Bodybuilder Hopes to be Strong Role Model for Young Jews

Yaakov Bar Am, senior fitness coordinator and personal trainer at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Baltimore, demonstrates a weight machine in the fitness center at the Owings Mills JCC, Jan. 11, 2017. (Photo by Steve Ruark)

Yaakov Bar Am doesn’t carry his business card in his wallet. Instead, the 53-year-old fitness trainer and bodybuilder uses a more direct approach to get his message across.

“My body is my business card,” says Bar Am, senior fitness coordinator for personal training at the Owings Mills and Park Heights Jewish Community Centers.

Bar Am’s heavily muscled arms and torso are the envy of even the most hardcore gym rats. “People are impressed,” he says. “They can’t believe how strong I am. The young kids say, ‘I want to be like you.’”

In addition to working at the JCC, Bar Am competes in the “classic physique” division of men’s physique competitions, a type of bodybuilding contest where participants are judged on criteria ranging from musculature to confidence and stage presence.

So far, Bar Am has placed in every event he’s entered, including the 2016 Maryland State Championships for Men’s Physique held at the Hippodrome Theatre.

“I was always in love with bodybuilding,” says Bar Am, who started lifting weights in 1977 after watching “Pumping Iron,” the iconic bodybuilding documentary featuring Arnold Schwarzenegger. “My chest and biceps got bigger and my confidence went up.”

Yaakov Bar Am, senior fitness coordinator and personal trainer at the JCC of Greater Baltimore, demonstrates a weight machine in the fitness center at the Owings Mills JCC, 2017. (Photo by Steve Ruark)

After wrestling in high school, Bar Am’s athletic pursuits took a backseat to work. Still, Bar Am says he always harbored a desire to return to bodybuilding.

In 2006, Bar Am moved to Pikesville from North Carolina with his wife, Maia, and their three daughters to live in the Orthodox community here. (The family now has six children.)

“I immediately gained 60 pounds,” says Bar Am. “I was ashamed of myself.” At his peak, Bar-Am packed 200 pounds on his 5-foot-8 frame. He resolved to weigh the same as he did in college, a lean 138 pounds.

In 2011, Bar-Am embarked on his fitness odyssey. Searching the internet, he found Beachbody, a home fitness and nutritional program. Working out to videos and following a careful diet, results came quickly.

“I lost close to 50 pounds in about three months,” says Bar Am. “I got my life back.”

Bar Am’s physical transformation dovetailed with his leaving behind a sedentary corporate job. But losing weight and gaining back his fitness wasn’t enough.

“The only way for me to keep improving was to compete,” says Bar Am. “In January of 2015, I made up my mind that I have to have a great body for people to take me seriously.”

Bar Am hired a coach to guide him through the arduous training needed for his first bodybuilding contest. Soon, he was bench-pressing more than 250 pounds and hoisting more than 700 pounds on the leg press.

“I can generally do the whole stack of everything [in the gym],” says Bar Am, whose workouts can last up to three hours.

Yaakov Bar Am
Yaakov Bar Am (Photo by Steve Ruark)

To be a competitive bodybuilder, Bar Am needed to bulk up to 175 pounds. That meant eating 2 pounds of kosher meat a day plus lots of potatoes, rice and downing handfuls of supplements.

“My training is designed to build muscle mass, not just to get strong,” says Bar Am. “The goal is to be big.

“During Purim, I didn’t eat one hamantaschen,” says Bar Am, whose only day off from working out is Shabbat. For someone who needs 4,000 calories a day, Yom Kippur is a challenge. “When your metabolism is that high, to go without food is really awful,” he says.

While getting fit is an admirable goal, not everyone is cut out for bodybuilding’s rigors.

“It takes a special person to do this,” says Richard Siegleman,, a former bodybuilder and undercover police officer who owns Pro-Am Physique Productions in Hanover, Md. “You’re basically telling the audience, ‘Look at me. Look how I transformed my body.’”

For Bar Am, bodybuilding is a lifetime sport. “I love this lifestyle,” he says. “I hope to be competing into my 70s.”

Bar Am says bodybuilding sends a positive message for everyone, especially Jews.

“I want to show you can be a good Jew, be physical and live a kosher lifestyle,” says Bar Am “God gave us beautiful bodies.”

Top photo: Yaakov Bar Am, senior fitness coordinator and personal trainer at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Baltimore, demonstrates a weight machine in the fitness center at the Owings Mills JCC. (Photo by Steve Ruark)

Jill Yesko is a Baltimore-based freelance writer.

 

 

 

 

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