Ironman Magazine 2005-01 by Iron Man

FAT TO MUSCLE: LOW CARBS, SLOW CARBS OR NO CARBS? JANUARY 2005 / IRON MAN—REAL BODYBUILDING TRAINING, NUTRITION & SUPPLEMENTATION

MUSCLE SCIENCE ROUNDUP

New Research Reports That Can Up Your Mass!

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Best Fat-Burning Exercise

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FUTURE SHOCK! Gene Therapy Doubles Muscle Size in 3 Weeks

MUSCLE-SCIENCE ROUNDUP

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www.ironmanmagazine.com \ APRIL 2006 261

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150 DECEMBER 2009 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

Get-Big: The Short-and-Sweet Winter Workout,

January 2005

Vol. 64, No. 1

page 116

Real Bodybuilding Training, Nutrition & Supplementation

FEATURES

74 TRAIN, EAT, GROW 63 Our TEG men are still rolling forward with X Reps and X-ploding muscle-building myths left and right.

86 MUSCLE: AN ANTICRASH COURSE 2 Massive stumbling blocks you must avoid. Stuart McRobert has more bodybuilding lessons from his 30 years of training experience.

98 MUSCLE-SCIENCE ROUNDUP An introspective look at 15 research reports that can affect your muscle growth and fat loss.

116 GET-BIG: THE SHORT-AND-SWEET WORKOUT Here’s your winter mass-building program, a quick routine that helped Jim Hafer pack on 100 pounds of muscle in nine months. FAT TO MUSCLE: LOW CARBS, SLOW CARBS OR NO CARBS?

FAT TO MUSCLE: LOW CARBS, SLOW CARBS OR NO CARBS?

132 PROTEIN, MUSCLE AND ANABOLISM, PART 2 Train, Eat, Grow, page 74

An A for Athens, page 206

Ori Hofmekler continues grilling a group of respected nutrition experts in a roundtable discussion on protein. (Pass the barbecue sauce.)

142 ONLY THE STRONG SHALL SURVIVE

MUSCLE SCIENCE ROUNDUP

New Research Reports That Can Up Your Mass!

RIP IT UP

Best Fat-Burning Exercise

GET BACK

FUTURE SHOCK! Gene Therapy Doubles Muscle Size in 3 Weeks

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Craig Titus appears on this month’s cover. Inset couple: Clark and Anita Bartram. Photography by Michael Neveux.

Shock your muscles and yourself. Bill Starr tells you how to set a personal record at every workout. Call the Guinness Book guys immediately.

164 SUCCESS STORY: GREG ADLER The lawyer and Met-Rx Body Challenge winner tells how he gave himself a lighter sentence.

172 GRAPE EXPECTATIONS This fruit has got it going on, and Jerry Brainum tells why. Bonus: Wine is fine. A toast to health, wealth and muscle. Before

After

Success Story, page 164

182 RESEARCH TEAM Are you looking for a quick, convenient snack to quash that hunger attack and feed your muscles? The new Warrior Bar has the right stuff to grow on.

206 AN A FOR ATHENS Strength maven Randy Strossen, Ph.D., has a full report and photos from the Olympic weightlifting events.

212 HEAVY DUTY John Little continues with excerpts from Mike Mentzer’s Heavy Duty seminar.

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DEPARTMENTS

30 TRAIN TO GAIN Pyramid power, dumping an old flame (as in joint pain) and big-arm intentions with extensions.

48 CRITICAL MASS Steve Holman yells, “No weigh!” Don’t use the scale to monitor gains. Plus, how to refry your forearms.

54 EAT TO GROW Muscle-Science Roundup, page 98

Answers to the big diet dilemma: Low carb, slow carb or no carb?

68 NATURALLY HUGE John Hansen gives you fat-loss fundamentals, as well as split-altering suggestions for less overtraining stress.

Critical Mass, page 48

190 NEWS & VIEWS Lonnie Teper has loads of irresistible items on bodybuilding titans. And speaking of irresistible, Ruth Silverman reports on those fabulous fitness and figure femmes. Jerry Fredrick’s Hot Shots help keep your abs in shape with a few sets of yuk-it-ups.

222 MIND/BODY CONNECTION Randall Strossen, Ph.D., analyzes self-canceling combinations, and Becky Holman tells you why childish behavior can make you happy. There’s also Bomber Blast with the legendary Dave Draper and a report from Frank Zane on the TV biopic about the Austrian Oak, “See Arnold Run.”

232 BODYBUILDING PHARMACOLOGY It’s future-shock talk with Jerry Brainum. Our number-one researcher discusses gene therapy that can create freakier physiques—but at what cost? Truly an interesting look at the possible future of the sport of bodybuilding. Dr. Frankenstein, are you listening?

News & Views, page 190 Train to Gain, page 30

240 READERS WRITE Pump & Circumstance, page 196

WEB ALERT! For the latest happenings from the world of bodybuilding and fitness, click on Hot News at www.ironmanmagazine.com.

One hot mama who’s over 40 and fabulous, plus success-story commentary and X-factor visionaries.

In the next IRON MAN Next month we’ve got a very cool interview with our own ITRC trainer Jonathan Lawson, who discusses the innovative muscle-building technique that took his physique to a new dimension in ’04. Using X Reps for only one month, he produced startling new muscularity and vascularity. This is must-reading for anyone interested in packing on mass fast. And if you’re looking for photographic inspiration, we’ve got some incredible images from the camera of David Paul (yes, of Barbarian Brothers fame). The man is an artist, and his bodybuilding images will stun, delight and inspire you. We’ll also have Mr. Olympia coverage, Greg Zulak on triceps and the return of IM’s Hardbody. Watch for the X-citing, motivation-lighting February IRON MAN on newsstands the first week of January.

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John Balik’s

Publisher’s Letter

Founders 1936-1986:

Peary & Mabel Rader

A Love for Lifting Olympic weightlifting is a sport that’s very close to my heart. I competed in it from my teenage years through my early 20s and have always loved the pure beauty of the lifts. If you watched the Athens Olympics last summer, you saw very little of the action, but Randy Strossen saw it all. In getting back to our roots, IRON MAN is striving to cover more of the lifting sports, and thanks to Randy’s work we can all experience some of the amazing feats of these superlative athletes. Turn to page 206 to get a taste of Olympic weightlifting. “Muscle-Science Roundup,” which begins on page 98, highlights 15 of the latest muscle-building, testosterone-enhancing and fat-destroying research discoveries to help you reach your goals faster. Thanks to IM authors like Jerry Brainum and Steve Holman, you don’t have to read hundreds of pages of research materials to get at the meat of the results and find the stuff that works; our staff has done the grunt work. Now it’s up to you to use it. This is must reading! One of the magazine’s most popular regular features is the IRON MAN Success Story. Everyone needs a motivational jolt from time to time, and I find that reading about the success of others fuels my enthusiasm for my own workouts. Congratulations to Greg Adler for winning the Met-Rx Body Challenge, and thanks for being an inspiration to us all. Read Greg’s story on page 164. IRON MAN is always looking for success stories in which bodybuilding has had a major impact on the subject’s life. If you have a story to tell, please send it via e-mail to me at ironleader@aol.com with before and after pictures. I look forward to reading about your success and perhaps featuring you in our pages. I always enjoy the writing of Stuart McRobert, an author whose byline has appeared in IM for decades. It’s easy to tell that his insights come from his own hard-won battles in the gym. The information has the unmistakable feel of authenticity, and his articles never fail to add to my storehouse of useful training info. Check out his feature “Muscle: An Anticrash Course,” on page 86, for lessons learned that can keep you from crashing and burning. Last summer I trained for three months with my 14-year-old son, Justin. It had been about 20 years since I coached a young person just starting out in bodybuilding. Having to teach the techniques of lifting was a great learning process for me. After all those years everything is second nature to me, but I had to break apart each lift, explain it, demonstrate it and impress my training philosophy on Justin. It was a great time for both of us. He got to benefit from my years of experience, and I got the pleasure of watching him grow in more ways than just strength and muscle—and of watching his youthful enthusiasm. Because of his energy, I had some of my best workouts in years. You can read about my experiences as a coach, along with Justin’s complete Bodybuilding 101 routine, on page 130. We’ll have Mr. Olympia coverage in the next issue, but for those who can’t wait, visit ironmanmagazine.com and click on Contests for reports and photos. IM

Publisher/Editorial Director: John Balik Associate Publisher: Warren Wanderer Design Director: Michael Neveux Editor in Chief: Stephen Holman Art Director: T. S. Bratcher Senior Editor: Ruth Silverman Editor at Large: Lonnie Teper Articles Editors: L.A. Perry, Caryne Brown Assistant Editor: Jonathan Lawson Assistant Art Director: Christian Martinez Designer: Emerson Miranda Ironman Staff: Denise Cantú, Vuthy Keo, Svetlana Kogan, Mervin Petralba, David Solorzano Contributing Authors: Jerry Brainum, David Chapman, Teagan Clive, Lorenzo Cornacchia, Daniel Curtis, Dave Draper, Michael Gündill, Rosemary Hallum, Ph.D., John Hansen, Ron Harris, Ori Hofmekler, Rod Labbe, Skip La Cour, Jack LaLanne, Butch Lebowitz, Stuart McRobert, Gene Mozée, Larry Scott, Jim Shiebler, Roger Schwab, C.S. Sloan, Bill Starr, Bradley Steiner, Eric Sternlicht, Ph.D., Randall Strossen, Ph.D., Richard Winett, Ph.D., and David Young

Contributing Artists: Steve Cepello, Larry Eklund

Contributing Photographers: Jim Amentler, Reg Bradford, Jimmy Caruso, Bill Comstock, Bill Dobbins, Jerry Fredrick, Irvin Gelb, J.M. Manion, Gene Mozée, Mitsuru Okabe, Rob Sims, Leo Stern, Russ Warner

Director of Marketing: Helen Yu, 1-800-570-IRON, ext. 1 Accounting: Dolores Waterman Director of Operations: Dean Reyes Subscriptions Manager: Sonia Melendez, 1-800-570-IRON, ext. 2 E-mail: soniazm@aol.com Advertising Director: Warren Wanderer 1-800-570-IRON, ext. 1 (518) 743-1696; FAX: (518) 743-1697 Advertising Coordinator: Jonathan Lawson, (805) 385-3500, ext. 320 Newsstand Consultant: Angelo Gandino, (516) 796-9848 We reserve the right to reject any advertising at our discretion without explanation. All manuscripts, art or other submissions must be accompanied by a selfaddressed, stamped envelope. Send submissions to IRON MAN, 1701 Ives Avenue, Oxnard, CA 93033. We are not responsible for unsolicited material. Writers and photographers should send for our Guidelines outlining specifications for submissions. IRON MAN is an open forum. We also reserve the right to edit any letter or manuscript as we see fit, and photos submitted have an implied waiver of copyright. Please consult a physician before beginning any diet or exercise program. Use the information published in IRON MAN at your own risk.

IRON MAN Internet Addresses: Web Site: www.ironmanmagazine.com John Balik, Publisher: ironleader@aol.com Steve Holman, Editor in Chief: ironchief@aol.com Ruth Silverman, Senior Editor: ironwman@aol.com T.S. Bratcher, Art Director: ironartz@aol.com Helen Yu, Director of Marketing: irongrrrl@aol.com Dean Reyes, Dir. of Operations: ironreyes@aol.com Jonathan Lawson, Ad Coordinator: ironjdl@aol.com Sonia Melendez, Subscriptions: soniazm@aol.com

24 JANUARY 2005 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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SEXY ROCK-HARD ABS FAST The Secret to Etching your Granite-Carved Abs in 10 Short Minutes Picture this... you with tight, shredded abs, serratus and intercostals all sharp, sliced and visible from across the room or on the sun-glared beach! And from the rear, lower lumbars that look like two thick steel girders supporting your muscle-studded back. Imagine looking like a Greek god... in street clothes... in the gym... or anywhere. The incredible breakthrough design of the pad on the Ab Bench pre-stretches the targeted muscles prior to contraction, giving you a full-range movement, making each exercise up to 200% more effective. The Ab Bench takes the physiology of your spine into consideration with its design like nothing else on the market. The contraction takes place all the way into the pelvis where the abdominals actually rotate the spine, forcing the abdominals to completely contract... from the upper abs to the lower abs. Using the Ab Bench is the “sure-ﬁre” guarantee for you to get those attention-grabbing washboard abs. From full stretch to complete contraction—in total comfort. The Ab Bench is the most complete midsection exercise in existence. You’ll feel the incredible difference from your very ﬁrst rep.

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30 JANUARY 2005 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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EXERCISE SCIENCE

Pyramid vs. Reverse Pyramid extension for nine weeks.1 Both techniques produce You may not know it, but some of the most common styles of training have little-known names. For example, similar results, with neither clearly superior at promoting the method in which you start light and increase the muscle increases. weight on each set is called the DeLorme technique, In practical terms that means it doesn’t make much after the researcher who first suggested it in 1945. difference which technique you favor; you’ll likely get According to the DeLorme principles, you hold your the best results from the style that feels the most comreps to fewer than 30 per set, since he found that with fortable to you. more than 30 reps, a muscle doesn’t get enough resis—Jerry Brainum tance to promote growth. 1 Fish, D.E., et al. (2003). Optimal resistance training: With the DeLorme technique you generally start with a weight that’s half the amount you can lift for 10 reps. comparison of DeLorme and Oxford techniques. Am J On the second set you increase the weight to 75 perPhysic Med Rehab. 82:903-909. cent of maximum for 10, and on the final set you do the maximum amount of weight you Should you add can lift for 10 reps. When you’ve achieved weight on each that goal, you increase the weight on all subsequent set, or sets. start with your The idea was that the lighter sets helped heaviest poundage? prevent excess muscle soreness while promoting proper exercise form. On the other hand, when the DeLorme technique was used by anyone but highly motivated athletes, people got too fatigued after the first two sets to reach 10 reps with a maximum weight on the final set. As a result, another technique was developed, known as the Oxford technique. It works in the opposite manner—you start with the heaviest weight for 10 reps and decrease the weight on each subsequent set. The idea was to diminish muscle fatigue while promoting exercise intensity, since you have to complete the full number of reps for each set. Most bodybuilders today use either or both of of these weight-training techniques. The DeLorme method is commonly known as pyramiding, and the Oxford technique is known as reverse pyramiding. Is one of them superior for promoting muscular gains? Researchers examined that question in a recent study featuring 50 subjects who used one technique or the other on the leg

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HE WANTED TO FIGHTUntil I Crushed His Hand! He was big. He was pissed. And he wanted to kick my butt. There was no way out, so I extended my arm for the opening hand shake— and then I crushed his hand like a Dorito. Fight over thanks to the Super Gripper. If you’re after huge forearms with the crushing power of an industrial vise, get the Super Gripper. It’s the ultimate forearmand grip-building tool on the market because it provides your muscles with the two essential requirements they demand for awesome size and strength: speciﬁcity (mimics gripping action) and progressive resistance. You’ll develop a bone-crushing grip fast by adding one or a number of power coils for that critical progressive-resistance effect. Remember, when you wear short sleeves, it’s the lower arms that are exposed for all to see. You’ll want your forearms to be huge and vascular to match your thick, beefy upper arms—and now they will.

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ANABOLIC ACTIONS

X-citing New Muscle Growth Every set you do, even if you push it as hard as you can, delivers a lot less hypertrophic punch than it might because of nervous-system failure. It’s the very reason bodybuilders do set after set after set and get only small increases in muscle. It has to do with what’s known as the size principle for recruitment of motor neurons. In a standard set, the type 1 slow-twitch fibers are recruited first, and the fastest-growing type 2 fibers last, which is why so many bodybuilders consider the last few reps of a set critical. Usually, however, your nervous system shuts down before much anabolic stimulation of fast-growing fast-twitch fibers occurs. We came to this view after looking at the scientific evidence presented by Steven J. Fleck, Ph.D., and William J. Kraemer, Ph.D., in their book Designing Resistance Training Programs. They discuss a 1992 study that demonstrated the activation of knee extensors by the central nervous system during maximum effort. One of their conclusions was that the CNS “limits force by engaging inhibitory mechanisms that are protective in nature.” Fleck and Kraemer say that inhibitory mechanisms appear to be especially active when large amounts of force are developed, such as maximum force development at slow speeds of movement. That’s precisely what happens toward the end of a set of eight to 12 reps to failure. They cite studies by Caiozzo, Perrine and Edgerton in 1981; Dudley, et al., in 1990; and Wickiewicz, et al., in 1984, when they conclude that “neural protective mechanisms appear to have their greatest effect in slow-velocity, high-resistance movements.” Once again, that describes the reps at the end of a set to failure perfectly. So the inhibitory mechanisms of the CNS are what stop each and every set to failure—it’s the reason you can no longer do a full-range rep. The solution is X Reps, which enable you to override nervous-system failure and make each set more effective than conventional sets at stimulating those highly anabolic fast-twitch fibers. That’s because X Reps, or extended repetitions, extend the tension time on those key fibers in the optimal position of an exercise at the end of a set for a dramatic anabolic surge—the fast-growing fibers keep firing during those short pulses after your nervous system cries uncle. —Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson The Ultimate Mass Workout Editor’s note: For Holman and Lawson’s before and after photos, taken one month apart during their X-Rep experiment, visit www.x-rep.com. Sign up for their free e-newsletter at www.ironmanmagazine.com.

Switch poundages instantly to reduce home-workout time If you want to experience dramatic fitness results, check out an innovative breakthrough in home fitness—the Bowflex SelectTech dumbbell set. It’s 15 pairs of dumbbells in one. With a turn of the dial, you can change your resistance from five all the way up to 52.5 pounds. The flexible strengthtraining option lets you quickly switch from one exercise to the next. You can enjoy a fast yet intense workout with real results. It’s space-saving too. Say good-bye to 30 dumbbells cluttering your workout space. Now all you need are two cutting-edge Bowflex SelectTech dumbbells to get the sculpted body you desire. Bowflex has also just introduced its new Xtreme machine. All it takes is one 20-minute workout, three days a week, and in six weeks you can experience awesome results—strong legs, built arms, a tight butt and firm stomach. Designed for serious strength training, the Bowflex Xtreme lets you perform more than 65 bodybuilding exercises. It comes with 210 pounds of power-rod resistance, a lat tower, squat station and an upright gymstyle seating position that easily adjusts to accommodate anyone. Plus, it’s compact and was designed to fit in even the smallest workout spaces. Check out the new Xtreme model— now only $19 a month. For details visit www.bowflex.com. For more information on the Select Tech dumbbells visit www.BowflexSelectTech.com.

32 JANUARY 2005 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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YOU CAN BENCH BIG Add 20 Pounds to Your Bench Press Almost Overnight! How would you like a surge in upper-body power and a bigger bench press—say, 20 extra pounds on the bar—after only a couple of workouts? Sure, adding 20 pounds to your bench in two or three training sessions may sound crazy, especially if your bench press poundage has been stuck in neutral for a while. But nine times out of 10 this stall is due to an easily correctible muscle weakness—not in the pecs, delts or triceps but in a group of muscles known as the rotator cuff. The rotator cuff muscles stabilize the shoulder joint. During the bench press and almost all other upperbody movements these muscles protect the shoulder joint and prevent ball-and-socket slippage. If these muscles are underdeveloped, they become the weak link in the action and your pressing strength suffers, or worse, you injure your shoulder. One of the best ways to strengthen this area and create an upper-body power surge is with direct rotator cuff exercise. Once you start using the ShoulderHorn for two or three sets twice a week, your pressing poundages will skyrocket. This device allows you to train your rotator cuff muscles in complete comfort and with precise strengthening action. After a few weeks you’ll be amazed at your new benching power. There have been reports of 20-to-30-pound increases in a matter of days. A big, impressive bench press can be yours. Get the ShoulderHorn, start working your rotator cuff muscles, and feel the power as you start piling on plates and driving up heavy iron.

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SUCCESS SECRETS

Dumping an Old Flame—the One in Your Joints One of the great pleasures of attending physique or trade shows is the chance to spend time with old friends and share memories and new training ideas. The other day I got to spend some time with Bill Pearl in Chicago. Quite a few years ago, when Bill had his health club in Pasadena, California, he ushered me into the world of forearm training. Before that I relied entirely on biceps work to build my forearms. Bill made me realize how much I was limiting my arm size by ignoring forearm work. No question, it was a breakthrough for my arm training. It was with great pleasure that I reminisced with Bill about the good old days. We were both laughing over some shared event, and gradually the conversation drifted around to the following: “Larry, you’ve been training now for a long time. How are your joints holding up?” Casually, I replied, “You know, Bill, I don’t have trouble with any of my joints at all.” “Really, that’s amazing. My shoulders just kill me. I can hardly sleep, they hurt so bad. I guess it’s all those years of heavy bench pressing.” “Bill, I used to have so much trouble with my knees, I would have to carry a small tripod with me on the airplane to prop up my legs. It was the only way I could avoid the pain. They’d ache so bad, I could hardly stand it on long flights.” Bill and I are not the only ones who suffer. At a recent seminar in Hawaii that introduced Bio Phase training, I asked the following question: “How many here are suffering from some type of injury? Maybe it’s a sore elbow or aching knees, or could it be those horrible painful shoulders?” About 30 percent of the fellows raised their hands, some with a wry, knowing smile, as if to say, “Yes, that’s the name of the game.” Most of those who raised their hands had trained for many years and were carrying good size. I asked them, “How would you like to get rid of those aches and pains and make better gains at the same time?” The wry smiles were immediately replaced by very interested, though somewhat doubtful, expressions. A wise Greek philosopher, while watching the ancient Olympics, made this oft-quoted comment: “The human body is the only machine that works better the more it is used.” Where did we go wrong? Why is it that most of the fellows who have been using their machine for 10 years or more are all suffering some kind of connective-tissue irrita-

tion? Could it be we have not been using but abusing our machines? I think that’s the case. Granted, we could all drop our poundage by 50 percent to avoid the joint failure, but then our size would also drop. Is there another answer? How do you infuse some fountain of youth into your sore joints? The answer is the same one I gave Bill Pearl, which he’s using right now: Change, change, change. A tennis racket weighs less than a pound, but it isn’t long before the serious player performing the same serve day after day develops tennis elbow. Is it any wonder that using a heavy-weight workout with little variation begins to cripple us? The human machine does work better the more you use it, but the key is to use it with wide variation. Once you begin to limit the amount of variation in your program, you begin to develop residual fatigue. It takes longer and longer to warm up the joints and poorly oxygenated connective tissue. Before long the pain leaves the gym with you and crawls into bed with you at night. How do we make these changes in our programs? You might be thinking there just aren’t that many really good exercises. I agree that some exercises are better than others, but if we sprinkle in some of the less effective ones in order to keep ourselves from suffering from joint inflammation, won’t that in itself help us make better gains? How many weeks do we lose nursing a bad elbow—or worse yet, a bad shoulder? (If you can get a bad shoulder to heal in less than six months, you’re lucky.) Bad knees? They don’t ever get any better. The best thing to do is find exercises that do not cause pain of any sort. That will help get circulation into the injured area. Don’t rely on warmup-induced endorphin release to mask the pain. The injury is still there. Find exercises that don’t cause pain when you can’t warm up. Those will accelerate healing. Ice the injured area until it goes numb each night. Take aspirin, as it’s a mild anti-inflammatory. Once you’ve rehabilitated your aching joints, treat them with constant change; they’ll last a lifetime without pain. It was necessary to warm up for five or 10 minutes on each bodypart when I was in my 20s and training the old way. Now that I’m in my 50s and training with Bio Phase, I no longer need to warm up at all, but I change my workout program every night. The vectors of stress are constantly changing. I do occasionally get hurt, but the next workout on the same bodypart will have me doing entirely different exercises. So the pain disappears within the week. And on most exercises I’m using heavier weights than ever. You can enjoy the same freedom from joint pain if you learn to use rather than abuse your machine. —Larry Scott Editor’s note: Get all 33 of Larry Scott’s reports— thousands of words of pure training inspiration—in a threering binder with a table of contents for easy reference, all for the low cost of $87. Mention that you saw this offer in IRON MAN and receive “Larry Scott’s Peak Biceps” DVD. Call (800) 225-9752 and order now.

34 JANUARY 2005 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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Dips are a basic exercise. Many trainees first did dips in high school as part of a program of pullups, pushups, dips, situps and sprints. Some consider the dip part of “natural” training, meaning that it uses bodyweight as resistance. For others the dip and pushup are exercises that lead to the bench press. The dip is also a key movement for gymnasts. As millions of television viewers of the Olympic gymnastics competitions can attest, gymnasts have very muscular delts, pecs, triceps, biceps and lats. The dip has found its way into many trainees’ programs. It’s often included in chest routines, as it involves the pecs. The movement trains the pectoralis major, deltoids, triceps and serratus anterior.

GROWTH GEAR

And other pains on the parallel bars to watch out for

The traditional dip is performed on parallel bars, and gymnastic-style parallel bars obviously permit only one grip width for all trainees. Some gyms have V-shaped bars (as opposed to parallel bars). The V-shape allows for a change in the emphasis. The narrow part of the V lets you increase the emphasis on your triceps and deltoids, and the wider part of the V lets you place more emphasis on your pecs. You can also use a moderate grip width on the V bars—similar to the grip width on the parallel bars—and strap additional weight around your waist. Some use the dip with bodyweight as a pumping exercise at the end of a chest workout. Many trainees use 35 to 50 pounds for sets of 10, and I once saw Bertil Fox perform dips with 200 pounds for reps. Zabo Koszewski, the manager of World Gym in Venice, California, has performed dips with 200, but the most astonishing dip performance belongs to powerlifter and bodybuilder Marvin Eder, who did dips with 400 pounds at a bodyweight of only 198. Like any exercise, dips can produce injuries. Trainees who have injured the acromioclavicular joint usually have pain when they perform dips. The AC joint, as it’s called, is on the top and front of the shoulder. The C stands for clavicle, or collarbone. The A stands for acromion, which is the bony extension of the shoulder blade. The acromion meets the clavicle and forms the AC joint, which is similar to two blunt ends of bone meeting each other. When injured, it often separates slightly. It may hurt for only a few weeks, but the joint is never tight or snug again. Dipping stresses the AC joint at the top of the exercise when the elbows are straight and the arms are down along the side of the body. In that position the force is being driven up into the shoulder and can produce a separationlike effect on the AC joint. Trainees who experience pain in the region of the AC joint should stop performing dips. The sternum, or breastbone, serves as a broad origin for the pectoralis major. Because the bottom position of a dip places a great stretch on the pecs, tendinitis can occur along the sternum in the center of the chest. If you develop that pain during dips, take a few weeks off from the exercise. Reintroduce it to your workout, but only do quarter dips for a few weeks. Progress to half dips and then three-quarter dips for a few weeks each. You should be ready to perform full dips after that. When you first start doing full dips, do only one set. Allow your muscle-tendon and tendon-bone interface to adapt. Once you have performed one set of full dips pain free for a few weeks, add a second set. Every two to three weeks add another set until you reach the desired number of sets. Remember, train hard, but train smart. —Joseph M. Horrigan

Unilateral Contraction Action It’s a simple idea that can magnify your result in the gym. The TriPower Handle lets you better isolate bodyparts with one-arm cable exercises. One of these handles can give a new twist to exercises like one-arm cable kickbacks, cable curls and cable laterals so you can build plenty of new muscle right where you want it. Just clip it on, wrap your fingers around the ergonomic grip, anchor the bottom of your hand against the base and rep. You’ll feel less stress on joints and more contraction action, which is the key to packing on muscle. For more information on the TriPower Handles, visit www.tripowerhandle.com. Or you can call (661) 799-5840. —the Editors

Editor’s note: Visit www .softtissuecenter.com for reprints of Horrigan’s past Sportsmedicine columns that have appeared in IRON MAN. You can order the book Strength, Conditioning and Injury Prevention for Hockey by Joseph Horrigan, D.C., and E.J. “Doc” Kreis, D.A., from Home Gym Warehouse, (800) 447-0008, or at www.home-gym.com.

36 JANUARY 2005 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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Buckeye Brawn Allan Johnson was born in Parkersburg, West Virginia, and now lives in Columbus, Ohio, with his wife, Jan, and son Adam. He’s been the head strength coach at Ohio State since 2001, helping the Buckeyes remain a dominant football power in the NCAA—they were national champs in ’02. IM: How did you get into lifting and strength coaching? AJ: I started strength training in high school and kept it up through college at West Virginia Tech, where I was an allconference offensive lineman. I transferred to Glenville State College to finish my collegiate football career and was an allconference discus thrower. I was also a powerlifter in the 220-pound class. I started coaching in 1980 at Federal Hocking High School in Stewart, Ohio. I then became a graduate-assistant strength coach at West Virginia University, where I was under the tutelage of Dave Van Hallanger, who is now at the University of Georgia. I earned my master’s degree at WVU, and in ’83 I was hired as the head strength coach there. I stayed at that position until ’88, and in ’89 I was hired by the Baltimore Orioles as director of strength and conditioning for the major-league team and six minor-league teams. I returned to WVU as head strength coach in 1993 and then was hired by Ohio State as head strength coach in 2001. IM: You just released a video that you did with Notre Dame strength coach Mickey Marotti. What’s it about? AJ: The video is “Sports Performance Training,” and it shows proper exercise technique for strength-training exercises and how to properly do agility/foot-speed/change-ofdirection drills. It’s geared to junior high and high school student athletes. IM: What’s your lifting program for the Buckeye football team? AJ: Our program is based on developing the total athlete. We won’t sacrifice the athleticism of the athlete. The program has specific goals: 1) increase work capacity, 2) improve mental toughness, 3) improve strength/power using

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progressive overloads, 4) increase competitive attitude, 5) use ground-based exercises, 6) use triple-extension movements, 7) improve conditioning, 8) incorporate full-range movements, 9) improve flexibility, 10) increase team speed and agility and 11) prevent injury. We use a four-day-split program. On days 1 and 3 we work legs, back and biceps; on days 2 and 4 we train chest, shoulders and triceps. Days 1 and 2 are heavy and primarily focus on bilateral movements. Days 3 and 4 are lighterworkload days, using iso-lateral movements. We use periodization, working down to 85 to 97 percent of a one-rep max over three to five sets on heavy days. Light days it’s 55 to 70 percent. We incorporate a dynamic warmup, core training and postlift stretching on each of our training days. The core exercises are bench presses, incline presses, squats and hang cleans. We rotate in a lot of other exercises, however, including front squats, glute/ham raises, leg curls, band work [Editor’s note: That’s exercises with rubber bands, not lifting members of the Buckeye marching band], leg extensions, tire flips, overhead squats, split jerks, push presses, explosive box jumps, calf work, high pulls, jump shrugs, pulldowns, dumbbell rows, towel chins, Hammer Strength low rows and high rows, stability-ball reverse hypers, Romanian deadlifts, various ab exercises, many types of curls, shrugs, dips, dumbbell combo presses, plyometric pushups and various neck exercises and forearm work. We strive for balance in our strength program. We aim to work as many different joint angles and multiple muscle groups as possible. The bottom line is, we don’t want to do anything that will compromise movement skills. You can’t block and tackle what you can’t catch. —Bruce Citerman

Determination and Success

A winner never quits and a quitter never wins. —“CBS Sports Spectacular” There’s always another chance for the determined. —“CBS Sports Spectacular”

Editor’s note: For more on Ohio State football and athletics visit www.ohiostatebuckeyes.ocsn.com.

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KINESIOLOGY

Extensions and Big-Arm Intentions Free-weight triceps extensions are much more traumatic than cable variations because of the very random nature of the resistance free weights provide. That trauma should translate into more mass, but it can also lead to elbow injuries. I find all free-weight triceps exercises very hard on the elbows—lying triceps extensions being the toughest. You should play it safe with your elbows and triceps, as they’re taxed in most basic upper-body exercises (chest and shoulder presses as well as back movements). That frequent use, coupled with the lack of proper rest, is likely to translate into tender joints. Avoiding those traumatic exercises might be a good way to prevent elbow injuries. Which bar? Some bodybuilders have very straight arms, while others have some kind of bend starting at elbow level. Look at yourself in a mirror, arms straight at your sides, with your palms facing the mirror. Draw an imaginary line going from your shoulder through the middle of your elbow and down to your hand. If it crosses the middle of your hand, your arm is straight. If not, you have a valgus. There is nothing wrong with that, but it means that you’re likely to experience problems using a straight bar. The bend of an EZ-curl bar will help you get a more natural position at the elbows and wrists. If your valgus is very pronounced, the slight bend of an EZ-curl bar may not be enough. As a result, you may experience discomfort in your shoulders, elbows or wrists. Your only solution is to use dumbbells instead of a bar. The freedom of movement they permit will help you find a more natural groove. The point is, you can’t consider dumbbells, a straight bar or an EZ-curl bar as variation. It’s very rare that all three fit one person’s anatomy. Find the one that suits you best and stick with it. If you force your joints along an unnatural path, injury is likely. Your triceps routine. It’s very hard to figure out when to train triceps, which are strongly recruited during chest and shoulder presses and to a lesser extent during back exercises. Of course you don’t want to train them when they’re fatigued after pec or delt training. By the same token, you don’t want to

If you have a valgus, you’re likely to experience problems using a straight bar.

train those two bodyparts when your triceps haven’t fully recovered from their last workout. Most bodybuilders work tri’s right after chest. In theory, presses warm up your triceps and potentiate them—meaning your tri’s get temporarily stronger because they’ve just been submitted to high tension. If you’ve performed a lot of sets for your chest, though, potentiation won’t occur. More than likely your tri’s are exhausted by presses, and it’s not very productive to train them in that fatigued state. Some bodybuilders like to train their tri’s with their back and their biceps with pecs. That seems reasonable—for beginners. For advanced bodybuilders, however, there’s a better solution. In the days following chest presses, weird triceps strength fluctuations occur. Obviously, the tri’s are weaker due to fatigue and trauma, but—unexpectedly—a brief, temporary, nervous overshoot occurs in the middle of the recovery phase. Lawrence W. Weiss reports in the Journal of Applied Sport Science Research (1991, Vol. 5, No. 4) that the force of the stimulated muscle is acutely enhanced 96 hours after exercise. Strength measured 48, 72 or 120 hours after training does not show any variation of force. So a rapidly closing window of opportunity is open 96 hours posteffort. That means if you train your triceps four days after your chest workout, your tri’s should benefit from a brief nervous overshoot. But if you train them two, three or five days after your chest, you won’t benefit from it. We also know that because of the delayed soreness or trauma, most trained muscles will be at their weakest two days after having been stimulated. So the worst strategy would be to train your triceps 48 hours after your chest, and the optimal strategy is to hit them four days after your chest workout. I’ve found that my triceps strength is at its peak 24 hours after chest training and at its weakest 48 hours after. So I train them the day after chest. The problem is at the joint level, as joints and tendons haven’t recovered. But if I choose the proper combination of exercises, my joints can handle the double triceps blast. It’s easy to discover your own pattern of strength over- and undershoot. Pick a nontraumatic cable exercise—I like one-arm cable extensions—and select a weight that lets you do only 20 reps in very strict form. Perform the exercise every day for a couple of weeks. On some days you’ll reach the 20 reps with ease, while at other times 20 will be impossible. By monitoring your own strength fluctuations, you’ll discover when to retrain, and equally important, when not to work triceps. Both are crucial pieces of information if you want rapid muscular growth. —Michael Gündill Illustration by Frédéric Delavier Editor’s note: Frédéric Delavier is an accomplished powerlifter and the author of the worldwide best-seller Strength Training Anatomy, available from Home Gym Warehouse, (800) 447-0008, or at www.home-gym.com.

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The Fatter You Are, the Slower It Burns that most people focus on—fat stored systemically in fat cells. Decreased use of systemic fat by the obese involves not only decreased catecholamine release during exercise but also a heightened stimulation of alpha-adrenergic receptors. Unlike beta-adrenergic cell receptors, which favor the use of fat, alpha-adrenergic fatcell receptors inhibit fat use. A preponderance of alpha-adrenergic receptors in women’s lower bodies explains why it’s so difficult for most women to lose fat in that area. Interestingly, obese men burn fat much as women do in their lower bodies—with great difficulty. Obese men also usually have higher resting insulin levels. That’s caused by insulin resistance resulting from larger fat-cell volume. Insulin blocks the release of fat during exercise, an effect usually opposed by increased catecholamine secretion. Catecholamine secretion is blunted in the obese, however, leading to a vicious metabolic cycle. The question is how those with higher bodyfat levels can overcome their considerable fat-oxidation problems. Ephedrine and mahuang supplements simulate the effects of catecholamines in the body, including their effects on bodyfat release. Sadly, it appears that such supplements will soon be history, due to inaccurate reports about their so-called health dangers. Caffeine may also help release catecholamines to a limited degree, but the effect is usually transient. As for the problem of alpha-adrenergic receptors, a supplement based on yohimbe may block the effects of those fat-blunting receptors. But yohimbe must be taken on an empty stomach at a dose of about 0.2 milligrams per kilogram of bodyweight. Food obliterates yohimbe’s fat-oxidation properties. The easiest way to overcome the metabolic fat oxidation deficit, though, is simply to have patience and lose the excess fat. When that happens, the obese are likely to burn fat as easily as their leaner peers. —Jerry Brainum Neveux \ Model: Eric Domer

The fatter you are, the harder it is to tap into bodyfat stores during exercise. That was confirmed in a study that measured the fat use of five lean, five overweight and five obese men during exercise.1 All the subjects exercised for 90 minutes on a stationary cycle. Tracer infusions showing precisely where and how fat is oxidized, or burned, measured their fat use. The total increase in fatty acid uptake during exercise was 50 percent lower in obese subjects and 35 percent lower in overweight men than in the lean subjects. Normally, moderate-intensity exercise leads to a twofold to threefold increase in the burning of stored fat. Exercise also promotes greater use of fat stored in muscle, known as intramuscular fat. That’s due to increased secretion of catecholamines, such as epinephrine and norepinephrine, from the adrenal glands during exercise. With increased bodyfat levels the body secretes lower levels of catecholamines during exercise, blunting release of fatty acids from fat cells into the blood. On the other hand, the study also showed that higher bodyfat levels also led to increased use of intramuscular fat, so the level of fat oxidation is similar. Still, fatter men release less of the type of fat

1 Mittendorfer, B., et al. (2004). Excess bodyfat in men decreases plasma fatty acid availability and oxidation during endurance exercise. Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab. 286:E354-62.

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Critical Mass

No Weigh! Q: I weigh around 215 right now. I’m pretty active, and I have rock-hard legs, but I need a better upper body. If I want to maintain a fit 190-to-200-pound bodyweight, should I try to drop all 25 pounds to 190 and then build the muscle, or should I just drop 10 to 15 pounds and use weight training to replace the fat with lean muscle? I want to be a fairly ripped 190. A: First, you shouldn’t be so hung up on weighing a certain amount. In fact, you probably shouldn’t weigh yourself. Go by how you look. If you’re losing notches on your belt, you’re losing fat. When you lose fat and gain muscle, you redistribute your weight. In other words, you’ll look completely different if you lose 10 pounds of fat and add 10 pounds of muscle, but you’ll weigh exactly the same. Think about that, and let it sink in. Step away from the scale! Concentrate on working out hard, being consistent and keeping your eating relatively clean. You’ll be amazed at the changes your body will make. It may help to take some photos in a bathing suit and then take more after about six weeks. Q: Larry Scott used to do burns on preacher curls a lot. Are X Reps similar to those?

the target muscle in a semistretched position between sets, which can provide benefits similar to those of X Reps. For example, he liked to grab an upright, bend at the waist and lean back, flexing and stretching his lats between sets of chins and rows. That provided unique semistretched overload for his traps and lats. The Oak’s instincts were right on the money most of the time, which is why his physique was so far ahead in development. Q: I want to try the Get-Ripped Diet in Train, Eat, Grow (page 132). I’d like to lose about 60 pounds. I have a few questions: For breakfast you say that you pour Pro-Fusion over cereal. Is that all you put on it? Do you mix it in milk? Could I just use whey powder? A: I use about one scoop of Pro-Fusion in water, stir it with a spoon in a glass and then pour it over my cereal. It has a sweetness that adds to my Fiber One/Raisin Bran combination (us old guys need our fiber). If you can’t stomach that—my wife and kids gag when they see me do it—you could use skim milk on your cereal and have a small protein drink in addition. Whey powder would work, although a micellar-casein-and-whey combo protein will keep aminos in your bloodstream longer, due to the fast/slow protein release. Also keep in mind that when you begin a weight-loss diet, you should gradually reduce calories, which is why I showed four versions of the GetRipped Diet. Calories taper down over a number of weeks. If you make a giant calorie cut all at once, your body is more apt to hold on to fat because it shifts into starvation mode. I cover that in TEG and go into more detail in Fat to Muscle 2.

A: X Reps are somewhat similar to burns; however, we’ve taken it a few steps beyond with an explanation of why they work and the precise position in the stroke of each exercise Q: When should I do cardio, bethat’s best for implementing the techfore or after my weight workout? nique. Burns were more random—no rhyme or reason about where to perA: A 10-to-15-minute treadmill sesform them. For example, in his feature sion before you train legs can do wonon Arnold’s training [“I Watched Arnold ders for warming up your lower body for Train,” November ’04] John Balik wrote optimum performance. Many bodybuilders that on preacher curls Arnold would end don’t warm up enough, which can reduce his set with four half reps at the top for their ability to contract the target muscle. peak. A number of scientists believe that the Studies show that a warm muscle can contract best place for overload to initiate a growth up to 20 percent better than a cold one, so response is the semi-stretched position, which warm up thoroughly. is near the bottom of the preacher curl, not the Of course, you don’t have to do cardio on leg top. While Arnold may have liked day to warm up. Many top-level bodybuilders to flex his biceps at the top of do a few sets of leg extensions before they move that exercise, he might have to their heavy compound quad exercises. been more efficient at triggering For example, Ronnie Coleman does growth by doing his burns at four sets of extensions for up to 20 the bottom, where the bireps apiece before heading to ceps are in a position to exert the squat rack. Walking a the most force and, therefore, treadmill or riding a stafiber activation. tionary bike is just Not to criticize the king! He also did another warmup many things exactly right, like doing cable option. laterals and incline one-arm Doing cardio after laterals to hit the delt’s stretch your weight-training Muscle weighs more than fat, so you could conceivably position, something many bodyworkout has a fatweigh more as you get leaner and more muscular. builders neglect. He also flexed burning benefit: Be48 JANUARY 2005 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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Steve Holman’s

Critical Mass Refry Your Forearms In the December ’04 Critical Mass I outlined how to build forearm mass; however, that was before I discovered a new bar that Jonathan Lawson and I have been using in our workouts. It’s called the Forearm Bar, and it was sent to us by Monster Bars (www.monsterbars.com). It’s a uniquely angled short bar, shaped like a wide V, with a pin in the middle so you can add barbell plates. You stand gripping the bar at arm’s length and do wrist curls or reverse wrist curls over a full range. Jonathan and I have been using it along with X Reps in our forearm routine, and we’ve gotten some wild new detail in our lower arms, not to mention vascularity. Our routine? We superset barbell reverse wrist curls with dumbbell reverse wrist curls, doing X Reps on both of them. Then we do barbell wrist curls supersetted with dumbbell wrist curls, X Reps on both. We follow with Forearm Bar wrist curls supersetted with X Reps on forearm rockers, doing the X Reps on the inner curling motion. Then we do Forearm Bar reverse wrist curls supersetted with X Reps on forearm rockers, doing the X Reps on the outer curling motion.

Using a treadmill is a good way to burn fat, especially after a weight workout when there’s no glycogen in your bloodstream. Doing it after a leg workout, however, may detrimental to leg growth.

Editor’s note: To order the Forearm Bar, call Home Gym Warehouse, (800) 447-0008. For more on X-Rep training visit www.x-reps.com.

The unique shape of the bar enables you to do full-range wrist curls and reverse wrist curls while standing.

cause your weight workout has used up a lot of glycogen, especially any circulating in your bloodstream, your body moves into a fat-burning mode sooner than it would if you did cardio on a nonworkout day or prior to your workout. Some researchers believe, however, that doing cardio immediately after a leg workout can be detrimental to growth and that you should wait at least 20 minutes. So the answer is, if you want to use some cardio for a leg warmup, do it before your leg workout for 10 to 15 minutes, and use only moderate intensity. If you’re looking for a better fat burn, do it immediately after your upper-body workout or 20 to 30 minutes after your leg workout. Better yet, on leg day do it later in the day or not at all. New! The sharp black POF T-shirt with the original classic logo emblazoned in gold can give you that muscular look you’re after. See page 179 for details. Editor’s note: Steve Holman is the author of a number of bodybuilding best-sellers, including Train, Eat, Grow: The Positions-ofFlexion Muscle-Training Manual. For information on the POF videos and Size Surge programs, see page 125. For information on Train, Eat, Grow, see page 81. Also visit www.x-rep.com. IM

Neveux

Holman \ Model: Jonathan Lawson

We’ve been using the Forearm Bar, from Monster Bars, along with X Reps, and our forearms are getting better with less volume.

Steve Holman ironchief@aol.com

50 JANUARY 2005 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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\ JULY 2006 181

EAT TO NUTRITION SCIENCE

Low Carb, Slow Carb or No Carb? The most frequent criticism of today’s popular low-carbohydrate diets is that they’re antithetical to optimum body chemistry. The idea is that since carbohydrates are undeniably the most readily available fuel source, not eating enough carbs leads to a host of physical and mental impairments, such as fatigue and a decrease in training intensity. Most nutrition authorities say that the ideal diet contains 55 to 60 percent carbohydrate. The preferred forms have the least effect on insulin secretion, usually because of their naturally higher fiber content. One way to figure out which carbs are best to eat is to consult a glycemic index, or GI, chart.

The glycemic index assigns numbers based on how rapidly a carb is absorbed into the blood compared with glucose, which is assigned the number 100. The primary problem with depending on GI numbers is that they apply only to carbs eaten alone, without any protein or fat. Protein and fat slow down carb absorption significantly, thus making GI numbers irrelevant. With all the admonitions about the importance of carbohydrate intake, you would think that carbs are an essential nutrient. The truth is, though, that essential carb intake hasn’t been identified, as it has for fats and protein, simply because carbs can be synthesized in the liver from protein and, to a lesser degree, from fat in a process called gluconeogenesis. Some studies show that about 57 percent of excess dietary protein is converted to glucose, the carb that circulates in the blood. Ten percent of glycerol, the triglyceride molecule, converts to glucose in the liver. Even by-products of exercise metabolism, such as lactate, readily convert into glucose in the liver. What’s really important about carb foods is not the

carbohydrate per se but the nutrients found in unprocessed carb foods, such as fruits, vegetables and whole grains. They contain fiber and myriad impressive health-preserving nutrients that fall under the umbrella term phytonutrients, such as flavonoids. Processed carbs, such as the abomination known as highfructose corn syrup, have zero redeeming characteristics and are a primary factor in today’s obesity epidemic. What would happen if you eliminated carbs from your diet? Surely that would induce metabolic derangement. Many studies examining the relationship between exercise and carbs have demonstrated that eliminating carbs does indeed lead to a significant drop in energy and training intensity. A lot of them are meaningless, however, because they were all short-term—often lasting no more than a week. People who’ve eaten large amounts of carbs are sugar burners and may experience initial fatigue if their sugar or carb sources are abruptly removed. The body needs time to adjust to using another type of fuel—fat. The metabolic switchover takes about two to three weeks, during which most people feel some level of fatigue and lassitude. If you continue the diet and take certain precautions, however, the symptoms disappear. That the human body is capable of adapting to a depletion of carbs is evident from the Inuit, or Eskimo, people, whose traditional diet contained about 85 percent fat and 15 percent protein. Despite the lack of

54 JANUARY 2005 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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contraction and to help ward off muscle cramps. The other key to an optimal low-carb diet for training is a higher protein intake. As you reduce calories or carbs, you must increase protein. That buffers you against nitrogen loss, which would lead to muscle breakdown, or catabolism. The body needs the excess protein converted in the liver to glucose for brain and central-nervoussystem operation. Frequent protein meals also suppress appetite, which makes dieting easier. One aspect that must be considered is the relationship between carb intake and glycogen synthesis. Without carbs, glycogen synthesis is stymied. Insufficient glycogen means lack of muscle pump, decreased recovery and lack of training intensity, since anaerobic exercise—such as bodybuilding workouts—relies on muscle glycogen stores. The solution is simple. Get the majority of your carbs before and after activity and concentrate on protein when you’re not active. That way you burn bodyfat at a maximum rate while getting the carbs you need to train hard. Also be aware that any carbs you get within the initial two hours after a workout go straight into glycogen replenishment. Carbs taken in at that time do not hinder fat metabolism, contrary to what some have stated. —Jerry Brainum Neveux \ Model: Derik Farnsworth

carbs—fruits and veggies aren’t readily available in the Arctic—they thrived. Their high intake of fatty fish was the first found evidence of the benefits of omega-3 fatty acids, since the Inuit showed far lower rates of cardiovascular mortality than people living in Denmark, where the diet was more typically Western. In 1929 an anthropologist named Vilhjalmur Stefansson returned from living with the Inuit for more than five years. To silence scientific skepticism at the time, Stefansson and an associate voluntarily committed themselves to a metabolic ward at Bellevue hospital in New York, where they ate the carb-free Inuit diet for a year under medical scrutiny. They showed no adverse effects on the diet, not even a vitamin C deficiency, which was predicted to occur after three months. But what of exercise? It’s one thing to sit around in a hospital ward, but what happens if you cut out carbs and try to train at the gym? Studies have examined that aspect of low-carb diets and found surprisingly few adverse effects, as long as a few other factors are accounted for. The first is time for adaptation, starting with the two to three weeks the body needs to switch over to using fat instead of carbs as an energy source. Indeed, including carbs every few days prevents full metabolic adaptation to fat as a primary fuel source. It’s also important to ensure adequate mineral, or electrolyte,

intake. Low-carb diets are famous for their diuretic effect. That loss of water is often attributed to a breakdown of stored glycogen, which is stored with 2.7 grams of water for every gram of glycogen. But along with the water go electrolytes, such as sodium, magnesium and potassium, which play vital roles in nerve transmission. When they’re lacking, weakness and lassitude soon follow—along with more severe and even life-threatening effects. Maintaining a high level of electrolytes also helps preserve lean mass, or muscle. Potassium is particularly important, but without magnesium you can’t retain potassium; you need them both. Adding calcium may also help because the lack of dairy foods limits calcium intake. Among other functions, calcium is required for muscle

www.ironmanmagazine.com \ JANUARY 2005 55

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Eat to Grow DIETS

When choosing bread, always consult the nutrition label.

Who Stole My Muscle Mass? Watch what you eat after an injury

CARB COUNT

Fiber Won

Rye vs. wheat bread in a low-glycemic battle

There are good carbs and bad carbs (just as there are good witches and bad witches). So instead of trying to select foods that contain fewer total carbs, look for ones that contain good carbs, like those in legumes, fresh fruit, vegetables, nuts and whole grains. Even some good carbs are better than others. For example, one study compared rye bread to wheat bread and found that even when the dietary fiber content was the same, the rye bread was digested more slowly, resulting in a lower insulin response, than the wheat bread. According to a report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (78:957964, 2003), “These findings suggest that less insulin is required for the regulation of postmeal blood sugar levels after the consumption of rye breads. The reason for this may be explained by differences in the structural properties of the two breads.” The study did not use typical supermarket rye, which feels as light as air. That bread is 90 percent or more white flour, with 10 percent or less rye flour. The study instead used a whole-rye bread, which usually can only be found in a health food store or German delicatessen. Another way to be sure is to check the nutrition label. Each slice of rye bread should contain at least two grams of dietary fiber. —Daniel Curtis, R.D.

It’s a good idea to lay off training for a while if you get injured; however, it’s not a good idea to lay off your nutrition plan at the same time. When you injure a muscle, “in a sense the body panics and sends out a general breakdown alert. Proteolytic changes [muscle breakdown] are often seen in muscles far from the site of the injury,” according to Nutrition Reviews (61:34-38, 2003). That protective mechanism enables the body to release amino acids for use in the tissues and for other functions, but, the article says, “as much as 26 percent of muscle protein can be lost within three days of the injury.” One suggested solution is to inhibit muscle breakdown by using medications. That’s not the whole picture, though. According to the authors, “nutrition regimes should be developed to provide the amino acids that would have normally been provided from the breakdown of muscle protein following injury.” That means getting a diet high in protein, with protein supplements as needed. So take a rest from your training till your injury is healed, but continue to eat a balanced, high-protein diet so your body has plenty of amino acids available and doesn’t have to rob your muscles. —Daniel Curtis, R.D.

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Eat to Grow WARRIOR NUTRITION AND EXERCISE

The Stubborn-Fat Solution The term stubborn fat refers to fat tissue that shows high resistance to fat burning. Stubborn-fat gain is often associated with estrogenic activity in the body. Estrogen is a female hormone with a high affinity for binding to fat, or adipose tissue, and it essentially promotes fat gain. Men accumulate stubborn fat around the belly and the chest; women around the belly, lower butt and upper legs. Bodybuilders regard estrogen-related stubborn fat as a nightmare. Accumulated stubborn fat around the chest and abdominals takes away any chance of looking defined. Some companies attempt, or claim, to offer anti-estrogen—or anti-aromatase— supplements; however, most products fail to deliver any leaning-down effect. So is it possible to remove stubborn fat, which resists conventional diet and exercise? The answer is not a simple one. Stubborn-fat gain could be a result of various metabolic problems, including insulin resistance, stressed liver and toxicity, all of which need to be addressed. There is, however, some encouraging news regarding estrogenrelated stubborn fat. Recent studies at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta reveal that conjugated linoleic acid may help. CLA is derived from omega-6 linoleic acid. It’s found in dairy products and meat and has been widely shown to possess antiobesity and anticarcinogenic activity in test tube and animal

studies. Human-based studies reveal that mixed CLA isomers help inhibit breast-cancer cell growth. The researchers determined that CLA downregulated estrogen receptors and gene expression, thus suppressing estrogen-related growth of breast-cancer cells. They concluded that CLA is a natural potent estrogen suppressor. That could be great news for active people who are looking for practical ways to eliminate stubborn fat. Keep in mind, though, that only some isomers of CLA have a potent antiestrogenic effect. More research is needed to determine the exact effect of this fatty compound on the human body. Even so, because of its potential ability to break down fat tissues and mobilize fatty acids to the liver, it’s advisable to take CLA on an empty stomach while undereating or fasting. That way the body can more easily convert fatty acids and triglycerides into energy, thus preventing accumulation of lipids in the liver and the blood. —Ori Hofmekler Editor’s note: Ori Hofmekler is the author of the books The Warrior Diet and Maximum Muscle & Minimum Fat, published by Dragon Door Publications (www.dragondoor.com). For more information or for a consultation, contact him at ori@warriordiet.com, www.warriordiet.com or by phone at (866) WAR-DIET.

SNACK ATTACK

Bone-Breaking Beverage? While cola is not a nutritional powerhouse, it may not be the villain it’s been made out to be. Sure, it contains 150 to 200 empty calories, caffeine and no vitamins, but more recent evidence indicates that it won’t vacuum all the calcium out of your bones and leave you with osteoporosis. According to the March ’04 issue of Prevention, “Some rumors refuse to die, such as the one about how drinking too many colas can leach calcium right out of your bones.” The article goes on to state that “there is some evidence that phosphorous may hurt bones, but there’s so little in colas that you’d have to drink a tremendous amount to impact bone.” So tip back a cola when the thirst for one hits you—if you can afford the extra calories. —Daniel Curtis, R.D. No bones about it. The rumors are not true.

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Trivia question: What compound, at a dose of roughly 50 to 100 milligrams, might cause dyspepsia (also known as indigestion—I just like the sound of dyspepsia), abnormal vision, increased nitric oxide release and increased exercise capacity and make you rock-hard where it counts? If you answered arginine alpha-ketoglutarate (AKG) then you’re a complete nitwit. The real answer is sildenafil, more commonly known as Viagra. Besides giving you enhanced blood flow in the nether regions, it’s a friggin’ ergogenic aid! Now, I’m not talking about being able to do the bump-and-grind for longer periods. For that you need to do more core training as well as load up on creatine (for increased power output). Seriously, though, a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine looked at the effects of sildenafil on exercise capacity. A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled

crossover study was done at the base camp on Mount Everest. The researchers studied 14 healthy mountaineers and trekkers who received 50 milligrams or a placebo of oral sildenafil. What did they find? At low altitude, acute hypoxia reduced arterial oxygen saturation to 72.0 percent at rest and 60.8 percent at maximum exercise capacity. Sildenafil significantly increased arterial oxygen saturation during exercise— meaning more oxygen got to red blood cells. That’s obviously important when you’re breathing more heavily than an adolescent boy who’s just made a prank call to Carmen

Electra. Sildenafil also increased maximum workload and maximum cardiac output. It had no effect on arterial oxygen saturation at rest or during exercise. At high altitude sildenafil worsened existing VEGGIES headaches in two individuals—a phenomenon many have experienced when taking sildenafil in the comfort of a hotel room. Bottom line: Sildenafil, or Viagra, will enhance exercise capacity at high altitude. It may even be worth Spinach and other green leafy vegetables are trying for those who participate in rich in folic acid, which can decrease serum prolonged strenuous endurance homocysteine levels and thereby reduce the work such as the Tour de France. risk of heart disease. They’re also rich in According to researchers, “Sildenafil indoles, which are substances that stimuis the first drug shown to increase late your immune system to fight cancer. exercise capacity during severe Now it looks as if green leafy hypoxia both at sea level and at high vegetables also fight off another altitude.” serious disease: macular degeneraJust an FYI for you sildenafil tion, which is on the increase. Aclovers: When you take it, it’s rapidly cording to the March ’04 issue of absorbed, with maximal plasma Prevention, “An eye-opening new study of concentrations attained within 30 to 10,500 people found that age-related macular 120 minutes (median 60 minutes) of degeneration has skyrocketed in just eight years, oral dosing in the fasted state. When from 5 to 27 percent in people over the age of 65.” I yam what I Viagra is taken with a high-fat meal, The damage occurs when sunlight reaches the back yam: chockful of the rate of absorption is reduced of the eye, or the macula, the lens-focusing center. beta-carotene. and delayed. My suggestion: If The carotene content of green leafy vegetables is you’re with Mrs. Right Now, don’t what does the trick. Carotenoids appear to concentrate in the macula, where they eat a high-fat meal. If you’re on a can absorb the damaging light—and fresh spinach is a top source. One cup conmercy date, eat enough fat to make tains 1,688 micrograms of beta-carotene. a moose pass out. —Daniel Curtis, R.D. —Jose Antonio, Ph.D.

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Eat to Grow GROW TIME

The Anabolic Diet

How to kick-start your muscle-building hormones

Neveux \ Model: Jonathan Lawson

Gains in muscular size and from each group trained using strength are associated with a heavy resistance. They kept food greater release of anabolic hordiaries of everything they ate for mones, including testosterone four days prior to the training and growth hormone. That’s why sessions. many athletes and bodybuilders The results proved surprising in resort to using anabolic steroids, light of the usual advice on what which are based on testosterone, to eat to gain muscle. Eating and growth hormone. Another either insufficient fat or excess option is to use food suppleprotein led to lower testosterone ments that increase the levels of levels. According to the study, the anabolic hormones in the body, best types of dietary fat for inincluding pro-hormones and creasing testosterone are saturatseveral herbal formulas that, ed and monounsaturated fats. some studies show, may have a Polyunsaturated fat, usually conpositive effect on anabolic horsidered the healthiest type—and mone levels. the only fat considered essenA lack of either protein or calories Often overlooked, however, is tial—had no effect on anabolic tends to depress growth hormone rethe effect of dietary nutrients on hormone levels. lease. anabolic hormone levels. That So what are the optimal levels was the focus of recent research on the dietary patterns of of protein and fat intake for testosterone release? Research eight strength-trained and 10 physically active men.1 The shows that protein intake should be between 1.2 and 1.7 first part of the study examined the mens’ levels of total grams per kilogram (2.2 pounds) of bodyweight, while fat testosterone, free testosterone and growth hormone under intake should never dip below 20 percent of total daily resting conditions. In the second part of the study five men calories and should contain saturated and monounsaturated fat sources. Since monounsaturated fat, found ALCOHOL in olive oil and other sources, is far more healthful than saturated fat, it In more ways than one would be prudent to focus more on that than saturated fat. Saturated-fat By now most people know that red wine is more intake should never exceed 10 percent heart healthy than white wine, but not all red wines of total daily calories. Even though polyunsaturated fat are equally protective on the heart scale. Red wine had no effect on anabolic hormone works due to its saponin content. Saponins trap release, it would be a serious mistake cholesterol and eliminate it before it can get into to avoid it. Polyunsaturated fats, such the bloodstream, and some red wines contain as the omega-3s found in fatty fish, more than others. According to the March ’04 are the only type of fat considered issue of Prevention, zinfandel tops the list with 14 essential in the diet. milligrams per glass. Pinot noir comes in at seven As for growth hormone, no particular nutrient pattern had any significant milligrams, cabernet sauvignon at four effect. Even so, we know that there’s a milligrams and merlot also at four. Red direct relationship between calorie wines also contain the beneficial intake and GH release: A lack of proantioxidant resveratrol, which tein or calories tends to depress protects arterial walls and may growth hormone release. be responsible for raising —Jerry Brainum the good HDL cholesterol. 1 Satillinen, J., et al. (2004). RelaIf you don’t drink alcotionship between diet and serum hol, try dark grape juice or anabolic hormone responses to heavy eat grapes. resistance exercise in men. Int J —Daniel Curtis, R.D. Sports Med. 25:1-7.

Wine Is Fine

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PERFECT POSTWORKOUT MEAL

To Kick-Start Immediate Muscle Growth After You Train Breakthrough research in exercise metabolism now reveals this fact: What you consume (or don’t consume) immediately after training plays a critical role in determining your success or failure! That time period is known as the “anabolic window” of growth. The biggest mistake many bodybuilders make is eating a meal of chicken breasts, baked potato or rice and vegetables after a workout. This is an approach doomed to fail because by the time this meal digests, the anabolic window has slammed shut. The best way to produce this potent anabolic effect is simply by drinking an amino acidand-carbohydrate supplement within 15 minutes after training! RecoverX™ offers the ideal combination and provides the perfect blend of nutrients for postworkout anabolic acceleration. RecoverX™ contains 40 grams of the quickest-acting bio-available protein from hydrolyzed whey—extremely fast protein for immediate delivery—whey protein concentrate, glutamine peptides, arginine and 60 grams of carbohydrate to give you the necessary insulin spike.

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Mr. Natural Olympia John Hansen’s

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Fat-Loss Fundamentals

Neveux

Q: I’m 39 years old and married. I’ve been weighttraining drug-free for 15 years, but I’ve never lost the huge amount of bodyfat that’s around my waist. How do I reduce the fat around my waist without losing any lean-muscle mass? Right now I have a 36inch waist, and I weigh 215 pounds. A: Losing bodyfat without sacrificing muscle mass requires the right training program combined with an optimum nutrition plan. You are smart to try to lose only bodyfat while maintaining muscle mass, as that’s the key to looking lean and muscular. So many people try to lose fat at any cost and end up losing just as much muscle as fat, which does little to change the look of the physique.

I recommend that you start by writing down what you eat every day. Knowing exactly what you’re eating each day will really help you understand where you are now and help you get where you want to be. Be sure to figure out how many calories you’re eating, as well as how many grams of protein, carbohydrates and fats. Your diet is the deciding factor when it comes to losing bodyfat. It’s important to eat at least five meals per day to keep your metabolism stimulated. You also need to eat enough calories to maintain the muscle tissue; however, your calorie intake should be just below what you need to maintain your bodyweight. It may take a bit of experimentation to figure out what the correct amount is, but if you keep recording your diet each day, you’ll arrive at the right number soon. As far as the optimum ratio of the macronutrients, I prefer to eat 40 percent protein, 40 to 45 percent carbohydrates and 15 to 20 percent fats. That gives me enough protein to build muscle tissue, enough energy from the carbohydrates to train hard and a good amount of essential fatty acids from omega-3 fats. If I’m eating slightly below my maintenance level of calories, I slowly lose bodyfat while maintaining my muscle mass. Your training routine is extremely important when you’re attempting to drop bodyfat. You need to continue to train heavy and hard to maintain the muscle tissue. If you train with light weights or decrease the intensity, you’ll most likely lose muscle along with the fat. Less muscle tissue equates to a slower metabolism, which will make the fat-loss process even more difficult. You should attempt to train your muscles intensely with only a moderate number of sets. Too much volume in a workout or training too many days of the week will result in overtraining, which may lead to sacrificing more muscle tissue. The possibility of overtraining is greater when you’re dieting and reducing your calories. In addition to your weight workouts, you can add cardio to aid in your fat-loss efforts. Performing cardio immediately after

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You need to eat enough calories to maintain the muscle tissue, but your calorie intake should be just below what you need to maintain your bodyweight.

GRIND OUT THE GROWTH REPS™ Beta-Alanine Gives Your Muscles More Grow Power™ The biggest bodybuilders know that the last few grueling reps of a set are the key growth reps. It’s why they fight through the pain of muscle burn on every work set-—so they trigger the mass-building machinery. But sometimes it’s not enough; the burn is too fierce. Fortunately, there’s now a potent new weapon in this massive firefight to help you get bigger and stronger faster. Red Dragon is a new beta-alanine supplement that packs your muscles with carnosine—up to 60 percent more. Muscle biopsies show that the largest bodybuilders have significantly more carnosine in their fast-twitch muscle fibers than sedentary individuals for good reason: Carnosine buffers the burn to give muscles more “grow power” on every set. The bigger and stronger a muscle gets, the more carnosine it needs to perform at higher intensity levels. You must keep your muscles loaded with carnosine to grow larger and stronger. It all boils down to intensity and the ability to buffer waste products—hydrogen ions and lactic acid—so the muscle doesn’t shut down before growth activation. Straight carnosine supplements degrade too rapidly to reach the muscles; however, more than 20 new studies document that beta-alanine is converted to carnosine very efficiently. All it takes is 1 1/2 grams twice a day, and you’ll see new size in your muscles and feel the difference in the gym—you can double or triple your growth-rep numbers! Imagine how fast your size and strength will increase when you ride the Dragon! Note: Red Dragon™ is the first pure carnosine synthesizer—so powerful it’s patented. It contains beta-alanine, the amino acid that supercharges muscle cells with carnosine.

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Whatever You Need—Wherever You Train ™

Mr. Natural Olympia John Hansen’s

Naturally Huge

your workout or first thing in the morning on an empty stomach will help burn more bodyfat. I believe in using cardio in conjunction with a reduced-calorie diet and an intense weight-training program. It would be a mistake to rely only on cardio or only on your diet to lose bodyfat. The best results will come from a combination of weight training, diet and cardio. Q. In a recent column you suggested a twice-perweek routine, with chest, back and shoulders at the first workout and legs and arms at the second. I took your advice and lift on Monday and Friday. My only concern is that training my arms on Friday and then my chest and shoulders on Monday will result in overtraining my triceps. I’ve been at it seven weeks now, and I notice that on Mondays my triceps seem to give out sooner than they should. I guess my question is, Should I train my triceps on the same day as I bench-press, or should I flip the days and give my triceps three days of rest instead of two before I do my bench presses? A: I think either of your suggestions would work. Switch the bodyparts you train to the opposite days. Training your chest, back and delts on Friday and then working your legs and arms on Monday may eliminate the overtrained feeling in your triceps. It sounds as if you need the three days of rest after your triceps workout instead of the other way around. If you want to switch the routine around to train your triceps with your chest, I recommend that you change to a three-day split. Train chest and arms on the first day and

legs by themselves on the second day. Take a day off, and finish with delts and back the following day. Take another day off, and then start the cycle again. That routine provides five days of rest for each bodypart. It’s a more advanced version of the routine you’re now using because you train the body over three days instead of two and you get only five days of rest between workouts for each bodypart instead of seven. If you feel that you need seven days of rest between bodypart hits but you still want to try the above routine, simply add more rest days. Train chest and arms on the first day, take the second day off, train legs on the third day, take two days off, and then train delts and back on the sixth day, followed by another day off. Repeat the cycle the following week. That’s the routine I follow when I begin training again after a competition. It provides plenty of recuperation, which enables me to train heavy and build more size during the off-season. How much rest you require between training sessions for each bodypart usually depends on where you are as a bodybuilder. A beginner has yet to develop the neuromuscular efficiency that’s so important in training the muscles with intensity. A novice trainer doesn’t have the ability to train as intensely as an advanced bodybuilder due to the nerve-to-muscle connection. That’s why a beginner can train each bodypart three times per week without fear of overtraining (provided you also keep the sets low). As bodybuilders advance and become more efficient at increasing their training intensity, they require more recuperation time between workouts for each bodypart. That’s why I recommend training each bodypart once every seven days for an advanced bodybuilder who’s using heavy poundages and high intensity. An intermediate bodybuilder (someone who’s been training at least one or two years) will probably need four to five days of rest between bodyparts. Intermediates will be using heavier poundages and training the muscles more intensely than they did as beginners. Determine where you are, and set up your training program accordingly. Editor’s note: John Hansen has won the Natural Mr. Olympia and is a twotime Natural Mr. Universe winner. Visit his Web site at www .naturalolympia .com. You can write to him at P.O. Box 3003, Darien, IL John Hansen 60561, or call toll-free (800) John@NaturalOlympia.com 900-UNIV (8648). IM Neveux

Neveux \ Model: Tomm Voss

As you advance and become more efficient at increasing your intensity, you’ll require more recuperation time between workouts for each bodypart.

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(You can check out those past editions free at www.XRep.com in the X Files section.) It’s exciting stuff! You’ve gotta subscribe Learn how to make curls three times more effecitve at building eye-popping bi’s. See issue 03/04/05. today so you can start building the muscle size you deserve for your sweat and effort in the gym. You’ve got nothing to lose and plenty of raw muscle to gain! Here’s what to do...

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It’s a big blast of workout information, motivation and muscle-building science in your e-mail box every week—and it’s all free! Tons of practical training tips, analysis and size tactics are jam-packed into this e-zine from the IRON MAN Training & Research Center, where there’s more than 50 years of training experience to get you growing fast! Here are a few of the latest editions’ titles (online now):

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Train, Eat,

GROW Muscle-Training Program 63

From the IRON MAN Training & Research Center

Model: Jonathan Lawson

by Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson • Photography by Michael Neveux tÕs been almost four months since our photo shoot, which was the culmination of our XRep experiment. YouÕve probably seen the before and after photos, either in this magazine or at www.x-rep.com. WhatÕs amazing is that weÕre still pretty darn close to our peak conditionÑwe have veins streaking down our forearms and our muscularity and detail are very much intact. ThatÕs rather remarkable considering that weÕve loosened our diets and scaled back our cardio and that thereÕs no sense of urgency in the gym. In past years it took only about a month after our photo shoot for us to notice bodyfat piling on and our muscles deflating somewhat. So whatÕs going on? Is somebody slipping Dianabol into our RecoverX shakes? No, the answer is X Reps. WeÕve been including them in our routine

since the photo shoot, and theyÕre still working in a number of ways. WeÕve talked about how those end-of-set power partials help you override nervous system failure and take the target muscle further into hypertrophy territory. But itÕs much more than that, as weÕre not only staying big but remaining lean as well. That may be due to the way X Reps can improve your anabolic hormone profile. Extending a set with a technique like X Reps that involves muscle burn can trigger significant hormone surges, GH in particular. In a study published in the Canadian Journal of Applied Physiology (22:244-255; 1997), researchers showed a correlation between higher blood lactic-acid levels and GH release from the pituitary gland. That means the more muscle burn you can induce, the more growth hormone you can stimulate, which is a good thing. GH is noted for helping

build muscle and burn fat, not to mention that it bolsters the immune system and strengthens bones, ligaments and tendons. If youÕve tried adding X Reps to the end of a set, you already know that you get an intense burn in the target muscle, whether youÕre trying to or not. The technique is built-in firepower for any set. And weÕre sure the wicked burn is one of the keys to our staying very close to our summer photo-shoot condition even though weÕre not expending as much effort. Are we saying our workouts are easy? No, X Reps are intense, and the burn can induce quick blasts of profanity on some exercises; however, we donÕt do as many sets (more on that later). In fact, most of our workouts now take about an hour, and thatÕs at a fairly leisurely pace. (We admit it: We joke around during our workouts to take the edge off.)

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Train, Eat, Grow /Program 63

Because our physiques are so near peak condition at the moment, we’re motivated to try a few new things to see whether we can improve further. Remember the old saying, if you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you’re getting. Don’t get us wrong. We like the progress we’ve made, but like most bodybuilders

we’re not satisfied. We want to see if we can move forward—take our size up a notch or two or three— over the winter, which will require a change from what we’ve been doing. The first alteration is a revamped split, a four-day version of the direct/indirect protocol. (We’ll get back to X Reps in a moment.) We’ve explained direct/indirect

workouts before, so we won’t go into too much detail. [Note: There’s a section in The Ultimate Mass Workout e-book that discusses precise X-Rep positions for each exercise.] It’s a very efficient way to train because it appears as if we’re working each bodypart once a week, but in reality we’re training each one twice because of indirect work from

IRONMAN Training & Research Center Muscle-Training Program 63 Workout 1: Delts (indirect upper-trap hit), Triceps (indirect chest hit), Biceps (indirect lat hit), Forearms Superset Dumbbell upright rows Rack pulls Seated laterals (drop set) Standing Smith-machine presses Dumbbell W presses Superset Incline one-arm laterals One-arm cable laterals Superset Lying extensions Shoulder-width-grip bench presses Superset Overhead cable extensions Bench dips Undergrip cable rows Preacher curls Concentration curls (drop set) One-arm spider curls Superset Incline reverse wrist curls Dumbbell reverse wrist curls Superset Incline wrist curls Dumbbell wrist curls Forearm bar (undergrip) Forearm bar (overgrip)

2 x 8-10 2 x 8-10 1 x 8(6) 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1x8 1x8 2 x 8-10 2 x 8-10 2x8 2 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 2 x 8-10 1 x 8(6) 1 x 8-10 1 x 12 1 x 10 1 x 12 1 x 10 1 x 10 1 x 10

Workout 2: Quads (indirect hamstring hit), Gastrocs (indirect soleus hit), Upper Abs (indirect lower-abs hit), Lower Back Hack squats (nonlock) Leg extensions Feet-forward Smith-machine squats Leg presses Sissy squats Leg press calf raises Hack-machine calf raises (drop set) Machine donkey calf raises Superset Ab Bench crunches (drop set) Twisting crunches Superset Incline kneeups Bench V-ups Low-back machine

2 x 8-10 2 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 10-12 1 x 8-10 2 x 20, 15 1 x 12(8) 1 x 10-12 1 x 8(6) 1 x 10 1 x max 1 x max 1 x 8-12

Workout 3: Chest (indirect triceps hit), Lats (indirect biceps hit), Upper Traps (indirect delt hit), Brachialis (indirect biceps/forearm hit) Smith-machine incline presses Superset High-low cable flyes Incline cable flyes Wide-grip dips (drop on second set) Flat-bench flyes Superset Cable flyes (middle) Cable flyes (low) Pulldowns Undergrip pulldowns Superset Machine pullovers Machine undergrip rows Rope rows Superset Cable upright rows Rack shrugs Superset Incline hammer curls Rope hammer curls

2 x 8-10 2 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 2 x 8(6) 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10

Workout 4: Hamstrings (indirect quad and lower-back hit), Midback, Rear Delts, Soleus (indirect calf hit), Lower Abs (indirect upper-abs hit) Modified superset (rest after each set) High, wide hack squats Leg curls (drop on second set) Stiff-legged deadlifts Hyperextensions (drop set) Machine rows Bent-arm bent-over laterals Superset Bent-over laterals Stiff-arm kickbacks Seated calf raises Superset Seated calf raises Machine donkey calf raises Hanging kneeups Superset Hanging kneeups Incline kneeups Ab Bench crunches Bench V-ups

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2 x 8-10 2 x 8(6) 2 x 8-10 1 x 8(6) 2 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 10 1 x 10-12 1 x 10-12 1 x 15 1 x 10-12 1 x 8-10 1 x 10-12 1 x 10-12

Train, Eat, Grow /Program 63

exercises that target other bodyparts at different workouts. For example, we use undergrip chins or pulldowns as part of our lat routine so biceps get some indirect work. Then on biceps day we include undergrip rows so our lats get some indirect work. We’ve used direct/indirect training with great success in the past, but we believe it

will be even more effective with X Reps. The split we were using simply divided the body over three workouts, which meant each bodypart was getting at least three days of rest. Our new routine uses a fourway split, but a bodypart gets hit hard with direct work and then gets hit indirectly with much less vol-

ume two days later. So we’re training each bodypart more frequently but with a varying degree of volume. And both direct and indirect hits include X Reps. By the way, we’re still training five days a week. Here’s our old split: Workout 1: Chest, lats, triceps Workout 2: Quads, hams, calves, abs

ITRC Program 63, Home-Gym Routine: Monday Through Friday Workout 1: Delts (indirect upper-trap hit), Triceps (indirect chest hit), Biceps (indirect lat hit), Forearms Superset Dumbbell upright rows Rack pulls Seated laterals (drop set) Dumbbell W presses Incline one-arm laterals (drop set) Superset Lying extensions Shoulder-width-grip bench presses Superset Overhead cable extensions Bench dips Undergrip rows Preacher curls Concentration curls One-arm spider curls Superset Incline reverse wrist curls Dumbbell reverse wrist curls Superset Incline wrist curls Dumbbell wrist curls Forearm rockers

2 x 8-10 2 x 8-10 1 x 8(6) 2 x 8-10 1 x 8(6) 2 x 8-10 2 x 8-10 2x8 2 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 2 x 8-10 1 x 8(6) 1 x 8-10 1 x 12 1 x 10 1 x 12 1 x 10 1 x max

Workout 2: Quads (indirect hamstring hit), Gastrocs (indirect soleus hit), Upper Abs (indirect lower-abs hit), Lower Back Old-style hack squats (nonlock) 2 x 8-10 Leg extensions or old-style hack squats with a squeeze at the top 2 x 8-10 Squats 1 x 8-10 Lunges (one leg at a time) 1 x 8-10 Donkey calf raises 2 x 20, 15 One-leg calf raises (drop sets) 2 x 12(8) Superset Ab Bench crunches or full-range crunches 1 x 8-12 Twisting crunches 1 x 10 Superset Incline kneeups 1 x max Bench V-ups 1 x max

Workout 3: Chest (indirect triceps hit), Lats (indirect biceps hit), Upper Traps (indirect delt hit), Brachialis (indirect biceps hit) Incline presses Incline flyes (drop set to stage)

2 x 8-10 1 x 8(6)

Wide-grip dips or decline dumbbell presses (second set drop to stage) Flat-bench flyes (drop to stage) Pulldowns or chins Undergrip pulldowns or chins Superset Pullovers Undergrip rows Undergrip rows Superset Close-grip upright rows Rack shrugs Superset Incline hammer curls Hammer curls

2 x 8(6) 1 x 8(6) 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10

Workout 4: Hamstrings (indirect quad and lower-back hit), Midback, Rear Delts, Soleus (indirect calf hit), Lower Abs (indirect upper-abs hit) Modified superset (rest after each set) Wide-stance old-style hack squats Leg curls (drop on second set) Stiff-legged deadlifts Hyperextensions (drop set) Bent-over rows Bent-arm bent-over laterals Superset Bent-over laterals Stiff-arm kickbacks Seated calf raises Superset Seated calf raises Donkey calf raises Hanging kneeups Superset Hanging kneeups Incline kneeups Ab Bench crunches or full-range crunches Bench V-ups

2 x 8-10 2 x 8(6) 2 x 8-10 1 x 8(6) 2 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 10 1 x 10-12 1 x 10-12 1 x 15 1 x 10-12 1 x 8-10 1 x 10-12 1 x 10-12

Note: Train Monday through Friday, following the sequence of workouts as listed. Also, it’s best to have a selectorized dumbbell set, such as the PowerBlock, if you don’t have a rack of fixed dumbbells of various weights. If you don’t have a leg extension machine, do old-style hacks with a two-second contraction at the top of each rep instead. Use partner resistance, towel around the ankles, if you don’t have a leg curl machine.

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Train, Eat, Grow /Program 63

grams confirms the nerve-forcefailure problem. They discuss a study done by Dudley and Harris in 1992 that demonstrated the activation of knee extensors by the central nervous system during maximal efforts. One of their conclusions was that the CNS “limits force by engaging inhibitory mechanisms that are protective in nature.” (There’s more on that research at our X-Rep Web site in the Q&A section.) Our experience has been that it’s the inhibitory mechanisms of the CNS that stop each and every set to failure—when you can no longer do a full-range rep. But you can continue with X Reps. Of course, if you do high reps—15 to 20—fatigue products may cause you to fail before your CNS, but with sets in the eight to 10 range it’s usually the CNS that craps out first. With X Reps, however, the muscle is taxed much more thoroughly on any given set. They’re the reason we made such stunning progress in only one month prior to our photo shoot (see our before and after photos on page 126; there are more at www.x-rep.com) and the reason

Model: Jonathan Lawson \ Equipment: PowerBlock selectorized dumbbells, 1-800-447-0008

just enough to keep the muscle from regressing before the next direct hit, which occurs two to three days later. Okay, enough about our new split. We explained it so you could see how we’re approaching our fall training phase. The more interesting part of all of this is that X Reps are still working amazingly well. One reason is the aforementioned hormone surge they help produce; another is that they enable us to override nervous system failure and wring a lot more growth stimulation out of every set. Last month we mentioned that when bodybuilders hit failure at the end of any given set, it’s the nervous system that craps out first, not the muscle. That’s the reason so many fast-twitch muscle fibers are left understimulated or unused. It has to do with the size principle of muscle-fiber recruitment—it’s like a domino effect in which the lowthreshold motor units fire first, followed by the intermediates and then the high-threshold motor units. (That domino effect appears to be necessary for maximum fiber recruitment. Nevertheless, we may give X-Rep-only sets a try in the winter, which may be effective after a thorough warmup.) On a normal set, when you get to those critical final reps for highthreshold, fast-twitch-fiber recruitment, your nervous system shuts down before much stimulation occurs. That’s the very reason so many bodybuilders do set after set yet build only small amounts of muscle—each additional set gets only a few more fast-twitch fibers involved. X Reps solve the problem to a great degree by enabling you to leapfrog nervous system failure and force the muscle to continue firing at the optimum point on the exercise’s stroke, which makes each set much more effective. Scientific evidence presented by Steven J. Fleck, Ph.D., and William J. Kraemer, Ph.D., in their book Designing Resistance Training Pro-

Workout 3: Delts, midback, biceps, forearms Here’s our new direct/indirect split: Workout 1: Delts (indirect upper-trap hit), triceps (indirect chest hit), biceps (indirect lat hit), forearms Workout 2: Quads (indirect hamstring hit), gastrocs (indirect soleus hit), upper abs (indirect lower-abs hit), lower back Workout 3: Chest (indirect triceps hit), lats (indirect biceps hit), upper traps (indirect delt hit), brachialis (indirect biceps hit) Workout 4: Hamstrings (indirect quad and lower-back hit), midback, rear delts, soleus (indirect calf hit), lower abs (indirect upper-abs hit) As we said, there’s less rest between bodypart hits on our new split, but the indirect workout shouldn’t be enough to send us into the overtraining abyss because it’s low volume. For example, when we train traps, it’s indirect delt day because we include upright rows— but only one set. We’re starting with one set of indirect work for most bodyparts because X Reps are tacked on to the end. That makes the one set much more intense, maybe two to three times as effective as a straight set; however, it should still work like a light day—

Performing X-reps at the end of a set near the stretch position enables you to override nervous system failure and trigger extreme growth stimulation.

Model: Steve Holman

When you hit failure, it’s your nervous system that craps out first.

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Train, Eat, Grow /Program 63

X Reps are very effective at overcoming limitations, especially for hardgainers—giving you significantly more fiber stimulation in any one set so you can keep volume to a minimum. we’ve stayed close to our peaks even after four months. (That’s exciting and motivating!) We mentioned that most bodybuilders add sets when they get frustrated (we’ve been down that road too, and it can work to a degree). What they’re doing is trying to make up for CNS failure, but in an inefficient way. CNS failure happens on every set—before much growth stimulation occurs in the fast-twitch fibers. So while they do get some additional stimulation from the extra sets, that stimulation is small. Adding set after set is essentially major energy expenditure for only minor activation of the growth mechanism and a sure recipe for cortisol overproduction and overtraining. (You may be starting to see why it’s so difficult to get bigger with standard training, why so many bodybuilders resort to

steroids and why X Reps are so effective at overcoming many limitations, especially for hardgainers— they give you significantly more fiber stimulation in any one set, so you can keep volume to a minimum.) X Reps help solve the CNS problem, helping you get much more growth stimulation from any one set. We saw that as soon as we introduced X Reps into our training. Once we started using them, we had to decrease our workload—and our gains accelerated to an unprecedented level. In our opinion, and after 40 years of training experience (collectively), we think it’s a true breakthrough, as we’ve never experienced such quick results. Even now, four months after our peak, we’re still seeing the benefits of X Reps. We can’t remember the last time we were in this kind of

shape in the fall. It’s motivating us to keep experimenting with X Reps right through the winter so we can be bigger and better by spring. Stay tuned to IRON MAN, subscribe to Jonathan’s free e-newsletter at www.ironmanmagazine.com, and visit our Web site, www.x-rep.com, often for updates. Stick around. It’s going to be an X-citing winter! Editor’s note: For the latest on the X-Rep muscle-building method, including X Q&As, X Files (past enewsletters about X Reps and how to use them) and before and after photos, visit www.x-rep.com. For more information on Positions-ofFlexion training videos and Size Surge programs, see page 141. To order the new Positions-of-Flexion training manual Train, Eat, Grow, call (800) 447-0008, visit www.home-gym.com, or see the ad below. IM

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8 6

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Muscle An Anticrash Course

Bodybuilding Lessons—Many Learned the Hard Way—From 30 Years of Experience Part 2 by Stuart McRobert • Photography by Michael Neveux

ast month I discussed eight key lessons for bodybuilding success. Here are eight more lessons I wish someone had drummed into me when I started bodybuilding more than 30 years ago.

1) Don’t Be a Training-Volume Victim Low-volume workouts are best for most bodybuilders. Few drug-free bodybuilders have the recovery ability to grow on

high-volume workouts. Bodybuilders who do well on them are genetically gifted for bodybuilding or drug-assisted or both. Use abbreviated training and do no more than 20 work sets per workout (not per bodypart, per workout!). That’s the upper end of the spectrum. Many bodybuilders will be better off in the neighborhood of 10 to 12 work sets per workout. And some may need even fewer sets to make the best gains. www.ironmanmagazine.com \ JANUARY 2005 87

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When I got off the volume trip, I continued to waste workouts because I got into the intensity trip. I used to believe it wasn’t possible to train too hard—that it was only possible to train too long. Now I know that it’s possible to train too hard and too long. For several years I had an intensity mania. I believed that exercise intensity was the route to bodybuilding success. But training to failure wasn’t sufficient—I regularly trained beyond positive failure, with negative reps and forced reps. I didn’t gain any muscle during that period, and many other bodybuilders also found that the ultrahigh-intensity approach was deficient. You must train hard, but you don’t have to train beyond failure or even to positive failure. Most trainees, however, don’t work out hard enough, while hardcore bodybuilding enthusiasts often overdo it.

Remember, the strongest muscles aren’t usually the biggest.

aren’t the strongest, and the strongest muscles aren’t the biggest. For most bodybuilders most of the time, however, gradually increasing exercise poundages is the best form of progression. To make small weight increments, use microweight plates of only a quarter or half pound each. Alternatively, you could substitute several large washers for each microplate. Suppose, for example, you’re stuck at two sets of six reps on the bench press with 245 pounds. If you put five pounds on the bar, your reps would drop, you’d struggle and probably stagnate. But, if you added Handling ever-greater exercise just half a pound, you’d probably weights isn’t a guaranteed route to still get your two sets of six reps, and bigger muscles. The biggest muscles then you could add another half pound the following time and probably still get your two sets of six. Nudge up the bench press smidgen by smidgen, and over time you’ll add substantial weight to the bar—and some muscle to your chest and arms. Apply the same approach to all your exercises. If you can’t squat safely, Such small forget that exercise. There increments are comparable ones. aren’t neces-

3) Lose the Progression Obsession

Model: Marvin Montoya

Muscle: An Anticrash Course

2) Avoid the Intensity Trip

sary for beginners, but they are invaluable for more advanced trainees. How you increase exercise poundages is critical. An exaggerated focus on progressive weights is detrimental because it leads to sloppy exercise technique and loss of rep-speed control. Never compromise exercise form or rep-speed control just so you can add more weight. The watchwords are correct technique and rep-speed control— even at the end of a set, when the reps are hardest!

3) Choose Your Core Moves Wisely Different groups of comparable exercises have the potential for producing similar results. Find a group of predominantly multijoint exercises that you can train with safely and consistently—and that you can get progressively stronger on. Then stick with that group for a long time. They are your core exercises. If you can squat safely and progressively, do barbell squats. If you can’t, forget squats. Try leg presses, parallel-bar deadlifts or hip-belt squats instead. They can all produce terrific results—if you do them safely, consistently and progressively. If you can bench-press safely and progressively, then do barbell bench presses. If you can’t, forget it. Parallel-bar dips, dumbbell bench presses, incline-bench presses and Hammer Strength machine chest presses are all good alternatives.

4) Give Free Weights the Nod With a barbell and dumbbell set you can do the same exercises anywhere in the world, with consistency. Free weights are almost universal in commercial gyms, but good machinery isn’t. The exercise-technique instruction for free-weight exercises is the same for all brands of free-weight equipment but not so for machinery, where, for example, the instructions for one brand’s squat machine are different from another’s. Therefore, try to give

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5) Prioritize for More Size Don’t train your better bodyparts first in a workout. Structure your workouts so that you train your weakest areas first and your strongest areas last. For example, if your hamstrings are flat and weak, but your quads are full and strong, do leg curls before squats or leg presses. And train your weak areas every bit as seriously as you train your strong areas.

6) Heat Things Up Don’t skimp on warmups. Better to warm up too much than not enough. Beginners may need only a

Don’t train your better bodyparts first in a workout. Prioritize your weak areas.

single warmup set per exercise, but experienced bodybuilders may do three warmup sets each for squats, bench presses, leg presses and other big exercises. Do at least one warmup set for all other exercises regardless of where in your routine you’ve placed a given exercise.

7) If You Keep Doing What You’re Doing, You’ll Keep Getting What You’re Getting If what you’re doing isn’t working, change something. More of what hasn’t done you good over the past couple of months isn’t going to do you any good over the next couple of months. Compare your training with what I’ve covered in both parts of this article. If there are big differences, perhaps it’s your training that’s mostly at fault. If there aren’t big differences, however, the major problem may be what you’re doing or not doing outside of the gym. Most bodybuilders have major problems in and out of the gym. It’s no wonder that they make little or no progress. Training is essential, of course, but most trainees give it exaggerated importance compared with another pivotal component of success. For example... Recuperation from training. If you don’t get your recuperative system in order, you won’t make good progress with your bodybuilding. That should be obvious, but do you really get at least eight hours of sleep every night? And do you really eat every three hours or so— healthy, protein-rich food rather than junk that over the course of the day provides a slight surplus of calories? Most bodybuilders don’t, and thus they hamper their recovery abilities. If you want to maximize your bodybuilding progress, maximize your recovery machinery. Without it you won’t progress well, if at all, even if your gym work is perfect. IM Model: Mike Morris

Muscle: An Anticrash Course

priority to free weights. If, however, you have access to generally good machinery, you can substitute some machine movements for comparable free-weight exercises—but tread carefully. Even some of the better machines can cause irritations and injuries for some trainees. (The same, of course, can be said of free-weight exercises if you don’t perform them correctly.) Features of good machinery include the ability to accommodate a variety of body types (through adjustment of seats, back pads and movement arms), smoothness of motion and ease of entry and exit. Although high-tech machinery can be useful, it’s not essential for making progress. Free weights alone, properly used, have proven to be tremendously effective.

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MuscleScience

Roundup 15 Recent Research Reports That Can Impact Your Muscle Growth and Fat Loss Compiled by Steve Holman • Photography by Michael Neveux

It’s January 2005, the perfect time to look back at some key findings that we reported over the past year—interesting stuff you may have missed if you’re not a subscriber. (What! You don’t subscribe? Go to page 145 immediately.) Most of the findings here were submitted by Jerry Brainum, IRON MAN’s most prolific and reliable researcher. You’ll find plenty of interesting tidbits, most of which can help you get bigger and stronger faster.

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Muscle Growth and Fat Loss

A new study partially illuminates the relationship between myostatin and bodyfat levels. It involved six morbidly obese (a medical euphemism for “very fat”) subjects who underwent surgery to shorten their stomachs, which limited the amount of food they could eat without feeling full. The surgery is considered extreme and is a last resort for people with dangerously high bodyfat levels, people who, for some reason or other, will not or cannot diet and exercise. The side effects of the surgery can include death—but that’s another story. As a result of the surgery, the patients lost 38.9 percent of their bodyweight. The researchers measured their myostatin levels before and after the weight loss and found a significant decline in myostatin, a muscle-growth limiter, after the weight loss, which was mostly bodyfat. The scientists suggest that the drop in myostatin was the body’s way of preventing the loss of vital lean mass under rapid and extreme fat-loss conditions. It also may have helped the body actually reduce the size of fat cells, as it does in animals. Even though bodybuilders don’t resort to stomach stapling as a fatloss technique, the study has two implications for them. As you lose fat, myostatin levels will likely decline, helping you preserve muscle during a diet. The addition of a weight-training routine will no doubt amplify that effect. The other implication is that having excess bodyfat probably increases myostatin, making it harder to build muscle. Milan, G., et al. (2004). Changes in muscle myostatin expression in obese subjects after weight loss. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 89:27242727. Conclusion: The reduction of myostatin during a precontest diet may be the reason for an excessive anabolic rebound after calories are increased. There’s a lag time between rising myostatin, which slows muscle growth, and the anabolism created

Model: Tamer Elshahat

1) Crash Through the Muscle-Building Roadblock

Leaning out can help create an anabolic rebound. Lower bodyfat decreases myostatin, a muscle-growth-blocking hormone. by a calorie surplus and training. Those points suggest a strategy of doing six to eight weeks of lowcalorie eating followed by a highercalorie phase several times a year to get a series of anabolic rebounds, or growth surges.

2) Keep On Truckin’ and Testosterone Exhaustion If you want to keep your estrogen production in the low range—and anyone interested in building muscle should—you may want to keep your distance from trucks on the

highway. New findings suggest that diesel-fuel exhaust contains chemicals called alkylphenols, which interact with cellular estrogen receptors to exert potent estrogenic activity. Diesel exhaust particles have previously been linked to lung cancer, allergic rhinitis and asthma. Furuta, C., et al. (2004). Estrogenic activities of nitrophenols in diesel exhaust particles. Biol Repr. 70:1527-1533. Conclusion: Don’t run or play near the highway if you want to build muscle as fast as possible. There’s girlieman exhaust in the air.

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Muscle-Science Roundup

3) Hyperextensions: Lower-Back Whack or Better Glute Getter? Lots of trainees do hyperextensions for the spinal erectors, or lower-back muscles. One study suggests that the 45 degree hyper bench, often called a Roman chair, is not the best equipment for building erector strength. The subjects in the study who did Roman-chair hyperextensions for 12 weeks showed no increases in lumbar muscle strength. The researchers concluded that other muscles, such as the glutes and hamstrings, do most of the work during Romanchair hypers. Mayer, J.M., et al. (2003). Effect of Roman-chair exercise training on the development of lumbar extension strength. J Strength Cond Res. 17:356-61. Conclusion: Use lower-back machines and deadlifts to build lower-back strength. You can still include hyperextensions, but make them part of your glute and hamstring workout. They’ll help sculpt a firm, round butt.

fect, however: The pain-reduction effects were less significant among heavy caffeine users because their pain receptors had been altered. Researchers don’t know whether the caffeine acts on the muscles or the brain to reduce pain. Conclusion: Have a cup of coffee before you train to up your intensity and focus.

5) Faster Fat Burn: Treadmill vs. Cycling Twelve men engaged in exercise on either a treadmill or an exercise bike. According to the researchers, the treadmill produced a higher level of fat oxidation than cycling, but the intensity at which fat oxida-

tion was maximized was the same for both forms of exercise. Maximum fat burning occurred at the level of 61.2 percent of VO2MAX during the cycling and 59.2 percent during the treadmill exercise, which consisted of uphill walking. Treadmill exercise leads to a greater level of fat burning because while you’re doing it, the adrenal glands release stress hormones, or catecholamines, such as epinephrine and norepinephrine. The catecholamines mobilize fat from fat cells through at least two actions: 1) They suppress insulin release; and 2) they promote cyclic AMP, which then begins a cascade in fat cells that leads to the release of fat into the blood. The greater the amount of muscle mass trained, the greater the level of

4) Coffee for Intensity According to WebMD Medical News, coffee can make your workouts less painful. Caffeine appears to lessen exercise-induced muscle pain, which means you can push your sets hard and stimulate more growth. There’s a desensitizing ef-

Which is better for fat loss?

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Model: Daniel Gwartney

Muscle Growth and Fat Loss

Caffeine has painreduction properties.

Most bodybuilders use the hyperextension for lower-back work, but it’s really a better glute getter.

Muscle-Science Roundup catecholamine release and consequent fat oxidation during aerobics. Standing on the treadmill uses more muscle mass than the seated cycling, so you burn more fat. It’s as simple as that. Achten, J., et al. (2003). Fat oxidation rates are higher during running compared with cycling over a wide range of intensities. Metabolism. 52:747-52. Conclusion: If you’re interested in the most fat-burning bang for your energy buck, choose the treadmill over the stationary bike.

Here are a few ways to maximize your testosterone output from Rehan Jalali, president of the Supplement Research Foundation (www.tsrf.com): •Eat plenty of essential fatty acids, especially monounsaturated fats like natural peanut butter, flaxseed oil, olive oil and canola oil. Eating fish, including salmon, regularly can also help. •Perform compound exercises like squats and bench presses, and use heavy weights for lower reps. Research shows that those methods boost testosterone levels more than other types of exercises.

Muscle Growth and Fat Loss

•Stop drinking alcohol. It can kill testosterone production.

Alcohol can curb testosterone production.

Model: Rehan Jalali

6) Boost Your Testosterone Naturally

Make compound exercises the core of your mass-building workouts. Research shows they are best for stimulating testosterone output. •Don’t eat too much protein. Most trainees have been indoctrinated with the idea of eating a huge amount of protein, but research indicates that too much can lower testosterone levels.1 Eating .8 to one gram of protein per pound of bodyweight does the trick. As for testosterone-boosting supplements, one of the best is ZMA, a special combination of zinc, magnesium and vitamin B6 that improves athletic performance and boosts testosterone levels naturally.2 ZMA-T by Muscle-Link and ZMA™ by BioTest are quality products. Take the recommended dose 30 to 45 minutes before bedtime. 1 Volek, J., et al. (1997). Testosterone and cortisol in relationship to dietary nutrients and resistance exercise. J Appl Physiol. 82:49-54. 2 Brilla, L.R., and Conte, V. (1999). Effects of zinc-magnesium formulation increases anabolic hormones and strength in athletes. Med Sci Sports Exer. 31:483.

Conclusion: Testosterone is an important muscle-building hormone. Eat right, drink alcohol in moderation, train with the big core exercises and supplement the appropriate minerals to T up.

7) Creatine Turbocharger The nutrient alpha-lipoic acid may favorably affect creatine uptake. Sixteen men, aged 18 to 32, used one of three creatine-loading regimens: 1) 20 grams a day of creatine monohydrate 2) 20 grams a day of creatine monohydrate and 100 grams of sucrose (table sugar) 3) 20 grams of creatine, 100 grams of sucrose, 1,000 milligrams of alpha-lipoic acid. All subjects stayed on the regimens for five days. While they all experienced the same gain in bodyweight, those in the alpha-lipoic acid group showed a significantly higher

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Muscle-Science Roundup level of creatine storage in muscle than the others. Alpha-lipoic acid increases glucose transport into muscle—its insulinlike effect—so it seems logical that it would also favorably affect creatine uptake. Alpha-lipoic acid is unique in that it shows activity as both a waterand fat-soluble antioxidant, making it what some call a universal antioxidant. It helps convert other antioxidants, such as vitamins C and E, from their oxidized form back to their antioxidant state. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of alpha-lipoic metabolism is that when it’s combined with acetyl L-carnitine, it can restore mitochondrial function in aged cells. That would have the effect of cellular rejuvenation. Burke, D.G., et al. (2003). Effect of A-lipoic acid combined with creatine monohydrate on human skeletal muscle creatine and phosphagen concentration. Int J Sports Nutr Exer Metab. 13:294-302.

8) N.O.’s MuscleBuilding Mechanics

Model: Skip La Cour

Nitric oxide is a very small molecule—found in the form of a gas—produced locally in most cells of your body. It’s gotten a lot of publicity due to its association with Viagra, which is, among other things, a pharmaceutical NO booster. As for its bodybuilding implications, when NO production in rats is blocked, there’s a rapid reduction in the rate of skeletal-muscle protein synthesis—by almost 15 percent. Scientists have concluded that NO “is responsible for maintaining optimum skeletal-muscle protein synthesis.”1 In other words, even though NO is not a hormone, it’s still a very important anabolic factor. When researchers apply overload to the muscles of rats, hypertrophy occurs after a short time, but if they block NO production, growth reConclusion: sponse is impaired. In rats that got a Add a gram of alpha-lipoic acid to placebo plus a muscular overload, your creatine to give it more power. the size of the targeted muscles increased by 76 percent within two weeks.2 In rats that got an NO blocker, the Alpha-lipoic acid increase in muscle size was increases glucose only 39 percent. transport into muscle. Obviously, NO is not the only consideration involved in overload-induced growth, as its inhibition does not completely eliminate hypertrophy; however, the study clearly demonstrates that it has a major impact on the muscle-building processes. NO inhibition reduces the growth rate by almost 50 percent. Preedy, V.R. (1997). Does nitric oxide have a role in regulating skeletal-muscle protein synthesis? Clin Sci (Lond). 92:10. Conclusion: You want to optimize NO production to get the most anabolism possible—and possibly a nice uptick in the bedroom. The amino acid Larginine may help, as well as other NO–potentiating supplements. www.ironmanmagazine.com \ JANUARY 2005 105

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Muscle Growth and Fat Loss

Research suggests that combining the mineral magnesium with creatine may increase the effectiveness of creatine in helping to build muscle and strength. Thirty-five subjects took a placebo, creatine combined with magnesium oxide or creatine combined with magnesium chelate for two weeks. The doses were 800 milligrams of magnesium and five grams of creatine, and the researchers took various measurements of power, Cellular strength and both energy intracellular and booster. extracellular water. While both creatine groups gained weight and peak muscle torque, only those in the magnesium-chelate group experienced a decrease in extracellular water and an increase in intracellular water, leading to a cellular swelling effect that acts as an anabolic signal to initiate upgraded muscle protein synthesis. Combining creatine with magnesium makes sense from a biochemical viewpoint, since magnesium is required to activate cellular enzymes involved in the production of the most basic source of cellular energy, adenosine triphosphate. Creatine works by helping to regenerate ATP, so itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s clear that creatine and magnesium have synergy. Adding magnesium to creatine also appears to emphasize creatineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cellular hydration effect, which may help muscle protein synthesis. The study shows that the best form of magnesium for magnifying creatineâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s effects is magnesium chelated with an amino acid such as magnesium aspartate, which is a combination of magnesium and aspartic acid. One caveat, however, is that more is not better when it comes to minerals, and magnesium is no exception. The 800-milligram dose used in this study is considerably higher than the 400-milligram USRDA. In

Model: King Kamali

9) More Creatine Muscle Magic With Magnesium

Magnesium plus creatine can improve muscle contraction ability. They repeated the exercise bout under placebo and carnitine-supplemented conditions. As expected, immunoreactive growth hormone and immunofunctional GH increased above resting levels during the first 30 minutes after exercise, and testosterone increased during the first 15 minutes, but Conclusion: there were no differences between A magnesium supplement along the carnitine and placebo groups. with your creatine may give you The real difference came in the better muscle-building effects. muscle-damage arena: 16 to 23 percent in the carnitine group vs. 29 to 39 percent in the placebo group. In other studies L-carnitine improved the contractile force in Carnitine is important the latissimus dorsi of dogs by Improves not only for transporting 34 percent and overall force muscle force long-chain fats into the production by 31 percent. and recovery. mitochondria but also for Kraemer, W.J., et al. (2003). its ability to help you reThe effects of L-carnitine Lcover from a killer lifting tartrate supplementation on session. A study at the hormonal responses to resisUniversity of Connecticut tance exercise and recovery. J had 10 healthy men who Strength Cond Res. 17:455-462. were recreational lifters take two grams of L-carniConclusion: tine daily (a divided dose Use two to three grams of Lat breakfast and lunch) for carnitine for better workouts three weeks. The subjects and optimal recovery. One performed a squat protogram before training and one col consisting of five sets gram after may be a good of 15 to 20 repetitions. starting dose. some people taking any more than 800 milligrams is likely to cause diarrhea. Brilla, L., et al. (2003). Magnesium-creatine supplementation effects on body water. Metabolism. 52:1136-40.

10) L-Carnitine: More Force, Better Recovery

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Muscle-Science Roundup

11) Steroidlike Results? Scientists reported still another unexpected effect from supplementing L-carnitine tartrate. This study examined the effects of carnitine on testosterone responses and androgen receptors after heavy weight training and a postexercise carb-and-protein meal. Ten men, average age 21, took either a placebo or two grams of L-carnitine tartrate for 21 days. Baseline androgen-receptor content was higher in the carnitine group. Plasma testosterone levels dropped after the postworkout meal and were lower in the carnitine group. It appears that carnitine increases the number of androgen receptors when the bodyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s at rest. While it also appears to lower testosterone, that could merely be a reflection of the bigger pool of androgen receptors; that is, the testosterone was lower because it was interacting with the increased number of androgen receptors. Anabolic steroids increase the number of androgen receptors, as does exercise.

Kraemer, W.J., et al. (2004). Effects of L-carnitine tartrate supplementation on testosterone and muscle androgen-receptor content after resistance exercise. Presented at Experimental Biology 2004, April 2004, in Washington, D.C. Conclusion: Another reason to take L-carnitine.

12) The Water/FatBurn Connection

Researchers conducted a study to test the thermogenic effect of water; that is, its conversion of fat calories into heat. Seven men and seven women, all healthy, with an average age of 27, drank 500 milliliters, or about half a quart, of water. That caused a metabolic increase of 30 percent over resting levels. The increase occurred within 10 minutes, reaching a maximum 30 to 40 minutes after the subjects drank the water. It lasted for more than an hour, and it led the authors to suggest that drinking 1.5 liters of water daily (just over a quart) would augment daily energy expenditure by 200 kilojoules. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s like taking a Water helps flush fat, and dose of 50 milit can also increase your ligrams of metabolism. ephedrine three times a day, which results in an increased energy expenditure of 320 kilojoules. Granted, that adds up to only about 100 extra calories burned daily, but it does add to weight loss when coupled with diet and exercise. Boschmann, M., et al. (2003). Waterinduced thermogenesis. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 88:6015-6019. Conclusion: Drink as much water as you can throughout the day to augment fat loss. www.ironmanmagazine.com \ JANUARY 2005 107

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Muscle-Science Roundup

13) Preworkout Fiber for Energy to Grow On Fiber may be useful to bodybuilders because it can slow down the absorption of highglycemic carbs. That lowers insulin

Having higher-carb day once a week can improve the effects of a lowcarb diet and keep muscles full.

Bodybuilders should practice all types of contractions, including heavy negatives, to build as many muscle fibers as possible.

Conclusion: Add some fiber—like fruit—to your preworkout protein drink to keep your blood sugar stable and your energy high throughout your training session.

Getting some fiber before a workout can help keep blood sugar levels stable.

Model: Michael O’Hearn

Muscle Growth and Fat Loss

release, which encourages more rapid bodyfat loss. When athletes eat a high-soluble-fiber meal before training, they maintain a more stable blood glucose level throughout the workout. Adding some fiber to a protein drink slows gastric emptying, making you feel fuller and less hungry. A study of 50 men and 94 women, aged 30 to 80, compared the effects of eating low-fiber and high-fiber breakfasts. Subjects on the highfiber breakfast reported less emotional distress, fewer cognitive problems and less fatigue. Although the authors didn’t explain those effects, the likely mechanism was better glycemic, or glucose, control. Smith, A., et al. (2001). High-fiber breakfast cereals reduce fatigue. Appetite. 37:249050.

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Muscle-Science Roundup

14) Low-Carb-Diet Caution Research suggests that attempting to lose bodyfat on a low-carb diet may lead to muscle loss. Most scientists feel that you need adequate carbs to power the intense training required for maintaining muscle under dieting conditions. On the other hand, you need increased protein because when you restrict calories, protein is diverted to energy pathways. What’s more, the thermic effect of protein helps foster bodyfat loss while you’re dieting. As you get lean, you need to make sure you don’t cut calories too

much. That’s a mistake many bodybuilding competitors make. In an effort to appear as defined as possible, they either do excessive aerobics or cut too many calories or both. That leads to a stringy, catabolic appearance that some refer to as looking flat. Lambert, C.P., et al. (2004). Macronutrient considerations for the sport of bodybuilding. Sports Medicine. 34Z:317-27. Conclusions: Following a low-carb diet helps reduce bodyfat. To use that strategy without sacrificing muscle, try having a higher-carb day at least once a week to replenish any lagging glycogen stores. www.ironmanmagazine.com \ JANUARY 2005 109

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Muscle Growth and Fat Loss

One study showed that isometric contractions built more muscle than shortening (positive) or lengthening (negative) muscles.

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15) Contractions and X-treme Growth Reactions

Power partials in a muscle’s semistretched position may be a better than isometrics for force production and muscle growth. For more see page 74.

Using rats, researchers at the University of California, Irvine, compared the effects of eccentric (lengthening), isometric and concentric (shortening) contractions on muscle growth. Interestingly, muscle mass increased most in isometric conditions (14 percent), second most in shortening conditions (12 percent) and least in lengthening conditions (11 percent). All three modes of training stimulated similar increases in total muscle DNA and RNA.

Models: Jonathan Lawson and Steve Holman

As an experiment Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson used a variety of contraction modes in order to hit as many fiber types as possible in their training at the IRON MAN Training & Research Center last summer in preparation for a photo shoot. It worked, especially during the last month, when they added near-isometric contractions at the point of maximum force at the end of sets on specific exercises and got an unprecedented acceleration in muscle gains. They dubbed what they did partialpulse X Reps. Their before and after photos are a testament to the effectiveness of targeting all fiber types as well as the anabolic power of near-isometric contractions. For more see “Train, Eat, Grow” on page 74. To see the before and after photos, taken one month apart during their experiment, see page 126. For more visit the Web site www.x-rep.com. IM

Muscle Growth and Fat Loss

Model: Mike Morris

Conclusion: According to Jose Antonio, Ph.D., those results tell us that it behooves bodybuilders to practice all types of contractions. So it’s a good idea to perform, on occasion, high-load isometric and eccentric work in addition to the typical loading schemes. He also says that for the purposes of bodybuilding, the goal is to make all fiber types bigger.

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Big Most regular IRON MAN readers are familiar with the term “abbreviated training.” In fact, this magazine has featured a number of authors over the years who proclaimed the value of abbreviated training. IM founder Peary Rader continually pushed the importance of limiting your program to just a small number of basic exercises. Other great authors have echoed that theme, including Ken Leistner, Bradley J. Steiner, Stuart McRobert and Arthur Jones. When it comes to building size and strength, abbreviated training works, and it works well. In my own case it wasn’t until I gave up all the so-called space-age techniques—like bombing

and blitzing, splitting the split and flushing— that another weight-training magazine pushed, and started using abbreviated training, which Iron Man recommended, that I really started making progress in my quest to build size and strength. In fact, my bodyweight went from 158 pounds to 260 pounds in nine months, a gain of more than 100 pounds. Obviously, I’m sold on the benefits of abbreviated training. Since I started using it many years ago, I’ve never deviated from it. It has worked wonderfully well for me and for many others whose weight-training programs I’ve supervised. I’m now 57 years old and still use abbreviated training.

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The Short-and-Sweet Winter Mass-Building Workout That Helped the Author Pack On 100 Pounds in Nine Months by Jim Hafer • Photography by Michael Neveux

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Muscle Magnetism

Winter Mass-Building Workout

Back in the late ’50s many thousands of young men started training with weights, mostly because of the Hercules movies starring Steve Reeves. All across America thousands of boys poured out of theaters, determined to build a body just like Hercules. All of a sudden, having a muscular body was “in”—and “cool”—and every boy in America wanted a barbell set. That was great, but there was a problem. While many young men had the desire to build a muscular body, they didn’t have the knowledge of how to do it. To whom could they turn to find the information they needed in order to build a body like Steve Reeves? Their parents? No, their parents, like the rest of the population, were not familiar with weight training. Their physical-education teacher? No, especially not to him, since in those days most P.E. teachers were totally against weight training, believing that it would make people “musclebound” and slow. To the family doctor? No, because the medical community felt that weight training was bad for the body and would certainly destroy their health in the long run. To the school counselor? No, as he or she would likely tell them that only insecure men with narcissis complexes lifted weights. So where did all the would-be Herculeses go to learn how to turn a skinny body into a large, muscular one? There were only two sources. One was the veteran barbell man,

newest issues. As with the veteran barbell man, reading a weighttraining magazine was no guarantee that you would get the correct training information. It depended on the magazine. Back then there was only one really great weight-training magazine, but when I started lifting, I didn’t know it existed. It didn’t have a broad circulation, and I never ran across it in any of the stores that I frequented. The only weighttraining magazines that you could find at Steve Reeves, a.k.a. Hercules, the man who got the drug store, the the bodybuilding ball rolling in the ’50s. grocery store or the someone who was already training newsstand were Joe Weider’s Muswith weights. Back in the late ’50s cle Builder and Mr. America. most of the people who were dediI will probably ruffle a few feathcated to barbell training and its ers, but I’m being honest when I benefits trained in garages, basesay that while those magazines ments or backyards. Even if a were great for providing inspirayoung man could eventually find tional pictures of very well-built someone who trained with weights bodybuilders, they were sadly to show him the ropes, there was lacking in solid, results-producing no guarantee that the trainer knew training information. Once in a how to weight train correctly. while they might have a worthThe other source was the magawhile article on training, but those zine rack at local stores stores or, were few and far between. perhaps, a big-city newsstand. I I, along with many others who remember how fortunate I felt, followed the training advice in the when I was in ninth grade, to find a Weider magazines, made little or little magazine no progress. They pushed a volume store in downtown approach to training, with the Phoenix that average program including two or actually carried three exercises for each bodypart two different for a total of eight to 12 sets per muscle magazines. bodypart. In many cases they had It was a 10-mile us training on a split routine, workbike ride from my ing out six days per week. house to that store As a result of all the work, we and back, but each were spinning our wheels and month I made it getting nowhere. For genetically joyfully on my average weight trainees who didn’t Schwinn Tiger to and wouldn’t use chemicals to purchase the enhance recovery ability and promote growth, that was too much Iron Man was hard to exercise. Thousands upon thoufind in the early days, sands of weight trainees have tried but it was a gold mine the volume approach, and most of information and have experienced nothing but motivation.

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Winter Mass-Building Workout

Mozée

Arnold inspires the masses, circa 1970. absolute failure in their quest to build a big, strong body. The simple fact is, it will not work for 99 percent of all weight trainees. For each person who does eventually succeed with the volume approach, thousands fail dismally. Many who have come to me for advice have made the mistake of adding more sets or more exercises to their routine when they stopped making progress. For example, if they were doing three sets of curls for biceps yet not gaining any biceps size, they figured that doing more sets and/or more exercises for their biceps would make them start growing. That’s faulty reasoning. The solution is not to train more. It’s to train harder. You can either train long or you can train hard, but you cannot do both. The longer you train, the less intensely you’ll be able to train. Let’s compare sprinting with long-distance running. Condi-

tioned track athletes can run fullbore for a 100-yard dash, but if they tried to run a mile at that speed—or intensity—they’d collapse in exhaustion before they got 200 yards. To run a mile, runners have to pace themselves over the whole distance so they’ll be able to complete it, which means running slower. It’s the same with weight training. If you’re going to do a lot of exercises and/or a lot of sets, you’ll have to pace yourself in order to complete your workout. You absolutely will not be able to work at a high level of intensity on each and every exercise. Instead, you’ll have to use less intensity in order to have the energy to complete all the exercises in your program. That’s a huge problem. Intensity of effort is the most important requirement for an exercise to produce sufficient growth stimulus. The more intense the effort on any particular exercise, the more

growth stimulus you get. Don’t let the knowledge that volume training doesn’t work discourage you. In fact, it should motivate you, as you no longer have to be a slave to long, exhausting training sessions. Now you can thoroughly enjoy your short training sessions, train only two days per week, make great gains and have much more time for other activities. In other words, it’s a training program that you can live with, rather than one you have to live for. Believe me, there’s a huge difference between the two, and with a training program that you can live with, you’ll be much happier, as will everyone else who lives with you.

Effective Abbreviated Training An abbreviated program is made up of a few basic—that is, com-

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pound, or multijoint—exercises. It’s the opposite of volume training, which includes both compound and isolation, or single-joint, exercises. An ideal abbreviated program has about six exercises. That’s all you need to get big and strong. My trainees and I have proven that over and over. Six exercises will most certainly provide all the stimulus you need to make great gains in size and strength. “Wait a minute!” you say. “How can that be true? There are more than just six muscle groups.” Correct—there are more than 14 muscle groups: traps, deltoids, pecs, lats, abs, spinal erectors, glutes, biceps, triceps, forearm flexors, forearm extensors, quads, hamstrings and calves. That doesn’t even take into account the different areas of the individual muscle groups—like front delts, side delts, rear delts, upper pecs, middle pecs, lower pecs and on and on. How can you possibly cover all of those muscle groups with only six exercises? The answer is that you choose six compound exercises, movements that work more than just one muscle group. Let me backtrack to the subject of weight-training magazines. I mentioned that there was one great magazine back in the ’50s, but it didn’t have a wide circulation. I happened on it by accident in the early ’60s. As you’ve probably guessed, it was Iron Man, and as I’ve said before, it was small in size but large in information. I bought it, took it home and read it, and I fell in love with it. I’ve never lost that love. Iron Man was by far the best weight-training magazine back then, and it’s still the best weighttraining magazine today. Period. I also came to greatly respect Iron Man’s publisher, Peary Rader. He was very honest and sincerely cared about his readers. He took very seriously the responsibility of publishing a magazine that thousands of weight trainees looked to for guidance and encouragement. Peary had much to say about proper weight training, and everything that he said back when I first started reading Iron Man is still great advice today. His philosophy

The classic squat is your lead-off exercise to get the anabolic hormones flowing.

Follow each set of squats with dumbbell pullovers for rib cage expansion and metabolic stimulation.

Model: Jay Cutler

Winter Mass-Building Workout

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was to take a few basic exercises, work them very hard and then let your body rest, recuperate and gain additional muscle size and strength. Instead of working for a muscle pump, he encouraged his readers to strive to keep going up in poundages. That is extremely sound advice. Peary pushed the squat more than any other exercise. He

believed that the barbell full squat would do more to help his readers gain overall muscle size and strength than any other exercise they could do. And he was totally correct on that. The squat will do more to promote large gains than any other exercise. Many people have proven that to be true over the years. Performing barbell squats, along

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with drinking a lot of milk throughout the day, was the undisputed road to royal size. When I gained the 100 pounds in nine months that I referred to above, I ate six meals a day (breakfast, lunch and dinner plus three small meals) and drank a quart of milk at each. I also worked extremely hard on barbell squats. The strategy worked for me and for the fellows who trained with me. Many men started making gains in size and strength when they started specializing on the squat. When every other weight-training approach failed to produce the body they wanted, the barbell squat always came through. It’s the numberone exercise for putting your body in the gaining mode.

Short and Sweet Here’s an abbreviated program that will definitely start you on the road to greater size and strength. If you put out the appropriate effort, these six exercises will get the job done for you.

1) Barbell squats supersetted with pullovers Years ago, before squat racks were invented, trainees who wanted to perform the squat had to either

clean the weight, jerk it over their head and let it land on the backs of their shoulders before squatting down or upend the barbell, squat down and lower the weight into position from the bottom of the movement. Or they could have two helpers put the barbell on their shoulders. With the invention of squat racks, size and strength levels started soaring upward. There really is no substitute for squats. Leg presses can’t begin to compare when it comes to producing size gains. When you perform squats with a heavy weight, you’re exercising much more than just your quads. The squat works the quads, hamstrings, glutes, spinal erectors, traps and even the calves and abs some. Plus, there are benefits that go beyond giving those

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Machines can be a good change of pace, but they aren’t necessary for best results.

Equipment: Powertec squat/calf machine, 1-800-447-0008

Winter Mass-Building Workout

Model: Marvin Montoya

muscles growth stimulation. If you perform enough reps in each set, squats will quickly bring you to breathe more deeply. That’s because you’re exercising so many muscles at one time—and exercising them severely. As a result, your body calls for more oxygen. You need to breathe more heavily in order to take in the needed oxygen. That not only has a positive effect on your cardiovascular conditioning but also forces your rib cage to stretch with each deep breath. When you perform a set of straight-arm pullovers after each set of squats, breathing deeply on each pullover rep, that stretches your rib cage even more. All of this will help increase the size of your rib cage, giving you the potential for a larger chest and upper body. As I mentioned in “Racking Up Size” [IRON MAN, October ’04], not

Get Big everyone believes that deep-breathing exercises will enlarge the rib cage, but the technique definitely worked for me. (When I weighed 245 pounds, I wore a size-60 sports coat.) And it has definitely worked for many others. Reg Park did pullovers to expand his chest, as did Arnold Schwarzenegger, and they both had enormous chests during their competition days. On the squats, perform two or three lighter sets of five reps for a warmup and then two work sets of 10 reps. Use a weight on the work

sets that you can barely get 10 reps per set with. You’ll probably have to use a lighter weight on the second one. As discussed, you perform a 20rep set of straight-arm pullovers while lying across a bench after each set of squats, breathing in deeply and stretching your rib cage on each rep.

2) High pulls This movement will definitely add size to your whole back, as well as working your hamstrings, glutes

Winter Mass-Building Workout

Many of you may have been following our experiments with a new mass-training tactic that we’ve been reporting on in “Train, Eat, Grow” as well as in the IM e-newsletter (subscribe free at www.ironmanmagazine.com). We call it X-Rep training, and with it we’ve experienced some jaw-dropping gains while doing fewer sets than ever before. The X-Rep technique is basically a way to extend a set after you hit failure so you can get past nervous system fatigue, a serious gain stopper. Realize that when you’re forced to terminate a set, it’s because your nervous system fizzles, not the target muscle. That’s the reason so many bodybuilders get such a slow growth rate, no matter how many sets they do. The nervous system stops them before they can tax the key muscle fibers enough for a hypertrophic response. X Reps solve that problem by extending the set in the optimal position of the stroke for recruiting and overloading fast-twitch fibers. You use small movements at the precise spot at which you can generate maximum force, usually near the exercise’s sticking point. If you use the Short-and-Sweet Get-Big Workout outlined by Jim Hafer, you may want to add X Reps to one set of each exercise, especially if you’re a more advanced trainee. We’ve found that X Reps can make any set about three times more effective than One month! a conventional set to failure. When we were preparing for our photo shoot last summer, we used X Reps for one month. The photos speak for themselves. Our progress even stunned us, and we’ve got more than 40 years, collectively, of bodybuilding-training experience. Consider using power pulses, Jonathan Lawson (above) and Steve or X Reps, to make your abbreHolman made incredible gains fast using viated training even more of a X-Rep training. For more information visit mass-producing experience. www.x-rep.com. —Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson One month! Editor’s note: The new ebook The Ultimate Mass Workout contains a number of abbreviated routines that use the best multijoint exercises for each bodypart and identify the precise X-Rep position for each. Visit www.x-rep.com for more details.

Model: Jonathan Lawson

Abbreviated Training: an X-citing Innovation

High pulls, a great exercise for delt and back mass. and biceps. You also hit your calves hard, since you go up on your toes at the completion of the pull. High pulls use the same exercise motion as power cleans, except that you only pull the barbell up as high as it will go, without flipping your wrists and catching it at your shoulders. It’s like a partial upright row with some momentum. Use a weight that allows you to pull the barbell to a point that’s about two to three inches above your bellybutton. Do not lower the barbell all the way to the ground between reps. Just take it to an inch or so below your kneecaps and start your next rep from there. That’s called “pulling from the hang position.” Do a couple of warmup sets and then perform two sets of five reps with the heaviest weight you can handle. Very few trainees do any type of pulling exercise these days. That’s sad because pulling heavy weights definitely pays off—with a big, broad, powerful back.

3) Bench presses Use a shoulder-width grip so you’ll develop your pectorals, deltoids and triceps with these. If you

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Get Big regular pulldown, but your palms are facing you instead of away from you. Dorian Yates performed his pulldowns with a curl-grip and had huge, wide lats and matching biceps. Mike Mentzer said that the curl-grip pulldown was the best exercise you can do for the biceps muscles. It was my main biceps exercise when my arms measured 21 3/4 inches. Once again, perform one or two warmup sets and then two work sets of eight reps with your heaviest weight. Grip the bar with your hands approximately 10 inches apart.

Winter Mass-Building Workout

Model: Cesar Martinez

5) Wide-grip barbell presses

Bench presses hit the chest, delts and triceps. Go heavy to beef up your upper body. study pictures of American weight trainees from the early 1900s, you’ll notice that most of them had very good deltoid development but very poor pectoral development. That’s because they did only standing presses back then. Those, of course, work the deltoids and triceps and do nothing for the pecs. Then someone had the idea of performing presses while lying on the floor, and pectorals started growing. A number of years later someone came up with the idea of performing presses while lying on a

bench, and thus the bench press, which is now the most popular barbell exercise, was born. Perform two or three warmup sets and then two sets of eight reps with your heaviest weight. Push hard on these, and you will be rewarded with big, full pectorals, delts and triceps.

In this case wide means your hands are about six inches wider than your shoulder on both sides. You can perform these either standing or seated—it’s up to you. You also have the option of doing front presses or the behind-the-neck variety. Or you can alternate the reps, performing one rep in front of your head and the next rep behind, as in the Bradford press, named after Jim Bradford, an American heavyweight Olympic lifter of many years ago. A warning, however: Some trainees’ shoulders are not made for behind-the-neck presses, and the exercise will eventually damage their shoulders. If you start feeling any pain in your shoulders when pressing behind your neck, stop doing it and use only front presses. Wide-grip presses will also add size to your triceps. Perform one or two warmup sets and then two sets of eight reps with your heaviest weight. Push these hard, and you’ll build big shoulders and triceps.

4) Undergrip pulldowns These are great for the upper back and biceps, and they also strongly affect your pecs. They’re just like a

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6) Crunches. The last exercise is the abdominal crunch. Every program should Milk can help you pack on muscle. It’s the classic protein elixir.

include an exercise for the midsection. Perform two sets of 25 reps. When that becomes easy, start holding barbell plates on your chest for added resistance. With those six exercises you work all 14 muscle groups, and if you work as hard as you should, you will give each one of them great stimulation for growth. What do I mean by “as hard as you should”? Over the years I’ve developed what I call the target system. For each exercise you have a specific number of reps that you’re trying to achieve on your work sets. That’s your target. You give it all you’ve got to make that number of reps, and when you achieve that number, you go up in weight at the next workout. Say you’re performing bench presses, and your target is eight reps. At your last workout you got eight reps with 295 pounds. So at the next workout you attempt to get

eight reps with 300 pounds, an increase of five pounds. Maybe you only get six reps with the 300 pounds. That’s okay, as long as you try your hardest to make the eight reps. Then at the next workout you make eight reps with the 300 pounds. Great! The next time you add another five pounds, bringing the weight up to 305. As soon as you comUndergrip pullplete eight downs can kick reps with it, up back and arm you add mass. another five pounds to the bar, and so on. Whenever you achieve the target reps on any exercise, you add five pounds at the next workout. This program calls for two heavy work sets of each exercise. When you achieve the target number of reps on both sets, it’s time to go up in weight. That’s the whole idea of progressive-resistance exercise. It must be continually progressive in order to keep stimulating your muscles to keep growing. Once your training stops being progressive, your gains will also cease. Keep pushing, and your muscles will grow to meet the workload that is placed on them. Big weights build big muscles. That’s the real “secret” to building a huge and strong physique. Give this abbreviated program a serious try. You’ll be pleased with the results as you learn what many weight trainees over the years have discovered: Doing less can get you more. IM www.ironmanmagazine.com \ JANUARY 2005 129

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Weight Training 101—The Right Start for Your Son or Daughter by John Balik The squat is one of the hardest exercises to master.

Neveux \ Models: Justin Balik and Savannah Neveux \ Equipment: Powertec power rack, 1-800-447-0008

Over the past 15 years I have worked out mostly at the ITRC gym here at the IRON MAN offices in Oxnard, California, and occasionally at my outdoor home gym. This summer was different, as my 14-year-old son, Justin, had shown some real interest in bodybuilding and wanted to make it a summer priority. We started training together the second week in June, doing full-body workouts two to three times per week. We did that for 11 weeks (about 28 workouts), and it was a lot of fun. It put me back in touch with my own beginnings 48 years ago. The difference was the application of my experience to his enthusiasm. I’m a firm believer in creating a solid foundation with the basic multijoint exercises performed under control and with perfect form. I never want a trainee to sacrifice style to handle more weight. Teenage boys want everything now, and Justin was no different. So part of my job was simply to contain and channel his enthusiasm. It took about four workouts for him to create a benchpressing groove. He got the deadlift down in about four workouts too, and it took him about six to be able to squat deep with a flat back. All beginners have to etch those neuromuscular pathways before they can make any real progress in the amount of weight they use. The process of perfecting form is a continuous one with young trainees, as their strength increases rapidly. It’s vitally important that you coach them very carefully to ensure their safety and progress. Don’t let their desire to know what they can lift for a single get in the way of the teaching process. They will test you, but you must teach the basics first. Our first six workouts looked like this:

•High-bar tucks, 1 x max He did each kneeup as a smooth, complete rep.

Neveux \ Model: Justin Balik \ Equipment: Powertec power rack, 1-800-447-0008

Winter Mass-Building Workout

•Ab Bench crunches, 1 x 12 He used 15 pounds on the Ab Bench. I believe, as Bill Pearl does, that a little ab work makes a good warmup.

Deadlifts. Start light. Perfect form is essential.

•Squats, 1 x 20 At first Justin would go down to maybe four inches above parallel, and his heels would rise or he would start to lose his erect posture. The bar and plates weighed 66 pounds (we have a metric set), and the bar was digging into his traps. He used the Manta Ray, a plastic yoke-type piece that snaps onto the bar, to help distribute the pressure. That helped get his mind off the trap pain and concentrate on doing smooth, deep reps in good form. By workout 12 he was able to squat without the Manta Ray. (I had him read Randall Strossen’s IronMind column in the October ’04 IRON MAN, “Make Friends with Fatigue,” which helped his mind-set.) •Bench presses, 1 x 10 He started with 66 pounds and could get the 10 reps but would sometimes press unevenly or touch the bar too high or low on his chest. When he got the groove, it was an “ah” moment. •Deadlifts, 1 x 10 I had him pull slowly off the floor, with his head up, and ease into the finished position. He started at 66 pounds.

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•One-arm dumbbell rows, 1 x 10 He braced his free arm on a bench and used a nice smooth, controlled, full movement. •Seated dumbbell presses, 1 x 10 This was more of a coordination challenge. He used 20-pound dumbbells, and it took a while to get the sway out of the movement and to press the dumbbells evenly. Once he learned to lock his core muscles to create a solid base, he was able to concentrate on getting those dumbbells to go up evenly. •Seated dumbbell curls, 1 x 10 Justin did these the way I like to do them, starting with the dumbbells hanging at his sides, thumbs forward, and rotating his hands to a palms-up position as he curled them up.

Neveux

The workout was less than a half hour, but a lot of learning took place. It makes no sense to add sets or weight if the form is faulty. Some trainees will learn that in fewer workouts, and some will take longer. The main thing is to move at their pace—they must be comfortable and confident. It’s your job to be sensitive to pain, discomfort and fear. You’re teaching skills that will last a lifetime here, and the way you present the information will either turn them on or turn them off. After the sixth workout I added sets and an additional exercise. The ab-exercise warmup stayed the same, but as Justin’s 20-rep squat moved above 110 pounds, I added a warmup set with 66 pounds for six to eight reps. By the

Teenage boys are motivated to bench press big.

Neveux

•One-leg calf raises, 1 x max

Chins can be difficult at first. A little help can build strength faster. end of the summer, when he’d built up to squatting 132 pounds for 20, he would do two warmups—66 pounds for six and 110 for six. We tried doing just the one all-out set of squats, without warmup sets, but he found that a warm muscle is stronger. His bench press went to three sets of descending reps—10, eight, six—on one day and three sets of six to eight at the next workout. His best was 132 pounds for eight reps. During those 11 weeks his bodyweight went from 120 pounds at 5’4” to 128 pounds at 5’4 1/2”. He is not a big eater, but I was able to get him to use RecoverX after most workouts. The deadlift became a three-set affair, with 10, eight and six reps. By the 11th week the progression was 143 pounds for 10 reps, 177 pounds for eight reps and 193 pounds for six. I added one all-out set of parallel-grip chins to the workout, and he got to 11 good reps using a smooth, even pull, with no leg jerking and no cheating. His seated dumbbell presses also went to three sets (10, eight, six), with his best being 35 pounders for six reps. His one-arm dumbbell rows went to three sets (10, eight, six) as well, with his best being 55 pounds. The seated dumbbell curls progressed to 30 pounds on the final set of six with the same rep scheme. His one-leg calf raises stayed at one set of as many as he could do. Justin is away at school, so it will be interesting to see the progress he makes over the next months, as he has a very rigorous academic schedule and other interests such as music and musical theater. I told him that if he can do one full-body workout a week, he will hold on to his gains, and two will bring him progress. IM www.ironmanmagazine.com \ JANUARY 2005 131

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Protein, Muscle& Anabolism by Ori Hofmekler

Part 2

A Roundtable Discussion on Everything You Need to John Parrillo, founder of Know About Parrillo Performance and a Protein specialist in sports nutrition and

ri Hofmekler assembled a respected group of nutrition experts to discuss proteinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s capacity to promote growth. The panel included: Dr. Robert Marshal, founder of Premier Research Labs and a specialist in protein sourcing and processing. Carlon Colker, M.D., CEO and medical director of Peak Wellness and an expert in medical nutrition and protein research.

protein product manufacturing. Gerard Dente, founder of MHP (Maximum Human Performance) and an expert in sports nutrition and product formulations. Anthony Raissen, founder of Responsive Nutrition and a specialist in sports-nutrition marketing and future trends. The discussion continuesâ&#x20AC;Ś www.ironmanmagazine.com \ JANUARY 2005 133

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Protein, Muscle and Anabolism “For muscle gain you need carbs to support protein utilization.”

Everything You Need to Know About Protein

RM: Whey. Unfortunately, the commercially processed soy proteins are highly heated, and there’s a significant amount of damaged protein residues in the final product—tofu or powder. Soy net protein utilization cannot compete with that of whey protein. CC: Whey is far superior to soy protein. Soy is an incomplete protein. It’s deficient in methionine and lysine and contains phyto estrogens, which in my opinion may adversely affect lean muscle gain. JP: Whey protein definitely works a lot better for building muscle than soy protein. GD: I think that whey and soy proteins complement each other. The combination of both yields a higher BV [biological value] than each of the individual components. Soy is quite beneficial because it has a relatively slow rate of amino acid release. Furthermore, soyprotein isolate, which is derived from plants, has a higher stability with a lower rate of degradation than animal protein such as whey.

Whey-protein concentrate vs. whey-protein isolate. Which is better? RM: I feel the concentrate is far better than the isolate.

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There’s currently a war between those who favor whey protein and those who favor soy. Which side are you on?

CC: Isolate is a better form because of its high concentration of amino acids, provided it was microfiltered during processing. JP: The isolates because they have less lactose and less fat than the concentrate. GD: Isolate has its value for being lower in fat and lactose free. Nevertheless, I prefer whey concentrate to whey isolate. The amount of fat and lactose in concentrate is small, but whey concentrate is richer in growth factors that are critical for getting an anabolic effect. Whey concentrate tastes better, is less processed and has a slower rate of amino acid release, which helps maintain the overall anabolic state.

that should be supplemented? RM: If you’re talking about healthy adults, I would say yes— lysine. JP: Amino deficiency clearly depends on the foods you eat. Vegetarians lack different amino acids from nonvegetarians. GD: I believe they are lysine, methionine, vysteine and taurine.

Are there any essential amino acids missing from people’s diets “For a bodybuilder it’s almost impossible to get enough protein from food alone.”

“The overall meal balance needs a minimum of 40 percent carbs.”

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Protein, Muscle and Anabolism Should athletes take branched-chain amino acids?

“Carbs are necessary to replenish glycogen reserves, in particular with postworkout recovery products.”

Everything You Need to Know About Protein

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BM: I think there may be certain people who can benefit from that, but in general, no. OH: I don’t believe in supplementing with BCAAs. A goodquality protein such as whey protein, yogurt, cheese or legumes could be a great source of BCAAs. The BCAAs leucine, isoleucine and valine inhibit muscle breakdown. That’s why a good recovery meal, based on quality protein, is so important.

What are the most important conditionally essential amino acids? [Conditionally essential amino acids are those that the body produces but not in sufficient amounts or that are habitually destroyed in cooking or processing.] BM: I think glutamine is one of the most important conditionally essential amino acids. JP: For a bodybuilder it would be the branched-chain amino acids, which are metabolized in the muscle. Regardless, bodybuilders and other athletes should make sure that they’re getting enough calories from fat, carbs and proteins before supplementing with conditionally essential amino acids.

Do you think people should take supplemental glutamine? CC: Glutamine can help prevent overtraining syndrome; however, you shouldn’t take more than two grams per serving. JP: Overconsumption of glutamine can affect the growth of the intestine and give you a pregnantstomach look, which is undesirable for bodybuilders who want to maintain a narrow waistline.

What are the most anabolic protein combinations? CC: In general, I don’t believe that protein combinations have any advantages over a single source of protein for bodybuilders. Bodybuilders who eat every couple of hours should simply stick with whey protein, which, as I said, is superior to all other proteins. Athletes who eat less frequently, however—say, every five to six hours—should take advantage of protein combinations such as whey and casein to slow the absorption of the amino acids and increase overall protein utilization. JP: Whey and casein are good sources of protein. As far as I’m concerned, you can either combine them or take them separately, within a gap of two to three hours, between meals. GD: My research shows that the combination of whey-protein

“Without insulin both GH and IGFs are quite ineffective.”

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concentrate with soy isolate and casein is the ideal blend. First, it induces a quick release of whey amino acids for immediate muscle nourishment. Second, the soy has a slightly slower rate of amino acid release, which keeps feeding the muscles. Third, casein, which also has a slower amino-acid-release rate, will help keep the anabolic state for up to seven hours. The best food combination incorporates animal food such as meat with vegetable protein such as beans and grains.

“Both carbs and fat are important for protein utilization.”

What’s the ideal ratio of carbs to fat in a meal designed to support protein uptake? RM: Worldwide studies on this issue done since the 1970s show it

to be 50 to 65 percent of calories coming from carbs, with most of that being complex carbs, together with 30 percent or fewer calories coming from fat and the remaining 10 to 15 percent from protein. CC: I don’t believe that there’s an ideal ratio. I believe that in real life this factor depends on your goals. For the purpose of fat loss you should use a low ratio of carbs to fat. For the purpose of muscle gain or performance you should increase the ratio of carbs to fat. GD: I just wrote a book on this. Different purposes need different ratios. For an immediate maximum-insulin anabolic impact, the ratio should be [2-to-1]: 100 grams of simple sugar combined with 50 grams of protein. However, in my opinion, people should avoid overspiking insulin to prevent an undesirable fat gain. Therefore, the best percentages are 45 percent low-glycemic complex carbs, 35 percent protein and 20 percent fats.

Does a low-carb diet adversely affect protein use? RM: Absolutely. I feel that in the long term, the best health, the best strength, the best power in an individual are going to come from the ability to hold glycogen and not just protein in the muscle. Glycogen reserves in the muscles depend directly on the amount of carbohydrates consumed. CC: For muscle gain you need carbs to support protein utilization. If you work out intensely, then a low-carb diet may not be ideal. GD: I believe that carbs are necessary for bodybuilders and athletes. The overall meal balance needs a minimum of 40 percent carbs to generate insulin activity, which naturally promotes muscle gain. Most carbs should come from low-glycemic sources such as whole grains or legumes. Extreme carb restriction forces the body to induce gluconeogenesis, a process in which it has to catabolize amino acids from muscle tissue and convert them into glycogen. That causes a constant waste of lean muscle. www.ironmanmagazine.com \ JANUARY 2005 137

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Protein, Muscle and Anabolism

Everything You Need to Know About Protein

Does that mean that low-carb protein products and shakes are somewhat counterproductive? RM: Absolutely. JP: The low-carb diets were also popular in the ’70s, when people were trying to be as lean as possible. However, that method completely failed later on, when the ideal was to maximize size and gain muscle mass. You need a certain amount of carbs to spike insulin, which is a very anabolic hormone. They must be the right carbs, however—complex and slow digesting—so you can avoid too much insulin activity, which can lead to fat gain. Also, it’s very difficult to have energy when you’re limiting your carbs. As for many of the low-carb protein products, I’m amazed at how people can tolerate the taste of them. More amazing is the fact that some people don’t even mind it. It reminds me of a time when people used to mix desiccated liver tabs with tomato juice and hold their noses to drink. GD: The only time to take lowcarb protein products is at night, when you don’t have to fuel your muscles as much. As a recovery meal they are not ideal.

What’s your take on sugar alcohol and artificial sweeteners? RM: Well, for the most part, artificial sweeteners and sugar alcohols are toxic and increase the overall metabolic stress on the liver. CC: Sugar alcohol is a scam. It causes insulin to spike, and a sugar alcohol is absolutely a carbohydrate. Net carbs is just a marketing ploy to sell to the low-carb consumer. As for artificial sweeteners, I personally do not mind Sucralose. JP: Sugar alcohols are considered to be carbs by the FDA; however, they don’t raise insulin levels much. The problem is that sugar alcohol

“In the realm of the bodybuilding lifestyle, yes, meal replacements can effectively replace meals.” draws water into the lower intestines, and that can cause problems, including bloating and a severe laxative effect. GD: I think it’s been a great asset for the functional-food industry, but consumers must be aware not to overconsume them, as they can cause gastric problems.

What’s the best natural sweetener for protein products? RM: Rice syrup and malt syrup. Lo Han Sweet is excellent if you’re looking for calorie free. CC: Lo Han is great. JP: We use rice syrup with a low dextrose equivalency.

“A postcardio meal should include a good source of protein as well as key fatty acids and complex carbs.”

What are the roles of carbs and fat in protein products? RM: They help with protein utilization and provide a sense of satiety. JP: Carbs are necessary to replenish glycogen reserves, in particular with postworkout recovery products. Complex carbs from rice and oats are best. Fat is necessary as a source of energy. The best fats to use are MCT oils. They are a good source of energy, as they do not convert easily into bodyfat. OH: Both carbs and fat are important for protein utilization. Complex carbs play a unique role in enhancing protein’s capacity to promote growth. Carbs induce an insulin spike, which is necessary for the activation of growth factors (IGFs) and growth hormone. Without insulin, both GH and IGFs are quite ineffective. That explains the typical muscle waste that occurs in people who suffer from diabetes. This may sound very unpopular—especially nowadays, with carbs being blamed for the current epidemic of obesity in this country—however, the truth is that carbs, in the form of complex carbs and fructose-free sweeteners such as rice syrup, malt syrup and maple syrup, could be the most effective fuel for enhancing protein BV and overall utilization.

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Protein, Muscle and Anabolism Can a mealreplacement product replace meals?

Everything You Need to Know About Protein

RM: Yes, I believe it can CC: Generally, a meal replacement will not completely replace a meal, but it may provide the body with essential amino acids and some nutrients. GD: In the realm of the bodybuilding lifestyle the answer is yes; however, one needs to incorporate four to five real-food meals with two to three meal replacements. Due to a bodybuilder’s high protein requirement, it’s almost impossible to get enough protein from food alone.

“The best food combination incorporates animal food such as meat with vegetable protein, such as beans and grains.”

percent from protein and 20 percent from fat.

Are consumers looking for something new in terms of protein bars and shakes? BM: Consumers are looking for a new and better protein snack. In my opinion, it should be made from a good source of protein, with an ideal ratio of about 60 percent carbs to 25 percent fat to 15 percent protein. It should also provide lecithin phospholipids such as phosphatidylcholine and inositol, which help with recovery. CC: Definitely. Consumers are looking for a protein bar that has a higher degree of good fat, such as lecithin, which is an excellent source of phospholipids. Carbs should be chosen carefully to support protein utilization without overspiking insulin. Many protein bars today taste terrible and need serious improvement in that area. JP: I have some ideas, but if I tell you, I will have to kill you. Seriously, great new sources of raw materials are coming to the market that will improve the quality of future protein products. GD: Consumers are dying for something new. I believe that the next step in protein-product design will prevent typical protein waste. The future product will have a slowrelease protein with maximum BV. Protein will be carefully selected to increase its stability and shelf life. I cannot state how important it is to reduce the rate of degradation.

How do you design a recovery meal? RM: A postcardio recovery meal should include a good source of protein as well as certain key fatty acids and complex carbohydrates. GD: A recovery meal should be one of the biggest meals of the day, caloriewise, with 45 percent of calories coming from carbs, 35

“Extreme low-carb diets can cause severe muscle loss and health problems.”

“A person’s lifestyle may dictate the ideal ratio of protein, carbs and fat.” Future protein products will incorporate new processing techniques such as microencapsulation, which will coat the proteins with a fractioned oil that will significantly slow down their release. That, in my opinion, will increase protein synthesis in the muscle in a way that’s similar to what anabolic steroids do and constantly supply the body with protein for anabolic purposes, maintaining a steady, positive nitrogen balance. We are currently testing such technology with athletes, and the results are outstanding. AR: Tomorrow’s ideal protein products should provide basic qualities that are currently missing from many products, such as good taste, improved ratio of protein to carbs to fat and protein that yields maximum BV. These products will be made with better choices of slowreleasing complex carbs as well as fat, such as MCT oil, to provide the body with fuels that can be converted into energy rather than bodyfat. In a nutshell, the protein products of the future will provide maximum protein utilization and maximum fueling with minimum conversion to bodyfat. Note: For the newest protein bar, which incorporates much of what the experts in this article suggest, see the IM Research Team on page 182. For a different take on low-carb dieting, see “Low Carb, Slow Carb or No Carb” on page 54. Editor’s note: Ori Hofmekler is the author of the books The Warrior Diet and Maximum Muscle & Minimum Fat, published by Dragon Door Publications (www .dragondoor.com). For more information or for a consultation, contact him at ori@warriordiet.com, www.warriordiet.com or by phone at (866) WAR-DIET. IM

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Only the Strong Shall Survive

AP P.R. A .R.atatEvery Every

Workout Shock Your muscles— and Yourself—With Record-Setting Sessions

by Bill Starr - Photography by Michael Neveux 142 JANUARY 2005 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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hen I tell athletes at the start of an off-season strength program that I expect them to never miss a workout and that I want them to break a personal record at every session in the weight room, they look at me as if I were crazy. I know they’re thinking, “What about the bad days? And what if I get hurt or sick?” All of my wacky ideas are based on experience. The reason I know that it’s possible to break a P.R. at every workout for an extended period of time is that I’ve done it. It was during a time when I wasn’t actively coaching. I was training for strength fitness, usually alone. I wanted something to make my workouts more interesting—a motivational gimmick. I came up with the P.R.-at-every-workout idea and put it to the test to see if it was feasible. For 12 straight months I set at least one P.R. at every session, lifting four times a week.

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A P.R. at Ever y Workout

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Only the Strong Shall Survive

Since then I’ve challenged my athletes to do the same, and a great many have been successful. I coached one Olympic weightlifter who continued breaking P.R.s for two consecutive years. The reason more lifters don’t is simply that they don’t think in those terms. They assume they’re going to have bad days and are content to have mediocre workouts when that happens. It doesn’t have to be that way. When I first decided to see if I could, in fact, make some sort of gain every time I lifted, I went at it as if it were a game—which, in reality, it was. I approach all my

For 12 straight months I set at least one personal record at every workout, lifting four times a week.

ways did. The process of solving the problem was most useful when I trained alone, adding some zip to what could have been a dull workout. The most positive benefit of training this way was that it improved not so much my total workload or top-end numbers but rather my attitude. After each session I left the weight room with a sense of accomplishment. I had won the battle for that day. Like everyone else I had off days, yet I was still able to leave the gym feeling good about what I’d done because of that P.R. The positive frame of mind carried over to my next workout. Had I not achieved at least one P.R., I would have walked out of the gym in a sour mood, which would negatively influence my next session. A bit of clarification is necessary. When I write about breaking a personal record, I’m not referring to your all-time best. That’s a different level of accomplishment. If you’ve been lifting for many years or are an older athlete, that just isn’t going to happen. It would be foolish for me to think about trying to squat, clean or bench more than I did when I was training for competition. What I’m talking about is making small improvements at each workout. When football players finish the season and start back into an off-season strength program, that’s when they start using the P.R.-ateach-workout method. People who train primarily to maintain betterthan-average strength can benefit from it also, as can strength athletes who are making consistent progress and are at the (continued on page 148)

Alcohol is just an expensive carbohydrate.

training that way. I want it to be enjoyable, not a task that I dread. Trying to figure out how to make a P.R. four times a week was often a challenge, especially when things weren’t clicking. I’d be forced to get very creative in order to figure out some way to break a P.R., but I al-

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every workout. Concentrate on improving your primary lifts. On some days you’ll be able to break P.R.s on every exercise. Good. Take them all. Never hold back—for example, if you know that you could move up your bench another five pounds but hold back, thinking you could do it for a P.R. at your next workout. Don’t do that. Take every gain you possibly can. After a month or two things will get tougher. Once that happens, you want to try to gain that P.R. early in your routine, when you have the most energy. Eventually, though, the numbers on all of your lifts will plateau. In order to continue to break P.R.s, you’ll have to do some planning. That’s another reason I like this concept. It helps you learn how to prepare mentally for a workout—a skill that can be applied in all sports. On the night before your next workout decide on which lift you’re going to break a P.R. Let’s say you select the back squat because it comes first in your routine and is also the lift you want to improve the most. Your (continued on page 152)

(continued from page 144) peak of their physical maturity. My point is that you use this technique to increase your strength from where you are now, not from where you used to be. As the saying goes, “Ol’ man Usta died.” I’m talking particularly to older athletes who did well on the competitive stage. While it’s fun to look back at those glory days, it’s not very smart to try to match them when you’re 20 or 30 years older. Time requires that you make adjustments in your training or pay the price. Of course, if you should happen to exceed one or more of your former lifts along the way, that would be icing on the cake. Starting from where you are, strengthwise, will mean that when you first incorporate this idea into your training, you’ll be successful at

On some days you’ll be able to break P.R.s on every exercise. 148 JANUARY 2005 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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Concentrate on improving your primary lifts.

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A P.R. at Ever y Workout

It’s about making small improvements from where you are now.

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Only the Strong Shall Survive

A P.R. at Ever y Workout

(continued from page 148) previous

best is 350 for five, and you want to move it up by five pounds. Write down all of the warmup sets you plan to do leading up to that final attempt with 355. Now picture yourself performing each rep of every set, emphasizing the key form points. Do that several times until you’re absolutely positive that you’ll succeed with 355 for five reps. The next day, when you walk into the weight room brimming with confidence, half the battle is already won. The technique is even more useful if you’re going for a lifetime personal best. As with any other discipline, practice improves the skill. I found it very helpful to repeat the mental drill while driving

Model: Skip La Cour

The night before your next workout decide on which lift you’re going to break a P.R.

P.R.s are taking a huge effort. So make small changes. Instead of hammering away at the bench, give priority to the incline. When that flattens out, substitute overhead presses along with some push presses. After that make weighted dips your primary upper-body exercise for a month or so. You can also help your cause by switching the sequence of the exercises. If you always begin with a leg exercise, start with pulls for three or four weeks, and then move your pressing exercise to the front of the line. Some trainees find that rotating the sequence of the three primary lifts at every workout is effective. They do legs first on Monday, upper body on Wednesday and back on Friday or some variation of that theme. It doesn’t have to be a major change to help you achieve a P.R. on at least one exercise, and that’s what you’re after. Be adaptable. Many dedicated athletes follow their predetermined routines to the letter at every workout. That’s a good thing because it builds consistency, which is necessary for long-term progress. At the same time, however, you may run into trouble on a bad day unless you’re flexible. Bad days are the flies in the ointment when it comes to making P.R.s at every workout. Regardless of how well you plan ahead, how well you eat, rest and take care of yourself, bad days are still part of the deal. No one can avoid them completely. Injury, illness, undue stress, low biorhythm and lack of sleep are all part of life, and you have to deal with them in the weight room.

to the gym. Change is another way to keep the P.R.s coming. You may find that a drastic change works best; for example, switching from a program based on the big three to one revolving around the Olympic lifts. So instead of benching, you do overhead work—presses and jerks. Instead of back squats, you do front squats, and you also do more pulling movements, including the snatch and clean. Since all, or at least most, of those lifts will be new to you, P.R.s will come on a regular basis for some time. Maybe you don’t want to make such a radical change, but you think you need to do something because you’re feeling stale and the

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When one of those dreaded days comes along, rather than banging your head against the wall and ending up with a terrible workout, make some adjustments so you can still achieve your P.R. and leave the gym feeling a certain degree of satisfaction. True, you won’t be nearly as happy as if you’d completed a great session, but a small victory is better than a failure. As I’ve often said, I don’t believe that illness and injury are valid excuses for missing a workout. Either may necessitate altering your program, but missing the workout is not an option. It breeds poor training habits. If you skip a session due to a severe cold or a sprained ankle, it becomes much easier to miss another when you have a splitting headache or are dragging from lack of sleep. The real challenge is to overcome the negatives and still break a P.R. How many times, while watching sports on TV, have you seen an

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Only the Strong Shall Survive

The real challenge is to overcome the negatives, like lack of sleep, and still break a P.R. athlete who’s nursing a case of the flu turn in a stellar performance? I’ve seen more than I can remember. I’ve watched Olympic and powerlifters set American and world records while they were fighting terrible colds. Whenever that

happens, the announcer always marvels, “How is he able to score more points today than he has all season when he’s been in bed the last two days with the flu?” The answer is, when you get sick, your body responds by pumping

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If your regular squats stall, substitute front squats for a few week. 154 JANUARY 2005 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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Only the Strong Shall Survive

Only the Strong Shall Survive you came in. One other point about training when you feel punky. The exercise is therapeutic and will help you get well faster than you would if you didn’t train. Movement causes healing nutrients to flush through your body, and the enhanced circulation carries away the toxins and waste material. That’s the reason you’re always in higher spirits after a workout than when you started on those bad days. The exercise releases endorphins, which have an analgesic effect.

Model: Berry Kabov

Don’t miss workouts because of injury.

An injury shouldn’t prevent you from your quest to make a P.R. at every workout either. It’s just a matter of how much you want it. I had two football players at John’s Hopkins who were so determined to make P.R.s at every session during the off-season that they came to the weight room on the day after they had arthroscopic surgery on their knees and set P.R.s. One achieved his by doing dips, and the other by bettering his previous best on the low- (continued on page 158)

lots of antibodies through your system to combat the invading antigens and toxins. The antibodies are strength enhancers, especially when you’re in the early stages of an illness. Plus, a respiratory malady isn’t going to adversely affect your muscular system. You can still lift heavy weights; that is, if you can convince yourself that you can do it. A cold or flu will have a direct influence on your breathing and recovery. Knowing that, you train accordingly by taking longer rests between sets and shortening your workout. Drop the back-off sets and all auxiliary work. You can make them up later. This is also a good time to try a new exercise in order to make a P.R. Perhaps you’re scheduled to deadlift but can’t talk yourself into doing something that demanding. Substitute bent-over rows, which you’ve never tried before. You can stay relatively light and still gain your P.R. for the day, leaving the weight room feeling a tad better than when www.ironmanmagazine.com \ JANUARY 2005 155

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A P.R. at Ever y Workout

Only the Strong Shall Survive

If you know that your coordination and timing are in the toilet, change your routine. (continued from page 155) incline press. Another football player who had a broken ankle set a P.R. at every workout while he was in a cast—and he continued doing so once his ankle mended. Sound a bit farfetched? It isn’t. Having a hip, knee or ankle injury is actually an ideal opportunity to

make improvements in your upper body or parts of your back. Lat pulls and seated good mornings work well for the back, and everyone knows a wide array of upper-body exercises. It comes down to a test of character. If you really want to make steady progress despite any obstacles, you’ll find a way to do it. While I’m on the subject of excuses, I need to mention hangovers. Drinking is a part of the social life of nearly every college athlete, so it has to be dealt with. Having consumed large quantities of alcohol is often thought to be a detriment to training on the following day. I don’t agree. I tell my athletes that alcohol is just an expensive carbohydrate. What they did last night was carb load,

and they should take full advantage of it. Once they get it in their foggy brains that their head isn’t actually going to explode when they squat or deadlift, they end up having a productive workout. And because the exercise helps expel the alcohol from their system, they leave the gym as part of the living once again. It’s a win-win situation. Then there are those days when, for no apparent reason, you feel like a cow on ice skates. Olympic lifters understand exactly what I mean. If you know that your coordination and timing are in the toilet, change your routine. Instead of making failure after failure on the snatch, drop snatches and do wide-grip deadlifts, which are less dependent

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on athleticism. Bingo, there’s your P.R. for the day, and the wide-grip deadlifts will benefit your snatches in the future. You salvage what would have been a lousy workout and leave the weight room in a positive frame of mind. You can make your P.R. by doing more sets with a certain weight. For example, if you normally do three sets of three on the power snatch and have worked up to 175 pounds, do four sets of three with that weight, and you’ve set a P.R. Doing more reps on a back-off set also counts, and in a pinch you can break a P.R. on an auxiliary exercise. Dan Dziadosz, a.k.a. “Monkey Boy,” was a defensive back and a member of the Hopkins Olympic

weightlifting team. He was one of my hardest workers, never missed a workout and was attempting to break a P.R. at every session in his off-season program. During finals week he came dragging into the weight room on Friday. He was a premed student and had stayed up all night preparing for an especially tough exam. I gave him a couple of my high-potency B-vitamins and some strong coffee and told him to stay with light weights for higher reps and drop all his backoff sets. When he finished, he looked like a whipped hound. I tried to encourage him by saying, “Well, at least you got through it. Most would have bailed.” “But,” he grumbled, “this is the first workout all spring that I didn’t break a P.R. I’m pissed.” It was obvious that he didn’t have much left in his tank to do anything strenuous. I asked, “What’s the most reps you’ve ever done on back hypers?” “I do 50 as part of my warmup.” “Do 55.” His face lit up as he understood what I’d said. When he left the weight room, he was beaming with delight. He’d kept his P.R. streak intact, which meant he’d won the battle that day. As the saying goes, There’s more than one way to skin a cat. So it is with breaking a personal record at every workout. Use your imagination, and you’ll be able to come up with some creative methods to help you achieve your goal. Making a P.R. at every workout is only a game, but it’s incredibly rewarding to be able to leave the gym with a positive attitude every time. Long-term progress in strength training doesn’t come in giant leaps. Rather, it’s the result of many small achievements, sometimes mere baby steps. Breaking a P.R. every time you train is one way to gain those valuable victories that will eventually lead to success. Editor’s note: Bill Starr was a strength and conditioning coach at Johns Hopkins University from 1989 to 2000. He’s the author of The Strongest Shall Survive and Defying Gravity. IM www.ironmanmagazine.com \ JANUARY 2005 159

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Success

Story

The Laws of Change

Greg Alder, Met-Rx Body Challenge Winner and Lawyer, Tells How He Transformed Himself by Greg Adler

ay 8, 2004, was one of the best days of my life. I found myself onstage at the Contra Costa Bodybuilding and Figure Championships receiving a $50,000 check from Met-Rx rep and IFBB fitness pro Julie Childs for winning the Met-Rx Body Challenge. I didnÕt think life could get much better than thatÑbut it did. After I graduated from the University of California, Davis, School of Law on May 22 and took the California Bar exam, the editors at IRON MAN asked me to write about my experiences in getting in the best shape of my life to earn my victory. IÕm honored to have this opportunity to share the details of how I reached my goal, and I hope my success will assist you in reaching your goals. 164 JANUARY 2005 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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Zach Taylor

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Before

You will not change unless you have a reason to do so. After

Motivated or unmotivated? You will not change unless you have a reason to do so. In the most general sense, people decide to change because they’re unhappy with what they have become. The hard part is finding a stable, lasting motivation to keep you on track as you work toward your goal of becoming a happier, healthier person. Self-motivation works great, but you must use it carefully because it can be fleeting. It’s easy to establish the amorphous goals of “looking better” or “losing weight.” Your mood, self-image and enthusiasm will improve once you decide to do those things. But what happens if you fail? It will be far more difficult to muster even temporary enthusi-

asm, as you remember that your plan failed the last time you tried. Thus, you cannot base your success on self-motivating mental tricks and hollow promises of vaguely defined outcomes. You need steady, consistent effort aimed at progressing toward concrete goals. My motivation came from the need to honor promises I made to myself. I was a competitive athlete all my life. In high school I competed in the decathlon on the national level. I eventually lost interest in it, but I still felt the need to remain active. It was during my junior and senior years at U.C. Berkeley that bodybuilding started to fill the void. I found that unlike decathlon trainZach Taylor

How Do You Plead?

ing, which required several hours of practice at a set time every day, bodybuilding was something I could schedule around my academic commitments, without a huge investment of time. For me it was the perfect recreational sport. Although I never competed, I still enjoyed bulking up and cutting down once every year to see what kind of changes I had made to my physique. When I got to law school, I found myself surrounded by the most unhealthy, out-of-shape group of people I had ever met. At first I was unsure why. I thought maybe we were just the cream of the nerdy crop. But as my law school experience progressed, I discovered that the lawyers were even worse off than the students. I was astonished at how tired, run-down, disheveled and stressedout the vast majority of them were. They were so busy and overworked that most of them went nearly the entire day without eating, stuffed themselves once or twice a day when they were too irritable to concentrate or could no longer bear the hunger pangs, then went home and watched TV until it was time to get up and do it all over again. On the one hand, I knew I would never let myself get that way—but then I wondered how many other people in my position had thought the same thing when they started law school and ended up that way despite their best intentions. I started to see why they called it whitecollar boot camp, and I could tell it would only get worse. Law school was preparing us for a time when we would have more work than we could possibly finish, and I was having a difficult time reconciling that lifestyle with one that valued health and fitness. I promised myself two things: One, that I would never become one of those out-of-shape lawyers, and two, that I would always set a good example for other students

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Success Story after photos based on the amount of time I had to prepare and a reasonable assessment of my abilities.

Out of Order

A Lighter Sentence

A couple of years into it I’d nearly broken my promises. My workouts and diet were inconsistent. I had not yet succumbed to being a completely frazzled law student, but I certainly wasn’t setting a good example. I was afraid that if I failed to establish good habits while I was still in school, I might never do it. That’s when I decided to put my mental and physical fitness first in my life by entering the Met-Rx Challenge. The next thing I did was to recognize that I was responsible for my unhappiness with myself. I’ve learned that success has countless fathers, but failure is a bastard. We are often quite willing to take credit for our success but equally if not more willing to blame our failures on someone or something else. It would have been easy for me to blame being out of shape on a combination of law school, extracurricular activities, my internship, personal issues—the things that we all deal with. I realized, however, that I would just be making excuses. Instead, I decided to do what bodybuilders do: I looked in the mirror. Once I accepted that I was the only person standing in my way, moving forward became much easier. After that the way was paved for me to set concrete goals. I used to think that successful people were just extraordinarily lucky. I no longer think so. Successful people get where they are by following a strategic plan. We all know it takes a blueprint to build a house, but we sometimes forget that it takes a blueprint to build a successful life. The same applies to building a better body. Generally, success is not accidental. People who approach things with order, conscientiousness and persistence ultimately succeed. Knowing that, I developed an exercise, nutrition and supplement program and followed it consistently. I measured my body composition and set a realistic goal for how lean I wanted to be for my

Like anything else, starting is always the most difficult part of any task. After I started the Met-Rx Challenge, all I needed to do was stick with it. But there was a particular way that I stuck with it that seemed to work really well for me. We’ve all heard the saying, “Work hard, and you will be rewarded.” It sounds simple, right? Too bad it doesn’t always work that way. Remember what it was like in school? No matter how many hours some kids studied, they always got bad grades. Then there were others who

rarely studied at all and got straight As. You can go nowhere fast by working hard but inefficiently, or you can employ modest efforts efficiently and reap substantial rewards. I think my success was due to a sharp focus on working smarter, not harder, throughout the Challenge. It boils down to a single concept: purpose. The purpose of following an exercise and nutrition program is to make progress, not to burn yourself out. It will be tough at first, but eventually your continued progress will boost your enthusiasm, which will lead to more progress, more enthusiasm and so on. Then, as my constitutional law professor was fond of saying, it’s a

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Generally, success is not accidental. People who approach things with order, conscientiousness and persistence ultimately succeed.

Neveux

and lawyers by staying fit and healthy, even under the pressures of a legal career.

Success Story

No-Guilt Transformation Strategy

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Diet. My diet is primarily low-carb (less than 50 grams per day) all year long. A low-carb diet is best for losing and keeping off excess bodyfat. That’s largely because of the relationship between macronutrients and insulin. Insulin is a hormone created in the pancreas that moves nutrients out of the blood and into the cells. Carbohydrate produces a far great insulin response than protein or fat. So the more carbs you eat, the more insulin is released, and, consequently, the more nutrients move out of the blood and into the cells. That’s not a desired result if your goal is to lose bodyfat because you need to have nutrients—specifically, stored lipids—moving out of the cells, not in. Low-carb diets work so well because they keep insulin levels low, which encourages more fat to move out of your cells. Still, continuous low-carb dieting leads to depleted glycogen stores, which inhibits your ability to engage in strenuous exercise. Activities such as sprinting and lifting weights

Before involve the anaerobic— meaning without oxygen—use of stored carbohydrate. So, as glycogen levels dwindle, After the body has little fuel to use for anaerobic processes. Consequently, your ability to work out hard tapers off as well. My diet combines the best of both worlds: a generally low-carb plan with one or two carb-load meals (250 to 300 grams of complex carbs) every few days. That allows me to keep my insulin levels low and stay lean the majority of the time but also occasionally replenishes my glycogen stores so I can train hard. I never count calories, and I allow myself one cheat meal per week, except during the last four weeks before a photo shoot. The only things I change as a photo shoot draws near are the frequency of my carb-load meals and the percentage of my total calories coming from fat. Generally, during the last four weeks before a photo shoot I have a carb-load meal once every two weeks instead of twice a week. I also increase my protein intake and reduce my fat intake to create a slight calorie deficit. Training. My training program during the Met-Rx Challenge was pretty basic. I lifted weights three times a week, usually Monday, Wednesday and Saturday. Then I did cardio—20 minutes of high-intensity interval training on a treadmill, stair climber or stationary bike—on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday mornings. I also added low-to-moderate-

I lifted weights three times a week and used a low-carb diet.

intensity cardio sessions on the stair climber or stationary bike on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday evenings. I go to failure on every set, except warmups, and generally keep my reps between six and 12. I also vary the stress on my muscles by constantly changing my routine. I never do the same workout twice. Here’s a variation of my basic routine: Monday: Legs Squats, six sets Leg presses, 3 sets Leg extensions, 8 sets Seated leg curls, 5 sets Lying leg curls, 5 sets Seated calf raises, 4 sets Donkey calf raises, 4 sets Standing calf raises 4 sets Tuesday: Cardio (a.m. and p.m.), abs (circuit training, a.m.) Wednesday: Chest and back Dumbbell inclinebench presses, 5 sets Cable crossovers, 3 sets Machine flyes, 3 sets Narrow-grip seated rows, 4 sets Wide-grip pulldowns, 4 sets Upright rows, 3 sets Machine pullovers, 3 sets Thursday: Cardio (a.m. and p.m.), calves (a.m.) Friday: Cardio (a.m. and p.m.), abs (circuit training, a.m.) Saturday: Cardio (a.m.); shoulders, biceps, triceps (p.m.) Seated dumbbell presses, 4 sets Machine presses 4 sets Lateral raises, 4 sets Rear-delt flyes, 3 sets Shrugs 3 sets Standing barbell curls, 4 sets Seated dumbbell curls, 4 sets Spider curls, 3 sets Pressdowns, 4 sets Reverse-grip pressdowns, 4 sets Standing overhead rope extensions, 4 sets Sunday: Off Zach Taylor

slippery slope from there. Just be sure to help others along the way by sharing the knowledge and wisdom you gain from what I’m sure will be a successful experience.

Editor’s note: For more information on the Met-Rx Body Challenge, visit www.metrx.com. IM

1 7 0

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e p a r G Expectations This Fruit Has Got It Going On! noted scientist once observed that humans donÕt wear outÑthey rust out. What he meant was that many diseases, as well as the aging process itself, are likely related to out-ofcontrol oxidation reactions in the body. No one argues about the necessity of oxygen for human life. Try breathing without it. Oxygen is necessary to power cellular processes involved in energy production, and without energy, you cannot live. The way the body uses oxygen isnÕt a perfect process. In the course of it noxious by-products known as free radicals are unavoidably released. Free radicals go by different names, but theyÕre all

unpaired electrons seeking to pair with other electrons. When a free radical finds paired electrons, it locks onto them, creating cellular havoc. Substances prone to oxidation are particularly effective at producing free radicals. Polyunsaturated fats, which play structural roles in various organs and tissues in the body, including cellular membranes and organs that are largely composed of fat, such as the brain, come under that heading. When attacked by free radicals, susceptible structures break down and fail. That, in turn, can lead to myriad diseases, including cardiovascular disease and cancer, the two primary killers.

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• by Jerry Brainum •

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Grape Expectations

extract. Studies show that the active the French paradox. Although the components of GSE are 20 times French habitually eat a considermore potent than vitamin C and 50 able amount of saturated fat, the times more potent than vitamin E type of fat most linked to cardiovasin antioxidant activity. The funccular disease, they don’t have a high tions of GSE, however, go beyond rate of that kind of health problem. mere antioxidant protection. For Scientists who’ve studied the effect example, it inhibits enzymes that think that their fondness for drinkpromote the release of histamine ing red wine with most meals is from cellular mast cells. Histamine what enables the French to eat plays a dominant role in saturated fat with impunity. Red wine the symptoms associated Red wine contains contains with allergies and inflamflavonoids called polyphepolyphenols, mation in the body. nols. They’re potent antioxwhich can help Another name for the idants that can protect prevent internal active ingredients found in Luckily, nature and evolution against cardiovascular blood clotting GSE is oligomeric proanhave created a built-in defense sysdisease with a number of that can lead to thocyanidins. OPCs exist tem against free-radical cellular mechanisms, including heart attacks. terrorism. It consists of various ennaturally in such fruits as their ability to prevent the zyme systems that neutralize free apples, pears and grapes internal blood clotting that radicals, often by contributing an and in chocolate, red initiates most heart attacks. electron to stabilize the renegade wine and tea. In supplePolyphenols also stabilize free radical. Even so, free radicals ment form they’re availlow-density lipoprotein, the are voracious in their appetite for able as either grape-seed primary cholesterol carrier pairing with another electron, and extract or an extract from in the blood. That’s signifithousands of attacks occur at any pine bark known as pyccant because LDL, which is time. It’s easy for the body to be nogenol, which is touted known as the bad cholesoverwhelmed. as being the superior terol, is dangerous mainly Once again, nature provides anti- when oxidized. source and usually costs dotes: dietary antioxidants. Vitanearly twice as much as What if you just don’t mins C and E are the antioxidants grape-seed extract. want to drink wine? Can familiar to most people, but many The truth, however, is that most you get the benefits of its polypheother nutrients provide potent proof the research on the effects of nol content from any other source? tection, including the hundreds of OPCs used grape-seed extract. Even A good candidate source is grapeflavonoid chemicals found in variJacques Masquelier, credited with seed extract, which also has powers ous fruits and vegetables. The frediscovering pycnogenol, says that above and beyond those found in a quent recommendation to eat at grape-seed extract is superior. That’s fine merlot. least five servings a day of fruits and because GSE contains gallic esters vegetables is largely based on their not found in pycnogenol that give it Grape-Seed Power fiber and antioxidant contents, greater antioxidant activity. Similar While common dietary antioxiwhich play definite roles in warding to what happens with another popdants such as vitamins C and E do off degenerative diseases. ular antioxidant, lipoic acid, GSE offer potent protective effects, they The power of antioxidant protecworks in both fat and water media, pale in comparison to grape-seed tion is reflected in what’s known as giving it a greater range of protection. In contrast, vitamin C works only in a water medium, while vitaAn ingredient in grape-seed extract min E functions only in a fat medimay increase your pumps in the gym. um. Most of the studies showing a beneficial effect, however, were isolated-cell studies, also known as invitro, or test-tube, studies. That’s significant because flavonoids tend to be difficult for the human body to absorb. Studies tracking the fate of ingested grape-seed extract found that it was indeed difficult for the body to absorb the active ingredients, but about 25 percent was absorbed, and since they are potent antioxidants, it appears to be enough. 174 JANUARY 2005 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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Grape Expectations

As noted above, GSE neutralizes many of the problems that lead to cardiovascular disease, including the oxidation of LDL. It also protects vital organs, such as the liver and brain. The OPCs in grape-seed extract have a particular affinity for vascular and connective tissue. They inhibit enzymes that would otherwise degrade those tissues, and in doing so they maintain the integrity of various structural proteins of connective tissue and skin, such as collagen, elastin and hyaluronic acid. When those substances break down in the skin, visible signs of aging, such as wrinkles, appear. One study showed that a topical form of GSE offered protection against the oxidative damage caused by exposure to the sun.

Pumping Up with GSE Nitric oxide has been getting extensive publicity lately. Various supplements have come on the market that increase the effect of nitric oxide synthesis. Among other functions, nitric oxide dilates blood vessels, which would increase the sensation of a muscular pump during training. GSE also increases nitric oxide synthesis, and it does so even more effectively than many of the high-priced supplements currently available. In addition, GSE stimulates vascular endothelial growth factor, which plays a role in wound healing. A recent study confirmed the effect of OPCs derived from pycnogenol in helping to alleviate

In one study a topical form of GSE offered skin protection from sun damage.

impotence in men.1 The subjects took 120 milligrams a day of either pycnogenol or a placebo for three months in a double-blind protocol, meaning that neither the subjects nor the researchers knew who was taking what. After three months the men who got the pycnogenol showed significant improvement. The researchers attributed that result to pycnogenol’s ability to promote nitric oxide synthesis. Nitric oxide is required for the dilation of blood vessels that lead to an erection. Most of today’s socalled impotence drugs, such as Viagra, work through the same mechanism. GSE may aid workout recovery by decreasing various chemical initiators of inflammation in the body. Hard training leads to a local-

GSE: Immunity Booster GSE helps protect against various types of cancer. In isolated-cell studies it destroyed several types of cancers, such as those affecting the breasts, lungs and stomach. GSE also reduces the side effects of chemotherapy drugs, which are designed to destroy cancer cells by increasing free-radical production in tumors—an undesirable activity in normal cells. Other research shows that GSE inhibits the virus that causes AIDS, but, once again, the studies involved were test-tube studies. A recent study found that GSE may offer benefits in the treatment of advanced prostate cancer, the number-one killer of men.2 Many prostate tumors are initially androgen-sensitive; that is, their growth is stimulated by the presence of testosterone and other androgens. The treatment is to block androgen production, hoping the tumor will recede. In some cases, however, it returns, and this time it’s androgenindependent. Advanced prostate tumors like that are harder to treat and have a greater tendency to metastasize, or spread. In the new study GSE strongly inhibited advanced prostate tumors. The researchers believe it accomplished (continued on page 178)

Grape-seed extract helps to heal muscle inflammation after intense training. ized inflammation in muscles, and muscles cannot fully recover until it’s doused. The inflammation is caused by a number of chemicals associated with immune function, such as cytokines, interleukins and tumor necrosis factor-alpha. By neutralizing their excess activity, GSE helps to heal muscle inflammation after intense training, thereby speeding recovery. www.ironmanmagazine.com \ JANUARY 2005 175

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Grape Expectations

GSE, with its nitric oxide precursors, appears to alleviate impotence in men. (continued from page 175) that

through at least two mechanisms: It prevents the release of a chemical that enables tumors to spread in the body, and it increases a binding protein for IGF-1, which promotes tumor growth. As a result the tumor winds up killing itself, a process known as apoptosis.

cutaneous bodyfat, less water retention and less likelihood that excess-estrogen-related conditions, such as gynecomastia, or male breasts, will occur. GSE also exerts insulinlike activity in aiding glucose uptake into cells.4 It appears to lower elevated glucose levels, such as those that occur in people who have diabetes and those who use human growth hormone, as well as increasing the activity of cellular proteins that aid in getting glucose into cells, such as GLUT-4. Another interesting isolated-cell study found that a combination of aged garlic and pycnogenol caused a potent release of growth hormone.5 The study used skin cells that had been genetically engineered to react to substances touted as growth hormone releasers. The results showed that pycnogenol is about 1,000 times more potent in

Girlieman Terminator Another study found that substances in GSE can inhibit aromatase,3 the ubiquitous enzyme that converts androgens, such as testosterone, into estrogen. From a medical point of view, that means that GSE may help prevent estrogenrelated cancer. Inhibiting aromatase in men leads to increased testosterone and lower estrogen— and lower estrogen equals less sub-

Grape-seed extract can help reduce estrogen in men. its ability to promote GH release than the other substances tested, including amino acids. Isolated-cell studies also show that both GSE and pycnogenol inhibit enzymes called lipases, which are required to absorb dietary fat.6,7 Orlistat, a drug that’s currently used to treat obesity, works in the same manner, with the result that about 30 percent less fat is absorbed during a meal. That means fewer fat calories taken in, possibly leading to fat losses.

Safety Issues What about toxicity? Grape-seed extract is remarkably safe. It shows no mutagenic effects—i.e., links to tumor formation—and has no

known interaction with drugs. It does, however, help prevent liver failure if someone takes too much acetaminophen (Tylenol). The best dosage for health effects is about one milligram per kilogram (2.2 pounds) of bodyweight. So someone weighing 200 pounds should take about 100 milligrams of GSE daily. Another method is to begin with a loading dose of 300 milligrams a day in divided doses for about a month, then switch to the onemilligram-per-kilogramof-bodyweight maintenance dose.

Someone weighing 200 pounds should take about 100 milligrams of GSE daily.

References 1 Durackova, Z., et al. (2003). Lipid metabolism and erectile function improvement by pycnogenol extract from the bark of Pinus pinaster in patients suffering from erectile dysfunction—a pilot study. Nut Res. 23:1189-98. 2 Singh, R., et al. (2004). Grapeseed extract inhibits advanced human prostate tumor growth and angiogenesis and unregulated insulinlike growth factor binding protein-3. Int J Cancer. 108:733-40. 3 Eng, E.T., et al. (2003). Suppression of estrogen biosynthesis by procyanidin dimers in red wine and grape seeds. Cancer Res. 63:8516-22. 4 Pinent, M., et al. (2004). Grapeseed-derived procyanidins have an antihypoglycemic effect in streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats and insulinomemetic activity in insulinsensitive cell lines. Endocrinology. In press. 5 Buz’Zard, A., et al. (2002). Kyolic and pycnogenol increase human growth hormone secretion in genetically engineered keratinocytes. Growth hormone and IGF-1 Research. 12:34-40. 6 Moreno, D.A., et al. (2003). Inhibitory effects of grape-seed extract on lipases. Nutrition. 19:876-79. 7 Hasegawa, N. (2000). Inhibition of lipogenesis by pycnogenol. Phytotherapy Res. 14:472-473. IM

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Warrior

Snack Attack

A Revolutionary Protein Bar That Combines Maximum Net Protein Utilization and Natural Ingredients With an Amazing Taste

Model: David Yeung \ Equipment: Powertec power rack, 1-800-447-0008

by the Editors • Photography by Michael Neveux

uscle gain is a controversial issue, as is protein. WhatÕs the best protein for promoting muscle growth? ThereÕs an ongoing clash of opinions among sports nutrition experts on the subject. Numerous protein products with flashy labels promise the best results. Unfortunately, most consumers real-

ize that thereÕs a huge gap between what the labels say and what the products deliver. Consequently, thereÕs disappointment and confusion among bodybuilders and athletes who are looking for potent protein products that can meet their daily nutritional requirement and effectively promote growth.

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IRON MAN Research Team

delivering amino acids to starving muscles.

Model: Marvin Montoya

Searching for the Ideal Protein Bar

Muscle gain is a process that involves a surplus of protein synthesis over protein waste.

The Principle of Muscle Gain The one principle that defines growth is clear: Muscle gain is a process that involves a surplus of protein synthesis over protein waste. When the rate of protein use in the muscle tissue is higher than the rate of protein breakdown, the muscle gets larger and growth occurs. Conversely, regardless of how much protein you consume, if the rate of protein use is lower than the rate of breakdown, a catabolic state occurs and the muscle tissue loses mass. No one can argue those facts. Anabolic and catabolic processes occur simultaneously in your body every split second of your life. The trick is to take advantage of that biological makeup and nourish the body in a way that will give you the highest percentage of net protein utilization from food with a minimum of protein waste. Unfortunately, it’s not always

possible to get enough protein for net utilization from food alone. Bodybuilders, whose protein requirements are much higher than the average Joe’s, must use protein shakes or bars in addition to whole food to support their body’s great demand for amino acids. There is significant evidence that food is better used in a solid form than in a liquid form. Studies reveal that chewing food rather than drinking it involves a process called the saliva test, which induces critical actions of the epidermal growth factor, a factor that plays an important role in regenerating liver cells and supports critical immune functions. Solid food generally has a slower rate of assimilation than liquid food. When protein is slowly released, it helps keep the muscle in an anabolic state for a longer period of time while minimizing amino acid waste. From that aspect, protein bars are superior to protein shakes. Properly designed protein bars can be the best vehicles for

A protein bar should be a nutritional as well as a taste treat for people who are interested in a quick snack that will satisfy their protein needs. Ideally, it should provide quality protein with bioactive nutrients that will help replenish energy reserves, particularly postworkout, spare amino acids and promote maximum net protein utilization for growth. The reality is far from ideal, however, and many of today’s protein bars betray their purpose. Instead of nourishing the body in a way that supports its anabolic functions, they often increase the overall metabolic stress, causing protein waste, indigestion, bloating, water retention and fatigue, which altogether lead to a sluggish metabolism and impaired nutrient assimilation. What’s more, a lot of protein bars have a funky flavor and a chemical aftertaste. Bodybuilders and other athletes who are looking for a quick protein snack or a fast recovery meal are often left disappointed, to say the least. People need some solid standards by which they can evaluate protein products, and in particular, protein bars. An ideal protein bar should meet the following requirements: 1) It should have the correct nutrient blend. 2) It should be free of toxins. 3) It should taste delicious. A correct nutrient blend means the right amount of quality protein with the correct percentages of carbs, fat and protein for promoting maximum net protein assimilation. It should also be low in sugar. Free of toxins means no dangerous chemicals or food additives. It (continued on page 188) should not

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IRON MAN Research Team

(continued from page 184) contain

low in carbohydrates. Unfortunately, many are high in bad fats such as hydrogenated or partly hydrogenated oils, all unhealthy. They negatively affect essential metabolic pathways and are believed to destroy brain cells. Hydrogenated fats and trans fatty acids are also believed to cause insulin insensitivity and fat gain. Many low-carb bars today contain glycerin, a sugar alcohol, which supplies the body with empty calories and can cause

bloating. In fact the FDA requires that sugar alcohol be listed as a carb on the nutritional-facts panel but, ironically, allows the bars to be called low carb. To add insult to injury, low-carb bars often have that funky taste and aftertaste mentioned above. So the ideal protein bar is one that provides an optimum serving of high-quality protein that has the

Model: David Yeung

any hydrogenated, partly hydrogenated or rancid oils. It should also contain no artificial sweeteners or sugar alcohols, including glycerin, which can cause indigestion or bloating, signals of overall metabolic stress. And it should taste delicious. A protein bar is food. Therefore, it should taste and smell like food. It should have a moist, semisoft texture that easily dissolves in the mouth—and without any chemical aftertaste. It’s hard to find a protein bar that meets any of those standards. There are currently two major categories of protein bars: High-sugar bars. Some popular protein bars are high in carbohydrates, particularly sugars like corn syrup and fructose. Sometimes known as energy bars, they usually taste okay; however, their high sugar content raises blood insulin levels rapidly. That leads to blood sugar fluctuation, which may cause insulin insensitivity and undesirable fat gain. Low-carbohydrate bars. Some protein bars are marketed as being

Model: Tamer Elshahat

Bodybuilders must use protein shakes and bars to support their greater demand for amino acids.

highest biological value combined with bioactive compounds, including good fat and naturally slowreleasing complex carbs. It’s low in sugar, is made from only top-quality ingredients and has a clean, delicious taste with no aftertaste.

Introducing: The Warrior Bar™ The Warrior Bar is a significant step forward, pioneering a new generation of protein bars. It’s specially designed to nourish the body’s demand for good-quality protein with the right combination of whey- and milk-isolate proteins. The protein content was designed for maximum biological value. Other bars may need twice as much protein to provide the same net protein use, due to typical protein waste. The Warrior Bar contains grade-A mediumchain triglyceride (MCT) oil supported by slow-releasing complex carbs to promote maximum protein utilization. Unlike most commercial protein bars, the Warrior Bar is made only from natural ingredients. It’s free of chemical additives, artificial sweeteners, sugar alcohol, glycerin, hydrolyzed gelatin, hydrogenated oils and fructose. It’s sweetened with a proprietary new blend of natural low-glycemic-index sweeteners. The Warrior Bar is perfect as a snack, a recovery meal or simply a delicious dessert. Bodybuilders can eat more than one at a time, as the Warrior Bar supports lean muscle gain without fat gain. The nutritional composition, in particular the MCT oil, enhances anabolic processes without converting into bodyfat. With a taste like creamy pumpkin pie, it’s definitely in a league of its own. Editor’s note: To get two boxes (24 count) of the new Warrior Bars for only $39.95 (you save almost $20), call (800) 447-0008 and ask for the IM Research Team Warrior Bar Special. IM

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Lonnie Teper’s

Musclebound Flix: The Inside Story

Must-See See Arnold run—and Watch Roland act

Roland Kickinger is a smart man. When offered the lead role as a young Arnold Schwarzenegger in the TV biopic “See Arnold Run,” to be aired in January on A&E, the first thing Kickinger did was to contact the Governator for his approval of the script. “He told me just to make sure I get paid a lot for the part and to have fun,” said Kickinger with a laugh. Filming, which took place in Passings San Diego, ended in late September, and the movie was in postproduction when I spoke with Kickinger in early October. “It was very exciting to re-create an era that motivated most of us involved with bodyIn this case I’m talkin’ about the original building—you know, the good old days,” said Kickinger. “I had a blast doing the Muscle Beach, in Santa Monica, where Harold Zinkin was among the fitness piomovie. I feel very fortunate to get the part.” neers, beginning in the 1930s. Zinkin, seen Much of the film focuses on the years between 1970 and ’80—Bob Cicherillo here in a recent photo taken with California plays Lou Ferrigno, Chris Cook is Dave Draper and Mike Ergas is Franco Governor Arnold Columbu. Kickinger says he trained for eight weeks to get in decent shape for Schwarzenegthose scenes. “The physiques back then were big but not as ripped as today’s ger, won the bodybuilders,” he said. “Also, they didn’t get as tanned as they do today. I tried first Mr. California competition, to emulate the look in 1941, and in Kickinger and Michael of the times as I 1957 invented Ergas, as Franco Columbu, trained for the role.” the Universal re-create the Muscle Beach weight machine. The 6’2” days. He passed Schwarzenegger away on was 235 or so September 22 at the age of pounds in his hey82. day; the 6’4” Kickinger said he carried about 255 pounds of beef for the monthlong shoot. Roland carefully studied the MR. UNIVERSE AND emotional side of SchwarzenegMR. CALIFORNIA ger (“How did he react when his father passed away?”) and compares the movie to the “Rocky” flicks. “This is a very motivational movie,” explained the former “Son of the Beach” star. “Arnold had a master plan, and he never got sidetracked. I don’t have to tell you just how amazing his life has been.” No, you don’t, Roland. And you can bet I’ll be glued to the tube to see how the production turned out. Better yet, invite me to the L.A. premiere, and I’ll let ya know my analysis at the party. Photos courtesy of A&E Marketing

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AT H L E T I C S U P P O R T E R S

HOT SHOTS BY JERRY FREDRICK

Perfect Match Bodybuilding.com and Boise State make great gridiron combo The Boise State University football team, under the guidance of head coach Dan Hawkins, has become one of the premier collegiate football programs in the nation. In three years at the helm of the Broncos, Hawkins has guided them to an incredible 37-6 record (as of October 10), along with the longest winning streak in the land at 25 and counting. Ranked 15th in 2003 by USA Today/ESPN and sitting at number 18, the Broncos have obviously stirred up some excitement in the Idaho capital. Among the school’s biggest supporters are the gang at Bodybuilding.com, led by CEO Ryan DeLuca, V.P. Jeremy DeLuca and their pop, Russ DeLuca, who appropriately owns the Coach Hawkins chases the pump as title of treasurer. ’Cause Russ is one well as the title. generous man. Just ask promoters of IFBB and NPC shows across the land. In 2004 the company contributed approximately $200,000 in sponsorship money. For the past three years Bodybuilding.com has sold Boise State team shirts and donated the funds to the football program. In ’02 the slogan was, “Leave No Doubt”; last season it was, “Just Prove It”; and this year, “Brick by Brick”—as in slowly but surely building a Those team-spirited DeLuca dudes (from national powerhouse. left): Russ, Ryan and Jeremy. Bodybuilding.com’s team-spirited efforts are turning the Internet company into more of a powerhouse as well: The marketing agreement between the college and the company has led to the Bodybuilding.com logo’s appearing in nationally televised games. Go, Broncos!

Simona as Pocahontas. Some sexist bloke said he liked her wigwams, so she wrecked his teepee. He’s still on the ground in pain.

ld’s. We call Rebecca flexes at Go , but plenty of girl i’ d-b goo the her good too. her other parts are

Web Alert! Check out the all-new contest section at www.ironmanmagazine.com, the most entertaining and comprehensive bodybuilding site on the Internet!

Jerry always manag es to get a hug from beauties like Ker stin—and he sneaks in a glute che ck when there’s an opportuni ty.

www.ironmanmagazine.com \ JANUARY 2005 191

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ADD ARNOLD

NPC SHOWS

What could L.T. have been telling Arnold in this conversation, which took place circa 1990 at World Gym in Venice Beach? Rumor has it he was trying to convince the Big Fella to make him his campaign manager if Arnold ever ran for president.

Okay, let’s get the rules committee together and starting working on changing the law that says no foreign-born person can be president of the United States. It’s been a year since Arnold Schwarzenegger became the governor of Kalifor-nia, and the man has done a helluva job. The polls in October had his approval

rating at a glittering 65 percent. As I write this, we’re less than a month away from the latest presidential election, and it’s a race down to the wire. Not because the voters are enamored of their choices, I think it’s safe to say. Arnold is a take-charge guy, an icon whose days as a bodybuilding champion and movie star have earned him worldwide admiration and enormous respect, which, in turn, have enabled him to start turning things around in California. I think he would do likewise as the commander-in-chief. President Schwarzenegger. Has a nice ring to it, huh, gang?

’04 Texas Championships Houston: July 10 Mauricio Garza, men’s bodybuilding.

Star Blaylock, women’s bodybuilding.

Promoter Michael Johnston with figure winner Tessa Montelaro.

ADD WEB

Expansion Bodybuilding.com gents tossing their support into another ring Those DeLuca dudes just can’t sit still (see the item on page 191). They recently acquired the rights to the domain name “Athletes.com,” with the intent of creating a Web site whose mission is “to provide athletes of any sport, at any level, free sport-specific training and nutrition information integrated with an online retailer selling nutritional supplements and training aids that are both safe and effective,” said Ryan DeLuca. “There are many products that athletes can use to maximize their training efforts without compromising the rules of their sport or their own health, and we hope to provide those products for athletes who want an edge in their training, whether it’s for a city marathon or an NFL game.” One big-time athlete who gained from the Internetbased support system is Jarred Rome, who earned the Bodybuilding.com Track Club its first national discus title with a victory at the 2004 Olympia Trials. The 6’4”, 305-pounder, who won the crown with a toss of 215 feet, nine inches, used ZMA, HMB, multivitamins and lots and lots of protein, according to Russ DeLuca, to help him achieve his success. “When we started the club, we hoped to have some world-class athletes, but to send three guys to the trials and one to the Olympics surpasses our expectations.” Big Jarred Rome won the discus throw at the 2004 Olympic Trials.

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Photography by Tim Adams

L.T. says the Governator should be Pres-onator in ’08

Photo by Ron Chaffins

Rule Change

Eye

Backstage Stories on the Contest Trail

of the Tiger

Collegiate champ overcomes Kudos to Peter Putnam, not only for copping the overall crown at the Collegiate Nationals last July but also for overcoming a childhood tragedy. In March 1986, while playing with some friends in his hometown of Dalton, Georgia, nine-year-old Putnam was the victim of a drive-by shooting by a couple of thrill-seeking teenagers. As the perpetrators’ car sped off, Putnam was left holding his bleeding right eye. The damage was so severe, the eye eventually had to be removed. “I held no hate or bitterness toward my aggressors,” says Putnam. “This was not my way of thinking—I had no desire to feel sorry for myself. I just wanted to get on living and doing the things that little boys do, playing with my peers and being the kid that everyone wanted on their team.” He was always an outstanding athlete, but parties, not workouts, became his thing in college before bodybuilding put him back on the right track. At 21 Putnam won the novice middleweight class at the Mr. Atlanta contest, and he was on his way. At the Collegiates, the Covenant College business management major presented a powerful, symmetrical 5’6”, 188-pound package that swept the field. Now he has his sights set on the ’05 Junior Nationals, and, if he does well there, it Former NPC promoter will be on to the USA. “I trust I can use the sport and Gold’s Gym owner for the betterment of others and prove that Marty Demirjian and we are all put here to make a difference in renowned attorney Peter Putnam put a childhood tragedy this world,” says Putbehind him—way behind. nam, who recently Mark Geragos. signed a contract with Prolab. “Get busy living and get busy MARK OR MARTY? BETCHA CAN’T TELL WHO THIS IS. growing!”

Lookalikes M&M Brothers

OFFSPRING

Like Father, Like Son

Teen and Men’s Mr. Pittsburgh on May 5 and the Teen Nationals in August. In checking out pics of the younger Hawk, the Swami says the Teen Nationals are his. Don’t let me down, kid!

Chip off the old cannonballs.

David Forest Hawk (left) matches biceps with his dad, David, the former USA and World Amateur champion and Masters Olympia standout.

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Liberman

History buffs remember a young David Hawk winning the USA and World championships in 1985 and competing on the pro level until 1991, when he hung up his posing trunks. Current followers of the industry know that Hawk returned to the stage in 2002, at 40, to compete in the Masters Olympia and finished fourth two years in a row. These days there’s another Hawk spreading his wings on to the posing platform. David Forest Hawk, who turned 18 on July 27, is a good-looking 5’8”, 176-pounder who took the overall at the NPC Teen Tri-State in September, then followed up with another overall crown at the Teen Pennsylvania and a class win in the open division at the Pennsylvania Championships. The proud pop says David’s next contests will be the ’05

All in the bodybuilding family

Photo courtesy of Peter Putnam

More than midterms to get to the top

Southern

More Shows: Big Time in Florida

States

So huge, they had to hire another hall More Florida

Photography by Doris Barrilleaux

Women’s Dept.

SOUTHERN PHYSIQUE BELLES

Overall champs (from left): Claudio Santos (men’s fitness), Leslie Stefano (figure), Rafael Jaramillo (men’s bodybuilding), Annette Lopez (women’s bodybuilding), Darin Page (masters over 40), Bernie Kaplan (teen).

Women’s winners (from left): Gina Crum (fitness) The Southern States Championships has grown so big, it was only a Jessika Coehlo (teen fitness and figure), copromoter Maria Bellando, Leslie Stefano matter of time before promoter Peter Potter had to move it to a larger (figure), Mari Redondo (masters venue. So the Broward County Convention Center in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, over-40 figure).

was the site of the 2004, 25th-anniversary edition last August, and as always it was an outstanding event. “Like some of the national events, it was held over two days,” says Potter, “with fitness, figure and masters on Friday and teen, women and open men’s bodybuilding on Saturday.” Contestants came from 18 states to do battle for the coveted titles. A dozen IFBB pros got their start with a victory at this show, with the most famous graduate to date being Dexter Jackson. Congrats to champions Rafael Jaramillo (men’s bodybuilding), Annette Lopez (women’s bodybuilding), Gina Crum (women’s fitness), Claudio Santos (men’s fitness) and Leslie Stefano (women’s figure). Potter’s guest posers included Gunter Schlierkamp, Darrem Charles, Richard Jones, Toney Freeman and Kelly Ryan. A half-hour TV show focusing exclusively on the ’04 event will be available to the 36 million-plus subscribers of the Sunshine Network. Potter’s ’05 contest will be held August 5–6. To get the details, contact Peter at usasports@juno.com.

SAD NEWS

John Mese, RIP

Add Florida bodybuilding

A postscript from Southern States promoter Peter Potter (see the item above) brought news of the passing of John Carl Mese, one of the founding members of the NPC, who died of a heart attack on October 4. He was 66. His résumé with the organization included NPC and IFBB judge, NPC national chairman, chairman of the Judges Committee and Florida chairman. I emceed the last contest he ever promoted, the ’95 Florida Championships. John left a wife, Mariella, and two children, Andrea and Johnny, as well as a sister, Barbie, and his mother, Gladys. A memorial service was held on October 9 in the Miami Shores Presbyterian church. Condolences to the Mese family. The late John Mese with L.T. at the ’95 Florida Championships.

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SURVIVORS

DeMilia Update

Life after bodybuilding

As I wrote a few issues back, don’t feel too sorry for Wayne DeMilia. I was sure that Wayne, who parted ways with the IFBB a few months back, wouldn’t be sitting at home twiddling his thumbs very long. A press release sent out in August verified that: DeMilia and his Pro Division Inc. will be putting on the 2005 Chicago Health, Fitness and Nutrition Expo at McCormick Place in Chicago on April 23–24. “By encompassing health, fitness and nutrition, we hope to attract the total cross section of the population, making this a diverse, exciting, wellattended event,” DeMilia says. “With our large advertising budget and celebrity guests, we are expecting an attendance of over 25,000 people per day.” DeMilia was negotiating with Chicago Bears Look for Wayne’s ’05 Chicastandout linebacker Brian Urlacher, Magic go Health, Fitness and Nutrition Expo in April. Johnson, the WWE, the top Chicago TV fitness personality and other fitness, health and nutritional celebrities to “greet fans, sign autographs and give seminars.” A couple of familiar names are working with DeMilia on this and future projects: former IFBB promoter Giorgio Tsoukalos and former NPC competitor and judge John Calascione, who are the sales directors for the West and East coasts, respectively. For information on the expo or becoming an exhibitor, contact DeMilia at (845) 638-9290, Tsoukalos at (415) 717-8331 or Calascione at (917)-22505105.

M O R E P R O U D PA PA S ?

James Bivens Jr. (left) made his bodybuilding debut recently at the Cal State Los Angeles Championships while his father, NPC star James “Shonuff” Bivens, himself a former CSLA champ, looked on. Okay, I’m pulling your leg; the picture on the left is from the Cal State L.A. contest, all right, but from 1990, when Bivens, then 21, made his debut as a 218-pounder. The shot on the right is from the ’03 All-South in St. Augustine, Florida, where Bivens tipped the scales at 282. He’s put on some size, eh? Look for James to compete at the ’05 USA.

New Books

The Precontest Bible The gospel according to Larry Pepe

Larry Pepe has been involved in the bodybuilding and fitness fields for two decades in virtually every capacity imaginable. He’s been a competitor, a judge and a consultant to athletes in the areas of contest prep, competitive decisions and even business strategies. Pepe, who pens a monthly column for MuscleMag International (he also writes training pieces), has interviewed virtually every top bodybuilder in the world, so he was a natural condidate to do a book about precontest approach. In fact, he pulled out all stops in his recently released The Precontest Bible. More than 475 pages, the book includes some 700 great photos from bodybuilding’s finest lensmen, including IRON MAN’s Bill Comstock, IM contributor Mits Okabe and Jason Mathas. In the format of Bill Pearl’s legendary Keys to the Inner Universe, the manual gives you the straight and narrow from the game’s biggest stars. I’m impressed. And the only mistake I noticed was the listing of Shawn Ray at 5’7 1/2” instead of the 5’6” he stands. Like, he’s 1 1/2 inches taller than Dexter Jackson? That Shawn, always ready to lift one’s spirits. “The Precontest Bible is the most complete book ever written on bodybuilding contest preparation,” says sixtime Mr. O Ronnie Coleman. “It is totally unique from anything I’ve read and is an extremely valuable tool for anyone who wants to get into incredible shape.” ’Nuff said. To find out more about the publication, log on to www .PrecontestBible.com.

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Ruth Silverman’s

PUMP & CiRCUMSTANCE PROS POSE

SOS FIGURE

Show of Strength

Easy Choices

And easy on the eyes

It’s always the quiet ones, who slip by while you’re looking at those Davana-vs.-Monica-vs. Jenny shots (one more time), who prove to be the most surprising. Sure, Jaime Did Yaxeni Oriquen Jaime Franklin has been slowly but know the minute she Franklin, steadily inching her way into the stepped onstage at the #2 with a bullet. GNC Show of Strength upper-stratum of figure competiWomen’s Bodybuilding tors since she was elevated to competition on October the pros at the ’03 NPC Figure 8 that she would win? Nationals—and, yes, she won Surely, she knew she the Pittsburgh Pro last May and looked good and that has been looking more polished the lineup was populated every time she gets onstage. largely by people she’d But I have to admit I never beaten in the past, thought she could be the one to notably Betty Pariso, bust up the above three’s lock who frequently finishes on the sport. All that changed at right behind Oriquen—as the GNC Show of Strength in she did at the Ms. InterAtlanta, where Franklin reportnational and Night of Yaxeni ruled at the edly gave official notice that she end-of-regularChampions earlier in the season conflict. year. Pariso was in fine was good enough to do it. So Time to be known Needless to say, shape too at the threewhile Figure International champ for something she won the overweeks-before-the-Olympia besides being the Jenny Lynn’s foregone-concluall. Jaime who spells sion win in Atlanta—and the affair. It earned her a unaniher name Jaime mous runner-up score beinstead of Jamie. $5,000 first-place check she hind Oriquen’s unanimous first. The big win here (other than the prize earned—were pleasant news, money) went to third-placer Lisa Aukland, who got an invitation to the the high point for the intuitive Ms. Olympia because the other two were already qualified. The large observer was Franklin’s taking second with her and well-conditioned Aukland was reportedly in her best shape and best-ever physique. looked right at home standing in the callouts with Yaxeni and Betty. Thirty-one high-toned bodies hit Georgia looking Dominating the lightweight class was veteran flexer Nancy Lewis, to pick up some end-of-the-regular-season glory at who drops back into the sport every couple of years all pumped and the October 8 event, including a number who were polished symmetry just in time to win a show. British entry Joanna tuning up their instruments for the Olympia. Here’s Thomas might have been carrying more mass—and attracting more the glory: 1) Jenny Lynn, 2) Jaime Franklin, 3) than a few partisans in the audience—but the panel preferred Lewis’ Amber Littlejohn, 4) Christine Pomponiolines. Both ladies made it to the Olympia on October 29. To find out how they did, read the Hot News at www.ironmanmagazine.com. Pate 5) Zena Collins, 6) Shannon Meteraud, 7) Kim Chizevsky, 8) Elaine Goodlad 9) Tara Scotti, 10) Starling Steele. HAPPY NEWS Comstock

www.billdobbins.com \ www.billdobbins.net

Yaxeni dominates

Photo courtesy of Lena Johannesen

IRON MAN Hardbody of the Year Lena Johannesen showed her softer side on June 5, when she married her They get longtime carried sweetie over a Marc Navihuge dad on a threshold beach in Santa Barbara, California. “The wedding was small and romantic—with perfect weather,” reported the pro fitness and figure star, who has known her new hubby for almost four years. The couple honeymooned in Hawaii and Johannesen’s native Norway.

Show of Strength Women’s Bodybuilding Overall Yaxeni Oriquen

Nancy Lewis.

Lightweight 1) Nancy Lewis 2) Joanna Thomas 3) Rosemary Jennings 4) Gayle Moher 5) Mary Ellen Doss Heavyweight 1) Yaxeni Oriquen 2) Betty Pariso 3) Lisa Aukland 4) Christine Roth 5) Annie Rivieccio

196 JANUARY 2005 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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Silverman

When Goddesses Get Married

SOS lightweight winner Nancy Lewis pauses to catch her breath before heading to the O.

MORE STRENGTH

HOT SHOTS BY JERRY FREDRICK

Fitness Atlanta-Style ’Dela had a good day

Bradford

As with the figure contest, the GNC Show of Strength Fitness competition was more interesting for who came in second than who won. Not that I’m tired of hearing about Adela GarciaFriedmansky winning contests, but after Kelly Ryan had to drop out due to a torn calf muscle, this pre-O flipfest was AGF’s to lose. She didn’t, and by the time you read this, it won’t matter. Either she’ll have won the Fitness Olympia, Ryan will have won it, or someone else will have surprised everyone. So who came in second in Atlanta? None other than Kim Klein, the fastrising schoolteacher from New Jersey who was seventh at the International and runner-up in New York earlier in the season. Mark her just like Jaime Franklin in the figure show: number two with a bullet. The fitness results were full of pleasProfitable venture. First-place check at ant surprises. AGF won the physique the fitness follies was $8,000. rounds easily, but from the photos it was clear that top-notch routine performers Klein and Jen Hendershott had finally hit their physique peaks as well. Ditto for ’03 Team Universe champ Teri Mooney, another performance diva who showed big improvement in the balance department. Hendershott was third, with Mooney, in fourth, earning the sliding Olympia qualification. The show attracted 31 competitors, most of them hoping to do what Mooney did. Talent in the fitness rounds was, obviously, steep, despite the absence of routine queen Ryan. As she had at the New York Pro, saucy Aussie Debbie Czempinski did not let her status as an unknown keep her from getting the judges’ attention. She won both routine rounds and finished sixth overall. AGF took second in the long routines and won by a 21-point margin.

Boxers or briefs? It’s the perfect bodybuilder showand-tell question.

Oiled babes in high hee ls and bikinis working out. Sounds like one of our favorite Web sites. Lor iana and Michelle pump and pos e.

The Amber Head Torque. Jerry says it will be completely worth wearing a neck brace for.

Show of Strength

Fitness 1) Adela Garcia-Friedmansky 2) Kim Klein 3) Jen Hendershott 5) Julie Palmer 6) Debbie Czempinski 7) Anna Level 8) Tracey Greenwood 9) Jenny Hanke 10) Nicole Rollolazo

Czempinski rocked in the routines but finished out of the magic circle. Oh, well, the 2005 season will be here before you know it.

Manion

4) Teri Mooney

to solve camera Bill and John try ens can you say, “L , ys Gu s. lem prob ? p” ca

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PUMP & CiRCUMSTANCE ERRORS AND OMISSIONS

PA S S I N G S Was way more dramatic

Incredibly sad news

Manion

After the October ’04 issue hit the streets, the P&C mailbox was hit with a note from Canadian pro Martha Lombardo, who was mentioned in the item about Sandra Wickham’s performance at the ’04 Canadians. It seems I was incorrect about Lombardo’s taking forever to achieve pro status. While she had indeed competed for 10 years, it didn’t take her that long to earn her Martha Lombardo, western Canada’s wild woman of fitness. card. In fact it was a quick ride to pro-dom once the certified personal trainer and fitness instructor from Calgary, Alberta, migrated to the CBBF/IFBB from another organization. “I switched over in 1998, and I won my pro card at the Canadian Nationals in 2000,” said Lombardo, who under her married name, Martha Grant, operates the Fit Over 30 Personal Training studio (www.fitover30.com). Out of competition due to injuries since earning her pro card, she’s focused on business, establishing herself as “an active leader in the health and fitness industry.” With clients ranging from regular gals to competitive fitness athletes, Lombardo, who not coincidentally is over 30, offers a full menu of services and seminars, including one-on-one personal training and women’s fitness master classes and clinics. Recently, she decided that it was time for the teacher to show she could get back onstage with the best of them, this time, though, in the figure arena, and she’s targeting 2005. Good luck, Martha, and we’ll see you in a lineup soon. With at least one West Coast pro figure shows on the ’05 schedule—the California State in Culver City— there’s no reason not to do it.

Marianna Komlos

www.billdobbins.com \ www.billdobbins.net

The Pump Version

SHOWS

That’s Ms. Fitness

To you

States. Allyson Newman and Tiffany Yee took the second and third spots, respectively. Avellina took ninth at the international competition, which was won by Else Lautala of Finland, with second place going to Viktoriya Stepanova of Ukraine and the USA’s Sara Harding landing in third. To find the Ms. FItness competitions on TV, go to www.msfitness.com.

Nicole Avellina.

Else Lautala.

The grandmother of all fitness organizations, the IFSB, held its ’05 Ms. Fitness USA and Ms. Fitness World festivities in Las Vegas on September 10–11. Nicole Avellina of New York was the big winner at the USA, which attracted 42 athletes from around the

On September 26 the world of women’s physique was rocked by the tragic death of former Canadian competitor Marianna Komlos, who lost a long battle to breast cancer. The 35-year-old Komlos, who grew up in a small town in British Columbia, competed in several shows in western Canada before coming to the U.S. in 1997 for the Women’s Extravaganza, where she won her class. After that she left competition for other pursuits, including a stint in the WWF assaying the role of Mrs. Cleavage. Komlos was divorced and was the mother of a 17-year-old daughter, Amanda. Her cancer, which went undetected until 2002, even after her sister was diagnosed with the disease in 2000, led to multiple surgeries, but Komlos remained an indomitable spirit throughout her ordeal, according to reports. In an interview published in the online magazine Iron Life in September 2003, when the disease was in remission, Komlos talked of how she was training to be a boxer and joked about her situation. “I get so gung ho with things and realize I don’t wear a cape,” she said, laughing. Regarding the reconstructive surgeries she’d undergone, she said, “Who would have guessed that Mrs. Cleavage would get breast cancer and lose them? There’s an irony there.” IM’s deepest condolences go to Komlos’ family and friends.

198 JANUARY 2005 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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Pre-Olympia musings

Neveux \ Model: Rebecca Ryan

Recently, I heard the eyebrow-raising rumor that Muscle Elegance, the magazine published by pro bodybuilder Denise Masino and her husband, Robert, would be softening its very particular approach to the celebration of the muscular female form. That would be an interesting development and significant, too, if it’s true, since the hardcore photos in M.E. of many faces familiar to fans of competitive women’s bodybuilding are not of the training variety. Could it be part One person’s art is another’s of a trend? Last year XXX-rated worst nightmare. this magazine made a Some folks might think that this shot crosses the line. Of course, conscious effort to turn we at IM don’t. down the steam valve a notch on photos of fit females featured—a marketing as well as a philosophical decision for my bosses—but we weren’t exactly in the same market as M.E. Cynic that I am, I find it difficult to believe that the market for triple-X photos of buff babes is dwindling. Maybe it’s just more cost-effective to do it on the Internet. Maybe it’s only a rumor. Making a note to ask Denise about it at the Olympia, I can’t help putting that thought together with a recent observation: A lot of women bodybuilders are royally pissed at the ladies who pose for those sorts of pictures. Not just posing buff nekid, but the so-called private wrestling sessions and all the other dark-underbelly-ofwomen’s-bodybuilding stuff we don’t usually get into here. It’s a very gray area, since everyone draws the proverbial line at a different place. Still, the pissed-off ladies don’t like it when people inevitably assume that they, too, are “that kind of girl.” It’s an age-old debate: How can we ask people to respect what we do when we act like ho’s? vs. How else can we make a living? vs. You wanna make something of it? I tend to take a live-and-let-live attitude about these things (if the little dears really need that sort of stimulation, who are we to deny them?), although I do find it disconcerting when the subject of the photos is someone I know. Maybe it’s just a symptom of getting older, but I like it that all the women are making their points of view known. Listen, and you can hear them. On the Web bulletin boards, in chat rooms, in interviews with retiring champions. Since pro women’s bodybuilding is not likely to become a quit-your-day-job proposition anytime soon— and since nobody ever went broke pandering to man’s basest nature (okay, well, somebody probably did)—the issue is likely to be with us for some time. Keep your eyes peeled.

Exclusive! Fox gets life—without weights by Teagan Clive Which fate is worse for a bodybuilding champion: spending the rest of your life in a wretched prison on a remote island and watching your muscles shrink, or hanging by the neck until you’re dead? For former Mr. Universe Bertil Fox, only time will tell. Convicted in 1998 of murdering his girlfriend and her mother on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts, Fox was sentenced to be hanged. But recently, just as the gallows were being groomed for what was expected to be a dramatic execution, the British Privy There’s not enough iron in Council, which serves as the Bertil’s prison diet. island’s high court, came to Fox’s rescue and reduced his punishment to two consecutive life sentences. “That means if he dies, he’ll have to come back and serve another life sentence,” joked Franklin Dorsett, superintendent of Her Majesty’s Royal Prison, where Fox has been housed since the day in 1997 he pulled a gun from his fanny pack and shot the two women in a jealous rage. Explained Dorsett, “Kill, and be killed; that’s our law.” Obviously, laws change, And so do reputations. One of the island nation’s most prominent personalities, Fox did endorsements, owned a 5,000 squarefoot gym, had numerous training articles written about him and competed in several Olympias. Today, however, he’s regarded as the island’s “Arnold-turned-O.J.,” an embarrassment to a country struggling to attract tourists to its uncrowded shores. And his behavior in prison is doing little to redeem his reputation. “Fox is so fussy,” remarked Dorsett. “He complains about everything. Absolutely everything.” Dorsett agrees that a weight set would probably bring cheer to the grumpy former champion, “but we just don’t have the money to get one.” Editor’s note: Teagan Clive attended both of Fox’s murder trials for Sports Illustrated. You can contact her at teaganclive@earthlink.net. Teagan Clive

Lower f-stop?

TESTOSTERONE CORNER

Yaz-TV

Speaking of accomplished women

All’s well in the nation’s capital, at least for talented trainer Yaz Boyum, who reports she’s made the small screen in a big way: her own TV exercise show, “Yaz Fit,” which airs on Montgomery County (Maryland) cable Channel 16. “It’s great exposure and experience,” says the petite-but-powerful Boyum, whose last trip to the posing platform took place at the ’03 Ms. International. “I’ve pretty much kept up my muscle mass but toned it down a bit for television. “Life is good,” says Yaz, who earned her broadcast stripes with a 2 1/2-year stint answering fitness questions on another station in the Washington, D.C., area. Not only can she be found weeknights at 8 p.m. on Channel 16, but Men’s Journal recently featured her in an article on the nation’s top trainers. If anyone can motivate those sluggards in the nation’s capital. it’s Ms. Yaz.

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Silverman

REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK

PUMP & CiRCUMSTANCE MORE MUSINGS

Any Excuse at All At the ’88 O.

Balik

Neveux

The online posters were major Cory fans, but the shot was not from the Ms. O years.

To run pictures of Cory Trolling the bodybuilding and fitness bulletin boards for what people are talking about, the inquisitive reporter often encounters incorrect information and uninformed opinions being bandied about. Sometimes the urge to set the record straight is just too great. So… To the person who stated, based on a particular photo of Cory Everson that had been posted, “Cory couldn’t compete with the fitness/figure girls today”: Dude, no way! That awesome Mike Neveux pic of Cory-the-fitness-celeb was taken in 1994, five years after she hung up her posing bikini. At the Ms. O she was awesome—ripped muscle on top of her unbelievable structure and megawatt stage presence. She was the winner even though there were women who had more muscle onstage. I doubt that Juliette Bergmann, when she won the Olympia in 2001–3, was more conditioned than Everson. Today’s figure top five, fair as they are, are not dancing in the same salsa line. P. S .

HOT SHOTS BY JERRY FREDRICK

Another #2

Neveux

closeup rry take a Lisa lets Je rool, Jer. trol that d peek. Con

Looks like Mon ica from “Friends” has been pumping some iron. Oh, that’s Debbie from Gold’s. Ne ver mind.

Neveux

Don’t be surprised if Kim Klein did better than you might have thought at the O.

Neveux

We’re not sure what exercise this is, but if you need a spot.…

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Silverman

With a Bullett

To contact Lonnie Teper about material possibly pertinent to News & Views, write to 1613 Chelsea Road, #266, San Marino, CA 91108; fax to (626) 289-7949; or send e-mail to tepernews@aol.com.

You can contact Ruth Silverman, fitness reporter and Pump & Circumstance scribe, in care of IRONMAN, 1701 Ives Ave., Oxnard, CA 93033; or via e-mail at ironwman@aol.com.

You can contact Jerry Fredrick, ace photographer for Hot Shots and Hardcore Training, in care of IRONMAN, 1701 Ives Ave., Oxnard, CA 93033; or via e-mail at jerryfredrick@aol.com.

An A for

Athens

Weightlifting at the Summer Olympics Gets Stellar Marks

Report and photography by Randall J. Strossen, Ph.D. Free download from imbodybuilding.com

An A for Athens “Can’t do it…late…terrorists…gridlock.…” If you’d listened to the critics, you’d have thought the sky was going to fall in on Athens just about the time the Olympic Games were to begin. With so many people skittish about what might or might not happen, you just had to go for it: Why not arrive in Athens on Friday the 13th and go to the opening ceremony, and if you’re still in one piece at that point, settle back and enjoy some over-the-top weightlifting? The opening ceremony was jammed, and since tickets were going for about $1,000 apiece, you can believe everyone who attended really wanted to be there. And what a show it was—tremendous pageantry choreographing pieces of ancient Greek history with modern themes. The whole thing was capped off with gallant speeches and the parade of nations, which left even the well traveled wondering just where some of those countries really were, making their participation in the Olympics even more meaningful. And, of course, there was the signature moment when the Olympic flame was lit. The world had come to Athens to see the essence of athletic competition—faster, higher, stronger. And the province of strength is weightlifting. That’s all it’s called in the Olympics, even if in the United States most people refer to “Olympic lifting” or “Olympic-style weightlifting.” Whatever you call it, the sport involves two lifts: the snatch and the clean and jerk. At left: Taner Sagir (Turkey), on the way back up with a 172.5-kilogram snatch (about 380 pounds), was absolutely riveting in his intensity. The teenager left Athens with a pile of records, not to mention an Olympic gold medal.

The snatch isn’t everyone’s cup of tea because along with strength, it requires balance, coordination, flexibility and speed. Here’s how you do a snatch: Pull the barbell off the ground to about chest height and then race to squat under it while catching it overhead on outstretched arms. Try that with a broomstick or an empty bar and then consider that in the Olympics, the top men who weigh about 200 pounds, will snatch more than 400 pounds. Even the women in the lightest bodyweight class, 48 kilograms (about 106 pounds) snatch more than 200 pounds. The clean and jerk is a two-part lift: First you pull the bar to about waist height, then race to squat under it so you can catch it across your chest—in a front squat position—before standing up. That’s the clean. Next comes the jerk: You dip a few inches and then drive the bar up so you can split or squat under it to catch the bar overhead on outstretched arms. The clean and jerk is called the king of the lifts, and a lot of experts would say that if you want to see how strong someone really is, look at what he or she can lift from the ground to arm’s length overhead, which is what the clean and jerk is all about. Here’s some more quick background on the sport of weightlifting: Everything is measured in kilos, not pounds, but the conversions are included here in case you’re not kilo conversant. The women have seven bodyweight categories, starting at 48 kilograms and going up to 75 kilograms (165 pounds) or more. The men have eight bodyweight classes, ranging from 52 kilograms (114 pounds) to the superheavyweights, who weigh at least 105 kilograms (about 231 pounds). Each lifter gets three attempts in the snatch and three attempts in the clean and jerk. Add the lifter’s best snatch to his or her best clean and jerk to get a total, and that’s how Olympic medals are decided. In case of a tie, the medal goes to the lighter lifter. Just as dynamite comes in small packages, the lightest lifters in both the men’s and women’s categories provided plenty of excitement in Athens. Ladies first: Weighing in at 47.21 kilograms (about 104 pounds), Nurcan Taylan of Turkey got well on her way to her gold-medal performance when she Halil Mutlu (Turkey) earned snatched 95 his third Olympic gold kilograms medal. This shot caught (about 209 the top of his pull on pounds) on his third snatch attempt her second (140 kilograms, or attempt—it about 308 pounds). was the first time a woman had ever snatched double bodyweight, a staggering feat. (Many people feel you can’t really call yourself a weightlifter, as opposed to someone who lifts weights, until you can snatch at least bodyweight. Once you try to do it, you’ll www.ironmanmagazine.com \ JANUARY 2005 207

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An A for Athens

Weightlifting at the Summer Olympics

George Asanidze (Georgia) has lost a lot of lifts because of his right arm, but not this one: The 205kilogram clean and jerk (about 451 pounds) proved to be the gold medal lift.

see why it’s a watershed weight.) But wait: she came back to hit 97.5 kilograms (about 215 pounds) on her third attempt. Not content to let his diminutive countrywoman be the only Turk to enjoy the spotlight, Halil Mutlu opened the men’s competition by bringing home his third consecutive Olympic gold medal, a performance level that puts Mutlu in the highest echelon of weightlifters, even if he is barely 4 1/2 feet tall. Mutlu buried any threat posed by Wu Meijin of China when he snatched 135 kilograms (about 297 pounds) on his second attempt and went on to take an unsuccessful shot at 140 kilograms (about 308 pounds) on his third attempt. Wu packs a huge clean and jerk, but when he finished the snatches with 130 kilograms (about 286 pounds), Mutlu would have had to take a major stumble in the clean and jerk to finish in less than gold-medal position. Mutlu opened with a 160-kilogram (about 352 pounds) clean and jerk, which put him in the lead. Wu,

who’d opened with a category. A lot of guys this size good 157.5 kilowould consider themselves strong if grams (about 347 they could do an honest squat with pounds), took 165 what these lifters snatch or deadlift kilograms (about what they clean and jerk. 363 pounds) on his There were some great efforts, big second attempt, lifts, close battles and other hightrying to go ahead of lights in this category, but the whole Mutlu on bodystory boiled down to the one man weight. He racked still standing at the end: a Turkish the bar but couldn’t teenager named Taner Sagir, who stand up with it. looks like just an athletic guy in Mutlu missed the street clothes. When he got on a jerk with the same lifting platform, though, he turned weight on his secinto a werewolf—spotting the juguond attempt, and lar, going for it and roaring his satisnow things were faction with a job well done when really interesting he demolished one huge weight because Wu, who after another: snatching 165, 170 had seemed out of and 172.5 kilograms (about 363, 374 the gold-medal race, and 380 pounds, respectively) withwas again in the out a hitch. Can he clean and jerk thick of things. Wu too? How about 200 kilograms repeated with the (about 440 pounds) on his opener, same weight on his 202.5 kilograms (about 446 pounds) third attempt and on his second attempt and no need fought his way up, to do anything but sit back at that but he missed the point because, besides the Olympic jerk. gold medal, he had set five junior At that point world records and four Olympic Mutlu had the gold records and was merely one kilo medal, but rather below the senior world record in the than rest on his snatch and 2 1/2 kilos below the laurels, he called for 168.5 senior world record in the clean and kilograms (about 371 pounds) in a jerk. world-record bid. He got under the At the 1992 Olympics a weightbar but couldn’t stand up. No matlifter from Albania won a gold ter, though, because this guy is pure gold in weightlifting and is treated as such in his country. Fast forward now to the men’s 77kilogram class (about 170 pounds), traditionally one of the most competitive classes in weightlifting. These guys might not be With the bar huge, but the momentarily weights they lift are: suspended in You have to be able space, Pyrros to snatch at least Dimas (Greece) 170 kilograms races to pull (about 374 pounds) himself under it on and clean and jerk his final attempt more than 200 in the clean and kilograms (about jerk (207.5 kilo440 pounds) to be grams, or about world class in the 457 pounds).

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medal, on bodyweight, for his newly adopted country, Greece. Most of us who frequent the top international weightlifting contests had never heard of him, but that victory ended the anonymity of Pyrros Dimas, who has gone on to become a superstar of magnificent proportions in Greece. Dimas won his second Olympic gold medal in Atlanta and a third in Sydney. Each was an astounding, peerless performance, in perfect harmony with a mind-set so positive and strong that he seemed to generate a force field around him and could make other lifters wilt by his mere presence. Dimas was going for the impossible, a fourth Olympic gold medal, and many were hoping for that storybook ending. He snatched 170 kilograms (about 374 pounds) on his opening attempt, and all could see that it was a limit lift, without an added eyelash to spare. Dimas took 175 kilograms (about 385 pounds) on his second attempt, and we knew

he couldn’t possibly lift it. We were right. Then, on his third attempt, he proved us wrong, Gold medalist somehow making Nurcan Taylan a weight five kilo(Turkey) became grams (about 11 the first woman pounds) over what in history to we had seen as his snatch double absolute limit. bodyweight when Miracles are she hit this 95possible, and kilogram snatch another miracle (about 209 was unfolding in pounds). this class as George Asanidze (Republic of Georgia) snatched 172.5 kilograms (about 380 pounds) and 177.5 kilograms (about 391 pounds) beboy, and it’s never fully straightened fore missing 180 kilograms (about out. When you watch him lift, it’s 396 pounds) on his third attempt. apparent what a handicap that is: Asanidze broke his right arm as a

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Weightlifting at the Summer Olympics

ing into the competition), the weight and held it overhead with was holding on to the silverthe joy of a young child entertaining medal position, which is himself and his family by holding a where he ended up, a notch favorite toy aloft. above Dimas’ bronze. What a magnificent job the Athens The medal ceremony for Organizing Committee did, producthis class was something for ing a shining success where many the ages. Pyrros Dimas rehad predicted disaster—a fabulous ceived a send-off ovation setting for a weightlifting competisuch as was never before tion so special that if it came around seen in sports—any sport, more than once every four years, Hossein ever. The deafening applause we’d be reduced to complete numbRezazadeh (Iran) nailed this 210went on and on and on, as ness. See you in Beijing in 2008. kilogram snatch their hero was thanked and Editor’s note: Randall J. (about 462 saluted by the Greek fans Strossen, Ph.D., is the founder and pounds), his who’d packed themselves president of IronMind Enterprises second Olympic into the weightlifting hall. Inc., a name synonymous with gold medal and They cheered, it seemed, strength around the world. Strossen the right to call eternally. is the author of the books Super himself the Fast forward again to the Squats: How to Gain 30 Pounds of strongest man men’s superheavyweight Muscle in 6 Weeks, Paul Anderson: in the world. class, where the kings of the The Mightiest Minister, and Ironjungle roam. Traditionally, Mind: Stronger Minds, Stronger Bodthe man who wins the 100ies, as well as the co-author (along meter dash in the Olympics is with Joe Kinney and Nathan Holle) considered the world’s fastest of Captains of Crush Grippers: What human, and the man who They Are and How to Close Them, wins the superheavyweight and he is the publisher of the quargold medal in weightlifting is terly publication MILO: A Journal for considered the world’s Serious Strength Athletes. If you are strongest human. interested in strength or want to get Hossein Rezazadeh of Iran stronger, visit the IronMind Web site dominates this class, and, in at www.ironmind.com, or call (530) a situation reminiscent of 265-6725 for a free catalog of the Paul Anderson’s arrival at the leading products for serious strength The bar always appears to be tilting 1956 Olympics, awarding the gold athletes. IM precariously downward and to his medal seemed to be a mere right, and his ability to support huge formality: Rezazadeh, the weights overhead typically comes 2000 Olympic champion, down to whether his right arm buckholds all three world les under the strain. records in this class. In the clean and jerk, Dimas and Not disappointing anyAsanidze both made 202.5 kilograms one, Rezazadeh walked (about 446 pounds) on their openthrough his snatches— ers, and then while Dimas pulled hitting 200, 207.5 and 210 only 205 kilograms (about 451 kilograms (about 440, 457 pounds) on his second attempt, and 462 pounds, respectiveAsanidze made a good lift with the ly)—before opening with weight that would end up giving him 250 kilograms (about 550 the gold medal. Dimas took 207.5 pounds) in the clean and kilograms (about 457 pounds) on his jerk. With the gold medal Just how third attempt, going for the gold, but won and everyone else close was Wu missed the jerk and then quietly done, Rezazadeh called for Meijin (China) took off his shoes and put them by 263.5 kilograms (about 580 to making his the side of the platform, signifying pounds) on his second 165-kilogram his retirement. The crowd went attempt, to break his own (about 363 absolutely nuts, in a prelude to what world record, but he had to pounds) jerk? happened during the medal ceremo- dump the bar off his shoulThis close. ny. ders as he stood up with it. Throughout these battles, Andrei It looked light but was out Rybakou (Belarus), who had lifted of position. Coming back to earlier in the day in the B session (for the same weight on his third the lifters who had lower totals comattempt, Rezazadeh nailed 210 JANUARY 2005 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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Heavy Mike MentzerÕs

Heavy Duty Seminar, Part 3 ere are more excerpts from Mike MentzerÕs electrifying Canadian seminar, given in November 1981, a year after the infamous Õ80 Mr. Olympia contest in Sydney, Australia. Mike Mentzer: [Writes on chalkboard] We talked about calories; a lot of bodybuilders are preoccupied with protein. ÒHow much extra protein will we need to grow 10 pounds of muscle per year?Ó Earlier, we said we needed approximately 16 extra calories a day to grow 10 pounds of muscle a year. And that muscle tissue is composed of approximately 25 percent proteinÑ actually 22 percent, but for the sake of argument letÕs

say 25 percent. So out of those 16 calories, about four should be protein. Now, it just so happens that one gram of protein contains four calories. So to grow 10 pounds of muscle a year, we need to consume one gram of protein beyond maintenance need every day. And yet how many of us eat hundreds and hundreds of grams of protein a day, thinking we need all that protein to grow muscle at a faster rate? WeÕve been so brainwashed into believing it. I know a man, a reasonably intelligent man, who, if he doesnÕt have his hourly protein drink, believes his bench press will go down 50 pounds. And it doesÑbecause he believes it. ItÕs the placebo effectÑ the power of suggestion. Or the power of deception.

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Neveux \ Model: Markus Reinhardt

¥ by John Little ¥

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HEAVY DUTY Ð Part 3

Balik

Mike considered himself a student of bodybuilding science.

Audience member: Aren’t certain foods more growth-promoting than others? Mike Mentzer: No. They’re all broken down into the same essential elements: amino acids, glucose, fatty acids, etc. It doesn’t matter. In order to be used by the human body, they’re all broken down into exactly the same thing. Audience member: I recently bought a box of unflavored gelatin, and it said it was 85 percent protein. Would that be a viable source of protein? Mike Mentzer: I think that gelatin is considered an incomplete protein, in that it doesn’t contain all eight essential amino acids. If you’re eating a normal diet otherwise, you could probably get the rest of the amino acids to complement those and make it a complete protein, But I wouldn’t eat just gelatin for protein. Audience member: What’s your own maintenance level? What happens when you do your highintensity-workout thing—how much more do you have to take in? Mike Mentzer: Well, high-intensity training—or any kind of weight training—actually doesn’t burn that many calories. And the calories that it does burn are sugar calories. The worst way to train for definition—which is a misnomer in itself—is to lift weights because weight training has to use sugar as fuel. It doesn’t matter how you train—Mike Mentzer’s way or

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s way or Larry Scott’s way or Robert Kennedy’s way. Any kind of weight training is considered a high-intensity activity, and all high-intensity activities depend entirely on glucose as fuel. I think weight training is fueled 90 percent by glucose, whereas aerobic activities use up to 90 percent fat as fuel. So, if you’re trying to lose weight—or lose fat to get cut up—weight training is the worst way to do it. If you’re looking to get cut up, use high-intensity weight training— very brief periods of weight training—to maintain your muscle mass and spend as much of the rest of the time as you have doing aerobic activities to burn fat. That’s not an opinion; it’s a fact. It could be backed up by any exercise physiologist, medical doctor, Mike Mentzer. Audience member: Do you

include aerobic activity when you’re training for mass? Mike Mentzer: No. I use aerobics occasionally, just to maintain cardiovascular fitness. But before a contest I use a lot of aerobics. Audience member: Do you find you get a cardiovascular effect from your high-intensity training? Mike Mentzer: Not really. When you’re doing high-intensity training, you’re training specifically for muscular mass. You can train specifically for muscular mass or train specifically for cardiovascular increases—this is where the phrase “specificity of training” comes in. If you want to train specifically for cardiovascular fitness, then you’ve got to do highly repetitive, low-intensity exercise. High-intensity training does not build the kind of cardiovascular fitness that low-intensity training does. You’ve got to train with low intensity, doing highly repetitive activities like jogging, bicycling and so forth. So, when you do high-intensity training, you develop a certain amount—as opposed to not doing any kind of activity—but it’s not on the order of real aerobic training. You can divide specificity and train a little bit for building size and mass and a little bit for cardiovascular, but you won’t improve as rapidly as if you trained specifically for one or the other. In other words, you have a certain amount of adaptive ability. You can put it 100 percent toward developing mass or 100 percent toward developing cardiovascular fitness, or you can divide it in half, but you won’t improve as rapidly in either area by doing it

“All highintensity activities depend entirely on glucose as fuel. Weight training is fueled 90 percent by glucose.”

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HEAVY DUTY Ð Part 3

that way. If you want to develop If, in fact, your daily maintenance muscles as fast as you can, then need of calories is 3,000, then 60 train specifically for size and mass; percent, or 1,800, should be carboif you want to develop cardiovascuhydrate. That’s quite a bit of carbolar fitness as fast as you can, train hydrate. specifically for that. You will find those quacks and Okay, what’s the best way to eat faddists who say eat the majority of to build muscular mass? Or to build your calories from protein. In most a large, muscular body? Simply eat instances those people also sell a well-balanced diet. Actually, the protein. They have a vested interest most important aspect of eating a in distorting nutritional reality. well-balanced diet is that it mainCarbohydrates, next to water, are tains health. This is something by far the most important nutrimost of us learned in, I don’t know, tional element anybody—not just a eighth-grade biology or 12th-grade bodybuilder, but anybody—can health. And it’s something we often consume. The most important reaforget—that the first requisite for son being: Our nervous systems, building a strong, healthy body is our brains, our spinal chords, maintaining health—and our peripheral the best way to mainnerves derive tain health is to eat a 99.9 percent of well-balanced diet. their nutriAccording to tion from the United States the one Senate Subcomthing we’ve mittee on Nutribeen taught tion and all of is the worst your reputable thing we could nutritional scieneat—sugar, [or] glutists and physical cose. It’s the most imporeducators, a welltant thing you could balanced diet is one eat—pure, simple sugar. that is composed of 60 perYour brain derives almost The brain cent carbohydrates, 25 per100 percent of its nutrition cent protein and 15 percent derives most from sugar. How many in fats. That means that if your of its energy to here have been on a lowfunction daily maintenance need of carbohydrate diet before? calories is 3,000, 60 percent efficiently from What’s one of the first of them should be from the glucose in things you notice on a lowcarbohydrates, 25 percent carb diet? carbs. protein and 15 percent fats. Audience member:

Weak. Audience member: Tired. Audience member: Tense. Audience member: Edgy. Mike Mentzer: Edgy. What else? Audience member: Can’t seem to think right. Mike Mentzer: Can’t seem to think right. Short-term memory is impaired; concentration is impaired; you start dreaming about chocolate instead of sex [audience laughs]. It’s the first requisite; you can’t have sex without carbohydrate—think about it that way! [Audience laughs] What are these signals? These signals are your nervous system sending out for the one thing it needs most—sugar. If you’ve ever been around a bodybuilder who has been on a low-carb diet for four to six weeks, you’ll see that it also impairs personality. Your personality’s a function of your nervous system, and if your nervous system is not getting the fuel it needs from carbohydrates, your personality’s going to become deranged—and I mean deranged. I’ve seen bodybuilders do weird things. And I often wonder if the weird things that bodybuilders do aren’t the result of being on low-carbohydrate diets for too long. Anybody who’s been in and around bodybuilding for a long time, behind the scenes, knows a lot of bodybuilders are crazy. They do strange things—and I think it’s because of the low-carbohydrate diet; it affects your thinking processes, it affects your personality. Low blood sugar will definitely cause an erratic personality. I mean, it’s in all of the medical journals. Audience member: What about simple and complex carbohydrates? Mike Mentzer: There is no such thing. A carbohydrate is a carbohydrate. There’s “simple” and “complex” foods or “refined” and “unrefined.” By the time it gets into your bloodstream, the carbohydrate has to be in the form of glucose. It makes no difference at all whether it’s from a candy bar, an apple, a baked potato—it has to be in the form of glucose for your brain to use it. What’s “refined” or “unrefined” is the food it’s contained in; the carbo-

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HEAVY DUTY Ð Part 3

hydrate is the same. But I know what you’re talking about; it’s not good to eat too many refined, or simple, sugars, because they get into your bloodstream too fast and cause all kinds of problems. Get your carbohydrates from as many natural sources as possible, but, if you have a hankering to eat an occasional candy bar, don’t think the world’s going to stop revolving. It’s not going to hurt you. The reason nutritional experts

advocate that you get your carbohydrates from fruits and vegetables is because those things also lend themselves to a well-balanced diet; they contain vitamins and minerals and other things that are found in a well-balanced diet. And that’s another good point— how do you get a well-balanced diet? Very simple: If there’s one issue in bodybuilding that’s been confused, it’s this whole thing about nutrition. Nutrition is really

Excessive cardio will deplete your ability to build muscle. so simple; a simple, well-balanced diet is really nothing but the four basic food groups. This may seem simplistic, but it’s the truth of the matter. Fruits and vegetables, cereals and grains, dairy products and meat—if you get two portions every day of each one of them, you will be getting a well-balanced diet. Even simpler, I often say, “Eat a little bit of everything but not too much of anything,” and you’ll be getting a well-balanced diet. Bodybuilding is really very simple: Eat an adequate, well-balanced diet, train as hard as you can—and pray occasionally—and you will, perhaps some day, be a Mr. Olympia—if you kiss the right ass [audience laughs]. Editor’s note: For a complete presentation of Mike Mentzer’s Heavy Duty training system, consult his books Heavy Duty II and High Intensity Training the Mike Mentzer Way, available through the ad on page 217 of this issue, from Home Gym Warehouse, (800) 4470008, or by visiting Mentzer’s official Web site, www.mikementzer.com. John Little is available for phone consultation on Mike Mentzer’s Heavy Duty training system. For rates and information, contact Joanne Sharkey at (310) 316-4519 or at www.mikementzer.com, or see the ad listed above. Article copyright © 2004, John Little. All rights reserved. Mike Mentzer quotations that appear in this series provided courtesy of Joanne Sharkey, © 2004 and used with permission. IM

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IRONMIND

Mind Self-Canceling Combinations “I want to get huge, shredded, strong—I want it all.” It’s a familiar refrain, and it would seem that with a little creativity and a lot of effort it’s possible to pull it off. As you know, however, appearances can be deceiving. As much as you might like to believe you can have everything, you can’t. In fact, the best way to get nowhere is to try to get everywhere at once. It’s easy to see how you can be led down the path to the everywhere/nowhere syndrome: Every day images of everything from pro bodybuilding victories to Olympic gold medals are around to tantalize you. One moment you may be captivated by someone’s winning the World’s Strongest Man competition, and the next you may be thinking triathlons.

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Left, right, up, down: Add them all up and you land just where you started. That’s the problem with trying to combine too many things or, more important, things that work in opposition to each other. It’s those self-canceling combinations that can really block your progress. Let’s oversimplify things just to illustrate a point. To get bigger, you need to take in more calories than you burn; to get leaner, you need to take in fewer calories than you burn. Thus, when you simultaneously want to get bigger and leaner, you should eat more calories than you need and eat fewer calories than you need. That’s a classic self-canceling combination—whatever you do in one direction is offset by what you do in the opposite direction. It certainly is possible to simultaneously increase muscle mass and decrease fat, but the fact is that some goals are easier to combine than others, and some goals are mutually exclusive. It’s the mutually exclusive goals that you need to learn to manage, not just for your physical progress but also for your peace of mind. At the heart of these conflicting goals is the unwillingness to make choices—after all, if a game-show host lets you choose only one of three possible doors, your decision automatically requires you to give up the other two. In real life, with nobody enforcing rules like that, you want to try to open all three doors—at once, no less. Part of the problem is just knowing, or not knowing, what you want most. You can argue that one of the best ways to figure out the answer to that question is to give things a try, to see how they work for you. The first thing to realize is that no choice is going to be perfect, and as long as whatever you choose isn’t lethal, you can probably correct your course if you want to. Most people stumble in the first part of the process because it’s too easy to get fooled when we consider things like potential goals. Research psychologists talk about “focusing illusion” when people make judgments. You may focus on something that’s actually inconsequential, or you may exaggerate how much

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Body title. Sometimes you can come pretty close to having it all, but something will change your life. For example, you may think only if you pay attention to the timing: Bruce Randall ended up that if you can add five inches of muscle to your upper arm, going to some very different places, making his mark in each, your whole life will change for the better, but what you may but he did so in a very organized manner, taking the journey find is that having a bigger upper arm means just that: Your one step at a time. arm is several inches bigger than it used to be. You don’t get In a world that has a lot of compelling choices, sometimes smarter, better looking, more merciful or anything else that’s it’s hard to pick one while giving up another. The way out, you good in the process—your arm just gets bigger. You can think, is to mix a little of this with a little of that—a reasonable imagine the cold showers awaiting all the commercially ambiapproach, as long as you avoid self-canceling combinations. tious Olympic gold medalists who don’t end up on a Wheaties —Randall Strossen, Ph.D. box or with a Coke contract. The point is not to denigrate your goal but to make picking Editor’s note: Randall Strossen, Ph.D., edits the quarterly your goal easier and help you realize that nothing is perfect. magazine MILO. He’s also the author of IronMind: Stronger Whatever you give up isn’t likely to be the be-all and end-all Minds, Stronger Bodies; Super Squats: How to Gain 30 any more than whatever you choose is. Once you realize that, Pounds of Muscle in 6 Weeks and Paul Anderson: The Mightiyou can lighten up on yourself a little and use the breathing est Minister. For more information call IronMind Enterprises room to pick one goal or maybe a couple that go together. Inc. at (530) 265-6725 or Home Gym Warehouse at (800) 447You may decide to train for size and strength, but simultane0008, ext. 1. Visit the IronMind Web site at www ously trying to gain weight and run a faster marathon won’t .ironmind.com. work. The next part of avoiding self-canceling combinations is to understand that timing really is everything. The example of trying to eat more and less at the same time may sound idiotic, but a surprising number of people actually try to do it. You can, in fact, productively eat more and less, but it’s a matter of timing. ccording to the June 17, 2002, issue of Back in the 1950s a young stalwart named Newsweek, an owner of a berry farm in Bruce Randall decided that he wanted to Oregon remarked, “We almost never sold become the strongest man in the world. [black raspberries] to consumers. We used to sell the bulk of them to processors to make purple Bruce started off weighing about 200 pounds, dye—the same dye used to stamp meat ‘USDA and in the course of his run to the top his Approved.’” Then a biologist from Ohio State bodyweight went past 400. As you might University published a study showing a 60 to 80 guess, Bruce ate a lot of food along the way, percent reduction in colon tumors in rats fed high and he used the same progressive techniques amounts of black raspberries. Suddenly, the berry at the table that most people reserve for the farmer in Oregon was “barely able to keep up with gym: Day by day he consciously ate an extra the demand on his Web site.” The article went on chop, drank an extra glass of milk and so to state that “various kinds of berries may help prevent everything from forth. By following that program, Bruce gained cancer and heart disease to age-related brain decline.” more than 200 pounds and got very strong in More recently Prevention magazine (January 2004) stated that “bluethe process. After a while he decided that berries contain an antioxidant that may help you beat a genetic disposibeing so huge wasn’t going to be a way of life tion to Alzheimer’s disease, a new study from Tufts University has for him. He changed everything around, profound.” Since there’s no cure for Alzheimer’s at this point, the possibility gressively reducing the amount of food he ate, of using diet to overcome a genetic predisposition to the disease is and 32 weeks later found himself weighing major news. —Daniel Curtis, R.D. 183 pounds. Later, Bruce went back up to about 225 pounds and won the Mr. Universe

Berry Good Brain Booster

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Bomber Blast

MIND/BODY

Breaking the Mold h, no, Mister Dave. I don’t want to go to the gym and get ripped, bombed and blasted. Oh, no, not another rep! Not every workout has to be a knock-down-dragout battle. I’m all for blasting it and drawing blood, but sometimes it’s just plain good to go to the gym and roll around on your back like a playful dog.

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On those curious days when the old mutt in me comes yapping to the foreground, all paws and unrestrained, either because I’m way ahead of the game and cool or so far behind it’s inconsequential, I let myself go and follow my tail. The results are always the same: a good time accompanied by relief, learning and growth. Oddly, the workouts develop and are as intense and unrelenting as the prescribed regimens; that I don’t anticipate them, that they are spontaneous—the real deal and not a repeat performance—gives the execution of the movements freshness and the training a sense of adventure. How long has it been since you associated freshness and adventure with your workouts? I’m a proponent of sticking with a workout scheme for six weeks to achieve the maximum results it can offer. Too little time with one plan and you don’t dig in deeply enough to excavate its densest core. You don’t overload the muscles repetitively enough with might and discovery to send the message to the brain that you need a more powerful cellular structure, more pulsing muscle to accommodate the consistently applied workload. Still, a tail-wagging diversion is often what’s necessary to put some bark in the routine and bite in the workouts. Sit, stay, roll over, get huge...good doggie. Some people talk about regularly surprising the muscles

All of your workouts don’t have to be knock-down-drag-out affairs

with new routines. Cute. What’s this, a party for frolicking muscles at the Pizza Hut? I believe you’ve got to relentlessly pound size, density and shape into your muscular system, throwing in well-placed intermittent shocks to detonate stubborn mass. That’s when muscle and might reconstruct. There are those who suggest intense, slow repetitions for maximum muscle growth, a technique bordering on isometrics and dynamic tension with a twist of language suggesting it’s a cutting-edge fundamental. Iron imprisonment. Where has the motion, rhythm and beat gone—the action, the excitement, the vital circulation of blood, oxygen and nutrients, the revelry and enthusiastic expression? Put me under an Olympic bar for 10 minutes while I do six reps—whatever—and I’ll implode. Do it on a regular basis, and any aspiring muscle builder will last three miserable days to three tortured weeks. “Short workouts of 45 minutes, three times a week, are the outer limits for maximum muscle and strength growth.” That theory’s getting a lot of play from some wise guys who fear the demons of catabolism and don’t really understand why anybody would want to go to the gym to get huge or ripped or strong and healthy. In 45 minutes a decent natural bodybuilder sporting respectable muscle mass is just getting warmed up and encouraged. You want time to fly? Throw the clock out the window. Zoom! You want to grow? Take time to do some serious saturating and penetrating and exploding. Boom! One workout a week per bodypart for beginning and advanced bodybuilders is a recent rule put forth by the big guys who hang out on the corner near the Rexall drugstore. It makes sense as long as you’re intertwining and blending and overlapping exercises in such a brilliant way that every bodypart is receiving its necessary twice-weekly blessing and bombing after all. Don’t be stingy. Don’t be cowardly. Don’t be lazy. Don’t be dumb. Be generous, and be wise. Be directed and committed. Use your common sense and train hard and efficiently, with good order, crisp pace, absolute focus, keen intelligence and zeal. Stop listening to the noisy voices out there that confuse you with the latest ingredient, product, gadget, methodology, scheme, scam or holistic adventure. Look in the mirror and be that person you see, your best friend. Give him or her credit for internal knowledge and understanding. Learn the basics in exercise and nutrition and practice and apply them eagerly and with confidence. Now you’re on your way, not their way. You’ll discover and grow day by day under your own tutoring, care and attention. The gym is a refuge and fueling station full of good folks who just love to physically mingle and stimulate and break up their day. It’s a place to coax the muscles and fill the lungs and bloodstream with oxygen and goodness. Exercise is not work; it’s a hearty, productive and freeing diversion, a onehour expression refreshing the spirit, renewing the body and inspiring the mind. The moments are yours, adored and priceless. Push that iron, champion. —Dave Draper

Web alert: For more from Dave Draper, visit www.davedraper.com and sign up for his free newsletter. You can also check out his amazing Top Squat training tool, classic photos, workout Q&A and forum.

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New Stuff

your Hemogex by VPX Jack GH emogex elevates the body’s human growth hormone (hGH) and IGF-1 blood levels the way pharmaceutical recombinant growth hormone (rGH) does. The VPX proprietary polylipid-delivery breakthrough delivers D-Ala-D-Beta-Nal-Ala-Trp-DPhe-Lys-OCH3 (Z11) into the bloodstream completely intact, bypassing the destructive effects of liver metabolism. Hemogex then heads straight to the anterior pituitary to induce the production of massive amounts of growth hormone, which is converted into potent muscle-building levels of IGF-1.

Unlike companies that try to pass their product off as legitimate by feebly illustrating the benefits of growth hormone, VPX supports Hemogex with thousands of dollars of independent clinical blood work on human subjects, which conclusively illustrates significant and consistent increases in hGH and IGF-1. VPX is the only manufacturer of a legal growthhormone product, Hemogex, which can provide backed-by-blood results. Hemogex: no doctor prescriptions, no needles, only backed-by-blood results. For more information visit www.VPXSports.com. —the Editors

Mental Might

Childish Behavior

Can make you happier and healthier

n article at the Ladies’ Home Journal Web site, “The Simple Secret to Happiness,” by Susan Korones Gifford, contains some excellent, eyeopening advice on getting happier—and healthier. One key is reliving your childhood experiences. That works so well because it’s nostalgia for a time that was free of responsibility and full of discovery. According to Edward Hallowell, M.D., a psychiatrist in Sudbury, Massachusetts, and author of The Childhood Roots of Adult Happiness (Ballantine, 2003), “Childhood was a time of firsts. Think back: You might remember the first time you jumped off the high board at the pool; the sleepy summer afternoons you spent mastering the art of gliding on your bike without touching the handlebars; or the days at the ocean when your mother, as mine did, held you in her arms as the incoming waves jostled you up and down.” Reliving those experiences and behaving “childishly” is not only invigorating, but it also reminds you how little you need to be happy. “Someone once said happiness is not having what you want, it’s wanting what you have,” Dr. Hallowell says. “Kids are good at this. They can show us that all you need is to be alive to find all kinds of excitement.” Oh, and happiness can lead to healthfulness. A Duke University Medical Center study found, after following heart patients for 11 years, that those who had reported happiness, optimism and joy were 20 percent more likely to be alive than those who had frequently reported more negative feelings. So, certainly, reintegrating joy into your life can be good for your health. All of that may explain why my father-in-law looks so young at age 71—he has a ball with my kids and his 21st-century whoopee cushion, a remote-control fart machine. —Becky Holman

Neveux \ Model: Skip La Cour

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Jacked Up

Preworkout Stretch

MIND/BODY

The energizer

tretches are the best way to warm up your muscle/tendon and joint/ligament structures and invigorate your body. As you do the following exercises, concentrate on stretching with slow, relaxed breathing. Never bounce—that defeats your purpose. Focus on working against the resistance of your bodyweight. Hamstring stretches. You’ll feel this stretch in the back of your leg as well as in your lower back. Place one foot on a chair at hip level. Then raise your arms overhead and bend to your toes. Do 10 reps for each leg—deliberately! Bent-leg raises. On a bench or on the floor, lie down with your head slightly raised. With knees bent, lift your legs as high as you can, pulling them to your chest. You’ll feel a nice release of lower back tension. Do three sets of 15 reps. Lying side leg raises. This stretch will loosen tension in your groin and hip area. Lie on one side, supporting your weight with one elbow. Bend the lower leg for balance and then lift your upper leg as straight and high as you can. Lower it slowly without touching the floor. Do three sets of repetitions for each side. Arm and chest stretch. Extend your arms a door-width length apart, with your hands against the sides of a doorway at shoulder height. Walk back a few feet, and then bend your arms and feel your bodyweight drop forward toward the doorway with your feet still secure. You’ll feel a stretch in your chest. Push your weight back to the starting position, hold, take a few deep breaths, and repeat for three sets of 10 reps. Now you’re ready to handle all that big old weight! —Jack LaLanne

Editor’s note: As of September 2004 Jack LaLanne had lived 90 years, 75 of them steeped in innovative physical training. He was runner-up in the ’54 Mr. America contest and created the longest-running fitness show in television history. He’s also famous for performing shackled and handcuffed swimming feats to celebrate key birthdays. Jack still works out two hours a day. For more information, check out his Web site, www.jacklalanne.com. 226 JANUARY 2005 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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Mass Media

MIND/BODY

Kickinger: The Oak’s on Him Frank Zane acts as adviser on “See Arnold Run” TV movie tion office ast Novemcalled me ber, Cypress and left a Point Promessage ductions asked that the me to be a conalgebra sultant for the scene was A&E movie “See wrapping. Arnold Run.” It’s I’d wanted about Arnold’s to be there campaign for at the Pacifgovernor and his ic Beach bodybuilding weight pen, career in the mid but no one ’70s. I met with had called. I the writer-proFrank Zane and Arnold, er was on the ducer, Matt Dorf, um, Roland Kickinger. set the next and wrote out an day, at a algebra lesson I little restaurant that resembles taught Arnold back then. They had Zucky’s in Santa Monica, where, in hired Roland Kickinger to play 1974, Arnold often ate breakfast. It Arnold as both the younger bodywas a scene between Arnold and builder and older politician. The producer wanted me to meet his girlfriend at the time, Barbara. That afternoon I met Nick S. at the with Roland, so he rode to San Gold’s Gym the crew had constructDiego on his motorcycle, and we hit ed in a little building on Voltaire a leg workout. He liked the Leg Blaster so much that he bought one. Street. I gave him a harmonica to We talked about possible casting for practice the song I’d written, “The Present,” which Paramount has other characters—who would play licensed from me for use in the film. I Franco Columbu, me, Dave Draper, Lou Ferrigno. I thought Flavio Bachi- met Chris Cook, who was playing Draper, and hung around the gym anini would make a good Franco while several scenes were shot. and Tom Pia (who was in great The next evening was a beachshape) would be good for my part. bonfire shoot on Dog Beach, a few Both of those guys were close sechundred yards down the road from onds. Instead, casting chose thickly the gym, involving a dozen bodymuscled Mike Ergas for the Franco builders, including “Arnold,” “Franpart and a lean Nick Stellate for my co,” “Frank Zane” and girlfriends. part. Both had acting experience. The movie began shooting in San Arnold announced his plans to become a movie star and a politician Diego on July 26 and lasted five weeks. I recommended either Pacif- and to become wealthy and famous while I played the harmonica. ic Beach or Ocean Beach in San Next month I’ll have more on my Diego for filming. They have old experience with the Arnold movie. charm and resemble Venice Beach Coming up: the ’74 Mr. Olympia in the early ’70s. competition, in which I have a After reading the script, I learned cameo part as an IFBB announcer. that my character is in five scenes: —Frank Zane 1) on Venice Beach teaching Arnold algebra (that helped him pass math Editor’s note: The movie was at Santa Monica City College in the early ’70s); 2) at the ’74 Mr. Olympia set to air in January on the A&E cable network. Check your local contest at Madison Square Garden listings. For information about Frank with Arnold, Franco Columbu and Zane’s goods and services log on to Lou Ferrigno; 3) at a posing exhibiwww.frankzane.com. Check out the tion at the Whitney Museum with Leg Blaster and read the first five Arnold; 4) watching a slide show of Reg Park at Arnold’s apartment; and issues of Frank’s Building the Body quarterly magazine. 5) in a beach bonfire scene. Late one afternoon the producPhoto courtesy of Frank Zane

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Serious Training

MIND/BODY

Laura Coleman Photography by Jerry Fredrick Location: Goldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Gym, Venice, CA

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Serious Stats Weight: 133 Height: 5’7 1/2” Age: 21 Age began training: 13 Bodypart split: Monday: back, chest, calves; Tuesday: abs, cardio; Wednesday: shoulders, arms, calves; Thursday: cardio; Friday: hamstrings, glutes, quads, adductors, abductors, calves, lower back, abs; Saturday: cardio Sample workout (quads): One-leg squats 4 x 20 Leg presses 4 x 20 Leg extensions 4 x 20 Factoid: “I’m a marketing intern and a business student at an all-female Catholic college. I’m also learning how to surf. As a little girl I had an obsession with ‘Baywatch.’”

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Jerry Brainum’s

Bodybuilding Pharmacology

Martin Mesomorph turned on his holoviewer and was immediately face-to-face with President Arnold Schwarzenegger, or at least a lifelike holographic image of the president and erstwhile multi-Mr. Olympia winner. Schwarzenegger was promising the people that he would terminate the foreign interests who had used their hefty oil-based cash flow to buy most of the real estate in the United States. The former oil barons had to do something, since their energy stranglehold on the world had ended with the advent of hydrogen-powered vehicles. Martin himself owned a hydrogen-powered Hummer. While watching the news broadcast of President Schwarzenegger’s speech, Martin looked at a reflection of himself in a mirror across the room. He marveled at his own physique, with his 23-inch arms and 22-inch, welldefined calves. At a height of 6’, Martin carried 325 pounds of solid muscle, with a bodyfat level of a mere 5 percent.

Martin was in the midst of training for the International Galaxy bodybuilding show, the premier professional bodybuilding contest. The Galaxy contest had superseded the old Mr. Olympia event that Arnold had won so long ago. Just a few years earlier Martin had been an average competitor, hardly good enough to compete in a national contest, much less an international professional event. Even though he indulged in the gamut of available anabolic drugs, it seemed he didn’t have the genes to compete with the big boys at the pro level. Then Martin discovered gene doping. The first thing he used was an injected form of the gene for insulinlike growth factor-1 (IGF-1). Although the therapy had been developed solely for use in treating muscle-wasting diseases, such as muscular dystrophy, athletes had jumped at the chance to use gene therapy for athletic enhancement. In fact, the last Olympic games said to be untainted by gene doping was way back in 2004, at the Summer Games in Athens. A short time later gene doping made its way into sports. Martin responded spectacularly to the IGF-1 gene therapy. His bodyweight rose from 240 pounds to more than 300, and the gain was all muscle. He soon added other gene therapies. One was a highly active cleavage product of IGF1 called mechano-growth factor. Although he wasn’t blessed with great calf development, when Martin injected

Gene therapy has the potential to make physiques freakier than ever—but at what cost?

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Illustration by Christian Martinez

Future Shock

the MGF gene into his calves, they grew to massive proportions overnight. Dieting used to be difficult for Martin. Those low-carb plans made him dream about ice cream and pizza orgies. The days of hunger, however, ended with the advent of the new fatburning drugs. One worked by inhibiting the gene for an enzyme called acetyl coenzyme-A carboxylase, which synthesized another chemical called malonyl-coenzyme A. Now Martin burned fat 24 hours a day. He was burning fat as he listened to Arnold once again thank everyone for the grass-roots campaign that had led to the constitutional amendment permitting him to run for president. Martin’s reverie was broken by the sound of his phone ringing. His doctor was calling. “Martin, your tests came back, and I have some bad news for you.” While the above scenario may seem farfetched, most scientists who monitor the athletic-drug world say that gene doping is just around the corner. Drug use in sports has long been a cat-and-mouse game, with many athletes seeking performance-boosting substances that can’t be detected and sports authorities trying to keep pace by developing new tests to find them. The great concerns about gene doping are that there isn’t any known way to detect it and that detection tests won’t be available for the foreseeable future—if ever. Gene doping involves the insertion of artificial genes into muscle cells.1 An inserted gene then produces RNA, which dictates the synthesis of specific proteins by the cell. At present the most familiar technique for manipulating genes involves a protein, myostatin. Discovered in 1997, myostatin inhibits muscle growth. Animals born without genes that code for it usually show unprecedented muscular size, with a concomitant lack of bodyfat. Scientists then tested how myostatin works—in animals— by breeding special “knockout-gene” rats, in which the genes that code for myostatin were knocked out. As expected, the rats showed muscles about two to three times the size of normal rats. The New England Journal of Medicine recently described a five-year-old German boy who was born without myostatin genes. His mother, a track athlete, has only one gene for myostatin, which makes her look exceptionally muscular. But her son is something else. At the tender age of five he already shows signs of unusual muscle mass and strength. In all other ways, however, he appears completely normal. Is he a future Mr. Olympia or some other world-class athlete? To answer that question, consider how myostatin

Q. How does a growling muscle mouse get exercise? A. Any way he wants.

Illustration by Christian Martinez

In one study done with mice the IGF-1 gene therapy worked perfectly, with the treated mice experiencing gains in muscle size that amounted to hypertrophy two to three times normal. Injecting the gene for mechano-growth factor, which is a derived form of IGF-1, made the mice double their muscle size in only three weeks.

works. Special stem cells called satellite cells are normally recruited after muscle injury (including that induced by exercise) and contribute nuclei that result in the thickening of existing muscle cells by adding a buffer to them. We recognize this as added muscle size. The satellite cells are stimulated primarily by locally produced—that is, produced in the muscle itself—insulinlike growth factor 1 (IGF-1). Myostatin works by blocking satellite-cell function, and that inhibits muscle growth. Get rid of the myostatin, and you get rid of the impediment to muscle growth. Some scientists think that the supply of satellite cells is finite. Indeed, one reason for the weakness and loss of muscle that accompanies aging is that the body somehow loses the ability to adequately recruit satellite cells for muscle recovery. One scientist has suggested that since the German child produces no myostatin, he may exhaust all his satellite cells by about age 30. What happens after that is anyone’s guess. Several muscle diseases are the result of birth defects involving the lack of essential muscle proteins, such as dynorphin in some forms of muscular dystrophy, that lead to extensive muscle weakness. To combat it, one form of gene therapy injects an IGF-1 gene directly into muscle. To get into the muscle, the gene must be packaged with a vector, or delivery vehicle—typically an inactive virus, www.ironmanmagazine.com \ JANUARY 2005 233

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Jerry Brainum’s

Illustration by Christian Martinez

Bodybuilding Pharmacology

One advantage of gene therapy involving the IGF-1 gene is that the injected gene stays localized to the muscle. The problem with systemic IGF-1 is that it stimulates all types of cellular growth, including the uncontrolled growth characteristic of cancer. which shunts the IGF-1 gene into the muscle cell. The cell then starts pumping out IGF-1, which in turn promotes the activity of satellite cells. If it all works out, you wind up with bigger and stronger muscles. A study with mice showed that IGF1 gene therapy worked perfectly, with the treated mice experiencing gains in muscle size that amounted to hypertrophy, or growth, two to three times normal. Injecting the gene for mechano-growth factor, which is a derived form of IGF-1, made the mice double their muscle size in only three weeks. Gene therapy uses a magic bullet approach to seek and destroy cancer cells. It may also enable the body to produce substances that are in short supply due to illness or aging. For example, hormones can theoretically

be boosted by gene therapy. People born with defective genes that amount to biological time bombs could perhaps have their defective genes replaced. While it all sounds great and one day will likely change the face of medicine, it is new, and all of its ramifications are unknown. The possible dangers of gene therapy became evident in a case reported in 1998: An 18-year-old patient with a rare type of liver disorder—not life threatening— was offered the chance to serve as a human experiment in gene therapy to treat the condition. The patient readily agreed, but he died from multiple organ failure. Several possible gene therapies appear attractive to athletes, despite the dangers. One involves injected gene-encoded viruses for erythropoi-

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etin. EPO increases the volume of red blood cells, which in turn, increase oxygen delivery to cells. Blood doping was based on increasing the number of red blood cells. It was superseded by using recombinant-DNA drugs based on EPO. Use of the technique was popular with all types of endurance athletes and led to a scandal at the 1998 Tour de France, when an entire team was found to be using EPO-based drugs. Gene therapy for EPO, however, cannot be detected. In a 1997 study mice and monkeys got EPO gene therapy that resulted in an 81 percent increase in the level of hemoglobin, the protein that carries oxygen in the blood. But the animals’ blood got so thick from all those new blood cells that they had to have their blood diluted to prevent heart failure and stroke. One advantage of injecting the IGF-1 gene is that it stays localized to the muscle. The problem with systemic IGF-1 is that it stimulates all types of cellular growth, including cancer. Keeping it sequestered in muscle should prevent that problem, but scientists remain uncertain of the ramifications of injecting what amounts to an IGF-1 production plant in muscle. Another type of gene therapy with potential athletic uses is the gene for vascular endothelial growth factor. That gene is inserted into the body with the same virus that causes the common cold; the activity of the virus is blocked. VEGF works by promoting the growth of new blood vessels, which means increased blood and oxygen delivery to muscles, lungs, liver and other tissues. On the other hand, cancer cells also spread throughout the body by promoting the production of new blood vessels. Will overproducing VEGF promote cancer? Who knows? Two other growth factors linked to increased muscle-satellite-cell activity—fibroblast and hepato—are candidates for gene therapy. Another therapeutic idea is to manipulate genes that lead to muscle catabolism, such as the ones for myostatin and a protein called ubiquitin. Blocking them alone would lead to considerable muscular growth. Deleting the gene for cytosolic phospholipase A-2 also promotes increased muscle growth.2 Make no mistake: Gene therapy is

the wave of the future in sports doping. You’ll know when it’s here by the number of world records that fall and by the appearance of athletes who use the growth-promoting gene therapies, such as those involving IGF-1 genes. The unanswered question is the fate of the athletes who turn themselves into human clinical experiments. Perhaps those contemplating using gene therapy might pause to consider the classic case of

an experiment gone wrong: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Or better yet, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

References 1

Unal, M., et al. (2004). Gene doping in sports. Sports Med. 34:357-62. 2 Haq, S., et al. (2004). Deletion of cytosolic phospholipase A2 promotes striated muscle growth. Nature Medicine. 9:944-51. IM

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Readers Write Keeping It Real

Over 40 and Fabulous

I was recently introduced to IRON MAN by a fellow GNC employee, and, man, was I blown away! I’ve been reading some of the popular [bodybuilding and fitness] magazines for years, and I don’t know how I missed yours. Anyway, my friend gave me a couple of older issues he had saved so I could get caught up. You have a new reader for life. Thanks for all the great stuff and for keeping it real. Tom Gath Sarnia, Ontario, Canada

Photo courtesy of Karen Geninatti

Write Stuff

Karen Geninatti.

I’m a 4’11”, 107-pound 47-year-old national-level competitive bodybuilder and personal trainer. I train clients of all fitness levels and ages in their homes and also at three different gyms. Recently I won the overall women’s bodybuilding title at the ’04 NPC Central USA Bodybuilding and Figure Championships, which was promoted by Adela Garcia-Friedmansky and Brian Friedmansky. I’m hoping you can publish one of my photos so that women in my age range can realize that it’s never too late to take control of your body and lifestyle. Karen Geninatti Carlinville, IL Editor’s note: Karen is one motivating mama—she has two kids: Tyson, 24, and Collin, 16. She’s living proof that weight training is a serious anti-aging tool. If you’d like to contact her, send e-mail to kgeninatti@hotmail.com.

Success and Willpower I must give credit where credit is due, and Gary Schadwill deserves great admiration [Success Story, August ’04]. Thank you, IRON MAN, for giving me the drive and determination by publishing stories like Gary’s. They keep me training intensely and consistently. Joe Walsh Whitehall, NY

Gary Schadwill.

X-cellent Results The October ’04 “Train, Eat, Grow” is simply a quantum leap forward in training—albeit a refinement of what the York gang was up to 40 years ago. But cultural historians are quick to point out that ideas and concepts are perfectly capable of circulating for decades before someone with insight brings them to a conclusion that is a step forward. Darwin comes to mind. A full century of speculation on evolution came to a thundering conclusion with his work in the 1850s. [Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson’s X-Rep] concepts have a maturity of real science forged with experimentation and verifiable results. When I modified my training [to include X Reps], the gains began to flow—almost like magic. And I’m 59 years old! —Ken O’Neill Wimberley, TX Editor’s note: For more on X-Rep training, including photos of Darwin and Einstein, er, um, Jonathan Lawson and Steve Holman, before and after X-Rep training—taken one month apart—visit www.x-rep.com.

Photo courtesy of Gary Schadwill

Editor’s note: Considering that he came back better than ever after a devastating motorcycle accident, we’d have to say Gary put the “will” in Schadwill.

“Progressive Assistance,” John Balik’s Publisher’s Letter in the August ’04 issue, seemed as if it was written to me. I have a small home gym, and often I’d walk out there and just stand for 10 minutes trying to figure out what to do. Like it’s really that difficult! Now I keep track of my workouts, measurements and bodyfat. I’ve been doing that for a month, and my bodyfat is down, and I’ve gained six pounds of lean muscle. I’m motivated again. Thank you for the kick in the ass to do things right. Stephen Hampton via Internet

Vol. 64, No. 1: IRON MAN (ISSN #0047-1496) is published monthly by IRON MAN Publishing, 1701 Ives Ave., Oxnard, CA 93033. Periodical Mail is paid at Oxnard, CA, and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to IRON MAN, 1701 Ives Ave., Oxnard, CA 93033. Please allow six to eight weeks for change to take effect. Subscription ratesÑU.S. and its possessions: new 12-issue subscription, $29.97. Canada, Mexico and other foreign subscriptions: 12 issues, $49.97 sent Second Class. Foreign orders must be in U.S. dollars. Send subscriptions to IRON MAN, 1701 Ives Ave., Oxnard, CA 93033. Or call 1-800570-4766. Copyright © 2004. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced in any manner without written permission from the publisher. Printed in the USA.

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