WESTBROOK — For 20-year-old Asa Brum, this is a first.
He’s standing backstage at the 2015 Pine Tree State Bodybuilding, Figure & Bikini Championships, listening to the roar of the crowd of 600 avid fans at the Westbrook Performing Arts Center. A recent graduate of Maine Medical Center’s surgical tech program, Asa is competing in the men’s physique category.
“My mom just kind of wanted me to do it,” he says. “I’ve been working hard at the gym and trying to get my stuff together, so I figured I’d maybe take a shot at it.”
His mother is taking a shot at it, too. Wendy Brum, a personal trainer from Raymond who also owns a housecleaning business, is competing in women’s figure.
“The difference between the bodybuilding and the figure,” says Wendy, 48, “is that we girls, we do more of the glamorous part of it.”
Scott Fleurant, the promoter of the Pine Tree State Championship, can’t remember ever having a mother and son compete together before. “We did have one (parent and child) last year and that was a father and daughter,” Fleurant says, “but I think that was probably the only other time I’ve seen it.”
Both Wendy and Asa spent at least two hours a day at the gym for five months to get in shape.
“It’s actually like having another job,” she says.
She’s been down the road of punishing diets and daily workouts before.
She was into bodybuilding in her 20s, but that lifestyle ended with marriage and kids.
Then in 2009, her husband, Chris, was diagnosed with cancer. Wendy refused to leave his side while he was going through treatment – until he finally insisted she take a break.
“I said, ‘You gotta go live your life,'” Chris says.
So she went back to the gym after years away and lost 30 pounds.
“You see results and you just want to go for more,” she says. “Last April I went to watch a girlfriend of mine (compete) and I sat there going, ‘Can I do this?’ ”
The answer was yes.
At 7 o’clock in the morning on April 4, Wendy, Asa and Chris are standing in the kitchen of a friend’s home in North Windham.
While one friend does Wendy’s makeup, another gets ready to style her hair.
“Yeah, you go from gym rat to diva,” she says as she checks the thick, black eyeliner that’s just been applied to make her light-green eyes pop.
A few feet away, Chris pours a dollop of what looks like furniture polish on a white cloth and begins rubbing it on his son’s back. By the time he’s done, Asa will be bronzed from his neck to his ankles.
“Chris, go in circles,” says Wendy, who has one eye on the mirror and the other on Asa.
At 5-foot-4 and 117 pounds, Wendy is in good form for the competition. So is Asa, despite the fact that he had moments when he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stick with the program.
“I surprised myself,” he says.
Finally, 10 hours after they started their day, it’s show time.
Wendy, teetering on 5-inch heels and wearing a custom-made black bikini held together at the hips with crystal beads, waits in the wings with the other competitors in her category.
The mood backstage is businesslike and focused, even though most of the men and women milling around are dressed in outfits best described as “skimpy.”
“Nobody thinks of it as a meat market,” says Morgan Swinburne, 32, a figure competitor from Scarborough. “It’s all about the hard work. I look at someone’s body and think, ‘I know what it took to look like that.’ It’s amazing to see what your body can do. And that’s why you do it.”
Wendy takes a deep breath and waits for her cue. Seconds later, the MC steps up to the microphone.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the amazing Wendy Brum!”
For the next 60 seconds, Wendy struts across the stage to AC/DC’s “Back in Black,” stopping every few seconds to pose.
She looks confident and relaxed, but when it’s over …
“I’m still shaking. That was very nerve-wracking.”
About 30 minutes later, it’s Asa’s turn. Wearing surfer shorts and in bare feet he performs his routine – displaying muscles and tapered waistline to the crowd, but knowing that the only opinion that really counts is that of the judges.
“I think I did all right,” he says afterward, standing in a hallway next to his mother.
Wendy looks at her son, beaming.
“I’m so proud of him,” she says.
When the evening is over, Wendy holds two trophies in her arms – for a third and fourth place. Asa will go home empty-handed.
They’re both determined to compete again.
“If you’re not having fun, you shouldn’t be doing it,” she says. “And we had fun.”
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