Nana Manu finishing fourth of 19 in the welterweights at the Amateur Arnold Classic to earn the right to go pro and stake a claim to be the UK's most successful competitor of recent times.
Who is Britain’s most successful bodybuilder of the last five years? Eddie Abbew, Mike Sheridan, James ‘Flex’ Lewis, John Hodgson and Lee Powell are all contenders for competing at the Olympia. Sheffield super-heavyweight Zack Khan has certainly made an impact while Shaun Joseph-Tavernier and James Llewellin have become two-time UK champions. But one man who often gets overlooked is Nana Manu, who has won three UK titles at two different weights yet remains relatively unknown.
Nana became UK lightweight king in 2005 then stepped up to take the middleweight crown in 2006 – no mean feat considering he was taking on guys up to 10 kg heavier than those he had been up against twelve months earlier, and was one of the lightest in the category. He re-emerged last year to win the middleweight title for a second time before finishing fourth of 19 in the welterweights at the amateur Arnold Classic to earn the right to go pro and stake a claim to be the UK’s most successful competitor of recent times.
Nana’s success is due to a combination of hard work and some of the best genetics you will ever see. Everything flows in the manner that all bodybuilders aspire to, yet very few can ever hope to achieve. He has been described as Britain’s answer to Flex Wheeler and although it might be sacrilege to compare anyone to the peerless Wheeler, Nana – with the possible exception of Joseph-Tavernier – is the closest thing British bodybuilding currently has to genetic perfection.
He might not get the plaudits he deserves but he certainly has the respect of his contemporaries. Some very good British bodybuilders have altered their competition plans specifically to avoid him, knowing that if he turns up in shape they can’t possibly beat him. Only one Brit has ever defeated Nana in a UKBFF event and that was Lee Williams – another underrated lighter guy – back in 2004. Nana still bristles when that result is mentioned and says he would love the chance to avenge it.
So why isn’t he as well known as any of the competitors mentioned at the start of the article? The answer is simple – size. We don’t mean a lack of muscle – he has plenty of that – but a lack of inches. At 5’ 2” tall Nana will never have the freak factor like a Dennis Wolf or a Toney Freeman and bodybuilding fans do like to see a freak. So while 280 pound Zack has whipped up a storm in America, 168 pound Nana remains relatively unknown beyond these shores.
With that in mind, where does he go from here? Well, the introduction of the 202 pound class and the UKBFF’s relaxation on the rules governing pro eligibility has breathed new life into Nana’s career. The UKBFF decided last year that all weight class winners at the UK Championships that go on to finish in the top five at the amateur Arnold Classic the following year can turn pro. Nana’s victory in Nottingham last year and his subsequent fourth place in Columbus, Ohio, this spring earned him the right to do this. What’s more, the existence of a 202 pound pro class means that if he chooses to take up the option he won’t have to worry about coming up against guys a foot taller and a 100 pounds heavier than him.
But is it the best option? The problem for Nana is that even in the 202 pound class he could still be giving away up to 25 pounds to his rivals and as recent 202 contests have shown, size counts. Another option is to stay amateur and break every record in the book at national level and represent the UK at events like the World Championships, the European Championships and the Arnold. But it’s every bodybuilder’s dream to turn pro and Nana is no different. “Competing as a pro is all I have ever wanted to do,” he says. “All I can say to anyone who doubts me is: wait till you see me. I have never had a full year off before. I normally have five months off after competing then I start dieting again. This year I am taking a full year off to grow and make some improvements then I will compete in 2011.”
Nana talks as a man who is used to overcoming the odds. Born in Ghana, he started working out with weights when he was 12 years old and moved to the UK when he was 17. “My dad is a printer in Ghana,” he says. “I came here to learn printing and engineering.” At first he lived with relatives in London but he moved to Yorkshire in 1996 and has remained there ever since. He now lives in Pontefract and has a bona fide West Yorkshire accent.
Because of work and family – Nana is married with children and until recently worked as an engineer – he didn’t train at all for five years and only got serious again when he was 28. But the dream never died. “I always wanted to be a bodybuilder,” he says. Things started to click after he met well-known Doncaster bodybuilder Dayo Audi in 2003. “Dayo asked me if I had ever thought about competing,” says Nana. “He saw potential in me and started training with me. Until then I had never trained my legs. He said I should train for 12 months then have a go next year.”
True to his word, Dayo prepared Nana for his competition debut in 2004, which he won. Later that year he switched federations to the UKBFF, where he won a regional show in Mansfield and a few weeks later placed second to Lee at the national finals and then did the British amateur Grand Prix. By now he was hooked. “Being on stage was just magical,” he says. “Everything went according to plan. I loved the training, the discipline and the commitment.”
From the beginning of his competitive career Nana harboured two dreams: to become an IFBB pro and to open his own gym. They’re common dreams but not commonly achieved. But Nana is different. He quit his job to open Nana Manu’s Xtreme Muscle and Health gym in Sharlston, near Pontefract but until as little as two years ago his chances of getting a pro card didn’t look good. It wasn’t that he wasn’t good enough; it was more a case of the rules not suiting smaller guys.
Until then the UKBFF only awarded one pro card a year to the overall national champion and that invariably went to the monsters. Lightweight overall champions were, and still are, rarer than controversy-free Olympias. When Nana won his first national title in 2005, weighing 70 kg, the overall went to heavyweight Paul Delahaye. “That year was so hard,” he says. “I had to lose muscle to come in under 70 kg. I knew I had to do the 80 kg class after that.”
When Nana returned as a middleweight in 2006 he weighed just 73 kg and his decision to move up a weight seemed to have backfired when the competitors filed on stage. Others were clearly bigger than him but genetic freaks like Nana have the ability to make everything pop out when they pose and during the comparisons he looked as big as the others, who couldn’t match his shape, or his small joints and 26-inch waist. When he did his trademark back double biceps pose it was game over but then he was beaten by another heavyweight, Troy Brown, in the battle for the overall.
Nana then drifted away from the UKBFF scene for a couple of years until the new rules presented new opportunities. “For me it was all about getting my pro card and improving my physique,” he says. A strangulated hernia prevented him competing in 2008 but he tuned-up for his return in 2009 by winning the middleweights at the UKBFF North-East Championships in Leeds. At the UK finals three weeks later old rival Tony Bailey led after the first day’s pre-judging but Nana tightened up overnight to storm through and become a three-time UK champion. Super-heavy Zack Khan took the overall but this time Nana had the consolation of knowing that the Arnold five months later presented him with a second opportunity to turn pro.
He flew to Columbus with one goal – top five. That was all he needed to fulfil his dream. It proved to be the trip of a lifetime. “Being at the Arnold was mind-blowing,” he says. “I couldn’t pick one highlight. The whole thing was a highlight. I saw Arnold but didn’t get the chance to have my picture taken with him.” Despite the distractions he stayed focused on competing. “Prejudging was over very quickly and straight afterwards you go upstairs and they put the names of everyone who has made it to the top five on the wall,” he recalls. Nana’s joy at seeing he had achieved his life’s ambition was tempered by the news that fellow Yorkshireman and good friend Pat Warner had not made the cut in the heavyweights. “I cried,” says Nana. “Not because I had got through but because Pat hadn’t. For me he was in the best condition and to not make the top five was upsetting. Pat has been so good to me and he deserved better.”
When Nana arrived back in Britain everyone was advising him whether he should turn pro but for him the issue was never in doubt. “I’ve got to prove to myself that I can do it,” he says. “Everybody is concerned about me ruining my physique but I’m not going to do that. I’m just going to get as big as I can without ruining it. I just want to give it a shot.” He did a guest spot at Kerry Kayes’ Warrington show shortly after the Arnold; since then he has taken the year off to make gains. “The main thing is to bring my legs up,” he says. “If you look at the top 202 pound pros like David Henry and Flex Lewis they have excellent legs.”
He trains two days off and two days on and keeps things simple. “I do 10 reps of three sets whatever I’m doing,” he says. “I do all basic movements with light weights, keeping everything slow and controlled. I also do a lot of super-sets, going from one machine to another.
A session usually lasts 45 to 60 minutes.” Dayo still oversees his progress. “He has been my inspiration and my mentor,” says Nana. “Without him I would not be a three-times British champion.”
He wouldn’t have made it either without the help of his wife, Andrea, who prepares his seven meals a day, or training partner Craig. Nana diets for 12 to 16 weeks. “I start with 5 oz of chicken and 4 oz of rice and green beans for most meals and when I get to five weeks out I go from chicken to turkey and from rice to potatoes. If I get hungry I drink water to fill me up.” He does 30 to 45 minutes of cardio daily in the run-up to a contest, usually on the treadmill. “It depends how much fat I have to lose,” he says. The next time he diets it will be for a pro show, probably in America. “I can’t believe it,” he says. “I thought I would get my pro card then open my gym but it went the other way. I’m living the dream.” FLEX
Nana’s training split
Day 1 - Chest and triceps
Day 2 - Back and biceps
Day 3 - Rest
Day 4 - Rest
Day 5 - Shoulders
Day 6 - Legs
Day 7 - Rest
Day 8 - Rest
Additional Images
