CANADIAN PHYSIQUE ALLIANCE DECEMBER ISSUE | Page 47

Sassy
Page 33
Teen Magazine
https://youtu.be/NVv2T8CXUaE?
list=PL832B344FF23F7E25
McCann’s dedication to bodybuilding won him
international recognition and his story has
inspired many individuals to start their own
fitness journey. At the peak of his career, a well-
known woman in the bodybuilding industry
took notice of McCann.
As the winner of the 1999 IFBB World
Championships and five-time competitor on the
Olympia stage, IFBB Pro Laura Binetti humbly
guided McCann to accomplish what he
thought he was incapable of.
“I took him under me,” She says. “And it was an
honor for me to train him because he was my
first wheelchair client, and I learned a lot just
from feedback from him.”
There were challenges with finding creative
ways for the wheelchair-bound McCann to get
the results he was after, she says. She prepared
diet and custom workout routines for him.
“I know what it takes to become a champion,
and it is triple the amount of work for a
wheelchair athlete. We just go into a machine,
but they have to get themselves out of the
wheelchair, into a machine, strap themselves
in, have someone hand them the weights. It is
a huge process, but it is unbelievable at how
trained he is in doing it all himself.”
McCann has always been a positive person,
she says, but he was often frustrated by the
politics of bodybuilding, the exclusion of
some competitors for reasons beyond their
control – such as the kind of disability with
which he has struggled.
Something as simple as going to dinner with
friends is, for him, fraught with challenges.
“If I can’t get in there on my own, I won’t go
in,” he says, “But that is just me. I don’t think
people should have to carry me up a flight of
stairs to get into a restaurant.”