Card chase: it's a long brutal road to the IFBB professional ranks—here's the inside story of two pro hopefuls and their run to the 2006 NPC USA Championships

The effusive Jerome "Hollywood" Ferguson and the reserved Lionel "L-Train" Brown are as different as Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal, so it should come as no surprise that they were never really friends. However, this year, they were suddenly sort of teammates, training in the same gym (Gold's Venice) at the same time (noon) with the same trainer (Charles Glass), partner (Gunter Schlierkamp) and, for a while, the same nutritionist (Tom Prince), all for, temporarily, the same super-heavyweight class of the 2006 NPC USA Championships. FLEX was there every step of the way for this odd-couple pairing. Get up close and personal for the gut-wrenching workouts, the depths of carb depletion and the unexpected twists and tragic turns as two of the world's best amateur bodybuilders chase the elusive goal of pro status.

APRIL 3 116 DAYS OUT Brown (280 pounds) is puking in the Gold's, Venice, restroom, revisiting 60 grams of preworkout whey protein and 40 ounces of Gatorade. Under the tutelage of bodybuilding's Yoda, Charles Glass, for the previous hour, Brown, Ferguson, Gunter Schlierkamp and Glass' assistant trainer Adam Kirby hit back: one-arm dumbbell rows, front pulldowns, medium-grip low-cable rows, angled pulldown/rows and top deadlifts done in a power rack. It was the angled pulldown/rows (performed lying facedown on an incline bench, pulling down and back two handles attached to an overhead cable) that really whipped Brown. "The angle he had on that incline bench, it seemed like we were pulling those cables all the way across the gym," L-Train explains.

APRIL 5 Trying to make the gym stop spinning, Ferguson (262 pounds) lies on the floor after getting his first Glass-full of leg training. "I'm a tough guy, but [Glass] had me working. He did his voodoo on me. I couldn't get my breath, I was dizzy, and I thought I was going to puke. Every exercise was unconventional. Today, muscles are hurting that I didn't even know existed."

APRIL 7 16 WEEKS OUT Both Brown (277) and Ferguson (265) begin their diets. Prince, nutritionist for both men, sketches the early strategy: "Jerome's starting out at probably 8.5 to 9% bodyfat; Lionel's probably 12 to 13%. Lionel has a lot of work to do. I'm lowering carbs and starting out with 20 minutes of cardio a day, six days a week. I want them both to do 12 sets max per bodypart. That's one of the things I want to coordinate with Charles.

"So many people dieting for a show are trying to add muscle by taking more and more gear [drugs] and training harder and harder, and I totally disagree with that philosophy. To me, that's like trying to always score touchdowns with a long bomb or a double-reverse pitch back to the quarterback. You know what you can do that would be a lot safer? You can keep handing it off to the fullback and run straight ahead. My biggest thing is making people more efficient. Efficiency wins out. A lot of guys are overdieting, overtraining, overdrugging--always trying to push their bodies further and further. All we're trying to do is save muscle and lose fat. Don't try to do too much."

APRIL 17 It's back day, and Yoda is working all the angles again. "I want to get his lats a lot thicker," Glass says of Brown. "We need to fill his chest out, and we need a lot more details in his arms and legs. With Jerome, we need to bring out more details, more muscle qualities, and keep him full. His biggest problem is he comes all the way down and he tends to get flatter and flatter. So we're gonna increase the sets and not back off like Tom wants these guys to. I'm a firm believer that you have to keep the weights up to maintain that thickness."

APRIL 20 While Ferguson (nursing a sore shoulder) trains on his own at World Gym, Brown (270) works delts with Schlierkamp and Kirby at Gold's. "I buried Gunter," the notoriously strong L-Train affirms with a grin afterward. "He pushes me, though. He trains all-out year-round."

"Lionel is strong in the chest and shoulders," Schlierkamp avers. "But bodybuilding's not about being strong. Charles will bring out more muscle quality, and Lionel's already seeing what a difference a faster pace makes in his workouts."

APRIL 25 It's chest day, and the crew does Hammer Strength presses (incline, flat and decline), incline flyes while leaning back and dips while leaning forward. Glass says of Brown and Ferguson: "I train them different. Their foot positions and grips and things are different for each exercise. I watch 'em and I look at both of 'em and I figure out who needs what. I used to train Flex [Wheeler] and Chris [Cormier] together for the same show all the time. It's healthy competition because now they say, 'I gotta keep it up because this guy's not gonna slack off.' They'll both benefit from it, no matter what."

Afterward, Brown lunches with his wife, Myrtice, at The Firehouse and eats a Bob Bowl--two sliced steaks with grilled onions and red peppers over rice served in a bowl and named for IFBB pro Bob Cicherillo. Meanwhile, Ferguson is home forcing down a steak. He actually consumes more than usual when he's dieting. "The first couple weeks on a diet, it's hard for me to get all six meals in at the right time, so I end up eating eight or nine meals because food from some meals is left over."