Member Profile
Hans Hopstaken
The following is Han's biography, it was written by Hans less than a year prior to his passing. The original was lost but has been recreated so that all who knew and loved him can visit and learn more about this incredible human being.
Brian Whelan - Foothill Gym.
Biography: Hans Hopstaken IFBB Professional Bodybuilder
The following is a very personal detailed account of my journey through bodybuilding. It spans the forty-four years of my life so far from my birthplace in Holland, to life in Australia and beginning bodybuilding there. To coming to the U S, and the continuation of my chosen sport, to finally achieving pro status, and the first tentative steps into pro competition. This is the story.
SPECIAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (people that have affected my life for the better):
My girlfriend Lisa, my adopted daughter Madison, my mom and dad, Dennis George, Mike Perette, (Dennis and Mike are my current training partners), Brown, AJ Milos Sarcev, Milimar Sarcev, Douglas Cancel, Brian Whelan, Matt Sigloch, Dave Draper, Dorian Yates, Bill Pearl, Don Ross, Melvin Anthony, King Kamali, Bill Timbra, Jim Morgenstern, Molly Welsh, Rich and Gina Sayegh, Brenda Winner, Ron Weber, Jules Sanford, Dona Luce, Bruce Jones, John Cooney, Jon Jongenelen, Kevin Shuster, Eric Bough, Sierra Sutton, Phil Walsh.
“WE MAKE THE BEST PATH WITHIN THE BOUNDS OF OUR OWN RULES, AND LIVE WITH THE OUTCOME”. Hans Hopstaken.
I was born an only child, in a small town called Roosedal, in Holland, in 1957. My mom and dad, a shoemaker by trade, decided to migrate to Australia, in the hope of a better life. Life turned out to be harder, but interesting. I was nine years old when we moved, and the transition was not an easy one.
There was language, and cultural barriers to overcome, right from the start I didn’t seem to fit in too well. Life changed for me, at the age of ten or eleven, when I was in a second hand bookstore trading in my comic books. I came across and American bodybuilding magazine. It was an old copy of MUSCLE BUILDER, and it had Dave Draper on the cover. I was stunned, I had never seen anyone look like that, and I immediately decided that I’d like to be like that too.
I rushed home excited to show my parents my magazine, and tell them of my ideas. The news was not well received, my father forbid me to lift weights, and kept repeating something that he would say to me often, “just be normal”. He encouraged me to concentrate on getting just enough schooling so that I could go into the workforce, and to work hard at my part time job. (I was a dishwasher on the weekends, when I was eleven).
He was from a culture where a man was measured by his ability to work, and although I was reluctant at first, he did instill in me sound work ethic, that ended u serving me well in the very endeavor he didn’t want me to pursue.
When no one was looking, early in the morning before anyone was up, I would lift bricks, in the same way that the bodybuilders in my magazine would lift weights. I did it every morning, never missed, for the year straight. I got absolutely zero results, I didn’t understand about progressive resistance, recovery, protein, and the unlikeliest of putting on pre-puberty muscle. I was discouraged, but didn’t give up.
At around thirteen to fourteen years old, my dad had eased up on me; I had shown him go through various weekend jobs, that I wasn’t going to be lazy, so he was pleased. I started to build my actual home gym; there were no gyms, except in the big cities. So I used the photos out of the magazines, (there were two by now) to copy very rough equipment.
I was able to get a lot of what I needed at the local trash dump, wood for benches, old pipes and steel rods (inserted into pipes), to make bars for dumbbells, and barbells. All for free, it was before scavenging contracts. Weights were a difficulty, as I needed more as I got stronger, and I had no money. What I ended up doing was, walking (3 miles) to a factory that sold pre cut steel reinforcing mesh for cement slabs. As this mesh was cut to size, it would leave small lengths of waste, about the size of a cigarette butt. I would gather up as much as I could carry in bags, and walk home, invariably to discover that I had been somewhat optimistic in what I could carry for three miles. They were long trips home, with no trap or forearm work needed in the next few workouts.
The bags of scrap pieces of steel would be weighed, and sorted. I would make a mold out of we sand, carefully place the scrap in there, and then pour in a pre weighed mixture of wet cement. When it hardened, AI lifted it out of the mold (it would just fall a part), brush off the sand, and weigh again to see how accurate it turned out. Mostly, they were fairly close, well close enough that some considerable hand grinding wou8ld bring them down to the nearest pound. In the center, before pouring, I placed a short length of pipe that would be to slide the bar through. There you have it, a very crude, but cheap, barbell plate. I even managed to avoid chipping, by gluing strips of rubber (from trash dump) around outside of the bigger plates.
It took years to build the equipment, lots of trial and error. The greatest thing to come out of doing it this way was true understanding of how the body works. I had no choice. All the equipment was outside; I didn’t have a shed yet. It was interesting during the rainy season; I would put on a sleeveless old wetsuit top, and train in the rain. I couldn’t bench press well, because the rain would be getting in my eyes. I didn’t view it as a hardship; it simply was what I did.
Although I did reasonably well in school, it was not a culture where the same emphasis is placed on higher education as it is in the U S. Generally the son of a blue-collar worker would seek out an apprenticeship in one of the various trades as soon as he was of age to leave school (the legal age being fifteen). I had pre arranged to do just that, when at he last moment the contraction company that had agreed to apprentice me, reneged on the arrangement. This was really bad, because all the apprenticeships for that year had been taken. I started work instead, as a chainman (a surveyor’s helper); we worked five ten hour days, and one six to eight hour day, Sundays off.
I liked work a lot better than school; I liked taking care of myself. I moved out of home shortly after starting work. I bought a small trailer with a canvas awning, and lived in a park right near the beach. It was an ideal existence for a boy trying to be a grown up. Although I had most of my equipment in and around my trailer, I now had transport; I had bought a small (125cc) motorcycle, and was therefore able to ride a considerable distance to a gym I had heard about that had real bodybuilders.
This was big changing point for me, there were others, mostly older, mostly more experienced, but they were like me. I felt like I’d found a place to belong. I couldn’t believe how bodybuilders looked in real life; I wanted to be like them, to live like them. The gym owner told me that I had potential, and that I should compete in the next upcoming competition in the novice class. I immediately agreed, pestered the better bodybuilders into letting me train with them, and I soaked it up like a sponge. I was convinced that I would win the competition; after all, I had gotten a reputation for training harder than anyone in the gym. The more I killed myself, the more I got their respect, and acknowledgement I so badly needed.
On the day of the show I came in dead last, I was devastated, the others looked so good, and I had such a long way to go. The year was 1976, and I almost quit I’m ashamed to say. The next few years were spent with no real goal in mind, I lived a simple life. Hard work, training, and I pursued a passion for surfing. I was always the muscle guy in the local area, but nothing beyond that. In fact I was still a bit of an oddity, bodybuilding had no caught on yet, especially in the surfing community. I didn’t get many girlfriends, didn’t fit in very well with the partying lifestyle that was part of the surfing culture, but loved surfing itself like a fanatical purist.
I have had to come to grips with the fact that I’ve never been good at something naturally, it was that way with surfing, and it was that way with bodybuilding. What others could do in one year would take me two or three years. It built in me a FIRE, fueled by frustration, and a deep seeded need to prove self worth (mostly to myself). So my strength became persistence, it was the only thing I found that I was better at than anyone else.
In 1979, I opened my own gym, I had dreamed of this as a lifestyle ever since I started work. It was called the “TUGUN GYM”, after my little town of Tugun, where I lived. It was a modest affair, nothing more than a large metal shed, with a concrete floor. It was about the size of two, three car garages put together. I reasoned that if I couldn’t be the best competitive bodybuilder, I could certainly share my love for the life, and help others, at the same time as making a living doing what I love.
I spent the next for years, getting up early in the morning, going to a precast concrete slab factory, and working as a cement finisher till 3:30 pm, rushing to my gym, opening it at 4:00 pm, and working there till 9:30 pm, half hour relax, in bed by 10:00 pm in my little trailer by the beach. I did these five days per week, and then on Saturdays, I’d do a bit more private cement work for extra money. Where I grew up, money was viewed very differently than here in the U S great social stigma was attached to being able to not be in debt. Bankrupts for example, still carried community shame with it. People were responsible for there actions.
It was with great pride, that I was able to pay off my first three-bedroom house, just before my 28th birthday, mostly because of those for hard years at he gym. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
I had gotten married in 1980, her name was Deb, and she was a great person. Unfortunately, as with a lot of young marriages we grew apart. She didn’t share my love for my sport, and I didn’t fit into her much more balanced life. I still wanted to be different, still hadn’t found my true direction. She wanted a more normal life, and I was still a bit of an oddball, with a lot of social hang-ups. Both being basically good people, we did try for a long time though. (nine years), and although the end was a great shock to me, the right thing was done, and we moved our separate ways, with each other’s blessing.
Nights in the gym were great; I had a nice little clientele. Equipment was still pretty basic, but the gym had an arm curl machine, a deck deck, pulley row, lat pull down. So it was sought after by local bodybuilders to train there. It was run the old way, where the owner was also the instructor, cleaner, and everything else. On a good night, some of the sessions in there were intense. It made me want to try competition again, so I entered a show that was in the big city called Brisbane, and placed 6th in the novice division.
Although I didn’t do as well as I’d hoped, I felt like I may be able to be competitive, with more work and experience. One of the better bodybuilders in the show, who had just started training, was Sonny Schmitt, it was amazing to me, and how we could both weigh 178 lbs. But look so different. Sonny looked awesome right from the start.
I floundered around in a few competitions, and in 1983 managed a third place in a novice show. That little trophy meant so much to me; it inspired me to try even harder. I had come to a crossroads; there was a conflict with my surfing and body building. Surfing is a very physically demanding activity, on top of long workdays, and training, there was not sufficient recovery to put on the size I needed. I was doing about equal in my competitive surfing, (ok, but not great). I decided it was time to choose between them, and for once try to be really good at one thing. I chose bodybuilding, a hard choice because loved surfing. I could still do a little recreationally, but not with improvement on my mind. As a last hurrah, I traveled to the island of Bali, in Indonesia, for my last surfing trip. It was magic, paradise amongst poverty, large, and perfect, uncrowned waves, in places so isolated that you could only get there by trail bikes. When I got back home, it made the giving up of surfing easier, because of the highlight of that trip.
So 1984 was my first ever win, I won the middle weight, best back, best chest, best abs, most muscular, and overall of the local city competition. I was in heaven, for the first time in my life I felt special, and worthwhile.
Between 1984 and 1987, I competed often with varying degrees or success, ending in competing in the Australian nationals, as a light heavyweight, and placing forth.
Negativity about my sport surrounded me at home, along with the fact that I felt I’d gone about as far as my potential would allow me. I stopped competing, to try that normal life. I still trained three days per week, and always hard, (it just felt good); I also ran three days per week. I was twenty-eight, 200 lbs, in good, hard, strong shape.
To fill the void, I took up stone sculpture of all things; I really enjoyed it, even sold a few pieces, and was part of an exhibit. I tried my hand at promoting a competition in partnership with a friend that owned the gym I trained at. It went pretty well. As first prize, I had sculpted a bodybuilder, two feet high, 54lbs. This was long before the mass-produced statues currently given as trophies, so it was we received.
Then in 1989, my life abruptly changed, my wife of eight and a half years, and I split up. The details of this would be inappropriate to add to the story, in fairness to all that were involved. I was stunned, obviously too blind to see it coming. We tried for some months to work things out, but it was not to be.
I didn’t do very well at this time, and I decided that a huge change would be the best thing for the healing to commence. I had always dreamed of coming to the U S, my love for bodybuilding was not dead, it had mealy been suppressed, for what turned out to be the wrong reason. I was free to pursue bodybuilding to any degree I wanted now, and was accountable to no one but myself. Even in the hurt and confusion, there was excitement, and I started training more, and saving my money…I was going to America, and nobody but me knew, but I wasn’t going to come back.
1990, I landed in Venice Beach, quite a first impression. I stayed in a youth hostel on Brooks ave, and because I had no work permit, I would work the desk at the hostel at night, and clean in the morning for $4.25 per hour. I didn’t care, it was food money, and I was at GOLDS GYM training where the famous bodybuilders were. A funny story comes to mind. Just before finishing one of the night shifts, I was sweeping the footpath at about seven in the morning. I was tired, and not particularly happy to be doing it, when right in front of my nose, Shawn Ray and Troy Zuccolatto drove by in a convertible Rolls Royce. I was amused at my situation, considering I was thirty-three years old, considering the work I was doing, considering that I lived in a room with four other people, had no car, little money. Surely things could only go up from here.
Shortly after my arrival I met Molly, a relationship was last thing on my mind, but we were both at a certain point in our lives where we worked well together. She was ver athletic, tomboyish girl, with a great potential for bodybuilding. Although I never prompted her to start, her curiosity about what she could look like, along with the fact that her new boyfriend could show her how, made her want to try. She was a natural at it, and she found an arena where she was special and unique.
Through a pretty rocky start, our relationship grew, and we married. Our common interest in bodybuilding, and a little recreational surfing have us a strong bond. We would compete together, travel to shows together, and generally live the life together.
I was her trainer, diet advisor, coach, and husband. That would put a strain on most relationships, as it did on ours. Still we did pretty well for a long time. Slowly there crept into the relationship a feeling of something missing, we would talk about it, and dismiss it as “the way real life is”.
It slowly dawned on us that the love we felt for each other was much more like the way brother and a sister love each other. After nine years we split up, but I must say it was the most amicable arrangement of this sort I’ve ever witnessed. A most unusual situation, one that friends and family had a harder time with than we did. It was more a redefining of a relationship, than an actual loss.
We don’t regret the time together, and we have a great relationship now. We are still in each other’s lives. I love her like a sister, and I feel extremely lucky to be in a relationship now where my girlfriend Lisa, allows me my relationship with Molly. They in fact are friends, and occasionally train together. Surely, it is strange, and I thought a long time before volunteering such a personal aspect. But it spills over into the philosophy section of my web site, where great emphasis is placed on the shortness of life, and the importance to look for the good in situations. To not waste time on regret, IF you can help it.
These last paragraphs were not in the time order of the bio so far, but I thought it best to convey the thoughts clearly, and then move on. FLASHBACK MID 1990. Being somewhat disillusioned with my inability to work at a decent paying job, because of my work status (later rectified via marriage, and eventually citizenship). I was taken in by the constant talk among the youth hostel about amazing money to be made in Alaska on the fishing boats, at the time Molly and I were just boyfriend/girlfriend, so I thought why not.
I traveled to Alaska with two friends, one from South Africa, One from Zimbabwe. We arrived in Anchorage, only to find that is was very competitive getting this high paying work. Seemed everyone was there with the same idea. Well Anchorage was not the place to be, so we flew to Kodiak Island to try our luck on the boats. Every day we pounded the docks, no luck. In the interim we got a job in a cannery, twelve-hour night shifts. Most of the cannery workers were Philippino, and somewhat smaller, so we had the good fortune to get the heaviest, hardens work. My job was to stand in large rubber long pants, in ice up to my chest, in the “hole” of a boat, and hook up halibut on a chain to be lifted out. Some of these halibut were huge, over 150 lbs. For this I was paid $6.00 an hour. It is a true story, that the only place we could find to live was the trash dump on Kodiak Island. Here we pitched our tents, and tried to sleep during the day. It ALWAYS RAINS ON THE ISLAND!! That makes for an interesting living environment in a small tent. Our staple food was cold canned soup, and stale bread.
After two weeks of this, including, still pounding the docks looking for a fishing boat, we’d had enough. As we were walking into town to book our flight back to Anchorage, we passed a boat that appeared to be having a dispute on board. Part of the crew was getting fired. We walked past, but were stopped by a shout of, “hey! You guys want a Job”. The rest is history, that afternoon we were headed to the Bearing Straight, in between Alaska and Russia, to long line for gray cod.
The cannery seemed like a Sunday picnic compared to life on this boat. It will sound like gross exaggeration, but we worked 20-21 hours a day. At the start there were three meals, but the pressure for production was so great that the new guys (us) that were slower missed the middle meal to try to keep up. After the unloading of more fish than our supposed target weight was, I was told that we’d need to do another trip before we got paid. Something didn’t feel right to me, and I went to question the captain. He’s approach (obviously used before) was to try to make any crew that quit feel like they couldn’t handle it, and this work was only cut out for the toughest of men. Toughness and stupidity were not that hard for me to separate, I jumped ship, (unpaid) and managed to talk myself onto an already full eight seater sea plane headed for Dutch Harbor, there was an airport on that island (of sorts) where I could get back to Anchorage.
My instinct turned out to be correct, my tow friends stayed for what turned out to be two more trips out, only to be turned away with no pay. The excuse was not enough fish and regular crew gets first money. My impression was, here is some illegal labor, lets exploit it, and they can’t go to any authority.
Back in Anchorage I got work with a house demolition company, they paid cash, they paid well and I got Sundays off. I joined Gold’s gym there, to try to get back the thirty odd pounds I lost at sea. (Did I mention ten days of seasickness where death seemed an attractive alternative?) At the end of the demolition work, I spent one week camping in Denali National Park, that was wonderful. I had to decide it I should use my return ticket to LA, I did, but forgot about my visa, I only had a month left. I had to leave the country, and then reenter legally. Canada seemed the logical choice.
I ended up in Toronto because I’d wanted to visit some friends there, they got me a job at a body shop, something I’d never tried before. A young Maltese man owned the shop, and treated me very well. I joined a gym, but it was more like a chain fitness center, and I was a bit too scruffy for their liking. With the exception of a visit to Niagara Falls, my stay in Toronto past fairly uneventfully. Time to try to renter the U S, easier said than done, I got quite a bit of grief at the Canadian border, because of my previous six-month stay in the U S. I almost thought I was going to be denied entry, but after a long interrogation, was allowed back in.
Back in LA, Molly had been transferred to a new school, and had taken residence in a little town called Monrovia. I followed her, and live there to this day. Monrovia is now very much my home, a nice little town with a good sense of community. We joined Foothill Gym, a small local gym with just the right feel to it. It too became my home. It is now a very well equipped facility, but with an old fashioned personal appeal to it. After being a member for a while, I approached the owner, a girl called Sue, for a job. I was lucky enough to get one, and also came to an arrangement with her for me to do personal training. Sue co owned the gym with her dad; he was like a silent partner. I had a long working, and friendship relationship with them. They were always very good to me, and I like to think that I was good to them.
From my part time job, I began to work full time, then was asked to manage, then eventually I bought the gym from them. I owned the gym for three and a half years, and then sold it to a close friend, also a competitive bodybuilder, Brian Whelan. He has since taken it to the next level. I have a great loyalty to “our” gym, it was the place where I started up bodybuilding competition again, and I’ll always be involved in some way with it.
The reason for selling in the first place was to follow my newfound passion, day trading in the stock market. I had been doing it for about two years, and it just kept going better and better. I thought I’d stumbled on a system based on non-greed, but frequent modest trades, with a view that little amounts add up. It was going too good for me not to want to invest more time in it, it was making more part time than my gym business, so I figured full time, I’d be in good shape. The first year went great, but as most people know, the market went horribly wrong the last year or so, so day trading right now is not viable.
Getting back a bit, it was 1992, when being in the positive environment of the gym, made mw want to compete again. I came to the humble realization, that just because I was at a national level in Australia, things here in the U S, particularly southern California, were different. It seemed GOOD bodybuilders were everywhere, hundreds of them. I decided that because it had been five years, and the high standard, that I would do a novice competition first. A group of us went to Jon Lindsay’s “border states” in San Diego. It has almost become Foothill Gym tradition to attend and compete in “the border states”. In fact the following year we entered twelve athletes, and had one hundred and five people from our gym drive the two hours to support us. Not bad for only having five hundred members at the time.
I was lucky enough to win the novice overall in 1992, and an unusual thing happened as a result of that, that got me some recognition. Some months later, there was a small write up in “Muscle Mag” about my showing at the comp. Because it was flattering, I sent a letter of thanks to Steve Niece, the author of the article. Included in my letter was a photo, a black and white, to date probably the best physique photo of myself I’d ever had. A good friend of mine, took it at his house two days before the show, I had just first shop, a most muscular, and for whatever reason, it stood out much more that the others.
MuscleMag printed the letter and photo, and no more thought was give to the matter. That was until I got a call from a man claiming to be Dan Duchaine’s publisher, saying that Dan was interested in using my photo on the cover of his new book “Body Opus”. I thought it was one of my friends playing a joke, so I joked along with it. I was lucky he didn’t hang up on me. It became apparent after a while, that it was a legitimate call. He accepted my apology, I was of course very interested, we negotiated the legalities, and it was an agreement.
Dan of course was a very controversial figure in our sport, I did have the good fortune to correspond with him for a time, and I distinctly remember he didn’t like B S. I started my first correspondence with a great respect, that I felt he was due. He, in no uncertain terms, made it clear that he preferred to be treated like a regular guy; I really liked that about him. Although I did not know him well, and may not have agreed with some of his methods, I was greatly saddened by his passing. He had an incredible mind.
1993 took me back to “the border states”. I had heard that Joe DeAngelo was competing in the heavyweight. This former “MR UNIVERSE” was an incredible athlete; I knew I could not beat him. Even though the previous year I weighed in at 204lbs (my first ever heavyweight outing), and was very shredded, I thought why not go down to just under the light heavyweight limit, I’d be super shredded, and avoid Joe. I have always liked extreme definition, I love that look, and love that not many can achieve it because of the suffering involved. If I can modestly say, it is my trademark.
It was a real challenge to get down, but I was extremely ripped. Barely made it by one-quarter pound. The light heavies ended up being a tough class, I what some might say was a controversial decision; I took second to a very popular young man called Parenthesis Devers, (brother of the famous Olympian, Gail Devers). The subjectivity of a bodybuilding competition decision has always been an issue of debate. It was in this instance. When P D and I were compared, you had an athlete that had a beautiful shape, great symmetry, GREAT LEGS, but not a conditioned as he might have been, compared to my extreme definition, very muscular, reasonably good shape, reasonably good symmetry. It almost balances out. P D won, and I must say he conducted himself as a great sportsman, and was respectful to me. I’ve enjoyed seeing him progress over the years into a fantastic bodybuilder. He has a real future in our sport. Joe won the heavies, and overall in a well deserved fashion. I felt fortunate to make acquaintances with these great athletes.
I did quite a few shows in 1993, and managed a heavyweight, and overall win in the bay are classic”, in San Francisco. There was also an encounter with Roland Kickenger, in “the powerhouse classic”, in Oxnard. This was before his toned down television body, he’d come over from Austria to compete first, then follow in Arnold’s footsteps. I lost that one, although we had a very spirited pose down at the end. A pretty funny sight, Roland at 6’5”, and 285 lbs., and me at a whopping 202 lbs. I really admire him for what he’s achieved, and I like that Hollywood hasn’t made him forget where he came from, he is very genuine.
1994 was brought to a conclusion, after many smaller lead up shows, with a height class win in the N A B B A MR USA. It was my first experience with N A B B A, and I must say I didn’t expect a win. I managed to edge out Leo Costa, Tom Platz’s training partner at the time. Meeting Tom, and Leo was the highlight of event. The low point of the event was not getting the trip to England, for the MR UNIVERSE, as the poster advertised, all class winners will be sent. I was disappointed, and when I asked about it, I was told that I wasn’t good enough to do will over there, and that athletes from New York would be sent instead, because they had a better chance.
I offered to pay my own way. That was no thought to be a good idea either, I was encouraged to wait one more year till I was forty, and compete in the work masters event. They felt that I could be competitive in that. Although I was disappointed and discouraged, I never perused the matter any further. I never competed N A B B A again, but I carry no ill will towards them, it was just one of those things.
I sat out 1995, and by the time I was ready to compete in 1996, I teamed up with a great training partner. A J Colosimo, and I had bought Foothill Gym. A team of about ten of us got ready for another assault on the “border states”. It was a wonderful time, full of anticipation, camaraderie, and super hard workouts. The gym was fairly buzzing with pre competition activity, every Sunday we would conduct a mock prejudging, and I would put everybody through his or her paces. We would constructively criticize, encourage and help one and other. In all my bodybuilding, I have never felt such a bond with people, as what we had in our Foothill Gym. It truly was US against THEM. The ten athletes, and over one hundred supporters descended on the Pacific Beach Middle School, to make our presence felt, and felt it was.