Richard Eugene Piana (September 26, 1970August 25, 2017) was an American bodybuilder, businessman, and YouTuber. He won the National Physique Committee (NPC) Mr. Teen California title in 1989, NPC Mr. California in 1998, and NPC competitions in 2003 and 2009.
Piana was popular in the weightlifting community for his bodybuilding achievements, openness about steroid use in bodybuilding and its associated consequences, and over-the-top extroverted personality. He maintained a successful YouTube channel which featured motivational speaking, personal life stories, exercise montages, special guest appearances, and insights into his daily life. In his videos, he often spoke of the mentality and drive of "the 5%", which he said is the percentage of people who are willing to do whatever it takes to achieve their goals. Piana openly discussed using anabolic steroids and hormones, including Trenbolone.
In August 2017, at the age of 46, Piana collapsed and spent two weeks in a coma before dying. According to his autopsy report, both his heart and liver weighed twice the average amount for an adult male; it was also noted that he had "mild atherosclerotic disease". However, the autopsy report was ultimately inconclusive on the cause and manner of his death due to the hospital's disposal of all toxicology specimens.
Early life
Richard Eugene Piana was born in Glendale, California, on September 26, 1970. He was of Armenian descent through his mother and Italian descent through his father. He was raised by his mother in Sacramento, California, and his enthrallment with bodybuilding began when he was six years old; he would go to the gym to watch his mother train for her bodybuilding contests. He was influenced by her and Bill Cambra, an "old-school" bodybuilder. At age 11, he began lifting weights. Four years later, he started competing in bodybuilding contests. During his senior year of high school, he lived with his father in La Crescenta, California.
Career
Piana won the NPC Mr. Teen California competition in 1989. At the age of 18, Piana started a common steroid cycle practice known as "test and deca" that combines testosterone and Deca-Durabolin. In 2014, he stated that due to the dramatic results he achieved with steroids, he got "hooked" on them. In 1998, he was named NPC Mr. California. He continued to compete on and off for about 25 years, winning NPC competitions in the 2003 Los Angeles Super-Heavyweight division, 2009 Sacramento Super-Heavyweight division, and the 2009 Border States Classic Super-Heavyweight division and overall championship. He was featured on the cover of the November 1998 issue of Ironman magazine and the Summer 2015 issue of Muscle Sport magazine.
Piana had a cameo appearance as the Incredible Hulk in an episode of the television series Scrubs, and played an oiled-up muscle man named Marcus in a 2004 episode of Malcolm in the Middle (without any spoken lines). He also appeared in the 1999 episode of The Parkers titled "The Boomerang Effect". He was one of the main focuses of the 2017 bodybuilding documentary Generation Iron 2.
In 2014, Piana asserted that he had experienced some side effects from his use of steroids, including hair loss, gynecomastia (enlarged breasts, which he had treated with medication), and signs of liver toxicity. In a 2016 video, Piana backed up his decision to use steroids but advised viewers not to use them, stating, "If you have the choice to do steroids or stay natural, stay natural. There's no reason to do steroids. You're only hurting your body and hurting yourself." He then said that professional bodybuilders have no such choice, since they cannot win at that level without using the drugs. He said, "I was competing on stage and I was getting to the point where I was going to keep getting blown off the stage if I didn't do them. So I took that step and that's the road I chose, and here I am."
Piana offered advice on how to use steroids for those he said were going to use them anyway. He said that when he was competing at the national level, he was taking 20 international units per day of Serostim, a synthetic form of human growth hormone, which would cost about $8,000 per month at ordinary prescription prices (although he was sometimes getting it for free or for about $2,000 through connections with people who had prescriptions for it to fight HIV infection).