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The Gym owner fixed me with his most serious gaze and looking,
me straight in the eye, said, ‘You realise he had to take the day off school to have these pictures taken!’ I stopped loading film.
Take the day off school! Who do you mean?’ The proprietor
nodded towards the short but muscular figure that had just emerged from the men’s changing rooms. ‘Why Ian, of course.’ I blinked, then frowned. ‘You’re kidding.’ ‘Yes ‘ said the gym
owner, his face splitting into a
broad grin, I am.

Ian Duckett will be one of those ‘evergreen’ individuals, you can tell that just by looking at him. He’s got one of those bodies that can metabolise anything and a face that will simply refuse to age. He’s the
sort that will be asked to relinquish his seat on the bus after collecting his pension!

Born 23 years ago in Shropshire,
at an early age he moved with his family to Bridligton. Ian spends his time away from the gym waking people just after sunrise by
clanking bottles together and whistling loudly. He’s a milkman! ‘

I used to work in a shop,’ he explains. ‘But it wasn’t conducive to the bodybuilding lifestyle. I used to finish late sometimes and very
often finished training wanting to
do more but not having the
energy. Now my body clock has adjusted to getting up early everyday, being a competitive bodybuilder, I can train twice a
day when required, no problem.’

He now lives in Driffield with his girlfriend, Sharon, in circumstances that he describes as ‘perfection’. When talking about the ten miles from Bridlington to Driffield, he makes it sound a bit like he had uprooted himself from Beirut and settled in California!

When I first moved to Driffield I got a job in the gym where I now train, although it was then under a different management. Unfortunately, as a business it failed, so I was jobless and subsequently homeless. But then I met Sharon, got a new job and we bought a house. To cap it all, the gym re-opened and you’ll never guess where Sharon works,
a chicken processing plant!

At school I was always good at running, I could do ten miles
without breaking into a sweat. I
only weighed about six stone and was the proverbial target for sand
in the face!

One of the teachers was a bodybuilder and hand balance,
and he always wore short-sleeved shirts. I can remember staring at
his arms throughout every one of his lessons thinking, “I wish I could have arms like that”. It was then that I started doing a bit of hand balancing with him during the mid-day break.

‘Because of my body weight I soon got the hang of it,
but I felt that I needed more strength so began bodybuilding
at home in the evening. I don’t have any proper weights, so I
made some with a broomstick with bricks tied on the end. I did pullovers with an old started motor, shrugs with the bed, chins on the tree in the garden, regular press-ups and this all culminated in my investing in a set of chest expanders!

I began buying bodybuilding magazines to size up the competition in local shows and by the time I was seventeen, I won
the EFBB under 18 Yorkshire Championships.

Some time after that, I entered one of Ken Latham’s shows. At that time Ken was still with the EFBB and even though I hadn’t placed in the top three, he came backstage and asked me if I would like to go through to the junior finals. Since those early school days, I had gained four stone and was
pleased with my condition, so readily accepted his invitation.
‘

Two weeks later was when the
gym closed down. This left me
with nowhere to prepare, so I was forced to do a double split in a friend’s bedroom who had a bar and about a hundred and forty pounds in discs!

I ended up shrinking through a combination of over-dieting, lack
of proper facilities and depression. This was the year that George Barrow won and I can remember watching him take his sweats off prior to pumping up, looking at his hamstrings and thinking, “What
am I doing here?” I ended up coming in about 3rd from last.

I carried on entering the odd show here and there, but my heart was never really into it. The judges would come up to me afterwards and say, “Keep at it, you need
more size!” But what I wad gaining in a years, those on drugs were gaining in a month. It was then
that I discovered the ANB, the association of bodybuilders that train drug free.

‘I won the ANB Northern Finals novice class and then went through to the British Natural Championships, again the novice class, and won that too!’

Whilst this interview was in
progress, Ian had a video tape
of the ANB British Finals playing
in the background. He looked symmetrical, very muscular and ripped. He told me that on the
day of the show, he weighed just under eleven stone, not bad for someone with a super-fast metabolism that started out weighing just six! How did he do
it?

‘The biggest mistake that beginners make is to over train.
The moment they get access to comprehensive equipment, they’re in their pumping away everyday for the first couple of months. All that does is make them shrink. At the most you should train just four
days a week when trying to build size, and no more! Get in, use
good training form, hit the muscles hard, get out and rest.

With natural bodybuilding you have to allow more time for recuperation. When you’re taking drugs, your recuperative powers become virtually super-human.
‘Its strange, but in most other sports, the more you practice, the better you become. Bodybuilding is almost the reverse and it took me a while to come to terms with that fact. More is NOT better. A few days
of intense quality training spread over a week is far more beneficial that an entire seven days of
sloppy unproductive visits to the gym.

I only do about six to nine
sets for a major body part, six or
so for arms and eight to ten for legs. So a training week, starting Monday, would go something like chest, back and shoulders. Tuesday morning I’d do abs on
their own and Wednesday I’d do legs and arms. Thursday is abdominal day again. Friday is chest, back and shoulders again.
I always have Saturday off and Sunday I just look in the mirror
and decide on a weak body part
to train. The whole thing starts again on Monday.

‘

When I was trying to gain a lot of weight, I used to drink eight pints
of whole milk a day, as well as normal food, but that had little effect. Well, that’s the way it seemed, the change was so gradual.
‘Because of the Phenomenal rate that my body burns food, I have to diet on about four thousand calories. Coming up to a show, I
eat six meals a day of boiled skinned chicken, rice, potatoes and bananas.

‘As I am totally natural, supplements play a big part in my dietary regime. I take, daily, six grams of vitamin C, choline and inositol, a good potent multi-vitamin and the entire pectrum
of free-form aminos.
‘Remember, even though I’m not huge by today’s standards, I’m still a quite advanced bodybuilder in terms of the years I’ve been training. If you’re starting out, try visiting the gym just twice a week
for a month, say Monday and Thursday, training the whole body each time. This prepares the body for the more strenuous workouts to follow.
‘From there, increase your visits to three times a week, slowly adding more resistance to the bars and machine stacks as you get
stronger. After six months, you can begin to divide the body parts up and train them individually on different days.

‘I train fairly heavy for my size, I’ve done bench presses with just
under three hundred pounds and squatted five reps with three hundred and fifty pounds.
‘All my training is based around creating a physique that’s aesthetic and shapely more than massive. It’s all about invoking an illusion in the judges’ minds. Once you’re up onstage, there’s nothing tangible to use as a yardstick, so a 16-inch arm can look as impressive as a 20-inch arm, provided it’s displayed correctly.