http://imbodybuilding.com/free/manual/2005-04 by Iron Man

MACROBOLIC MOMENTUM: BETTER THAN LOW-CARB DIETS? APRIL 2005 / IRON MAN—REAL BODYBUILDING TRAINING, NUTRITION & SUPPLEMENTATION

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www.ironmanmagazine.com \ APRIL 2006 261

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150 DECEMBER 2009 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

Condition Magician, page 112

April 2005

Vol. 64, No. 4

Real Bodybuilding Training, Nutrition & Supplementation

FEATURES

78 TRAIN, EAT, GROW 66 The TEG men are building more mass and detail with X Reps and POF. And they won’t stop till they use every letter of the alphabet.

84 SCIENTIFIC MUSCLE BUILDING 2 Rob Thoburn gets the goods on growth from key scientists and researchers around the globe. No brain, no gain. Lots of interesting stuff here, gang.

102 YOUR SHOULDERS WILL NEVER GROW! Unless you follow these 10 tips for detonating new delt dimensions from Ron Harris.

112 LEE APPERSON The condition magician is moving toward 50 and looking better than ever. Here’s how he does it (and how you can do it too).

126 OVER-40 MUSCLEAND-HEALTH DIET Jerry Brainum has the eating plan that will help you build more muscle through middle age and beyond.

Hardbody, page 184

142 HEAVY DUTY

Lee Apperson and Jennifer Micheli appear on this month’s cover. Hair and Makeup Kimberly Carlson. Photo by Michael Neveux.

Mike Mentzer’s Heavy Duty seminar continues, and it’s all about training and gaining—and intensity, of course.

154 ONLY THE STRONG SHALL SURVIVE Bill Starr outlines his Big Three simplicity workout. Yep, three exercises are all it takes to make spectacular gains in every muscle group. It’s as easy as one, two, three.

Over-40 Muscle-and-Health Diet, page 126

Only the Strong Shall Survive, page 154

166 MACROBOLIC MOMENTUM Gerard Dente, former competitive bodybuilder and president of Maximum Human Performance, tells you how to get lean without getting mean—and build plenty of muscle in the process.

184 HARDBODY This month Kimberly Page shows why women are flocking to gyms to pump iron. Hot body in the house!

210 IM RESEARCH TEAM You may have seen it in The Precontest Bible. Or you may have read all the positive buzz on the Web. Larry Pepe’s SprayFlex innovation is taking bodybuilding by storm, and some big-name pros are behind it. Check it out and pump it up!

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DEPARTMENTS

30 TRAIN TO GAIN 10 Rules for Delectable Delts, page 102

Partial power, new hope for old muscles, T time and the training secret that’s better than steroids. (That got your attention.)

52 CRITICAL MASS Steve Holman discusses rowing and growing. Plus, info on Arnold, cheat curls and X-Rep results.

58 NATURALLY HUGE John Hansen’s advice on going from blah to built. There’s lifting advice for fighters here too.

62 EAT TO GROW Mind/Body, page 220

Carb blocking (is it possible?), sweet salvation, remade Gatorade and testing creatine’s credibility.

194 NEWS & VIEWS Lonnie Teper and Ruth Silverman keep you up on what’s going down behind the bodybuilding and fitness scenes. And Jerry Fredrick’s Hot Shots are here too. (Yes, laughing is a good ab workout.)

220 MIND/BODY CONNECTION Randall Strossen, Ph.D., says, “Don’t worry—work out!” Well said. Dave Draper’s Bomber Blast insight is here too, as is Jack LaLanne’s at-home calf attack. Oh, and Gallery of Ironmen’s title is “Guns and Personality Ammo.” Can you guess who it’s about?

Critical Mass, page 52

230 BODYBUILDING PHARMACOLOGY Jerry Brainum brews up some controversy in his diatribe on the world’s most popular drug—no, it’s not Dianabol. Think upper. He also discusses the pro-hormone ban and a possible alternative to those popular pseudo-drugs.

238 READERS WRITE Train to Gain, page 30

Pump & Circumstance, page 200

WEB ALERT

from the world For the latest happenings , read the Hot ess fitn and of bodybuilding zine.com and News at www.ironmanmagae.com. www.graphicmuscl

Cover kudos (must be for that killer Arnold cartoon by Ron Dunn), a Heavy Duty dis and another disbeliever comments on X, lies and measuring tape.

In the next IRON MAN Next month we take a trip to the gym and analyze exactly how the champs train to gain. Yes, we reveal all of their secrets—well, almost all of them. Perfect form? Come on, they lie and cheat too. You’ve seen the videos. We’ll tell you why what they do works and how you can make it work for you—without a truckload of ’roids. Then Pete Siegel is going to blow your mind and blow up your body with mental-muscle development. Sharpen your mind, shape your muscles. Ron Harris will be back too, with a big-biceps blueprint for getting your peaks jutting skyward and your sleeves splitting at the seams. Oh, and, of course, we’ll have killer coverage from the pro-season opener, the IFBB IRON MAN Pro, and another Hardbody pictorial that will give your eyes a workout they’ll never forget. Watch for the magnificent May IRON MAN on newsstands the first week of April.

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John Balik’s

Publisher’s Letter

Founders 1936-1986:

Peary & Mabel Rader

Prime-Time Muscle Longevity was an obsession long before Ponce De Leon searched the world for the fountain of youth in the early 16th century. And we’re still searching for it, although some would argue that the bodybuilding lifestyle is the closest thing to it. If we take our shared love of the bodybuilding lifestyle through to its logical evolution, we end up understanding that health, both mental and physical, is the true result of a lifelong addiction to exercise, good nutrition and intelligent supplementation. This is IRON MAN’s fourth annual over-40-bodybuilding issue, and it’s dedicated to providing the latest information to help you in your quest for the fountain of youth. We’ve gotten an amazing amount of interest from our middle-aged and beyond readers. And for our younger readers—who are rightly focused on getting bigger, stronger and leaner—it’s a window on the future. We live in a time of new discovery and insight into the maximization of our dynamic longevity. If you add myriad medical tests to your overall bodybuilding lifestyle, you can create chemical benchmarks to monitor the inevitable changes that occur. Please refer to the November and December ’03 and the January and May ’04 issues of IRON MAN for Jerry Brainum’s “Blood Simple” series on the blood tests that should be a part of everyone’s overall program. You need to be proactive; the medical system in the United States isn’t geared toward prevention and anti-aging but rather toward sickness. The system’s idea of health is the absence of clinical disease. The IRON MAN definition is not about being barely alive but totally alive. Last month I wrote about taking charge and being responsible. Only you can do the things necessary for ensuring your longest possible dynamic life span. You have a responsibility to yourself and to those whom you love and are responsible for to live in a way that honors both you and them. The goal is to take the middle years—40 plus—and change the peak into plateau with a gentle decline. All you have to do is look around, and you’ll see what denial and neglect do to the human body. This month, as usual, Jerry Brainum brings a wealth of information to the pages of IRON MAN with his “Over-40 Muscle-andHealth Diet,” which begins on page 126. Also, the ageless Lee Apperson, at 46, gives us all inspiration and the info to get the most out of our workouts, nutrition and supplementation. David Young’s interview with him, “Condition Magician,” begins on page 112. Two things I know for sure: 1) that the bodybuilding lifestyle augmented by preventive/anti-aging medicine is the closest we can get to the fountain of youth and 2) that you’re the only one who can make it happen. No excuses, just do it!

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, 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, Ron Dunn

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

Editor’s note: To contact John Balik, send e-mail to ironleader@aol.com. Visit www.ironmanmagazine.com for the latest bodybuilding news, contest results and training and nutrition information.

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

26 APRIL 2005 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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SIZE MATTERS, SO…

“...partials performed at the strongest point on an exercise’s stroke let you overload the muscle and stimulate growth”

30 APRIL 2005 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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ANABOLIC ACTIONS

Neveux \ Model: Jay Cutler

Partial Power! I still remember the first time someone tried to sell me on the value of partial repetitions, or partials. It was in 1992 at Joe Gold’s World Gym on Main Street in Venice, two legends of the sport that will be dearly missed. The man trying to convince me was yet another bodybuilding icon, Don “the Ripper” Ross. I’d observed him on the Hammer Strength behind-the-neck press machine on the outside deck doing what looked like less than half reps and asked him what the deal was. Don explained that partials performed at the strongest point on an exercise’s stroke let you overload the muscle and stimulate growth. I gave that fair consideration for about half a second before dismissing it as hogwash. I knew that “only a full range of motion is productive for building muscle.” After all, I was 22 years old and had been published in bodybuilding magazines; therefore, I knew everything there was to know already. They say there’s no fool like an old fool, but in my case, at that age I took the cake. Once I started heading toward my mid-30s, I became far more open to fresh ideas, always operating on the principle that they had potential merit unless proved otherwise. Not long ago I was on the phone with pro bodybuilder Art Atwood, who was excited about new growth in his arms. Even though you won’t find many specimens on this earth as massive as Atwood, he’s always struggled to bring his arms up to par with his overwhelming chest, shoulders and back. Art attributed his new gains to doing a set of heavy partials after his three standard work sets of each exercise. Immediately something clicked. All those years I’d been writing off partials, but part of my subconscious always had some curiosity about their worth. Now that Art was talking about doing partials not exclusively but after regular sets with a full range of motion, I was at last willing to give them a try. I tried them, and guess what? My ass is sore from kicking myself so much. My pigheadedness made me miss out on a training technique that probably could have helped me put on substantially more muscle than I have. I knew it the first day I tried heavy partials on EZ-curlbar curls (a third of the way from the bottom up) and also on cable pushdowns. I could feel the different type of stimulation the heavier-than-normal weight, lifted

Short movements are creating big gains

through just the strongest segment of the range of motion, was providing, and instantly I sensed it would lead to muscle growth. So for any of you who may have heard all about partials but have never given them a try, here’s your go-ahead. Test-drive them the next time you train. You’ll be glad you did. And, Ripper, if you can hear me up there, you were right and I was wrong. Sorry I doubted you. —Ron Harris Editor’s note: Power partials are also known as X Reps. For more information, as well as photos taken one month apart during a recent X-Rep training experiment, visit www.x-rep.com.

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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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TRAIN TO GAIN

ANABOLIC HORMONES

T Time

OLD ON HOLD

New Hope for Old Muscles Muscle loss with age is not inevitable A new study examined the effects of endurance training on muscle maintenance with advancing age.1 What’s particularly interesting about it is that it involved endurance exercise, which isn’t usually associated with maintaining much muscle. Previous studies have found that in most people, leg strength peaks at age 30, then remains stable until about age 50. At that point strength decreases at a rate of about 12 to 15 percent per decade. Older people show average strength levels of 20 to 40 percent less than people in their 30s. The decline in strength is linked to a loss of muscle due to inactivity. In the new study of endurance athletes, master runners, aged 40 to 88, showed no decline in leg strength until after age 70. Those in their 70s had strength levels similar to runners in their 30s. Most impressive was the finding that the older runners showed no loss of type 2 fast-twitch muscle fibers—the type most associated with muscle strength and the type of muscle fiber usually lost with advanced age—until they were in their 80s. —Jerry Brainum

Studies show that manipulating the volume of exercise has a transient effect on plasma testosterone levels. What isn’t known is how exercise affects the 24-hour secretion of testosterone. To correct that deficiency, a study followed eight men who completed three training sessions separated by at least a month.1 The groups consisted of a nonexercising control group, a moderate-volume group doing 25 sets total and a high-volume group doing 50 sets per workout. The actual workout consisted of squats, bench presses, leg presses and lat pulldowns. Subjects rested 90 to 120 seconds between sets. Rep range was five to 10 per set. The men had their testosterone levels measured every hour for 24 hours after each session. The high-volume group showed a marked suppression of testosterone levels over a 24-hour period. They trained for an average of two hours per session. The moderate-volume group trained for one hour and showed no adverse effects on testosterone over the course of 24 hours. The results indicate that there’s a threshold of training beyond which testosterone levels drop precipitously. In practical terms, they mean that those who advocate marathon workouts are probably wasting their time. —Jerry Brainum 1 Alemany, J.A., et al. (2004). 24hour serum testosterone concentrations following acute moderate and high-volume resistance exercise. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 36:S238.

Tarpenning, K.L., et al. (2004). Endurance training delays age of decline in leg strength and muscle morphology. Med Sci Sports Exer. 36:74-78. 32 APRIL 2005 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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Neveux \ Model: Darrell Terrell

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How exercise volume affects your testosterone

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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TRAIN TO GAIN

SUCCESS SECRETS

The Training Secret That’s Better Than Steroids I believe that there are certain ways of performing exercises that will provide you with better and certainly more lasting progress than you get with steroids— “secrets” that can save you years of wasted effort. Most of them are for hardgainers. If you’re making good progress from conventional exercises, then you don't need these ideas. If you’re a stubborn gainer like me, you’re in for a treat. Let’s talk about pecs, which have always been very stubborn for me. Most conventional exercises just don’t give me results. I don’t Dipping for care how many articles the triceps champs have written about mass is the value of heavy bench much difpresses—that exercise ferent than leaves my pecs cold. dipping for I’ve found a few exercispec size. es, however, that can bring out the most pec development. A couple of the ideas came right from Vince Gironda. You’ll need a Smith machine (bench press with vertical guides) and V-shaped dipping bars. The key to the process is that your elbows must move through their maximum arc during the exercise. So the more you can employ movement that directly affects the elbows, the more you’re going to activate the pecs. The first exercise in my stubborn pecs program is Smithmachine bench presses. Set the stops on the machine so the bar rests just on your neck. If the machine has preset stops that leave the bar an inch off your neck, place a board under the bench to achieve the neck touch. (That’s important.) Once you’re under the bar, raise your feet off the floor and keep them over your midsection. It’s a natural relaxed position that keeps your lower back flat on the bench and requires that all the work comes from your pecs rather than pressing from the floor with your legs. Grip the bar with your hands slightly wider than shoulder width. You’re going to keep your elbows as close to your head as possible during this exercise, so you’ll need to rotate your palms on the bar. Slowly lower the bar until it touches your neck. Keep your elbows as high as possible. It’s an unnatural position for the arms, but it’s necessary to ignite the clavicular pecs. Do six reps without letting your elbows stray down toward your torso. Force them to stay back. The bar will start to slow down as you get tired, and the pain will tempt you to let your elbows drift downward. Don’t do it. You want your pecs to do all the work. They’ll come smoking out of their hiding place. After six full reps finish off the set with six burns right down on your neck. Push the bar up about six inches and let it come down on your neck again. Remember, the machine stop will keep the bar from crushing your Adam’s apple. When you finish your last burn rep, you won’t have

enough strength to do anything but crawl out from under the bar. If you don’t select a stop that sets the bar actually touching your neck, you’ll bang against the machine stop during the burns. You don’t want that; you want the stop to be provided by the tension on the clavicular pectoral tie-in. That’s the secret. Do a set of six reps and six burns with a weight. Now comes the bad news. With little rest, decrease the weight by 10 to 20 percent and do another set exactly like the first. Decrease the weight again by 10 to 20 percent and do a third set. You won’t believe the pump you’ll get in your upper pecs. Now for the lower pecs. Move over to the dipping bars. Unfortunately, this won’t work very well if your dipping bars are parallel. You really need to have V-shaped bars like those Vince had in his club. They start about one foot apart and end up three feet apart. It makes a perfect apparatus for igniting growth in the lower pecs. (If you don’t have access to V-shaped bars, wide-grip dips will have to suffice.) Like the first exercise, this one has to be done in a specific way in order to get the most from it. You reverse your palms so you get a movement very similar to the one you got on the Smith machine. The key again is to get those elbows moving. Your palms aren’t completely reversed but sort of diagonal across the bar so your elbows are out and away from your torso. Hold your feet forward under your face. Your back is rounded, not arched. Slowly lower to the very bottom of the range. Don’t cheat by doing half reps. As you lower your body, let your elbows travel forward, not to the rear. Once you hit bottom, slowly push your body back to the top while keeping your elbows in the forward position. All right, here’s the key to making this exercise really effective: Don’t go to full lockout and try to pull your arms together. You’re trying to use the pecs-biceps connection more than the pec-triceps connection. Admittedly, this movement is unusual, but that’s what makes it so effective. Try to keep your arms together. Nothing can pull those elbows straight but your pecs. Your triceps will want to press your arms straight, but don’t let them. If you force the pecs to work in this fashion, you won’t believe how effective it is. —Larry Scott Editor’s note: Get All 33 of Larry Scott’s reports. Thousands of words of pure training inspiration—a treasure! It includes a three-ring binder and table of contents for easy reference, all for the low cost of $87. Mention that you saw this offer in IRON MAN and receive, free, the “Larry Scott’s Peak Biceps” DVD. Call (800) 225-9752 to order.

36 APRIL 2005 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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More Ball-and-Socket Sensibilities Shoulder pain is one of the most common problems in the gym, along with low-back pain, knee pain and elbow pain. There are many causes of shoulder pain. Shoulder instability is certainly a major cause. Overstretched ligaments become more uncomfortable during key movements such as bench presses, pecs deck flyes, dumbbell flyes and behind-the-neck presses. Pain can be generated from the stress on the capsule and from the excessive work of the rotator cuff, which is trying to keep the ball centrally located in the socket so it can move properly. There can also be a tear of the cartilage ring around the socket, which is known as a SLAP or Bankart tear. That cartilage ring serves several purposes: It deepens the shallow socket a bit, and it serves as an additional anchor point Overstretched ligaments become more uncomfortable during key movefor the capsule and biceps tendon. ments like dumbbell flyes. You may be thinking, “That’s internearly straight arm up at the ceiling. Lower your arm across esting, but what do I do about it?” First, if your shoulder is your chest, and then raise it to the starting position. (That’s also painful, you need to see a physician. Go to an orthopedic known as a lying flye.) surgeon (preferably one with sportsmedicine experience) or a For the next exercise, lie on your side again, but this time board-certified sportsmedicine-trained chiropractor (preferably keep your upper arm against your side with your elbow bent at one with shoulder and weight-training clinical experience). 90 degrees. Hold a light dumbbell. Start with your forearm There are many causes of shoulder pain, and you need a against your abdomen and then try to raise the dumbbell while diagnosis to determine if you require additional tests or treatkeeping your upper arm anchored. Your forearm won’t rise very ment before you resume training. far, as it’s limited by the shoulder anatomy. Return the weight to Once you return to training, you must strengthen the rotator the starting position. cuff muscles, stretch the posterior capsule (back of the shoulFor the third exercise put your arm down against your side der) and strengthen the muscles around the scapula. The rotator cuff consists of four muscles that originate on the shoul- as if you were trying to place your palm against the outside of your thigh. Keeping your elbow straight, raise your arm a quarder blade (scapula) and insert onto the upper-arm bone ter of the way (45 degrees), as if you were performing half of a (humerus). Their function is to pull the ball down away from the lateral raise. Once you reach the halfway point, lower your arm roof of the shoulder (acromion) to provide enough room for the back to your side. ball to move. They also pull the ball to the center of the socket Perform three sets of 10 reps and add weight on each for optimum movement of the shoulder. If the rotator cuff is exercise every two weeks or so. It’s not necessary to do high strong, the ball slides forward less, and it can also help protect reps. As you become stronger, you will actually lower the reps the ball from stretching and pushing against the cartilage ring. to six to eight. The rotator needs to be strong. It is often misSometimes, just strengthening the rotator cuff alone is enough takenly said that it needs endurance. The cuff needs to be able to enable a trainee to keep training without surgery. to contract powerfully (for a small muscle group) at the time of You can easily strengthen your rotator cuff with a few key demand on the shoulder. exercises. All three can be performed by lying on your side on I’ll have more on shoulder rehabilitation, including stretching a bench. The first is a rear-delt exercise. While lying on your for weight trainees, in future columns. —Joseph M. Horrigan side and holding a light dumbbell in your free hand, point your Neveux \ Model: Michael Turcotte

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Editor’s note: Visit www.softtissuecenter.com for reprints of Horrigan’s past Sportsmedicine columns that have appeared in IRONMAN. 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, 1800-447-0008 or at www.home-gym.com.

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Catabolic Conclusions Researchers have arrived at contradictory conclusions concerning the effect of combining aerobic exercise and weight training. Most studies, however, show that using a program that features both types of exercise results in blunted muscular strength and size gains. The reason: Aerobics and weight training lead to physiological changes in muscle structure that more or less cancel each other out. For example, weight training leads to increased muscle contractile protein synthesis, resulting in greater strength gains. Aerobic exercise blocks that effect. Weight training doesn’t affect mitochondria, the structures in cells where energy is produced and fat is oxidized. Aerobics increases both blood delivery to muscle (providing oxygen to spark energy production) and mitochondrial activity. To develop maximum fitness and a favorable body composition, you need to do both kinds

Does bodyfat affect muscle gains?

Does having excess bodyfat adversely affect muscular gains? That was the focus of a recent study featuring 140 normal-weight and 81 overweight men and women who hadn’t trained in more than a year.1 They began training twice a week for 12 weeks, doing one-arm biceps curls. The researchers adjusted the training responses for bodyweight and initial values and found that the normalweight group had made better gains than the overweight group. That led them to conclude that there’s something about being fat that hinders muscular gains. —Jerry Brainum 1 Kelsey, B., et al. (2004). Adiposity alters muscle strength and size responses to resistance training in healthy men and women. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 36:S352.

of exercise. The question is how to incorporate aerobics with weight training without sacrificing hardearned muscle. A new study provides some hints.1 It featured 16 men who were divided into two groups, each employing a different style of aerobic exercise. One group did high-intensity interval training, characterized by alternating periods of high- and low-intensity exercise. The other group did the usual style of steady-state aerobics, using the same level of intensity throughout the workout. The aerobic sessions lasted about 40 minutes. After completing the aerobic exercise, the subjects did a weight workout consisting of bench presses and leg presses, four sets of each with a weight equal to 75 percent of their one-rep maximums. The men rested various lengths of time after the aerobics— four, eight or 24 hours. Leg press strength was compromised four and eight hours after aerobics but not 24 hours. Since the aerobics consisted of stationary cycling, only lower-body strength was affected. The study confirms conventional bodybuilding practice that training legs on the same day you do any type of aerobics affecting the leg muscles will adversely affect leg strength. The obvious solution is to wait a day after doing aerobics to train your legs. —Jerry Brainum 1 Sporer, B.C., et al. (2003). Effects of aerobic exercise on strength performance following various periods of recovery. J Strength Cond Res. 17:638-44.

40 APRIL 2005 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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Building the Body Proportion and symmetry over size In the autumn of 1998 I began publishing Building the Body Quarterly. It started as a newsletter (you can read the first five issues online at www.frankzane.com/newsletter.htm) and has expanded into a small magazine, sort of like the original Iron Man but without paid advertising. I write the entire publication myself, with perhaps one or two articles by people who know what they’re talking about. It’s filled with information about training, nutrition and bodybuilding psychology—what you might call a grass-roots publication—and addresses the question: How can I develop a Zane-like physique? I consider my claim to fame to be twofold: 1) I’m the leanest guy ever to win the Mr. Olympia (190 pounds at 5’9”); and 2) I’m one of the few people ever to beat Arnold Schwarzenegger (at the ’68 IFBB Mr. Universe). It’s precisely because of those two facts that people come to San Diego to train with me in my Zane Experience program. They can’t identify with the 250-pound-plus physiques that fill the pages of today’s muscle mags. My clients relate to the look I made famous. Maybe they think it’s easier to attain (it ain’t), but it’s certainly more healthful and more appealing to the general public. Now, if you’re looking to get big in a hurry, read no further. I’m not going to tell you how to do that, and neither is my publication. A quality physique takes a lifetime of training. Quickly acquired muscle mass has no time to plan its precise location on the body, and proportion can go quickly askew. Some of today’s top competitors have made it to the international level in a half dozen years. I won the Mr. Olympia after 17

years of competing and at nearly the same bodyweight I reached in my early 20s. What changed were my proportions, definition and body lines achieved by paying attention to little details. My quarterly publication is all about how I did that. Building the Body is about how to train for your entire lifetime. As I get older and continue to train, I learn more about how to do it. I’ve learned from the mistakes I’ve made. A theory in psychology called Harlow’s error factor says that every action you take is a mistake. It’s just that successful behavior result in fewer errors than behavior that produces undesirable results. One-trial learning is relatively error free. The trial and error of everyday life and training are filled with wrong choices, which, if we’re smart, we learn from and so avoid the same mistakes next time around. I don’t know everything about training, but I know a hell of a lot because I’ve been doing this for a long time. I know lots about injuries because I’ve suffered many of them and have learned how to treat and live and train with them. It pains me to read some of the dangerous training techniques advocated in the muscle magazines. I know where that leads because I’ve been there. It’s gratifying to lift heavy poundages, to succeed with more weight, but in the long run where does it lead? Many of the strength athletes of the past have ended up with crippling injuries. True, some bodybuilders are better equipped for heavy training than others. Guys like Mike Mentzer and Casey Viator were naturally strong, but even they suffered injuries. Others, like Ronnie Coleman and Jay Cutler, keep getting stronger and bigger. But the body does have a limit, and if you continually use heavier and heavier weights, you’ll PREVENTION learn where that limit is. And it will be accompanied by injury. Ask Dorian Yates—a great physique forced into retirement by severe injury. Training to failure isn’t a formula for success. The truth, I’ve discovered, is that you don’t have to Prostate cancer is the number-two killer of men, just after lung lift enormous weights to grow muscle. By stretching cancer. Several studies have shown that exercise appears to offer between sets and using stricter form and slower preventive effects against the disease. Most studies attribute that to a negatives, I get an incredible pump. Numbers are an decrease in testosterone induced by exercise (usually endurance abstraction, especially to muscles. Your body doesn’t training). Although the finding is still controversial, testosterone is in know the absolute weight of what you lift; it recogfact linked to prostate cancer. Some scientists believe that testosnizes only how heavy it feels. Beginners and aging terone itself isn’t the villain but rather dihydrotestosterone (DHT), the bodybuilders need to realize how dangerous heavy testosterone by-product linked to acne and male pattern baldness. lifting in nonstrict form can be. Chances are you’ll A recent study has identified another mechanism.1 Researchers never look like the top contenders in today’s Mr. found that exercise enhances the function of a gene in the body called Olympia. Of course you can improve, but be realistic P53, which is known to “kill” cancer cells by arresting the growth of and train with intelligence. If that makes sense to you, tumors and promoting their suicide, a process called apoptosis. When consider subscribing to the blood serum after exercise was analyzed, Building the Body apoptosis in prostate cancer cells increased by Quarterly. And if it 371 percent, and P53 protein increased by 100 doesn’t make sense percent. Thus, exercise can help prevent prostate now, it will later. cancer by upgrading the body’s innate defense —Frank Zane system against tumor formation. —Jerry Brainum Editor’s note: 1 Pak-Shan, L., et al. (2004). Exercise alters the Learn more about Zane’s unique goods IGF axis in vivo and increases P53 protein in and services by visiting prostate tumor cells in vitro. J App Physiol. 96:450www.frankzane.com. 54. Neveux \ Model: David Dorsey

Exercise and Cancer Answers

44 APRIL 2005 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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Get maximum muscle fiber recruitment from minimal gym time—only four to six sets per bodypart. Discover how to build power and size with 3-D Positions of Flexion: big midrange movements, stretch overload to activate the myotatic reflex and continuous-tension peak contraction to finish off the muscle. This DVD explains Positions of Flexion, a breakthrough massbuilding method that has bodybuilders all over the world growing faster than ever and achieving skin-splitting pumps at every workout. See this exciting size-boosting approach in action, apply it to your own workouts and watch mass surge to dramatic new levels in record time. Turn your guns into cannons and your shoulders into boulders. Chisel your chest and pack your thighs with new size. Bonus: 10 Minutes to Granite Abs is also included on this action-packed DVD.

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Growth Factors and Muscle Subtractors Myostatin, IGF-1 and your workouts on myostatin, the authors figured that myostatin levels would decrease. Both programs led to significant increases in muscular growth of the biceps, but neither group showed any changes in IGF-1. The researchers were measuring systemic release of IGF-1, but it’s also produced locally in muscle, which appears to account for its anabolic effects in muscle. The fact that both groups showed significant decreases in myostatin levels underscores other findings indicating that weight training is an effective natural myostatin inhibitor. Interestingly, both groups—those doing the isolated biceps exercises and those training their entire bodies—had about the same decrease in systemic myostatin. Another study, involving rats as subjects, found that a highprotein diet leads to a greater production of myostatin.2 At the same time that myostatin is increasing, so is another factor, called myogenin, that would normally promote muscle growth. The increase in myostatin cancels the effects of myogenin. Does that mean that those who seek more muscle growth are working against themselves if they’re on Heavier weights a high-protein diet? increase IGF-1 Not at all. The increase in myostatin is release, and only a small part of the picture. Other horthat’s a key mones also increase. Exercise generates growth factor. localized production of IGF-1 in the muscle, which would cancel myostatin’s inhibition of muscular growth. In fact, protein is the primary nutrient that regulates IGF-1 production. Another study looked at two types of exercise to figure out which produced the greatest response of IGF-1 release.3 Twenty-four male subjects divided into two groups exercised three days a week for six weeks. The first group used pure strength training with maximum muscular contractions. The second used a combination program involving maximum contractions and ballistic and stretch exercises. Those in the strength-only group showed a 475 percent increase in IGF-1 mRNA, while those in the combo group showed a 135 percent increase. Since the combo group used lighter weights, this study shows that a primary impetus to increased IGF-1 release is exercising with heavier weights. —Jerry Brainum

Myostatin, a protein discovered by scientists at Johns Hopkins Medical School in 1997, prevents muscular growth. It also works in concert with cortisol and thyroid hormones to increase muscle catabolism, or the breakdown of muscular tissue. Insulinlike growth factor 1 (IGF-1), so named because it has a structure similar to that of insulin, provides potent anabolic effects in muscle, just as insulin does. A condition that favors a decrease in myostatin with an increase in IGF-1 should result in increased muscular growth—shouldn’t it? A recent study examined the relationship between myostatin, IGF-1 and muscular growth.1 The study featured two groups of men. Group one trained all the major muscles of the body, while group two trained only their biceps. The subjects trained twice a week for 10 weeks. The hypothesis was that training a larger percentage of muscles would lead to greater levels of growth-promoting hormones, in this case IGF-1. In light of recent studies examining the effect of weight training

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EXERCISE SCIENCE

1 Walker, K.S., et al. (2004). Resistance training alters plasma myostatin but not IGF-1 in healthy men. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 36:787-93. 2 Koichi, N., et al. (2004). A high-protein diet stimulates myostatin mRNA expression in rat skeletal muscles. Med Sci Sports Exer. 36:S193-S194. 3 Necker, A., et al. (2004). IGF-1 responses in human muscle to strength training. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 36:S184.

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Critical Mass dumbbell row puts the resistance at your torso’s midline when your arm is straight. That’s the stretch position for your midback. With a barbell your hands are fixed at greater than shoulder width, so you never get a complete stretch in your midback. The fixed hand position on barbell rows lets you get a complete contraction at the top of the movement if your arms are angled away from your torso and you squeeze your shoulder blades together. That’s hard to make happen on one-arm dumbbell rows because the unilateral movement prevents complete midback contraction at the top. Your torso rolls away from the dumbbell as you lift it toward your torso. Got all that? It’s a lot to grasp, so don’t feel bad if you don’t. Let’s review. One-arm dumbbell rows are classified as a stretch-position movement for the midback. Start with your arm extended and your palm facing in; rotate your hand so your palm faces back at the top. That should keep your upper arm away from your torso and keep your midback muscles engaged rather than your lat. Bent-over barbell rows are a contracted-position exercise for the midback even though you get muscle synergy from the biceps. (You can use it as a midrange exercise as well.) Once again, keep your arms angled away from your torso so you can contract the midback muscles at the top. To get the best of both worlds—stretch and contraction— in one movement, you can do two-arm dumbbell rows with your chest supported. You must, however, use a resistance that lets you turn your hands to a palms-facing position at the bottom and then rotate them to a palms-back position at the top as you pull the ’bells out to your sides, forcing your arms out and away from your torso and squeezing your scapulae together. That can be hard to coordinate for some trainees, so it may be best for those with weak backs to do one exercise for stretch and one for contraction. Or check the machine selection at your gym. Some rowing machines, like Hammer Strength, start with the handles narrow, and they move apart as you pull. That makes for a great stretch-and-contracted-position combo exercise— more controlled than the two-arm dumbbell row. To help clarify, here’s a good full-range POF back routine that works each position with one exercise. (Note: S = stretch, M = midrange and C = contracted.)

Rowing and Growing Q: Is the rowing exercise—barbell or dumbbell—a contracted-, stretch- or midrange-position movement for the back? A: Positions-of-Flexion protocol classifies one-arm dumbbell rows (arm angled away from the torso) as a stretch-position exercise for the midback. Your palm should face in at the bottom of the rep, with the weight at the centerline of your body for maximum stretch. Rotate your hand so your palm faces back as you pull the dumbbell up, with your arm angled slightly away from your side. If you row with your arm close to your torso, palm facing in, it becomes more of a contracted-position exercise for the lats, similar to undergrip rows or undergrip pulldowns. Rotating your hand to a palm-back position at the top should help prevent that. Bent-over barbell rows place the midback in its contracted position; however, it’s a contracted-position exercise with muscle synergy—biceps and lats help—so you could classify it as either a midrange- or contracted-position exercise for the midback. (Confused? The routine that follows should help clear it up.) Once again, your arms should be angled away from your torso. If you pull your arms in or do the movement with an undergrip, it becomes a contractedposition exercise for your lats. You may be wondering why one-arm dumbbell rows can be a midback stretch-position exercise but bent-over barbell rows can’t. Aren’t they pretty much the same movement? Yes, with one major exception: The one-arm

Lats Wide-grip chins or pulldowns (M) Dumbbell pullovers (S) Undergrip rows (C)

2 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 2 x 8-10

Midback Bent-over barbell rows (M) One-arm dumbbell rows (S) Bent-arm bent-over laterals (C)

2 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 2 x 8-10

Upper traps

Keep your arm angled away from your torso for more midback stimulation. If your arm moves close to your torso, your lats get in on the action.

Neveux \ Model: Lee Apperson

Forward-lean shrugs (S&C)

2 x 8-10

Some people can do behind-the-neck pulldowns without problem, which is what I used to recommend as a midrange exercise for midback; however, that exercise can cause rotator-cuff impingement in some. The bent-over barbell row is a safer alternative for most—and even better is a row machine with chest support. As mentioned above, barbell rows do place the midback in its contracted position, but there’s also muscle synergy, so it can work as a midrange movement too. If your back isn’t a weak point, you can eliminate bent-

52 APRIL 2005 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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Steve Holman’s

Critical Mass

Extending a set via X Reps and/or drop sets is the best way to get at those fast-twitch fibers with more of an endurance component. over barbell rows from the above routine, as your midback does get midrange work during lat exercises like pulldowns and chins. Here’s an example of a streamlined back routine for those who don’t need special focus on that area:

Lats Wide-grip chins or pulldowns (M) Machine pullovers (S&C)

2 x 8-10 2 x 8-10

Midback Midrange covered with lat work Chest-supported bent-over dumbbell rows (S&C)

2 x 8-10

Upper traps Forward-lean shrugs (S&C)

2 x 8-10

Q: I’m really impressed with the gains you and Jonathan [Lawson] made using X Reps. My question is, Will X Reps work for a superhardgainer like me? A: If my results are any indication, the answer is yes. Remember, I’m a hardgainer, and X Reps did excellent things for my size and muscularity in only one month—and that’s after 30 years of training. Realize that the biggest reasons someone is a hardgainer include low neuromuscular efficiency (below average nerve-to-muscle connections) and endurance-oriented muscle structures (even many of the fast-twitch fibers have more endurance). X Reps can improve both of those deficiencies significantly. X Reps extend any set, so in that regard they provide a slight endurance component, which is exactly what hardgainers’ endurance-oriented muscles need. A standard eight-rep set to failure, using a one-second-up/one-second-down rep speed, lasts 16 seconds (eight reps times two seconds). That’s not enough tension time to trigger growth in endurance-oriented muscles; however, you can extend that by five to eight seconds with X Reps, taking the total tension time of the set past the important 20-second mark. Twenty seconds is considered by many scientists to be an ideal time for maximum hypertrophic stimulation in any one set. Why not just lighten the weight and do more reps

Q: I want to use X Reps on barbell curls, but I can’t figure out the best spot. Where should I put the X Reps when I can’t get any more full reps? A: Barbell curls are tricky because there isn’t a whole lot of resistance at the point where your biceps can generate maximum force, which is just above the arms-extended position. You want to pull the bar up to between the point at which your arms are straight and the one at which they’re bent at 90 degrees. The leverage shift due to the arc on which the bar travels makes that awkward, perhaps impossible. I suggest you do cable curls with a straight bar. You can do one set of barbell or dumbbell curls to failure, rest a minute, then go to the low cable and rep out with curls there. When you can’t get another rep, curl the bar up to the X spot and pulse in about a five-inch range. It will be much easier to incorporate X Reps on cable curls because the cable provides continuous tension and better leverage near that max-force-generation point. Incidentially, that X spot, below the middle of the stroke, is the point most stressed when you do cheat barbell curls. A backward lean with a heave puts the pressure right where the biceps are strongest. That may be the reason Arnold got such great gains from cheat curls—he was overloading that critical sweet spot where maximum force generation occurs. X Reps enable you to do that without the danger of heaving or jerking heavy weights. Visit www .x-rep.com for more information, Q&As and e-newsletters. 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 173. For information on Train, Eat, Grow, see page 83. Also visit www.x-rep.com. IM

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Neveux

so you reach 20 seconds? Because that wouldn’t overload the optimal spot in the exercise’s stroke for fast-twitchfiber overload. That’s why X Reps are so important. Short pulses at that key spot force the muscle to continue firing, even after nervous system fatigue. So X Reps extend the tension time on your muscles—past the 20-second mark— and gradually build better nerve-force capabilities, or neuromuscular efficiency. You’ve just hurdled your way past two hardgainer roadblocks to more mass with X Reps. And if you combine drop sets with X Reps, you can get an even better hardgainer-specific workout—extending the set up to 40 seconds without overtaxing recovery ability, something hardgainers tend to have less of than average trainees. We include X-Rep drop sets in many of the programs in The Ultimate Mass Workout for that very reason, usually on contracted-position exercises. It’s a good, solid muscle-building strategy, whether you’re a hardgainer or not.

Steve Holman ironchief@aol.com

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\ JULY 2006 181

Mr. Natural Olympia John Hansen’s

Naturally Huge

Blah to Built

Illustration by Chris Martinez \ Model: Tamer Elshahat

Q: My wife and I are big fans of the fitness world, and we have some questions. How do normally built people (male and female) go from slightly overweight and out of shape to cut? Now, remember, we have limited incomes, not a lot of time and four children; however, my wife and I are in dire need of more energy and better health. Can you offer some advice? Also, for a male, are there any safe steroids? I’ve been working out for years but can’t put on mass. Now that I’m in my early 30s, I’m gaining weight rapidly but in the wrong areas. A: Changing your appearance through exercise and nutrition is usually a gradual change as opposed to a drastic one. The first step is to begin a program that focuses primarily on weight-resistance training so you develop muscle tissue. That applies to both men and women. When you add some appreciable muscle to your frame, you’ll dramati-

cally change the look of your physique, as well as your metabolism, for the better. In addition to your training program, you need to examine your nutrition. If you’ve been eating like the average person, you need to make some big changes for maximum gains. The diet you follow, even more than the training, affects your appearance. You mentioned that you have a busy lifestyle, but eating correctly and following a serious training program don’t have to be life-altering. You just have to become more organized. You’ll make the best progress by eating six small meals per day as opposed to two to three big meals. I always recommend eating three whole-food meals along with three protein or meal replacement drinks. That’s the most convenient for most people. It will probably be a big change for you, but you’ll adjust fairly quickly if you’re consistent. As for your training program, you can make outstanding progress by training three or four days a week for 60 to 90 minutes each time. You mentioned that you’ve been working out for years but can’t put on any mass. The key is to make each workout progressive. Push yourself to use more weight, do more repetitions or make the workout harder in some way. If you don’t demand more from your muscles at each and every workout, they won’t respond and won’t grow. The body doesn’t want to change; it prefers to stay the same. If you want bigger muscles or more strength, you need to demand it from your body. In regard to your question about safe steroids, there really is no such thing. Anabolic steroids are powerful drugs, and, like all drugs, they carry the possibility of side effects. You’re only in your early 30s, which is not old at all, especially in the world of bodybuilding. Using the right training and nutrition programs will let you get into fantastic shape and continue looking great throughout your lifetime—and you won’t need any drugs. Don’t buy into the notion that you’re getting old just because you’re over 30. Chronological age is only a number, and you’ll discover that following a fitness lifestyle will dramatically push back the clock when it comes to changing your appearance.

You must demand more from your muscles on a regular basis, or they won’t change.

Q: I’m an amateur fighter who wants to get stronger so that my wrestling game will improve, and I also want to look good. Is it best to work each muscle three times a week or two times a week but more thoroughly? I don’t see how I can get big only working each bodypart once a week, but if you say it works, I’ll try it. I also need to do other things while training, since I’m an amateur fighter. At the moment I do

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Mr. Natural Olympia John Hansen’s

Naturally Huge eight to nine sets per bodypart— four exercises, two sets each, or three exercises, three sets each. I use the most weight I can for eight to 12 reps. I train each bodypart once Monday through Thursday and concentrate on building strength and size. Then on Saturday I do one exercise for each bodypart, but I do that set to failure while dropping the weight until I can’t do any more. That’s more for stamina and definition. I’m working each bodypart two times a week, but my muscles aren’t getting extremely sore. Do you have any advice for me?

Day 1: Chest and arms Day 2: Thighs and calves Day 3: Shoulders and back Day 4: Rest You also asked about why you’re not getting sore from your weighttraining sessions. That tells me your muscles have adapted to your workouts. If you increase the intensity (more weight or more reps with the same weight) each time you train, you’ll probably get sore; however, you may not wish to get too sore due to your other activities. I have a friend who competes in judo, and he had to cut back on the intensity of his weight training because he can’t practice judo when his muscles are extremely sore. Remember to take all of your training into account when you design a weight workout. Even if you’re getting enough rest for each bodypart, you have to look at the stress that you’re putting on your body in your daily workouts. The martial arts training and the cardio cut into your recuperation, so you might have to weight train less often than I’ve recommended here. Give it a try and see how it works. Editor’s note: John Hansen has won the Natural Mr. Olympia and is a two-time Natural Mr. Universe winner. Visit his Web site at www .naturalolympia.com. You can write to him at P.O. Box 3003, Darien, IL 60561, or call toll-free (800) 900-UNIV (8648). His new book, Natural Bodybuilding, is now available from Human Kinetics Publishing. IM

Neveux

A: It sounds as if you’ve got a pretty busy schedule with your martial arts training and cardio in addition to the weight work. You must take that into account when designing a bodybuilding program. You mentioned that you’re training for strength and size during the week and for stamina and definition on the weekend. You can’t train for muscle definition, as that depends on the amount of bodyfat over the muscles. Definition comes from a good nutrition plan. As for muscle stamina, you can achieve it through weight training, but I’m sure you’re developing muscular endurance (as well as overall stamina) through your extensive martial arts training. I was a big Bruce Lee fan when I was younger, and I remember that he used weight training in his workout program. Bruce weight trained for more practical purposes than developing his muscles. He was concerned with building strength and power to increase his martial arts skills. Lee did a limited number of basic exercises, using weights to strengthen the areas of his body that would make him more powerful when he punched or kicked an opponent. He was careful not to overdevelop his muscles because he didn’t want to limit his range of motion or flexibility. He did a lot of isometric exercises with weights to develop his tendons and power. If you’re using weight training to build more muscle mass and strength, you can probably train each bodypart more often than once a week. A good routine would be a three-dayson/one-day-off schedule. Since you’re using a limited number of sets for each bodypart, I think the workout sessions can still be fairly short, and you should develop more muscle mass and strength with that program.

Here’s how I suggest you split your body:

John Hansen John@NaturalOlympia.com

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EAT TO LOW-CARB DIET

Carb Blocking Although still a matter of fierce contention among scientists, lowcarbohydrate diets appear to be the most effective eating plan for the majority of people seeking to lose excess bodyfat. The consensus, based on most recent studies, is that on a calorie-by-calorie basis, people lose more fat when they eat fewer carbs than they do on either lowfat or reduced-calorie diet plans. On the other hand, recent long-term studies, lasting more than six months, show that the weight loss on various diets is similar. Frequent dieters say that low-carb diets are easier to follow, since they feature more fat and protein, which are potent appetite suppressors. From a bodybuilding standpoint, getting more protein helps prevent lean-tissue loss. Even low-carb diets require willpower,

A hill of beans? Not so fast; new studies suggest they may work—for certain carbs

however. What would make low-carb dieting easier is some kind of substance that enabled you to eat more food with relative impunity. Some research shows that supplements known as carb blockers may fill the bill. Back in the 1940s scientists discovered that white kidney beans contained a protein that blocked the activity of alpha-amylase, a digestive enzyme that breaks down starchy carbohydrate foods, such as bread, pasta, potatoes, rice—even beans. Alpha-amylase begins to work in the mouth, where parotid glands secrete salivary alpha-amylase in response to starchy carbs. It converts the longer-chained starch into the simple sugar maltose. But since food remains in the mouth only briefly, that initial process accounts for only about 5 percent of total starch digestion. The major digestive activity occurs in the upper intestine, where pancreatic cells squirt far larger amounts of alphaamylase. By the time starch reaches the lower portions of the small intestine, it’s been converted into glucose, the most elemental sugar and the only type that circulates in the blood. The idea behind carb blockers,

originally known as starch blockers (a more accurate term, since they only work on starch), was to nullify the effect of alpha-amylase, thereby inhibiting the absorption and uptake of starch-based carbs. Starch-blocking supplements first appeared on the commercial market in the early 1970s but soon fell out of favor. They did work as advertised outside the body, in a test-tube environment, but they were too weak to show any kind of effectiveness in the human body. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic synthesized a far more potent version. It was stable in the hostile environment of the gastric and intestinal areas, which enabled it to reach the site where alpha-amylase degrades starch in the upper intestines. The Food and Drug Administration ordered the removal of starch blockers from commercial sales in 1983, based on research indicating that the products didn’t work as advertised. Recently, though, the Mayo Clinic work of nearly 30 years ago resurfaced, a result of the renewed popularity of low-carb diets, and the more potent bean extracts again appeared on the market. An initial study of the new carb blockers showed that 1,000 milligrams of the extract could block 2,250 starch calories, an amount equal to a pound of pasta or an entire loaf of bread. The new extract survived passage through the formidable barriers of the gastrointestinal tract, retaining 70 to 80 percent of full potency. It acted only on alphaamylase, not affecting any other digestive enzymes.

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GROW Nutrition With a Get-Big Mission Subsequent studies, nearly all of which were sponsored by the primary company distributing the improved bean extract, had impressive results. In one experiment human subjects on the carb blocker showed 57 percent less starch absorption than those taking a placebo or inactive substance. Other studies indicated a lower glucose response, pointing to decreased carb uptake from starchbased meals. It appeared that the carb blockers had finally been perfected, but the supplements still provoked serious criticism. Some pointed out that starch-based carbs aren’t the primary cause of obesity; the true culprit is simple sugars, which provoke a huge insulin release, particularly when not packaged with some form of fiber. Excess insulin not only promotes bodyfat synthesis but also inhibits fat oxidation while promoting hunger, leading to a vicious cycle of more calorie intake. Starch-based carbs were formerly thought to be just like other complex carbs, which were considered the healthiest carb form because their structure required longer digestion time and provoked far less insulin release. While that’s true for most forms of complex carbs, the advent of the glycemic index—a measure of how rapidly foods reach the blood— showed that not all of them act the same way in the body. The faster the carb gets into the blood, the greater the release of insulin. The glycemic index exposed some complex carbs as nothing more than disguised forms of simple sugars, entering the blood as rapidly as simple carbs. Among those that turned out to be high-glycemic, or rapidly absorbed, were pasta, baked potatoes, bread and white rice. Tak-

ing a carb-blocking supplement prior to eating such foods should blunt the high insulin response that would normally follow. The net effect should be greater fat loss. That’s precisely what a few initial studies confirmed. The problem was that most did not get published in reputable medical journals, and they were sponsored by marketers of carb-blocking supplements. That didn’t mean that the studies were tainted, just that they didn’t meet scientific standards. Adding to the problem were inflated claims for the new carb blockers. Some ads didn’t mention that the supplements blocked only starch-based carbs, leading unwary consumers to believe that they blocked all carbs. Since that wasn’t true, those who stuffed themselves with simple-sugar foods after using carb blockers would conclude that the supplement was just another ripoff. The hyperbole eventually attracted the attention of the FDA. On October 22, 2004, the FDA sent warning letters to several companies that market carb blockers, cautioning against the inflated claims for the products and indicating that no proof of effectiveness backed up such claims. The wording of the letters suggests that the FDA is basing its warning on the original starch blockers of the 1970s—which didn’t work as advertised. The solution is simple. The companies that make and distribute the new bean-based carb blockers need to sponsor a double-blind, placebo-controlled study and

The companies that make and distribute the new bean-based carb blockers need to sponsor a double-blind, placebo-controlled study and publish in a reputable medical journal.

publish in a reputable medical journal. If the study shows that the carb blockers work as advertised, that should get the FDA off their backs. It may also behoove the companies to revert to the former name, “starch blockers,” which more accurately reflects the function of the supplements. In order to work properly, carb blockers must be taken 10 to 15 minutes prior to a meal containing starch or during the meal itself. The supplements are specific for the alpha-amylase enzyme and won’t adversely affect the uptake of other nutrients. By the way, undigested starch is a favorite delicacy of intestinal bacteria. You’ll recognize that by the increased level of intestinal gas. Eating additional sources of fiber, however, should keep things moving along nicely. —Jerry Brainum

www.ironmanmagazine.com \ APRIL 2005 63

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ANTI-AGING

Swallow Your Pride Certain vitamins and minerals can make you stand taller and age gracefully

It’s no secret that our food supply contains fewer vitamins and minerals due to depleted soil and the use of pesticides. Cooking also destroys vital vitamins and minerals. That’s especially critical to our middle-aged and older population, as the immune system weakens with age. Here are a few specific supplements you may want to consider if you’re 50 or older: Calcium. Get at least 1,200 milligrams a day. It prevents bone loss and lessens the chance of fractures. (Bonus: It’s a big player in muscle contraction.) Vitamin D. The recommended daily intake was recently raised to 1,000 international units per day. That amount is especially important for people 50 to 70, as it’s also essential for bone health. Lack of vitamin D has also been linked to cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Vitamin B12. About one-fourth of the people 60 to 69 years of age have some B12 deficiency. It’s important for energy and a healthy metabolism —Becky Holman

Feed your sweet tooth and get ripped too Dieting can be a challenge to those of us with a sweet tooth—which includes just about everyone. You can get through only so many meals of chicken or fish and broccoli before you start salivating at the thought of candy, cookies, ice cream and other foods that will surely sabotage your fat-loss goals. Normally, your two choices would be to suck it up and deal with the suffering or give in to temptation, satiate your need for sugar and immediately wallow in guilt. Thanks to the miracles of modern artificial sweeteners like Splenda and Nutrasweet, we now have a third option. In the freezer section of your grocery story you can find sugar-free Popsicles and Italian ices, even ice cream. There’s sugar-free hard candy—even chocolates that taste like the real thing, only without all the insulin-spiking sugar. If you must have a cookie or a brownie, you can find sugar-free versions of those too. Two things to keep in mind, of course, as you indulge in these seemingly guilt-free treats, are fat content and overall calories. Some of them, particularly the ice cream and cookies, may be devoid of sugar yet packed with fat. And all calories count, which means that if you eat more calories than your body needs, the excess will be stored as fat. As long as you’re conscious of those key points, however, feel free to cheat with artificially sweetened goodies. —Ron Harris Editor’s note: Check out Ron Harris’ Web site, www .ronharrismuscle.com.

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Keep Bugging Me

Important critters in your digestive tract for less stomach irritation

Life can be miserable for people who suffer from irritable-bowel syndrome, ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, urinary tract infections or eczema. Medications help some, but in addition, probiotics can help. Probiotics are the good bacteria, such as L. acidophilus and B. bifidum, found in yogurt. To get the most probiotics and the least sugar and fat, check yogurt and cultured-milk labels. In general, calorie levels of 90 to 100 per six-to-eightounce serving means minimal carbs and fat and maximum probiotics. —Daniel Curtis, R.D.

WOMEN

EMS for PMS

Vitamins and minerals can provide emergency monthly relief As most women will tell you (sometimes loudly), PMS symptoms aren’t something to look forward to. Good news: Nutrients including calcium, magnesium and vitamin B6 can ease them. In one study of 500 PMSprone women, taking 1,200 milligrams of calcium a day helped decrease mood swings, depression, irritability and bloating by 50 percent. Taking 200 milligrams of magnesium a day helped relieve water retention and mood swings, according to several British studies. Vitamin B6 can alleviate PMS-related depression, especially if it’s taken in combination with magnesium. To avoid serious side effects, take no more than 50 to 100 milligrams of B6 a day. —Daniel Curtis, R.D.

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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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Creatine Cred

Testing creatine’s credibility: Why people react differently to it

in a metabolic pathway known as the creatine/phosphocreatine shuttle system. When under extremely high demand for immediate energy, however, such as during heavy resistance exercise, the body is unable to operate that pathway fast enough. Desperate for more energy, the muscle is forced to accelerate glycolysis, which is the breakdown of glucose. If the situation continues, lactic acid, a by-product of carb metabolism, will accumulate in the muscle tissues, leading to immediate muscle fatigue. Fast-twitch muscle fibers function and grow differently from slow-twitch muscle fibers. Type 2 fibers are stronger and grow larger than type 1 fibers; however, type 1 fibers are more efficient at performing endurance exercise. Because they depend on creatine and carb fuel, type 2 muscle fibers are programmed to use glycogen and creatine more efficiently than slowtwitch ones, which can resist fatigue without any dependence on creatine or carbs. Endurance athletes and beginning bodybuilders who wish to benefit from creatine supplementation should first perform a few weeks of heavy resistance training or any exercise that involves high intensity, such as wrestling, boxing or sprinting. After six to eight weeks of intense training the body adapts, thereby increasing its capacity for using creatine. The hue of your fruits and Keep in mind that creatine works in vegetables is important synergy with carbs. While carbs enhance creatine assimilation (via insulin activity), creatine spares glycogen reserves in the muscle. What that means in practical terms is that taking creatine with carbs will more likely help boost performance more than creatine alone. —Ori Hofmekler

It’s widely known that different people react differently to creatine supplementation. Creatine helps improve muscle mass and strength in some individuals but not in others. Recent studies reveal that creatine’s varying effects aren’t just coincidental. In Canada, researchers at the University of Alberta, found that people who have a high percentage of type 2 muscle fibers, such as bodybuilders, respond better to creatine loading than those with a low percentage, such as long-distance runners. Type 2, or fast-twitch, muscle fibers, are responsible for physical activities that involve strength, speed and velocity. People who have a high percentage of type 2 muscle fibers generally do better in sports that involve anaerobic exercise such as heavy resistance training. Creatine availability profoundly affects the performance of fast-twitch muscle fibers. Phosphocreatine, the active form of cellular creatine, can generate ATP much faster than any other energy-releasing pathways can work, including glycolysis or oxidative phosphorylation. Evidently, cellular creatine plays a critical role in providing the instant energy required for fast and strong muscle actions. Under normal conditions the body recycles its own creatine

FOOD FIGHT

Color Me Healthy

Rule of thumb: The more colorful the produce, the more antioxidants and phytonutrients it will contain. That means more cancer protection. Go for dark, leafy greens, like spinach. Choose romaine lettuce instead of the iceberg variety. Carrots are better than celery, and yams are better than white potatoes. —Becky Holman

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.

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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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Eat to Grow ANABOLIC DRIVE

Remade Gatorade?

Added ingredients make a better sports drink

You know the great rivalries: the Yankees versus the Red Sox, the Cowboys vs. the Redskins, the Democrats vs. the Republicans and Gatorade vs.—wait, Gatorade really hasn’t had any competition. Until now. In the sports-drink category, it’s basically a bunch of me-too products that tout the same old cocktail: water, sugar, sodium, potassium. Good stuff—definitely better than water—but they’ve had their day. Now it’s a new day. Enter the world of sports drinks with protein. Yes, in a head-to-head contest, Gatorade was bested by the competition. It happened in a study done by James Madison University scientists. They compared Gatorade with protein-filled rival Accelerade. They determined whether Reformulated sports endurance-cycling performance and drinks are making postexercise muscle damage were exercise waves. changed when the subjects drank a carbohydrate-and-protein beverage or a carbohydrate-only beverage. Fifteen male cyclists rode to exhaustion, the second ride subjects performed 40 percent longer with followed 12 to 15 hours later by a second ride to exhausthe protein beverage than with the carb beverage—44 tion. The subjects drank the beverages every 15 minutes minutes vs. 31. Peak postexercise plasma CPK levels, a during exercise and then immediately after exercise. The measure of muscle damage, were 83 percent lower among beverages had the same carbohydrate content, but there those who received the protein drink. were 20 percent fewer calories in Gatorade. If the Gatorade people were smart, they’d have a What happened? Gatorade plus protein version. But I guess that might kill the In the first ride subjects rode 29 percent longer with the brand identity. My suggestion? Go with the sports drink with protein beverage than the carbohydrate-only beverage. In protein. —Jose Antonio, Ph.D.

FOOD FACTS

RECOVER RX

Micro-Wave

Say bye-bye to nutrients

One study showed that microwaving broccoli decreased its nutrition components more than 97 percent, and it lost about 40 percent of its vitamin C. If you have to microwave, do it at the lowest possible temperature and for shorter periods of time. Better yet, steam your veggies. That reduces nutrients by only 10 percent. —Becky Holman

Deep Sleep

For better recovery

Quite often athletes tell me that they have a difficult time falling asleep when they’re training extra hard. They’re simply wired from a stimulating workout. I often suggest purchasing a bottle of magnesium-calcium tablets (usually called mag-cal) that have a ratio of twice as much calcium as magnesium and a bottle of 1,000-milligram vitamin C tablets. About 40 minutes before bed take two mag-cal tablets and one 1,000-milligram C—and a multimineral capsule, too, if you have them. (Minerals do good things for your body while you’re asleep.) The mag-cal will facilitate sleep and the C will fill your night with dreams. Since dreaming is believed to be therapeutic, you’ll wake up mentally and physically refreshed. —Bill Starr

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From the IRON MAN PRO Style Store

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•How the Pros Pack on Extreme Mass •Arnold’s Size-Stretching X-ploits •The Forgotten High-Intensity Growth Trigger •A Muscle-Building Mystery Solved •Pounds of Muscle in Days •Bodypart Bloodbath for Super Size •Monster Arms: Torching Your Tri’s •Time-Bomb Training •Lean-Machine Ignition •Drop the D Bomb for Bigger Bodyparts •Pre-Ex vs. the Post-X Mass Jack •Less Training, Big Gaining: The Truth

(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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w w w. I ro n M a n M a g a z i n e . c o m

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):

Train, Eat,

GROW Muscle-Training Program 66

From the IRON MAN Training & Research Center It was back in the April Õ02 issue of IRON MAN that Jerry Brainum reported on a study we all shouldÕve taken note of. It showed that blocking blood flow to a muscle increased strength dramatically (Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 15:362366; 2001). The researchers applied occlusion to the subjectsÕ forearms by placing a bloodpressure cuff on their upper arms for two minutes. The cuff was then removed, and the subjects did wrist curls. Results: Those who had their blood flow impaired prior to exercise showed a 20 percent strength increase over the subjects who didnÕt use the blood-pressure cuff. Yes, 20 percent! (On a bench press thatÕs like going from 300 to 360 in one workout.) Now we get word from Rob Thoburn, an IRON MAN contributor and muscle-science researcher, that heÕs been corresponding with

Japanese scientists who have been experimenting with occlusion techniques and getting dramatic size increasesÑas in big muscle gains. In ÒScientific Muscle Building 2, which begins on page 84, Thoburn reports that Takashi Abe, Ph.D., got a 7 percent increase in cross-sectional area of the quadriceps in four months with standard training, but when he used occlusion, he got an 8 percent increase in cross-sectional areaÑin only two weeks! ThatÕs right, slightly better results but in one-eighth the timeÑtwo weeks as opposed to 16 weeks. Wow! LetÕs do the mathÑand be conservative. An 8 percent increase in quad size each monthÑ rather than every two weeks, which is what the researchers gotÑtimes 12 months, and you could almost double your quad mass in one year. The downside is that youÕd have to throw out all your pants.

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by Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson • Photography by Michael Neveux

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Why does blocking blood flow produce such spectacular increases in muscle size and strength? It’s got to be from the incredible rush of blood to the bodypart once flow resumes. According to Brainum’s report, scientists have suggested that the huge rush of blood can produce everything from upgraded release of heat shock proteins to alterations in muscle calcium metabolism, which enhances contraction, to greater recruitment of fast-twitch muscle fibers. Needless to say, all of that got us very excited, until we realized that using a blood-pressure cuff or a tourniquet above the working muscle isn’t very practical (how are you going to stop blood flow to your pecs?). Then we realized something that got us excited all over again: Similar, safer occlusion effects can occur with standard exercises. Think continuous tension. Ah-ha! Perhaps we can get close to replicating some of those amazing gains without putting rubber bands all over our bodies. Keep in mind that when you contract a muscle, you force blood out of it little by little. So if you keep the muscle engaged long enough as you pump out continuous-tension reps, you’re essentially occluding blood flow, especially near the end of a set, when the blood is flushed out. You know that burn you get on the last few reps of leg extensions? It’s partly because the quad muscles are screaming for blood (oxygen) because they’re in a constant state of tension during that exercise— blood is getting squeezed out of the muscles on every rep. You may be thinking, “But most people use leg extensions in their quad routines, so why aren’t they getting 8 percent increases in size every two weeks?” Answer: Part of the reason is that right when the most occlusion is occurring—near the end of a set—they stop. It’s a simple case of terminating sets too soon—when you can’t get any more complete reps—and that severely limits occlusion effects. Remember, each rep forces a little more blood out of the muscle, so the most occlusion occurs at the end of the set. That’s one reason X Reps, or power partials at the end of a set, www.ironmanmagazine.com \ APRIL 2005 79

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Train, Eat, Grow / Program 66

work so well at creating new mass and strength—they increase occlusion, even on the big compound exercises like bench presses. In fact, here’s something to think about: You’ve probably read about properly setting up for bench presses by squeezing your shoulder blades together as you thrust your rib cage up. The reason that works so well is that it can create continuous tension on your pecs, if you do it right, and occlude blood flow to the muscles. If you don’t set up properly, your front delts take most of the

stress off your chest near lockout, as your chest sort of caves in and you lose pec tension and occlusion. The result: less size and strength stimulation for your pecs. Interesting! And how about the occlusion/warmup connection? Most bodybuilders use a fairly quick cadence on warmup sets, not locking out completely. In other words, they use continuous-tension warmup sets, which occlude blood flow. That causes more blood to pool in the target after each

warmup set. Studies show that a warm muscle can contract better than a cold one—up to 20 percent better, in fact (hey, isn’t that the exact amount of strength increase researchers got in the first occlusion study we mentioned?). So occlusion during warmup sets may be key in getting as much blood in the target muscle prior to your work sets as possible. Proper warmup sets, with occlusion, help induce maximum size and strength stimulation on your work sets. (The pieces of the mass-building puzzle are really

IRONMAN Training & Research Center Muscle-Training Program 66 Workout 1: Chest, Lats, Triceps, Abs Smith-machine incline presses Incline cable flyes Superset Smith-machine incline presses (X Reps) Incline dumbbell presses Wide-grip dips Cable flyes (middle) Wide-grip dips (X Reps) Flyes (X Reps in bench-press position) Pulldowns Machine pullovers Chins (X Reps) Undergrip machine rows Undergrip rope rows (X Reps) Lying extensions Pushdowns Superset Lying extensions Close-grip bench presses (X Reps) Superset Cable pushouts (drop set) Hyper dips (nonlock, then X Reps) Hanging kneeups Superset Hanging kneeups Incline kneeups Tri-set Ab Bench crunches (drop set) Twisting crunches Bench V-ups

1 x 8-10 1 x 20 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 20 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 20 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 20 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 15 1 x 10 1x8 1 x 8(6) 1 x 10 1 x max

Workout 2: Quads, Hams, Gastrocs, Abs Hack squats Leg extensions Hack squats (X Reps) Sissy squats (X Reps) Smith-machine squats or leg presses Leg curls Smith-machine squats or leg presses Stiff-legged deadlifts Superset Stiff-legged deadlifts

1 x 8-10 1 x 20 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 20 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1x9

Hyperextensions (X Reps) Leg press calf raises (X Reps) Hack-machine calf raises (drop set; X Reps) Superset Seated calf raises (X Reps) Machine donkey calf raises (X Reps) Low-back machine

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

Workout 3: Delts, Midback, Biceps, Forearms Dumbbell upright rows Forward-lean laterals Superset Dumbbell upright rows Rack pulls (X Reps) Dumbbell W presses (X Reps) Superset Incline one-arm laterals (X Reps) One-arm cable laterals (X Reps) Bent-over laterals (drop set) Nautilus rows Bent-arm bent-over laterals Nautilus rows (X Reps) Behind-the-neck pulldowns (X Reps) Barbell shrugs Cable upright rows (X Reps) Dumbbell curls Cable curls Cable curls (X Reps) Concentration curls (drop set) One-arm dumbbell spider curls (X Reps) Superset Incline hammer curls Rope hammer curls (X Reps) Forearm bar (overgrip) Superset Reverse wrist curls (X Reps) Dumbbell reverse wrist curls (X Reps) Forearm bar (undergrip) Aftershock superset Wrist curls (X Reps) Behind-the-back wrist curls or dumbbell wrist curls (X Reps)

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1 x 8-10 1 x 20 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 8(6) 1 x 8-10 1 x 20 1 x 8-10 1 x 10 1 x 20 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 20 1 x 8-10 1 x 8(6) 1x9 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 20 1 x 12 1x8 1 x 20 1 x 12 1x8

Train, Eat, Grow / Program 66

most compound exercises, the first as a straight set and the second with X Reps tacked onto the end. We’ve stuck with that because that’s how we got the amazing gains during our one-month X-periment. You’ve no doubt seen our before and after photos. (In fact, you may be sick of seeing them.) If you haven’t, go to www .x-rep.com, and you’ll see why we’re such fanatical believers in X Reps. We’re hoping this new wrinkle will do even bigger and better things for our physiques. We’ve decided to try placing a high-rep set of an isolation exercise, or contracted-position movement, between those two sets so we get an occlusion uptick before our X-Rep set. Obviously, the high-rep exercise Models: Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson

Cable curls can provide biceps occlusion for a blast of new size and strength.

starting to snap together now.) All of that research and dot connecting has spurred us to completely revamp our routine for some exciting occlusion experimentation—and, from what we’re experiencing already, some spectacular new gains. As you saw last month, we’ve been doing two work sets for

must have continuous tension for heightened occlusion. Let’s take upper chest as an example. We use Smith-machine incline presses as our compound exercise and incline cable flyes as our contracted-position, continuous-tension (occlusion) upper-pec movement. First, warm up on your big exercise with two progressively heavier sets. Do them nonlock style if you want to produce some occlusion before your first work set. Now it’s time to get busy. Do one heavy all-out set of Smith-machine inclines for eight to 10 reps. Drive to full lockout, as this is not for occlusion. It’s more to prime your nervous system for optimal force later—on your X Rep set. (Note: On the abbreviated routine on this page we have one or two sets listed for this first exercise; if you think you have low neuromuscular effi-

ITRC Program 66, Abbreviated Home-Gym Routine: Monday Through Friday Workout 1: Chest, Lats, Triceps, Abs Incline presses 1-2 x 8-10 Incline flyes (bottom two-thirds of stroke only) 1 x 20 Incline presses (X Reps) 1 x 8-10 Wide-grip dips or bench presses 1-2 x 8-10 Flyes (bottom two-thirds of stroke only) 1 x 20 Wide-grip dips or bench presses (X Reps) 1 x 8-10 Chins 1-2 x 8-10 Dumbbell pullovers (bottom two-thirds of stroke only) 1 x 20 Chins (X Reps) 1 x 8-10 Close-grip bench presses 1-2 x 8-10 Kickbacks (top two-thirds of stroke only) 1 x 20 Close-grip bench presses (X Reps) 1 x 8-10 Hanging kneeups 1-2 x 10-15 Ab Bench crunches or full-range crunches 1 x 20 Incline kneeups (X Reps) 1 x 10-15

Workout 2: Quads, Hams, Gastrocs, Abs Squats Leg extensions or nonlock hack squats Squats (X Reps) Sissy squats (X Reps) Stiff-legged deadlifts Leg curls Superset Stiff-legged deadlifts Hyperextensions (X reps) Standing calf raises Seated calf raises Standing calf raises Hyperextensions (X Reps)

1-2 x 8-10 1 x 20 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1-2 x 8-10 1 x 20 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1-2 x 15 1 x 25 1 x 15 1 x 8-12

Workout 3: Delts, Midback, Biceps, Forearms Dumbbell upright rows Forward-lean laterals Dumbbell upright rows (X Reps) Dumbbell presses (drop set; X Reps) Bent-over laterals (drop set; X Reps) Bent-over rows or chest-supported dumbbell rows Bent-arm bent-over laterals Bent-over rows or chest-supported dumbbell rows (X Reps) Barbell shrugs Close-grip upright rows (X Reps) Barbell or dumbbell curls Spider curls Barbell or dumbbell curls Concentration curls (X Reps) Incline hammer curls Reverse curls Reverse wrist curls Dumbbell reverse wrist curls (X Reps) Wrist curls Dumbbell wrist curls (X Reps)

1-2 x 8-10 1 x 20 1 x 8-10 1 x 8(6) 1 x 8(6) 1-2 x 8-10 1 x 20 1-2 x 8-10 1 x 20 1 x 8-10 1-2 x 8-10 1 x 20 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 20 1 x 8-10 1 x 20 1 x 10-12 1 x 20 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 twosecond 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 66

ciency, you may get better results doing two initial sets.) Rest one minute, or as long as it takes your partner to do his or her set, and then go to the cable crossover machine for some serious occlusion on incline cable flyes. (You could also use a pec deck machine with your arms high on the pads.) Take a weight that makes you hit failure between 15 and 20 reps, each one squeezing more blood out of your pecs. Keep tension on your pecs throughout the set. You must maintain tightness in the target muscle. It should burn like crazy at the end of the set as your upper pecs are running on empty—and screaming for oxygen. That’s a good indication that occlusion has occurred. Now to take advantage of it. Rest another minute, feel the blood rushing in, and then go back to the Smith machine. Crank out as

many reps as you can on the inclines with the same weight you used on your first set. When you can’t get another full rep, do X Reps, or partial pulses, just below the midpoint of the stroke (that will give you key fast-twitch fiber activation—and some extra occlusion). If you push even close to failure on those three or four sets, you’ll feel a throbbing fullness in your pecs. You also will have stimulated an incredible number of muscle fibers. You upped the anabolic stimulation with occlusion and the X Reps added to that exponentially—from more fast-twitch fiber activation to semistretch overload, which has been linked to hyperplasia, or fiber splitting. We think occlusion has a lot of potential for both size and strength increases. Apparently, Ronnie Coleman, the current Mr. Olympia, does too—or at least he has a gut feeling

that continuous tension before big compound moves does something special. Check out his quad routine. He does high-rep sets of leg extensions prior to launching into his heavy compound quad work, 20 to 30 reps on each blood-wringing set. Is he using extensions for occlusion to achieve even more freaky mass and strength? We think he’s on to something. 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 173. 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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Scientific

MUSCLE Building 2 From the Lab to Your Workouts

ob Thoburn enjoys pestering scientists all over the world with questions on the muscle-building process. HeÕll call them, send e-mail, send a carrier pigeonÑ whatever it takes to get answers to his questions. And we encourage him by showcasing what he learns in IRON MAN. If youÕre like us, youÕll be riveted by what the sharpest minds on the planet have to say about hypertrophy (see, we know scientific words too). 84 APRIL 2005 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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Illustration by Christian Martinez

by Rob Thoburn • Photography by Michael Neveux

www.ironmanmagazine.com \ APRIL 2005 85

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Scientific MUSCLE

Model: John Cowgill

Is a lot of muscle size caused by water retention that comes from increasing the blood flow? Even if it’s only partially responsible, that makes the pump an important element during masstraining cycles.

Scientific MUSCLE Building 2

Force vs. the Pump If your muscles couldn’t generate force, you wouldn’t be able to lift weights. In fact, you’d be about as mobile as a cucumber. The more force your muscles generate, the more weight you can lift. Further, many scientists feel that force generation (a.k.a. tension) per se plays a critical role in stimulating your muscles to hypertrophy; that is, the more force you make your muscles generate, the more likely they are to grow. But not all scientists feel that way. Some say metabolic factors are involved; others talk about hormonal factors; still others refer to a combination of factors. Then there is the world you and I live in, the gym. Check out the training styles of legendary Serge Nubret, who did 40 sets for chest, or massive Jay Cutler, for example. Or just think about how long bodybuilders have praised the musclebuilding virtues of the pump. Yes, there’s a good deal of realworld evidence to suggest that if

you pump your muscles with as much blood as possible during your workouts, they’ll get bigger. Could there be different kinds of hypertrophy? Maybe certain types of training (e.g., where the objective is to generate very high levels of force) produce one type of hypertrophy, while other types of training (e.g., where the objective is to achieve the best pump) produce another type. Or maybe different training methods can produce the same type of hypertrophy via different biological mechanisms? Or maybe I’ve been smoking something. Boy, this muscle-building stuff can be confusing. Let’s go to the scientists: “You have sparked an interesting conversation here,” said Troy Hornberger, Ph.D., of the Department of Bioengineering at the University of California, San Diego. (Hornberger worked in the lab of muscle hypertrophy expert Karyn Esser, Ph.D., at the University of Illinois; Esser is now at the University of Kentucky.) “In my opinion, there are two types

of growth-promoting stimuli. One we probably all agree on is tension; however, I also think that there is a metabolic component to the growth-promoting stimulus of resistance exercise. My basis for that argument comes simply from comparing the physiques of powerlifters to bodybuilders.” The fact of the matter is that I haven’t been smoking funny cigarettes. My brain is just crowded with muscle-building-related queries, most of them unanswered. That’s why I try to unload them on scientists all over the world, something I talked about in the first installment of “Scientific Muscle Building” [December ’04]. Gary Kamen, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Exercise Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, recently published a great review article on neuromuscular aspects of strength development in Research Quarterly for Exercise & Sport. I asked him about the observation that many bodybuilders seem to be able to build bigger muscles by doing the following, a reliable method of getting a great pump: •Lift moderate loads to the point of temporary muscular failure. •Perform multiple sets for each muscle or muscle group. •Rest relatively briefly between sets. He replied in a personal communication: “If you take a look at the mass of articles on the effects of resistance training on muscular strength, I think you’ll begin to see the impact of large forces. “I believe the reason moderate loads are effective in increasing size is due to the effect on capillarization, rather than hypertrophic effects. There certainly is considerable hypertrophy with moderate loads, but most of muscle size is water from the blood flow, and muscle has great capacity to increase blood flow. I believe this accounts for the muscle size increases you see with moderate forces. “Remember, too, that when moderate forces are lifted to failure, you're eventually lifting very high loads at failure, and these very high

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Model: Derik Farnsworth

Scientific MUSCLE

Some scientists believe the stimulus for hypertrophy is high force production with fatigue; others believe it’s high force production while minimizing fatigue. It may be a combination. loads certainly have an impact on muscle fiber size and number. Perhaps fiber splitting (to increase muscle fiber size) is increased with moderate loads. I’m afraid we know very little about that.”

Scientific MUSCLE Building 2

Time Under Tension vs. Time Under Pump? Water or not, a pumped muscle looks good. I wish my muscles could stay pumped all the time, don’t you? But a pump may represent more than a short-lived cosmetic perk. A pump is basically a muscle swollen with blood. As your muscle cells generate force, or contract, during a set, blood vessels supplying the muscle are squeezed shut. At the end of the set the muscle relaxes and the blood vessels open up wider than before. That allows blood to enter the muscle more quickly. If you lift a heavy enough weight and don’t rest too long between sets, blood will eventually accumulate inside the contracting muscles. That causes them to become fuller in appearance. Some of the water in the blood leaves the blood vessels and enters the space between muscle cells. It

also enters the muscle cells themselves, causing them to swell. Swelling may serve as a hypertrophic signal. Or it may not. Back to the scientists: “Muscle [cell] swelling by osmotically active agents is also linked to hypertrophy. Amino acid transport is definitely linked to muscle swelling, at least in culture. Peter Taylor, who works downstairs, has published a number of articles on this. Therefore, the swelling (and thus the pump) might be beneficial.” Henning Wackerhage, Ph.D., Lecturer in Molecular Exercise Physiology, University of Dundee, Dundee, Scotland “Unique features of high-volume training would be greater glycogen storage and capillary neoformation. Glycogen is stored with water, so increased glycogen storage can add to muscle bulk. New capillaries would add little bulk, particularly when they are collapsed when the muscle is inactive.” Digby Sale, Ph.D., Professor of Kinesiology, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

“An interesting question. I do always wonder what the stimulus for muscle hypertrophy is…and whether it is the need for high force production with fatigue or more force production while minimizing fatigue that works better— in other words, if you are able to support a muscle’s force-producing capacity and maintenance by providing it with adequate blood flow vs. creating an ischemic lowblood-flow environment under which the muscle is asked to generate force. In the latter, the force production will rapidly decay, and it will require recruitment of more motor units to lift the same weight.… I think that having to tap into those motor units is definitely an essential requirement for hypertrophy, especially since those are the fast fatiguable fibers that get recruited last. Whether a lack of oxygen and removal of metabolic by-products enhances the stimulus for muscle hypertrophy, I don't know, but I would guess that a critical question to ask is this: Under which of the two conditions does muscle hypertrophy occur to a greater extent or faster…high blood flow during the lifting and after, only after or neither during

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Scientific MUSCLE

nor after?” Michael Tschakovsky, Ph.D., Associate Professor, School of Physical and Health Education, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada

Model: Tamer Elshahat

Scientific MUSCLE Building 2

“The molecular mechanisms triggering and maintaining muscle hypertrophy are not clear. There is scientific evidence for stretching and tension. Likely, metabolic byproducts also have a role. There is experimental animal evidence of free radicals as inducers of muscle adaptation (maybe also for hypertrophy). This will also explain the findings with ischemic exercise and the need to accumulate sets without much rest in between. I also agree with your idea about fiber swelling (it works to induce muscle glycogen synthesis); it could work by causing stretching.” Jose Calbet, Ph.D., Department of Physical Education, University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Canary Island, Spain

An increase in blood flow to working muscles may cause greater hypertrophy due to more exposure of anabolic hormones to their receptors on muscle fibers.

“I think that a very important consideration in muscle growth is blood flow. During exercise, blood vessels within the muscle dilate to allow greater blood flow through the muscle in order to meet the oxygen and glycogen demands of the active fibers. This increase in blood flow is the pump phenomenon that lifters experience when performing multiple sets at a sufficiently high intensity with short rest periods. Now, my own personal opinion is that the increase in blood flow may cause greater hypertrophy due to more exposure of anabolic hormones to their receptors on muscle fibers. It is known, however, that the anabolic hormones are extremely potent (i.e., a very small amount of hormone released into the bloodstream can have dramatic effects on the target tissue). Thus, the time of exposure of the hormone to its

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Scientific MUSCLE

Scientific MUSCLE Building 2

Model: Will Harris

Increasing the number of capillaries in the muscle may play a role in anabolism. More vascularity means more efficient fueling and function during intense work.

receptor is very crucial. If there is an increase in blood flow through the muscle, then the hormone has more exposure time to its receptor, and that could result in more hormone-receptor binding. “Furthermore, we have consistently found that the delayed-onset muscle soreness that is a characteristic of a large volume of eccentric muscle actions is not necessary for muscle fiber hypertrophy. DOMS is due to microtrauma and is largely caused by the eccentric component of exercise. We have found the same amounts of hypertrophy coming from exercise that involves only concentric movement, during which there is very little microtrauma. Thus, hypertrophy is not a function of muscle damage.” Travis Beck, Ph.D. candidate, University of Nebraska-Lincoln “I am not a bodybuilder myself, but it was my understanding that

there has been a change of training methods, from long sets (10 to 15 reps) toward far shorter sets (four to six reps). In terms of increasing muscle mass, that makes sense to me. Moreover, long, fatiguing sets are ineffective because only the last (most difficult) reps probably will provide an adequate stimulus. That said, bodybuilding is not only about size. The number of blood vessels in the muscle (capillarization) may also be important because the more small blood vessels there are in a muscle, the better possibilities you have to pump up the volume during competition. I can very well imagine that for the improvement of capillarization, it may be beneficial to do somewhat longer sets (eight to 10 reps).” C.J. (Jo) de Ruiter, Ph.D., Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Faculteit der Bewegingswetenschappen

Occlusion Training and the Pump As I explained above, when you lift weights, your muscles generate so much force that they frequently squeeze shut, or occlude, their own blood vessels. When the muscles relax, the blood vessels open up even wider, causing blood to rush in. Dr. Takashi Abe is a professor at Tokyo Metropolitan University’s Department of Exercise and Sport Science. He has conducted several studies on occlusion, or Kaatsu, training, which involves cutting off blood flow to the working muscle by application of a pressure cuff. He has found this method of training to be remarkably effective for increasing muscle size, both personally and with his study subjects. Here’s what Dr. Abe had to say (remember, English isn’t his first language): “Now, I am writing a Kaatsu resistance-training paper that I present at ACSM 2004. I would like publishing it shortly. In my experience, Kaatsu training is most effective technique for stimulating muscle hypertrophy. Using a classical resistance-training method (80 percent of 1RM, three sets, three times a week), my quadriceps muscle cross-sectional area increased 7 percent following four months. On the other hand, my quadriceps muscle CSA increased 8 percent following two weeks of Kaatsu training (20 percent of 1RM, three sets, two times a day). I hope you will read this paper shortly.” How does occlusion training increase muscle size? One scientist suggested to me that the application of a pressure cuff to the muscle provides additional mechanical tension that results in greater hypertrophy. Others postulate that occlusion causes greater recruitment of fast-twitch cells, the muscles cells that have the greatest potential for hypertrophy. There’s another possibility. The occlusion caused by the pressure cuff may produce a greater pump, ultimately leading to more muscle cell swelling. I proposed this idea to Dr. Abe, who commented: “I am thinking about plasma

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Scientific MUSCLE

Some scientists say that the pump may play a causal role in hypertrophy. A rush of blood may heighten muscle energetics for more fiber activation. volume shift from circulating blood to active muscle. After Kaatsutraining session midthigh (or arm) girth increased over two centimeters—just 10 minutes of training. Of course, hematocrit increased after training (43 percent to 50 percent). This girth change is equal to 8 to 9 percent increase in thigh-muscle CSA. I think the acute size change is one of the important stimuli for synthesis of contractile protein. We have to do more research.”

Scientific MUSCLE Building 2

Taking Science Into the Gym I’ve spent a considerable amount of time corresponding with many of the world’s leading research scientists on matters related to building bigger muscles. One thing I can tell you with certainty is that the mechanism(s) by which lifting weights makes muscles hypertrophy is (are) anything but clear. Some scientists say that the pump may play a causal role in hypertrophy; the bulk of those I’ve spoken with, however, feel that it plays no such role. But I’m stubborn—and, arguably, a little ignorant too. I’ve seen too many massive muscles built with methods that seek to maximize time under pump (as opposed to

the commonly cited time under tension) to believe that the pump has no role in muscle growth. And what about those studies by Dr. Abe and his colleagues? Thus, I bring this article to a conclusion with some suggestions for how you can put some of the pump science discussed here to powerful musclebuilding use in your own workouts. R.O.B. Training. Occlusion training is impractical and, in my experience, rather painful. William Kraemer, Ph.D., of the University of Connecticut tells me that you can get a similar effect simply by keeping rest periods brief, something I espouse in R.O.B. (Rest Only Briefly) training (see www.robthoburn.com for details). One of my favorite variations of R.O.B. training is as follows: After warming up thoroughly, increase the load to 80 percent of your onerepetition maximum for the selected exercise. Complete as many reps as you can. Upon reaching—or coming within one rep of—failure, pause just long enough that you can squeeze out another one to three reps. Repeat the process until one minute has elapsed. After one week increase it to two minutes. If you’re not used to training like that, one such set per muscle or muscle group will be fine to start with.

The method I just described makes your muscles generate high forces in frequent bursts while taking only very short “breaths” in between. It produces a tremendous pump and very pleasing increases in muscle mass and muscle hardness. Dr. Nao Ishii’s method. Dr. Nao Ishii of the University of Tokyo has studied occlusion training with Dr. Abe. He’s also studied other methods. Here are his comments on R.O.B. training, occlusion training and his own method. Give it a try. “Yes, I quite agree with you where multiset exercises with short interset rest period and middle weight strongly stimulate muscular hypertrophy. About this point, please read Takarada, Y., and Ishii, N., ‘Muscular Hypertrophy Induced by Low-Intensity Resistance Training With Short Rest Period in Aged Women’ (J. Str. Cond. Res. 16 123128: 2002). “Many factors involved in resistance-exercise training may be related to muscular hypertrophy. These include mechanical stress, metabolic stress, oxygen environment (reduction/oxidation stress), changes in blood circulation within muscle, heat stress, etc. “We researchers do not yet know (continued on page 98) what is the

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Model: Ronnie Coleman

Scientific MUSCLE

Ronnie Coleman’s mass training is a good example of occlusion and partial-range movement. For more on powerpartial training, visit www.X-Rep.com.

Scientific MUSCLE Building 2

(continued from page 94) most impor-

tant among those factors for gaining muscular size effectively and efficiently. My group, including Dr. Takashi Abe, has studied occlusive training for many years, and found that moderate suppression of muscular blood flow during resistance exercise with light load (even 20 percent 1RM) causes marked increase in muscle size. Probably normal training with short rest period shares some mechanism with the occlusive training in that muscular contraction stronger than ~40 percent MVC (maximal isometric force) suppresses the blood circulation within muscle, and combination of such type of contraction and brief rest period causes accumulation of metabolic subproduct such as lactate within muscle, enhanced secretion of growth hormone and activation of local growth factors such as IGF-I and hepatic growth factor.

“Also, slow lifting exercise may have a similar effect, at least to some extent, for gaining muscular size. On the other hand, isometric exercise may be less effective in production and accumulation of metabolic subproduct than exercises with actual movements. These notions are written in Ishii, N.: Factors Involved in the ResistanceExercise Stimulus and Their Relations to Muscular Hypertrophy (in Nose, H., et al., eds. Exercise, Nutrition and Environmental Stress. Cooper, MI. 119-138; 2002). “What is the best exercise method for gaining muscle size? would be a kind of enormous question. It may depend on age, training career and genetic background.… In general, middle intensity, large volume and short interset rest period are essential, as you have suggested. “Among other things, however, the so-called descending method— i.e., successive RM bouts with grad-

ually decreased weight are repeated with interval of ~30s—is effective for both beginners and competitors. One typical way is: Start with 85 percent of 1RM and go to failure, and then use 70 percent of 1RM, then 50 percent of 1RM. We have shown that such a method is highly effective in stimulating growth hormone secretion and gaining muscular size in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research article mentioned above. From my own experience, it is true.” X-Rep training. Have you ever seen Ronnie Coleman train? He moves the weight up and down in an abbreviated, or partial, range of motion that hovers about the point of peak tension. By focusing on that portion of each movement wherein the muscle is squeezing the hardest (both on itself and its blood vessels) he achieves a very pump-friendly workout and trains key muscle fibers hard. IRON MAN Editor in Chief Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson train at the IRON MAN Training & Research Center, where they recently developed X Reps, a method of training that also employs abbreviated reps and specially selected exercises. The X-Rep technique provides a powerful occlusion effect, or blood-flow stoppage, like the one that the Japanese researchers found so effective. So with X Reps you get a lot of hypertrophic components in any one set. Check out the method at www .x-rep.com. You’ll see the results in Steve’s and Jonathan’s before and after photos, taken one month apart during the X-Rep-development experiment. As science is proving, occlusion methods like X Reps have a lot of potential to significantly increase muscle mass quickly. (There is a complete occlusion workout that includes X Reps and growth hormone activation in the new e-book X-treme Lean, available at www.X-tremeLean.com.) Editor’s note: Read plenty of free articles, purchase Rob’s ebooks and join the R.O.B. Club forum at www.robthoburn.com. IM

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You’ll Never Have

Great

Unless You Follow These 10 Rules

t’s odd the way shoulders are something of an afterthought for many bodybuilders. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that the muscles used in shoulder pressing are so similar to the ones used in chest pressing that they play second fiddle. In fact, I’ve seen many bodybuilders and serious weight trainees work their chests and shoulders on the same day, devoting an inordinate amount of their time and energy to the pecs, then rushing through a few quick

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Shoulders

by Ron Harris Photography by Michael Neveux

sets for delts. Nothing looks sillier than a guy with a big chest, decent arms and little width and thickness to his shoulders. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a narrow, girlish look. Without wide, round shoulders itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s impossible to have an exceptional physique. None of the bodybuilding greats, from Grimek, Reeves, Park, Scott, Oliva, Arnold, Haney, Yates to Coleman, would have appeared so impressive without powerful cannonball delts that captured the eye in nearly every pose. www.ironmanmagazine.com \ APRIL 2005 103

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Great Shoulders absolute toughest to handle, requiring every last ounce of balance and coordination. Two, I feel they do the best job of distributing the weight evenly between the three heads of the deltoid muscle. Pressing a bar to the front tends to involve more front delts. Pressing behind the neck is better but carries a risk of rotator cuff damage over time. You can’t go wrong with heavy seated dumbbell presses in good form.

2 Overhead Presses

The ideal basic shape of a bodybuilder is the V-taper. And the top of that V must include a manly set of rugged shoulders along with wide lats. Unless you’re going to wear shoulder pads for the rest of your life, you need to pack some meat on those clavicles if you want to be considered a real muscle man. It’s not so tough to do. Just follow these rules.

Become strong at free-weight overhead presses.

Follow These 10 Rules

For big legs you squat. A big chest comes from pressing and a monster back from pulling a ton of weight. And the shoulders also have one simple movement that is the key to overall mass: the overhead press. Show me a man who can press 1.5 times his bodyweight overhead for six to eight good reps, and I guarantee that that man will have big shoulders. Trying to add size to your shoulders without doing presses is like trying to drive cross-country with your emergency brake on. In other words, it will take you forever, and you’ll end up kicking yourself in the ass for being so stupid. There

are many useful machines for pressing, but I recommend that you use them only occasionally for variety or when preexhausting. Free weights are the hardest tool to use, which you should know by now translates into greater effectiveness and faster results. Machines also give you a false sense of strength. Pushing up a weight stack of 300 pounds may make you feel powerful, but it pales in comparison to the true power of pressing a 300-pound Olympic bar or a pair of 150-pound dumbbells. The former puts you in the category of pretty strong for an average gym rat; the latter sets you in an elite group of truly strong men. My preference is dumbbells, for several reasons. One, they’re the

Model: Darrell Terrell

Freeweight presses build shoulder mass.

Don’t turn overhead presses into inclines.

One very common form error you see all the time with overhead pressing is an excessive backward lean. A slight lean back is permissible, but take it too far, and you effectively turn your shoulder press into an incline press for upper chest. Theoretically, you’re already doing those when you train your chest. You want the weight to be traveling in a straight vertical line up from the shoulder joint so that the delts do the work. Leaning back puts the resistance over your upper chest. The reason for this form flaw in nearly every case is that the lifter is using more weight than he or she can actually handle. The shoulders aren’t strong enough to move the weight on their own power, so lifters unconsciously recruit the powerful pecs to assist. Since it’s pretty tough to see that lean when looking at yourself straight on in a mirror, be aware of where your butt is. It should be touching or almost touching the seat back behind you. Or, if you’re lucky enough to have a form-Nazi wife, as I do, you can just listen for her to say, “What is that sh*t? Sit up straight, and do it right!” (Love ya, babe!)

Lateral Raises Preexhaust your delts every so often by doing laterals before presses.

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Great Shoulders

I’ve mentioned that many bodybuilders train chest after shoulders. Unless you’re one of those genetically blessed specimens whose shoulders are great no matter what they do or don’t do for them, that’s a bad idea. The argument supporting the chest-with-shoulders grouping usually goes something like, “It’s good because your shoulders are already warmed up from chest, and you don’t need to go so heavy.” That argument sucks ass, in my not-veryhumble opinion. Your shoulders aren’t warmed up after you train chest; they’re knocked out! Heavy flat, incline and decline presses all take a significant toll on the anterior delts and triceps, fatiguing them just as much as they tire the pecs. It’s not that you don’t need to go heavy on shoulders after chest; it’s more like you can’t. And as we established in rule 1, you must get strong on overhead presses to build shoulder mass. The answer is to prioritize shoulders by training them first on a different day from when you train chest (more on that in the next rule). You can pair them with biceps, triceps, both bi’s and tri’s, or odds and ends muscle groups like calves and abs. By training your delts when you’re fresh, you enable yourself to use more weight, apply greater intensity and, I assure you, glean far better results than you have been.

Smith-Machine Presses

Cables provide continuous tension and a new dimension to your delt routine. Cable Lateral Raises

Model: Will Harris

Prioritize shoulder training.

Upright rows are an absolute mustdo exercise. Barbell Upright Rows

Allow your shoulders to recover.

The shoulders are involved in practically every exercise you do for your upper body, and they’re easy to overtrain. Think about it: The rear delts get hammered indirectly on back day, the front delts take a beating on chest day, and even biceps and triceps work needs the support of the deltoids. That’s why it’s important that you try to take 48 hours between your shoulder and chest workouts in particular and also between shoulder and back workouts (the traps are involved in most back exercises and shoulder move-

ments too). Hitting shoulders the day before or after chest is especially counterproductive to gains. As The Offspring sang a few years ago, “You gotta keep ’em separated!” Also, be conscious of overall volume; keep your total overall work sets to no more than 12 to 15. If you can’t get the job done with that, you need to train heavier and harder.

Learn how to perform lateral raises correctly.

The lateral, or side, raise is a killer movement for developing round caps on your medial deltoids but only if you do it right. Most people

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Seated forwardlean laterals may help keep your form strict.

Model: Jay Cutler

Model: Jonathan Lawson

Follow These 10 Rules

Seated Lateral Raises

Great Shoulders Barbell Upright Rows

Overhead Barbbell Presses

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Follow These 10 Rules

Chinups are an absolute mustdo exercise for the back. Neveux / Model: Dennis Newman

Neveux

Chinups are an absolute must-do exercise for the back.

Great Shoulders Bent-Over Lateral Raises

Model: Derik Farnsworth

Don’t neglect your rear delts. They create shoulder roundness.

Follow These 10 Rules

don’t. Usually you see guys heaving and throwing the weights up like they’re trying to flap their wings and fly. Most times it’s because they’re using dumbbells that are too heavy for them. I have watched thousands of bodybuilders train over the past 20 years, and I can count on one hand the number I’ve seen who could use perfect form with dumbbells weighing 50 pounds or more. Yet I see men all the time using that much weight with horrible form, and they’re crazy enough to think that they’re actually working their side delts hard. The two-second solution is to reduce the weight. You should be able to raise the weight under control and pause for a brief second at the top to contract your side delts before lowering slowly, slower than the speed with which you raised the ’bells. No other part of your body should be moving. If you’re doing a little jump or hip thrust, your form blows, and you need to fix it.

Preexhaust at every fourth workout, at least.

Pressing first in your shoulder workout is a good strategy. It lets you use the most weight on the most important exercise. Eventually, though, many lifters find that their front delts and triceps are growing ahead of their side delts. I suggest that at least every fourth workout—

and more often if your side delts are really lagging—you preexhaust the side delts either by doing your lateral raises first before moving on to presses or performing preexhaust supersets of laterals immediately followed by overhead presses. You might want to use machine presses in preexhaust supersets, as your ability to balance heavy weight overhead will be temporarily impaired.

Develop your rear delts.

The posterior, or rear, delts are without doubt the red-headed stepchild of the shoulder complex. Many lifters don’t train them at all, or if they do, it’s usually a few halfeffort sets before heading to the locker room at the end of the workout. It’s no surprise that very few men have good development in the rear delts. The solution is simply to train them, and train them hard. Either include three or four good sets of rear, or bent-over, laterals performed with dumbbells, cables or a machine on shoulder day or at the end of back day. They will grow if you just train them regularly and properly. If you look in the mirror sideways and you’re lurching forward like a Neanderthal, you may need to train your rear delts first on shoulder day for a few months so that they can catch up and also to improve your Paleolithic posture.

Strengthen your rotator cuff muscles.

Nothing will derail your training of both chest and shoulders like a rotator cuff injury, as many of you have unhappily learned firsthand. Whether it’s happened to you once, or you have yet to experience that agony and frustration, the best cure

is prevention. Once or, preferably, twice a week do rotator cuff exercises. Yes, the weight is light, the reps are high, and it’s about as exciting as waiting in line at Costco on a Friday night, but it will strengthen those critical muscles and help keep you injury-free.

Change workouts regularly.

I’ve written at least 200 shouldertraining articles based on the routines of the pros and top amateur bodybuilders over the years, and I have to confess they are almost numbingly similar. Most of them do some type of overhead press, lateral raises and rear laterals for three to four sets each of eight to 12 reps. While that’s a pretty solid routine, you can only follow it for so long before your shoulders adapt to it and no amount of further effort will bring more growth. Change your exercises, the order in which you do them, the rep ranges you use and the speed with which you perform your reps from time to time. Keep your shoulders guessing, and they’ll continue to have to fight to adapt, which will result in growth.

Perform upright rows.

I always had good shoulders, but until I started incorporating upright rows into my workouts about four years ago, I never had those ridiculously round delts that almost don’t look real. Upright rows done with dumbbells (a favorite of Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson in their X-Rep program) are extremely effective, as are upright rows performed with a barbell and a slightly widerthan-shoulder-width grip. Do them in addition to lateral raises—or in place of them—every second or third workout. If you haven’t been, you don’t know how much round, full, side-delt mass you’ve been missing out on. Next month I’ll lay down the rules you need to know if bigger biceps are on your wish list. Editor’s note: Check out Ron Harris’ Web site, www.ronharrismuscle.com. IM

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Condition

Magician 46-Year-Old Lee Apperson Reveals How the Average Joe Can Transform Himself at Any Age by David Young - Photography by Michael Neveux ee Apperson has a reputation as one of the most conditioned athletes in bodybuilding. That’s pretty impressive by itself, but when you consider his age and his competitive history, it’s offthe-hook amazing! That’s why I jumped all over the chance to interview him for IRON MAN. As I’d just turned 50 and had plans of getting in my best shape ever for spring, I guessed that Lee would be a great source of helpful tips and inspiration. My guess was flat-out accurate. Of course, I already knew that he’s 46, weighs 253 at 6’2”—and is usually ripped.

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46-Year-Old Lee Apperson

Condition Magician

“The conditioning cycle requires lots of sets and reps with moderate weights.”

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46-Year-Old Lee Apperson Lee Apperson’s Contest History ’84 AAU Mr. Auburndale, 2nd ’85 NPC Mr. Space Coast, 1st ’85 NPC Mr. Manatee County, 2nd ’86 NPC Central Florida, 2nd ’86 NPC Mr. Daytona, 1st ’87 NPC Seminole Classic, 1st ’87 NPC Mr. Florida, 8th ’87 AAU Mr. Tampa, 1st ’88 NPC Southern Natural, 1st ’88 NPC Southern Gold Cup, 6th ’88 NPC Southeastern Gold Cup, 2nd ’89 NPC Birmingham Championships, 1st ’89 Southeastern USA, 3rd ’89 Southeast Regionals, 1st ’90 Musclemania, San Diego, 5th ’91 NPC Junior USA, 2nd ’91 NPC Nationals, 15th ’92 NPC Junior Nationals, 10th ’92 NPC Ironman, 6th ’92 NPC Nationals, 15th ’93 AAU Mr. America, 2nd ’94 AAU Mr. America, 1st ’95 AAU Mr. America, 1st ’96 NABBA USA, 1st ’96 NABBA Universe, 8th ’97 NABBA Universe, 7th ’98 NPC Masters Nationals, 1st ’99 IFBB Masters Mr. Olympia, 9th ’00 IFBB Masters Mr. Olympia, 11th ’01 IFBB Masters Mr. Olympia, 8th ’02 IFBB Masters Mr. Olympia, 14th ’03 IFBB Masters Mr. Olympia, 15th

“Each year you attempt to hit a peak of strength.”

DY: Can you help me, Lee? LA: In my 25 years of competition I’ve experimented with different types of workouts, and I’ve developed many ideas that can help you take your body to the next level.

DY: Sounds good, but let’s start at the beginning. In developing a physique for bodybuilding, how long does it takes to build the foundation? LA: Three to five years— sometimes longer. In those years you concentrate on the basic exercises with free weights. After that you should cycle your yearly training.

DY: How does that work? LA: In a nutshell you train three to four months focusing on conditioning and basic strength. Then you go three months doing all strength training. Next you go to a full precontest bodybuilding routine for three to four months to really shape up. Then you repeat the cycle, year after year. Each year you attempt to hit a peak of strength during the power phase and a peak of looking great during the precontest phase and a peak of cardio fitness during the conditioning-and-basic-strength phase. Years ago during that phase I did 33 chins in a set. On the second set I did 26. My conditioning was superb at that time.

DY: I’d say so. Tell me about size and strength training. LA: That’s a long cycle purely because you want to go for strength and size over an extended period. You stay on it for months or years till you max out on gains and go completely stale. You make very small weight additions to the bar on basic exercises like squats and deadlifts, training once or twice a week. I’m talking about very small increments—eight ounces to a pound at most—so small, the www.ironmanmagazine.com \ APRIL 2005 115

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46-Year-Old Lee Apperson

Condition Magician

There’s no doubt that once you get past 40, you have to pay more attention to detail if you want to build muscle—things like better nutrition, joint care and energy conservation. No, I’m not talking about buying an electric car. I’m talking about making every set count toward building muscle so you have more energy left for growth. For example, extended sets are very important for the over-40 bodybuilder, as Lee Apperson says in his interview. He rests very little between sets and sometimes groups many exercises for the same bodypart in a giant set, getting more work done in less time and going for the burn. Searing the muscle with that type of training is key for us old guys because research has shown that muscle burn can cause growth hormone surges. After you hit 40, growth hormone is on a downward spiral, so anything you can do to increase it will improve your muscle-building and fat-burning potential. (Put away the blowtorch; I’m talking about an internal burn caused by lactic acid buildup and oxygen deprivation.) While Apperson’s techniques get the job done, I’ve found that a better, more efficient way to extend a set for me is with X Reps, a powerpartial technique we’re experimenting with here at the IRON MAN Training & Research Center. By doing short five-to-10-inch movements at the end of a set, right at the spot on the stroke where maximum force generation is possible, you can get more fast-twitch-fiber activation; semistretch overload, which has been linked to hyperplasia, or fiber splitting; and muscle burn. (For more info visit www.x-rep.com.) For example, on incline presses, when you can’t get another full rep, lower the bar to a point between the midpoint of the stroke and the bottom position. Now pulse and feel your upper chest firing for all its worth. You should be able to do about six of those, which will trigger some incredible firepower. It’s usually difficult to get a good One month. burn on compound exercises, but X Reps make that important phenomenon happen whenever you want it to. The technique works. It did amazing things for me in Steve Holman, age 44, got incredible results in only only one month, and I’m in my mid-40s. one month after he started extending his sets with No matter what a burn-inducing power-partial technique. your age, you should give X Reps a test run on at least one set of a few exercises. You’ll be amazed at the muscle-building, fat-burning results you get in a very short period. I’m still stunned at the results I got with them. —Steve Holman Neveux

Lawson

Over-40 Muscle Building

Editor’s note: For more information on X Reps, including X Q&As and past ITRC e-newsletters, visit www.x-rep.com.

“My all-time-favorite technique is the extended set. I recommend it over forced reps.”

change in weight is often imperceptible. After you break into this schedule, you will find yourself training at your maximum weights for quite a period of time. Let’s say you started at a 200pound bench for six reps. In six months you’d be at a 230-plus bench for six reps or more. In a year you’d have a 300 bench. You can really build up training like that, but you have to recover fully between workouts, or you won’t grow. Sometimes you need a week of rest after workouts. If you’re squatting hundreds of pounds for reps, you’ll need that much time to recover and grow. Many people return to the gym before growth happens. That type of training is fun and productive, but it’s very hard work because you train with your max weights and add eight ounces to a pound each week for as long as the cycle lasts.

DY: Can you be a little more specific about the training techniques used? LA: Sure. Each month you start off using weights that are moderate for you. Train hard for the first week with those weights but not to the ragged edge. In week two increase the weight and use techniques to raise the intensity. Your reps should be in the four-to-eight range. You still hold back, and then in week three you blast away. Give the workout 100 percent! Train till you drop. Train with all-out focus and push hard! Those should be the gut-busting workouts of the month. If you can’t use heavier weights, use techniques to raise the intensity. In week four back off and either rest totally or train moderately for four to seven days. During this cycle you perform basic exercises using heavy weights and high intensity, resting two to three days or more between workouts. Generally, you train each bodypart twice every seven to eight days. The workout is designed around these basic exercises: squats, deadlifts, rows, bench presses and barbell shoulder presses.

DY: What happens during the conditioning cycle? LA: That type of training requires lots of sets and reps using moderate

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46-Year-Old Lee Apperson

“The power cycle is built around basic exercises.” weights. You do two to five exercises for each bodypart with lots of sets— and do cardio daily, pacing yourself. Then once a week you do cardio twice in a day and really push yourself. I don’t have a set training schedule during this phase or during the precontest phase. I go into the gym, and I train whichever bodypart I feel like training. I never do the same exercises for a bodypart again—at least not in the same order. For example, if I do dumbbell incline presses during today’s chest workout, I might not do them for another month.

DY: What about the precontest phase? You’re known for your tremendous condition onstage. What’s the first consideration? LA: Calories. The number of calories you burn each day varies

depending on bodyweight, body composition, metabolism and activity level. More important than how many calories you take in is what you eat. You can’t carry muscle and get ripped while eating junk food. If you don’t eat clean for a long period of time—months—you won’t lose the fat and become truly ripped. Many people have no idea how many calories they require simply to maintain their weight, and as a result they tend to cut calories too much when they attempt to lose bodyfat. There’s a rule of thumb for estimating how many calories you burn at rest. For men: Add a zero to your weight and then add twice your weight. For women: Add a zero to your weight and then add your weight. So if you weigh 175 pounds, your expected resting calorie needs are 2,100 a day (175 becomes 1,750, and www.ironmanmagazine.com \ APRIL 2005 117

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46-Year-Old Lee Apperson

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;More important than how many calories you take in is what you eat.â&#x20AC;?

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46-Year-Old Lee Apperson to that add two times 175, or 350, for a total of 2,100). That’s an estimate of what it would take to maintain your weight if you did nothing but vegetate. To determine total calorie needs, you have to add calories for general activity and exercise. With your desk job and workouts, you probably burn half of your resting needs, or 1,050. That gives you a total of 3,150 calories (2,100 plus 1,050 equals 3,150). If you were engaged in a regular aerobic exercise program, you would require more calories. On the average, walking or jogging a mile takes about 100 calories. As a general frame of reference, you’ll be interested to know that,

according to the National Research Council, the average woman (5’4”, medium frame, not too thin, not too fat) who does not exercise needs 1,600 to 2,400 calories a day to maintain bodyweight. The average man requires 2,300 to 3,000 calories a day. Find your calorie level, and maintain an eating journal, counting your calories carefully. Start off with a slight calorie deficit of 200 and work with that as long as possible. Several months of daily aerobics and that slight calorie-deficit diet will take off the bodyfat.

DY: How does your contest diet work? LA: Plan to diet for four to eight months. Eat 30 grams of protein every three hours, five or more

times every day. You should get about one to two grams of protein for each pound you weigh each day over a minimum of five protein meals throughout the day. Try to eat three times before noon. Protein shakes can help you achieve your daily protein requirement. Everything else you eat should be clean complex carbs, such as brown rice, corn, vegetables, whole-grain oatmeal, pasta and fruit. Drink water all day. It’s the best fat burner I know. Drink, drink, drink! Eliminate dairy products in the final months or weeks and replace them with other protein sources that are free of carbs and fats. Limit your carbs to two to four servings of 100 grams per day; that is, between 200 and 400 total grams of carbs a day. Eat all your carbs before 3 p.m., getting the majority of them early in the day. Make breakfast, midmorning and lunch—to a lesser degree—the biggest carb meals of the day. I eat a lot. I don’t like being hungry. I’d rather eat an extra 500 calories a day and do an aerobic session to burn it than be hungry. Amazingly, the more you eat clean, the more bodyfat you’ll lose. The body does not hoard fat when you’re eating a lot and being active. Keep fats as low as you can go. There are fats in meats, nuts and dairy products and many other foods, so you have to be aware of how much fat you’re taking in. I recommend 50 to 100 grams a day. And always take a protein-andcarb meal or drink within 30 minutes after you train—even if it’s at night. Eat salads and fibrous carbs daily. They have almost no calories and help your body stay healthy. You can eat salads containing carrots, lettuce, spinach, cucumber, radish, tomato, celery and other raw vegetables and even cooked green vegetables in large quantities without any negative effects. Consider them zero calories.

DY: Do you recommend restricting certain foods or food groups? LA: Absolutely. Avoid juice, bread, pasta and other simple sugars and carbs. Fruit is okay with breakfast (like a banana, orange or melon), www.ironmanmagazine.com \ APRIL 2005 119

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46-Year-Old Lee Apperson but I might eliminate it completely during the last weeks and replace it with a more complex carb like oatmeal. If you eat breads and pastas, try to eliminate them the last month (at least) before a show and switch to other carb sources. During the last month or weeks eliminate sauces like ketchup, mustard, dressings, fake butters, flavored rices and so on as well. Also eliminate protein shakes and replace them with solid-protein foods like chicken or fish.

DY: Please describe a typical day of eating. LA: Sure. This diet has 425 grams of protein, 179 grams of carbs and 70 grams of fat:

Meal 1 “Do straight sets at one workout; then the next time do all supersets.”

Egg whites Oatmeal Fruit Protein shake

Meal 2 Filet mignon Potato Whole-wheat toast

Meal 3 Egg whites Green salad Protein shake

Meal 4 Grilled fish Brown rice Green vegetable

Meal 5 Egg whites Oatmeal Protein shake

Condition Magician

Meal 6 Grilled chicken Egg whites

DY: Lee, do you have any other tips? LA: Yes. I mentioned this earlier, but you need mix up the order of the exercises. Do exercises that you aren’t used to but that are similar to movements you currently perform. If you usually do slant-board leg raises for abs, switch to hanging leg raises.

You’ll feel a burn like it was your first day in the gym. Line up four exercises or more, either all for the same bodypart or different ones. Then go at it. Do one exercise after another with no rest. I love to train that way, and about 75 percent of all my training is some version of the no-rest routine. Why rest? I get bored waiting for a bodypart to recover enough for me to work it again. I like to pound on a part like legs by performing squats, straight-legged deadlifts and leg extensions as one giant set until my legs are toast. Another favorite is to do abs between sets of everything I do that day. I’ll do 20 chins and rest my back while I perform 25 hanging leg raises in the Aborigional hanging sling device. Then it’s back for 15 chins, and so on. By the end of the training session my abs are beaten like a rug. Do straight sets at one workout; then the next time do all supersets with one exercise after another. Even tiny changes will cause the body to respond favorably.

DY: Do you have any other favorite techniques? LA: My all-time-favorite technique is the extended set. It works great because it can be used at any condition level during any phase of a cycle. Let’s say you’re working leg curls. The

first five reps are easy, reps six through 10 hurt, and rep 11 is almost impossible. To avoid training to failure—unless it’s your all-out peak week—you stop your set and pause for 20 to 60 seconds. Now continue the set. Three reps go very easily. If you’re not in good shape, stop. The next three reps hurt, and if it’s not peak week, stop there. If on the next two reps your legs are screaming, you stop. You can continue that way for some time—extending the set. One of my most painful routines using that favorite technique involves shoulder presses. Do 15 reps, then lower the weight to your waist and switch to an undergrip and perform 10 curls with that same weight. Switch grips, get it up to your shoulders, and press it 13 times. Your arms will be burning now. Lower it again and do 10 more curls and then eight to 10 more shoulder presses. Your arms will be on fire! I go as long as I need to. If it’s an easy week, I still do extended sets, I just don’t push it as far. If it’s a hard week, I blast away. I recommend this technique over, say, forced reps, which I have always found to be risky from an injury standpoint.

DY: You are an animal, Lee! Editor’s note: To learn more about Lee Apperson’s training, visit www.leeapperson.com. IM

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Over-40 Muscle-and-Health Diet Build Your Body Through Middle Age and Beyond by Jerry Brainum

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Over-40 Muscle-and-Health Diet

Those advantages may lead you to conclude that bodybuilding should be left to the young, but nothing could be further from the truth. The real advantages of lifting weights occur as you age. While the search for the fountain of youth continues, most scientists agree that the closest things to it are exercise and diet. The human body operates on a “use it or lose it” principle. Aging people who don’t present themselves with mental challenges often wind up with the more serious cases of mental degeneration. Those who don’t exercise their muscles may lose their ability to move. The body can tolerate an impressive degree of insult, such as lack of exercise and poor diet, until about age 40. That’s when all the physical and mental neglect begins to surface. Those who are out of shape at 40 often say they feel older than their chronological age. The reverse is true for those who engage in judicious exercise and diet. For them the aging process seems to slow to a crawl. A key aspect of maintaining fitness and health with the passing years is optimal nutrition. The same principles that apply when you’re

young also apply when you’re middle-aged or older. You still need to eat all required nutrients and avoid foods that promote disease and degeneration. If you ask scientists who study aging about the best nutritional technique for delaying the aging process, many will tell you calorie restriction. That’s proved effective in a number of animal species, where reducing calories led to a slowed rate of aging and protection against most diseases associated with aging, including cardiovascular disease and cancer. The experts usually advise reducing daily calories by 30 percent or more. Despite the apparent success of calorie restriction in animals, there’s little evidence that such a stringent eating plan works in human beings. The first hurdle is that curbing calories to the extent demanded by a typical low-calorie plan is apt to lead to long-term failure, or what medical pros call lack of compliance, in all but the most highly motivated dieters. On the other hand, proponents of calorie restriction bristle when it’s called a starvation diet, noting that while calories are restricted, nutrients are not. Reducing required nutrients along with calories would lead to a shorter life span. From an exercise and bodybuilding perspective, restricted-calorie dieting is a negative. That’s readily apparent when you take a look at those who have opted for the calorie-restriction lifestyle. Without exception, they appear catabolic and painfully thin. One proud proponent of the calorie-restriction system flexes his arm in a Web site photo, evidently unaware that his biceps resembles a pea on a plate. Some aspects of calorie restriction that are said to help delay the aging process aren’t suitable to successful muscle building at any age. Restricting calories can decrease anabolic hormones, except maybe growth hormone—but GH alone isn’t associated with muscle size. Prolonged calorie restriction usually elevates cortisol, the primary catabolic hormone, and you don’t get enough protein and fat to support anabolic hormone function and muscular growth. Recent studies show that the lifespan-related benefits of calorie

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ne of the great things about bodybuilding is that it’s never too late to begin. Recent studies show that while the majority of sports have physiologybased age limitations, you can build and maintain muscle with advancing age. That’s not to say that adding muscle isn’t easier when you’re young. Those who train in their 20s or younger are at a distinct advantage when it comes to bodybuilding progress. They have a more potent release of anabolic hormones, more complete and rapid recovery from workouts and the ability to get stronger with less chance of injury.

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Over-40 Muscle-and-Health Diet

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A major advantage of keeping a close eye on carb intake is that the aging process may largely be based on resting insulin levels.

restriction accrue from decreased cellular oxidation, especially in the mitochondria, a part of the cell that produces energy. The other beneficial aspect is less bodyfat, which leads to less whole-body inflammation. That’s noteworthy because most degenerative diseases of aging have an inflammatory component. Far from being the passive tissue it was thought to be in the past, bodyfat acts like an endocrine organ, releasing numerous substances that have potent effects on health and longevity. So the less bodyfat you have, the greater your chances of living to an advanced age. If you’re over 40 and want to build or keep your muscle, your primary focus should be on maintaining health and preventing diseases that start in the middle years. That’s clearly what differentiates older bodybuilders from their younger peers. The young often show little concern for preventing disease. At the height of their physical prowess, they frequently turn a blind eye toward the future. All that changes when you turn 40. Even if you choose to ignore the effects of aging, they’ll soon become apparent. Good nutrition, however, can diminish or even slow many of the effects associated with aging. That’s why you need to know how to eat to maintain and build muscle, as well as provide a hedge against the physical and mental degeneration that would otherwise inevitably ensue.

Start by taking stock of your present condition and setting your goals from that perspective. For example, if you have a close family member who has type 2 diabetes, your diet plan should focus on reducing bodyfat and getting nutrients that will promote insulin sensitivity, including chromium, biotin and most other vitamins and minerals. You should avoid processed carbs and other simple sugars and focus on low-glycemicindex carbs that elicit the least release of insulin. An exception to that rule would be the intake of high-glycemic carbs just after a workout. Research shows that taking in a carb-protein ratio of

about 3-to-1 just after a workout heightens insulin release, which promotes anabolic action in muscle. The greater insulin release not only stimulates amino acid uptake in muscle for increased muscle protein synthesis but also activates the ratelimiting enzyme for muscle glycogen replenishment, which aids workout recovery considerably. A major advantage of keeping a close eye on carb intake is that the aging process may largely be based on resting insulin levels. Too many carbs, especially processed carbs and bad sugars, such as high-fructose corn syrup, promote not only an excessive insulin release and subsequent bodyfat but also a pro-

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Over-40 Muscle-and-Health Diet cess called glycation, which increases deposition of sugars in connective tissue and other body proteins. Most scientists think that’s what causes the increased stiffness associated with aging. In diseases such as diabetes, which involves disordered insulin metabolism and elevated blood sugar, the process is more rapid, which is why poorly treated diabetics age at a rate three to five times faster than normal. A few nutrients can retard or blunt the glycation process, including lipoic acid, green tea, vitamins C, E and B6, niacin and L-carnosine, a complex consisting of a double bond of the amino acid histidine. Small amounts of alcohol also retard glycation. In fact, drinking a glass or two of red wine, which contains potent antioxidants called polyphenols, has many health benefits. One recent study showed that a nutrient in red wine, resveratrol, not only works against cancer and cardiovascular disease but also seems to retard calorie-restriction-induced aging. Before you go out and down a bottle of wine, though, be aware that the effect has thus far been noted in yeast only. Also, excess

Alpha-linoleic acid [in flaxseed oil] is an overrated source of omega-3s. Fish oils are better.

alcohol intake leads to toxic effects on all muscles in the body—including the heart. Reaching age 40 also demands that you eat the best-quality protein, including the usual bodybuilding staples of fish, chicken, lean beef and eggs. Emphasize fatty-fish sources, such as mackerel, salmon, herring and halibut, which have a higher content of omega-3 fatty acids. Omega-3 fatty acids provide numerous health benefits and also appear to modulate the body’s inflammatory processes. Recent studies also show that a regular intake of omega-3s helps maintain brain function with age, and people with the highest levels of omega-3 fats during middle age show the least amount of brain degeneration as they get older. The other type of essential fat, omega-6, offers some health benefits and is a direct precursor of substances that build and maintain muscle, such as prostaglandin F2A. It’s available in relative abundance in typical diets, but omega-3 is considerably scarcer. That explains the focus on omega-3 fat. Those who cannot eat fish can get supplemental sources of omega-3 fats. Some advocate the use of flaxseed oil, which contains alphalinoleic acid, a precursor of the active omega-3 fats EPA and DHA. Research, however, shows low conversion rates of alpha-linoleic acid into EPA and DHA, making it an overrated source of omega-3. The preferred supplemental form is fish oils, which are higher in EPA and DHA. Saturated fat, found in meat and other animal protein sources, is often linked to cardiovascular disease. It doesn’t oxidize in the body, but it acts as a substrate for the increased production of low-density-lipoprotein cholesterol in the blood. On the other hand, studies show that only two types of dietary fat help maintain testosterone levels in the body: saturated and monounsaturated fat. Keep saturated fat intake to no more than 10 percent of total daily calories. Far worse than saturated fat from a health and longevity standpoint are trans fats—fats that have been structurally manipulated to extend shelf life and prevent premature www.ironmanmagazine.com \ APRIL 2005 129

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Scientists believe that some vitamins, like C, can help alleviate joint problems caused by a process called glycation.

spoilage. The body handles them more or less as it does saturated fat; however, unlike saturated fat, trans fat lowers levels of protective factors in the body, such as high-density lipoprotein, which is a primary factor in preventing cardiovascular disease. Trans fats also promote cancer and lead to muscle breakdown by interfering with the synthesis of normal eicosanoids (substances made from fatty acids). Trans fats, found in such processed foods as margarine, shortening and commercial baked goods, are usually identified on food labels as “partially hydrogenated oils.” Monounsaturated fat, found in olive oil and many types of nuts, is considered a neutral fat in that it doesn’t adversely affect cardiovascular health or synthesis of prostaglandins, which are hormonelike acids that have farranging effects in the body. If anything, food sources of monounsaturated fat contain potent phenol compounds that provide antioxidant activity. That

explains why monounsaturated fat is a cornerstone of diets linked to increased longevity and freedom from degenerative disease, such as the Mediterranean diet. That diet, by the way, along with the Paleolithic, or Stone Age, diet—both of which

Avoid trans fats. They lower levels of protective factors in the body, such as highdensity lipoprotein. have been discussed in IRON MAN—constitute the two best yearround eating plans for maintaining health and muscle. [Note: Watch for an extensive feature on the Mediterranean diet in a future issue of IM.] Studies of men over 40 engaged in weight training clearly show a superiority of animal to vegetable protein sources. Animal protein has a better amino acid balance and is easier for the body to process, an

important consideration for those over 40. For that reason, supplemental protein products should also feature the highest quality sources: a combination of the milk proteins casein and whey. Casein is a slow-acting protein that promotes a gradual release of amino acids over a seven-hour period. That timed release sets off an anticatabolic effect in muscle that’s particularly pronounced if you get the protein before sleep. The other milk protein, whey, is a more rapidly absorbed protein that peaks in the blood and is gone after about 90 minutes. The rapid absorption characteristics of whey lead to a rapid release of amino acids that favors increased muscle protein synthesis. That’s especially useful if you get the whey in a postworkout or even a preworkout drink. Protein synthesis becomes more difficult as the body ages. Studies that have compared eating several small meals to one or two meals show that eating smaller protein meals at regular intervals, such as

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Over-40 Muscle-and-Health Diet

every 2 1/2 to three hours, promotes increased muscle protein synthesis in younger men and women. Studies of those over 40 show that eating one or two larger protein meals seems to work better than eating smaller meals more often. Scientists think the larger meals release a greater amount of amino acids in older people, and amino acids are the key to promoting muscle protein synthesis. Unfortunately, the subjects of the studies were sedentary people not engaged in resistance exercise. So the information may not apply to those actively involved in weight training. Controversy surrounds the question of whether those over 40 should use soy products. Soy protein is inferior to animal protein sources, such as casein and whey, and acts like whey in that it’s rapidly absorbed and metabolized. Studies comparing the effects of soy and milk proteins show little difference from an anabolic standpoint. Soy protein, however, has a greater antioxidant effect after exercise than whey does.

Ignore all the dire warnings about the alleged dangers of a high-protein diet.

Small amounts of a soy protein product—say, 25 grams a day—may discourage prostate cancer and cardiovascular disease. Too much, however, can mimic the undesirable effects of estrogen.

Soy contains active ingredients collectively known as isoflavones, which have many beneficial health properties. In Asian countries, where soy products are in wide use, people average a daily isoflavone intake of 40 to 60 milligrams. Some studies

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Recent studies show that a regular intake of omega-3s helps maintain brain function with age.

show that soy guards against breast and prostate cancer. On the other hand, soy isoflavones are also known as phytoestrogens because of their structural similarity to estrogen. That’s where the controversy kicks in. While small amounts of a soy protein product—say, 25 grams a day—may discourage prostate cancer and cardiovascular disease, too much begins to mimic the undesirable effects of estrogen, such as water retention. Ignore all the dire warnings about the alleged dangers of a high-protein diet. A search of the medical literature regarding problems linked to high protein reveals that all cases involved people who had existing kidney problems. Since the kidneys—along with the liver—are the main organs that process protein, a high-protein diet can cause trouble when they’re not functioning properly. That doesn’t apply to those with normally functioning kidneys. If anything, one amino acid, L-arginine, may prevent the deterioration in kidney function that often occurs with advanced age. One theory is that arginine helps maintain local

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Over-40 Muscle-and-Health Diet

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nitric oxide production in the kidneys, thereby maintaining optimal blood flow. Those over 40 typically complain of joint pain resulting from exercise. It may be due to arthritic changes in joints over the years or from glycation. Nutritional supplements may offer help: glucosamine sulfate (1,500 milligrams daily) and chondroitin sulfate (800 milligrams daily); MSM, 4,000 to 6,000 milligrams daily; and turmeric or curcumin, 3,000 milligrams daily. Like the COX-2 inhibitor drugs that have gained such a notorious reputation, curcumin offers potent anti-inflammatory effects; unlike them, curcumin isn’t linked to heart attacks. Curcumin also promotes the conversion of relatively inactive T4 thyroid hormone into the five times more active T3 version, which helps maintain metabolism and better body composition, meaning less fat. Flavonoids naturally found in grapeseed extract inhibit the enzymes that degrade joint proteins. Omega-3 fats also offer relief through decreased production of inflammatory mediators in joints.

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About 75 percent of Americans don’t eat the recommended five servings a day of fruits and vegetables. Green tea provides some joint protection through its antioxidant effect, known to be more than 50 times more potent than that of vitamin E. Perhaps the most vital component of nutrition for those over 40 is eating functional foods and neutracueticals; that is, foods that contain such elements as flavonoids, which help protect against degenerative diseases. One example is lycopene, a carotenoid found in tomatoes and other red fruits and vegetables. Studies show that lycopene works against prostate cancer and cardiovascular disease. The foods that offer the most protection are fruits and vegetables.

The nutrients they provide include fiber, flavonoids and polyphenols, which are difficult or impossible to get from supplemental sources. The usual recommendation is to eat at least five servings a day of fruits and vegetables, with nine or more servings being ideal. But studies show that 75 percent of Americans don’t eat even the minimal five servings a day. Small wonder that cardiovascular disease and cancer continue to be the major killers of Americans. The only true antidote to such diseases is to exercise and eat fruits and vegetables. The older you are, the more important it is, since the onset of these diseases begins in earnest at about age 40. The processes that initiate them, however, start even earlier. As an example of just how protective such foods can be, a recent study showed that eating the following in one meal, termed a “polymeal,” can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease by 76 percent:1

A little wine each day can augment a healthy diet. It contains antioxidants that have been shown to reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.

Wine, 150 milliliters a day Fish, 114 grams, four times a week Dark chocolate, 100 grams a day Fruits and vegetables, 400 grams a day Garlic, 2.7 grams a day Almonds, 68 grams a day Following the nutrition principles outlined here ensures many years of successful training and health maintenance for those past 40 and beyond. The aging process is inexorable, but the quality of life is largely under individual control, with good nutrition and exercise being the keys to a higher quality of living. 1 Franco, O.H., et al. (2004). The polymeal: a more natural, safer and probably tastier (than the polypill) strategy to reduce cardiovascular disease more than 75%. Brit Med J. 329:1447-1450. IM

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Heavy Mike Mentzer’s

Heavy Duty Seminar

Part 6

Duty >>> by John Little <<<

ere are more excerpts from the thought-provoking seminar Mike Mentzer gave in Canada in November 1981. The audience included fans as well as media representatives like Musclemag International publisher Robert Kennedy and photographer Chris Lund. Mike Mentzer: Intensity refers to the percentage of momentary muscular effort. Anything that reduces momentary muscular effort reduces intensity and, thereby, reduces results. What you want to do is increase muscular involvement, not diminish itÑanything that you can do to make the exercise harder, thereby increasing muscular involvement. Again, thatÕs the name of the game; itÕs so damn obvious! (continued on page 146)

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Illustration by Christian Martinez

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Heavy Duty

Seminar Part 6

“The harder you train, the faster you grow—but the harder you train, the less time you can spend training.” (continued from page 143) Think about it this way: We all said in the very beginning that growth does not come easily. Anybody want to challenge that? Has anybody grown too fast this year? No, we all know that growth doesn’t come easily. You, literally, have to force it. Now, you tell me how you force growth with light weights, mild exertion, easy workouts. The harder you train, the faster you grow—but the harder you train, the less time you can spend training. It’s as simple as that. Again, the intensity and duration relationship is a universal one. It doesn’t exist just for Mike Mentzer. There were some people who were fond of saying, “It works for Mike Mentzer, it works for Casey Viator, it works for Ray Mentzer, but it works for no one else in the world.” Or, “We all have vastly different requirements.” And yet those same people all train alike: Arnold does 20 sets, six days a week; Franco does 20 sets, six days a week; Frank Zane does 20 sets, six days a week. If they’re all so different, why do they train exactly alike? The point is that we aren’t all that

different physiologically. We’re all unique as individuals, but when a young man—or a young woman— goes to medical school and studies muscle physiology, whose physiology is he or she studying? Audience member: Everybody’s. Mike Mentzer: Everybody’s! We all have the same muscle physiology. The biochemical changes leading to muscle growth in Mike Mentzer are the same in Robert Kennedy, Chris Lund and you. And it follows from that, that the specific stimulus required to induce those biochemical changes leading to muscle growth in Robert Kennedy, and you and me is the same. What is that stimulus? High-intensity muscular contraction! It’s universal; it’s a medical fact—not subject to debate. It’s as simple as that. What is true—and this is where the confusion comes in—is that we all grow at different rates of speed. I might grow faster as a result of high-intensity training, but we all will grow faster when we train more intensely. If you’re not gaining fast now—or if you’re not gaining at all—you’ll

gain faster when you train more intensely. Chris Lund will gain more rapidly when he trains more intensely. He may not gain as rapidly as me, but then again, he might gain more rapidly than me. Audience member: Why is that? Mike Mentzer: Because of innate adaptability. We all have different innate adaptabilities to exercise—age, existing physical condition, motivation, a lot of different factors. But the underlying muscle physiology is the same. The people who say, “We all have different training requirements,” are entirely wrong. They’re ignorant of the basic facts regarding muscle physiology. If we all had different physiologies, medical science could not exist. A doctor would have to study each individual as a separate physiological entity and then learn all the intricacies of his physiology and devise medicine around him. The very fact that they could take the basic principles of physiology and apply it to the whole human race is what makes medical science a viable discipline. Make sense? Sounds damn good to me. [Audience laughs] I can’t make it any simpler than that. I mean all the theoretic and academic bullshit aside, it just follows from common sense: The harder you train, the faster you grow. But it’s also true, you can’t forget, that the harder you train, the less time you can spend training. Just like the faster you run, the less distance you can run. Sure, you can train as hard as possible for 30 minutes and then diminish the intensity and train for eight hours after that. But that’s not going to result in anything except reduced progress. Robert Kennedy: Hasn’t the best progress made in the past year been that of Platz, following those principles? Mike Mentzer: Yes, absolutely. We were just talking about that. Tom trained extremely hard all year for the IFBB Mr. Olympia. He was

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Heavy Duty going to become defined. Thigh extensions don’t burn anywhere near the number of calories heavy squatting does. Why would thigh extensions lead to the creation of definition as opposed to squatting? What am I missing there? Can anybody explain it to me? Another one is—we’ve talked about it before—wide-grip chins. It’s a long-held belief—to quote the so-called science of bodybuilding— that if you want to widen your lats, stretch your shoulder girdle, whatever, do wide-grip chins. That’s supposed to build wider lats. But, again, just the opposite is true. Picture your lat, or any muscle, as a rubber band stretched between two points. Your lat attaches under the triceps and inserts down on your lower back. Where are those two points furthest apart? And when is that rubber band stretched the greatest? When your arm is straight overhead in a close-grip position. That’s 180 degrees. When you go to a wide-grip, look what happens to the angle: it’s closer and closer to a 90 degree angle, and the stretch is reduced. If you want to

stretch your lats, Christ, do closegrip chins, not wide-grip. What’s some more of the conventional wisdom? EZ-curl bars for building biceps. They’re the worst thing in the world you can do for building biceps. Again, we’ve talked about it before. The primary function of the biceps is not to flex the forearm, it’s to what? Audience member: To supinate. Mike Mentzer: To supinate. You can prove it to yourself by putting your hand in a goose-neck position and pulling your arm back. Put your other finger on your biceps and you’ll feel that it’s not even tense— it’s soft. Now supinate the hand and see what happens. An EZ-curl bar pronates the hand and takes the tension off the biceps. It works the brachialis and forearms; it doesn’t work the biceps almost at all. What you want to do is hypersupinate the hand. You’ve got to use at least a straight bar to work the biceps. And, again, this is conventional bodybuilding wisdom. Audience member: With your intensity training it sounds as if it’s

Neveux \ Model: Tom Platz

Tom Platz was one of the hardest training bodybuilders ever, and his all-out intensity helped him bring up his torso and arms to match his incredible legs.

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Seminar Part 6

the one guy I saw in Gold’s Gym all winter long who just went to failure on every single set. And I remember saying to my brother, Ray, “This guy’s serious!” I had no idea what he looked like underneath his sweat suit because he was always covered up. So when I saw him at the pool two weeks ago, I just couldn’t believe my eyes. He’d put 12 pounds of pure muscle on his upper body alone. Now his delts, pecs and back almost match his legs, which are among the greatest medical phenomena I’ve ever seen! All the academics aside, what really counts is that you get your ass in the gym and train hard. And if you’re training six to eight hours a day, you’re not training hard. It’s laudable from one standpoint; you’re devoted, you’re willing to diligently put in a lot of work, but that has nothing to do with progress. Sure, you can point to a guy like Roy Callender, who’s got one of the most heavily muscled physiques in the world and who trains eight hours a day. You try training eight hours a day, and see what happens! You’ll end up looking like a jockey! A skinny little runt. If these guys weren’t taking steroids, they would look like jockeys. And you’ve got to look back to the early part of their careers. Really. Like Arnold—Arnold was a powerlifter in Austria. He had just about as much muscle mass when he trained in America as he did when he was in Germany. What he succeeded in doing when he got here was getting rid of all the baby fat, which he did through sheer dint of physical activity. If you do anything for four hours a day on a reduced-calorie diet—chopping down trees, jumping up and down, what have you—you’re going to get ripped. You don’t have to lift weights to get ripped. I’ve seen ripped athletes who never lifted weights, and just because of their high metabolic rates and reduced food intake, or whatever, they had no subcutaneous fat. It’s the burning of calories beyond what you take in, in the form of food, that leads to the creation of definition. The more calories you expend, the more likely you’re

Heavy Duty

Seminar Part 6

Once you stimulate growth in the gym, leave, relax and allow your muscles to grow. almost impossible to work out alone, without a partner. Mike Mentzer: Not at all. I keep getting that in my seminars. I don’t know why. People think they have to have a training partner to train hard. Audience member: Well, it would help! You can’t push yourself hard without a partner. Mike Mentzer: There are certain exercises where you obviously can’t do forced reps or perhaps negatives without a training partner. But with the vast majority of exercises, if you use a little innovation, you can devise ways of doing forced reps. For example, on dips you stand on a chair, go into the top position and continue to lower yourself or use your feet as an aid. If you don’t have a training partner and you want to do forced reps for your arms, do concentration curls using the free hand to assist. If you’re doing dumbbell laterals, and you want to continue doing negative or forced reps, when you can’t do any more positive reps, curl the weight to here [the shoulders], extend the arms out, and lower slowly under control. It’s very simple. There are lots of things you can do. In chinning, just step up on a chair—or on the Nautilus machine

walk up the steps—and get into the top position. But even if you can’t do those things, you can still train as hard as you can—you at least go to positive failure. It may be that you don’t have to train with 100 percent intensity. It’s never been proven conclusively that you have to train with 100 percent intensity to induce maximum growth stimulation. Maybe it’s only 85 percent. But there is definitely a threshold of intensity you’ve got to pass beyond to stimulate muscular growth. Maybe it’s only 85 percent—but I ask you the question: How do you accurately measure 85 percent intensity? There are only two intensity levels you can measure accurately: 0 percent and 100 percent. When you’re not exerting yourself at all, that’s 0 percent intensity. And when you’re exerting yourself maximally, as hard as you possibly can—you can’t push any harder—then you know you’re pushing 100 percent. And when you’re pushing 100 percent, you know that you’ve passed beyond the threshold of intensity. How can you go beyond 100 percent? It’s impossible. Maybe you only needed 90 percent, but as long as you pass over 90 percent, you’re safe; you know you’ve stimulated growth. So by going to failure every

time, you’re safe. And there are some people who simply don’t want to train this way. It’s only recommended for those who want to stimulate maximal increases in size and strength. It’s not for the casual enthusiast; it’s for the serious bodybuilder—the obsessive nut. You’ve got to be a little crazy. 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 149 of this issue, from Home Gym Warehouse, (800) 447-008, 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 mentioned above. Article copyright © 2005, John Little. All rights reserved. Mike Mentzer quotations that appear in this series provided courtesy of Joanne Sharkey, © 2005 and used with permission. IM

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The

Big Keep It Simple to Build Your Temple by Bill Starr Photography by Michael Neveux

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2 Model: Greg Blount

uring the past year I’ve received a pile of requests from IRON MAN readers and friends to look over their programs. They’re all stuck and want some advice on how to move forward again. In every instance I find the same problem—they’re trying to do far too much, either for their current strength level, their age or both. I look over a list of exercises that would make top competitive weightlifters and bodybuilders cringe.

Model: David Yeung

Bench Presses

Power Cleans

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Squats

Model: Chris Cook

Only The Strong Shall Survive

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Only The Strong Shall Survive

Concentration Curls

Chins

Build Your Temple

When a program includes a dozen or so exercises, you end up spreading your energy too thin. Even so, when I suggest that they should eliminate at least half of the exercises, they insist that they need to do them all if they want a complete full-body workout. Well, I reply, if you’re preparing for the Mr. Olympia contest or the Olympic lifting Nationals, then perhaps you do need to hit all those groups individually. That is, if you have a couple of hours a day in which to train, have a surplus of funds to buy all the supplements you’ll need to aid your recovery and don’t have to worry about earning an income. Otherwise, you’re doing too much. When a program includes a dozen or so exercises, you end up spreading your energy too thin to allow you to make substantial gains. You can’t recuperate from the long sessions in the gym, and since you’re not giving enough attention to any one muscle group, everything stays the same. Or worse. In many cases the numbers start slipping backward. Keep in mind that I’m referring to beginners and intermediates. Advanced strength athletes can do a great deal more work in the gym

and recover from it. That’s due to the fact that over an extended period of diligent training they’ve established a wide, firm foundation of strength. Most trainees who will read this are not in that category. The notion of simplicity in strength training has gotten lost in recent years. Currently, any program worth its salt must include lots of exercises done on specialized machines, and, of course, there have to be a few gimmicks such as large balls and chains thrown in for good measure. After all, that’s what the modern athlete needs to be competitive—which is pure bullshit. The truth of the matter is, gyms that feature only the most rudimentary equipment—like those found in basements and garages—where the athletes build their routines around a few primary movements, turn out stronger men than the multiexercise programs in la-di-da facilities. Another primary reason that so many programs have so many exercises in them is the influence of articles that appear in fitness magazines. I look at programs that fill an entire page and shake my head,

However, there are a few good ancillary exercises you can add to The Big Three program without sacrificing your gains. wondering, What is a beginner to think? Most likely that the authors are experts and know what they’re talking about. If they say that I need to do 15 exercises in a session, that’s what I’ll do. And since the gym is filled with machines, it only makes sense to use all of them. So, instead of hammering away on full squats, our beginner moves from machine to machine, working his legs in a variety of fashions. It’s a good idea on paper, but it doesn’t get the results that attacking a primary exercise and using a couple of machines for auxiliary work does. There’s also the point that few like to admit: Working on a machine is easier than doing free-weight exercises. Understand that your body only has so much energy for training, and once you’ve tapped that supply, you’re not going to make any further progress on that day. When you continue to pound away, even on the smaller muscle groups, all you’re doing is fatiguing the muscles and attachments, which will adversely affect your next workout. In other words, you’re overtraining.

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Model: Tamer Elshahat

Model: Eric Domer

Only The Strong Shall Survive

Squats

To gain strength, you need one primary exercise for the three major muscle groups.

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Model: Marvin Montoya \ Equipment: Powertec power rack, 1-800-447-0008 or www.home-gym.com

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Only The Strong Shall Survive

Power Cleans

Bench Presses

More shoulder girdle work with chest and triceps.

To gain strength, you need to do one primary exercise for each of the three major muscle groups: shoulder girdle, back and hips and legs. Then add a few auxiliary movements for the smaller groups, and leave the gym. Whenever a beginner follows that course, gains come consistently— and there’s no doubt in my mind that the greatest motivator in the weight room is making regular progress. Nothing—well, almost nothing—feels as great as improving one of your primary lifts. Achieving a personal record makes you eager to get back in the gym for your next session. In contrast, if you’re stuck on every lift, you’ll be inclined to skip the next workout, flop on the couch and watch TV. I should mention that using too many exercises in a program is not a new development. I pointed a finger at machines for being partly responsible, but in truth trainees started doing it long before the machines came on the market. In the late 1960s strength training for athletes made a huge leap forward due largely to the articles published in Strength & Health and Iron Man about sports teams and individual athletes using heavy weights to improve their performances. Football led the way. The San Diego Chargers, under strength coach Alvin Roy, had a tremendous influence on the mind-sets of college and high school coaches. If the pros lifted weights, we should too, was the thinking. Tommy Suggs and I took it upon ourselves to go forth and preach the gospel of strength training to the masses. We were in ideal positions to be considered authorities on the subject: Tommy was the managing editor of Strength & Health, and I was his assistant. We’d both won national titles in Olympia lifting and had represented the York Barbell Club, the nationalteam champion. That gave us an in, and we began putting on demonstrations and clinics at high schools and colleges in the area. Bob Hoffman understood the financial implications of what we were doing and backed us 100 percent—although, I should add, we never received anything extra in our paychecks for our efforts. Even so, we surged on. We were on a mission.

1 2 3

Build Your Temple

Model: Will Harris

Model: Greg Blount

These work your shoulder girdle and back hard.

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Machine Squats

Machines can’t completely replace free-bar exercises.

Model: Cesar Martinez

Few like to admit that working on a machine is easier.

Model: Noel Thompson

Build Your Temple

Smith Machine Squats

One of the biggest gatherings for football coaches in the east was a convention held in the Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C. We secured a booth for York Barbell, lugged in weights, a bench and a power rack, boxes of magazines plus an array of Hoffman’s nutritional products to put on display. For 2 1/2 days we talked with coaches and taught them how to do lifts that we thought would be beneficial for their athletes, and we told them of the value of protein milkshakes to help their kids pack on muscular bodyweight. While we gave them information, we also learned a great deal from them. Those dedicated men were doing their utmost to put together functional routines for their athletes with a minimum of equipment and know-how. Unlike what happens today, there were no resources they could turn to for help in formulating a strength program. For the most part it was hit and miss. What they all had in common was, they had very little in the way of equipment, usually just a bar or two and some plates, and not much time in which to train the athletes. Many of the students had to catch the bus after school. On the drive back to York, Tommy and I analyzed all the input we’d received from the coaches. We determined that what they needed was a very simple program that could be done in a limited space with a small amount of equipment and in a short period of time. Plus, the exercises had to be easy to learn. We concluded that three exercises would be enough to get the job done. It goes without saying that our selection of three exercises rather than four, five or six was based on our background in Olympic lifting. Bodybuilders often did multiple movements in their routines, but weightlifters did only three: one for the back, one for the legs and one for the shoulders, all with the competitive lifts in mind— military press, snatch and clean and jerk. The best exercise for the legs was a no-brainer. Nothing can compare with full squats. For back we toyed with the deadlift but decided that since these were athletes, the power

clean would be more useful, as it actually enhances athletic attributes while improving back strength. For the upper body we believed that the incline-bench press was a better exercise for athletes than the flat-bench press because it put more emphasis on the shoulders. We also knew, however, that the coaches didn’t have incline benches at their disposal. Some didn’t even have flat benches. One coach told us he had his players do their bench presses on the benches in the locker room. So we chose the flat-bench press—easy to teach, and it did work all the groups in the upper body thoroughly. Research revealed that the best formula for developing strength was to do four to six sets of four to six reps. Knowing that many of the coaches would be dealing with 40 or more kids, we kept the program simple as well. Five sets of five fit the guidelines and would make calculation much easier. Three days a week would get the job done, with the athletes using the heavy-lightand-medium system. By the time we got back to York, we felt confident that we’d come up with a good program. We called it The Big Three. Still, it was only a theory. We needed test subjects, and we got them. Whenever we went to a high school to put on an exhibition, we handed out the program. We also wrote about it in the magazine and sent copies to interested parties. The real boost came the following year, when we went back to the Washington convention. We gave out copies of The Big Three to every coach who came to our booth, which was all of them. We also put on a demonstration to show how to do the lifts correctly, allowing the coaches to try them as well. Many wanted to know what auxiliary exercises they might include in the routine. We gave them some ideas, suggesting ones that required no extra equipment, such as straightarm pullovers and curls with the bar, freestanding calf raises and chins. You can do chins almost anywhere—if you use your imagination. I’ve done them off rafters and garage door frames. We advised the coaches to keep the auxiliary work to a minimum, no more than

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Only The Strong Shall Survive

Incline Presses

You can use incline presses in place of bench presses for more shoulder emphasis and variety.

Models: Michael O’Hearn and Clark Bartram

Build Your Temple

3 two sets of fairly high reps, 15 to 20. A month later we got a call from Captain Ed Schantz, who was in charge of strength conditioning at the United States Naval Academy. He asked us to assist him in organizing his program. When the Marine captain showed us the program he was using, Tommy and I looked at one another and chuckled. Tommy informed him that he was doing too many exercises, and the captain explained that he was trying to include one exercise for each bodypart. “You’ve done a fine job of selecting exercises to work the entire body,” I said, “but it’s too much of a good thing.” Then Tommy and I gave him the reasons why we believed that condensing a workout into three exercises rather than spreading it out over 16 was more productive. The captain grasped the concept and agreed to give it a try—that is, if we’d teach him and his athletes how to power clean. And that’s what we

did, along with helping them with form points on the squat and bench. The following afternoon we received a call from the captain. He told us happily that he’d gotten so sore from doing power cleans that he could barely get out of bed that morning. He was a believer. While the feedback we were getting from those using The Big Three routine was positive, it wasn’t until we returned to the coaches convention in D.C. that we knew for certain that we’d formulated a good program. The coaches poured into our booth with glowing reports of their successes. Their players were much bigger and stronger than before, which resulted in a much better season. The most impressive account came from a junior varsity coach in Virginia. The previous year his team had gone 1–9, and he was on the brink of being replaced. He installed The Big Three after talking with Tommy and me and encouraged his

team to start drinking lots of protein milkshakes. With pride he informed us that he’d just concluded an undefeated season. His players had gained so much bodyweight that he was accused of giving them steroids—a fact that delighted him to no end. Since that time I’ve used The Big Three with athletes in every sport you can think of, and it works for all of t hem. A good program is one that produces results, and the best are plain and simple, not drawn out and complicated. Putting all your energy into just a few primary lifts is certainly not a new idea in strength training. It’s the way all the great Olympic lifters trained. Most only did the three lifts and squats. Hell, Milo only did one exercise and became a legend. I’d guess that every reader knows the story of when Arnold loaded a barbell and some plates in his car and drove with some lifting buddies into the country, where they

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Only The Strong Shall Survive spent the day doing full squats. Now, that’s specialized training, and it got the results they were seeking. The concentrated work jarred their legs into another level of strength and growth. Had they gone to a gym and spent the same amount of time doing a variety of leg exercises, they’d never have achieved the same benefits. Keeping your program simple doesn’t mean you have to do the same exercises at every workout. Even The Big Three graduates to

more advanced movements, although the principle of only working three primary exercises per session remains intact. So you might do power cleans, squats and benches at one workout; deadlifts, lunges and inclines at the next and finish up the week with squats, military presses and shrugs—or any variation of that idea. At the extreme end of the simplicity scale there are those who thrived on doing only one exercise per workout. At one point a few of

my former Hopkins athletes contacted me. They were so busy with their jobs—always in the financial field—that they couldn’t find the time to go to the gym three days a week and train for an hour and a half. I suggested that they go to the gym as often as possible, perhaps during lunch hour, and do just one exercise for 30 minutes. If they could manage to get in four or five sessions a week, they would at least be able to stay in decent shape. A few advanced strength athletes have taken this idea of one exercise per workout to a more radical level. George Hecter is a homegrown product who started training with me when he was in high school. After several years of training he did a routine in which he concentrated on one of the contested powerlifts for the entire workout, more than an hour and a half. They were extremely demanding sessions and not for the fainthearted, but they paid huge dividends for him. He went on to win the heavyweight title in powerlifting and competed in the World’s Strongest Man competition. A perfect example of the type of program I’m talking about can be found in the January ’05 IRON MAN. John Balik laid out a routine for his 15-year-old son, Justin, that consisted of three core exercises—deadlift, squat and bench press—along with four mild auxiliary movements and some ab work. The workload was low, which is an important consideration for any beginner. This is an ideal routine for any beginner, young and old. So if you’ve hit a wall in your training, try simplifying your program. It may mean dropping several exercises or shifting them around to enable you to apply your full energy to a few primary movements. Do that, and I assure you that you’ll start making gains once again. 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

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Macrobolic

Momentum Gerard Dente, Former Competitive Bodybuilder and President of Maximum Human Performance,

Demystifies Diet

verybody and his brother has an opinion on the proper way to train—if they lift, that is. All you have to do is head to the gym and bring up the subject. You’ll get at least five people joining in on the conversation, all convinced they know the best way to train. When it comes to diet, however, the eyes of those same people will usually glaze over, giving them a look reminiscent of Robert Blake’s attorney. They may have an opinion, but it’s cloudy, and they’ll probably spout something that’s way off base (“So, an all-bacon diet may just work!”). One man who’s not confused in the least is Gerard Dente. A former competitive bodybuilder with more than 15 years of in-the-trenches experience, he’s devoted his life to nutrition research. He’s the president of Maximum Human Performance, a respected sportsnutrition company, and the author of Macrobolic Nutrition, which he wrote with Keven Hopkins. Dente also serves as a consultant to many professional athletes and bodybuilders. If you want diet answers, he’s your man. Let’s go to the audiotape.

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Macrobolic Momentum IM: Low-carb diets are the rage right now. How low is too low, and why is a lowcarb diet not the way to go for fat loss, especially for bodybuilders?

Demystifies Diet

GD: The fact that the lowcarb diet is so popular is a

great indication of how people can be influenced by the media and trends. That’s understandable for mainstream America because most people don’t have extensive knowledge of diet and nutrition—but how low carb ever got so popular in sports nutrition is disturbing and confusing. I say that because if you look at all the research on performance nutrition, the importance of carbs is very clear. A major study in the Strength Conditioning Journal found that “diets containing less than 42 percent carbohydrates do not meet the energy demands or provide adequate glycogen for bodybuilders and their intense workouts.” That’s only one of many studies showing that your diet should provide a minimum of 40 percent carbs. So, it’s hard to understand why the lowcarb fad caught on and even got some accolades in fitness publications.

IM: But people lose weight on low-carb diets.

GD: Don’t get me wrong, you can absolutely lose weight on low carbs. Perhaps that’s why the diet spread like wildfire. But make no mistake: Following a low-carb diet will hinder performance, your health and your ability to increase muscle mass. If you balance and portion your

macronutrients properly, you can get the same fat-burning benefits that a low-carb diet provides without compromising performance and muscle building. The fundamental principle of a

low-carb diet is that by restricting the intake of carbs, you control two very important hormones that influence fat storage and fat burning: insulin and glucagon. A lowcarb diet keeps blood sugar levels low and causes a shift in those hormones by lowering the fat storing hormone, insulin, and raising the fat-burning hormone, glucagon. That shift gives you increased fat burning. In the absence of carbs, however, your body reverts to a catabolic process known as gluconeogenesis in an effort to make the blood sugar it needs not only to perform but to live. Gluconeogenesis is a process in which your body converts amino acids from either food or muscle tissue into blood sugar. It’s not an efficient process and can be extremely detrimental, especially to athletes and bodybuilders. As I already pointed out, bodybuilders and other people who work out have a much greater need for carbs (a minimum of 40 percent of their total calorie intake) than the average person. So, if

“In the absence of carbs your body reverts to a catabolic process known as gluconeogenesis in an effort to make the blood sugar it needs not only to perform but to live.”

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Macrobolic Momentum

you follow a low-carb diet, your body will continually be in gluconeogenesis, a muscle-wasting, or catabolic, state. Why would bodybuilders want to jeopardize their hard-earned muscle when they could achieve the same degree of fat loss—while actually gaining muscle—simply by eating smarter?

IM: So your Macrobolic Nutrition plan is more balanced?

guidelines, you can lower insulin and raise glucagon for maximum fat burning in a similar fashion to the way a low-carb diet works while actually improving the anabolic process of building muscle and optimizing performance. Forty-five percent of your calories

GD: I’ve done extensive research on performance nutrition and developed a diet backed by science. I’ve been using it on a number of world-class athletes for the past few years with amazing results. Macrobolic Nutrition prescribes macronutrient percentages of 45/35/20 from select sources of carbohydrates, proteins and fats, respectively. The key is to eat the right foods—and the right percentages of macronutrients. If you follow Macrobolic Nutrition

blend of various protein sources—such as whey, casein and soy—rather than a single source. That will ensure that the supplement contains adequate levels of key amino acids and provides a steady supply of them. Fat intake should be around 20 percent. Fat is important for hormonal production and regulation, slowing down digestion and keeping blood sugar stable, anti-inflammation and as a secondary energy source. Your dietary fat should come from what occurs naturally in your protein, with the rest coming from EFAs, such as olive oil or borage oil.

should come from low-to-medium-glycemic carbohydrates—slow carbs, meaning they should be from sources that slowly raise blood sugar, as opposed to high-glycemic carbs, which raise blood sugar

IM: But won’t eating fat along with all those carbohydrates provide an energy surplus and/or stop the use of stored bodyfat for energy? GD: Absolutely not! I’m glad you asked that—you use the term “energy surplus.” Let’s expand upon that because it’s a key component of www.ironmanmagazine.com \ APRIL 2005 169

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Demystifies Diet

“Forty-five percent of your calories should come from low-to-medium-glycemic carbohydrates—slow carbs.”

quickly. Good examples of slow carbs include sweet potatoes, oatmeal and brown rice. Protein should make up 35 percent of your diet—lean beef, chicken, turkey, eggs, egg whites and fish. As for protein supplements, look for products that contain a

Demystifies Diet

Macrobolic Momentum Macrobolic Nutrition—or any diet, for that matter. The bottom line with any diet is that if you eat more calories than you expend, you’ll be in an energy surplus and your body will store fat. That can even occur on a low-carb diet. On any diet you have to monitor your calorie intake—and the Macrobolic diet is no different. There’s a chapter in my book on the importance of calorie intake, and I provide a useful calorie calculator so you can easily determine your calorie needs for your goal. [Note: You can find the calorie calculator online at www.macro bolicnutrition.com.] What’s different about Macrobolic Nutrition is that by eating in the 45/35/20 range and creating the ideal hormonal and metabolic environment, you end up having a much higher calorie intake than with any other diet for several reasons: Macrobolic meals have a high thermic effect—meaning they boost metabolism, they shift hormones to favor fat burning and muscle building and over time increase lean body mass, which actually increases your need for more calories. I refer to that as Macrobolic momentum, in which your body chemistry gets more and more efficient at building muscle and burning bodyfat and requires more calories. How many diets do you know that can do that?

IM: Sounds interesting. Here’s another common question: The body only stores 300 to 400 grams of glycogen from

carbohydrates. A typical 90minute bodybuilding workout, training, say, three bodyparts, can’t reduce those stores by more than about 100 grams. Why do you need to take in 300 to 400 grams of carbs a day? GD: That’s a very logical ques-

tion, but when designing a meal, you have to look at the sum of the whole and not its parts. The same question can be asked of a person on a high-protein, low-carb diet who’s eating 500 grams of protein. Does he or she really need that much protein? The premise behind Macrobolic Nutrition is to eat the proper amount of each macronutrient for the purpose in which it was intended—carbs to supply glucose for energy, not only for vital body functions but for maximum performance and to prevent muscle wasting; proteins to supply your body with the amino acids it needs to build and repair enzymes, hormones, organs and, of course, muscle tissue; and fats for the formation of hormones and prostaglandins and to fight infection, regulate growth and assist in digestion. As for your question of whether the body needs 300 to 400 grams of carbs, that would totally depend on a number of variables: the person’s size, activity level, fitness or performance goals, total calories consumed for the day and so on. As you point out, a 90-minute workout may use 100 grams of carbs, but the body also needs roughly 100 grams per day with no activity just to ensure adequate blood sugar levels and adequately supply the brain. Add to that other daily activities, and also keep in mind that the more muscle mass a person carries, the greater the need for glycogen and carbs for optimum performance. The key is to plan your total daily

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Macrobolic Momentum calorie intake and break it down into balanced 45/35/20 meals throughout the day. Then for your last meal you should ideally take a supplement high in protein, low in carbs and with moderate fat. That type of eating schedule will provide the best hormonal profile for maximum muscle building and fat burning. Macrobolic meals are designed to keep your body running optimally for approximately three hours. When you follow the Macrobolic Nutrition program during the day, you can expect:

ing hours with a meal high in protein and low in carbs. MHP’s Probolic-SR Protein uses a patented technology to sustain the release of amino acids for up to 12 hours to ensure that you maintain a positive nitrogen balance. From that Macrobolic Nutrition nighttime formula your body gets:

“Macrobolic meals are designed to keep your body running optimally for approximately three hours. That makes meal frequency very important.”

• Sufficient supply of carbohydrates to meet energy demands. • Controlled insulin release to prevent the formation of triglycerides into bodyfat. • Controlled insulin release to shuttle amino acids and glucose to muscle tissue. • Raised glucagon to increase fat burning. • Lowered cortisol to prevent muscle tissue breakdown. • A steady supply of amino acids from quality protein sources to maintain positive nitrogen balance. • A supply of fat and essential fatty acids (EFAs) to support hormone production, prevent inflammation and slow digestion to control blood sugar and amino acid release.

Demystifies Diet

• Maximized thermogenic effect of food; that is, the calories used to digest a meal. All of those great things are going on at once after a Macrobolic meal. Your body is running optimally and efficiently. That’s where meal frequency becomes important. A Macrobolic meal is only going to fuel your body for so long. Eat every three to four hours during the day to keep your hormone levels, blood sugar levels and nitrogen retention optimal. If your busy schedule doesn’t allow you to eat that often, Macrobolic-MRP and Macrobolic bars are a great way to get the frequent nutrition you need. Nighttime is a different story. You need to keep insulin low and nitrogen high during the nighttime fast172 APRIL 2005 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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Macrobolic Momentum “On nonworkout days you should eat fewer carbs and less protein and fat.”

•A steady supply of five critical amino acids from sustained-release protein to maintain nitrogen balance during sleep.

hurt you one bit, especially once you’ve been on the Macrobolic diet for a while and you’re in fairly good shape.

• Stable insulin levels due to the very low carbohydrate and essential fatty acid content of the shake. • Elevated growth hormone due to low insulin levels.

Demystifies Diet

• Increased fat burning due to raised glucagon and the thermic effect of digestion.

IM: Do you recommend reducing carb intake on nonworkout days? GD: Yes and no. Now, before you shake your head and tell me I’m nuts, hear me out. I believe you still need to eat balanced meals of 45/35/20 throughout the day to create the ideal hormonal environment and optimum nutrition for building muscle and burning fat—but your total calo-

ries should be lower. So on nonworkout days you should eat fewer carbs and less protein and fat. Remember, your calorie requirements are lower on nonworkout days, but you still want to supply the proper nutrition for growth and recovery.

IM: Do you recommend cheat days—with higher carb and/or fat intake—to satisfy cravings? GD: On a Macrobolic diet you don’t really get sugar cravings because you aren’t depriving yourself of carbs, but you do keep insulin low. I think everyone deserves an occasional cheat day or meal. Going off your diet for a day won’t

IM: You say in your book that people don’t need cardio to burn bodyfat, but isn’t it necessary to create a calorie deficit to tap into bodyfat stores, especially if someone’s taking in 300 grams of carb a day? GD: You only need to do cardio to create a calorie deficit if you’re eating more calories than you’re using. If you want to maximize muscle growth, you are much better off monitoring your calories to create a deficit than doing cardio. Why eat more food just to have to get on a treadmill and run like a gerbil to burn it off? Performing cardio can compromise muscle tissue if you aren’t careful. On your training days you want to preserve as much energy as possible to work out hard and heavy, and

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Macrobolic Momentum “Performing cardio can compromise muscle tissue if you aren’t careful.”

IM: Can you list a couple of Macrobolic Nutrition meals that are balanced? A: Here’s a good Macrobolic breakfast: Omelet (include five large-egg whites, one large whole egg,

chopped sweet green pepper, chopped sweet red pepper, raw onion, lowfat cheddar cheese— no more than one ounce) Oatmeal 1 cup Skim Milk Plus That’s got about 556 calories, 61 grams of carbs, 50 grams of protein and 11 grams of fat. Percentages: 44/36/20. You can even have a burger for lunch or dinner: 7 ounces lean ground beef 1 large whole-wheat hamburger bun 2 leaves raw lettuce 2 slices tomato That’s got about 629 calories, 65 grams of carbs, 53 grams of protein and 12 grams of fat. Percentages:

45/36/19. And, of course, I recommend MHP’s Up Your Mass shake. Four scoops has 510 calories, 58 grams of carbs, 46 grams of protein and 11 grams of fat. Also the Macrobolic MRP—one packet has 350 calories, 39 grams of carbs, 32 grams of protein and seven grams of fat. Those meet the target percentages. Keep in mind that slight variations are okay—and that protein and carbs are equally important. By the way, beef is a great protein source for bodybuilders. If you choose lean cuts like top round, you can eat it four to five times a week without worrying about any health risk associated with cholesterol. I often eat it more frequently than that, and my cholesterol counts are always good.

IM: Why should or shouldn’t bodybuilders rely on a straight whey protein powder for (continued on page 178) www.ironmanmagazine.com \ APRIL 2005 175

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Demystifies Diet

on your off days you want to rest your body so you can recover for your next workout. I’m not an advocate of cardio. The only exception would be if you’re carrying a lot of bodyfat and want to jump-start fat burning— even though you will compromise some muscle. Or if you’re an athlete and need cardiovascular conditioning to perform your sport or if you’re in a precontest phase to get ultra shredded. But even while preparing for a show, you need to make sure not to overdo cardio. If you don’t get too far out of shape in the offseason, a few weeks of 30-minute cardio sessions should dial you in.

Macrobolic Momentum extra amino acids? GD: A combination protein source is definitely better. Whey is a good source of BCAAs, but it’s a very fast-releasing protein and only supplies aminos for a short length of time. That can cause you to go into a catabolic state soon after. Combining whey with other protein sources, such as casein and soy, however, prolongs the release of aminos and also improves the amino acid profile. That, in turn, dramatically improves the anabolic/anticatabolic effects of protein—a critical component of building new muscle fibers 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The new protein that I’ve developed, Probolic-SR, addresses those very issues (www.probolic.com). It not only contains whey for immediate release, but it also has soy and casein to provide medium and slow amino acid release into your bloodstream. That by itself would make it a top-quality protein, but my R&D staff has taken it a step further, adding a sustained-release component to the protein granules. That makes Probolic-SR the first protein to feed your muscles for 12 hours straight. It truly is the most bioefficient protein available; you’ll always remain in an anabolic state and never slip into catabolism.

Demystifies Diet

IM: Is there any way to increase testosterone via diet? GD: There isn’t much research showing that any specific diet increases testosterone production; however, there is research showing that diets low in fat can lower testosterone. One study showed that your diet should consist of a minimum of 20 percent fat in order to allow for optimum testosterone levels. Hormones are formed from cholesterol, so you do need some saturated fat and cholesterol in your diet. That doesn’t mean that eating a high-fat diet will cause surges in testosterone, though.

IM: You mentioned the thermic effect of food. Can you explain it and describe how best to use the information to burn more bodyfat?

GD: The thermic effect of food is the amount of energy, or calories, it takes to digest a particular food or meal. Each nutrient—carb, protein and fat—has a different thermic effect. Additionally, different types of carbs, proteins and fats have different thermic effects. Basically, the harder the food is to digest, the higher its thermic effect. A Macrobolic meal has a very high thermic effect due to its low-glycemic carb, protein, fat and fiber contents. A Macrobolic meal requires more calories to digest than most meals.

they contain cheap ingredients that are harmful to a bodybuilding lifestyle. Most have maltodextrin as the main carb source—one of the worst sources of carbs you can choose for your body. It has a glycemic index of 107, which is even higher than table sugar! New advances in manufacturing practices have enabled me and my team to formulate the perfect MRP with highquality ingredients specifically for the bodybuilding community. It’s called Macrobolic-MRP (www .macrobolicnutrition .com), and yes, it’s formulated to the 45/35/20 percentages. It has quality low-glycemic carbs like oats and barley and the advanced Probolic Protein blend I discussed above, consisting of whey, casein and soy. To top it off, I added an EFA blend to help with hormone production, insulin stabilization and a host of other important bodybuilding functions. I’ve found that although essential fatty acids are critical for bodybuilders; most MRPs ignore them.

IM: Lots of bodybuilders have trouble getting up for a workout. Is there anything you can recommend for increasing energy prior to training?

IM: If you could recommend one specialty supplement for building muscle, what would it be?

GD: Since ephedra has been taken off the market, everyone is looking for something to get them amped up. I have put together an extremely powerful formula, TakeOFF. It’s loaded with caffeine and other energizing herbs, plus it contains three times more synephrine than any of the other top energy products—two tablets of this stuff is like drinking a six-pack of Red Bull.

GD: A quality MRP and protein powder are the core of a supplement program, but, if I had to recommend a specialty supplement for building muscle, it would be MHPs TRAC. It’s a patented time-released creatine-andnitric-oxide formula that continually replenishes ATP and increases blood flow during and after workouts. You get incredible pumps while you train and then increased blood flow afterward, which helps with growth and recovery.

IM: I’m in. Send me some of that immediately. What are the key ingredients bodybuilders should look for in a meal-replacement powder?

IM: Sounds like a winner. Nitric oxide supplements are hot right now. Send me some of that too.

GD: Definitely check out what the carbohydrate and protein sources are. It’s ironic, but the problem with most MRPs on the market is that

Editor’s note: Macrobolic Nutrition is available from Home Gym Warehouse. Call (800) 447-0008, or visit www.home-gym.com. IM

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IRON MAN Hardbody

Mindand

Body

Kimberly Page Has Beauty—and Brains by Jonathan Lawson

Photography by Michael Neveux

e all want to believe that we’re smart and good looking, but more often than not, people have one gift or the other. Not so with Kimberly Page. Yes, you first notice her looks—they hit you right between the eyes—and then you notice her jaw-dropping physique. What? She has smarts too? Incredible! Looking at Michael Neveux’s spectacular shots of Kimberly, you’d never guess that she started primary school at age four with an I.Q. of 145 and that she was the youngest student ever to receive a master of science degree in advertising at Northwestern University, a record that still stands. She was also in the top 20 percent of her class. If Kimberly looks familiar, it may be because you recognize her as one of wrestling’s Nitro Girls. By the way, she developed that whole concept. Smart gal. She’s also appeared on the covers of IRON MAN and other magazines and is now set to take the entertainment world by storm. I guess the only question is, Does she have a sister? Editor’s note: Kimberly’s Web site is www.kimberlypage.com. IM Hair and Make-Up Yvonne Ouellette

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Workout: â&#x20AC;&#x153;My weight-training workout changes every time I go to the gym. I enjoy training legs, but I never do the same routine twice. I usually include lunges; high-rep, unweighted squats; leg extensions and leg presses or hack squats. I keep it aerobic with lots of reps, and I stretch between sets. I train four days per week, do three days of yoga and do cardio six days per week.â&#x20AC;?

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Future plans: “I will be attending the premier of ‘Monarch of the Moon’ in Austin, Texas. It’s an independent sci-fi feature film that spoofs the old 1940s serials. I play Dragonfly, the hero’s nemesis. I also have a part in ‘The 40Year-Old Virgin,’ starring Steve Carell, which should also premier this year.” [Check out Kimberly’s Web site for updates on her film and television appearances.]

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Height: 5’9” Weight: 137 Age: 32 Current residence: Marina del Rey, CA Hometown: Fort Myers, FL Occupation: Actress, model and spokesperson Favorite foods: “If I could eat only one thing for the rest of my life, it would be breakfast cereal. I’m not kidding! I like to mix cereals—like Jerry Seinfeld. But I also enjoy salads.”

Beauty/anti-aging secret: “There are no secret potions in my medicine cabinet. Every day I repeat to myself, ‘Young at heart, young at mind.’” Factoids: B.A. in journalism from Auburn University, M.S. in advertising from Northwestern University, no children, two spoiled cats, Sophie and Spooki Web site: www.KimberlyPage.com

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Lonnie Teper’s

Preview: ’05 Arnold Fitness Weekend

Terms of Endearment ASC marks three decades of Partnership for Jim and Ah-nold Somehow, someway, the Arnold Fitness Weekend expands as consistently as most of our waistlines after a holiday feast. This season’s mega-event—March 4–6— marks the 30th year that Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jim Lorimer have teamed to promote bodybuilding and fitness in Columbus, Ohio, and neither of the boys is slowing down. “For the first time ever the expo was sold out by December 1,” beamed the always-energetic Lorimer, who’s the former mayer of Worthington, Ohio. “We’re going to have 20 different sports, with more than 14,000 athletes. There’ll be 4,000 athletes in the cheerleading and martial arts competitions and 3,500 in gymnastics.” The Gov and His Honor, in tandem as always. As usual, some new activities will make their debuts. The Youth DanceSport Classic is expected to draw 1,000 entrants, from six years old through college age, who’ll strut their stuff in ballroom and Latin-dance challenges. Archery, another addition, joins the pump and run, powerlifting, table tennis, arm-wrestling, fencing, Olympic-weightlifting, strength and yoga events and the hugely popular Strongest Man battle on the schedule. Of course, there’s always the grade-A physique lineups in the Arnold Classic, Ms. International, Fitness International and Figure International competitions. And don’t forget the Arnold Fitness Training Seminar, given by the Governator himself. (For a complete list of those who’ll be flexing and posing on the Veterans Memorial stage, log on to www.arnoldclassic.com.) “We’re reaching out strongly to China,” said Lorimer. “They won 76 medals at the ’04 Olympic Games, and with the 2008 Games being held in Beijing, I think the added Chinese presence is terrific.… “In celebration of 30 years of fitness we will see hundreds of young athletes who are actively engaged in a wide array of individual sports on a year-round basis,” said Lorimer. “The 2005 Arnold Fitness Weekend is an exceptional opportunity for aspiring champions to witness the talents of world greats in their specific sport. There is truly something for everyone.” Couldn’t have said it better myself, Jim. Let the games begin.

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ADD DYNAMIC DUOS

Add N.C. Teen Queen

Teper

Tag Team Hot time training in the gym

Shawn Crump gets a spot from training partner Greg Jones during a torrid workout session at Gold’s Gym in Salisbury, North Carolina. Above right: Jones took fourth heavyweight at the Nationals.

Man, they sure churn out the champs in this North Carolina steel factory. Before Shawn Crump took his crown at the state championships last year, teen sensation Britt Miller, also a Gold’s, Salisbury, member, did the same in the women’s division. Britt, a student in the nursing program at East Carolina University, was 19. The pretty 5’4”, 120pounder then followed in Crump’s footsteps by placing second in her class at the Junior Nationals and will be taking her physique to a proqualifying stage in ’05, most likely in Las Vegas, at the USA. North Carolina has had its share of outstanding competitors throughout the years, and thanks to folks like Crump, Greg Jones and Miller, the beat goes on.

Crump, after his win at the North Carolina Championships in May ’04.

Culver City, California, December 5, 2004 Overall winners (from left): Kris Schuldt (men’s bodybuilding), Gwendolyn Malone (women’s bodybuilding) and Jennifer Kight (figure).

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Teper

Photography by Bill Comstock

Teper

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jim Lorimer have proven to be quite a pair when it comes to putting on world-class events. Shawn “He Ain’t No Chump” Crump and Greg Jones are demonstrating their BRITT MILLER talent as a team as well, pushing each other to the limit as training partners at Gold’s Gym in Salisbury, North Carolina. Judging by their results onstage, this team is a dream. I met Crump in Raleigh last May, when I was emceeing the North Carolina Championships; his impressive 5’7”, 198-pound package of size, symmetry and conditioning carried him to the overall crown. After his unanimous victory at the Mike and Pat Valentino production, the 27-year-old Crump went on to place second in the light heavies at the Junior Nationals, finishing only behind the incredible 44-year-old Lance Johnson. At the state contest Crump had not only the biggest muscles (well, at least the most impressive) but also the most fans in the seats. Based on the size of that cheering section, they should rename the auditorium Crump Towers. Among the fans was Jones, whom I met six months later at the Nationals. Like Crump, the 5’9”, 215-pound Jones made a very good first impression. In only his third contest the 27NPC SHOWS \ ’05 EXCALIBUR CHAMPIONSHIPS year-old firefighter placed fourth in the heavyweight class and, like his training partner, will move into the ’05 season as one of the fellas to watch out for at the Nationals, which are set for Atlanta in November.

WINNERS

MOVERS

Robert Siudak, who lost his leg to bone cancer in 1992, hasn’t let that setback set him back in his drive to achieve in bodybuilding. At the ’04 Excalibur last December he brought down the house.

Robert Siudak

Talk about inspiration! Robert Siudak lost his left leg to bone cancer in 1992 but hasn’t let that setback deprive him of his dream to one day step on a pro-bodybuilding stage. “I plan on qualifying for a national show this year,” said Siudak from his Las Vegas residence a month after a moving performance earned him a sixth-place finish in the light-heavyweight class at the ’04 Excalibur. That’s no small potatoes—the Excalibur, which is held annually in Culver City, California, during the first weekend of December, is one of the NPC’s premier non-national-level events. The 30-year-old Siudak carried 192 pounds on his 5’10” frame at the Excalibur and says he hopes to put on another 10 to 20 pounds this year. “If the judging would ever allow me to turn pro, that would be great—I would need another 30 to 40 pounds eventually.”

Siudak, originally from Chicago, entered his first contest, the Nevada State, in 2000. Then, before competing at the Excalibur, he took part in the Illinois Championships. Robert trains his right leg with leg presses, leg curls, leg extensions and hack squats. “I just use my prosthesis for balance on hack squats,” he said. “I press with one leg on the leg presses.” Well, guy, you’ve certainly im-pressed me. And everyone else who’s seen you perform. You may have finished sixth in your class, but to everyone in the house you were a true champion.

Access Hollywood Levrone Update

Teper

Success Story

Levrone, here with NPC fitness competitor Nita Marquez, finally made the move west in 2004. Is there a new sheriff—or action hero—in town?

Kevin Levrone’s been telling me for a few years that he was going Hollywood. Guess he meant it this time. The irrespressible Levrone phoned me in December with a few hot tips: that he’s no longer under contract to Weider and is now repping a company called Maxoderm (www.maxoderm.com); that he’s officially retired as a competitor and that he’s living part-time in Los Angeles’ Sherman Oaks area and part-time in Maryland. “Tell ’em a new action hero is on the way,” said Kevin, who was in Cincinnati doing a shoot for his new company. He also said he’s about 215 pounds and is excited about his new venture. Welcome to Hollywood, Kev. And good luck.

HOT SHOTS BY JERRY FREDRICK

Riddle: What do you call a bodybuilder without a mirror? Ans wer: Lonely.

empts to get No cake! Brittany att contest diet for Lisa to stick to her one more day.

We know Jack's into health food, but we 're pretty sure he won't eat this entire arrangement at one sitting. Elsa’s ready to watch him try.

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Add Pro News: Quick Exit

Down sizing Shawn goes back to

Check Mates

Repping in the gym

Teper

Mike Lackner

Shawn Ray started the new year with two resolutions: to get back into the gym and to get out of his position as IFBB athletes’ representative. He did the former on January 3, the latter a day earlier. In his resignation letter, Ray announced he was “removing” himself from the position because he PASSING THE BUCKS felt he was “unable to At the Natural Northern USA the generous group of effectively have the issues (from left) Todd Pember, Dave Liberman, Maureen What did IFBB VP Jim Manion think of addressed that needed Dunphy of the American Cancer Society, Geoff Shawn Ray’s suggestions? They say a immediate attention by the DelGrosso, Jason Modic and Dan Sammon picture is worth 1,000 words. Seriously, Ray proudly display checks totaling $2,600 for federation to aid and assist the resigned from his position as athletes’ rep the ACS. See the story below. in early January. athletes.” The announcement brought immediate hopes by Ray fans of a possible return to the stage; I say no way. Ray’s venture into the gym after New Year’s was his first in about eight months, and he certainly hasn’t had a problem since his last competition (the ’01 Mr. Olympia) of passing on the “eat well, live well” credo offered by nutritionists around the world. Hey, “Fat Albert” was Ray’s favorite holiday flick, okay? Plus, the guy is well on his way to his 40th birthday (September 9, for those who want to send a gift), and the drive—and the energy—to be the best in the world just can’t be there anymore. Yes, Ray was fabulous in his day, but now it’s his time to let the man play. As he has been the past 3 1/2 years.

ADD NPC CONTESTS Giving is the theme at the Natural Northern USA

Some things never change, especially at Dave Liberman and Todd Pember productions. Outstanding lineups of competitors, big-time guest posers—and a donation to the American Cancer Society from the big-hearted promoters and the sponsors. At the ’04 Natural Northern USA, which was held on October 2 at the Lakewood (Ohio) Civic Auditorium, the ante was raised to $2,600. Dave and Todd started things off with $1,000, and sponsors chipped in the rest. Host sponsor Geoff DelGrosso, owner of Titan’s 24 Hour Gym, Fitness and Tanning Center in Mentor, Ohio, donated $1,200, with contributing sponsors Dan Sammon, owner of Land Sharks Excavating, and Jason Modic, owner of Agua Pros Swimming Pool Construction, chipping in $250 and $150, respectively. Additionally, guest poser Adela Garcia-Friedmansky donated her services. Of course, the dazzling Adela did get to pick up some change four weeks later with her victory at the Fitness Olympia. Roland Kickinger also guest posed and, according to Liberman, did an amazing routine Overall winners (from left): Maria reminiscent of Arnold Schwarzenegger. “Roland went above the call of duty by flying in Bonomolo, Shiloe Steinmetz and on the red-eye so he could make an appearance on WMMS (100.7FM), on the hottest radio Tammy Pies. show in Cleveland, to help promote the contest.” The show produced an exceptional list of champions, with nearly 100 contestants onstage, as always: Shiloe “When I Was Young” Steinmetz in men’s bodybuilding, Maria Bonomolo in women’s bodybuilding and Tammy “I Didn’t Eat Any” Pies in figure. Nice job. The next Liberman-Pember production, the ’05 Natural Ohio, is set for April 2 at the same venue. I’ll be at the podium for that one, with pro bodybuilding fave Gunter Schlierkamp and Figure Olympia champ Davana Medina joining former Natural Ohio overall winner Justin Wilcox as guest posers for what should be another great show. For more information contact Liberman at (444) 942-5634 or Pember at (444) 984-2762.

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Mike Lackner

Generosity

Tw i n

Add Previews: NPC Junior Cal

To w e r s

Coleman ’n’ Cutler - Together again

Junior Cal

Neveux

I’ve been hoping for years to bring Ronnie Coleman in to guest pose at the NPC event I promote, and this year my wish becomes a reality. Yup, the seven-time Mr. Olympia, a guy regarded by many as the greatest bodybuilder of all time, will be making his first ever guestposing appearance in Southern California when he comes to Pasadena City College on June 25 for my Junior California Bodybuilding and Figure Championships. In return, I’ll be emceeing his The two best bodybuilders in the world, Ronnie Coleannual Ronnie Coleman man and Jay Cutler, will flex it out again—this time at Classic on April 23. Think I L.T.’s Junior California Championships on June 25 in got the better end of this CHEESECAKE FACTOR Pasadena. A Coleman-Cutler posedown ended the trade-off, huh, gang? night at the ’04 Mr. Olympia, where Coleman earned Pro fitness star/model As if the Big Nasty’s apanother Sandow. Timea Majorova will pearance weren’t enough, Ronnie’s biggest rival for the Mr. O crown, Jay Cutler, who’s rocked the house at PCC’s add some beauty to Sexson Auditorium for the past two years, will be returning as well. You saw Coleman and Cutler the battle of the pose down for the Mr. Olympia crown last October, with Coleman getting the nod once again; now beasts. you can see them go at it up close and personal at PCC. In addition, the lovely Timea Majorova has signed on to perform her fitness routine, so there will be plenty of beauty among the beasts at this one. The contest, which started as the California Collegiate Championships in 1999, has evolved into its present identity as the Junior Cal. It’s open to all residents of California and includes a collegiate division. For more information on tickets, entry forms, contest rules, etc., log on to www.ironmanmagazine.com.

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Muscle Beach Hall of Fame

Sign this petition

I received a letter from Smokin’ Joe Wheatley, the promoter of the Muscle Beach events, in Venice, California—and the guy who should have been cast as Sergio Oliva in “See Arnold Run”—who’s looking for support in his efforts to establish a Muscle Beach Bodybuilding Hall of Fame. Sergio, er, Smokin’ Joe wants your help. “I’d like to encourage everyone to sign the petition for the development of the Hall of Fame,” says Wheatley. “By logging on to www.petitiononline.com/MBHOF?petition.html, you will be able to place your support signature for the Hall of Fame petition. Recognition of those individuals who have blazed the trail of our sport is long overdue. “I am currently working with the Venice Parks Advisory Council, who are in full support of this project. By signing the petition, you’ll support the next vital phase of the project, which is fund-raising.” Wheatley is carrying on the longtime tradition of staging bodybuilding and figure events at Muscle Beach on Memorial Day, July 4 and Labor Day. 198 APRIL 2005 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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ADD GENEROSITY

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Giving Back

Everyone at IRON MAN wishes a complete recovery to Mike Matarazzo, who underwent triple bypass surgery in December after being diagnosed with conjunctive heart failure. Matarazzo returned to his Modesto, California, home five days after the surgery and, at last report, was in good spirits and healing well.

A legend never forgets his roots

Former pro bodybuilding star Bill Grant remembers fondly hitting the weights for the first time at 14 years of age in Orange, New Jersey, and competing in his first contest at the YMCA when he was 17. So, when the folks at the Newark YMCA asked if Grant would join a list of celebrities in speaking to kids about staying in school and out of gangs, he jumped at the chance. Last year 40 athletes visited 35 schools and hospitals in Newark and Sports legends at the gala (from left): surrounding towns on November 29 and Olympic sprint champion John Carlos, 30, reaching out to hundreds of kids. On Newark YMCA President and CEO Milton Harrison, Hall of Fame football star Carl Tuesday evening, November 30, the Y Eller and bodybuilding icon Bill Grant. hosted its annual Sports Legends Gala, a black-tie fund-raiser, and awarded college scholarships to 11 student-athletes from area high schools. Joining Grant, who currently owns Bill Grant Nutrition, at the gala were such icons as Carl Eller, Bobby Bell and Larry Little, three NFL Hall of Famers; ex-NBA superstar Connie Hawkins and Joetta Clark-Diggs, a member of four U.S. Olympic track and field teams. It’s great to see that people like Bill remember where they came from. Keep up the great work.

L . T. ’ S ’ 0 4 N AT I O N A L S H A L L O F F A M E Best Arms: Anthony Watkins (left) and Phil McDowell.

Most Improved: Aaron Garza.

Best Back: Bill Wilmore.

Most Symmetrical:

Jerome Ferguson.

Best Abs: Stan McQuay.

Best Legs: Caprice Murray.

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Best Calves: Chris Cook.

Photo courtesy of Bill Grant

GET WELL SOON

Ruth Silverman’s

PUMP & CiRCUMSTANCE FEBRUARY FUN

’04 ROUNDUP

Top Story of the Year

Sweetheart

No coup like an old coup

Neveux

Teper

Silverman

The top story of 2004 in the world of physique competition—men’s and women’s—just had to be the attempt by then-IFBB Vice President and Olympia promoter Wayne DeMilia to take the Pro Division out on its own and the sale by IFBB President Ben Weider of a half interest in Joe Weider’s Olympia Weekend to David Pecker of America Media Inc. I say story, singular, because the two tales quickly merged into one, with Pecker deciding to dance with the gal what brung him (an old expression; a disturbing visual), DeMilia exiting IFBB management altogether and NPC President Jim Manion being pressed into service to run the Pro Shuffling the pro deck (clockwise from upper Division. left): David Pecker, Wayne DeMilia, Jim Manion While the big-stakes and Ben Weider. game was going on in the boardroom, the ebb and flow of women’s bodybuilding, fitness and figure competition went on, as usual. Champs were crowned, pros were made, and the bottom line has been a smooth transition, with the athletes in all three women’s sports facing the same challenges they were facing before the change in command. In other words, a new round of players asking the eternal question: “What was she thinking when she built her biceps that big?” Here’s the P&C roundup of the year that was.

Abby Duncan wins the second annual NPC IRON MAN Figure contest and a photo session with Michael Neveux. Within four months she wins a pro card (see June).

MARCH MADNESS

Prom Queen

AGF takes over

March 5: Sudser. Can anyone replace March 4–7: With our host, Arnold Susie Curry as the queen of fitness? Schwarzenegger, now the governor The judges at the Fitness International of California, the annual trip to Columgive the nod to Adela Garcia-Friedbus, Ohio, for Arnold Fitness Weekend mansky over Olympia runner-up Kelly takes on a whole new meaning. As Ryan. AGF wins by only three points, never before, Arnold and his aura are with Jen Hendershott finishing solidly everywhere, including the front pages of in third, but I have a funny feeling that the the Los Angeles Times and the ColumAdela leaps ahead in the race to fill Susie die for the Olympia is cast. Whatever else bus Dispatch. My seat mate on the Curry’s shoes. Time to take off the mask. is true, Adela has the best body. Sobbing flight out of Columbus, a chiropractor, for joy, the new champ is too overcome to banter with the glowingly describes the governor’s pep talk to the attendees governor. Maybe next year. of a chiropractic conference held in conjunction with AFW. Run for cover. 200 APRIL 2005 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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MORE AWARDS

MORE MARCH

March 27: Full of surprises. Julie Palmer gets her first-place check at the New York Pro. It’s the closest pro fitness show ever, with the top three only a point apart. Kim Klein continues experiencing upward mobility, tightening her physique just enough to earn top-three scores in the physique rounds and take second, and Anna Level gets the third Olympia qualification. Two freshmen make their marks in the routine rounds: ’03 NPC National champ Teri Mooney, who aces the 45-second mandatories, and Australian Debbie Czempinski, who’s a sensation in the long routines. Fast learner. Kim Klein goes from P&C ’03 Rookie of the Year to Most Likely to Crack the Olympia Top Five in ’04.

Even More March

Contest photography by Bill Comstock

March 5: Ascensions. The lat spread officially joins the ranks of mandatory poses for women’s bodybuilding at the Ms. International. Top-seeded Iris Kyle and Dayana Cadeau, both of whom look great in a lat spread, time their peaks perfectly and ascend to the heavyweight and lightweight thrones, respectively. Kyle takes the overall, and I wish I had money on this race. Denise Masino and Yaxeni Oriquen are the runners-up, another couple of missed betting opportunities. March 5: Affirmation. The second annual Figure International competition is a repeat of the first: Beautiful Jenny Lynn beats beautiful Monica Brant, and emcee Clint Richards chastises the audience for booing. And they say no one is passionate about figure. Lynn beats even Fitness Olympia champ Susie Curry, who lands in third in her first pro figure contest. Ironies all around. Two years ago, at the Fitness I, Curry conquered the physique rounds and Jenny was not a factor. APRIL AWARDS

Silverman

And other Big Apple sites

Best locker-room shot. Dina and Mo before the O. See October. Fitness Rookie of the Year.

And more queens

Balancing act. Up-and-coming diva Mindi O’Brien wins all four rounds at the SW USA Pro Cup. Rookie Runner-up.

Royal triceps. Cadeau at the Ms. I.

And Trends

Teri Mooney says, “Anything you can do.…” The routine rounds in fitness have never been more competitive.

Tara Scotti is the jewel in the Junior USA crown

March–April: Shhh. Persistent rumors from the mill that started sometime after Arnold Fitness Weekend suggest we’re in for some changes. Is the Olympia for sale? (Is nothing sacred?) And what’s Wayne DeMilia up to? A hush settles over those who track down rumors. April 17–18: Recession? Competitor numbers are way down in the women’s ranks at the NPC Junior USA, except in figure, of course, which is a pro qualifier. Fifty-five fit femmes flock to New Haven, Connecticut, to vie for the one card up for grabs. It goes to New Jersey jewel Tara Scotti, who wins the overall and makes good on her goal of moving up to the big time as quickly as possible in 2004. In fitness the top trophy goes to Kristi Wills. April 18: Good idea. The light-heavyweight class returns to amateur women’s bodybuilding after a 16-year absence, and the overall trophy at the Junior USA goes to light-heavyweight winner Heidi Gay.

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Silverman

Deli Delights

PUMP & CiRCUMSTANCE M O R E M AY- H E M

M AY F L O W E R S

The Early Bird Catches the big check

Silverman

First in the Steel City.

May 1: Speaking of Jim Manion. His Pittsburgh Pro Figure brings 26 iron-trained bods to the Steel City. Jaime Franklin, looking good, gets the nod to score her first pro win. Shannon Meteraud makes a successful transition to figure with a runner-up finish, and Elaine Goodlad— on her 40th birthday—takes third, with all three getting their Olympia invitations out of the way early in the year. What a cutie! Jaime is on the figure fast track.

No stop is left un-pulled-out. Dayana Cadeau displays arresting development in the NOC’s farewell opening skit.

May 29: Cauli-fornia’s finest. Elaine Goodlad (right) gets her first quarter-turn-for-quarters win at the California Pro Figure. Rookies Zena Collins and Amber Littlejohn, in second and third, earn tickets to the O as well.

Silverman

A L S O I N M AY

JUNE TUNE

Diversification

Plus four new figure pros

Joana Kotkansalo and June 5: Just a little Lisbeth Halikka, roundrespect. Tenth at the ing out the top three. Fitness International in June 18–19: Big numMarch, Stacy Simons bers. The Junior Nationals takes her underrated attract a whopping 213 package to the Hungarian female athletes, including Pro Fitness competition healthy fields in fitness and and gets her props, beatwomen’s bodybuilding. ing Klaudia Kinska Once again the overall there for the second year bodybuilding champ is the in a row. Tanji Johnson light-heavyweight winner, lands in third, and all three Christine Szabo. set their courses StateGo, Stacy! In fitness, Kristina side for the O. The HunHenn gets the nod, but garian Pro Figure event figure queen Chastity Sloan and her brings three Europeans to the year-end class-winning court, Abby Duncan, lineup: Olympia vet Aleksandra KoWaleska Granger and Jennifer bielak of Poland leads the pack, with Peyton all get pro cards. a fine-looking pair of Finnish lasses, Silverman

Fireworks

May 20: Say what? A joint announcement by the IFBB and AMI makes it clear: Wayne DeMilia is out and David Pecker has big plans for the Olympia. Bring on the dancing girls. May 20: More announcements. Citing the organizational changes at the IFBB and “factors that are not clearly identified,” Jan Tana cancels the J.T. Classic, a mainstay of the pro-women’s physique circuit, for 2004. As if folks didn’t have enough to buzz about. May 21: Kaboom! After 25 previous editions DeMilia and his promoting partner, Charles Blake, put on what will probably be the last Night of Champions. Decorum, long thrown out the window at the raucous New York muscle show, is reportedly stomped to death in the opening skit, which features an off-season Diana Cadeau in a policewoman’s uniform, among other delights. In the second—and last—annual NOC women’s bodybuilding battle the judges make the hardcore fans happy and go for ripped Vilma Caez in the lightweights and mass mistress Yaxeni Oriquen in the heavies, with Oriquen getting the overall award. Second-placers Marja Lehtonen and Betty Pariso aren’t exactly short on fasttwitch fibers either.

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AUGUST ANTICS

J U LY J O L L I E S

Return to Vegas

Part 1

She loves New York. Christine PomponioPate got her pro card during Team U weekend in 2001. The same weekend, three years later, she gets her first prize money on the very same stage.

Silverman

July 16–17: Keep on pluggin’. Oklahoma’s Bethani Terrell caps a long career in the amateurs by snagging the overall trophy at the USA Fitness Championships. Five other new pros, including class winners Sabrina Gibson and Kristina Henn, move on to the dialing-it-in-for-dollars division. The routines are outstanding, better than they’ve been for a while at a national-level show, and observers are encouraged to think that fitness will be around for a while. NPC execs decide to institute a best routine award and award it to energetic L.A. dancer Shiva Bagheri. July 17: The Oklahoma firegals factor. A pair of firefighters—and training partners—from the Sooner State, Carri Ledford Baldwin and Sherry Smith, battle for the overall at the USA Women’s Bodybuilding Championships. Making it three for three at national-level shows, the judges bestow the Seven come 11. Terrell rolls title—and in this case a pro card—on the light the dice one more time. heavyweight, Ledford Baldwin, over heavyweight victor Smith, middleweight winner Christina Moore and lightweight champ Tera Guzman.

Buff Overload Blazing bodies from Taxus to New Yawk

MORE AUGUST—PLUS SEPTEMBER

Abundance of Bods Photo courtesy of Colette Nelson

August 6–7: Ironic, ain’t it? Another birthday weekend spent watching goodlooking women in bikinis and high heels parade onstage. There are 98 entries in the Figure Nationals to contend with (not to mention the pro figure lineup—see the item at right). The women are divided into six classes, with pro cards going to the top two in each. Mary Elizabeth Lado, winner of the ubertall division, gets the nod for the overall over class Hopes of a nation. U.S. flexers Vicki Nixon, champs, in descending heights, JenCollette Nelson and Debbie Patton at the nifer Searles, Marcy Porter, Gina World Championships. Comacho, Kate Shelby and Carina Dupree. August 6–7: Got her on condition. No one is more surprised than Vicki Nixon when promoter Bev Francis announces that the 114-pound lightweight has won the Team Universe Overall Women’s Bodybuilding title over heavyweight winner Colette Nelson, a local star with a powerful rep who’s won her class at the USA twice. Debbie Patton takes middleweight honors for the second year in a row at the NPC’s tryouts for the drug-tested IFBB World Amateur Championships. Nixon earns the right to turn pro, although it remains to be seen whether she’ll go for it. For Nelson it’s the third near-miss in that department. Good thing this isn’t baseball. September 4: Enough with the dues already. The decision to stop playing the size game pays off for Colette. At the North American Championships she breaks the curse: This time the overall—and the pro card—are hers. One streak not broken: At this contest Colette is a light heavy. Jane Awad gets the pro card in figure. September 16–17: Speaking of breaking curses. Colette wins the World Championships, becoming the first U.S. class winner since Peggy Schoolcraft in 1997, the first heavyweight winner since Yolanda Hughes in ’92 and the first overall winner ever. It caps a hell of a year for the 30-year-old New Yorker. NPC athletes make their best showing in years at the contest, with lightweight Vicki Nixon and figure competitor Kate Shelby taking home fourth-place trophies.

August 6–7: Cuts ’n’ stuff. Bonnie Priest outconditions Betty Viana by a single point in the heavyweights at the Southwest USA Pro Cup, an event promoted in Arlington, Texas, by competitor—and athletes’ rep—Betty Pariso. Lightweight winner Mah Ann Mendoza is no match for Priest in the overall balloting. All three, plus lightweight runner-up Desiree Ellis, get Olympia invites. Pariso and her husband, Ed Pariso, have gone out on a limb to continue staging women’s pro physique events. It’s hard not to wonder why such a relatively few competitors—seven lightweights and four heavies—came on down to support it. August 6–7: A star is born. Canadian champ Mindi O’Brien rides into Texas with both barrels blazing, winning all four rounds at the SW USA Pro Fitness Cup. Tracey Greenwood and Jennie Hanke land the other two money slots in the 23-woman lineup. Once again Debbie Czempinski and Teri Mooney get everyone’s attention in the routines. August 6–7: Homegirl. Meanwhile back on the East Coast, Olympia champ Davana Medina rides in from Jersey to ride all over the 28-woman lineup at the New York Pro Figure, which takes place during the NPC Team Universe/Figure Nationals festivities. Runner-up Christine Pomponio-Pate earns a trip to the big show at last, while former fitness pro Melissa Frabbiele, in third, earns a return journey. www.ironmanmagazine.com \ APRIL 2005 203

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PUMP & CiRCUMSTANCE November/December November 19–20: Kudos. New pros coming out of the NPC Women’s Bodybuilding Nationals include Gina Davis, overall champ, as well as class winners Pam Kusar, Emery Miller and Cindy Gonzales. November 19–20. Flexibility. Deanna Lee wins the overall at the Fitness Nationals. Deanna Five more leaping Lee. ladies, including class winners Jennifer Becerra and Summer Montabone, make it to the pros along with her. December 7: Whoops. An “advisory notice” from the Pro Division “requests that female athletes in bodybuilding, fitness and figure decrease the amount of muscularity by a factor of 20 percent.” I heard that. Early December: Rumors that AMI’s David Pecker wants to dump the Ms. Olympia run rampant on the Internet and beyond. So far there appears to be no truth to them, which is fascinating in itself. Who would want to spread such stories? So we head into 2005 with the establishment suggesting that women’s physiques have gotten too big and too hard, and the rumor mill suggesting that women’s pro bodybuilding is toast. And the beat goes on….

Silverman

October 8: Yaxinatin’ rhythm. Yaxeni Oriquen adds another notch to her lifting belt with an overall victory at the GNC Show of Strength in Atlanta. Nancy Lewis comes back after another layoff to take the lightweights. Lightweight runner-up Joanna Thomas and heavyweight third-placer (behind Betty Pariso) Marja Lehtonen pick up Olympia invites as well. Promoters of this show take some flak for lowering the prize money for the women’s shows from the relatively large purses that were originally advertised. October 8: Signs. Kelly Ryan bows out of the SOS Fitness due to a torn calf, postponing her rematch with Adela With a vengeance. Iris conquers all Garcia-Friedmansky. Needless to become the new queen of pro to say, AGF wins here—by 21 bodybuilding. points. Kim Klein moves into second, ahead of Jen Hendershott, and fourth-placer Teri Mooney gets the ticket to the O she’s been toiling for all season. October 8: Pretty woman. Jenny Lynn has an easy win at the SOS Figure competition, with Jaime Franklin in second and Amber Littlejohn, third. October 28: Cheers. The new and improved AMI-produced Olympia Weekend gets started with the new and improved press conference. Mixed reviews for the smack-talkin’ WWF-style approach, but I get a kick out of Triple H. October 29: Iris is right on. If the judges think Iris Kyle’s physique is too extreme for a lady, they overlook it. Iris wins three rounds with perfect scores and loses the muscularity round, of all things, to Lenda Murray by a single point, with Yaxeni inevitably having to settle for third. Lightweights Dayana Cadeau and Denise Masino have a closer contest, with Cadeau getting the nod and the very muscular Lehtonen taking third. The battle for the overall is a replay of the Ms. International: Dayana is no match for Iris’ completely developed package. Not unexpectedly, many in the audience are shocked—shocked—that Kyle has become Ms. Olympia, although Murray does, arguably, fall into the same pie wedge as Iris on the size and conditioning chart. October 29: Slick. Davana Medina, Jenny Lynn and Monica Brant are all at the top of their game. The panel picks Medina again—and breaks Brant’s runnerup streak by dropping her to third behind Lynn. Boos on all the calls from the fans, but Mo, who recently got married, proba- October 28: Maybe not such a bly has other things on her mind. surprise. AGF wins the Figure Top-five who’s in: Jaime Franklin, Olympia, and Jen Hendershott slides ahead of Kelly fourth, and Amber Littlejohn. Top-five Ryan for the runner-up slot. who’s out: Mari Kudla-Donnelly, sevKim Klein is fourth, and enth, and Dina Al-Sabah, 13th.

It ain’t over yet

Tracey Greenwood rounds out the magical top five.

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Neveux

Plus SOS

Neveux

Return to Vegas, Part 2

Neveux

OCTOBER FEST

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.

Jack LaLanne’s 90th J Photography by Jerry Fredrick and Bill Comstock

ane Russell, David Carradine and Lou Ferrigno were among the Hollywood stars celebrating Jack LaLanne’s 90th birthday with his family and friends at the Hotel Casa Del Mar in Santa Monica, California, on October 23, 2004. The party was hosted by John Balik and IRON MAN magazine, Rick Suzuki, Befit Enterprises and the LaLanne family. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Clint Eastwood, Andy Williams, Red Buttons, Phyllis Diller, Ed McMahon, Randy Travis and Richard Simmons sent videotaped greetings.

Rick Suzuki, Jack and actress Lindsey Brooks.

Jack’s son Jon and his wife Lora.

Wife Elaine praises the man of the hour.

Jane Russell and Jack. David Carradine wins a Jack LaLanne Juicer. Jack’s juicers have sold more than 1.5 million units worldwide. Lonnie Teper interviews Dan Doyle, Jack’s son.

Dave and Laree Draper. www.ironmanmagazine.com \ APRIL 2005 205

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Jack LaLanne’s 90th

Elaine with a classic shot from Jack’s TV show.

Jack tests Pax Beale’s grip strength.

Patricia Bragg, Ph.D., is the daughter of Paul C. Bragg, the originator of health food stores and the man who got Jack on the health-and-fitness trail.

Leo Stern, Jimmy Payne and Bob Delmonteque.

IRON MAN Publisher John Balik, World Gym CEO Mike Uretz and Mike’s wife, Claudia.

MuscleMag Publisher Bob Kennedy and his wife, Tosca.

Jimmy (center) was one of Jack’s acrobatic partners.

Jerry Brainum, Elsa Escobar and L.T.

IM Art Director Terry Bratcher delivers a punch line.

With Carla and Lou Ferrigno.

Legendary photographers Stern and Gene Mozée. 206 APRIL 2005 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

With Jim and Debbie Manion.

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Russ Warner: 1917-2004 by Gene Mozée Legendary physique photographer Russ Warner passed away October 21, 2004, in his home in Escondido, California, at the age of 87. He was buried at Fort Rosecrans, a military cemetery in San Diego, with full honors. Warner’s innovative and beautiful bodybuilding photography earned him universal acknowledgement as the number-one physique photographer in the world. He was a competitive bodybuilder in the late ’40s, and his quick eye saw that the photographs of the top stars of the era were lacking in excitement. He soon moved to the other side of the camera. Instead of merely taking photos, Warner created fantasies. His photos of Steve Reeves posed on a mountaintop with a sword, Clancy Ross on a sailboat flexing against the rigging and Vince Gironda at Vasquez Rocks (to name just a few) sparked an interest in physique photography outside the realm of sports. He was the first to use Hawaii as a location for physique photography. When Russ posed bodybuilder Dick Dubois with the lovely Betty Weider, he created a trend of posing male bodybuilders with beautiful women that’s still popular today. In his studio work, though, he wanted to capture a starker look. His “rim lighting” technique, which involves placing the subject against a black background then positioning five floodlights to highlight the body, produces breathtaking results. Every modern-day physique photographer owes Russ Warner a debt of gratitude for his innovative lighting techniques, camera angles and the top-quality physique photography that was his trademark. A list of Warner’s subjects reads like a Who’s Who of bodybuilding: Steve Reeves, Clancy Ross, Mike Mentzer, Zabo Koszewski, Reg Park, Dave Draper, Chris Dickerson, Vince Gironda, Leo Robert, Robby Robinson, Freddie Ortiz, Armand Tanny, Jack LaLanne, Arnold Schwarzenegger—the list goes on and on.

Between 1949—when his first photograph (of Steve Reeves) was published—and 1975 Warner’s work appeared on more than 150 magazine covers. He took more than 25,000 photos, and his total published photographs numbered 5,000. Warner received IRON MAN magazine’s prestigious Art Zeller Award for Artistic Achievement in 2000, and he was one of the elite photographers who founded Graphic Muscle in 2001, along with Jimmy Caruso, Gene Mozée and Joe Valdez.

From John Brown

With Art Zeller (left) and John Balik.

Russ Warner’s passing was a very sad thing. He was a real gentleman—a very gentle man with a personality bigger than life. What Picasso and Van Gogh were to painting, Russ was to physique photography. It’s not easy to take good pictures of a body, but Russ did it as an art form. When I entered the sport, I remember how impressed I was with Russ’ photographs of Arnold, Sergio and others. Then in Hawaii he took pictures of me. I couldn’t believe it. Russ was a great guy and a great friend to bodybuilding. Thank you, kind soul, and rest in peace.

From Mits Kawashima I’m not a literary man or a man of words, but I can tell you that Russ Warner is probably up in heaven now, lining up the angels to take their picture. I was shocked at his passing. He had such great enthusiasm and such a happy, outgoing nature. He was famous for his personality—and for picture-taking too. We miss you, Russ.

From Russ Testo

With Jack LaLanne.

Russ Warner was great to work with and wonderful to be around. He was always pleasant and never intimidating—he made you feel comfortable. Russ was a terrific bodybuilding photographer, one of the finest ever, and also a top show www.ironmanmagazine.com \ APRIL 2005 207

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Russ Warner: producer and lighting specialist. Yet he made you feel like you were the star. He truly was a man of many talents, but I believe that the secret of his success could be stated in one word: respect. He had true respect for the athletes he worked with, and they in turn had sincere respect for him. Rest in peace, Russ. You were very special, one of a kind. Editorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s note: Special thanks to Rosemary Hallum, Ph.D., for the additional statements. A small sample of Russ Warnerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s photography skills and those who stepped in front of his camera. Clockwise from top left, Arnold, Steve Reeves, Reg Park, Dave Draper and Armand Tanny.

208 APRIL 2005 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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Will Harris, AFTER

Will Harris, IFBB Pro BEFORE

210 APRIL 2005 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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Spray Flex

ItÕs a Secret Top Bodybuilders Around the World Are Using to Get Huge, Shredded MuscleÑand ItÕs Not a Pro-hormone by Larry Pepe f youÕre interested in adding pounds of pure rock-hard muscle in the next month, keep reading. The next five minutes can make the difference between getting 100 percent out of your efforts in the gym and continuing to waste your time with nothing to show for it. The vital info that follows is the difference between having the body you truly want and deserve and wishing you looked like someone else. You owe yourself five minutes to find out.

Who the Hell Am I? First things first. LetÕs get acquainted. My name is Larry Pepe, and IÕve been involved in bodybuilding

on virtually every level for the past 20 years. IÕve competed and finished in the top five at the drugfree USA, National and Universe championships. IÕve been an NPC national bodybuilding judge for 10 years, and IÕve advised some top bodybuilding personalities and superstars about their training, diet and supplementation. IÕve had the opportunity to go one-on-one with the best bodybuilders on the planetÑfrom Mr. Olympias to national-level competitors and virtually any top professional Flexer you can name. To say that IÕve learned a lot about the reality of getting crazy muscularity interviewing these guys would be an understatement.

Before photos courtesy of the author. All on-stage contest photos by Bill Comstock

www.ironmanmagazine.com \ APRIL 2005 211

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IRON MAN Research Team

I Know How You Feel and What You Want But remember one thing: My passion for bodybuilding comes from my own desire to get big, shredded muscle. Trust me, I was just like you. I wanted to get bigger, stronger and shredded all at the same time. And I wanted it to happen as fast as possible—every bodybuilder’s dream. I trained my ass off and ate enough protein to feed a family of five. I made some

improvements, but I just didn’t feel that I was getting the results I deserved. I tried tons of products that promised to do all sorts of things, and most of them did absolutely nothing except upset my stomach and drain my wallet.

A Surgery That Caused the Birth of a Muscular Revolution Then I had a 10-hour surgery

back in 1999 that changed my bodybuilding life forever. I had a very progressive surgeon who knew that the recuperation could be really tough, so he put me on a regimen of homeopathic formulas to help. I’d heard of such products, but all I knew was that they’re the most popular supplements available without a prescription in Europe. After years of using worthless natural products, though, I figured they were worthless too. The doctor felt strongly about it, however, and since I was so eager to recuperate, I was willing to try anything.

I Was Shocked, and So Was My Doctor My rapid recovery was staggering. The very next day, after 10 hours of surgery, I walked—yes walked—into my doctor’s office with everyone looking at me in amazement. “No one has ever walked upright the day after what you went through. How are you walking?” Nine days later I was back in the gym getting back to business. Now that I was healthy, my first thought was that if homeopathics could help with recuperation, I should be able to use homeopathic formulas to get big and ripped fast. After that surgery I needed immediate help because I didn’t look too good. It made total sense to me. After all, anabolic steroids weren’t initially designed to develop bodybuilding physiques but to assist people who were sick and weak and couldn’t stop losing weight and strength. Because they were so effective, though, bodybuilders soon began using them to get huge and muscular. So my logic regarding using homeopathics designed for recuperation to build muscle, shed fat and increase strength is the same logic that brought performance-enhancing drugs to bodybuilders in the first place. I extensively researched homeopathics on the Internet and in medical libraries and books and found out that they’ve been around for more than 200 years—the real deal. In fact, a study published in the Journal of Human and Experimen212 APRIL 2005 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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tal Toxicology analyzed 135 studies on the amazing substances and concluded that the data were undeniable: Homeopathics have very real and positive effects.

Bad News, Good News The bad news was that no one had designed homeopathics specifically for the needs of bodybuilders. The good news for you, though, is that my experience was so convincing, I was determined to formulate the perfect anabolic homeopathics myself. I took everything I knew about bodybuilding, supplementation and even the combinations of different prescription drugs that many of the top pros use. I knew the key to building muscle mass and burning bodyfat revolved around manipulating and controlling testosterone, growth hormone and thyroid. I researched long and hard to create a legal steroid product combination that would do just that. I consulted with doctors, homeopathic experts and one of the largest labs in North America. There’s even a medically supervised clinical study on one of the compo-

nents of the stack, the Extreme GH formula, the results of which show that it can significantly boost GH levels in less than two months. Finally, after two years of painstaking effort, research and testing, I came up with the three products that make up the SprayFlex Extreme Anabolic Stack: Extreme TEST™ Extreme GH™ Extreme THYROPRO™

Now It Was Time to Put the Stack to the Test Where It Mattered...the Gym and the Mirror I anxiously started using the products myself. The results were staggering. In the first month I peeled away 10 pounds of fat, added a few pounds of muscle and got stronger. And the results just kept coming. In one year I went from being fat and out of shape— way out of shape—to having a rockhard, muscular physique. Odds are, you’re in much better shape than I was, so if it did that for me, imagine what it can do for you. Okay, so far so good, but I know

WILL HARRIS

BEFORE Sprayflex:

AFTER Sprayflex:

Weight: 285

Weight: 235

Bodyfat: 25 percent

Bodyfat: 3.2 percent

Lean body mass: 214

Lean body mass: 227

www.ironmanmagazine.com \ APRIL 2005 213

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IRON MAN Research Team

what you’re thinking. I own the company, so of course I’m gonna say the SprayFlex Stack works. So I gave the products to other top athletes, trainers and other guys who just work out for themselves to see what kind of results they would get. They were skeptical, as I had been, but said they would give it a fair try. A week later my phone started ringing off the hook. “How soon can you send me some more so that I don’t run out?” “This stuff is incredible. I’ve never been this impressed with anything.” Can you believe it? The evidence was in. The anabolic stack of homeopathics I’d created really worked. Some of the top bodybuilders in the world, guys who’ve tried everything for gaining incredible muscle mass and destroying bodyfat, were calling me to say that the SprayFlex Extreme line of products were the most amazing bodybuilding formulas they’d ever used. The best example of how powerful and physique-altering the SprayFlex Anabolic Extreme Stack really is can be seen in the amazing transformation of ’04 Heavyweight USA Champ and new IFBB Pro Will “World” Harris. I’ll let him tell you what SprayFlex did for him, in his own words: “I’ve always been the guy with amazing potential who couldn’t quite pull it together. I’m part Samoan, and getting my weight down to contest shape has always been a challenge. In fact, I couldn’t qualify for national competition for years because of it. “Then I went on the SprayFlex Extreme Anabolic Stack. I started at 285 pounds and 25 percent bodyfat. Big, but really smooth. Okay, fat. I immediately noticed that my strength levels and muscular endurance jumped up, making it easier to do cardio and intensify my workouts. I also noticed that I was getting wicked pumps. By my second month everyone was asking what I was doing. “When it came time to get ready for the ’04 season,

SprayFlex Power! When you train hard, eat right and use the SprayFlex Extreme Anabolic Stack, you can transform your physique into a mass of hardcore muscle and have the look men envy and women lust after. Here are some of the benefits you can expect: •Dramatically increased muscle mass and strength as your body starts producing GH and testosterone like a muscle-building factory •Obliteration of bodyfat and a shredded condition with turbocharged metabolism •Boosted energy for greater stamina and endurance and kickass training sessions •Greatly enhanced sexual performance and drive •Improved protein synthesis, assimilation and digestion in converting the food you eat into rock-hard muscle •Reduced carbohydrate cravings and binge overeating •Improved circulation for mindblowing pumps in the gym Mark Dugdale, new IFBB pro and SprayFlex user.

•Reduced fluid retention, with every vein and striation in your new muscle visible •Improved skin tone and elasticity I was excited because I was already leaner than I’d ever been when starting to prep for a show. A few months later I showed up at the Los Angeles Championships at 235 shredded pounds and 3.2 percent bodyfat. I won the overall, just as fellow Team SprayFlex member, Mark Dugdale, had the year before. I’d lost more than 60 pounds of bodyfat while gaining more than 13 pounds of pure muscle mass, and it was almost easy. “The next week I went to the USA Championships, won my class and got my pro card. SprayFlex is the missing link that helped me transform my physique from a ‘guy with potential who is just too heavy’ to an IFBB professional bodybuilder. I’ve tried

everything to unlock my potential, but SprayFlex is, by far, the most cutting-edge stuff you can use. This stuff will revolutionize bodybuilding forever and make building muscle and getting shredded easier and safer.” That’s when I knew it was time to share these products with the rest of the guys out there who want to have the best, most muscular and ripped physique possible—fast— without having to use illegal drugs. You owe it to yourself to try SprayFlex, and now you can through a special IRON MAN Research Team offer. Call (800) 4470008 and ask for the SprayFlex Special. You’ll get Extreme Test, GH and Thyro-Pro (three bottles) for only $129 (you save $70!). It’s time to get big, muscular and inside-out shredded. IM

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IRONMIND

Mind Don’t Worry—Work Out! t’s a gnawing sensation in your gut, and even if you can’t put your finger on exactly what’s causing it, you know the results: You’re uneasy, agitated and apprehensive. You can’t concentrate; you can’t relax; you can’t seem to do much but worry. Welcome to the club—you’re anxious. Fear is a familiar idea. For example, you’re dangling off a cliff by your fingertips; a hulking Rottweiler is growling and coming toward you; you’re alone late at night deep in the

woods and you hear a strange sound—what else are you going to do in those situations but be afraid? Fear, unlike anxiety, has a specific external source. Anxiety, on the other hand, might have its roots in something specific like taking a test in school, getting bad news at work or reading about one world crisis or another, but the overriding characteristic of anxiety is that it’s general and not tied directly to a single source. Psychologists often refer to anxiety as “free floating.” Another characteristic of anxiety is that it’s widespread—everyone is afflicted, from teenagers with concerns about self-image and social acceptance to middle-aged executives pondering the meaning of their lives. Everyone is subject to bouts of anxiety, and have no doubt about it, anxiety can be very uncomfortable. Anxiety is often seen as the result of stress, and what’s important to realize is that this emotional response is at least partially under our control. For starters, we all need to understand that our emotions and our behavior are related. Some people might cry in response to anxiety, and others might overeat. Some, the smartest of them all, hit the weights. In classical psychological theories, anxiety was seen as a “drive,” which meant the affected person was aroused and primed to do something. Unlike a depressed person, who slides into lethargy, anxious people are wound up—they might pace, talk incessantly or fidget. Rather than just letting the nervous energy deplete your resources and make you feel lousy, why not channel it into a constructive activity, like working out? Seize it as an opportunity—consider it bonus fuel for a training session. Even if you accept the idea as sound, it’s sometimes hard to implement. Here are some suggestions to help you make it a success. First, make sure that you begin your workout with easy movements and easy weights—it’s not the time to decide you want to learn how to do squat snatches or go for a P.R. in the clean and jerk. It is, however, a great time to do spot-perfect squats, curls or just about anything else you like. Aerobic exercise is also very well suited to periods of anxiety. Pick an initial movement that you like. Try to block out everything but training, and consciously Neveux \ Model: Michael O’Hearn

Take out your anger on the iron—and watch your results skyrocket.

You’ll feel better and look better too

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Body Editor’s note: Randall Strossen, Ph.D., edits the quarterly magazine MILO. He’s also the author of IronMind: Stronger Minds, Stronger Bodies; Super Squats: How to Gain 30 Pounds of Muscle in 6 Weeks and Paul Anderson: The Mightiest Minister. For more information call IronMind Enterprises Inc. at (530) 265-6725 or Home Gym Warehouse at (800) 447-0008, ext. 1. Visit the IronMind Web site at www.ironmind.com.

Motivation

Check Out the New Guy ne very easy way to shake the monotony of your training is to visit a new gym. It’s not so much the different environment that makes the move so productive as the psychological phenomenon—the pressure to perform as the new guy. If you’ve traveled to different gyms, you’ve surely noticed this, especially if you’re bigger and stronger than your garden-variety gym rat. From the minute you walk in, you get scoped out by both the men and the women. The men want to see how big and strong you are and how hard you train. The women are usually just checking you out because they’re curious (pull up in a Porsche, and they’ll be extra curious). I don’t know about you, but some of my all-time best workouts have been when I was the new guy. That was my first and possibly only chance to make my best impression on the other members of a foreign iron den, and I made the most of it. I wanted everyone who’d seen me to think, “Damn, that son of a bitch trains hard!” But let’s face it: How many of us have the time to be driving around to different gyms? It’s tough enough sometimes just getting to your own gym on the days you’re supposed to. I happened upon a rather easy solution one day. I was forced to train in the late afternoon rather than my customary morning time at my gym. My gym, like all gyms, has completely different morning and night crowds. The night crowd tends to be younger. Since I never train at night, nobody on the crowded floor knew who I was. That wasn’t long after I’d competed in an NPC national qualifier, and I was still in very good condition at more than 220 pounds. As it happened, it was my arm day. I could feel the eyes boring into me the whole time. Little packs of guys were huddled and talking, glancing over at me. I couldn’t believe it—I was the new guy at a gym I’d been going to for three years! And you know what? When my training is getting a little stale and I find my motivation ebbing, I may just drop by the gym at 5 p.m. There’s nothing like having something to prove to bring out the best in you. —Ron Harris

Neveux \ Model: Joe DeAngelis

move slowly through a warmup routine that’s even more systematic than the one you usually use. Actively cultivate a sense of measured purpose— you may be in the world’s rattiest gym, but try to get in the frame of mind you’d assume in a great cathedral. If you do things right, your mood will improve quickly, but don’t think about it; instead, just focus on your training and let your thoughts and feelings take care of themselves. As you start to feel better, you can hit the gas a little harder and let your workout evolve toward heavier weights and tougher movements, but don’t push it. What’s vital is that you start gradually and end by notching up a rocksolid workout that leaves you feeling better and more energetic. If you’re more of a lifter than a bodybuilder, remember that missed lifts make you feel bad and successes make you feel good. So be sure to choose weights that will give you virtually 100 percent success; save your misses for another day. Be sure to finish the workout by reinforcing what just happened. Acknowledge how good you feel, what a good workout you had and that the good feeling is the result of the good workout. Have your favorite protein drink, knowing that you’ll be bigger and better tomorrow. When the United States surgeon general officially tells the world that exercise “appears to relieve symptoms of…anxiety and improve mood,” you can bet that the idea is no longer the exclusive domain of the lunatic fringe. So the next time you’re anxious, do yourself a favor and hit the gym—tap the nervous energy, and focus it on your training. Chances are better than good that your mood will improve almost immediately, and the longer term results of your training will make you feel even better. Don’t worry: Work out! —Randall Strossen, Ph.D.

Editor’s note: Check out Ron Harris’ Web site, www.ronharrismuscle.com.

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Bomber Blast

MIND/BODY

We’re Just Kids

Neveux \ Model: Dave Draper

Some of you are in your teens or 20 something, and to you the number of years you’ve gathered here on earth is remarkably incidental. Collecting years is no more on your mind than collecting string. Yeah, well, live it up. Turning 30 will probably get your attention (Who am I, where am I going, and why ain’t I there yet?). And the big 4-O is always good for a few wisecracks, nervous laughs and at least six months of restlessness and doubt (Where did my life go?). Not everyone embraces the 40s with open arms (they hide in the closet), and those truly wonderful years can cause a good man or woman to do some really strange things—they submit to nips ’n’ tucks, buy a sports car and chase the opposite sex. There’s consuming introspection and, not infrequently, the bottle nestled in the bottom of the laundry basket. Of all our pathetic blunders, the strangest and most disturbing is losing those priceless years trying to save them. We need not resist the passing of time, as if life were slipping by and we were diminishing. That is to support the misperception of aging, to feed it, fear it and become its victim. Big mistake—like allowing a child to kick and scream to get his way. Discipline the spoiled brat. My plea: Go to the gym with renewed purpose and passion; eat right, for cryin’ out loud, and the youth that left will reappear. To spectators, I say, start exercising and discover real discipline and fulfillment. Get rid of the sugar and eat protein and give your beloved body something to feed on and live for. Stop grumbling and chasing midlife daydreams. Grasp authentic strength, health and action with willing hands. Stand up. Be strong. Today! Things don’t go from bad to worse. They go from better-thanyou-think to terrific. The years of your life add up, yes, but you can add years to your life. Youth isn’t wasted on the young, nor are the 40s and 50s wasted on the middle-aged. You’re in control at the prime of your life with all you need to know. Fix what’s broke and soup up what’s workin’. Zoom, zoom. We got places to go and things to do. I have a special affection for those middle years, 40 to 50, because I beat my 30s, that season of princes and princesses, repeatedly with a blunt object, yet was reborn in the 10 years that followed. I was 42, to be exact, when I got to my feet, dusted myself off, surveyed the burned-out territory upon which I stood and started walking forward, one step at a time. The point, please, O sorrowful, fallen victim: The 40s are really good for that sort of thing, making magnificent strides over craggy surfaces, lifeless wastelands and beast-ridden mountainsides. The 50s work very well also, but you’ve got to be like Jack, nimble and quick, alert and ready. While I’m at it, the 60s, it seems, take a nickel from one pocket and put a dime in the other. You don’t know whether

In bodies that need our help

to say, hey, hands off, or thank you, thank you, thank you. During the early years, when we were growing up, we ate what we ate because it was there and did what we did because we were told to. Later, as we got older, we imitated our surroundings, what we viewed on the big screen, TV and in the media. Most of it wasn’t very good. Today, with the passing of time, the good has diminished, and the bad has increased. We eat like horses and act like hogs; we do what’s easy and as little as we can. I’ve been weight training for a long time, more or less in pursuit of muscles and strength since I was a kid. Even when I was bad and messin’ up, I was training and eating tuna. The last 20 years have been as straight as an arrow, and I’ve been attentive to life around me, the days gone by and the days ahead. How to keep the stone rolling and free of moss has become my hobby. Keeping you periodically informed of my observations encourages me to observe more keenly. So what’s the latest? Remember, dear reader, whose eyes have yet to require magnifying glasses to read this article, this stuff is for all ages and levels, breeds, makes and models. Listen and learn. I have only positive news to report. Last spring I added certain exercises that I had ignored for 40 years (didn’t like ’em) to my workout to replace those exercises that were overused, worn out, abused and not withstanding the years. The additions included low-incline flyes for pecs, reverse cable crossovers for the back and rear delts, bent-over triceps kickbacks, wide-grip pulldowns, behind-the-neck and medium-wide parallel-grip pulldowns. Dig in your worn junk pile. These have proven to be effective and productive, and my strength in each movement has increased considerably. That’s great news when inflammation and nerve pain due to repeat trauma—exercise redundancy—start to limit one’s plane of resistance, repertoire of exercise and joy of performance. Little things started to happen and continue to happen here and there: fullness, tightness, hardness, expanded capability, comfort and reduction of “bad” pain in critical areas. The direction remains forward and upward, in spite of the wrinkles and aches time insists we bear to keep us humble and forever grateful. Maximum muscle intensity in difficult regions is approachable through warmup, focused reps, periodic forced slow reps and the odd accommodating position. Pressing on is successful; development is possible. That’s the point of my story, hopeful bombers, not me and my clay-footed pursuits. We train for muscle and power, health, fun, expression, stress repression and because, once bitten, we must. When I train for maximum response—that is, muscle growth, definition, density, strength and intensity in performance—I train with ultimate focus and concentration. My attention does not veer from the work before me. To the extent it does, my workout is compromised. The physical and the mental and the emotional become entwined, tightly strung. I love my training most when it’s at that level. Only then is it really training. Other times it’s play—which isn’t altogether bad. —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.

222 APRIL 2005 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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New Stuff

You Have to Try These Bars! Chef Jay: Your taste buds will yell hooray (and your muscles will love them too) ay Littmann, executive chef, founder and CEO of Chef Jay’s Food Products, has created a bevy of delectable food bars. He calls them Tri-O-Plex bars, and they’re packed with protein. They’re

made with whole oats and isolated soy and whey proteins, which build muscle and fortify heart health. You get 30 grams of isolated proteins derived from three sources, along

with a reasonable amount of carbs. Oh, and did we mention they taste out of this world? Check out these outstanding flavors: cookie dough chocolate chip, caramel apple, chocolate coconut, peanut butter chocolate chip, s’mores, peanut butter banana, cinnamon raisin roll. (Bet that got your mouth watering.) Also look for the company’s new Peanut Butter Rage bar. Protein and oatmeal never tasted this good! For more information visit www .trioplex.com or call (866) 869-5226. —The editors

New Stuff

Super Charge Your Workouts! uper Charge by Labrada Nutrition is a new nitric oxide preworkout drink mix in three delicious flavors: grape, fruit punch and orange. It’s designed for the athlete who wants to experience immediate mental alertness, muscle pump, increased energy, greater strength, more endurance and speedier workout recovery. “I wish this product had existed when I was competing as a professional bodybuilder,” says Lee Labrada, president and CEO of Labrada Nutrition. “After taking Super Charge 15 minutes before your workout, you’ll experience razor-sharp, aggressive mental focus, increased strength and a noticeable pump in your muscles. It’s unlike anything I’ve tried before!” The ingredients in Super Charge include methylxanthines (energy and focus compounds), nitrous malate (superior form of arginine), taurine (muscle-cell volumizer and nerve stimulator), N-acetyl-L-glutamine, 2CM di-creatine malate (a new ionic-bound compound of creatine and malic acid), GuaniPro—guanidinopropionic acid (creatine precursor)—betapure betaine anhydrous (choline metabolite) and humanofort (testosterone precursor). Super Charge is available at fine health retail outlets. For more information call (800) 832-9948 or visit www.labrada.com.

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Jacked Up

MIND/BODY

Build Your Calves at Home Or even in a hotel, motel or jail cell ere’s a sweetheart of an exercise group to create gorgeous heart-shaped calves no matter where you are. Calves are stubborn because of the difficulty of getting blood circulating in the lower legs. You have to work the hell out of them by stretching, jumping and lifting. My favorite calf raise is springing up and down on one leg. Go up on the ball of your foot—your tiptoes—lower and repeat till failure and then switch to the other foot. It’s a killer exercise. You can do calf raises in a number of ways—with your toes pointing in, then with toes out. That helps stimulate all the calf muscle fibers. To do calf raises at home, stand on a chair with your toes on the edge of the seat and your hands supporting you on the back of the chair. If that doesn’t work or is too clumsy, find a high block or step. Now lower your heels as far as you can, and then rise up as high as you can. Repeat that up and down motion till the burn is too much. You can also do donkey calf raises, the killer of them all. Use a calf block, and find a sturdy high surface to rest your forearms on. Then find someone of comparable size to sit on your lower back. Stand on the calf block on the balls of your feet, with your heels hanging off the edge, and bend over to 90 degrees, resting your forearms on the surface. Have your partner get on your back, and you’re ready. Rise up and down. Keep your knees straight and inhale as you descend as low as you can without letting your heels touch the floor. Exhale as you rise on your toes as high as possible. Those three exercises will have your calf muscles shaking with exhaustion, but that’s exactly how you construct showstopping calves. Do two or three rounds, taking as little rest between exercises as possible. —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. 224 APRIL 2005 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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Gallery of Ironmen

MIND/BODY

Guns and Personality Ammo Leroy Colbert: bodybuilding’s well-armed motivator e had massive arms, a huge chest and a winning personality, but Leroy Colbert’s bodybuilding career was cut short before he could triumph in major competitions. Fate had decreed instead that he would go on to become one of bodybuilding’s most influential judges and nutritionists— but even more important was the role he played as an inspiration to an entire generation of young physique athletes. Colbert was born on May 9, 1933, in New York City. After completing high school, the young man began to work for Joe Weider’s organization; he was employed in the warehouse of the Union City, New Jersey, business. Bodybuilding was nowhere as popular or profitable in the early 1950s as it is now, and the future champ recalls making barely enough money to get by each week. But on the positive side he absorbed a lot of the cuttingedge experimentation that was going on at Weider’s offices. Gradually, Leroy built a fine physique with full, beautiful biceps—the first to measure 20 inches. The young man began competing at the age of 18, when he entered the ’51 Mr. Eastern America. Colbert placed sixth. By the next year he’d won first place at the Mr. New York City contest, a great honor for a mere teenager. He wasn’t so lucky when he tried for

Photos courtesy of David Chapman

the ’52 AAU Mr. America, a notoriously difficult contest for AfricanAmericans to win; Colbert came in 17th, but he did win the Best Arms award. By 1954 he was in the running to be one of bodybuilding’s greatest stars, but then something happened that would end the young man’s career. He was riding a motorcycle near Laconia, New Jersey, when he was forced to swerve out of the path of an oncoming car. His right foot was caught under the car’s bumper and nearly severed. Colbert survived, but he would never compete again. Despite his misfortune, Colbert persevered. His picture appeared in many training articles in Weider publications, and given his experience in shipping supplements, he decided to open his own health food business. Later he moved to California, where he opened another business. No matter where he went, Colbert inspired others. One of his greatest fans at the time was Dave Draper. The Blond Bomber remembered Colbert’s arms as being “over 20 inches cold, with biceps like grapefruits and triceps like giant horseshoes. For arms like those, I thought, I’d train night and day forever.” That inspiration is Colbert’s greatest legacy to the sport. —David Chapman

226 APRIL 2005 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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Review

MIND/BODY

Lifelong Fitness 2004 ob Delmonteque is America's premier senior fitness consultant, a former star bodybuilder and acclaimed physique photographer. Along with his partners, he opened 500 health clubs worldwide. He’s trained the original Apollo astronauts, Hollywood movie legends John Wayne, Errol Flynn, Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable and contemporary stars like Matt Dillon and Eric Braeden. A longtime member of the Weider Research Clinic and special consultant to Muscle & Fitness magazine, he is also a feature writer for Longevity magazine. He has authored seven books and hundreds of articles on fitness and health. Bob practices what he preaches, which is evident by the fact that he is arguably the best-built man in the world over 80 years of age. In his lifelong devotion to physical culture he may well have discovered the anti-aging secrets of the 21st century. He’s sculpted a body that would be the envy of any average man in his 20s. Three photos on the back cover of Lifelong Fitness 2004 show that he looks better at 80 than he did at age 27. Caught up in their accomplishments and championship physiques, many competitive bodybuilders never give thought to the day they will hang up their posing trunks. Some maintain a good physique with regular exercise, while many go the way of most ex-athletes—with expanding waistlines and accumulating excess bodyfat due to lack of exercise and poor nutrition. Delmonteque presents scientific fitness procedures based on his more than 60 years as a bodybuilder/physical culturist

A new book by lifetime bodybuilder Bob Delmonteque—who’s 84 years young

that can help everyone stay healthy and fit. We can all learn from the master. Think about it— do you know anyone else in his 80s who runs marathons, cycles 120 miles, can benchpress 250 pounds and has a terrific physique as well? Lifelong Fitness Delmonteque with Brooke Burns. 2004 is a book that everyone—regardless of age—should have for its extremely valuable information on maintaining excellent health and fitness and a well-toned, shapely physique. You may think you don't need Delmonteque’s information now, but it can help you avoid mistakes that can come back with a vengeance to damage your health when you reach age 50, 60 or more. Delmonteque presents a detailed guide to help everyone grow younger as he or she grows older. He outlines complete exercise programs for men and women and reveals health secrets and nutritional procedures that will help you attain and maintain optimum health, fitness and longevity. Many of the 140 photographs in the book were taken by noted physique photographers Robert Reiff, Chris Lund and Bill Dobbins. There are hundreds of books on every aspect of muscle building, but this one stands alone in promoting anti-aging and lasting good health and fitness. Always remember, “To lose wealth is to lose much; to lose health is to lose all.” —Gene Mozée

Meditation Sedation study performed at the University of Wisconsin used brain-imaging technology to show that subjects who meditated for eight weeks had increased activity of the brain’s frontal region, which is associated with positive emotions. Subjects also reported less anger, anxiety and other negative emotions. A control group registered no changes in those areas. Those who meditated also showed heightened immune response. Who knows? Meditation may allow people to get rid of their blood pressure medication. Try it: Just shut up and trance. —Becky Holman

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Editor’s note: Lifelong Fitness 2004 is available from Home Gym Warehouse. Call (800) 447-0008 or visit www.home-gym.com. Also visit www.Bobdelmonteque.com.

Built Bods

Photography by Mervin

Eva Stevens Weight: 130 Height: 5’6” Occupation: actress, personal trainer Favorite movie: “Sweet November” (“Keanu Reeves is hot.”) Training: She trains with weights five days per week. She likes to pyramid the weight over three to five sets of eight to 12 reps per exercise. She also does cardio and boxing two to three days a week. Factoid: “My mother is in great shape, and she has been her entire life. She is still a top track and field trainer back home [in Lithuania].” Role Model: “Arnold. I am motivated by his ability to immigrate to the U.S. and start from a humble beginning and reach for the stars.”

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Jerry Brainum’s

Bodybuilding Pharmacology

World’s Most Popular Drug Here’s a quick quiz for you: What’s the most popular drug among bodybuilders? It isn’t any type of anabolic steroid or growth hormone, nor does it involve thyroid, beta agonists or any other anabolic substance. The most popular drug among bodybuilders is also the most popular drug world-wide: caffeine. In the United States about four out of five Americans eat, drink or swallow a product that contains caffeine. Caffeine is ubiquitous in nature, existing in more than 60 known plants. About 75 percent of the caffeine consumed comes from coffee, with the other 25 percent mainly from tea and cocoa. Coffee, at an average 100 milligrams of caffeine per cup, contains twice as much caffeine as tea. A 12-ounce

Recent studies suggest that caffeine can increase muscular endurance and decrease fatigue. It can also help you burn fat—just don’t go overboard with it.

bottle of cola contains between 35 and 55 milligrams of caffeine. Most people use caffeine to obtain benefits associated with it, including increased mental alertness, faster thought processes and reduced fatigue. Other effects—not specifically sought by most people—include stimulation of the heart, increased secretion of stomach acid and increased urine output. Caffeine is thought to be an ergogenic aid in that it can enhance athletic performance. A study examined some of the fat-burning properties of caffeine under resting conditions and found that it increased energy expenditure 13 percent.1 Other effects included 24 percent increased fat oxidation, with 76 percent being recycled, likely due to the resting conditions in the study. Most of the effects were attributed to increased sympathetic nervous system activity, or the release of sympathetic hormones, such as epinephrine and norepinephrine, after the subjects took caffeine. Caffeine-induced fatty acid release can interfere with insulin activity, leading to insulin insensitivity; however, research shows that exercise relieves that particular problem. Indeed, one recent study showed that drinking coffee offers protection against type 2 diabetes and suggested that nutrients besides caffeine, such as magnesium, may be the protective factors in coffee.2 Another recent study found that caffeine protects against Alzheimer’s disease by reducing the toxic effects of a protein called beta-amyloid on brain neurons3; buildup of beta-amyloid is considered a primary event in the onset of Alzheimer’s. Since caffeine promotes the release of sympathetic hormones that stimulate body processes, it’s not surprising that it can induce severe anxiety in some people. Indeed, “caffeineism” is so distressing that an estimated 20 percent of people cannot tolerate anything containing caffeine. One study, however, found that exercise can relieve anxiety brought on by high doses of caffeine.4 The release of sympathetic hormones by caffeine can stimulate the heart and increase blood pressure. Some drugs prescribed to treat cardiovascular disease, known as beta-blockers, block the effects of sympathetic hormones on the cardiovascular system. Caffeine would appear to be a problem because of the way it affects the cardiovascular system, but most studies have found no significant adverse effects except when excess intake is involved. For example, one study examined the effects of caffeine on the body’s homocysteine levels.5 A toxic by-product of the metabolism of the essential amino acid methionine, homocysteine is linked to cardiovascular and other diseases. Healthy volunteers drank a liter a day of coffee for a

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Some world-class cyclists were said to have used caffeine suppositories (which gives new meaning to the phrase, “Get your ass in gear”). month, and 24 of the 25 participants showed significant elevations of homocysteine in the blood. Vitamin B12, folic acid and vitamin B6 neutralize the effects of homocysteine, converting it into an innocuous substance that’s excreted from the body. Another recent study found that drinking four cups of filtered coffee a day for one month increased cholesterol levels.6 Previous studies had shown that drinking unfiltered coffee increased cholesterol, an effect scientists traced to elements in coffee called diterpenes. Coffee filters captured the chemicals, making filtered coffee safe—or so they thought. Even so, the increase in cholesterol from coffee is significant only to those who already have elevated cholesterol. To others the effect is insignificant. Drinking more than about five cups of coffee daily— particularly at night—can lead to insomnia. Besides caffeine coffee contains other substances, such as theophylline, a drug commonly used to treat bronchial asthma because it dilates the bronchial tubes. Coffee does that too. Another coffee ingredient, theobromine, was recently found to have cough-suppressant power superior to that in over-the-counter cough medications. Caffeine isn’t linked to any organ damage and peaks in the blood about two hours following ingestion. It’s metabolized by the liver, then excreted by the kidneys. Coffee is believed to stimulate the brain by blocking brain receptors for a chemical called adenosine, which slows the activity of the brain’s working cells, or neurons. By blocking adenosine, caffeine fosters a feeling of mental clarity and focus. On the other hand, it also constricts blood vessels in the brain, which would decrease blood flow and lower metabolic activity. Since caffeine is a drug, you might expect to pay a price if you quit cold turkey. The effects of withdrawal include headache, drowsiness and fatigue, mainly due to an increase in adenosine receptors in the brain. As with other drugs, caffeine’s physiological effects depend on the dosage. The amount in an average cup of coffee—100 to 200 milligrams—leads to increased mental alertness and reduced fatigue. At the one-gram level symptoms of caffeineism, such as anxiety, mild heartrhythm disturbances and gastrointestinal disturbances, appear. If for some crazy reason you were to ingest 10 grams of caffeine—the amount in 100 cups of coffee—at one time, you’d die. Many of the popular so-called fat-burning supplements on the market contain some form of caffeine. Typical ingredients include guarana, an herb from Brazil that contains 7 percent caffeine—compared to the 2 percent found in coffee. A popular stimulant sold in the 1970s called Zoom was composed entirely of guarana, and its activity matched its name. Another form found in supplements is mate, also from South America. The addition of caffeine to fat-burning supplements makes sense, since it promotes the release of sympathetic hormones, such as epinephrine and norepinephrine, which induce a biochemical cascade of fat from fat cells.

The combination of ephedrine, which also promotes sympathetic-hormone release, and caffeine was considered the most effective natural fat-burning combination. Adverse publicity about ephedrine, however, eventually led to its being banned by the FDA. Could the fact that head-to-head comparisons found the ephedrine-andcaffeine combo to be superior to popular prescription diet pills have anything to do with the ban on ephedrine? You bet it could. Caffeine was considered so ergogenic that the Olympics banned it above a certain quantity in the blood. The assumption was that the only way to reach that level of caffeine was to use it purposely as a means of improving performance. Some world-class cyclists were said to even use caffeine suppositories. Caffeine is described as ergogenic because it releases greater amounts of fat in the blood, which spares limited glycogen stores in muscle. That helps increase muscular endurance, and studies involving endurance athletes have consistently proved boosting power of caffeine. The evidence for any effect on anaerobic exercise, such as bodybuilding, has been less clear. Recent studies, however, show that under anaerobic exercise conditions, caffeine ingestion appears to increase muscular endurance and decrease fatigue. An important point about these studies is that they all involved the use of pure caffeine, not food products containing caffeine, such as coffee. The effects of pure caffeine are considered more reliable.

An Alternative to Pro-hormones? In late October 2004, President George W. Bush signed the 2004 Anabolic Steroid Control Act, an amendment to earlier legislation that had made anabolic steroid distribution illegal. The new law covers nearly all over-the-counter www.ironmanmagazine.com \ APRIL 2005 231

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Jerry Brainum’s

Bodybuilding Pharmacology

New research shows that when men watch romance movies, their testosterone plummets. Bring on “Scarface.” pro-hormone supplements and discourages the development of new pro-hormone supplements designed to circumvent the new law. An interesting aspect of the law is that few, if any, complaints about adverse health effects of pro-hormones had been reported to the Food and Drug Administration. The philosophy behind the new law is “protective” because pro-hormone supplements are considered to be full-fledged anabolic steroids. Companies were able to sell various pro-hormone formulas thanks to provisions in the Food Supplement Act of 1994, which diverted proof of danger of any particular supplement from the manufacturer to the FDA. The law also said that if a supplement existed naturally, it was by definition a food, not a drug, and therefore not subject to the stringent rules that affect drugs. The new law changes all that. In fact, the recent banning of ephedrine for dubious reasons, plus the new mandate recently announced by the Federal Trade Commission to “vigorously pursue misleading claims in the supplement industry” may spell the beginning of the end for many other supplements that the

FDA will consider fraudulent or of dubious value to consumers. In essence, the agency is saying that most Americans are brain defective and cannot protect themselves, so the big brother FDA will do it for the poor fools. That, by the way, includes you and me. Since pro-hormone supplements will be gone on January 23, 2005, we need to look at other ways of naturally increasing anabolic hormone levels. One way that is beyond the reach of even the FDA is movies. No, not porno movies, although they may be useful for other purposes. (I think I just gave away the fact that I didn’t vote for Bush.) According to new research from the University of Michigan, watching certain movies can affect hormone levels in the body. Watching romance movies increases progesterone levels in women by 10 percent. When men watch such movies, their testosterone levels plummet. Participants watched three different 30-minute film excerpts. The first was a romantic film called “The Bridges of Madison County.” The next group watched “The Godfather, Part 2.” The third group watched a documentary on the rain forest. All sub-

jects had their hormone levels tested before, immediately before and 45 minutes following the films. No changes occurred in the rain forest group. Women watching “Bridges” showed a 10 percent rise in progesterone, with no change in testosterone. Men watching the same film showed lower testosterone levels. With “Godfather,” which involved a violent scene, men showed a 30 percent rise in testosterone levels. Women with high testosterone levels showed a drop in that hormone while watching the scene, and those with low testosterone levels got “uncomfortable” during the scene. An implication of the study is that by inducing an elevated progesterone level in women, romantic films increase their feelings of affiliation to men. In men progesterone increases anxiety and has a blunting effect on testosterone. Which makes one consider that profound statement made by one Rodney King, whose 15 minutes of fame resulted from being at the epicenter of the incident that started the Los Angeles riots of 1991: “Can’t we all just get along?”

References 1 Acheson, K.J., et al. (2004). Metabolic effects of caffeine in humans: lipid oxidation or futile cycling? Am J Clin Nutr. 79:40-46. 2 Salazar-Martinez, E., et al. (2004). Coffee consumption and risk for type2 diabetes mellitus. Ann Intern Med. 140:1-8. 3 Dall’lgna, O., et al. (2003). Neuroprotection by caffeine and adenosine A-2 receptor blockade of beta-Amyloid neurotoxicity. Brit J Pharm. 138:1207-09. 4 Youngstedt, S.D., et al. (1998). Acute exercise reduces caffeine-induced anxiogenesis. Med Sci Sports Exer. 30:740-45. 5 Urgert, R., et al. (2000). Heavy coffee consumption and plasma homocysteine: a randomized controlled trial on healthy volunteers. Am J Clin Nutr. 72:1107-10. 6 Strandhagen, E., et al. (2003). Filtered coffee raises serum cholesterol: results from a controlled study. Eur J Clin Nutr. 57:1164-68. IM

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Readers Write

Cover Kudos mass most bodybuilders are looking for. It may build some strength and give your muscles some hardness—if you’re a 60-year-old beginner. Sammy Tiara Austin, TX

I was knocked for a loop when I got my February ’05 IRON MAN in the mail. It was Arnold, but not the same old tired shots we’ve seen over and over. It was a fresh, powerful caricature that should be a poster. Those of us who are fans of Arnold would love that hanging on our gym walls. By the way, I went out and bought a second copy. I’m keeping one in a plastic sleeve with my other collectibles.

Editor’s note: Heavy Duty has worked for a number of trainees, and the system has a lot of followers. As we told Mike Mentzer before he passed away, IRON MAN is an open forum, a place where all training theories are presented. We encourage experimentation in the gym. If you tried Heavy Duty and it didn’t work for you, you learned something. That’s what it’s all about: Learning and embracing what works for you and discarding the rest.

X, Lies and Measuring Tape Joe Armada via Internet

Editor’s note: Thanks for the compliment, Joe. The illustration was created by Ron Dunn. You can see more of his work at www.rondunnillustration.com.

Site for More Size The Graphic Muscle site you guys created is downright awesome [www.graphicmuscle.com]. I love the slide shows and the contest reports, and Lonnie [Teper] is a hoot. I also like the Watch Out For features and the babes, of course. Keep up the great work! Jagger Tallman Cleveland, OH Editor’s note: The Graphic Muscle site is growing quickly and evolving. Be sure to check out our extensive photo coverage of the major bodybuilding contests there. We can showcase many more photos of each event than we can in the pages of IM. If you follow bodybuilding, www.graphicmuscle.com belongs on your favorites tool bar.

Heavy Duty Dis How much longer is IRON MAN going to run Mike Mentzer’s Heavy Doody [sic]. It’s the same crap and a waste of space. I totally agree with Colin Eliot, who said in his commentary [in the February ’05 Train to Gain section], “Mentzer’s training theory has several flaws.” I’d like to add to that: Heavy Duty doesn’t work. At least it doesn’t build Mike Mentzer. the muscular

I’ve been reading IRON MAN for one heck of a long time. It’s one of my favorite magazines. But I was upset over the [before and after] pictures of Jonathan Lawson and Steve Holman [on page 126 of the January ’05 issue]. You’re saying those pictures are one month apart? The photos of Jonathan are at least 10 years apart, and the ones of Steve a good 20 years. You both have such great builds. Why would you want to lie? I’ve been exercising for almost 50 years, and I’m now 70. Thanks for letting me blow off some steam. Jack H. Wagoner Orchard Park, NY Holman and Lawson respond: To repeat, we aren’t lying. Those photos were absolutely taken one month apart. John Balik, IM publisher, can verify that fact. While the after shots you’re referring to were taken under different lighting at Mike Neveux’s studio, there are other before-and-afters at www.x-rep.com in the X Q&A section that were taken under exactly the same light. And there are many more in The Ultimate Mass Workout e-book. X Reps worked for us in a big way. We just hope they’re not aging us 10 years for every month we use them.

Errata In the February ’05 installment of the IRON MAN Research Team feature, Gerard Dente was identified as being affiliated with Ultimate Nutrition. He is not; he is with Maximum Human Performance (see his interview on page 166). Brian Rubino is with Ultimate Nutrition and should have been named in place of Dente in that feature. Our apologies to both men for our mistake. In the January ’05 Readers Write we included a photo of Karen Geninatti without a credit. The shot was taken by George Legeros. Our apologies for the omission. Vol. 64, No. 4: 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 (800) 570-4766. 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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