Is this the most ripped man at Yale? Meet Pawan Vin Lapborisuth

Bodybuilder Pawan Vin Lapborisuth is the one of the most muscular men on campus – and he’s an accomplished neurologist at the cutting edge of brain imaging.

The six foot, 240 pound hunk started lifting in ninth grade and entered his first bodybuilding competition last year.

Bangkok-born Pawan, 21, eventually wants to go pro – but for now he’s focusing on frontline research into brain activity-controlled prosthetics.

We chatted to the muscular stud, who can deadlift 495 pounds (the average weight of a vending machine) about his efforts on the stage and in the lab – including overcoming a heart condition to compete.

Pawan in action

How did you get into bodybuilding?
I was about nine years old and I saw this bodybuilding article in the newspaper back home in Thailand was like, “that is what I want to be”. I obviously didn’t act on it back then. But as a nerd in high school my mom said “if you win the International Science Olympian Competition, I’ll buy you an iPhone”. And I got the gold medal. So I look at it and I was like ‘mom, for the same amount of money that you’re going to spend on an iPhone for me can I just get a bench set and weights at the house instead’ and she was like, “fine”. That’s how I started lifting.

That just kept going and I kind of took a break freshman year. I wanted to try something different and so I did rugby for a year. But I didn’t end up liking it that much because I got too many injuries: I broke my finger, I hurt my shoulders multiple times, so I was like “OK, no, none of that anymore”. And that freshman summer I went to a bodybuilding show to watch it for the first time and I thought, “that’s really what I want to do”. From that point on I got serious about it and so the rest was history.

How much can you lift?
That’s such a hard question to answer.

What’s your max?
I don’t max out usually nowadays, but I have done 340 on bench, I have squatted 405, I deadlifted 495 pounds.

Pawan in freshman year and now

So you could bench two of me. Does your heart condition affect your fitness?
Well, after that happened [being hospitalized for Atrial Fibrillation, an irregular heartbeat] I started doing more cardio, I wasn’t eating like shit or anything, there was no reason why I would’ve gotten that. They didn’t give me any reason why I got it either because it usually only happens to people over 60. It’s not life threatening if it happens, because it can switch back to normal but it can lead to blood clots which can go back to your artery, clog it and that will be life threatening.

What’s the most challenging thing about body building?
I think the diet is the hardest part, because before a show you have to diet for like four months.

Posing is fucking hard, as an audience you wouldn’t have thought, oh how hard is it to flex right. It’s a science in and of itself. I got a posing coach and luckily he is super well known but he lives in New Haven, which is awesome. He said ‘OK, your feet have to be this many inches apart at this angle for this pose’ and we went through seven poses. He coached me for six hours just for seven poses.

Pawan before bodybuilding

And now

What’s your diet?
Usually you’re only allowed to eat out once a week and your diet has to be strict, it’s usually rice, chicken, eggs almonds, veggies and fish.

No alcohol?
Before the competition I did not drink for five months.

What about your water intake?
Water intake doesn’t really matter: I drink normal water like everyone else, except for the day before a show. That’s when you cut out water. The day before is horrible. What I did the week before is cut out carbs completely, zero carbs for three or four days.

Was the competition you did this past summer the first one you’ve done?
I did one before, one last year in March 2014, in Manhattan. I got fourth in the teen class when I was nineteen years old.

What’s that tanning stuff you use?
There’s a sponsored tanning salon that does tanning at the show. Imagine a super pale blonde guy, they have to do like three layers of tanning. For me I just have to do two. I have to do it the night before. If you’re a super white guy you have to do it the morning before the day of the show, the night before and the morning of the show. I just did the night before and the morning of the show and basically you just strip naked because you’re not wearing much during the show.

It helps because it shows your definition better. I don’t necessarily agree with it but it’s a standard. I was trying not to get the oil but the girl who was doing the tanning was like, ‘No I’m not letting you go out on stage without the oil’ and she sprayed PAM on me. You feel gross as shit, it’s spray tan and PAM! You literally can’t touch anything because when you touch something it turns that color.

Pawan on the left, covered in PAM

So who judges the competitions?
The National Physique Committee organizes the show and the judges. The show itself has different things, it has like men’s physique, men’s bodybuilding, women’s bodybuilding, women’s bikini, four or five different things.

For body building they judge your symmetry, structure, the structure of your body, does it look good, conditioning – how ripped you are basically – and size of muscle.

Now I’m going to ask about your sciency stuff. What’s your major? 
Biomedical Engineering.

I know you gave a talk this past weekend, what’s the research you’re doing?
I work in a brain imaging lab. And what I’m working on right now is a project trying to help people missing hands. We want them to be able to control their prosthetics using only their brain activity. So we have people imagine squeezing and then have a real time feedback of their brain activity show on a screen so that we can have a program which trains them how to imagine squeezing correctly.

In the lab

How do you see bodybuilding going forward in your future, is it going to be a hobby or do you have a certain goal you want to reach with it?
As of right now, it’s a hobby but I do want to turn pro eventually. The shows I did are local shows, and then you go on to national shows, and if you win a national show you turn pro.

What do people think about it, what are their reactions?
Most people think its cool, I don’t have any disgusting reaction to it but I assume people think its cool. In the background I don’t know what they say about me. My family thought it was weird at first, but then they came around and they’re supportive of it.

Shredding progress

How do you determine your workouts? You must work out a lot
I lift five days a week, about an hour and a half each. I do cardio like twenty minutes, six days a week, but that varies running or something else. I love leg day.

Me too because I can do it! That’s all the questions I have do you have anything else interesting you’d like to share?
That’s pretty much it, I don’t know if this is appropriate to bring up but it’s also interesting to be openly gay in the bodybuilding community. I’m open about it, I’m not in the closet or whatever. Most people I know who do bodybuilding are not openly gay, so I don’t know how it would play out.

I don’t announce it at the competition but I do go with my boyfriend and I kiss him stuff like that. I don’t hide it but most people I know are not gay. There are some who have come out to support gay bodybuilders but it would be interesting to see if I go up higher in the ranks, if that will change anything.

Does anyone ask? What’s the community like at these shows? 
I actually talk to people and I mean everyone is super dehydrated and tired, as is always the case at the shows. But I still talk and people are generally friendly and most people know we share the same passion. We’re all tired and we bond over that. Some people keep to themselves, its not exactly super cutthroat. People battle it out on stage but not off.