Who's buffest of 'em all?

There is beefcake in a bodybuilding show, but it's not Chippendale's. There is cheesecake, but it's not burlesque. Thongs aren't allowed. Suits must cover 50 percent of the glutes. Striking the "moon" hamstring pose results in disqualification.

"I think it's pretty tasteful, if you ask me," said Evans' wife, Jamie, who competes in the figure contest, an alternative to bodybuilding for women. "It's not a meat market."

Says Dave Evans, "It's not a sexual thing. You're trying to display the hard work you've done."

Kenny Milne's hard work started when he bought his first weight bench at age 9 after admiring what he saw in muscle magazines.

"You look at some of them, and they look outrageous," he said. "But I thought it looked good. I wanted to be like that."

Now 10 years later, the 19-year-old Clearfield High graduate is like that. Or at least darn close.

Milne was a man among boys in the teenage division in the Orem contest. Not only did he easily win that category, he captured the title in the novice heavyweight class, the open heavyweight class and the overall.

The first-place finish landed him a photo shoot with a fitness and bodybuilding modeling agency. Heady stuff for a first-time competitor.

"I had a lot of fun," said Milne, who works at Gold's Gym in St. George. "It was a good experience."

Intense training for a contest begins 12 weeks out. And weightlifting is only part of the preparation.

For example, there's the hair removal thing.

The only smooth part of a bodybuilder is the skin. And that means shaving all body hair. Or at least any hair that might show. Shaving the head is optional, though many bodybuilders do because it makes their bodies look bigger.

"The illusion of being larger than you are is very important," said Bryan Haycock, a Riverton exercise physiologist who writes for muscle magazines.

It's no different, he said, than ranchers shaving the hind quarters of bulls to make them look leaner at auction.

"It's the same thing. Instead of animal husbandry, you do it to yourself," he said. "You build your muscles, you parade around and someone judges you."

For all their bulging biceps, rippled abs and eye-popping pecs, bodybuilders are thin-skinned.

It's not that they can't take criticism, though some handle it better than others. They have to be somewhat hardened emotionally, not to mention physically, to pose under spotlights in a suit the size of Mighty Mouse's cape before a discriminating panel of judges squinting for their every flaw.