Writing about ‘RippedGuyUK‘ recently put me in mind of our very own Oak Ridge ‘Ripped Guy’. He showed up at the Man.Power gym one day to fix the roof after some storm damage with two other guys and, by the end of that day, all three of them were set to be admitted as members. Actually, two girlfriends of his mates were admitted too, as ‘honorary boys’ and subject to our usual rules of dress code (undress code really) and stuff. So it had been a pretty productive storm.

Well, that was a few years ago now, in the timeframe in which the infamous books which I continue to ‘plug’ here are set! (There’s vol 1 to set you on the trail…click on the cover).

Meanwhile, Carlos, of Latino extraction from SoCal, duly joined us. He turned out to be an obsessive trainer (and still is), in love with his own body to the extent that he spends around five hours a day training with weights and bodyweight exercises, probably another hour in his sunbed, goes shirtless in his roofing job whenever the weather permits, including naked sunbathing on his roof at lunchtimes, and has absolutely no other features in his life.

His apartment contains weights (yes, he uses those morning and late night after his mammoth session in Man.Power), his sunbed, a small TV which he hardly watches and very little else. There’s a table and chair in his kitchenette, a small supply of food from which fat and carbs are largely barred, and miniscule cooking facilities. Oh, and yes, he does have a bed.

For years now this has been his lifestyle. He is amicable ennough with his workmates, friendly in our gym, but seems to have no other friends, no sex life (of any persuasion), and is seemingly in love with his own body.

That body, I have to say, is as perfect as they come. Ripped is not the word. ‘RippedGuyUK’, you have competition here, big time! Narcissistic, or just dedicated? You decide.

He’s willing enough to get naked like most of us do in this rather private gym setup, and to wrestle us after his training if we offer it (and, wow, that’s a great experience for gay guys like us!) but never, never, ever, have we seen him the least bit… ahm… ‘aroused’. It just doesn’t enter into his equation.

What we have done is persuade him to take up modelling, in which he has been extremely successful. It has provided him with a larger income than roofing – which, however, he refuses to give up because he enjoys it. Much larger, in fact . Now he works on his exceptionally slim and ripped body to keep it looking at its best for the catalogues and other stuff in which he appears. We tried modelling briefly (Vol 3!) but it was not really our thing.

So Carlos remains a great mate and good company in the gym. But could we count him as a friend? I hope so but, after more than seven years now, I’m honestly not sure. But he enjoys his solitary life, so good luck to him. I just hope that his skin, long-term, will withstand the extraordinary amounts of UV he pumps into it – beyond the reasonable, in my view, but there’s going to be no stopping him. We use it occasionally to look good for performance, but that’s all. Oh, but of course, we go shirtless whenever we can – natural sunlight being infinitely preferable to those machines!

So that’s Carlos’s world, and here are a few more ripped guys to enjoy:

Enough inspiration for now to get you on the weights? No? OK, one more for today..