if compared to the international arena? Do you think, this sport is taken seriously both by the sports authority and the enthusiasts?

Future is always uncertain, but I wish to bring in a change in the bodybuilding arena. In India we don’t get much attention to sports other than cricket. But slowly the sport of bodybuilding is also crawling its way up…

The sport is definitely taken seriously by all the athletes. Let me give you an example… “A bodybuilder spends about 150-200 Indian Rupees per day for 8-12 weeks of his contest preparation. The prize money that he takes home is no more than 5000 Indian rupees. It is sheer passion that the iron warriors put up without expecting anything in return.

In International area we don’t have many achievements because we do not have any sponsors for our sport like any other sports in India. Provided the money and moral support, Indians can be on top of not only bodybuilding but any given sport.

Having a six pack abs, a muscular biceps and a broad chest is always a biggest dream or a target for most of the gym going Indians youths. You must have experienced this while answering people everyday isn’t? What is your answer or a tip to have a firm and muscular build?

Yes. I get many repetitive questions daily. That was the reason for starting my own blog so that I can write about the common things and I need not answer the same thing day in and day out. But still I will explain things in short for you…

Each individual is different and one has to read his body while taking up any physical activities and make necessary changes. Initially you won’t be able to read the body and that is the reason why I advise you to get a good coach in the beginning.

There is no secret formula for muscular body and looks. You are what you eat and how you work. After all that is how our genetics evolved. So train hard, avoid junk food, Eat plenty of good foods rich in protein and fiber like chicken, eggs, vegetables, low fat milk products, seasonal fruits etc.

And one more thing, don’t be a copy cat. Don’t copy the diet and workout of your hero as you may have an entirely different genetics compared to him. So choose and follow what suits best for you and not for your hero.

In one of my questions above, I asked you about the time management but forgot to mention your online activities which are mostly in different body building and fitness communities on orkut, writing and updating your own blog and answering people by scrap messages and emails. Please tell us which are those main orkut communities you participate actively and what benefits you get being online? Is it a waste of time or a constructive use of time?

Had that been a waste of time you won’t be talking to this complete stranger rite???

Let me tell you one thing straight, more than learning in the gym I learn a lot from the net. It makes me think from different angle and allow me to innovate my workouts. At times people ask me questions about things which I don’t know. But that gives me a direction to learn something new. So staying online is like a meditation for me. It’s a wonderful learning experience and what more would you want when you can solve someone problem and make his life happy?

I don’t restrict myself to communities but make sure that I visit all the communities that I own and moderate like, Dorian Yates fan club, Google gym exercise, Nutrition questions answered, Gyan guru and couple of my fan clubs started by my orkut friends.

Other than this I participate in answering questions in Yahoo Answers, internet discussion boards especially in Milos Sarcev discussion board.

You are famous by the name “Biglee”, who gave you this name and how?

I was one of the big guys in my college and locality. So at times they used to call me Big Murali which slowly got transformed into biglee.

From the day you started pumping in gym till today, your journey was full of excitement, success and lots of hard works and training. Who trained you in all this way and how supportive was your family and friends? Any thanks giving message to them?

Though people see bodybuilding is an individual sport, I see it as a team sport and I have to thank a lot of people for that. I will mention some of the most important people here.

First of all I thank God for giving me a wonderful family. My mom, dad and brother are three pillars of my life not only in bodybuilding but for my very existence.

Next I want to thank my best friend Sandhya who supports and motivates me right from my college days.

I thank my first coach who thought me bodybuilding – Mr. M. Arasu, Former Mr. India and national coach.

I want to thank Orkut!!! Why? Murtuza my orkut friend called me one day and told that he can help me in overcoming my weak points and motivated me and stood as a guardian angel guiding me through my training and diet.

I want to thank my team (Murtuza, Lakshmi Kumar & Shrimathi) for working wonders in my bodybuilding career.

Any hobbies other than body building?

I generally like to discuss about fitness online, writing blogs and learning about bodybuilding. Also I do all kinds of pass time like movies, music, chats etc.

What is your ultimate goal in life?

For any bodybuilder Mr. Olympia would be the ultimate goal, so is mine. But as I said earlier, I and my team believe in going one step at a time. So I am working towards Nationals now and will slowly climb my way towards it.

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