Prison appealed to Melvin Anthony and his teenage peers. It may have held the dregs of humanity, but it also held the promise of a big bad physique. Melvin confesses, "I'm a product of the city, and where I come from, which is the lower-middle-class neighborhoods of Sacramento and Riverside, California, if a guy was big, he that way in prison. We were told that all they do in there is lift weights, so we naturally assumed that if we wanted to get big, we'd have to go to prison.

"most people to reps until they feel the pump stop. That's ridiculous."

"Having the best body in the neighborhood was important. It gave you bragging rights. Life was very competitive, and everybody, in order to survive, had to have some sort of bragging rights. If you were a better basketball player that the next guy, you got bragging rights. If you were the biggest bad-ass, you got bragging rights. They didn't hate you for it; they just knew that you were the bomb. You could talk smack, but you could back it up too. You had bragging rights.

"That's all we saw, and that's all we thought about. No matter what it took, you had to earn those bragging rights. Lots of my childhood friends are still out there doing their thing, still drinking beer, doing drugs; and lots of others are dead. One of my friends got shot in the head, trying to get his bragging rights."

At 13, Melvin was peering over the abyss into the most dangerous and impressionable period of life, when along came strong, the theophany that altered Melvin's destiny. Melvin didn't know Strong's real name. He only knew that Strong had never been to prison, yet was bigger than most of the guys who had; and strong had an eye for genetics. Spying Melvin, he barked, "Hey, kid, you got a physique, man. You can do it. All you need is the discipline to get yourself into the right gym, eat right and train right."