Craig Titus Video

Physique photographer Mitsuru Okabe’s cineflex-verité study of Craig Titus’ preparation for and ultimate victory at the ’96 USA is an excellent examination of what it takes in the gym to be a top contender. Shot mostly at Gold’s, Venice, “C.T.: The Video” chronicles the 5’8”, 232-pound Heavyweight’s training, starting with a chest workout at the end of April, 59 days out from the show, and finishing with his last high-rep upper-body session, performed five days out. To put it mildly, Craig Titus fans are going to love this tape.

“Let’s kick it!” Titus says as he heads into the gym. And kick it he does. In the weeks leading up to the June 28 USA battle, we see him pummeling every bodypart, and we get to check his progress along with him as he squeezes and poses the target muscles after every blood-pumping set.

Okabe’s camera projects a good sense of the electric energy that permeates Gold’s, Venice, and captures the champ from every conceivable interesting angle while still letting you note the details of how he trains. We see him in the kitchen, cooking a steak, and in his Jeep cruising around Venice, but mostly we see him in the gym, whipping the weights with the intensity of a man who’s down to 112 grams of carbs a day and still chanting “U.S.A.,” as he pounds out the reps. The suspense builds as competition day nears, and Titus comes to the gym with his physique increasingly more covered.

For the most part Titus doesn’t say much (a benefit because some of the dialogue is hard to hear due to technical difficulties). He does explain a few key points, however; for example, why he doesn’t squat in the off-season (it’s bad for the back and leaves you prone to injuries) but does include lighter-weight squats in his precontest routine (to get out the interstitial fat in his legs and sharpen the glute/ham tie-ins). He also describes his contest-week carb-loading scheme, and we see the results in the contrast between a segment shot in the Gold’s posing room just before he started to load carbs and another shot a couple of days later, when his back was filled out and all muscles were full, hard and cut. The tape closes with a montage of the face-off between Titus and Tom Prince at the USA, bringing the story full circle.

At 88 minutes, however, the video is a bit too long—which might not be a problem for some people—and there’s that difficulty with the sound. Still, “Craig Titus: The Video” is head and delts above many of the champ tapes on the market today. This is definitely one for the bodybuilding fan’s video shelf.

Pros: An excellent record of a bodybuilding champ’s road to victory; a bonanza for Craig Titus fans.

Cons: It’s a little long, and there’s a slight problem with the audio.

Craig Titus DVD

Craig Titus / The Video version 2.1 dvd Approx. 62 minutes + 1 minute extra single disc dvd Released : Aug. 16th, 2006 Originally Released : July 1998

Availability: In Stock