THE
TALLEST
BODYBUILDER
IN THE WORLD
AARON REED
A
aron Reed. 6’7”
and 305lbs. A 9 x
NPC champion and
a force to be
reckoned with. But it wasn’t
always that way. The Super
League Pro star suffered
with Leukaemia as a child,
leaving him looking thin and
malnourished.
“I hated the fact I looked like a
weakling,” Aaron says. “All I knew
was that I wanted to change that. I
never wanted to be called skinny
again. I set my sights on becoming a
bodybuilder.”
Aaron grew up in a typical Ameri-
can family. It was important to be
big and strong and to be good at
sports.
“My parents pushed me towards
basketball, but I was especially
interested in football,” he says.
At the age of 12, Aaron was
introduced to lifting.
“To the surprise of my family, I was
better at weight training than my
older brother,” he recalls. “Even at a
48
FLEX | APRIL 2018
///
BY DARREN NICHOLHURST
///
PHOTOGRAPHS BY LUIS A BATTISTINI
HE WAS KNOWN FOR BEING A
WEAKLING, NOT ANYMORE! THIS
9X NPC CHAMPION AND SUPER
LEAGUE PRO IS A FORCE BIGGER
THAN NATURE ITSELF.
young age, I could bench over 52
kilos and was deadlifting 136 kilos
very comfortably. From the moment
I first picked up a weight, I just knew
I was born to lift,” he says.
Having discovered something he
had a real aptitude for, Aaron knew
it was time to get the right guidance
in order to develop his talent.
“Thankfully, my friend Gus Handke
took me under his wing, and that
was when my eyes truly opened to
the world of bodybuilding and the
potential it had to change my
physique and my outlook on life,” he
says. “Gus was my mentor. He was
the person who made me see what
was possible. He even took me to
see Flex Wheeler guest pose at a
show in Normal, Oklahoma. Wit-
nessing that in awe got me more
hooked than I’d ever thought
possible.”
Like so many aspiring teens,
Arnold Schwarzenegger was
Aaron’s first real idol. He knew
Arnold was known for being tall with
a huge frame to fill and recognised
that if he could do it, it must be
possible.
“I didn’t want to be treated like the
weak kid anymore, so I set my
sights on becoming the very
definition of strength,” he says. “I
promised God as a child that I would
never waste my size. God had