I started training at home in Lima, Peru, inspired by the pictures and information found in the Spanish language versions of Weider's Muscle Builder and Hoffman's Strength and Health. I used a limited set of barbell and dumbells at home for 7 years until I joined a commercial gym and started competing soon thereafter.

Starting my teens I was a very skinny and sickly kid. When I saw the physiques of Steve Reeves in the movies and the champions of the 60's in the magazines I knew that was how I wanted to look when I grew into a man. I was always precociously intellectually developed and found that bodybuilding gave me the proper tools to provide my mind with a body to match. Practicing the bodybuilding discipline gave me physical power, confidence, and increased my self-steem.