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> OVER 500 MUSCLE-BUILDING TIPS INSIDE!

FERRIGNO

BIG ARMS

BUILD A PERFECT CHEST

YOUR BEST BACK EVER!

LOU A LOOK BACK AT HIS HULKING LEGACY!

SUPERWIDE SHOULDERS

BEAST MODE

SERIOUS MASS IN 6 WEEKS!

IN 10 MOVES

THE REAL

SECRET TO SIZE PROVEN RESULTS!

INSIDE THIS MONTH

NOVEMBER 2017

COVER PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF WEIDER HEALTH & FITNESS

DEPARTMENTS 18 ONLINE

Stay current with all the hot topics trending now at FLEXonline.com.

20 HIT LIST

Everything you need to know this month to make life worth living.

22 JUST THE FACTS

Groundbreaking research and must-have tips in the training and nutrition universe.

41 1ST SET

28 94 BEST CHEST MOVES

From A to Z, the top chest-training tips from 26 modern chest masters.

104 COMPOUND POUNDING

Part 1: Focus on these basic multijoint lifts to manifest massive muscle, superior strength, and prodigious power.

114 SIX WEEKS TO SIZE

Build mounds of muscle with this bare-bones, four-days-a-week hypertrophy plan.

122 RIP TIME

Part 2 of Neil Hill’s all-in plan to get you shredded for 2018.

128 IT “WORKS”

Break the cycle of blindly following empty advice and get on the path to real progress and results.

Is your delt development at a loss? Hit them harder with this winning formula, an intensive routine designed to crush those caps and reignite growth.

FLEX | NOVEMBER ’17

75 FOOD & SUPPS

166 NO PAIN, BIG GAINS

174 10 WAYS TO GROW YOUR GUNS

Arm day, anyone? A panel of pipe-building experts offers FLEX their favorite moves for biceps and triceps.

182 ADONISS CHEST

If you think your chest is already great, then skip these pages. If your chest is not where you want it to be and you need advice from an experienced, elite master coach, then read on.

146 DOMINICAN DOMINATION

The Dominican Republic’s three elite bodybuilders— Victor Martinez, Jon De La Rosa, and Juan Morel—put some Caribbean flavor into training chest, shoulders, and traps.

Techniques that work, routines that produce results, and other things to help you make the most of your gym time.

156 SHOULDER SMACKDOWN

Solutions for overcoming the most common training injuries.

136

59 LIFT

192 GET BACK

Need help with your back? IFBB physique pro Jeremy Potvin gives you a routine he knows will add thickness and width.

202 ARMAGEDDON

How Nathan De Asha went to war on his biceps to build Olympiastandard peaks.

All the things you need to eat, drink, or mix first and then drink, to help you reach your bodybuilding and fitness goals.

209 LAST SET

Contest results, athlete profiles, and more from the world of competitive bodybuilding and fitness.

224 THE SHOT

Iconic moments from bodybuilding history.

R ALPH DEHA AN/COURTESY OF WEIDER HEALTH & FITNESS; IAN SPANIER

FEATURES

All the happenings with Mr. Olympia Phil Heath, 212 Olympia champ Flex Lewis, the entire Team Weider roster, and more.

ARASH RAHBAR IFBB PRO, MR. OLYMPIA CLASSIC PHYSIQUE COMPETITOR

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EDITORIAL

VP/Editorial Director SHAWN PERINE Managing Editor, Enthusiast Group/Books BRIAN GOOD West Coast Editor DAVE IAN LEE Senior Editor ZACK ZEIGLER Senior Writer GREG MERRITT Senior Web Editor ANGELICA NEBBIA Editor ANDREW GUTMAN Copy Chief YEUN LITTLEFIELD Copy Editor JEFF TOMKO Research JAMES RILEY Editorial Production Director RUSSELL MENDOZA Editorial Production Associate Director VICTOR KIM Digital Director DECLAN O’KELLY Editorial Assistant ROSE MCNULTY

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ART

Art Director RAMÓN GAMARRA Designer CYNTHIA NG Contributing Designer SEAN OTTO Photo Director ANTHONY NOLAN Staff Photographer/Photo Editor ERICA SCHULTZ Photo Editor GABY CHIANG

WESTERN SALES OFFICE

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1000 American Media Way,

EDITORIAL CONTRIBUTORS

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MICHAEL BERG, ADAM BIBLE, ERIC BROSER, BRYAN HAYCOCK, ROGER LOCKRIDGE, PETER MCGOUGH, STEVEN STIEFEL, JOE WUEBBEN

WEIDER PUBLICATIONS, LLC A SUBSIDIARY OF AMERICAN MEDIA INC.

CHAIRMAN, PRESIDENT & CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER DAVID PECKER Executive Vice President/ Chief Marketing Officer KEVIN HYSON Executive Vice President/Chief Financial Officer/ Chief Operating Officer CHRIS POLIMENI Executive Vice President, Digital Media Operations/CIO DAVID THOMPSON Senior Vice President/Chief Digital Officer BRIAN KROSKI Senior Vice President, Operations ROB M. O’NEILL Vice President, Consumer Marketing EPHRAIM R. BRENNAN

PHOTO & ART CONTRIBUTORS

Photographers IAN SPANIER, CHARLES LOWTHIAN, PER BERNAL Contributors ALBERT BUSEK, CARUSO, BILL COMSTOCK, ISAAC HINDS, KEVIN HORTON, CHRIS LUND, CHRIS NICOLL, ROB PICK, PAVEL YTHJALL, ART ZELLER PRODUCTION

Production Manager ANN MCCAFFREY Distribution Manager MARC MELCHER INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING, ENTHUSIAST GROUP

Group Publisher SAMANTHA LUND TEL: +44 (1) 1423 550 848 email: slund@weideruk.com

President of the IFBB Professional League JIM MANION Founder and Chairman Emeritus JOE WEIDER (1920–2013)

FOREIGN EDITIONS Algeria

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France

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Malta

Mexico

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Thailand

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Netherlands New Zealand

Uruguay

Oman

Venezuela

DISCLAIMER Please consult your physician before beginning any exercise or diet program, or when making changes in an existing program. PRINTED IN USA WE ASSUME NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR RETURNING UNSOLICITED MATERIAL, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO PHOTOS, ARTWORK, MANUSCRIPTS, AND LETTERS.

FLEX | NOVEMBER ’17

ONLINE NOW SOCIAL ALL-STARS PHIL HEATH Thirteen years ago I won the NPC Mr. Colorado, and boy, has time ﬂown by. It’s been a true marathon and not an all-out sprint to the top. FLEX LEWIS Balancing family and business and overcoming adversity in the quest for glory– there are no excuses, only the ones you make when you don’t adapt to overcome. JUAN MOREL The ﬁrst time I shot with Victor Martinez, someone I always looked up to, it was so surreal.

DOMINICAN DOMINATION

STEVE KUCLO I don’t usually go this heavy but felt inspired to ﬁre it up and do some 100-pound lateral raises. Push yourself beyond your limits—you can do it! WILLIAM BONAC It’s an absolute honor to be compared side by side with our 6x Mr. Olympia, Phil Heath.

BEFORE THEY WERE RIVALS

PER BERNAL

FLEX journeys back to 1984 for a ﬂy-on-the-wall account of training sessions with Lee Haney and Rich Gaspari, two of bodybuilding history’s greatest rivals on the Mr. Olympia stage, as they forged a training partnership for the ages. Get a glimpse at three days in the life of this dynamic duo. FLEXonline.com/rivals

SHAWN RHODEN Every day I dig a little deeper because of my support system. Thank you, guys, for being my inspiration. I already won because of you. My family is my rock.

FLEX | NOVEMBER ’17

4 THINGS TO KNOW THIS MONTH JBL REFLECT MINI BT These mini-buds pack a serious punch in the sound department, and the reﬂector strips on the sides make them perfect for nighttime jogs. As a bonus, the ﬁns keep ’em in place through every burpee and box jump. $100; jbl.com

Premieres Nov. 17

GO-DRY REFLECTIVE TRIM HOODIE

$40–$45; oldnavy.com

THIS BOOK HAS BALLS In This Book Has Balls: Sports Rants From the MVP of Talking Trash, actor/director/ podcaster/Knicks fan Michael Rapaport writes with intensity, insanity, and hilarity on a slew of jock topics, including: why LeBron will never be like Mike, why Raging Bull beats Rocky, and why sports announcers need to stop wearing hairpieces. $27; simonandschuster.com

FLEX | NOVEMBER ’17

COURTESY OF WARNER BROS. PICTURES/ TM & (C) DC COMICS

JUSTICE LEAGUE

JUST THE FACTS

TRAINING WHAT ARE YOUR DIGITS?

A U. of North Dakota study found that when the second finger (or pointer finger) was shorter than the fourth finger (or ring finger)—called the “digit ratio,” or 2D:4D—it corresponded to a stronger grip in young boys, even when adjusted for age and body size. “There is some indirect evidence that this digit ratio of the length of the fingers is determined during early fetal development by testosterone—the more testosterone the fetus produces, the longer the ring finger,” says Grant Tomkinson, Ph.D.

SHOULD YOU HIIT IT?

A study from the U. of Glasgow has found that people who cycle to work have a 45% lower risk of developing cancer, a 46% lower chance of getting heart disease, and a 41% lower overall risk of early death. The study also showed that simply walking to work can lower the risk of cardiovascular disease by 27%.

FLEX | NOVEMBER ’17

DON’T FOOL YOURSELF

Research has put forth a dubious concept called “metabolically healthy obesity,” a term used to describe obese people whose metabolism performs like that of a person of normal weight. But that may not mean that the “healthy” obese people are doing ﬁne. Researchers discovered that people classiﬁed as “unhealthy”— those with three or more markers like high blood pressure, waist size over 37 inches, blood glucose abnormalities—had twice the risk of CHD, no matter their weight.

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JUST THE FACTS GO WITH ASPIRIN

According to new research in the journal Acta Physiologica, a popular antiinﬂammatory may actually keep muscles from growing in young adults who regularly lift weights. One group was given a normal 24-hour dose of ibuprofen at 1,200mg. The other consumed 75mg of aspirin. They found muscle volume size increased twice as much in those taking low-dose aspirin than those taking a high dose of ibuprofen. Aspirin users were also slightly stronger.

DRINK UP...TO REMEMBER

A key ingredient in foods like kale and spinach can keep your brain performing like a younger person’s, according to a study from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Scientists looked at the neural activity of 60 adults ages 25 to 45. “The neuro-electrical signature of older participants with higher levels of lutein looked much more like their younger counterparts’ than that of their peers with less lutein,” says study head Anne Walk, Ph.D. Aim for at least three cups of greens like kale, chard, collards, and mustard greens every week.

FLEX | NOVEMBER ’17

GO NUTTY

A study from Penn State has gathered more information on how nuts clean up our blood supply. Researchers put 48 adults with high LDL levels on two diets for six weeks. Consumed food was exactly the same on the diets, but the snack on the control days varied between 43g (about a handful) of almonds and a banana muffin. At the end of the study, they found that the almond diet increased alpha-1 HDL, a subgroup better able to leech bad cholesterol from the blood, by 19% and boosted HDL function by almost 7%.

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AT 66 YEARS OLD, BODYBUILDING ICON LOU FERRIGNO IS BREAKING NEW GROUND IN HIS CAREER AND MAXIMIZING HIS IMPACT. IN FACT, HIS LATEST ENDEAVOR COULD TAKE HIM ALL THE WAY TO THE WHITE HOUSE. BY JOE WUEBBEN

FLEX | NOVEMBER â&#x20AC;&#x2122;17

FLEXONLINE.COM

is at the top of his game. And that’s saying something, considering he starred alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger in the legendary 1977 documentary Pumping Iron before landing his hallmark role in The Incredible Hulk shortly thereafter. Most bodybuilders would have peaked in their 20s with that résumé—and let’s be honest, some Pumping Iron cast members certainly did. Not Ferrigno. Since the Hulk series went off the air 35 years ago, Ferrigno has had more than 40 other movie and TV credits to his name, not to mention dozens of magazine covers. But his recent work is arguably his most notable—and it has landed him on yet another cover. Weeks before this issue went to press, news broke that President Trump had appointed Ferrigno as the head of the prestigious President’s Council on Fitness, Sports & Nutrition.

FLEX | NOVEMBER ’17

Arnold Schwarzenegger famously had a similar position under President George Bush in the 1980s. If the appointment goes through, Ferrigno will be as busy as ever. He’s already spearheading the annual Ferrigno Legacy in Palm Springs, CA, in November— a weekend-long event, in its fourth year, that features physique and strength competitions, a host of other sporting events, and a new fitness expo. With these two endeavors, Ferrigno has saved potentially his most important work for late in his career. In an exclusive interview with FLEX, the former Hulk and bodybuilding icon discussed the council appointment and his fastgrowing Legacy event, among other topics. We have a feeling this won’t be Lou Ferrigno’s last magazine cover. FLEX: What would it mean to you to be appointed the head of the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports & Nutrition? LOU FERRIGNO: It would be an important role for me. I want to make America healthy again. I want to deal

An early pose shows the potential of a young Ferrigno; good luck getting in that car; sculpting a great set of pecs.

with the obesity problem we have, and I want to work with kids in schools and get them more involved in fitness and weight training. I want to get kids off the couch. There’s too much involvement with kids sitting around playing video games and living a lazy lifestyle. Playing video games all the time instead of being active with other things makes you very lethargic. It’s great that you bring up video games. That seems to be an

OPENING PAGE: BALIK /COURTESY OF WEIDER HEALTH & FITNESS. THIS PAGE: WEIDER HEALTH & FITNESS & SHANNA FERRIGNO

LOU FERRIGNO

CHRIS LUND

“I WANT TO MAKE AMERICA HEALTHY AGAIN. I WANT TO DEAL WITH THE OBESITY PROBLEM WE HAVE.”

FLEX | NOVEMBER ’17

Would getting kids off the video games be part of a specific program you’d want to implement with the appointment? Well, I can’t lay the groundwork yet because I haven’t gotten the position, but if it happens I would focus more on maybe having kids play video games that include exercise as well. How can we make video games where physical exercise is part of

You’re right. It’s not just a problem with kids, is it? No, it’s not. Older people need to be more active, too. In California more people exercise outdoors because it’s a warmer climate. But in the Midwest and other places where it’s colder, they should be more involved with going to the gym or exercising at home. The problem with parents today is they need to be more involved with their children as far as

FROM LEFT: CHRIS LUND; WEIDER HEALTH & FITNESS & SHANNA FERRIGNO (2)

epidemic these days with young people. When you were growing up that wasn’t the case. For me, when I was a kid I never even wanted to watch sports on TV. Because in my household, a lot of people were watching games all day. I would rather be active and be outside working out and doing things. You need to divide that time and put more effort into athletics and a fitter lifestyle.

From bodybuilding to acting in TV and the movies, Ferrigno has been successful in all endeavors.

the game? I see too many kids with headphones on—and adults, too. People walking on the train platforms with their headphones on and not paying attention or walking across the street. We’re too involved with our phones and computers.

it. The FLEXPO is going to be huge, with all kinds of different booths—from anti-aging to fashion to new technology. Have you modeled Ferrigno Legacy after the Arnold Classic? The Arnold Classic has been around for 40-some years, and it’s tremendous. It’s the best bodybuilding expo in the world.

MIKE NEVEUX / WEIDER HEALTH & FITNESS; ART ZELLER/FITNESS PUBLICATION INC. COURTESY OF WEIDER HEALTH & FITNESS

“ I TRAIN THE SAME WAY NOW AS I HAVE THE PAST 40, 50 YEARS. I TRAIN ALL BODY PARTS TWICE A WEEK.”

physical activity goes. There needs to be more involvement in fitness with the whole family— parents and kids doing it together. Let’s switch gears and talk about the Ferrigno Legacy event. It looks as if it’s getting bigger and better every year. What can we look forward to this November? This is the first year we’re

having the “FLEXPO” [fitness expo]. We’re going to have 300 booths, a strongman competition, powerlifting, and pole dancing as well. We have the best show on the West Coast, and I’m working together with the Arnold Classic so we can help each other. My goal is to have the biggest and best bodybuilding and fitness event possible and have the competitors come here, compete in Palm Springs, and make a vacation out of

They’re very supportive of me. We have the Arnold Classic, and we have the Mr. Olympia. But I wanted to have something in California because I wanted it to be like a vacation. I don’t want people to just come down for two days and go home. I want them to come here for longer and have a great time with the whole family. Where do you see the state of bodybuilding right now, particularly with the recent addition of the IFBB’s classic physique division, which harks back to your competition heyday of the ’70s? I think the new division is great because it’s all about symmetry. The regular bodybuilding division is always going to be

FLEXONLINE.COM

hardcore, but the general public also wants to see physiques with that more classic look. Classic physique brings a blend of symmetry and size compared with bodybuilding. Which division do you prefer to watch? Do you like watching the Phil Heaths and Dexter Jacksons or the classic physique shows? Bodybuilders today have to look the way they look because the objective is: How thick can you look, and how much size can you put on your frame? I much prefer the symmetry, because back in the days of Pumping Iron it was more artistic. Today bodybuilders are forced to be big because that’s the

direction it has gone in. It’s not their fault. When you add that size, you often sacrifice symmetry. But when you look at guys like Phil Heath and others competing at the Olympia, those guys are phenomenal, so that’s exciting by itself. And guys like Dexter Jackson and Flex Wheeler competing at older ages and still being in great shape—you have to commend those guys. That shows longevity. Speaking of longevity, what’s your training regimen these days? I train the same way as I have the past 40, 50 years. I train all body parts twice a week, but I train lighter, with high repetitions and machine. I don’t need to build any more size. And I do a lot of cardio. I ride my

FROM BOT TOM LEFT: R ALPH DEHA AN/COURTESY OF WEIDER HEALTH & FITNESS; CHRIS LUND; CARUSO/COURTESY WEIDER HEALTH & FITNESS

Whether it’s on bodybuilding stages or in gyms or inspirational photos, Ferrigno has been inspiring fans for generations.

FLEX | NOVEMBER ’17

The Ferrigno Legacy Championships will feature IFBB/NPC competition, powerlifting, strongman, a ﬁtness expo, and more.

bicycle on the beach. I like to keep my body weight around 245. I like to be lean and tight.

I train when I travel, too. And I eat as healthy as I can. I avoid any kind of sugars or starches.

How many days per week do you get to the gym? I try to go seven days a week. I do cardio for 30 minutes and then weight training for 30 minutes.

Are you still active with law enforcement? Yes. One thing I’m doing is writing fitness articles for the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. I’ve been a deputy sheriff for 13

FLEX | NOVEMBER ’17

years. I write these articles because I’m motivating a lot of officers in the police department to get in shape. They’re sitting in police cars all day, and many of them aren’t exercising afterward. It’s important for them to stay active and take care of themselves to have less stress on their lower backs. I also teach them how to eat healthy when they’re on patrol. I’m covering all the areas for them. For more information about the 2017 Ferrigno Legacy, taking place Nov. 18 to 19 in Palm Springs, CA, visit ferrignolegacy.com.

MIKE NEVEUX / WEIDER HEALTH & FITNESS; WEIDER HEALTH & FITNESS & SHANNA FERRIGNO

“ MY GOAL IS TO HAVE THE BIGGEST AND BEST BODYBUILDING AND FITNESS EVENT POSSIBLE AND HAVE THE COMPETITORS COME HERE.”

LELAND WAKAMATSU | NPC PHYSIQUE COMPETITOR

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CAN YOU BELIEVE WHAT YOU READ? MAGAZINE MEDIA Better. Believe It.

With fake news leaving most Americans confused about even the basic facts, magazine media keeps it real. Whether in print, online, on mobile or video, people trust it to be expertly researched, written and fact-checked. No wonder magazine readers are more engaged and more likely to recommend advertised products.

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ALL THE HOT TOPICS IN BODYBUILDING & FITNESS

BILL COMSTOCK

Mr. O opens up about his longtime training headquarters, legal weed, and resisting cravings.

Bikini competitor Alix Voz is a smoking-hot example of how the NPC is heating up the Great White North.

A tale of two Dragons: how Rich Gaspari helped Flex Lewis learn the ropes, both in and out of the gym.

Merlin shows you his tricks for warming up and still having enough in the tank to crush those work sets.

PAGE 42

PAGE 44

PAGE 46

PAGE 48

FLEXONLINE.COM

1ST SET

ASK THE CHAMP

BY PHIL HEATH, SEVEN-TIME REIGNING MR. OLYMPIA

ROCKY TIMES

ARMBRUST GYM, LEGAL MARIJUANA, AND RESISTING THE MUNCHIES.

I like the hardcore atmosphere and also that it’s clean. The feeling being in there is maybe not unlike Gold’s Gym in Venice, with the same type of equipment, the same atmosphere where regularly there are people who are also training for shows. There are old-timers, young people, lots of competitors. It’s a nice community there, one that understands bodybuilding, powerlifting, weightlifting, all that, and understands people who compete in those sports and sports like them.

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE LEGALIZATION OF MARIJUANA AS A COLORADO RESIDENT? People here have been talking about it

FLEX | NOVEMBER ’17

for quite some time, starting with people who wanted it legalized for medicinal use. It’s a good alternative to prescription medicine, especially for people who prefer that over taking handfuls of pills. I see it as people having voted for more options and more choices, and now there are more opportunities to enjoy the beneﬁts. People are able to use it to treat their conditions

without fear of arrest. On top of all that, it has been good for the economy. So I don’t think legalization has been a bad thing for Colorado.

IS THERE ANYTHING YOU CRAVE DURING PREP THAT YOU WON’T LET YOURSELF EAT? Cheeseburgers, fries, ﬁsh and chips—I like

those a lot. It’s pretty difficult, but eventually what works is that you get your mind off what you’re actually eating. You go out to eat with people you enjoy spending time with, and you focus on things other than food. I used to take my mind off it by watching the Food Network while I was eating so that I could see other people eating food that looked really good.

CHARLES LOW THIAN

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V FOR VOZ!

ALIX VOZ IS A SHINING EXAMPLE OF HOW THE BIKINI DIVISION IS HEATING UP THE GREAT WHITE NORTH.

FLEX | NOVEMBER ’17

6 4

DILVEER VIRK

UNLESS YOU’VE BEEN living under a rock, you’re likely aware that bodybuilding and ﬁtness have been booming up in Canada over the past few years. It isn’t just bodybuilding, either. Bikini athletes are looking to make their mark on the sport as well. Alix Voz is one of those athletes. Having competed in volleyball and gymnastics, she hopes to be able to call herself an IFBB pro. As Voz dived into contest prep, she saw how difficult it would be ALIX to make it to the stage. VOZ “Competing is never easy,” she says. “Bodybuilding season and off-season both have their own tough parts. Ultimately, I have learned the importance of mental strength during each step of the journey.” As great as mental strength is, that doesn’t mean Voz walks this journey alone. “My parents know very little about exactly what it takes to compete, but they’re the most supportive people who always have chicken breast ready for me when I visit. Irshan Bijani, head coach of Team Ibertrophy, has been by my side since Day 1 of competing. We have built up Team Ibertrophy together. My older brother teases me but is very proud, and my younger brother is my lucky charm who has been to each one of my shows!” Voz will compete for her IFBB pro card at the CBFF Championships in 2018.

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ASK THE CHAMP

BY FLEX LEWIS, SIX-TIME 212 OLYMPIA WINNER

IRON MENTOR

THE 212 CHAMP AND FORMER GASPARI ATHLETE TALKS ABOUT WORKING WITH AN IFBB LEGEND.

YOU WERE A GASPARI ATHLETE EARLY IN YOUR CAREER. WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM YOUR ASSOCIATION WITH THE LEGENDARY DRAGON SLAYER? I learned a tremendous amount from Rich. I’m thankful for the opportunity he gave me. I worked my way up in the business with him, gained insights into the ins

and outs about how things worked in the industry side of bodybuilding from him. I’m proud to call him my big brother. Rich is always learning and always open about sharing what he’s learned. He taught me about old-school raw training when we met and showed me how he trained, and in turn I showed him my unconventional newschool training ideas. He taught me a lot—about ethics, about how to treat fans, even about how to structure a diet. He was a great mentor.

It wasn’t just about learning from a pro how to be a pro, or about maintaining my status as a Gaspari athlete, which was a great honor coming so early in my career. Rich brought me along with him as he attended to all the aspects of the business and involved me in a way that allowed me to understand how it all worked—sales, marketing, quality control, ordering, shipping, manufacturing, creating a new product and not just slapping a label on something that already exists—all of it. I’m actually glad to address this, because there were people who assumed that when I left Gaspari it was done on bad terms, when the truth is that it was the natural progression of my career. Neither of us thought I would be there forever.

KEVIN HORTON

Rich Gaspari won the 1989 Arnold Classic, along with eight other pro contests, and ﬁnished second in the Mr. Olympia 1986–88. He launched Gaspari Nutrition in 2001. Flex Lewis signed his ﬁrst endorsement deal with Gaspari Nutrition in 2007 and worked with Team Gaspari for six years.

FLEX | NOVEMBER ’17

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ASK MERLIN

BY ERIC “MERLIN” BROSER

SET BY SET

BUILD UP TO YOUR REAL WORK SETS WITHOUT LOSING STEAM.

WHAT’S THE BEST WAY TO GET READY TO CRUSH THE INITIAL WORK SET (AND FOLLOWING SETS) WITHOUT LOSING STRENGTH VIA HIGHREP WARMUPS?

Warmup Set 1: 135 x 20 Warmup Set 2: 185 x 12–15 Warmup Set 3: 225 x 10–12 Warmup Set 4: 275 x 8–10 Work Set 1 (predicted): 315 x 4 (at which point failure is reached)

By examining the above warmup protocol you can easily calculate that 50 to 57 total repetitions are performed before engaging in the first work set. This method will most certainly produce a significant amount of lactic acid buildup within the target muscle(s) and begin depleting cellular ATP and creatine phosphate reserves. Now I will suggest a more useful and efficient warmup scenario that will successfully

FLEX | NOVEMBER ’17

Follow on Instagram: @coachericbroser

prepare your mind, muscles, and CNS for the more intense work ahead but without decreasing strength and performance: Warmup Set 1: 135 x 6 Warmup Set 2: 185 x 5 Warmup Set 3: 225 x 4 Warmup Set 4: 265 x 3 Warmup Set 5: 285 x 2 Warmup Set 6: 305 x 1 Work Set 1 (predicted): 315 x 7–8 (at which point failure is reached)

Here, only 21 total reps are performed before hitting the first work set—with none of the warmups containing more than just six repetitions. Additionally, with the second regimen there are two extra weight jumps involved, the last of which is very near the poundage to be used for the first “real set.” With this protocol, there will be far less lactic acid accumulation, decreased inroads into your

cell’s energy warehouse, and a more comprehensive preparation for the workload and intensity level to follow. Note that once you’ve finished the first exercise for a particular body part, you’ll need only one to two brief warmups for each exercise thereafter (for the same target muscle), since at this point your muscles will be warm. But these (warmup) sets are still crucial for preparing your joints, tendons, ligaments, and CNS for a new angle of push or pull. Finally, keep in mind that the above recommendation is meant for trainees who are healthy and not suffering from any joint injury or severe inflammation. Those who have a strain, a pull, a tear, or another similar problem may need to do a more extensive warmup for any exercises that have a direct effect on the compromised area.

PAVEL Y THJALL

The reality is that more often than not, most trainees overdo their warmups. Performing multiple, low-intensity, high-rep sets before each exercise will only serve to reduce overall energy stores and create a more acidic environment within your muscles, resulting in fatigue. This will carry over into your work sets, disrupting your ability to maximize your efforts when most needed. To help illustrate my point, here is a quick look at how the majority of bodybuilders and athletes approach their warmups, using the squat as an example:

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STEVE KUCLO Lots of food! The latest tradition is that we have all our family fly into Dallas and we host Thanksgiving weekend at our house. My mom and dad are both excellent chefs, and they help us throw one heck of a feast. Other than the Dallas Cowboys game, one of the new traditions is to go around the table after dinner and have everyone give a couple of things they are thankful for. Being thankful helps fill the heart with peace and joy.

IN 2017, YOU TRAVELED TO BRAZIL, SOUTH AFRICA, AND NEW ZEALAND FOR CONTESTS. WHAT WERE YOUR IMPRESSIONS OF THOSE COUNTRIES? Well, I love Brazil. Last year the contest was in Rio, which was right on the beach. That was like paradise. This year we were in São Paulo, which wasn’t as exciting as Rio, at least for me as a bodybuilder there to compete. When you’re someplace for a contest, you’re not able to tour around a lot or go for hikes or bike rides to check out a place. So you end up staying around the hotel if there isn’t some kind of attraction right nearby. New Zealand was a really nice and beautiful place to

FLEX | NOVEMBER ’17

visit. In South Africa I got to visit the lions. I got to get up close. That was the best part of the trip. I basically went on a safari: There were lions and lots of other wild animals around. There was a trainer there, and after watching them and getting instructions from them, you kind of got an idea of how to act around the lions. But I’m not going to lie, it was scary. WHEN YOU’RE GOING TO BE IN VEGAS FOR THE OLYMPIA, BUT NOT COMPETING, DO YOU WORRY ABOUT PREP OR DIETING? I didn’t do any kind of diet or prep before this year’s O. I’m following a bulking diet.

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JUAN MOREL

It’s a blend of both. But I’m going to say it leans a little more to being the looser nutrition holiday. If something can be substituted like Splenda/ stevia for sugar, we tend to swap those out—but certain recipes you just can’t change. For instance, when my good friend who owns MoMo’s Donuts drops off a couple dozen doughnuts, there is no substituting for the goodness there.

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WEIDER ATHLETES WEIGH IN SHAWN RHODEN The whole meal is basically a traditional Thanksgiving meal. We do a spread. Even though I was born in Jamaica, I moved to the U.S. in my teens, and I guess I do what everyone in the U.S. does—show thanks for what we have. The baked macaroni and cheese is my favorite part of the meal—but anything baked is at the top of the list. All that is great stuff.

Very few people know this, but I broke my jaw in February and had it wired shut for about eight weeks. Everything I ate was through a straw. So I didn’t really have an off-season where I gained a lot of weight. I was consuming between 3,000 and 4,000 calories a day through a straw. So by April, I’d lost 36 pounds. It wasn’t until May that I was able to start prep, and by then there were so many factors to deal with that I left the caloric breakdown to my trainer, Chris Aceto.

WILLIAM BONAC WHO ARE SOME OF THE BODYBUILDERS—PAST OR PRESENT—WHO INSPIRE YOU? A lot—but to name a few: Lee Haney, Arnold, Flex Wheeler, Coleman, Dexter, and Kai.

HAVE YOU RETURNED TO GHANA, WHERE YOU WERE BORN, SINCE BECOMING A PRO? Not yet. Every time I want to go, someone dies in my family over there, and I’m like, “I’d rather give my ticket money to give them a proper funeral.” With God’s will, I will try to go next year.

Have a question for our Weider Athletes? Ask it on the FLEX Facebook page for a chance to see it here.

FLEX | NOVEMBER ’17

CHARLES LOW THIAN

DO YOU PREP DIFFERENTLY FOR GUEST POSING? DO YOU ENJOY GUEST POSING? No, I just try to keep my shape good whether it’s off-season or not. Yeah, I do enjoy it.

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RETRO ATHLETE

BY GREG MERRITT

BRANCH WARREN

HOW WAS WARREN GROWING HIS LOWER LIMBS IN HIS ROOKIE YEAR?

USUALLY THIS SPACE IS reserved for bodybuilders who haven’t competed for three years or more. For Branch Warren, it’s only been a year and a half, and though he claims he’s “unofficially retired,” he’s as big and strong and hard-driving as he’s ever been, so there’s a chance he could return at 43 in 2018. After all, his training partner, Johnnie Jackson, won two pro shows this year at 46. So we’ll call this an “unofficial Retro” and do

something a bit different. Step into the time machine and return to 2004, when Warren was 29 and made his long-delayed pro debut with little fanfare. He’d go on to win nine pro titles, including the Arnold Classic twice (2011–12), and ﬁnish second in the 2008 Mr. Olympia. But on this day he’s under a bending bar in the squat rack at Metroﬂex Gym, building two of the best wheels of all time, one torturous rep at a time.

WARREN ON LEG TRAINING “I keep a pretty narrow stance when I squat compared with most guys, and I keep the bar high on my traps.” “With leg presses, I’ll often do a dropset on the last set.” “I think regular squats and lunges are the best things you can do for your quads, hams, and glutes.” “I don’t do stifflegged deadlifts because of an injury, but I recommend them to others.”

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FLEX | NOVEMBER ’17

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ASK LEE

BY LEE HANEY

CATALYST TO GREATNESS

WHAT MADE LEE HANEY THE DOMINANT ICON OF HIS SPORT FOR NEARLY A DECADE? IN HIS MIND, HE HAD THAT “SOMETHING.”

OVER THE YEARS, I’ve been asked time and time again about the key ingredient to my success. Was it the training system? The well-thought-out diet plan? Or, as the old Michael Jordan commercial would ask, was it the shoes? Well, from my perspective, it could have been all of them, or maybe none. There’s no way that any one athlete can say beyond the shadow of a doubt that he trained harder than all the athletes who finished below him in the standings. Nor could he say, “No one paid attention to nutritional detail more than I did.” I’ve seen athletes with far less

FLEX | NOVEMBER ’17

genetic potential reign supreme because of something intangible they had beyond the physical. Which brings me to the point of this discussion. After watching and studying the lives of some of the world’s greatest athletes, I believe that in most cases there existed a mind-altering catalyst that drove them beyond the boundaries of the ordinary— that something that created an unquenchable desire to strive to the pinnacle of greatness. At the age of 6, I dreamed of being the Greek hero Hercules and the biblical strongman Samson. Every physical chore I was given by my father was, in

p few whom God has gifted for a particular place in time. There is only one Arnold, one Frank Zane, one Phil Heath, one Muhammad Ali, one Lebron James, and one Jim Brown, to name a few. There’s no duplication to these particular athletes, yet the question remains: Where did they get the drive to defy the odds and refuse to accept “impossible” and “can’t” as options? I feel that my personal catalyst came by way of what was ingrained in me as a child. I was fortunate to have two awesome parents. My mom was constantly saying to me, “Son, put God first in your life and you will be blessed.” Then my dad would say, “Whatever you do, be the best at it.” And so I’ve achieved the greatest bodybuilding accolades as the NPC National Champion, the IFBB World Champion, and an eight-time Mr. Olympia. My catalyst may be unique in its nature; however, all great or inspiring athletes have that unexplainable something that sets them apart. Some call it “the eye of the tiger”! Always hungry! Never satisfied!

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1ST SET

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TRAINING TIPS TO POWER UP YOUR WORKOUTS

KEVIN HORTON

Want more muscle? Make giant gains with this ultrademanding technique that ramps up muscle damage. You’ve been warned!

So exactly how are you supposed to breathe when you’re trying to move serious iron? Find out once and for all—so you can breathe easy.

How do you tell a real bodybuilder from a guy who just thinks he’s all jacked? Take a look at his rear delts. Here’s how to get a pair of your own.

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LIFT

WORKOUT OF THE MONTH

BY ANDY MCDERMOTT

METABOLIC MONSTER GIVE YOUR METABOLISM A MAJOR BOOST WITH THIS 15-MINUTE CIRCUIT.

FLEX | NOVEMBER ’17

WHAT IT IS

WHY IT WORKS

A 15-minute, four-exercise circuit. Between burpees on the TRX for 30 seconds and double unders—two rotations of the rope in one jump—the ﬁrst half of this circuit will set a grueling pace. You’ll hit your lower body with squats and then fry your upper body and core with bear crawls.

You won’t ﬁnd any isolation movements in this circuit, since each exercise targets just about every muscle, and the 30-second duration will have you (and the ﬂoor) doused with sweat. While 15 minutes doesn’t sound like a lot of time, this workout will have your body burning more calories than traditional cardio…that is, if you can make it all the way through.

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LIFT

TRAINING STYLES

BY GREG MERRITT

MAY THE FORCED BE WITH YOU

FORCED REPS MAKE A SET HARDER BY MAKING IT EASIER.

FORCED-REP BASICS The spotter should remove stress from reps only when you’ve reached the verge of failing on your own.

THERE’S A CONUNDRUM with forced reps, and it’s the key to their effectiveness. By assisting, a spotter makes reps easier, but by making them easier, he makes the set harder. It’s all a matter

FLEX | NOVEMBER ’17

of perspective. When you’re under the iron and you can’t eke out another rep on your own, continuing onward with forced reps will feel anything but easy, even as helping hands lessen the resistance. Forced reps are one of

the most effective methods for blowing through stop signs and barreling into the pain (and growth) zone.

HELPING HANDS “Assisted reps” would be a more accurate name than “forced

The key to effective forced reps is the transfer of the bare minimum amount of work from you to the spotter. When the spotter does more of the work than you, the set should end.

PAVEL Y THJALL

Just enough resistance is removed so you can move the weight at the same pace as before.

LIFT

TRAINING STYLES transfer of resistance from your muscles to his so the reps are not too hard or too easy but just right, progressing at the same pace as all preceding reps and within the same groove. (For this reason, a regular training partner, who should know your strength, is the ideal spotter.) On each subsequent forced rep, more stress will need to be removed. If, after reaching failure at eight reps, your spotter helps just enough for you to grind out four more, you’ll understand that forced is an appropriate adjective, after all.

As with cheating, forced reps don’t work with all exercises. Deadlifts, lunges, and barbell rows are among the ones where it’s impractical for someone to assist. The good news is that forced reps can be used with some exercises you should never cheat, including most lifts for chest (such as incline presses, dumbbell flyes, and dips) and many for legs (including squats, hack squats, and leg presses). Sometimes, as in the case of squats, the spotter should hover closely behind you,

FORCED-REP TIP SHEET Not all exercises lend themselves to forced reps. Deadlifts and lunges are two that can’t be effectively assisted by hand. Reverse forced reps are when the spotter applies extra pressure, such as pushing down on pulldowns. The spotter can make the weight heavier and then lighter on the same set. On unilateral arm exercises, you can do forced reps by using your resting hand to provide just enough pressure to your working arm to keep the weight moving.

PAVEL Y THJALL

reps,” but the latter captures the feeling you might get when just enough resistance is removed for your set to continue beyond your normal limits. You’re forced to keep going. Failure is not an option. And that brings us to the ﬁrst and most important thing to know about this technique: It’s exercise overtime. A spotter should assist you only when you’re on the verge of failing, and he should apply only enough pressure so you can continue to move the weight at the same pace as before. The key to effective forced reps is the

FLEX | NOVEMBER ’17

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simulating your movements. Other times, as with hack squats, he stands to one side and pulls up on a weight sleeve.

HOLDING IT DOWN

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER Our triceps forcedreps routine illustrates how forced reps can be applied to a variety of exercises. During the ﬁnal reps of pushdowns, your spotter can push down

FLEX | NOVEMBER ’17

on your hands, pull down on the cable, or lift up on the weight stack. All three methods require careful focus to remove just the right amount of stress. Pushdowns can also be done unilaterally without a spotter; you lightly press down on your working forearm with your other hand. Close-grip bench presses are relatively easy for a spotter. He stands behind you and lifts up on the bar just enough for you to keep pressing at the same

pace. Finally, for lying triceps extensions, the spotter squats behind you and helps move the weight both up and forward in a semi-arc, being careful not to

help too much or not enough. The weight needs to keep moving, you need to stay in the groove, and your muscles need to feel the pain.

KEVIN HORTON

A spotter can also make reps more difficult. These reverse forced reps are effective during the earliest stage of a set. Usually, the ﬁrst reps serve as precursors, tiring you out before the real growth inducers at the end. But if a spotter makes them harder, you can do maximum-effort reps from the get-go and create a sort of dropset in which resistance is lessened throughout the set. For example, when doing pullups, the spotter can apply downward pressure to your feet, making reps harder. He can then remove stress as the set advances until you’re doing reps by yourself. Then, as you begin to struggle, he can provide upward pressure on your feet, relieving increasingly more resistance on the final reps. In this progression from reverse forced to unassisted to forced, you’re using maximum resistance from the first rep to the last, instead of coasting through the early stage and straining only at the end.

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LAB TO GYM

BY BRYAN HAYCOCK

GIANT SETS

MORE DEMANDING AND MORE DAMAGING.

Supersets are two different exercises performed back-toback with no rest in between. A traditional superset involves two separate muscle groups. Another way of supersetting is doing two exercises for the same muscle group back-to-back. These are called giant sets. It’s hypothesized that if you “pre-exhaust” the target muscle with an isolation exercise and follow it immediately with a compound exercise (e.g., pec deck to bench press), you will better stimulate the muscle.

RESEARCH Brazilian researchers tested the effect of

FLEX | NOVEMBER ’17

exercise order (supersets versus giant sets) in muscle activity and markers of muscle damage. The exercises were the leg press, leg extension, bench press, and pec deck. The giant-set group did bench presses followed by pec decks. The superset group performed leg presses followed by pec decks, and bench presses followed by leg extensions.

activation, muscle damage, and delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) compared with traditional supersets.

FINDINGS

CONCLUSION

Performing giant sets in which a compound movement was followed immediately by an isolation movement for the same muscle group led to signiﬁcantly higher muscle

Giant sets, particularly when compound movements are performed ﬁrst, are taxing on the muscle and may require longer time to recover between training

sessions for that muscle group.

APPLICATION Pick a target muscle and do giant sets for six to eight weeks. If you’re a seasoned lifter, perform giant sets each time you hit that body part. If you have less training years under your belt, incorporate giant sets once per week for any given body part.

PER BERNAL; GUY CAMERON

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LIFT

ON TRIAL

BY BRYAN HAYCOCK

BREATHLESS THE TRUTH BEHIND INHALING AND EXHALING.

PROSECUTION Holding your breath and “pushing” is called the Valsalva maneuver (VM). This occurs naturally or reﬂexively when you try to lift something heavy. It occurs involuntarily and also increases intraabdominal pressure, adding stability to the spine and core in general.

FLEX | NOVEMBER ’17

EVIDENCE Research has shown that when loads approaching or exceeding about 80% 1RM, VM is involuntary and brieﬂy unavoidable with maximum exertion. This also holds true for lighter sets taken to failure. Evidence shows that intra-abdominal pressure

increases with exertion at or above 80% 1RM whether you hold your breath or not. Studies have shown that intra-abdominal pressure is actually less when VM occurs during resistance exercise than when subjects are asked to perform the VM by itself. Increasing intra-abdominal pressure from involuntary VM increases stability of the spine, preparing the body for high-axial loading similar to what occurs during squats and deadlifts. Individuals with a history of heart or vascular disease or hernias are high-risk participants in resistance training and are advised to avoid the VM during resistance exercise.

VERDICT Some amount of breath holding during training involving maximal effort or even loads at 80% 1RM is unavoidable and serves an important role in stabilizing the spine. SENTENCING Breath holding during a lift should be allowed to occur naturally. But exaggerating or preventing it could cause dizziness or reduce spine stability. Because of the impact of increasing intra-abdominal pressure on blood pressure, individuals with heart or vascular disease or hernias are advised to avoid the VM during resistance exercise.

PAVEL Y THJALL

OPENING ARGUMENTS DEFENSE: All authoritative bodies in health and ﬁtness warn against holding your breath while lifting a weight. Holding your breath can raise your blood pressure because of increased intra-abdominal pressure. You should exhale during the concentric portion of the lift and inhale during the eccentric portion. The experts recommend that you count your reps out loud to make sure you are not holding your breath.

! EW K N O LO

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Test subjects who supplemented with the exact 2.5g dose of betaine in 2 scoops of MyoBuild® 4X built 3.75 lbs. of lean muscle in 6 weeks compared to 0.66 lbs. by the placebo group. That’s over 4 times more muscle (vs. the placebo). Betaine has also been shown in a separate study to enhance muscle endurance. MuscleTech® is America’s #1 Selling Bodybuilding Supplement Brand based on cumulative wholesale dollar sales 2001 to present. Facebook logo is owned by Facebook Inc. Read the entire label and follow directions. © 2017

Icy Blue

CROSSHAIRS

LAY IT DOWN PUT THE POP IN YOUR POSTERIOR DELTS.

POSTERIOR (REAR) DELTS serve to ﬁguratively and literally round out shoulder development. They are essential not only for proper arm symmetry and balance but also for back symmetry. Frequently, rear delts are underdeveloped because they are not visible when you throw up a biceps pose. Sounds silly, but it’s true. Most back movements will engage the rear delts to some degree, but to really zero in on

FLEX | NOVEMBER ’17

them there is no better exercise than side-lying rear-delt raises. Lie down on your side on a bench. Stabilize yourself by allowing your bottom foot to drop to the ﬂoor in front and support your head with your bottom arm. Start with your arm hanging down toward the ﬂoor at about chest level. Keeping the arm stiff but slightly bent, raise the weight out in front of you, leading with your elbow (pinkie up). Raise your arm until your elbow is not

BY BRYAN HAYCOCK

can also be used as part of a giant set with one-arm dumbbell rows.

quite pointing to the ceiling. Stop before you feel the resistance decreasing. The point of this exercise is to make it burn!

FORM AND FUNCTION The origin is along the lower lip of the posterior border of the spine of the scapula. Its insertion is on the lateral side of the humerus at the deltoid tuberosity. The posterior deltoid extends the shoulder and externally rotates the arm.

ALTERNATIVES Bentover rear-delt raises using low cable, bentover rear-delt raises with dumbbell. WHEN TO FOCUS ON REAR DELTS Rear delts are a good finisher for back. They

3 3 2

PAVEL Y THJALL

LIFT

FOOD & SUPPS NUTRITION TIPS TO FUEL TRAINING AND GROWTH

CL AIRE BENOIST

First, come to grips with the fact that avocados are berries. Next, try them in one (or all) of these ﬁve recipes.

Water—you can’t live without it. More important for us gym rats, you can’t have a good workout without it.

Venison (deer) is a great addition to those looking for a lean alternative to beef. Just don’t picture Bambi.

Hormones are key for boosting size. Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals has you covered with this product.

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FLEXONLINE.COM

FOOD & SUPPS

MEAL OF THE MONTH

BY SHANE CASH

FIVE FAST LUNCHES THAT GIVE YOUR MUSCLES THE ROYAL TREATMENT. WHEN THE 18TH-CENTURY British Earl of Sandwich asked his servants to bring him a piece of meat held between two slices of bread, he deﬁnitely stumbled onto something. Not only did he invent the sandwich, as legend has it, but he

requested the ideal post-workout meal—a simple combination of protein and carbohydrates, which research shows spurs greater muscle growth than protein alone. But with a little knowledge (and some condiments—come on,

PRO TUN SAN INGREDIENTS TUNA S 6 oz w 1 tbsp 1 tbsp 1 tbsp ½ tbsp Salt

You don’t need it to make tuna tasty. Add ﬂavor with vegetables and light dressing.

SANDW 1 7-in 2 Bos 2 bee 1 red 1 har 1 tbsp red 1 oz l

DIRECTIONS 1. In a tuna s seaso 2. Cut length lettuce onion o of bag tuna s 3. Top with e red pe dressi half of sandw

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muscle meal even more effective. Reach for these easy-to-prepare recipes to turn steak, lamb, chicken—and even an old can of cranberry sauce—into a gourmet meal ﬁt for a king. Or at least an earl—whatever

WHOLE-WHEA TURKEY WRA INGREDIENTS 1½ ½ ¾ 1 ¼ 1 2 4 1

tbsp whole-grain must tbsp light mayonnaise tbsp orange marmalade tbsp canned cranberry tsp white wine vinegar whole-wheat wrap brie cheese slices oz deli turkey small bunch watercres

DIRECTIONS 1. In a small bowl, mix mustard and mayonnaise. In anothe bowl, mix marmalade, cranberry sauce, and vinegar. 2. Lay wrap on a clean surface and spread both sauces in center o wrap. Place brie, turkey and watercress on top. 3. Fold sides of wrap toward center and roll it up from bottom to top.

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INGREDIENTS ORSERADISH SAUCE tbsp horseradish tbsp low-fat sour cream tbsp light mayonnaise Dash chili powder NDWICH oz lean New York strip steak Salt and pepper 7-inch sesame hoagie roll small bunch watercress beefsteak tomato slices Vidalia onion, thinly sliced Muenster cheese slices

DIRECTIONS 1. In a small bowl, mix together horseradish sauce ingredients. 2. Heat grill to medium-high. Season steak with salt and pepper. Grill steak to desired doneness. When steak is nearly done, top with Muenster and let cheese melt slightly. 3. Cut roll in half lengthwise. Spread horseradish sauce on both halves. Add watercress, tomato, onion, and steak to bottom half of roll. Top with other half.

CALORIES

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FLEXONLINE.COM

FOOD & SUPPS

MEAL OF THE MONTH ED CHICKEN RMA PANINO INGREDIENTS iabatta roll sil pesto ne cheese slices less, skinless chicken grilled and sliced es prosciutto red pepper, julienned n, thinly sliced pped artichoke e-seed oil

You can make your own pesto by combining basil, pine nuts, olive oil, and Parmesan cheese in a food processor.

DIRECTIONS 1.

CALORIES

PROTEIN

batta in half e and spread pesto alves. Place 1 slice on bottom half of wed by chicken, o, roasted red nion, artichoke, and provolone slice. other ciabatta half. arge sauté pan um heat. Lightly of sandwich d carefully place top-side down ush bottom with ess down with a s it’s cooking. ly turn sandwich continue cooking golden brown on s and cheese is

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DIRECTIONS 1.

INGREDIENTS 2.

CALORIES

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CARBS

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FLEX | NOVEMBER ’17

CL AIRE BENOIST

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FOOD ID

BY JENNA WERNER, R.D.

CHIPS AHOY

POTATO CHIPS—THE UNOFFICIAL SNACK OF FOOTBALL SEASON—ARE A TRAIN WRECK FOR YOUR BODY: HIGH IN FAT, SODIUM, AND CALORIES. HERE, WE PRESENT FIVE BETTER WAYS TO CRUNCH THIS FALL. QUINOA

These are similar in crunch to potato chips, but they’re lower in saturated fat and calories than, say, Classic Lay’s. BUYER BEWARE: Look for quinoa as the ﬁrst ingredient on the package. Also, just know that these chips aren’t as nutritious as the other chips here. BRAND WE LIKE: Simply 7.

ROOT VEGETABLE

WHEY PROTEIN

These chips are so high in protein—about 20 grams per serving— they’re great on game day or post-workout. They’re also low in carbs and semi-low in calories. BUYER BEWARE: These contain dairy, so avoid them if you’re intolerant or on a dairy-free diet. And look for ﬂavors low in sodium, like cheddar. BRAND WE LIKE: Quest Nutrition.

FLEX | NOVEMBER ’17

PEA PROTEIN

With ﬂavors like spicy chili lime and nacho cheese, these glutenfree, vegan-friendly chips are low in carbs and high in ﬁber. The best part: Each chip contains about 1 gram of protein. BUYER BEWARE: Stick to one serving to keep your intake of sodium low. BRAND WE LIKE: Protes.

BEAN

Beans have a ton of ﬁber—which helps us get full faster and stay full longer—so these bean-based chips will satisfy cravings and keep weight in check. BUYER BEWARE: Keep it to one serving, or about 10 chips. And look for brands that use whole beans. BRANDS WE LIKE: Beanitos and Beanﬁelds.

PHOTOGR APH BY JEFFREY WESTBROOK; PROP ST YLING BY JUDITH TREZZ A

snack that provides all the beneﬁts of vegetables. Varieties include beet, jicama, sweet potato, and carrot. BUYER BEWARE: Make sure the root vegetable is listed as the ﬁrst ingredient so you know the chip truly contains egetables. And go ith a baked chip. ANDS WE LIKE: ythm Superfoods, e, and Terra.

FOOD & SUPPS

1 FOOD, 5 WAYS

BY JENNA WERNER, R.D.

TRUFFLES In a bowl, mash 1 avocado. Melt 1 cup dark chocolate chips and mix in with avocado. Add 1 tsp pure vanilla extract and a pinch of sea salt. Place mixture in fridge for 20 to 30 minutes, until batter is set. Scoop out batter and roll into 1-inch balls. Pour unsweetened cocoa powder in a bowl and powdered peanut butter in another bowl. Roll truffles through desired powder topping. Store in fridge until ready to serve. Makes 20 truffles.

THE FOOD:

AVOCADO

NEW WAYS TO CONSUME THIS NUTRIENT-DENSE BERRY. (YEP, IT’S A BERRY.)

TUNA SALAD

In a blender, add 1 avocado, ¼ cup fresh basil leaves, 1 garlic clove, 1 tbsp fresh lime juice, 2 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, ¼ cup plain Greek yogurt, salt and pepper to taste, and 1 tbsp water. Blend until well combined. Use this dressing to top roasted vegetables, salads, ﬁsh, poultry, or your favorite whole grain.

In a bowl, combine 1 cup diced strawberries, 1 cup diced pineapple, 1 medium chopped avocado, ½ cup diced red bell pepper, ½ cup chopped fresh cilantro leaves, 1 medium chopped jalapeño, ¼ cup ﬁnely chopped red onion, 1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, juice of 1 lime, and a pinch of sea salt. Mix well and serve with whole-grain or bean-based chips.

Peel and slice 2 avocados and squeeze lime juice over the slices, then sprinkle with garlic and herb seasoning. Coat slices with a high-ﬁber ﬂour like coconut or oat; dip into a beaten-up egg, then whole-wheat breadcrumbs. Place slices on a greased baking tray and bake at 400°F for 15 minutes. Serve with chipotle-mayo dip or a mix of plain Greek yogurt and hot sauce.

DRESSING

ABOUT THE R.D.:

FLEX | NOVEMBER ’17

SALSA

FRIES

GO GREEN An avocado provides heart-healthy monounsaturated fats (aka good fats), ﬁber, and nearly 20 vitamins and minerals, making this fruit a nutrient-dense superfood.

GET T Y IMAGES

For a healthier meal, use avocado instead of mayo in your tuna salad. In a bowl, mash ½ avocado. Mix in 1 can drained tuna ﬁsh, 2 large chopped celery stalks, ½ cup diced bell pepper, 1 tbsp plain Greek yogurt, ¼ cup sunﬂower seeds, a squeeze of lemon juice, and salt and pepper to taste.

FOOD & SUPPS

ASK THE R.D.

BY MARJORIE NOLAN COHN, R.D.N.

FLUID FACTS

DO YOU HAVE TO LUG GALLON JUGS OF WATER AROUND THE GYM TO STAY PROPERLY HYDRATED?

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FOOD & SUPPS

FOOD FOCUS

BY ADAM BIBLE

GET IN THE GAME

WHEN FALL ROLLS into town, most guys are focused on the big game on TV and not the game that is roaming around in their local forests. Deer populations have exploded in recent years, and while that’s a danger to motorists, it also means there is a lot of delicious lean meat hanging out in the woods. November signals the start of most deer-hunting seasons in U.S. states for those using a riﬂe—bow-hunting season usually starts in early October—and that means the harvest is on. Deer meat, or venison, is a great alternative to the boring boneless, skinless chicken breast consumed by so many bodybuilders and weightlifters. “Venison is lower in fat and calories and offers a different taste to traditional red meats— plus it’s high in the essential amino acids needed to build muscle,” says Heather Mangieri, R.D.N., C.S.S.D., L.D.N., the CEO and nutrition consultant at Nutrition CheckUp, the author of Fueling Young Athletes, and a spokeswoman for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. And if you are serious about building lean muscle and getting stronger, you know that increasing your intake of highquality protein should be a priority. On average, a threeounce cut of venison equals about 129 calories and has 27 grams of protein, two grams of fat, and one gram of saturated fat. “That

FLEX | NOVEMBER ’17

makes it a low-fat but high-quality protein food perfect for a bodybuilder looking to increase muscle mass while maintaining a lower body-fat percentage,” Mangieri says. She notes that those three ounces of venison will also provide 45% of a man’s daily iron needs for the day and that it’s a great source of phosphorus, zinc, selenium, and B vitamins. The main drawback to the game meat is that the lower fat content also makes it less tender than beef—make sure to use marinades—and it is slightly higher in cholesterol than other red meats, so make sure to check your portions and stick with three

to four ounces at one sitting. “It can also be difficult to find and more expensive than other high-quality protein options,” Mangieri says. “You will likely need to visit a specialty grocery store to find this meat or become friends with a neighborhood hunter who is willing to share his stash with you.”

GET T Y IMAGES

SELECTING A GAME MEAT LIKE VENISON WHEN IT’S IN (HUNTING) SEASON CAN GIVE YOU SUSTAINABLE AND TASTY LEAN GAINS.

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ITâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S A COMMON MISTAKE that celebrity chef Scott Conant sees with cooks, yet itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s such an easy ďŹ x: Wait before cutting your steak. â&#x20AC;&#x153;People donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t take the proper time to let steak rest after cooking,â&#x20AC;? says Conant, a James Beard Awardâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;winning chef and the owner of Fusco restaurant (fusconewyork.com) in New York City. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You want those juices to remain in the meat and not on the cutting board which happens

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FOOD & SUPPS

SPOTLIGHT

BY ADAM GONZALEZ

GROW WITH

PRO IGF-1 FROM HI-TECH PHARMACEUTICALS BOOSTS A CRUCIAL HORMONE FOR BETTER, FASTER MUSCLE GAINS.

YOU LIKELY KNOW about a couple of important hormones that support increased muscle mass, including testosterone and growth hormone (GH). But you may know less about others. One of these is insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), a protein molecule that works with GH to drive muscle growth. When your goal is to maximize muscle gains, it’s important to choose a safe, effective way to boost the hormones that support building quality mass. Pro IGF-1 has been formulated to spur muscle growth by delivering supplemental IGF-1.

FLEX | NOVEMBER ’17

PRO IGF-1 DRIVES GROWTH BY PROVIDING SUPPLEMENTAL IGF-1. Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals has discovered technology that allows extraction of IGF-1 from whey protein. Previously, you had to consume large amounts of whey protein to get a sufficient amount of IGF-1. It should come as no surprise that this hormone is found in milk. Virtually all mammals grow quickly after they are

born, particularly when they consume mother’s milk. While milk supplies protein and calories, it also provides other nutrients that encourage rapid growth after birth and through adolescence. Yet the digestive process destroys much of the IGF-1 you consume. Each dose of Pro IGF-1 contains 20mcg of IGF-1 from NXP-GF whey protein isolate, protected by new technology from Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals. Consuming this form of supplemental IGF-1 helps spur muscle growth for health beneﬁts for adults. PRO IGF-1 PROVIDES MULTIPLE BENEFITS TO BODYBUILDERS. GH stimulates production

of IGF-1 in the liver, but production of IGF-1 naturally reduces after adolescence. Interestingly, GH doesn’t cause growth itself. Rather, it signals the release of IGF-1, and as IGF-1 reduces so does your ability to grow in adulthood. That’s where supplementation of Pro IGF-1 comes in. This product helps drive the benefits of your body’s diminished capacity to produce its own IGF-1 due to aging. IGF-1 helps you increase strength and muscle mass, improve recovery, and maintain healthy bones and joints. Pro IGF-1 is beneficial to athletes, those who want to reduce body fat, and many who have specific health conditions.

GET YOUR GROWTH ON WITH PRO IGF-1 Pro IGF-1’s proprietary Liposomal Delivery (LD) system ensures that its supplemental IGF-1 will bypass digestion and be transported through the bowel wall, making it up to 1,500% more bioavailable than IGF-1 consumed through other foods or supplements. For best results, take five tablets of Pro IGF-1 daily, and do not exceed recommended dosage.

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FOOD & SUPPS

SUPP OF THE MONTH

BY ADAM GONZALES

THE BEST WAY TO

IMPACT MUSCLE GAINS

IMPACT IGNITER FROM ALLMAX PROVIDES WHAT YOU NEED FOR BETTER WORKOUTS AND GROWTH.

Impact Igniter boosts production of nitric oxide for better muscle pumps. This pre-workout product contains citrulline malate in the superior 2-to-1 ratio to increase nitric oxide, a gas molecule that

encourages blood vessels to relax, allowing more blood and nutrients to ﬂow to the muscle you’re training. This not only encourages better workouts but also supports increased vascularity, better recovery, and faster muscle growth, as well as signiﬁcantly reducing the sensation of fatigue. Impact Igniter reduces fatigue and supports recovery. N-acetylcysteine (NAC) is a

Impact Igniter includes higenamine, synephrine, and hordenine (from the same family as ephedrine, a stimulant). The combined dosage of 220mg accelerates fat utilization and provides extreme workout motivation so that you’re training at maximum capacity and increasing metabolism for more efficient body-fat burning throughout the day. Impact Igniter also includes the full efficacious 3.2 grams of beta-alanine. Available in Fruit Punch and Blue Raspberry.

FLEX | NOVEMBER ’17

speciﬁc form of the amino acid cysteine. This powerful amino works within muscle cells to scavenge harmful free radicals, which are generated during intense weight-training sessions. NAC restores glutathione to its active form, reducing muscle soreness while enhancing recovery. The product provides 500 milligrams of NAC. Impact Igniter improves muscle-cell volume and fuels your workouts with stored fat. Taurine, an amino acid, drives ﬂuids into muscle cells, which enhances recovery and growth. Taurine also helps balance electrolytes, including sodium, potassium, and magnesium. Caffeine helps boost energy and release body fat that you can then burn as energy. Impact Igniter contains 1,000mg of taurine and 400mg of caffeine.

PER BERNAL

JUST AS YOU NEED a key to start your vehicle’s ignition, you want the proper fuel in your tank to make certain your body is revving on all cylinders when you hit the gym. Impact Igniter from AllMax contains a broad spectrum of supplemental ingredients that have been demonstrated by research to improve workouts and drive muscle growth. Here are the specific advantages you’ll derive when you supplement Impact Igniter before every weight-training session.

Jessica Hardcastle

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BEST CHEST MOVES FROM A TO Z, THE TOP CHESTTRAINING TIPS FROM 26 MODERN CHEST MASTERS.

PER BERNAL (2)

BY GREG MERRITT Pecs make the bodybuilder. They form a breastplate, armor cast in flesh, vigilant guards before the engines of life itself. So there’s that. But they’ve also become so emblematic of “jacked” that today’s kids are as likely to hit a mostmuscular as a double biceps when asked to “make a muscle.” We’ve assembled an alphabetical guide to growing your fleshy breastplate—26 top tips from current chest masters. From A (for angles) to Z (for zone) and all the letters in between, this expert advice will help you grow more chest flesh to flex. «

ANGLES

“The chest, more than any other body part, has distinct regions that need to be worked with different exercises and hit from different angles. There’s the upper chest, lower chest, inner chest, and outer chest. Each of those should get some work in every chest workout. I’m doing six exercises [incline dumbbell press, Smith machine incline press, incline flye, flat machine press, decline machine press, pec deck flye or cable crossover] to make sure I hit every angle.” —Cody Montgomery

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B —Lionel Beyeke

DIP

“The advantage of draping chains over your shoulders during dips is they pull you forward, so you work your chest more and your triceps less than when you have a weight dangling between your legs. Also, I don’t really want a weight between my legs if you know what I mean. And when I use two or three chains, I can shed one easily to do dropsets.” —Branch Warren

CABLE CROSSOVER

“Cable crossovers are almost always in my routine somewhere, especially pre-contest. Sometimes I superset them with something else, like Hammer machine presses, and sometimes I do them alone at the end of the workout. They’re all about the contractions. I don’t even care how much weight I use. You can make any weight feel heavy on these if you squeeze your pecs hard enough.” —Dexter Jackson

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—Shawn Rhoden

PER BERNAL

FLYE “When you bring them together, don’t let the dumbbells touch. Leave a gap of an inch to maintain the contraction. It’s too easy to bounce the weights off each other if you let them touch. You don’t need heavy dumbbells for ﬂyes.” —Nathan De Asha

G “I c e w If n tw m a p a p

GIANT SET

—Ben Pakulski

PAVEL Y THJALL

I —Jonathan De La Rosa —Johnnie Jackson

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—Sergio Oliva Jr. —Jose Raymond —Victor Martinez

MACHINE PRESS

—Roelly Winklaar

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NEGATIVE “Time under tension is a good thing. When I do machine presses, I like to focus more on the negative. You want to stay in control of the weight; don’t let the weight control you. Concentrate on both halves of the rep—the positive and the negative.” —Phil Heath

OVERTRAINING “Any kind of press for chest works the triceps and front delts along with the pecs. So you need to beware of overtraining. If you do a lot of pressing, you may need to do less shoulder and triceps work. And you should arrange your split so there’s at least two days between your chest workout and your triceps or shoulder workouts.” —Guy Cisternino

PER BERNAL (2)

PEC DECK FLYE

—Maxx Charles

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RANGE OF MOTION

—William Bonac

S —Flex Lewis

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SUPERSET

“I like to superset a free-weight exercise with its machine counterpart. So I’ll do barbell bench presses, then as soon as I’m done with my set, I’ll do a set of machine bench presses. It’s a safe way of extending the set. Or I might do dumbbell flyes superset with pec deck flyes or cable crossovers. The free weights always come first, so with the machine exercise that follows, I can focus more on the squeeze and getting every last fiber stimulated.” —Juan Morel

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TEMPO

“Presses and dumbbell ﬂyes are performed slow and under careful control. With pec deck ﬂyes or cable crossovers, I like to switch up the tempo and go faster. I do these last, so going faster lets me crank out a few more reps and really get a great pump.” —Brandon Curry

PER BERNAL; KEVIN HORTON

U â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Mamdouh Elssbiay

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V —David Henry

W X

WORKLOAD

“I warm up on every single movement. So you might see me doing 455-pound incline presses, and then next thing you know I’m doing dumbbell bench presses with the 50s. Well, the ﬂat press is a different movement than the incline, so I got warm on the inclines, but I’m not yet warm on the ﬂat press. The stress is different with each as far as how it works the tendons, joints, and muscles. I don’t count warmups as part of my workload, and I can get through them pretty quickly and move up to my working sets. But I always do them for every chest exercise.” —Josh Lenartowicz 102

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X-FRAME

“Most people don’t think of the chest when building an X-frame, but you need really good pec lines to set off the X. It’s important to work every part of the pecs, upper, lower, outer, and inner. If any area is lacking, prioritize it. The upper chest, especially, will draw your eyes up to the shoulders and enhance the X.” —Cedric McMillan

YIELD

“There’s a place for compound and isolation exercises in every chest routine, but if I had to choose just one chest exercise, it would probably be the incline press. That’s the one that’s going to have the greatest yield. It targets more of the upper chest, and it also works the front delts and triceps.” —Clarence DeVis

GUY CAMERON; PER BERNAL

ZONE

“I like to stay in the moderate zone for chest of 10 to 12 reps per set. I will go lower or higher, but most of the time I’m aiming for 10. That gives me enough reps to work the muscles and not the weight, but not so many reps that I’m not also focused on pushing the intensity and trying to get stronger.” —Ahmad Ashkanani

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COMPOUND POUNDING

PART 1

FOCUS ON THESE BASIC MULTIJOINT LIFTS TO MANIFEST MASSIVE MUSCLE, SUPERIOR STRENGTH, AND PRODIGIOUS POWER.

DIP

MAIN MUSCLES TARGETED

PERFORMANCE TIP

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BARBELL SQUAT This one is right at the top of the list since it involves one of the most basic movements we perform in lifeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; bending at the knees (to sitting position) and pushing back up to a standing position. Additionally, the barbell squat is an exercise that allows for the use of massive poundage, requires great balance and coordination, and stimulates growth throughout the body. MAIN MUSCLES TARGETED Quads, hamstrings, glutes, hips, lower back PERFORMANCE TIP Make sure to keep your head up, lower back slightly arched, and the bar set on the upper traps as you squat slowly to a position where the thighs drop just below parallel to the ground.

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MILITARY PRESS When i the milita I prefer the seated version for those lifters more focused on the appearance of their physique and the standing version for athletes and those requiring greater strength, power, and coordination. But done either way, this exercise is one of the most effective upper-body mass builders. MAIN MUSCLES TARGETED Anterior deltoids, upper pectorals, triceps PERFORMANCE TIP Make sure not to lean back too far (especially when seated), or this exercise will become more of an incline press than a military press. For those who have healthy and ďŹ&#x201A;exible shoulder joints, the behind-the-neck version of this movement is a solid option at every other shoulder workout.

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CLOCK WISE FROM LEFT: PAVEL Y THJALL; KEVIN HORTON; PAVEL Y THJALL

4 BENCH STEPUP

MAIN MUSCLES TARGETED

PERFORMANCE TIP

PULLUP

MAIN MUSCLES TARGETED

PERFORMANCE TIP

BARBELL BENTOVER ROW

rmed and or the er row is t basic acks—from e lats down ck. It focus s well n from hamstrings, s, and hips.

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th verh barbe one o and e musc the tr nd a o the equi d

MAIN MUSCLES TARGETED Lats, traps, rhomboids, lower back PERFORMANCE TIP Keep the knees slightly bent to help support the lower back. Bend the torso to an angle of 70 to 90 degrees. (Note: Every bodybuilder has a sweet-spot angle where they get the best back stimulation.) Pull the bar to the belly button to activate the lats to a greater degree and closer to the chest to hit more of the mid- and upper-back musculature.

DEADLIFT This is one of the m movements in th iron, closely re a simple task we rm multiple times gle day: bending d ck something up. er deadlifting req meticulous tec with almost every m ching in to take the b ugh its entire range Some of the thic strongest men ever an IFBB stage (Coleman, Jackson, Columbu) were also big deadlifters. MAIN MUSCLES TARGETED Quads, hamstrings, lower back, traps, forearms PERFORMANCE TIP Rather than rebounding the bar off the ï¬&#x201A;oor or rack pins (if doing partials) on each rep, come to a dead stop, which will remove any useless momentum and force the weight to be moved purely by powerful muscular activation.

BARBELL BENCH PRESS

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MAIN MUSCLES TARGETED

PERFORMANCE TIP

IN PART 2, I WILL SHOW YOU HOW TO USE THESE AMAZING COMPOUND LIFTS TO CREATE THE ULTIMATE POWERBODYBUILDING ROUTINE, SO YOU WILL BE ABLE TO NOT ONLY LIFT HUGE BUT ALSO LOOK HUGE.

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SIX SIZE WEEKS TO

BUILD MOUNDS OF MUSCLE WITH THIS BARE-BONES, FOUR-DAYS-A-WEEK HYPERTROPHY PLAN. BY JOE WUEBBEN

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HOW COMPLICATED DO YOU WANT TO MAKE IT? NOT VERY, WE HOPE.

PAVEL Y THJALL; PER BERNAL

You go to the gym, you pick big compound moves, hit them as heavy as possible with good form in hypertrophycentric rep ranges, go home, devour tons of protein and some carbs, rest, and repeat. And then you grow.

That’s more or less how mass gaining works. When you start overthinking it, start getting too cute with your exercises and sets and reps, that’s when results stall out. Confusion is good (muscle confusion, that is), but complicating matters is not. We’re into the cold months now, so it’s a great time to stay bundled up and start adding some Winter Mass— that’s what we’re calling this six-week program. We think you’ll like it. It’s only four days a week, so it won’t rule your life; it’s customizable in that you’re able to pick the exercises you want from our generic movement menu (see the “Exercise Options” section); and it’s grounded in the well-established, and very straightforward, linear periodization model. It’s not complicated, nor should it be. It’s simply more size in six weeks.

PROGRAM DESIGN

The programming here follows a basic linear periodization scheme, which simply means that the weights get heavier and rep counts increase each phase (or mesocycle). This program is broken down into three two-week phases, with the linear model (higher weight, fewer reps) applied to every exercise. The breakdown of sets and reps for most muscle groups will look like this, where “1,” “2,” and “3” refer to the first exercise for a given body part, the second exercise, and the third exercise. The most notable exception to this scheme set/rep scheme

is legs, where the reps are slightly higher because the lower body tends to respond better to higher reps. This is also the case for traps, calves, and abs, which are also known to do well with high reps. As you can see, the reps don’t fluctuate too violently; aside from legs, rep counts don’t exceed 15 for large muscle groups, and they drop only as low as five reps for one exercise in the final two weeks. A vast majority of sets fall between eight and 12 reps, which is ideal for building size.

EXERCISE

SETS

REPS

4 x 12

4 x 10

4x8

1 2 3

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TRAINING SPLIT PER BERNAL; CHARLES LOW THIAN

Feel free to train on any four days of the week you like—e.g., Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday; Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Sunday; Monday to Thursday, etc. There should be no lifting on rest days, but you’re open to do whatever form of active recovery you want (cardio, yoga, etc.) DAY

BODY PARTS TRAINED

1 2

Legs

3 4

Biceps, triceps, calves

REST

Your rest periods don’t need to change drastically from phase to phase. A good rule of thumb is to rest one to two minutes between sets throughout the program. The exercises with five sets (5 x 10, 5 x 8, 5 x 5) will be especially challenging, so feel free to take a full two minutes there. Your 60-second rest periods can be reserved for the 3 x 10–15 exercises, and you may even be able to drop down to 45 seconds on smaller body parts.

CHEST + BACK DAY 1 EXERCISE

PHASE 1

SETS

PHASE 2 SETS

PHASE 3 SETS

REPS

4 x 12

4 x 10

4x8

4 x 12

4 x 10

4x8

BACK

Lat Pulldown

CHEST

Flat Bench Press

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LEGS DAY 2

EXERCISE

PHASE 1 SETS

PHASE 2 SETS

PHASE 3 SETS

REPS

4 x 15

4 x 12

4 x 10

3 x 15

3 x 12

3 x 10

QUADS/GLUTES

Lunge

HAMSTRINGS

EXERCISE OPTIONS The exercises listed in the program are generic by design. Make this program your own by choosing whichever version of the movement you prefer. Below is a quick reference guide to help you choose. The variations listed for the generic names are all viable options.

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dumbbell, kettlebell

Q Lat Pulldown: wide grip, narrow grip, reverse grip, neutral grip

Q Leg Curl: lying, seated, standing (one leg)

Q Cable Row: seated or standing, one arm or both arms, bar attachment of your choice

Q Shoulder Press: standing, seated, barbell, dumbbell, machine, kettlebell

Q Incline Press/Flat Bench Press: barbell, dumbbell, machine, Hammer Strength

Q Upright Row: barbell, dumbbell, Smith machine

Q Flye: dumbbell, cable, machine (pec deck)

Q Lateral Raise: dumbbell, machine, bentover (if rear delts are a weakness)

Q Squat: back squat, front squat, Smith machine squat

Q Shrug: barbell, dumbbell, machine, trap bar

Q Lunge: barbell, dumbbell, kettlebell, reverse lunge, forward lunge, walking lunge

Q Weighted Crunch: cable, plate (lying on ﬂoor), machine crunch

Q Leg Press: 45-degree leg press, vertical leg press, machine hack squat Q Romanian Deadlift: barbell,

Q Plank: prone, side plank, supine Q Skull Crusher: straight bar, EZ-bar, dumbbell, ﬂat bench, decline bench

Q Curl: seated, standing, straight bar, EZ-bar, dumbbell, incline dumbbell curl Q Hammer Curl: dumbbell, cable (rope) Q Cable Pressdown: straight bar, V-bar, rope, reverse grip, one arm Q Standing Calf Raise: machine, dumbbell, one leg Q Seated Calf Raise: machine, dumbbell, donkey calf raise, leg-press calf raise The key is the movement (an incline press, a row, a squat), not the equipment. Feel free to switch exercise variations throughout the program (e.g., do dumbbell incline presses one week, then barbell incline presses the next, etc.).

PAVEL Y THJALL; PER BRNAL

Leg Curl

BODY PART SEQUENCE (DAYS 1 AND 4)

When training chest and back and biceps and triceps, feel free to alternate the order whenever you likeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;doing chest before back, biceps before triceps, or vice versa. You also have the option of supersetting chest and back exercises, something Arnold Schwarzenegger was famously fond of doing.

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SHOULDERS + TRAPS + ABS/CORE DAY 3 EXERCISE

PHASE 1

PHASE 2

PHASE 3

SETS

REPS

4 x 12

4 x 10

4x8

3x 30 sec.

3x 45 sec.

3x 60 sec.

SHOULDERS

Upright Row

TRAPS

ABS

Plank

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OPPOSITE PAGE: PER BERNAL; PAVEL Y THJALL. THIS PAGE: PER BERNAL; JASON BREEZE

ARMS + CALVES

DAY 4 EXERCISE

PHASE 1

PHASE 2

PHASE 3

SETS X REPS

4 x 12 4 x 12

4 x 10 4 x 10

4x8 4x8

ARMS

Hammer Curl superset with Cable Pressdown

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RIP TIME PART 2 OF MY ALL-IN PLAN TO GET YOU SHREDDED FOR 2018. BY NEIL HILL

In the last issue of FLEX, I gave you the first installment of my year-end fat-loss superfeature. Nutrition plays an absolutely pivotal role in maximizing changes in body composition; however, so does training. In this second part, I’m going to show you how to maximize fat loss through training in the gym and your cardio. Follow this plan to the letter, and you can show off a shredded physique just in time for 2018.

FAT-LOSS PITFALLS IN THE GYM Usually when people switch to a fat-loss phase, there are common pitfalls that slow down progress. After almost 30 years in the world of bodybuilding and performance coaching, I’ve noticed the same mistakes arise on a consistent basis. These are:

Not focusing on performance in the gym while on a calorierestricted diet. As a result, overall performance goes down signiﬁcantly, leading to an unnecessary loss in muscle mass and reduction in energy expenditure. This leaves the individual with a less aesthetic physique as well as a more compromised metabolism going forward.

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Losing sight of the fact that overload and training intensity are still relevant during a fatloss phase. People often become one-dimensional in the gym during a fat-loss transformation, doing lots of volume and just chasing the pump. Since there’s no focus on periodization or global muscle ﬁber recruitment, their progress suffers dramatically.

Overtraining. More is not always better. Training is there to create a stimulus, which then must be fueled through nutrition and supplementation. By overtraining while in a calorie deﬁcit, you’re at your most vulnerable when it comes to losing muscle mass. Do not fall into this trap—remember, the fundamentals of training remain the same.

Y3T OVERVIEW

After decades of finetuning Y3T, I sincerely believe that this is the optimal way to burn body fat in the gym.

Using a broad spectrum of rep ranges, which means that all energy systems become engaged and conditioned to a higher capacity. In essence, this leads to greater energy expenditure. Extreme intensity, which is also tracked specifically over the three-week cycle to generate overload across all muscle fibers, energy systems, and the central nervous system. As such, overall energy expenditure is achieved while positive adaptations within natural hormone output also take place. Specific rep tempo and rest-period prescriptions within the context of various rep ranges. This leads to greater muscle engagement, more significant hormonal response, and higher energy expenditure.

HORMONAL RESPONSE TO TRAINING INSULIN SENSITIVITY To maximize fat loss you need to be focused on improving insulin sensitivity, which is achieved through nutrition as well as training. By optimizing insulin sensitivity, you will utilize fuel more effectively. Because Y3T training is so physically demanding, it encourages greater glycogen expenditure, resulting in improved insulin sensitivity. Ultimately, it creates more of a need for fuel to be used more quickly and efficiently.

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TESTOSTERONE PRODUCTION

GROWTH HORMONE PRODUCTION

Testosterone production is key for fat loss because ultimately it helps you retain more lean muscle tissue in an energy deﬁcit, as in a fat-loss phase. Improving natural testosterone output can also help improve your free testosterone-to-estrogen ratio, which is also linked to improved fat loss. Y3T training deﬁnitely puts the required level of stress on the body, which forces it into a position where it needs to produce as much testosterone as it can to keep up.

Increasing natural growth hormone output is linked with improved fat loss because of its ability to help improve fat metabolization. Again, the body tends to increase growth hormone output when it requires more because of a specific stimulus. In this instance the intensity of Y3T will provide the necessary trigger, indirectly improving fat loss as a result.

PAVEL Y THJALL

Whenever you train you will experience several hormonal responses. During a fat-loss phase, Y3T helps maximize these processes to enhance the rate at which you’re able to lose body fat. The main ones I’d like to focus on are these three pillars.

CHEST AND TRICEPS EXERCISE Incline Dumbbell Press (warmup)

SETS

REPS

15–20

3 3 Low-cable Crossover

Seated Dumbbell Extension (warmup)

3 (dropsets)

15–20 per drop

15–20

3 Lying EZ-curl Bar Skull Crusher superset with EZ-curl Bar Press (close grip, and with the same weight)

20–25

As many reps as possible

OPTIMIZED ENERGY EXPENDITURE

Increasing energy expenditure is obviously one of the key things to consider for fat loss. Y3T will deﬁnitely help you do this through the following pathways.

Increasing net oxygen debt, which is achieved through the accumulation of lactic acid in the gym. Y3T pushes the lactic acid threshold far harder than most standard weight-training techniques, which means that over the course of a week your body will have to recover from a much more severe oxygen debt. As a result, calorie expenditure is increased, making fat loss happen quicker.

Because of the severe intensity of Y3T, you will become far more efficient at the disposal of glycogen. As a result, your daily calorie expenditure will increase signiﬁcantly, giving you the opportunity to create more of an energy deﬁcit. This is one of the reasons why most Team Y3T athletes tend not to do as much as other people—they don’t need to.

THIGHS AND HAMSTRINGS EXERCISE Squat (warmup)

SETS

REPS

15–20

PER BERNAL

3 Leg Press (wide stance) superset with Lunge

40–50

20–25 per leg

Lying Leg Curl

20–25 per drop

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METABOLIC CONDITIONING Because of the structu Y3T training cycle, whe moving among low, mod and high reps with vario intensity factors built in with adjustments in tra volume, there is a great metabolic conditioning gained from this. Bearing in mind that has the potential to pus energy system to its lim simultaneously targetin muscle-fiber types at a point, the metabolism b more stimulated. Why? because the body is be through a structured pr that targets many diffe physiological response the way, causing huge d for energy. As such, aro the-clock Y3T helps dri metabolism upward, m fat loss happen quicker

Q I’ve already explained here that usually people using Y3T tend to do less cardio—because the energy demands are so extreme, it isn’t necessary. But this doesn’t mean cardio doesn’t have its place alongside Y3T. In fact, I’m a big advocate of fasted cardio in the morning to increase your rate of fat loss. The key thing is to start small and gradually build according to your rate of progress and the time available to achieve the goal at hand. For instance, you may start with 20 minutes every other morning. Then, as you begin to plateau—and only then—you consider increasing it slightly. The biggest mistake people make with cardio is starting with far too much and then having nowhere to go when they hit a wall. If you begin with one hour every day, what will you do when you hit a plateau? This is how people end up with inefficient metabolisms and have to spend 1½ to two hours per day doing cardio. Do not fall into this trap—start small and gradually build. Remember, Y3T will help you burn fuel very efficiently compared with more traditional programs.

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BACK AND BICEPS EXERCISE

SETS

REPS

Two-arm Dumbbell Row, both hands, arms together (warmup)

15-20

Lat Pulldown (wide grip) superset with Lat Pulldown (narrow grip)

18–25

18-25

Hammer High-lever Pulldown

20–25

4 Seated Dumbbell Curl

3 (dropsets)

20–25 per drop

SUMMARY

Training and nutrition have to work synergistically to achieve an optimal rate of fat loss. While nutrition is the foundation for fat loss, you should never underestimate the difference a specific training approach can make. Y3T will undoubtedly give you all the necessary forms of stimulation to burn fuel more efficiently and retain lean muscle tissue during the process.

PER BERNAL

GETTING CARDIO RIGHT

SHOULDERS AND CALVES EXERCISE

SETS

REPS

Seated Dumbbell Press (warmup) 3

3 Wide-grip Upright Row superset with Standing Straightarm Plate Raise

18–25

18-25

Standing Calf Raise (warmup)

15–20

2 (dropsets)

20–30 per drop

Seated Calf Raise

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IT BY JOE BENNETT PHOTOGRAPHS BY SALOMAN URRACA AND RICK SCHAFF

BREAK THE CYCLE OF BLINDLY FOLLOWING

EMPTY ADVICE AND GET ON

THE PATH TO

REAL PROGRESS &

RESULTS.

“WORKS” FLEXONLINE.COM

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THERE IS NO LACK OF

PEOPLE IN GYMS TODAY WHO ACTUALLY

WANT TO GET BETTER. Who know that maybe whatever someone else is doing may not actually be the best for them. Who feel as if there could actually be a better way. But when they attempt to follow that thought, to experiment, to perhaps make something fit them or feel better, it’s only a matter of time until being confronted with the stereotypical gym bro who lets them know they are overcomplicating or overthinking it. And some version of the following conversation occurs: “Just stick with the basics, bro. That machine won’t grow your back.” “But I don’t feel barbell rows in my back. They hurt my elbows, wrists, and lower back.” “You can’t argue with results. They work. Look at Ronnie Coleman. Look at Dorian Yates. You think you can grow a back better than them?” And then our “thinker” will generally sulk back to the rack, thinking, “Well, that is true,” and continue to row. (If only he could fast-forward 10 years to see the result of “sticking with the basics”— potentially jacked-up elbows but still no lats.) We’ve all been there! It’s not that “it works” isn’t good logic or a bad reason to choose an activity or exercise. At the end of the day, if it doesn’t produce results, I would agree— why would you do it? I mean, would you follow the training routine of the best marathon runner in the world if your goal was to be Mr. Olympia one day? Of course not. Why? I don’t need

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science or studies to validate the decision, I just know that training that way has never worked— never produced an Olympiacaliber physique. So it does make a lot of sense to start by following a Mr. Olympia routine if you want to look like Mr. Olympia. So what’s the problem? “It works” isn’t the problem. How we define “works” is the problem. So let’s examine a few things I think are important to consider, as we better define this word. Works? For whom? Compared with what? As fast as possible? Injury-free? As efficient as possible?

WORKS FOR WHOM? When you choose “it works” as a justification for how you train, this requires defining the specific population it worked for. Most of the time, the industry will point at the best in the world. If you want a great back, you might as well model your training after the way the best back in the world trained. Makes sense, right? Unfortunately, this focuses only on external influences. Bars, barbells, and equipment—it’s the same for everyone. This completely neglects internal response to the external stimulus. All of which can be best summed up with the word genetics.

But what does that really mean? While two people can hold the same barbell and perform the same exercise roughly the same way, what’s on the other side of that barbell drastically influences the outcome. Think bone/joint structure, lever or limb lengths, and muscle bellies, shape, and insertions. All those create a real, quantifiable internal response to external stimulus. And after your body determines how that external load is expressed internally, that does not even take into consideration your body’s physiological and chemical responses to that stimulus. Based on those factors alone, it is impossible to assume that external plus internal equals result (or “it works”) when it is clear the “internal” part of the equation varies drastically from person to person. Even more, possible attribution error has to be a consideration when your sample population is the genetic elite. You cannot train like the elite athletes of your sport. You must learn to make intelligent adjustments to fit the execution and the program to your body and needs. Such is the inside joke among strength coaches at the professional level—that the coaches who produce the best results with their athletes are the ones who don’t injure them. Implying that it doesn’t really matter how you train them because they will continue to perform at the highest level if they stay injuryfree. It’s the same with Olympic sprinters and marathon runners. Often bad habits and misinformation are perpetuated by the elite without any proof of the benefit—for example, parachutes for sprinters, or the idea that lifting weights is bad for endurance athletes.

YOU MUST LEARN TO MAKE INTELLIGENT ADJUSTMENTS.

COMPARED WITH WHAT?

INJURY-FREE

The sport of bodybuilding is young, habits and practices are even more easily perpetuated because our population is small, and training history is so brief. Ronnie Coleman walked into a gym one day that was known for being hardcore, so he started using hardcore exercises, and

Luckily, we have a definitive answer to this. Of course it wasn’t really lucky at all—there are many famous injuries that occurred along the way to Mr. O titles. Were these necessary? Are a torn biceps or vertebral/ disk issues a requirement to growing a big back? Of course

tissue, with some muscles, proves it’s not required to grow muscle. Not to mention most likely symptomatic of an underlying cause. So what causes injuries? Overuse? Load (lifting heavy)? I do not believe there is a set usage limit (volume) or load at which things just break. That

not. And what about all the less famous injuries bodybuilders accept as the norm? As if some form of “-itis” is required to grow muscle. If this were true, every bodybuilder with a large, evenly developed physique would have pain in every bit of connective tissue, in every joint attached to their large muscles. The fact that it occurs only in some connective

would be fairly arbitrary, at best—these factors are things that can just accelerate the underlying cause. Misdirected tension. Our bodies and joints have an intended design or use—for example, the hinge joint is designed to handle load in specific planes of motion, the planes the attached limbs move through. While our bodies are

APPLYING THE SAME EXERCISES, THE SAME WAY, TO EVERYBODY MAKES NO SENSE. they worked for him. So why try anything else? What if instead of barbell rows on back day he chose dumbbell rows or a machine row instead as his main rowing exercise? Who’s to say his back would not be as impressive—or even more impressive—with less effort and fewer spinal surgeries? Unfortunately, that study or comparison isn’t exactly practical or realistic.

WAS IT AS FAST AS POSSIBLE? Could these individuals have put on muscle faster? It’s a question we’ll never really know the answer to. They got big fast—relative to what we consider fast. Is it realistic to assume they could not have possibly put on muscle any faster? The only reasonable answer is “of course not.” I don’t think anything, in any realm, at this point in human history, has reached its pinnacle—medicine, tech, or bodybuilding.

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Joe Bennett’s no-bull approach has helped superstar pro wrestler and actor Dave Bautista craft his world-famous physique.

resilient, misapplied load over time (accelerated by the load and volume associated with bodybuilding, a truly extreme amount relative to the norm) can result in wear and inflammation. The fix: Avoid or modify the arbitrary. Your body, structure, and joints are unique. Applying the same exercises, the same way, to everybody makes no sense. Instead, understanding training goals and finding appropriate ways to apply load to your body, adhering to your structure and joints, can theoretically help you completely avoid injuries. Or at least drastically reduce the occurrence.

AS EFFICIENT AS POSSIBLE? Efficiency is really the combination of the above two: Are we putting muscle on as fast as possible and injury-free? Definitely not. The fact that bodybuilders are still getting bigger and bigger implies that we can always grow and develop faster. The fact that injuries are still prevalent in some but not all

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also implies we can still apply the loads more efficiently.

WHERE FROM HERE? The point is to think, not to have your workouts guided by emotions or tradition. Analyze your actions in the gym and ask yourself, “Does this truly work for me?” The physical differences from individual to individual are vast, and I would argue the adjustments and “modifications” applied to exercises should be just as vast (even as simple as an adjustment in grip, stance, or range of motion). The truth is, achieving your best physique is not about specifics. It will never be a specific exercise or workout. Rather, it’s about having the right thought process. You can always be better, and your exercises, form, and effort can always improve.

THE POINT IS TO THINK, NOT TO HAVE YOUR WORKOUTS GUIDED BY EMOTIONS OR TRADITION. ANALYZE YOUR ACTIONS IN THE GYM.

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TRAINING, DIET, AND SUPPLEMENTATION STRATEGIES FOR STAYING ON TRACK DURING THE WINTERTIME HOLIDAY SEASON. PER BERNAL

BY ERIC “MERLIN” BROSER

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One of the main reasons I left my native New York and moved, first to South Florida and later to Southern California (where I currently reside), was to avoid the dreaded (and I do mean dreaded) winter months. I am not a big fan of the cold, the snow, or that brutal wind that seems to pierce through your bones no matter how bundled up you are. In fact, I hate to bundle up at all! My extremely limited (but highly cherished) wardrobe of T-shirts, shorts, tanks, and sandals is just fine for me, thank you—and I hope I never have to don a ski cap, gloves, a scarf, or a bulky winter jacket again. Quite frankly, the only “wind chill factor” I ever want to worry about occurs when the air-conditioning kicks on at the exact same moment I stick my head in the freezer to grab some frozen veggies.

But the cold is only one of the challenges that avid gymgoers face at this time of year. Winter also means major holidays, family gatherings, office parties, and well-needed vacations—which make it tempting to skip the gym and way too easy to disrupt even the strictest of diets because of the many sweet and savory foods

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suddenly available to us. While some rare individuals remain unaffected by dropping temperatures, holidays, and scrumptious feasts, most of us mere mortals need to put an effective strategy into place to keep us on track. At the same time, we have to allow for some extra days off to hibernate, to vacation,

and to eat without restriction. With this in mind, FLEX asked me to develop a list of guidelines (or tips) that can help keep readers on a solid path during the winter months. We definitely do not want to see any of you forfeit the hard-earned gains you fought for all year wither away faster than a turkey on Thanksgiving!

STRATEGIC WINTERTIME WORKOUTS WORKOUT 1

Day 1 Chest/Back/Abs EXERCISE

SETS

PER BERNAL; IAN SPANIER

REPS

Diet Details

WORKOUT 1

Day 2 Quads/Hams/Calves EXERCISE

SETS

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REPS

When traveling, make sure to bring easy-to-carry, macronutrient-dense foods like whey protein powder, nuts, rice cakes, and oatmeal that can be consumed quickly and easily on a plane or in a hotel room. On days where you plan to have one or more cheat meals, cut back on the amount of calories (especially from carbs and/or fats) that you consume in your other meals. Since the body is better able to handle higher-calorie carb loads upon awakening (after “fasting” for six to eight hours during sleep) and post– workout (after depleting glycogen), try to time your cheat meals (if possible) strategically at these particular times. During cheat meals, try your best to stop eating once full, rather than eating until you’re feeling uncomfortable, bloated, and sick.

CLOCK WISE FROM TOP LEFT: IAN SPANIER; PER BERNAL; KEVIN HORTON (2)

STRATEGIC WINTERTIME WORKOUTS

Cardio Considerations Increasing the amount of cardio you normally do can help offset some of the extra calories most consume around the holidays. If possible, bump up your time on the treadmill, bike, elliptical, or StepMill by 25 to 50% on cheat days. The most effective time to do cardio (in terms of fat-burning potential) is on an empty stomach, ďŹ rst thing in the morning. If you can perform at least some of your daily cardio at this time, deďŹ nitely take advantage of it. Since time available is certainly an important consideration during holidays and vacations, I recommend that you utilize HIIT cardio as your main form since its high-intensity nature allows for greatly decreased workout duration. If you plan on performing, say, 60 minutes of cardio in a day, try splitting the total time into two sessions of 30 minutes or even three sessions of 20 minutes, since this will stimulate the metabolism to an even greater degree.

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STRATEGIC WINTERTIME WORKOUTS WORKOUT 1

Day 3 Shoulders/Arms I highly recommend purchasing a complete “digestive enzyme” complex product and utilizing it with any meals containing extra-high calories. While most ﬁtness fanatics do not often think to use fat-burning supplements during the winter months, it is actually a particularly good time to incorporate them. The metabolism-increasing and appetite-suppressing qualities of many of these formulas can assist in offsetting some of the effects of cheat meals by enhancing your fat-burning “machinery” and decreasing calories consumed. (Note: Always follow label directions and never use more than recommended.) It may be worthwhile to include a product that contains northern white kidney bean extract, Gymnema sylvestre, and citrimax in your wintertime supplement arsenal.

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EXERCISE

SETS

REPS

CLOCK WISE FROM TOP LEFT: PAVEL Y THJALL(2); ISA AC HINDS

Supplement Savvy

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Training Tactics If you wish to spend less time going to the gym during the winter months, consider moving to a three-day-per-week split on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, which leaves the weekends free. Each of the three workouts can be full-body sessions or divided into chest/ back/abs on Monday, quads/ hams/calves on Wednesday, and shoulders/biceps/triceps on Friday (as one possible example). If you still want to hit the gym ďŹ ve to six days per week but desire to get out more quickly, try training just one muscle group per day, rather than two or more. Or you can spend minimal time (two to four sets) working strong muscle groups while going full force on weaker areas.

Another method of reducing time spent in the gym without decreasing intensity or overall volume is by strategically supersetting all exercises in each session. (Note: See Day 1.) If you are planning a vacation but still want to get some workouts in, call ahead to see whether your hotel has a sufficient training center or if there is a commercial gym nearby.

STRATEGIC WINTERTIME WORKOUTS WORKOUT 2

Day 1: Full Body EXERCISE

When traveling, I recommend taking with you a good set of resistance bands/tubes that can be combined with simple body-weight exercises to allow for muscle-maintaining hotel room workouts. (Note: See Day 2.)

SETS

REPS

WORKOUT 2

Day 2: Full Body REPS

PER BERNAL

EXERCISE

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DOMINICAN

DOMIN 146

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BY JOE WUEBBEN PHOTOGRAPHS BY PER BERNAL

THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC’S OUTPUT OF ATHLETIC PROWESS INCLUDES MORE THAN JUST BASEBALL PLAYERS. THREE ELITE-LEVEL PRO BODYBUILDERS—VICTOR MARTINEZ, JON DE LA ROSA, JUAN MOREL— HAIL FROM THE COUNTRY, TOO. HERE, THE TRIO PUTS SOME CARIBBEAN FLAVOR INTO TRAINING CHEST, SHOULDERS, AND TRAPS.

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t’s tough to separate these three guys: Victor Martinez, Juan Morel, and Jon De La Rosa. All are of Dominican Republic descent, all currently live in New York, and all are top-level IFBB professionals. And as you can see in the accompanying photos, they’re pretty tight.

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CABLE CROSSOVER Martinez: “I do a crossover flye press here. First, I make sure I’m going wide enough to hit my outer pecs. I start the movement as a flye, then I drop my elbows and finish with a press. When I push at the end, I make sure I squeeze and extend my arms forward to achieve a full contraction. You’ll sometimes see people actually cross one hand over the other; I would rather just push and squeeze where my hands meet. Most people take that crossover name too literally.”

“We’re really good friends, all three of us,” says Morel. “As competitors, we show each other support, we’re there for one another, and we’re happy if one of the others does well at a show. Some people want to go to war offstage and talk trash, but that makes no sense to us. We’re not

boxing, we’re not fighters.” The next time these buddies compete against one another, there will apparently be no trash talk, but there will be plenty of Dominican muscle—roughly 750 pounds of it on the stage (properly reinforced, we hope), with Martinez and Morel each weighing

around 260 and De La Rosa at 230 or so. Building this much mass has a lot to do with the following workouts for chest, shoulders, and traps. Each guy trains a bit differently, but all three approaches seem to be working in (Dominican) dominating fashion. FLEXONLINE.COM

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DOMINICANSTYLE CHEST WORKOUTS MARTINEZ’S ROUTINE EXERCISE Dumbbell Flye**

SETS

REPS*

8–10

Pec Deck Flye

8–10

4 4 *These rep ranges refer to Martinez’s offseason workouts; pre-contest, he increases reps slightly, typically 12 to 15 per set.

MOREL’S ROUTINE EXERCISE Barbell Bench Press

SETS

REPS

12–15

4 Hammer Strength Decline Press superset with Flat Bench Machine Press

12–15

DE LA ROSA’S ROUTINE EXERCISE Incline Barbell Press or Smith Machine Incline Press

SETS 4

REPS 8–12

4 Flat Bench Dumbbell Press*

8–12

4 Cable Crossover**

8–12

**De La Rosa regularly alternates between cable crossovers, dumbbell ﬂyes, and pec deck ﬂyes.

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DIP Martinez: “Dips require a lot of control. Most people don’t do them because they don’t feel the effect, and that’s likely because they’re doing them too fast and not focusing enough on form. When I lower down, I make sure my chin is really tucked into my upper pecs. I use dips for the bottom and outer sweep of the pecs—I’m concentrating on this area the entire time. I feel this gives me that sweeping look when I do a side-chest pose.”

MACHINE SHOULDER PRESS Morel: “I really prefer machine shoulder presses because I think they activate the muscles better than with free weight. Sometimes the stabilizing muscles do too much work when you use dumbbells or a barbell. With the machine, you can hit the shoulders hard without having to worry too much about your joints and hurting yourself. It’s kind of a safe way to overload the delts.”

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DOMINICAN-STYLE DELTS/TRAPS WORKOUTS MARTINEZ’S ROUTINE EXERCISE

Dumbbell Shoulder Press or Barbell or Hammer Strength Shoulder Press

MOREL’S ROUTINE

SETS

REPS*

4–6

8–10

EXERCISE

REPS

3 Smith Machine Shoulder Press

4 Seated Dumbbell Rear-delt Raise superset with Dumbbell Shrug

SETS

10-15

10–12

12–15

Shoulder Press superset with Standing Machine Lateral Raise

10–15

3 3

**Martinez’s typical lateral raise routine, set by set: 20-pound dumbbells for 20 reps, 30s for 15 reps, 40s for 12 reps, 50s for 10 reps, then a dropset ﬁnisher, doing 10 reps each with 50s, 40s, 30s, and 20s.

Seated Machine Lateral Raise superset with Alternating Dumbbell Front Raise

12–15

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DUMBBELL LATERAL RAISE De La Rosa: “A lot of people end up using more of their traps to get the weight up on lateral raises; they’re squeezing their traps before even really getting the shoulders to do the work. So one of the things I like to tell people is to lean slightly forward and let your shoulders sort of round out your back and completely relax. I find this gives me a better contraction in the side delt heads and makes for a more controlled movement. It’s just a slight lean forward, though; I don’t want people bending all the way over.”

ALTERNATING DUMBBELL FRONT RAISE Martinez: “Make sure your traps are relaxed when doing front raises so you don’t use too much of them on this movement. And when I say front raises, I’m not talking about kettlebell swings. No swinging. Keep full control of the weights and focus on the negative. And keep the dumbbells relatively light; when you go too heavy, you end up using your traps to lift the weight.”

DE LA ROSA’S ROUTINE EXERCISE

SETS

REPS

4 Machine Shoulder Press

3 Dumbbell Rear-delt Raise

12–15

4 Dumbbell Shrug

15–20

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DUMBBELL SHRUG

SEATED DUMBBELL REAR-DELT RAISE

De La Rosa: “Relax the shoulders so that at your start point your traps are completely stretched out. Again, I’ll lean forward and bend my elbows up and back slightly. I get a little more of a contraction if I shrug up and then pull my shoulders back and up a little bit.”

Morel: “I don’t go heavy on these—I use just enough weight to get a good contraction and squeeze on the muscles. This is a really good exercise to target the rear delts. The front delts get stimulated when we do chest and shoulder presses and stuff like that. The rear delts, on the other hand, barely ever get stimulated, so if you don’t directly target them you could be underdeveloped in that area. You want to have your shoulders look like what they call a pumpkin. And if you don’t develop the rear delts, you won’t get that look.”

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ULDER AT A LOSS? HIT THEM FORMULA, AN INTENSIVE ROUTINE DESIGNED TO CRUSH THOSE CAPS AND REIGNITE GROWTH. BY MICHAEL BERG, N.S.C.A.-C.P.T.

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MET S, AN OLDFASHIONED BEATDOWN IS ALL U NE FOR MOTIVATION. KAC AGO SPORTS FAN. s rolled Miami with rogant sw ay night, a defense that had held eight of its previous nine opponents to 10 points or less was burned by Dan Marino and the Dolphins in a 38–24 whupping. The Monsters of the Midway were tamed—for a day. They went on to record the “Super Bowl Shuffle” the next day and rolled through the remainder of the season to a storied championship. Fast-forward 10 years. Michael Jordan returned to the Bulls after two years toiling in baseball’s minor leagues, helping his basketball team win 24 of its final 34 games in 1995. Was another NBA title in the offing? Not quite—in the conference semifinals, Chicago was unceremoniously dumped by the Orlando Magic four games to two. Yet the following season,

still stinging from the drubbing, Jordan and Co. went 72–10 on their way to His Airness’ fourth of six championships. Sports have shown time and again that a punch in the mouth can serve as the ultimate wake-up call, helping you return to the fray stronger than ever. It rattles you out of complacency and refocuses your efforts. And it’s an apt lesson for the gym. Consider the shoulders. Made up of three smaller heads— the anterior (front), middle, and posterior (rear) deltoids—their muscle tissue isn’t so easy to break down and set the stage for growth. Training shoulders can get downright tedious, and concentration can wane. The question is, When was the last time you really gave your delts the vicious thumping they need to get growing again?

OPENER AND THIS SPREAD: PER BERNAL

2, 1985

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LATERAL MOVE

The key to a great shoulder workout is ensuring that those three heads get pushed harder. While the front head is engaged during chest training and overhead pressing movements, the middle and rear delts aren’t activated to the same degree and require focused attention. This workout accomplishes that—prioritizing the middle head for maximum width building—while keeping the workout interesting from beginning to end by interspersing the variety of raises needed with presses and upright rows. You’ll start with dumbbell lateral raises. This is a warmup, so start light for a 16-rep set and run up the rack from there for three more sets of 14, 12, and eight to 10 reps. By that final set, you’ll want to be at a weight where you hit failure by 10—but not so heavy that you are rocking your upper body to generate momentum. Remember, each delt head is relatively small and can’t handle a ton of poundage on its own, so using excessively heavy dumbbells just means you’re cheating. You’ll also want to lean forward slightly at the hips to let the dumbbells come down in front of

YOUR SHOULDER

SMACKDOWN EXERCISE

SETS

REPS

4 Seated Barbell Press superset with Dumbbell Lateral Raise

12, 10, 8, 6

8-12

4 Seated Dumbbell Press superset with Bentover Dumbbell Lateral Raise

12, 10, 8, 6

8-12

CHARLES LOW THIAN

4 Cable One-arm Lateral Raise or

12 (plus dropset)

1 Rest 60 seconds between standard sets, and pause just long enough within supersets to change from one exercise to the other.

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bentover raises—again, pyramiding up on the press and back down on the raise. For dumbbell presses, you’ll want to work through a complete range of motion, bringing the ’bells down alongside your ears at the bottom and to nearly full elbow extension at the top. They’ll naturally arc toward each other on the way up. But don’t let the plates touch as you reach the top of each rep, which can dissipate the tension on the muscles.

IF YOUR DELTS REALLY NEED A BOOST, CONSIDER MOVING THEM TO THE TOP OF YOUR SPLIT, AFTER A REST DAY, SAVING CHEST AND TRICEPS FOR LATER IN THE WEEK. FORWARD PROGRESS

ELEVATE YOUR GAME

Next, pair a seated barbell press with more laterals in a superset. You might struggle with the seated press, due to the pre-exhaustion of your middle delt head. But that’s the point—just knock down the weight accordingly, pyramiding up from 12 reps to 10 to eight to six for the final set. When pressing, engage your core and use a full range of motion, bringing the barbell down right in front of your nose and touching down to your

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clavicles, then pushing up to a point just before your elbows go completely straight. You’ll follow each set of presses immediately with raises, running the rack back down, starting one set of ’bells down from where you did your eightto 10-rep set, and striving for momentary failure each time.

REARS IN GEAR

From there, you’ll repeat the same pattern, this time with bentover dumbbell lateral raises and seated dumbbell presses. You’ll begin with four straight sets of raises, beginning with 16 reps, then 14, then 12, then a final set of eight to 10 with a heavy enough weight to elicit failure. Follow up with presses in a superset with more

THE FINAL SCORE

By now, all three heads of your delts should be toast—much like the Bears’ gassed D in that fateful Miami showdown. For some of you, ending the workout here is a good choice, especially if you struggled to complete the last of the three superset combos. But for those of you with a little left in the tank, we have one more finishing touch: a dropset of cable lateral raises or pike pushups, your choice. If you go the cable laterals route, use the variation where the cable runs behind your body instead of in front, and start with a weight you can get about 10 reps with.

PAVEL Y THJALL; CHRIS LUND

your hips (but not clang together) at the bottom, then “lead with your elbows” on the raise—at the top, your elbows and hands should be parallel with the floor and aligned, with one not higher than the other.

The workout continues with front raises and upright rows. This time, you won’t begin with four separate sets of the raise— instead, you’ll go right into the superset, pairing rows with dumbbell raises, pyramiding up in both instances from a lighter warmup resistance to a challenging weight. While you won’t always be able to get it, over time—as with the presses—you’ll strive for a new personal best on the final set of six for the rows.

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Immediately after hitting failure, drop the weight by about 30% and continue repping. Once you reach failure again, attempt a few final partials, first halfway up and then quarter-reps and pulses. Then switch to the other side, and repeat. Pike pushups can be performed with your hands and feet on the floor, with your butt high in a pike position so your body forms a flipped V. From here, simply bend your elbows to bring your forehead down toward the floor, then extend to raise yourself back up, repeating as many times as you can and terminating the set when you can’t complete a full rep. If you’re more advanced, you can put your feet up on a flat bench—just be

WINNING STRATEGIES

A final warning: This workout isn’t meant to be used for every shoulder session. It’s a little too much—after all, there’s a big difference between the occasional trouncing and getting your rear end handed to you every week. Instead, you’ll want to dial back the total number of working sets to 15 to 25 on a regular basis, still front-loading with side and rear delt moves earlier in the routine when you have the most energy to give. Meanwhile, pull out this workout every three to four weeks or so. And if your delts really need a boost, consider moving them to the top of your split, after a rest day, saving chest and triceps for later in the week. With that in mind, it’s time to give your delts the ass kicking they so desperately need. Sure, it may not be so easy to take in the moment, but today’s epic beating might just inspire a new level of greatness tomorrow.

JASON BREEZE; PAVEL Y THJALL

THIS WORKOUT ISN’T MEANT TO BE USED FOR EVERY SHOULDER SESSION. IT’S A LITTLE TOO MUCH.

careful to end the set before your upper body completely gives out and sends you tumbling to the floor.

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NO PAIN, BIG GAINS SOLUTIONS FOR OVERCOMING THE MOST COMMON TRAINING INJURIES. BY GREG MERRITT

“No pain, no gain” is a horrible maxim if applied to chronic strains or sprains because even a minor but reoccurring ache can force you to give less than your best, and that can be the difference between growth and stagnation. Injuries require a new routine—a means of diagnosing and correcting the problem, a plan for eliminating pain to encourage gains.

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ANKLE This area is accustomed to a lot of low-intensity, short range-of-motion work (e.g., walking) but can become overstressed when the intensity is cranked up.

Strengthen Shin splints are a common injury for anyone who sprints, jogs, or climbs stairs for cardio. It’s caused by the muscles at the back of the lower legs overpowering the much smaller muscles at the front. This imbalance, which can also generate knee pain, can be corrected by working the front of your calves with shin raises. If your gym doesn’t have a shin-raise machine—and most don’t— you can use a leg-curl machine (seated, facing backward), a kettlebell, or a weight plate. Very little resistance is needed; go for four sets of 12 to 20.

Stretch Move your feet from maximum dorsiﬂexion (toward shins) to maximum plantar ﬂexion (away from shins).

Support You may have seen photos of Arnold Schwarzenegger squatting barefoot in the 1970s. As much as we love the Austrian Oak, don’t follow his lead this time. Instead, if you’re prone to ankle pain, armor up by wearing compression socks and high-top sneakers or boots on leg day.

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Elbow sleeves will bolster this area and keep it warm, which can be especially useful.

ELBOW OPENER PAGE: PER BERNAL. THIS SPREAD: PER BERNAL; KEVIN HORTON

Midarm pain may be in the hinge joint but is more likely at either the front (biceps tendons) or back (triceps tendons).

Diagnose Modify Is the tendinitis caused by When doing upper-body

If you’re prone to ankle pain, armor up by wearing compression socks and high-top sneakers or boots on leg day.

pulling (biceps) or pushing (triceps)? Or is it the result of repetitive motions, such as throwing or swinging? Often, the pain source is only a single movement, and the only way to zero in on it is to eliminate exercises one at a time from your routine until the pain lessens. Start with the most likely culprits: barbell exercises in which the elbows ﬂare out, such as wide-grip upright rows or bench presses or barbell rows done with the upper arms straight out.

exercises, narrow your grip, tuck your elbows in, and use dumbbells. The freer range of motion provided by dumbbells should allow you to ﬁnd a groove that stresses your muscles more and your joints and tendons less.

Support Elbow sleeves will bolster this area and keep it warm, which can be especially useful on chest and shoulder presses.

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KNEE These two simple hinge joints have to take on a lot of tension when you crank out heavy squats or leg presses. As a result, they can become creaky, stiff, and sore.

Warm Up

Avoid Lockout

Before working quads, do light, high-rep sets of leg extensions (without locking out) and/or ﬁve to 10 minutes of low-intensity cardio on an exercise bike.

The lockout transfers all the stress to your knee joints—not a good thing. This is especially true of leg extensions when, at the top, you’re holding the weight up with your legs in a vulnerable position. Stop short of this on every rep.

Dial Back High Intensity High-impact cardio, like wind sprints, might be part of the problem, so if you regularly experience knee pain, we recommend switching from the treadmill, StepMill, or track to an elliptical machine or stationary bike.

Squat Right

wreckers.) Your feet should be pointed slightly outward, and your knees should follow the path of your feet. Your knees will be strained if they turn in.

Support Knee wraps or sleeves can assist in protecting these vulnerable joints.

Go Lighter Keep your reps at 10 or higher. Forget the weight and focus instead on maintaining constant muscle tension from the ﬁrst strict rep to the last.

Forget the weight and focus instead on maintaining constant muscle tension from the first strict rep to the last.

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SHOULDER A ball and socket with a multitude of muscles, ligaments, and tendons in the vicinity, the shoulder joint is complex and vulnerable to injuries. Some nagging pains can persist for years, derailing countless workouts. Even exercises like squats can become untenable because of the agony caused in the shoulders when balancing a barbell behind the neck.

Diagnose Pinpointing the problem for shoulder pain may be easier than eliminating it because it unfortunately tends to linger, like lower back pain. But let’s try to get to the root cause. The most likely suspects are barbell presses, Smith machine chest presses, or shoulder presses.

Work Independently Try replacing barbell presses with their dumbbell counterparts, or use machines with independent arms. This will let you ﬁnd a more comfortable (and often stronger) biomechanical position.

Stop the Presses If pain persists, eliminate all presses and bilateral shoulder and chest exercises, like upright rows and dips. Instead, do only ﬂyes and laterals for sets of 12 to 15. When the pain subsides, you can return dumbbell presses to your routine.

KEVIN HORTON; JASON BREEZE

Toughen Your Cuffs The rotator cuff, a group of four muscles that act to stabilize each shoulder joint, is prone to strains and tears. The most likely culprits are again heavy barbell presses. Take some time to strengthen this area. Exercises include external rotation (done on your side with a light dumbbell or standing with a cable), reverse ﬂyes, and rope face-pulls.

If pain persists, eliminate all presses and bilateral shoulder and chest exercises.

INJURY CHECKLIST x x

x x

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Determining a reason for your pain can be just as hard as pinpointing its location.

different times. Determining a reason for your pain can be just as hard as pinpointing its location. It could be your chair or bed and almost any standing exercise, from barbell rows to squats to EZ-bar curls, not to mention many back exercises. Even bench presses may be the culprit if you arch too much. What’s more, it could be some combination of exercises and posture factors. None of this is to say you shouldn’t attempt to locate the pain and its principal culprits. It’s just acknowledging that it’s sometimes unattainable.

Revise If you’re unable to determine a speciﬁc cause of your back pain to eliminate, stay clear of regular and stiff-legged deadlifts and free-weight rows. Free-weight back squats are another common culprit. Keep your knees slightly bent when performing standing exercises, even light ones like side laterals, and don’t go heavy. Get at least 10 reps per set on all exercises.

Work It Out Conventional wisdom about back

An entire industry is devoted to the management of back pain. Unfortunately, this has fueled our current opioid crises. The good news is that the best solution for most people doesn’t involve pills, injections, surgery, or even a trip to the doctor’s office.

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Diagnose Lower-back pain is difficult to locate. In fact, about 85% of sufferers have nonspeciﬁc pain (as opposed to a pinched nerve, or a slipped disk). Sciatic nerve pressure can cause suffering that radiates down into the legs and up to the trapezius and all the regions in between. Likewise, your spinal erectors—bundles of muscles and tendons—travel much of the length of your spine and can wreak torment along the way and in different spots at

Support Wear a tightly cinched training belt during any exercise that could unduly stress your spine and spinal erectors. This includes lifts like leg presses and dumbbell shrugs, which might not seem like back breakers.

ALEX ARDENTI; JASON BREEZE

LOWER BACK

pain—bed rest, pain killers—has been upended. In February, the American College of Physicians advised a protocol that avoids prescription drugs and instead emphasizes exercise and alternative therapies like massage, yoga, and even chiropractic. (Medical doctors are typically skeptical.) Speciﬁcally, body-weight exercises for the rectus abdominis (curl up), oblique and hips (side bridge), and glutes (kickback) strengthen and stretch the core muscles and can improve the lower back without straining it.

Wrist wraps or sleeves can help you correct your grip by making it harder to wag your hands and reminding you to keep your wrists straight.

WRIST Stay Straight

Support

Get a Grip

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10 WAYS TO

GROW YOUR GUNS ARM DAY, ANYONE? A PANEL OF PIPE-BUILDING EXPERTS OFFER FLEX THEIR FAVORITE MOVES FOR BICEPS AND TRICEPS. BY JOE WUEBBEN 174

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CHRIS LUND

Picking the best exercises for building bigger, stronger, more shredded pipes is a little tricky. The ones we select are bound to be debated against those left off the list. But we gave it a shot anyway, reaching out to a small handful of bodybuilders, trainers, and strength and conditioning specialists. We asked them all one simple question: “If you could do only one exercise each for biceps and triceps, what would they be?” The answers consisted of some meat-and-potatoes moves and a few surprise submissions— the predictable and the novel. The result is the diverse list of 10 arm moves (five for biceps, five for triceps) on the following pages. We can’t definitively say that these are the best exercises, but we can promise you a bigger, stronger pair of pipes if you put them to use.

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BICEPS

BARBELL CURL Target Point: Biceps long and short heads

Selling Point: “No other isolation exercise for the biceps uses as much weight through a full range of motion as the standing barbell curl,” says Jim “Smitty” Smith, C.P.P.S., the owner of Diesel Strength & Conditioning and the co-author of Special Strength for Team Sports. Action Point: “When performing this movement, make sure to pull the weight—don’t throw it,” Smith says. “Also, keep a neutral posture with your head up and shoulders back.”

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2 Target Point:

Selling Point:

Action Point:

HAMMER CURL

Target Point:

PAVEL Y THJALL

Selling Point:

Action Point:

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ARMS RACE If training triceps after chest or shoulders, and biceps after back, is your thing, ﬁne. But we’re big fans of giving arms their own day, especially if your pipes are a weak area. We also think supersetting biceps and triceps on your dedicated arm day is the way to go. (For the record, a guy named Schwarzenegger swore by this method in his bodybuilding heyday.) Here are two biceps-triceps superset workouts incorporating the 10 “best” (using that term loosely) exercises presented in this article. For the sake of your arm development, we recommend doing both of them in the next seven days.

ARM WORKOUT #1 EXERCISE

SETS

REPS

4 4 3 3 2 2

ARM WORKOUT #2 EXERCISE

SETS

REPS

3 3 3 3

PRONE LYING CABLE CURL (NOT PICTURED)

Target Point: Biceps short head

Action Point: You’ll be lying faceup on this exercise, but make sure your head isn’t too close to the cable. Your upper arms should be right about perpendicular to the floor throughout. “The key is to hold the contraction,” Dugdale says, “flexing as hard as possible at the end of each rep.”

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PER BERNAL

Selling Point: “I like this move for two reasons,” says IFBB pro Mark Dugdale. “One, the cable provides continuous tension; and two, it eliminates cheating on the exercise.”

BICEPS 5

PREACHER CURL Target Point: Biceps short head

Selling Point: “Preachers are great for fully isolating the biceps and eliminating all swinging from the movement,” says Rocky Rogers, a certiﬁed personal trainer at Iron City Gym Hardcore in Cypress, TX. “It’s a great exercise regardless of what equipment you’re using. Preacher machines these days are set with the proper biomechanics for a perfect curl.” Action Point: Keep the backs of your upper arms against the pad throughout— don’t let them lift off so that only your elbows are in contact. Also, Rogers recommends using preachers as a ﬁnisher to your biceps workout with the “21s” technique—per set, seven reps in the bottom half of the range of motion (ROM), seven in the top half, and seven full ROM reps.

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TRICEPS 6 Target Point:

Selling Point:

But I like to go as heavy as possible on kickbacks. Pushed with intensity and good form, this move can be a game changer. Studies have shown that kickbacks effectively hit all three triceps heads, not just one or two with the third one barely activated.” Action Point: Concentrate on keeping your elbow not only in tight to your side the entire time but also up high. Don’t let your upper arm drop down—it should remain at least parallel with the floor.

CLOSE-GRIP BENCH PRESS

Target Point: Triceps lateral head Selling Point: “This is my favorite move for triceps, speciﬁcally with a two-second pause at the bottom,” Dugdale says. “Doing this pause on every rep creates a ton of tension on the triceps, while making the transition from eccentric to concentric safer on the tendons.” Action Point: Dugdale’s pause method entails lowering the bar to two to three inches from his chest—not all the way down to touching—and holding it there for a full two seconds before pressing the weight back up and ﬂexing his triceps hard at the top.

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CLOCK WISE FROM TOP: PAVEL Y THJALL; PER BERNAL (3)

DIP

Target Point: Triceps lateral and medial heads Selling Point: “I love dips as a size and strength builder for the triceps,” says Mike Hanley, the owner of Hanley Strength Systems and a competitive amateur bodybuilder, powerlifter, and Olympic lifter (hanleystrength.com). “Most triceps exercises are single-joint moves.

CABLE PRESSDOWN

Target Point:

This is one of the few compound exercises, so you’re able to overload the muscles to the maximum.” Action Point: To make sure your dips are targeting the triceps instead of the chest, focus on keeping the torso fully upright (not leaned forward) throughout the set with your elbows in tight.

HIGH-REP PUSH PRESS (NOT PICTURED)

Target Point: Triceps lateral and long heads

Selling Point:

Selling Point: “The push press is generally seen as a shoulder exercise,” Shiffler says, “but if you get into the 12- to 20-rep range on these bad boys, your triceps will be screaming.”

Action Point:

Action Point: “To really get this movement to be more triceps focused, hold that top position [peak contraction] for a good two to three seconds,” Shiffler says.

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Adoniss

CHEST 182

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IF YOU THINK YOUR CHEST IS ALREADY GREAT, THEN SKIP THESE PAGES. IF YOUR CHEST IS NOT WHERE YOU WANT IT TO BE AND YOU NEED ADVICE FROM AN EXPERIENCED, ELITE MASTER COACH, THEN READ ON. BY JAMES DAVIS PHOTOGRAPHS BY ERICA SCHULTZ

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a brisk summer day in upstate New York more than 30 years ago, there was a kid who would watch guys working out in the park using terrible form and unbelievably useless exercise techniques—and the kid wanted to join them. The guys taunted him, telling him why they wouldn’t allow him to work out with them. This went on for months. Then one day that group of misfit would-be weightlifters made a wager over whether this little skinny kid could pick up 185 pounds off the ground in classic deadlift fashion, using a rusted straight bar with spinlock collars and a mix of mismatched steel and iron plates. If he could lift it—by chance and with the help of all the powers of the universe— then he would be allowed to work out. On that day, that rusted bar left the ground—and then returned with a solid thud. There was silence. That, in essence, was the beginning of how that kid became something else and those guys...well, who cares? I’m James Davis, that skinny kid from the park, now an IFBB pro, founder of Adoniss Innovations, physique architect, coach to the Adoniss Girlz (and a handful of some of the best competitors to ever grace the stage), and training partner to some of the best ever. In my FLEX debut, I’m going to bestow upon you my acquired knowledge in building a phenomenal chest and trust that in some sense it’s going to be useful to a great deal of you.

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BE INCLINED The series of movements that I chose for this particular chest day are incline flyes, incline dumbbell presses, machine dips, pec deck flyes, and Hammer Strength incline presses. The first thing you’ll notice is that there are a good deal of incline movements—this is simply because there is no greater stable for building an awesome chest than incline movements. Before we go further, it’s important to note that you can’t specifically target one portion of your chest (upper, lower, middle, inner, outer), because you cannot disengage any portion of your chest to get more activation. The idea is to force more blood in the targeted region (e.g., upper) before getting the same amount of blood in the other regions. While the standard positioning for incline moves is somewhere between 30 and 45 degrees, I prefer a higher angle, somewhere between 66 and 75 degrees. The idea is to follow the driveline directly from the upper chest, somewhere between one to two inches away from your chin, and at the same time in a 45-degree angle at your armpits. In this position, you may think that such a high incline primarily focuses on your anterior deltoids. Yes, there will be secondary exertion there, but trust me, the primary exertion will be on the upper chest shelf. You can clearly see how the tie-in and the separation of your upper chest and anterior deltoid specifically correlate to each other. The confirmation is there if you look at the pictures of what I’ve developed using such technique. And there is nothing more impressive than a fully developed “shelf”—which also leads to greater strength development over the long term.

DAVIS’ CHEST ROUTINE ROUTINE NO. 1 EXERCISE

ALTERNATE ROUTINE NO. 2

SETS

REPS

EXERCISE

SETS

REPS

4 Flat Smith Machine Press

4 Machine Dip

4 Pec Deck Flye Pec Deck Flye *Pyramid sets.

*Pyramid sets. **Perform 15 partial reps after reaching failure.

ALTERNATE ROUTINE NO. 3 EXERCISE

SETS

REPS

4 30-degree Incline Smith Machine Press**

4 Vertical Selectorized Bench Press*

20/15/12/10

*Pyramid sets. **Perform 10 to 15 partial reps in the top portion after reaching failure.

INCLINE FLYE WHY I chose the incline ﬂye because it not only serves as a great warmup without directly stretching the pecs but also lets you constructively open up the muscle to allow greater blood ﬂow for a better pump leading to the exercises afterward. HOW To begin the movement, start with your elbows at a 90-degree angle at the bottom position and a 45-degree angle at your armpit. In a

slight pressing but hugging movement (as if you were about to wrap your arms around a big fat tree), bring the dumbbells to your centerline above your chest, not above your face. In doing so, do not allow the dumbbells to touch together as they reach your centerline—instead, keep approximately a half-inch of space in between the dumbbells as you reach the top point. This ensures constant tension on your chest at all points in the ﬂye movement.

ADONISS INNOVATIONS IFBB Pro League athlete and much-sought-after personal trainer, James Davis is the founder of Adoniss Innovations and coach to the Adoniss Girlz. For more, check out his new column in this issue.

INCLINE DUMBBELL PRESS WHY

HOW being that once you reach the top portion of the movement you want to again move the dumbbells toward your centerline as you contract your chest to ﬁnish the movement. It’s important to note that you limit your range of motion as far as your shoulders and focus so that you don’t roll them forward— doing so disengages the chest muscles to a disadvantage, and you’ll lose a large portion of the contraction. As with the ﬂye movement, you want to maintain a 45-degree angle at your armpit and be sure to press the dumbbells up over the upper line of your chest, not your face.

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MACHINE DIP WHY

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HOW

HAMMER STRENGTH INCLINE PRESS WHY This machine is useful for its ability to exert tension for the full duration of the movement. And it does so without a massive shift in tension from your lower to upper pecs. HOW One of the most beneficial positions on this piece of equipment is to line the handlebars up with the insertion of your armpit. In doing so, you want to use a medium to wide grip, while maintaining a 45-degree angle to your armpit. Keep your upper and lower back flat against the pad. Also, take your arms to full extension without rolling your shoulders forward to ensure a final contraction at the end of the movement. I personally like to do a set of partial reps to failure to finish out each and every set.

PEC DECK FLYE WHY There are few machines as formidable in optimizing blood flow and pump in the chest as the pec deck. This machine allows you to stretch and contract the pecs during the concentric and eccentric phases. I generally like to use this as a finisher, but you can really kill your chest if you start off with it as your introductory exercise as well. HOW Line yourself up so that you can extend your arms straight out from your sides in a T-like fashion. Keeping your elbows slightly bent, drive the movement through as if you were trying to hug a tree without wrapping your arms around it, maintaining a slight bend at the elbow. You may find that higher reps are more favorable for complete annihilation of the chest.

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BONUS TIP Always remember to keep your back ďŹ&#x201A;at during all movements. Stay away from ego lifting, as form is more important than the weight. If your form is correct, the weight will comeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;as will your results and an awesomely developed chest.

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NEED HELP WITH YOUR BACK? IFBB PHYSIQUE PRO JEREMY POTVIN GIVES YOU A ROUTINE HE KNOWS WILL ADD THICKNESS AND WIDTH. BY ROGER LOCKRIDGE PHOTOGRAPHS BY IAN SPANIER

FLEX |

TO BE ABLE TO COMPETE in the IFBB as a pro in any division is an incredible achievement. If you’re blessed enough to stand on the Olympia stage, then you can legitimately call yourself one of the best in the world. Jeremy Potvin placed third at the Physique Olympia last year, and as this issue was going to press, he was deep into his training and diet for this year’s show: “Prep is going very well for me so far, and the only thing on my mind is winning the Olympia. I really think this year that I can do it if the rest of my prep goes as it has so far.” (Check FLEXonline.com for results, and stay tuned for our comprehensive Olympia Weekend report next month.) Here’s Potvin’s plan for a better back.

SNAPSHOT

JEREMY POTVIN

Birth Date: July 21, 1989 Height: 5'6" Contest Weight: 155 lbs Residence: San Diego, CA Career Highlights: 2016 Olympia Men’s Physique Showdown, 3rd; 2016 IFBB Grand Prix men’s physique, 1st; 2014 NPC Nationals Men’s Physique Class A, winner (earned pro card) Instagram: @jeremypotvin_ Facebook: Jeremy Potvin IFBB Pro

WHAT TO IMPROVE Regardless of what division you’re in, shows can be won or lost from the back. While Potvin is already known for his shoulder-to-waist ratio, he realizes the judges pay attention to every detail when the athletes turn around. “I want to improve the thickness of my lats, especially my lower lats. I don’t think it’s weak at all, but I know the judges want to see you improve every year.”

MORE VOLUME

This year, Potvin and his coach, Ryan Bentson of Team Zero Gravity, wanted to add more volume, so he made two adjustments. He now trains back twice a week, and he changed his rep scheme. “I usually do everything for eight to 12 reps, but a higher rep count is going to beneﬁt me more, so I’ll take most sets up to 15 reps,” Potvin says. “As for the second workout, it’s about balance, and my arms are already pretty good. I’m training chest twice a week now also.”

EARLY INFLUENCES

Although Potvin competes in men’s physique, it was actually an open bodybuilder who inspired him. “For me it was Johnnie Jackson,” he says. “When I was younger I wanted to lift heavier weights and get really strong. He was both big and strong since he competed in powerlifting too. The shots of his back were unreal.”

POTVIN’S TRAINING SPLIT 194

BEGINNER’S TIP Since a beginner might be reading this, Potvin has some advice to share: “Proper form over weight— for everything,” he says. “Learn how to do the exercises correctly ﬁrst before you start adding weight. It will be worth it when you see the results for yourself.”

POTVIN’S BACK WORKOUT EXERCISE

SETS

REPS

Pullup

3–4

10–15

Bentover Barbell Row

3–4

10-15

THE GOAL OF ANY ATHLETE IS TO WIN. I BELIEVE I CAN IMPROVE ON MY PLACING LAST YEAR AND EVEN WIN THE OLYMPIA.

Notes: In the off-season, Potvin does the same exercises for 8 to 12 reps. Rest for 90 seconds between sets.

Monday Chest

Wednesday Legs

Friday Chest

Sunday Legs

Tuesday Back

Thursday Shoulders

Saturday Back

Note: Potvin trains arms

FLEX | NOVEMBER ’17

occasionally, but they’re not a part of his contest training split.

DEADLIFT

in’s back routine includes basic eadlift, but he says that if it ain’t . “Deadlifts are a great movement thing,” he says. “I’ve always used them A common debate is about straps on e these. While he isn’t shown using them in tos, he does advocate for them: “I don’t want to hold me back from working my back as hard I can, so yeah, I use lifting straps.”

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ONE-ARM DUMBBELL ROW A lot of guys use one-arm rows as a power movement to pull more weight, but Potvin performs them a certain way. “I found that when I pull up and back, I can feel my lower lat working more, which is what I had said I wanted to improve. Pulling straight up and letting it drop doesn’t help me do that. I pull back, squeeze the muscle, and lower it under control.”

PULLUP t

MAKE SURE YOU LEARN PROPER FORM, ESPECIALLY ON DEADLIFTS. LEARNING TO LIFT CORRECTLY IS MORE IMPORTANT. FLEXONLINE.COM

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BENTOVER BARBELL ROW

SHOT ON LOCATION AT METRO FITNESS NORTH, WORTHINGTON WOODS, OH

the Dorian Yates version of this exercise instead of the Pendlay row, with the weight on the ﬂoor. “If there isn’t an available rack, I’ll pick the ﬂoor, but I won’t let it down until the set is over,” Potvin says. “I want to keep n the lats. If a rack is available, I prefer to do them there.” To focus on the lats he rest of the upper back, he’ll pull the weight into his belly button area.

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GROOMING BY LUDIE SENATUS FOR ZENOBIA

I TRAIN BASED ON WHAT I HAVE AROUND ME TO WORK WITH. I SEE WHATâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S AVAILABLE AND USE IT TO HELP ME.

T-BAR ROW

The photos show Potvin using a T-Bar station, but he prefers to do this exercise the old-school way. “I’ll use a barbell and put it in a land mine or in a corner with weight on top of it,” he says. “I just like doing them that way better than at a T-Bar station.” When it comes to grip, he likes using both vertical and horizontal grips: “The closer grip helps you target the lats. The horizontal grip focuses on the rest of the upper back and rear delts. They both have their advantages.”

BARBELL SHRUG t

USING A T-BAR WITHOUT A CHEST SUPPORT WILL HELP YOU WORK YOUR LOWER BACK AND CORE. I PREFER DOING THEM THAT WAY. 200

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BY JOHN PLUMMER PHOTOGRAPHS BY IAN SPANIER

HOW NATHAN DE ASHA WENT TO WAR ON HIS BICEPS TO BUILD OLYMPIA-STANDARD PEAKS. Anyone who saw Nathan De Asha’s 24-inch arms onstage at this year’s Mr. Olympia could be forgiven for thinking he has always had big guns. But in the early part of his career, they were actually a weakness. “For years my arms were poor,” De Asha says. “It baffled me. I couldn’t understand why.” Like every bodybuilder, he was aware of the impact of a massive pair of arms. “At the end of the day, everyone wants to see a guy at a booth with huge guns,” De Asha says. But his eagerness to own a pair was undone by his belief that all he had to do was a few curls. “Looking back, I was basically arsing around,” he says. “I was doing dumbbell curls and swinging the weight. My technique on preacher curls was awful. The only other things I did were cable exercises. I was doing it all wrong.” De Asha’s overall development was so good he became British junior champion in 2007. But he knew he would have to find a way to boost his biceps to succeed at the senior level, let alone become an IFBB pro. The turning point came shortly afterward when he met a former ice hockey player called Steven Joel in one of those famously dark and dingy British gyms. “Steven had some of the best arms I have ever seen,” De Asha says. “He has never competed, but we once measured his arms at the gym, and they were 27

inches.” For a young guy trying to make his way in the sport, the sight of such monstrous mounds of muscle made a big impression. “I asked him how he got them so big, and he offered to put me through a proper arm workout,” De Asha says. It proved to be the start of a friendship that endures today.

“Steven said you have to lift heavy, and your form has got to be correct. You also have to use different motions and hit different angles,” De Asha says. “Those first sessions with him were so tough, but within four months my arms blew up. People started asking, ‘What are you doing?’ and I just said, ‘I’m copying Steve.’ Ever since then, if I see someone with a good body part, I ask how they train it. I understand it is partly genetics, but you still have to give credit where it’s due.”

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OVERPOWERING ARMS A decade later, De Asha is a two-time Mr. Olympia competitor who divides his time between Britain and Kuwait, where he is part of the Oxygen Gym team. His arm development is among the best in the world. In fact, his challenge is entirely different from the one he encountered 10 years ago. “I had to ease off arms for a while recently because they were overpowering the rest of my physique,” he says. “In Kuwait, I switched to just doing three biceps exercises after training chest just to get some Birth Date: blood in them.” June 8, 1986 It’s a far Height: 5'9" cry from how Contest Weight: he likes to 251 lbs train. Whenever Birthplace: he’s back Liverpool, England home in Residence: Liverpool, he Liverpool and hooks up with Kuwait City Joel every Career Highlights: Friday to 2016 Ferrigno train arms. Legacy Pro, 1st; A session 2016 Toronto Pro, 1st; 2016 Mr. typically lasts Olympia, 12th; no longer than 2014 British 50 to 60 Championships, minutes and heavyweight and combines overall champion biceps and (earned pro card) triceps. Their Social Media: formula hasn’t Instagram: changed much @nathandeasha; over the years, Facebook: @nathan and neither has sylvester86; the intensity. Snapchat: “The arms @thebl3ckassain sessions in Britain are the most brutal I do,” he says. “We hardly use any machines, except to warm up, then we hit them hard with free weights. “We use heavy weights with a reasonable number of reps. By reasonable, I mean eight reps for heavier sets and up to 15 to 20 on other sets, but we never sacrifice form for weight. You should be able to contract and squeeze the biceps on every single rep.” They still prefer free weights. “I’m old-school,” De Asha says. “Even though there are so

NATHAN DE ASHA

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many machines in Kuwait, I prefer to load up a bar and feel the weight working.” Swinging, he says, is the most common mistake. “Guys lift weights that are too heavy for them,” De Asha says. “They’re focusing on impressing their mates when they should be focusing on contracting the muscle.” It’s a mistake he knows well but one he overcame, thanks to Big Steve.

DE ASHA’S ARM WORKOUT EXERCISE

SETS

REPS

4 Standing Dumbbell Curl

8–12

4 Hammer Curl

3 3

8–12

MACHINE PREACHER CURL

“I like the preacher curl because it gives a good extension to the biceps tendon. It’s a good exercise to warm up with because the machine controls the weight and takes the pressure off your back and delts. I start with a couple of light sets to get the blood pumping, then I do four or five really slow, concentrated sets, squeezing at the midpoint.”

“WE HARDLY USE ANY MACHINES, EXCEPT TO WARM UP, THEN WE HIT THEM HARD WITH FREE WEIGHTS.”

SHOT ON LOCATION AT CIT Y ATHLETIC CLUB, L AS VEGAS

DUMBBELL CURL

“I prefer to do the curls alternatively. It gives one biceps a little bit of rest while you’re using the other arm, which allows you to go a bit heavier. Another benefit is that the resting biceps is stretching while it hangs down your side. I usually do four sets, but if I’m feeling strong I crank it up to six.”

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INCLINE DUMBBELL CURL

“My variation of this involves pointing my arms out slightly to target the long head of the biceps. I sit back and keep my head and chest up, and each time I do a rep I contract the whole biceps to get the full stretch. A lot of guys just go up and down with both arms, but I like to do slow single-arm curls to give each arm a bit of a rest and to get a full contraction.”

EZ-BAR CURL (NOT PICTURED)

“I like to do this move looking in a mirror so I can see my brachialis better. A lot of guys like to lift the dumbbells up and down by the side of their body, but I find it more effective to bring them up to my chest and then kick my wrist out a little at the top so the dumbbell points out slightly to give the brachialis more of a contraction.”

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WIDE-GRIP BARBELL CURL (NOT PICTURED) “I grip the bar as wide as I can and curl. I see a lot of guys curling from the bottom right up until the bar reaches the top of the shoulder, but if the bar comes this high, I think you are using more front delt than biceps. Once I feel my biceps contracting, I squeeze for two to three seconds and then start lowering the bar.”

GROOMING BY NADIA SHALINI R AMNATH

HAMMER CURL

“For this exercise, I prefer to use three ﬁxed-weight EZ-bars rather than plates so I don’t have to remove any weight during the dropset. I start with a 100-pound bar and do eight half-curls from the bottom, then eight half-curls from the middle to the top, then eight full reps. Straight after this I go down to a 60- or 70-pound bar and do 12 to 14 reps the same way, then I go down to 35 pounds and do 20 reps. That’s one set. I do four sets total. I keep my back straight and like to stand with my legs close to a bench to keep my body still and prevent me from swinging. I also make sure I tuck my arms close in to my sides.”

HIGH-CABLE CURL

“I tend to do this exercise only in the last four to five weeks before a contest. It allows me to hit a front double biceps better by getting the right contraction and feel. I keep my back straight and bend at the elbows, trying not to use my shoulders. It’s not about the weight; it’s more about the contraction.”

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“YOU HAVE TO LIFT HEAVY, AND YOUR FORM HAS GOT TO BE CORRECT.”

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LAST SET YOUR ONE-STOP SOURCE FOR MUSCLE NEWS

PHYSIQUE NUTRITION

212

Our new “physique architect,” IFBB Pro League bodybuilder James Davis, reveals how to burn off fat and build muscle.

British ﬁgure pro Louise Rogers shows how she sculpts her sensational legs and glutes with this move.

Relax, buddy. Easier said than done when you’re ﬂexing every muscle. Find out how to hit this pose right.

He ﬂexed during the second Golden Age of Bodybuilding in the ’90s and was one of the sport’s strongest dudes.

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PHYSIQUE ARCHITECT

BY JAMES DAVIS

THREE-POINT PLAN BURN OFF FAT AND BUILD MUSCLE WITH THIS STRATEGIC ATTACK.

WHAT IS THE QUICKEST WAY TO LOSE WEIGHT AND GROW MUSCLE? When trying to lose weight, you have to take in several factors. First thing is your caloric intake. Then there’s the

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ratio of your total caloric intake in protein, carbs, and fat. After that it’s your caloric usage level. The reduction in your caloric intake should come from your consumed fat first, then you start to look at your carbohydrates and diminish those while keeping your protein fairly high and stable. You can go to the point

where you get your protein-carb-fat ratio to around 60-30-10 or maybe 70-20-10. The total caloric intake for women— depending upon height and weight profile—can range anywhere from 900 calories per day to about 1,700 calories

per day. Men can go as low as 1,200 calories per day and as high as 4,000 calories per day. Eventually you would want to make sure the caloric expenditure for a woman would be no more than 1,200 calories, and for the man, optimally 2,500 calories. Next, your exercise program: Try a highintensity circuit-training program that allows you to hit your body in two separate workouts twice a week. Basically, what you’ll do is a complete upper-body circuit routine on the first day, followed on the second day by a lower-body circuit routine. Then take your third day for exclusive cardio. At this point you can decide whether or not after your third day you want to restart the circuit program or take a day off and then restart after that day of rest. You could also choose to do cardiovascular conditioning at least three days a week for 30 to 45 minutes. That would include bicycling, using a treadmill, and speed walking outside, to name a few options. Try to wear something like a hooded sweatshirt and regular cotton sweatpants to shed a little extra water. Be consistent no matter what you decide to do. Stick to the plan! I can’t stress this enough. Follow these guidelines, and in four weeks there will be a noticeable difference in fat loss and increased muscle density.

James Davis is an IFBB Pro League bodybuilder, personal trainer, and founder of Adoniss Innovations and Adoniss Girlz.

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STANDOUT

BY ROGER LOCKRIDGE

LONG TIME COMING

LONG WU HAS COME A LONG WAY TO MAKE AN IMPACT ON THE MEN’S PHYSIQUE SCENE.

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LONG WU

of them all: the language barrier. It’s definitely a grind for me, but you know what? I am loving every minute of it.” Wu looks up to Arnold Schwarzenegger, and as of this writing, he is on the verge of stepping on the biggest stage in the sport just as his idol did. Knowing other athletes from China will aspire to the heights he has reached, Wu offers simple advice: “Set a goal for yourself, and work as hard as you can to reach it. Always believe in yourself.”

PHYSIQUE NUTRITION

THE INTERNATIONAL Federation of Bodybuilding and Fitness (IFBB) was founded in 1946. With that history, it’s pretty hard for anyone to be the first person to accomplish something new in the sport. But Long Wu did just that in 2015, when he became the first Chinese pro athlete in the men’s physique division. After moving to the U.S. to pursue his pro career, he made history again in 2017 when he won the California Night Of Champions and qualified as the first athlete born in China to compete on the Olympia stage. His climb to this point wasn’t an easy one. “The journey has been tough, with difficulties that seemed insurmountable at first, such as competing in different countries, adjusting to totally unfamiliar atmospheres, limitations on gym equipment, facing fellow competitors, judges, and even event coordinators,” Wu says. Despite adversity along the way, Wu has done what champions are known to do—adapt and move forward. “Besides the external factors, I have undergone tremendous transformation internally, from mental preparation, upgrading and altering my meal and workout schedules, and the toughest

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INTERNATIONAL SENSATION

BY LOUISE ROGERS

RING THE BELL BRITISH IFBB FIGURE PRO LOUISE ROGERS REVEALS HOW SHE GETS ALL THE BENEFITS OF SQUATS WITH NONE OF THE PAIN.

Try bench kettlebell squats. I love this exercise as an alternative to regular barbell squats and ﬁnd it puts far less strain on my back. I perform it in a manner that is similar to doing a goblet squat, but instead of doing it on the floor I do it standing on two parallel benches. I prefer to let the kettlebell hang down in front of me, but you can adopt the more traditional method of holding the kettlebell upright in front of your chest if you prefer. Bench kettlebell squats have two major benefits over barbell squats. First, I get better activation in my glutes, as well as my quads, back, and core. Squatting between two benches allows me to go deeper, and I always

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get a tremendous burn in the glutes. I sometimes include some rest-pause techniques for added intensity. The second benefit is that this exercise is far less stressful on my back. My body struggles to tolerate barbell squats, which compress my spine. However, bench

kettlebell squats transfer the weight to the front, which makes it easier to keep my spine in a neutral position and reduces spinal compression. This makes it a far better movement for those with back issues. This exercise is particularly good for people who enjoy highrepetition work. It’s

great for hypertrophy and endurance but less beneficial for strength work. It may look a little tricky to begin with, but it’s actually an excellent way to learn good squatting technique without compromising safety. Start from the floor, and once you’re confident, move on to squatting between benches.

CHRISTOPHER BAILEY

BARBELL SQUATS HURT MY BACK. COULD YOU RECOMMEND AN ALTERNATIVE?

ON THE RISE

BY ROGER LOCKRIDGE

LAST SET

ROCKIN’ BOD

BRIAN SIMMONS

JESSE HUERTA IS GETTING ATTENTION ON NOT ONLY THE PHYSIQUE STAGE BUT ALSO THE ROCK STAGE.

JESSE HUERTA had two loves when he was younger: muscles and music. Fortunately for him, he’s able to follow both passions. He’s the bass player for the hard rock band Hindsight, which plays several events a year across the country. When it comes to muscle, he competes in the NPC men’s physique division, where he recently ﬁnished in the top ﬁve at the Ronnie Coleman Classic. “I started training around the same time I pursued playing music,” Huerta says. “I always wanted to compete, but I knew my physique couldn’t hang with the bigger guys in bodybuilding. When the new divisions were coming out, I saw men’s physique and thought that I could do well there. So I signed up for my first contest and got hooked.” Asked if one stage helps him on the other, Huerta says he sees advantages to both. “Competing in the NPC helps me with stage presence and being more comfortable when I perform with Hindsight. When I play onstage, we’re really active and moving around a lot. It can be quite a workout when you really get into

JESSE HUERTA

playing and your adrenaline is going.” His pursuit of men’s physique and competing has helped him in other areas as well. “Having the type of body I have has opened several doors for me,” he says. “I’ve been able to take part in fashion shows, modeling clothes. I’ve been able to attain sponsorships because of my look, and I never thought I would have so many followers tell me how I inspired them or helped them. I just tried to be me. That was something I never counted on.” The Evogen athlete and Harbinger ambassador is preparing to compete again in October with hopes of qualifying for Nationals.

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RELAX, YOU GOT THIS HOW TO MAKE EVERY SECOND COUNT WHEN YOU’RE ONSTAGE, AND POINTERS SUIT THAT SUITS YOU BEST.

“Standing relaxed” is the ﬁrst pose you hit onstage, so do it right to look good!

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”Standing relaxed” in the quarter-turns round of bodybuilding is actually a misnomer, as you should never stand relaxed onstage. During quarter-turns, the judges are looking for the classic lines of a bodybuilder—wide shoulders and back tapering to a small waist. The legs should have a good quad and hamstring sweep. All muscle bellies should be full, a look that’s

PER BERNAL

DO YOU HAVE ANY POINTERS ON “STANDING RELAXED”? I’M NEW TO THE SPORT AND PREPARING FOR MY SECOND SHOW, AND I DON’T QUITE UNDERSTAND HOW TO HANDLE THIS ASPECT OF THE COMPETITION.

BY MIKE BERG

Details matter when you’re competing at the elite level, so pay attention to everything.

I’M ABOUT TO BUY A SUIT FOR MY FIRST FIGURE COMPETITION. DO YOU HAVE ANY KEY DOS AND DON’TS AS FAR AS WHAT I SHOULD LOOK FOR IN CUT, STYLE, ETC.?

PER BERNAL

enhanced by small joints. To emphasize these qualities, stand with your stomach sucked in and your chest held high. Your back and shoulders need to be spread as wide as possible without lifting the arms too high to the sides, and the muscles in the arms and legs should be held in tension to emphasize the size of the muscles and the separation evident in a flexed, lean body. All this must be achieved while keeping the face and neck relaxed and maintaining the appearance of comfort. Even while standing on the side of the stage, while other athletes in your division are being compared center stage, you must not let your shoulders slump or relax your stomach. Judges are always looking, so posture and presentation are extremely important as to how your body is perceived.

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HARD TIMES

BY PETER MCGOUGH

GENTLEMAN DALLAS

DALLAS MCCARVER passed away on Aug. 21 at only 26 years old. Stay tuned for our tribute to him next month, but for now we wanted to share this reﬂection from his coach/training partner/best friend Matt Jansen. “As a teenager, Dallas was an accomplished footballer, so he was an athlete who ended up being a bodybuilder. He didn’t

MEDDLE GURUS

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bodybuild to make up for lack of size or poor body image or because anyone made fun of him. That was never part of his inner workings, never drove him to be a bodybuilder. He used to say, ‘The only time I wish I were normal size is when I’m around kids, because I don’t want them to be scared of my look.’ He wanted to be normal so the kids felt comfortable.

“Dallas didn’t have insecurities like other guys have. Even backstage he acted more like a footballer than a bodybuilder. Some bodybuilders act like they don’t want to talk to anybody— they want to stay in their own little world. At the 2016 Chicago Pro [which Dallas won], all the guys were lined up, ready to go onstage, and Dallas walked the length of the line and shook everybody’s hand, hugged them, and wished them luck and then took his place in the line. I’ll always remember that. Dallas was a true gentleman.”

GARY PHILLIPS; ISA AC HINDS

LAST SET

CARUSSO/COURTESY OF WEIDER HEALTH & FITNESS; COURTESY OF WEIDER HEALTH & FITNESS

CELEBRATING THE GOLDEN AGE REMARKABLY, IT IS 40 YEARS since the release of the iconic Pumping Iron— which propelled one Arnold Schwarzenegger to global celebrity and captured the essence of bodybuilding’s Golden Age, which ﬂourished in Gold’s Gym, Venice, CA, from the late ’60s to early ’70s. Besides Arnold, denizens of the gym during that period included Dave Draper, Frank Zane, Eddie Giuliani, Zabo Koszewski, Ken Waller, Franco Columbu, Kent Kuehn, Denny Gable, Peanuts West, Don Peters, Roger Callard, Charlie Fautz, and Ric Drasin, while later on Robby Robinson became a regular. Out-of-towners visiting periodically were Ed Corney, Danny Padilla, Bill Grant, Paul Grant, Mike Katz, Pierre Vandensteen, Serge Nubret, and Serge Jacobs. Why was it so golden? To the Golden Agers it was the best of times. A time when training was everything. A time when all weaknesses were improved in the gym through blood, sweat, and tears. A time when there was no great financial gain in having the planet’s best physique—even for Arnold, the top bodybuilder in the world.

A time of working out because you just loved it. For that select band of shirt-busting brothers, there was a purity of purpose in what they were doing. This was the place in which they belonged; the place that defined who they were. The place where all these like-minded individuals, the ones who “got” this bodybuilding thing, congregated to worship at the benches and racks of their collective spiritual home. Decades since the last barbell was curled in the now shuttered premises, the legend and aura of that time and place, and its cast, continue to intrigue and inspire every true bodybuilder. There is a lyric from Camelot that reads: “Don’t let it be forgot / That once there was a spot / For one brief shining moment that was known / As Camelot.” Substitute “Gold’s Gym” for “Camelot” and that sentence still works. As long as weights are lifted the bodybuilding community will never forget that “brief shining moment” when that inimitable ’70s gang repped its way into immortality to give us forever the Golden Age of Bodybuilding—an era that is now frozen in time and, therefore, indeed timeless.

SERGE NUBRET AND PUMPING IRON

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POSEDOWN

BY GREG MERRITT

Al HADDAD VS. SIMILAR-SIZE MIDDLE EASTERN LEGENDS SQUARE OFF.

Al Haddad, of Bahrain, has competed exclusively in the 212, but he was late to the party. Despite dominating annually as an amateur, he didn’t go pro until 2012, when, at 39, he trounced the top contenders while placing second to Flex Lewis twice. Since then, he’s won three 212 shows, but his stellar rookie year leaves us to wonder what could’ve been if he were 29 when he ﬁrst faced Flex.

ISA AC HINDS; ROBERT GARDNER

ONE WAS TOO EARLY, the other was too late. When Lebanon’s Ahmad Haidar competed in the IFBB Pro League from 1998–2009, there were no 212 or classic physique divisions. Had he been born a decade later, he undoubtedly would’ve won 212 or classic shows. Instead, he fended off Goliaths in the open class, where he placed second twice and ﬂexed in four Mr. Olympias. On the other hand, Sami

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HAIDAR

ISA AC HINDS; ROBERT REIFF

AL HADDAD

HAIDAR

Flex (ISSN 8750-8915), Vol. 7, No. 10, is published monthly except for a combined July/August issue, which counts as two of 12 in an annual subscription by Weider Publications, LLC, a division of American Media Inc., 4 New York Plaza, 2nd Fl., New York, NY 10004. Periodical rates postage paid at the New York, NY, Post Office and at additional mailing offices. Copyright © Weider Publications, LLC, 2017. All rights reserved. Canada Post International Publications Mail Sale Agreement No. 40028566. Canadian B.N. 88746 5102 RT0001. All accepted materials submitted without restrictions become the sole property of Weider Publications, LLC, and shall constitute a grant to Weider Publications, LLC, to use name, likeness, story, and all other information submitted of the person submitting the same for any and all purposes and cannot be used without permission in writing from Weider Publications, LLC. Flex is not responsible for returning unsolicited manuscripts, photographs, letters, or other materials. Weider Publications, LLC, and American Media Inc., publisher of Flex, does not promote or endorse any of the products or services advertised by third-party advertisers in this publication. Nor does Weider Publications, LLC, or American Media Inc., verify the accuracy of any claims made in conjunction with such advertisements. Copyrighted under the Universal Copyright Convention and International Copyright Convention. Copyright reserved under the Pan-American Copyright Convention. Todos derechos reservados segúin la convención Pan Americana de Propriedad Literaria Artística. Title trademark registered in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Subscription rate is $42.97 for (1 yr) 12 issues in U.S.A. In Canada (1 yr) 12 issues $59.97. Outside of U.S.A. and Canada (1 yr) $91.97. U.S. orders outside of U.S.A. must be prepaid in U.S. funds. For Customer Service and Back Issues call toll-free (800) 340-8959 or write to: Flex, P.O. Box 37207, Boone, IA 50037-0207. SUBSCRIBERS: If the postal service alerts us that your magazine is undeliverable, we have no further obligation unless we receive a corrected address within one year. U.S. POSTMASTER: Send all UAA to CFS (See DMM 507.1.5.2); NON-POSTAL and MILITARY FACILITIES send U.S. address changes to: Flex, P.O. Box 37207, Boone, IA 50037-0207. CANADA POSTMASTER: Send address changes to American Media Inc., P.O. Box 907 STN Main, Markham, ON L3P 0A7, Canada. From time to time we make our subscriber list available to companies that sell goods and services by mail that we believe would interest our readers. If you would rather not receive such mailings, please send your current mailing label to: Flex, P.O. Box 37207, Boone, IA 50037-0207. Reprinted by special agreement in Australia, United Kingdom, France, Canada, Holland, Italy, Greece, Romania, Russia, Spain, Germany, and Bulgaria. Printed in the U.S.A.

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