Ironman Magazine 2008-07

SHREDDER STACK: THE ULTIMATE SUPPLEMENT COMBO

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COVER MAN WORKOUT

Hot Full-Page Pics: •Hardbody Danielle Edmonds •IM Pro Winner Phil Heath

USA Champion Peter Putnam’s Mass Methods

TRICKEDOUT TRI’S Pack On Eye-Popping Arm Size

PLUS: •Victor Martinez’s Victory Diet •Chin Up for a Bigger Back •Coffee—Is It a Health Food?

JULY 2008 $5.99

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www.ironmanmagazine.com \ APRIL 2006 261

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150 DECEMBER 2009 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

IRON MAN MAGAZINE WE KNOW TRAINING IRON MAN MAGAZINE WE KNOW TRAINING IRON MAN MAGAZINE WE KNOW TRAINING IRON MAN MAGAZINE WE KNOW TRAINING IRON MAN MAGAZINE IRON MAN MAGAZ

WE KNOW TRAINING™

July 2008

CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS C

FEATURES

64 TRAIN, EAT, GROW 105 Fascia stretching to unleash new muscle growth.

90 SPILLING THE BEANS Jerry Brainum hits the local Starbucks and checks out the research on its flagship product. Is coffee really good for you?

102 THE PUMP AND THE PASSION

128

Ron Harris talks with top amateur bodybuilder Peter Putnam—USA Championships training program included.

DAN DECKER’S IRON HORSESHOES A formula for tricking out triceps

120 A BODYBUILDER IS BORN 36 A lesson in why self-improvement is victory for Ron Harris’ protégé.

128 DAN DECKER’S IRON HORSESHOES The fast-rising star tells Cory Crow how he builds those tricked-out triceps.

268

142 SCOTT ABEL: NEW ERA TRAINING Ken O’Neill interviews the maverick trainer who’s shaking up bodybuilding with his innovative techniques.

HARDBODY Danielle Edmonds

158 CHIN UP, LATS WIDE From the Bodybuilding.com archives, Charles Poliquin tells you how to improve your chinup performance and build a wider back in the process.

170 SHREDDER STACK Steve Holman analyzes supplements that synergize to blast off fat.

174 HEAVY DUTY John Little shares Mike Mentzer’s views on split training.

188 LEGENDS OF BODYBUILDING Rod Labbe interviews Leo Robert, whose symmetrical physique set a new standard in the golden era of muscles.

206 VICTOR MARTINEZ: “I’LL BE BACK” Rafael Norat talks with the ’07 Arnold Classic champ about his recent leg injury and his prognosis for the Olympia.

214 WORLD’S STRONGEST MAN Larry Eklund was in Southern California to cover this herculean qualifier. Some great photos here, gang.

242 PHIL HEATH Full-page pics celebrating his ’08 IRON MAN Pro victory.

268 HARDBODY

Peter Putnam and Jessica PaxsonPutnam appear on this month’s cover.

Photo by Michael Neveux.

Dazzling Danielle Edmonds, ’08 NPC IRON MAN Figure winner.

SHREDDER STACK: THE ULTIMATE SUPPLEMENT COMBO

™

COVER MAN WORKOUT

Hot Full-Page Pics: •Hardbody Danielle Edmonds •IM Pro Winner Phil Heath

USA Champion Peter Putnam’s Mass Methods

TRICKEDOUT TRI’S Pack On Eye-Popping Arm Size

282 ONLY THE STRONG SHALL SURVIVE

PLUS: •Victor Martinez’s Victory Diet •Chin Up for a Bigger Back •Coffee—Is It a Health Food?

Coach Bill Starr continues his take on strength training and muscle gaining for the over-40 set.

JULY 2008 $5.99

Vol. 67, No. 7

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CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CONTENTS CO

DEPARTMENTS

22 TRAIN TO GAIN Pressing preferences, real-life inspiration and Joe Horrigan’s Sportsmedicine.

44 SMART TRAINING Coach Charles Poliquin discussess DHA and fast-twitch-fiber response.

52 EAT TO GROW Supplement sabotage, postworkout pause and how dieting can make you fat.

74 NATURALLY HUGE John Hansen on delt detail and density—boulder shoulders for you.

82 SHREDDED MUSCLE Dave Goodin interviews top female bodybuilder Lisa Aukland.

230

86 CRITICAL MASS Steve Holman analyzes Arnold’s cheat technique.

224 MUSCLE “IN” SITES Eric Broser investigates the Web site of the biggest bodybuilder in the world.

NEWS & VIEWS L.T.’s world of bodybuilding

230 NEWS & VIEWS Lonnie Teper checks out what’s hot in bodybuilding—plus his Rising Stars.

250 PUMP & CIRCUMSTANCE Ruth Silverman is all over the female body sports—plus full-page pics of the Ms., Fitness and Figure International winners.

22

TRAIN TO GAIN

260 BODYBUILDING PHARMACOLOGY Jerry Brainum looks at new research on steroids. Are they really that bad?

292 MIND/BODY CONNECTION Bomber Blast, bottled-water whoas, attitude altitude and Bodybuilding.com’s physique of the month.

304 READERS WRITE Hot Hardbodies, Goodin is good and “Sting” Ray raves.

ONLINE ONLINE ONLINE ONLINE ONLINE ONLINE ONLINE ONLINE ONLINE ONLINE ONLINE ONLINE ONLINE ONLINE ONLINE ONLINE ONLINE ONLINE ONLINE ONLIN

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COVERAGE Get the latest, greatest results, photos, video and blogs from the biggest events.

CLIPS LIBRARY >PDF >BEHIND>HOT THE-SCENES Feel your heart Read and/or VIDEOS See and hear interviews with the stars of the muscle world.

race when you view these studio sessions with fit, gorgeous gals.

download some of our most popular features.

Build your muscle-building collection.

First up, we delve further into iconoclastic trainer Scott Abel’s theories and practices—like his MET, or metabolic enhancement training. It’s very interesting reading—unique, to say the least. We’ll also have the 30 big lies of bodybuilding, why bodybuilders need to get less acidic to grow and burn more fat and our annual photo salute to Arnold Schwarzenegger—classic full-page pics suitable for framing.

Look for the August issue on newsstands the first week of July.

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PUBLISHER’S LETTER PUBLISHER’S LETTER PUBLISHER’S LETTER PUBLISHER’S LETTER PUBLISHER’S LETTER PUBLISHER’S LETTER PUBLISHER’S LETTER PUBLISHER’S LETTER PUBLISHER’S LETTER PUBLISHER’S LETTER PUBLISHER’S

Publisher’s Letter

by John Balik

Past, Present, Future “We Know Training.” That’s our mantra, our focus, our mission statement. This issue is a perfect example of how we use those three words to shape IRON MAN. Peary and Mabel Rader, the founders of Iron Man, believed not only that training was much more than lifting weights but that lifting weights was much more than lifting weights—it was a part of a process of building or expanding one’s self. The components of physical culture have expanded as our knowledge has expanded. From the beginning, Iron Man has been an open forum for ideas, and that has led to an eclectic mixture of authors and information that you won’t find in any other magazine in our field.

Everything starts with the author—no script, no movie! Passion is the unifying attribute, which is exemplified in coaches Bill Starr and Charles Poliquin. They have the credentials, certainly, but they also have the experience of testing their ideas on many athletes in the crucible of the gym. Their focus is narrow but with a wide field of vision. That, plus their ever-present passion, is what makes their material so interesting to read and their ideas so useful. In addition to Coach Poliquin’s regular column, this issue includes a feature by him on the chinup, which begins on page 158.

Joe Horrigan, D.C., has helped Olympic and professional athletes, famous actors and yours truly to overcome injury at his world-renowned Soft Tissue Center. He’s another unique and invaluable resource who’s included under our training umbrella, and he covers both prevention and recovery in his monthly Sportsmedicine column.

If you train regularly, you know that motivation is an indispensable part of the pie. Knowledge is only potential energy until the mind energizes the body to action. Both words and pictures can be sources of that all-important ingredient, and Michael Neveux’s photography is an integral part of the inspirational mix. From food to fab abs, he sets the standard. Page through this issue, and you’ll see why his images are a cut above.

Training for competition is a big motivator for some. This issue highlights a bodybuilding champ from the past, Leo Robert, whose interview begins on page 188, and a current up-and-comer, ’08 IRON MAN Pro champ Phil Heath, who gets a pictorial salute, starting on page 242.

Excellence is timeless. Fifty-plus years separate those two champs, but they share the will and passion to win. I find them both inspiring.

Jerry Brainum is the pros’ pro. He answers the tough questions from the pros and shares his 35-plus years of experience and research with us on various topics every month in IRON MAN. Jerry is a unique training resource whose expertise in nutrition, supplementation and pharmacology is unequalled.

As you can tell from this issue’s table of contents, there’s a cornucopia of training and related info that makes us who we are and what we are striving to be. IM

Founders 1936-1986: Peary & Mabel Rader 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 Art Director: Brett R. Miller Designer: Fernando Carmona IRON MAN Staff: Mary Gasca, Vuthy Keo, Mervin Petralba Contributing Authors: Jerry Brainum, Eric Broser, 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, John Little, Stuart McRobert, Gene Mozée, Charles Poliquin, Larry Scott, Jim Shiebler, Roger Schwab, Pete Siegel, 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, Jake Jones Contributing Photographers: Jim Amentler, Ron Avidan, Roland Balik, Reg Bradford, Jimmy Caruso, Bill Dobbins, Jerry Fredrick, Irvin Gelb, Isaac Hinds, Dave Liberman, J.M. Manion, Merv, Gene Mozée, Mitsuru Okabe, Rob Sims, Ian Sitren, Leo Stern

•

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

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

20 JULY 2008 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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SEXY ROCK-HARD ABS FAST The Secret to Etching your Granite-Carved Abs in 10 Short Minutes Picture this... you with tight, shredded abs, serratus and intercostals all sharp, sliced and visible from across the room or on the sun-glared beach! And from the rear, lower lumbars that look like two thick steel girders supporting your muscle-studded back. Imagine looking like a Greek god... in street clothes... in the gym... or anywhere.

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SIZE MATTERS, SO...

Train to Gain To prevent joint trauma, Ronnie Coleman avoids locking out on his exercises.

22 JULY 2008 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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FORM AND FUNCTION

Neveux

Pressing Preferences

Branch Warren.

Merv

One of the biggest and strongest chests in pro bodybuilding today belongs to Branch Warren, who happens to train at the same gym as eight-time Mr. Olympia Ronnie Coleman (Metroflex in the Dallas suburb of Arlington). If you’ve seen his DVD or various training articles about him, you know that Branch can handle 200-pound dumbbells for both flat and incline presses and that he uses five plates for flat-bench presses and four for inclines. He also does weighted dips with a couple hundred pounds’ worth of bulky anchor chains draped around his bull neck.

Internet critics being what they are, of course, Warren has taken some flak for what they consider partial-range presses. He typically lowers all weights for a full stretch but stops short of lockout. When asked why, the Texas Titan explains, “I tore my triceps a couple years back while doing barbell inclines with 495 pounds. Locking out on presses puts an enormous strain on the tendon that attaches the lateral head of the triceps to the elbow joint. I refuse to run the risk of tearing that triceps again, because as a pro bodybuilder I can’t afford to miss half a year or more of what is already a fairly brief career due to injury. Besides which, I’m able to keep better tension on my chest by not locking out my arms.”

Branch also notes that one of his training

Short range for safer gains

partners does the opposite when pressing; full lockouts but never going into a deep stretch and lowering the bar to touch the chest. “That’s because he had a shoulder injury severe enough to require surgery about a year ago,” he notes.

“Anybody with a current shoulder problem or a history of shoulder injuries should be very careful about lowering the weight to an extreme degree.”

As you can see, there’s no one-size-fits-all prescription for pressing form, and it’s critical to adapt your range of motion to your particular structure and to accommodate any injuries past or present.

—Ron Harris www.RonHarrisMuscle.com

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HE WANTED TO FIGHTUntil I Crushed His Hand!

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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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Whatever You Need—Wherever You Train ™

Train to Gain / MOTIVATORS MUSCLE MAINTENANCE Ted Arcidi as your eighth-gradeEnglish substitute teacher? That motivated one youngster.

Stretch for Strength

Neveux

You may have read about studies that say not to stretch a muscle statically for very long immediately before you train it. Why not? For one thing it makes a muscle weaker; for another it can create joint instability due to loss of tendon and ligament tension. Better to stretch a muscle after you work it. You may also want to stretch when you can’t get to the gym. In a 10-week study reported in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, trainees who stretched had an almost 25 percent increase in strength compared to the subjects who didn’t stretch. Studies also suggest that stretching can increase muscle mass.

Here’s a quote from my husband’s soon-to-be-released e-book X-Rep Muscle-Training Method that shows the power of stretching: “Animal research suggests that muscles can double in size in a matter of months with proper overload. Jose Antonio, Ph.D., performed a study on a bird in which he progressively overloaded one wing to stretch the latissimus dorsi muscle. He started with a weight that was 10 percent of the bird’s weight and gradually increased it by 5 percent up to 35 percent. There were two days of rest after each weight increase.

After 28 stretch days the study recorded the greatest gains in muscle mass ever produced in an animal or human model of tension-induced overload—a 334 percent increase in muscle mass with a 90 percent increase in fiber number.”

While that study involved adding weight, freehand stretching has been shown to have beneficial effects on muscle size—as long as you do it safely and at the right time.

—Becky Holman

Seeing an extremely muscular person in the flesh is often a lot more motivating than an image in a magazine or on a movie screen. I encountered a few muscle men in my early adolescence who set the stage for my lifelong pursuit of bodybuilding.

Ted Arcidi. When I was attending eighth grade at Central Junior High in my hometown of Waltham, Massachusetts, my English teacher took ill for a week. The substitute was none other than Ted Arcidi, the first man to officially bench-press more than 700 pounds and who went on to a brief career in pro wrestling. I had no idea that my sub held the world record in the bench press, but I was in awe of the massive chest, shoulders, arms and traps that he couldn’t hide underneath a button-down short-sleeved shirt. He was at least 280 pounds, and guess which student he picked as his errand boy to get lunch from the cafeteria? I brought back a tray with two huge meatball subs and four cartons of milk, thinking, Is he really going to eat all of that?

Paul Beckford. Around the same time, I began a short-lived weight-training program at the local Boy’s Club with my best friend Bart. There was a tall, slight African-American kid a couple of years older who we dubbed “Beanpole.” About two years later I returned as a regular there, and lo and behold, Beanpole now had the biggest arms and chest I’d ever seen on a teenager. He was there every day after school, and I never saw him do anything but endless sets of flat-bench presses and barbell curls. The envy that gnawed at me every time I saw those huge arms with garden-hose veins running up them drove me through many a fierce workout.

Jerry LeBlanc. Jerry was a friend of mine from a church youth group. One day he decided he would be a bodybuilder and jumped headfirst into the pursuit.

He joined a local hardcore place called P & P Gym, which was home to several local bodybuilding and powerlifting champions. It was at his house that I first flipped though a stack of muscle magazines and marveled at the stars of the time—Bertil Fox, Boyer Coe, a young Lee Haney, Samir Bannout and Tom Platz. Jerry was sidelined by a back injury, but his example stayed with me.

Jorge Orta. Way back when I was in seventh grade, there was a kid in my class named Jorge Orta who had been nicknamed “Conan,” after the Arnold movie that had come out the year before. Talk about being muscular at a young age—this kid was jacked! Before we even got to high school, he was legendary for his 315-pound bench press, and by the end of high school Jorge had the type of muscular thickness that some men don’t have after a decade or more of hard lifting. I saw the attention and the respect that his muscles commanded, and I wanted them for myself.

—Ron Harris

Neveux \ Model: Ron Harris

Real-Life Inspiration

24 JULY 2008 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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YOU CAN BENCH BIG Add 20 Pounds to Your Bench Press Almost Overnight!

How would you like a surge in upper-body power and a bigger bench press—say, 20 extra pounds on the bar—after only a couple of workouts? Sure, adding 20 pounds to your bench in two or three training sessions may sound crazy, especially if your bench press poundage has been stuck in neutral for a while.

But nine times out of 10 this stall is due to an easily correctible muscle weakness—not in the pecs, delts or triceps but in a group of muscles known as the rotator cuff.

The rotator cuff muscles stabilize the shoulder joint. During the bench press and almost all other upperbody movements these muscles protect the shoulder joint and prevent ball-and-socket slippage. If these muscles are underdeveloped, they become the weak link in the action and your pressing strength suffers, or worse, you injure your shoulder. One of the best ways to strengthen this area and create an upper-body power surge is with direct rotator cuff exercise.

Once you start using the ShoulderHorn for two or three sets twice a week, your pressing poundages will skyrocket. This device allows you to train your rotator cuff muscles in complete comfort and with precise strengthening action. After a few weeks you’ll be amazed at your new benching power. There have been reports of 20-to-30-pound increases in a matter of days.

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Train to Gain / MATURE MUSCLE

Weights and Measures Q: Is it true that you can predict how big someone’s biceps can become by measuring his wrist? Can you also tell me how I should exercise my arms by taking certain measurements?

A: The answer to both questions is yes. Taking musculoskeletal measurements of clients and patients has taught me that I can use those measurements to predict the potential circumferences of various muscles. I can also—after 20 years of trial and error—determine the “correct” exercises for each bodypart based on the size of the joints and bones.

It works best with the extremities, although I can determine the best exercises for chest and back based on joint circumference and length of extremities combined with thorax circumference and the type of breast plate and the clavicle width. Let’s say that your wrists are 8.35 inches in circumference and that the length of your arm from AC joint to wrist crease is 26 inches. Those measurements tell me that you have medium bone thickness, that your forearm is quite long and that you’re 6’3” to 6’4”. So, assuming the attachments are fairly low and the muscle bellies on each bodypart are medium size, you have good potential to build big triceps and biceps. Your forearms also have good potential because of the wrist circumference.

The best exercises for your biceps are heavy standing curls done with a straight bar—never use a cambered bar to curl because it prevents your hands and wrists from fully supinating at the top of the motion—preacher curls and concentration curls. Do them to failure for three hard and heavy sets.

For forearms, I’ve found that wrapping a towel around an Olympic bar for wrist curls is best. Do them while sitting on the end of a bench with your forearms on your thighs and simply curl your wrists back and forth—lower the bar only to where your hands are in line with your forearms, and then curl it back as far as possible using just the ulna flexors, the belly of the inner forearms. Do the wrist curls until failure. You’ll get a massive pump and be on your way to huge forearms and a great grip.

That’s the only forearm exercise I’ve ever done, and my lower arms are enormous. The more you can roll your wrist back and forth with a moderately heavy weight, the more your hands and inner forearms will grow in strength and thickness.

The key is endurance while never letting go of that thick bar. (If you don’t like using a towel-wrapped bar, you can buy a thick bar.)

The best exercise for working the outer sides of your forearms is reverse curls done with an EZ-curl bar. I predict that you’ll have a bit of trouble with triceps because of your arm length. I believe that you have wide shoulders and big pecs, which in most cases, at your height, would leave you

Bone size, muscle mass and training reality

with triceps that haven’t been worked very heavy.

(Those with great triceps often have weaker pecs.) So you’ll have to do heavy pushdowns, reaching failure at 12 to 15 reps. From there move immediately to bench dips without weight for 10 to 12 reps, then go directly to the seated pushdown machine, buckle yourself in, and go for as many as you can with a weight that you can do for 10 to 12. Set the seat low so that your long arms get a full range of motion. If you don’t have a seated pushdown machine, go back to regular pushdowns.

Do three tri-sets to failure, and that’s it for triceps.

On another triceps day try to do French curls, a.k.a. overhead extensions, instead of pushdowns. Given your wrist girth, you should be able to use a cambered bar with ease.

Do three tri-sets of 10 reps perexercise—again, doing light bench dips between sets of French curls.

According to my charts, given the length of your arms and the circumference of your wrists, you can build your arms to be 19.45 to 20 inches in circumference at 6 to 8 percent bodyfat.

You should also be able to build 15-inch forearms, measured flexed—but with a lot of intense work they could get even larger. These inches can be attained without drugs.

In my upcoming book I provide the charts, graphs and data that I’ve been gathering for 20 years and using for the past two to help trainees get bigger and stronger. Quantification can never be perfect, for there are physiological factors that cannot be quantified. What’s more, individual pain threshold and attitudes toward training come into play. Most of the people who come to me are following a program used by a pro who has a physique that they admire. Even so, they don’t have similar musculoskeletal systems and in fact usually don’t realize that they’re, say, five to eight inches taller than the pro.

While reading what the pros do is interesting, what you have to do is altogether different. The idea is to build the best body you can.

—Paul Burke Editor’s note: Contact Paul Burke via e-mail at pbptb@aol.com. Burke has a master’s degree in integrated studies from Cambridge College in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He’s been a champion bodybuilder and arm wrestler, and he’s considered a leader in the field of over40 fitness training. You can purchase his book, Burke’s Law—a New Fitness Paradigm for the Mature Male, from Home Gym Warehouse. Call (800) 4470008, or visit www.Home-Gym.com. His “Burke’s Law” training DVD is also now available.

28 JULY 2008 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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The Brothers Grimm In the previous two installments of this story I took you through Stelios and Yiannis Grimm’s new training routines: lower body and upper body. Here’s a review of their situation. Prior to my intervention the brothers had been following a four-daysplit routine, dividing their program into upper body and lower body, hitting each bodypart twice a week. Not only were they training too frequently, they were doing too much training at each workout. They were unable to work hard enough to stimulate growth, but even if they had stimulated it, they weren’t allowing enough recovery time for their muscles to grow. Their exercise technique was also poor.

I corrected their technique, reduced their training routines and had them train only three times a week. It’s still an upper/ lower split but over three days a week, not four: Monday, Wednesday and Friday. That gives them four full rest days each week and has them training each bodypart three times every two weeks rather than four times. They do much less training now, but they train much harder. In short, they train smarter.

The brothers had acquired the best set of small weight plates I’ve ever seen. From a couple of sources they had bought small discs in denominations of quarter-pounders, half-pounders and one-pounders. They also had a set of magnets for the same series of weights. In total they had two pairs of the one-pound plates, two pairs of the one-pound magnets and one pair each of the other denominations for both plates and magnets. Stelios had had industrial magnets custom cut to produce the weights. Now the brothers could make gradual weight increases on barbells, fixed-weight dumbbells and weight-stack machines, using the discs on barbells and plate-loaded machines, and the magnetic weights on fixed-weight dumbbells and weight stacks of selectorized machines.

Because the brothers were now training very hard, they were adding just one pound at a shot on the big exercises and smaller increments on the other exercises, but they were making those increases at every workout. Their progress was relentless. Without a set of small weights, however, such a gradual rate of progression wouldn’t be possible.

An increase of just one pound at each workout may not impress you, but add up all those small increases over 12 months, and you’ll see excellent progress, plus muscular growth.

Stelios and Yiannis had adopted a totally new training regimen, not just a different set of exercises and a different setand-rep scheme. It started from the moment they entered the gym. They could no longer do that with minds full of problems and concerns and expect to put in a good workout. They had to transform themselves from their nontraining to their training personas, and they would stay in that mode for the entire workout. There was no chit-chat during their workouts now, no use of phones and no distractions.

Before they started their preworkout general warmup, the

A bodybuilding odyssey, part 7

brothers would sit out of the way, switch off from what was happening around them and switch on to their training. For a few minutes they’d mentally go through each exercise they planned to do. They’d close their eyes and imagine performing two or three slow reps for each exercise.

They’d feel their muscles working. They’d see the weights moving with control. They would become each rep.

The general warmup consisted of at least five minutes of brisk walking on a treadmill or elliptical machine. The purpose was to elevate their core temperature, get the lubricating synovial fluids moving in most of their joints and break into a sweat (depending on the temperature of the gym).

Since my intervention, the brothers have also emphasized grip strength. Their gym has a series of seven hand grippers, from light to heavy-duty resistance, each fixed by a length of chain to a post so that it can’t be stolen. At the end of each upper-body workout, Stelios and Yiannis do a warmup set for each hand on the lowest-resistance gripper. Then they move to their work-set gripper, which has enough resistance that they can’t perform more than 10 full reps. A few minutes later, for a final set for each hand, each brother holds a gripper closed for as long as he possibly can, followed by ever so slowly allowing the gripper to open as his hand strength wanes.

Stelios and Yiannis used to use training gloves when they worked out, but no longer. Now they appreciate the skin-onmetal contact of weight training and the mental focus it can provide. Once their deadlift, pulldown and shrug poundages become more substantial, they may need some grip support.

Then they’ll use weightlifter’s chalk on their hands.

“Another spot-on workout, Stuart,” Yiannis told me after a recent bout with the hand grippers. ”Short, hard, progressive and very satisfying. I wish I’d always trained like that, rather than wasting my time on longer workouts, wishy-washy intensity, sloppy technique and no progress.”

“Indeed,” I said, “but you wasted only a few years. You’ve still got many years in which to train correctly and realize your bodybuilding potential. You’re fortunate that you’ve come across training gold.”

Until next month, train smart, and fully satisfy all the components of recuperation. Never forget that no matter how well you train, if you don’t sleep well and eat a first-class diet, the good work in the gym will be undermined, if not nullified.

—Stuart McRobert www.Hardgainer.com Editor’s note: Stuart McRobert’s first byline in IRON MAN appeared in 1981. He’s the author of the new 638page opus on bodybuilding Build Muscle, Lose Fat, Look Great, available from Home Gym Warehouse (800) 447-0008 or www.Home-Gym.com.

30 JULY 2008 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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Train to Gain / SPORTSMEDICINE

Hack Squats and Low-Back Pain

Neveux \ Model: Cory Everson

The hack-squat machine is a fairly popular piece of equipment in any commercial gym. Despite its many variations, most trainees can recognize it in its various incarnations. It has an interesting history and injury pattern.

The hack squat was made popular by and named after a professional wrestler named George Hackenschmidt, who was known for his leg development. The original hack

squat was performed by standing straight while holding a lightweight barbell at arm’s length behind your buttocks. The heels often had a small block underneath them. You’d squat down while keeping your upper body as upright as possible.

It put a great deal of work on the quads, which is why Hackenschmidt had such large quads for his day. Over time, trainees wanted to handle more and more weight, and the hack squat turned into a reverse deadlift. The mechanical load on the quads was lost in the effort to simply lift more weight.

The original hack machine tried to duplicate the original intention. It had a backrest and was angled very steeply.

You’d hold on to a bar attached to the bottom of the backrest, and the bar was placed so that it mimicked the original barbell hack squat. It was difficult to handle significant weight on those early models.

Strength coaches later developed a machine to help football players duplicate a position where they were firing off the line of scrimmage and hitting another player. That piece of equipment looked much more like the hack-squat machines of today. It had a pair of long uprights on which the heavy carriage traveled up and down and two shoulder pads

for the player to brace against. The angle of the machine was not so steep, perhaps 45 degrees or so. The football player would position himself facedown, straighten his knees and hips and then turn the safety catches away from the rack so that he could move up and down with a substantial amount of weight. One of the original pieces of equipment was called the Ram Rack, and many other versions followed. It mutated and became what’s known today as the hack-squat machine.

Bodybuilders decided to turn face up on the Ram Rack to squat. It wasn’t like back squats, front squats, split squats, power squats or lunges, and as it looked a more like the old hack-squat machine, the name carried over. To be more effective, the machines needed to be steeper, like the old models. Manufacturers began making variations, which led to a frequent problem with hack squats: The backrest is sometimes very short, which can cause you to arch your lower back around the bottom of the short backrest—an awkward and somewhat risky position, especially under load from the weight on the machine.

I recall being at a gym, resting between sets, and watching a guy perform a set of hack squats. He stopped his set in obvious pain and managed to get off the machine. He said he’d developed sudden back pain and pain radiating down his leg during the set. I watched him hobble off, and I looked back at the machine. At the bottom of the short backrest, the padding was worn off right where the lower back would be.

There wasn’t much lower-back support to begin with and still less with the worn-out pads.

Some manufacturers made hack-squat machines with longer backrests. That can certainly help in terms of back support. Still, the carriage can travel only up and down the tracks regardless of the height or leg length of the trainee.

Foot placement can help a little, but the machinery doesn’t give you the freedom of a traditional back or front squat.

You can use the hack squat in your training. Just be careful. Take a look at the backrest the next time you go to the gym. If the pad looks worn out, ask the gym manager or owner to replace the pad or, better yet, replace the machine so the members can avoid injury. If the gym owner won’t do either, you’re better off dropping the exercise rather than risking an injury that may affect all of your training, not to mention a possibly large health-care bill.

—Joseph M. Horrigan Editor’s note: Visit www.SoftTissueCenter.com for reprints of Horrigan’s past Sportsmedicine columns that have appeared in IRON MAN. You can order the books, Strength, Conditioning and Injury Prevention for Hockey by Joseph Horrigan, D.C., and E.J. “Doc” Kreis, D.A., and the 7-Minute Rotator Cuff Solution by Horrigan and Jerry Robinson from Home Gym Warehouse, (800) 447-0008 or at www.HomeGym.com.

(Train to Gain continues on page 41) 32 JULY 2008 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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You Can’t Force Fitness

Neveux \ Model: Savannah Neveux

People have written to me many times asking how to get a friend or, more often, a loved one, motivated to work out. To be honest, nine times out of 10 it’s a husband who wants his wife to start hitting the gym either just to share the activity with her or because she’s packed on some pounds. They usually don’t like what I tell them.

Motivation to work out and eat right has to come from within. You can’t make anyone do it who really doesn’t want to, at least not for very long. I strongly recommend against putting anyone down for being overweight, underweight or lazy.

Negative comments and insults don’t inspire people to get on the path to physical fitness unless you’re a drill instructor screaming at boot camp.

When people are ready to get in shape and want to badly enough, they’ll start exercising and eating better. Some people never get that desire; for others it takes a while before they’re ready psychologically. It can be tough for those of us who live very regimented lives dedicated to fitness to watch loved ones eat junk and sit around doing nothing, but you just have to wait for them to come around on their own.

Case in point: my daughter Marisa. A year ago we bought her a gym membership for her 13th birthday. Since she’s been playing softball in the spring and cheerleading in the fall for the past few years, we thought it would be nice if she could supplement those activities with some cardio and light weight training. To my dismay and growing frustration, she refused to go near a weight or machine because she didn’t want to get “huge” like her mom. Janet is nowhere near the size of today’s professional female bodybuilders, of course, but to Marisa the amount of muscle she has is excessive.

Marisa would go to the gym to do cardio but rarely— once a month at most. Since she had only a one-year contract, I was seriously considering ending it. Why pay for a membership she hardly ever uses? But then a funny thing happened.

A friend of Janet’s gave her a subscription to a women’s fitness magazine for Christmas. We usually leave the magazines we’re reading on the kitchen table, which means I always have an assortment of bodybuilding magazines there. Marisa’s always ignored them, but she started looking at the women’s magazine, which features fitness and figure athletes as well as some fitness models. You never see any woman bodybuilders in that

A person has to want it

magazine.

A few weeks ago Marisa started asking to go to the gym to do cardio an average of three times a week.

Then she started asking me every once in a while to train her, and I’d put her through a brief full-body circuit.

This past Sunday, though, she announced to me that she wanted to look like the women in that magazine!

It was hard to contain my joy, but I had to. Knowing how teenagers operate, I didn’t want her to think I was about to put her on a full-blown weight-training and cardio program that she’d have to follow to the letter. I was nonetheless very happy to hear my daughter finally take an interest in getting in shape. I couldn’t care less if she becomes a bodybuilder or athlete of any sort, as long as she exercises regularly and eats mostly healthful food.

When we got back home, she asked me to make her a Muscle Milk shake (mocha latte flavor). I was so proud. The next day she had some plain tuna for one of her meals. She still eats her treats, but she’s gradually eating a lot more nutritious food than ever before.

I guess the moral of the story is that people have to come around when they’re ready.

—Ron Harris www.RonHarrisMuscle.com www.ironmanmagazine.com \ JULY 2008 41

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DHA for Fast-Twitch Firing Tactics

had much more DHA than the muscles of the midsection. When they looked at hummingbirds, the superfast wings needed much more DHA than the muscles of the legs. I found that intriguing, but as I have very few snakes or birds as clients, I wanted to know if there were any human studies. I found one from 2000 that supported the animal model—it showed that trained athletes had more DHA than untrained individuals. In short, if muscles need to fire Q: You have mentioned that DHA would rapidly, they need a lot of DHA. be good for fast-twitch athletes. Can you Now let’s and look into how DHA can affect elaborate on that? metabolic rate. The same Australian researchA: Docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA, is an ers discovered something that held true across omega-3 fatty acid, and the liquid form hapall species of animals that they tested—DHA pens to be one of the best tricks in my arsenal. Besides levels directly correlated to metabolic rate regardless of making you smarter—yes, there are studies that show muscle mass. What that means is that animals with slow that—DHA is tremendously important for fast-twitch-fiber metabolisms also had low DHA. The opposite is true as function. well—fast metabolisms need lots of DHA. (Keep in mind I’ll summarize the research for you and let you draw that understanding the impact of fish oil on health began your own conclusions; actually—you know me better than with the studies done on the Greenland native people, who that—I’ll cover the research and just give it to you straight. had little to no type 2 diabetes. Conversely, the Pima IndiThe research shows not only the importance of DHA in ans, who are known for extremely high incidence of type 2 diabetes, have very low levels of DHA, due to a genetic anomaly.)

A 2000 study showed that trained athletes So you should be have more DHA than untrained individuals. getting lots of DHA. I recommend loading up on it for about four weeks every few months. You should get anywhere from five to 20 extra grams of DHA per day. Fortunately, DHA liquid makes that very easy. Just take one to three tablespoons per day with meals.

Q: I’ve heard about a program that details the Bulgarian approach to bodybuilding. What do you think about that system?

A: How many great bodybuilders have come from Bulgaria?

Before the Berlin Wall fell, bodybuilding was considered an antigovernment activity in Bulgaria. I doubt that the Bulgarian government, given the country’s struggling economy, would invest in research on “the effects of tri-setting on biceps hypertrophy in teenage males.” The Bulgarians only cared about sports that give them a lot of medals.

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fast-firing muscles but also its direct connection to metabolic rate. More on that later. First, let’s talk muscle fibers.

Animal study after animal study shows an extremely high demand for DHA as well as elevated DHA in fastfiring muscles. When Australian researchers examined rattlesnakes, for example, the fast-twitch rattle muscles

44 JULY 2008 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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Step 1. Have a controlled training and eating schedule.

Skipping meals is a bad idea, as it causes spikes in cortisol and insulin, especially if you replace the meals you skip with caffeine-containing beverages that further elevate cortisol. Not only are smaller, more frequent meals more Having too much cortisol thermogenic can slow down or stop fat than larger, loss and muscle gain. less frequent meals, but they’re associated with lifting. Remember, a country has the potential to win a lot lower total cortisol production. That means more fat loss, of gold medals in weightlifting because there are several greater muscle gains and steadier and higher energy. weight classes. Why didn’t the East Germans invest in water Step 2. If possible, train in the morning. The tespolo training rather than swimming? Because only one tosterone-to-cortisol ratio is one the best indicators of medal is awarded in water polo, whereas in swimming the strength and mass gains. The initial research was done on only event they don’t have seems to be the 50-meter breastFinnish weightlifters in the late ’70s, but the data have been stroke for vegetarian single mothers. There are so many supported by research on strength athletes the world over. medals in swimming that if you can develop an effective More recent research from Australia shows that there is periodization model it will pay off in 26 medals or more. significant advantage in training in the morning in terms of an optimal testosterone-to-cortisol ratio. Training in Q: Why is controlling cortisol so important in the training process, and do you do it?

A: It’s critical for the hardworking trainee to manage cortisol in order maximize the training response for the following reasons: 1) While you need it for training energy, cortisol is the physiological antithesis to testosterone. It breaks down muscle tissue, while testosterone builds it. The key here is balance. No cortisol, no training energy; too much cortisol, catabolism instead of anabolism.

2) Out-of-control cortisol increases your resistance to insulin, so fat loss and glycogen storage get compromised.

3) When cortisol is not balanced, sleep disorders—from inability to get asleep to interrupted sleep patterns to the inability to get up in the morning—manifest themselves.

All of them compromise your energy, affecting your ability to go through your workouts at optimal intensity.

4) Prolonged elevated cortisol lowers the quality of the immune barrier of the GI tract, which in turn increases the number of food sensitivities. That further increases cortisol response, sending your physiology in a downward spiral.

5) Prolonged elevated cortisol leads to impaired memory and accelerated neural aging.

How do you control cortisol? Well, there are quite a few Skipping meals can spike muscle-eating cortisol. ways.

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bodyfat only. That’s based on antiquated studies that couldn’t measure all fuels contributing to exercise. Amino acids have been underestimated for the longest time as fuel sources for cardiovascular exercise. Cardio burns not only fat but muscle as well.

Step 5. Control postworkout nutrition. The quicker you can feed your muscles after your workout, the faster you can suppress cortisol and get started on your recovery. Mixtures of branched-chain amino acids, fast-digesting proteins and maltodextrin work best. Fast carbs like Cream of Rice blended with whey protein isolates will work too. I prefer shakes to food because of the lower GI transit time and faster absorption rate. Make sure that the BCAA blend is high in leucine, as it helps increase the insulin response that mitigates the cortisol spikes.

Step 6. Boost your antioxidant levels. Severe training produces free radicals, which target many tissues, including muscles, raising inflammation and accelerating amino acid breakdown. When the body perceives the inflammation, it releases even more cortisol. Antioxidants quell the negative action of free radicals. Use a broadbased formula or vary them often. The scientific literature confirms over and over that too much of a single antioxidant can become a prooxidant.

Step 7. Change the perception of your world. How you perceive reality has a lot to do with your cortisol output. If Doing too much cardio can send you perceive your world as unsafe, you’ll your cortisol skyward—not good for make far more cortisol. That’s why, after muscle growth. the events of 9/11, there was a dramatic increase in sales of comfort foods and a very sharp drop in supplement sales. People the evening spikes cortisol, which affects sleep quality and felt unsafe and were self-medicating their therefore negates recovery potential. When you train in the elevated cortisol levels by eating carbohydrates—which morning, the testosterone-to-cortisol ratio is doubled an raise insulin and thus drop cortisol levels. If you watch hour after a workout, suggesting anabolism is taking place.

CNN instead of a Jim Carrey movie before going to bed, When you train in the evening, the ratio is lowered an hour you’re more likely to spike your cortisol. There are many after the workout, indicating a catabolic trend. stress-reducing modalities, such as yoga and meditation, Step 3. Use proper loading parameters. This is that can help drop your cortisol and further your gains in logically the first step. If you design your training impropthe gym. One study had Olympic lifters engage in so-called erly, the cortisol response will spin you into overtraining. autogenic training, a form of relaxation through mental Use a training frequency that you can handle. I personally suggestion, after working out, and their cortisol dropped do better on two sessions a day, three days out of five, but far more rapidly than those in the control group. That drop some people can handle only four days a week, one session was correlated with long-term improvements in the snatch, per day. Regardless of frequency, however, workouts should clean and jerk and squat. never exceed an hour after your warmup is finished. (PropEditor’s note: Charles Poliquin is recognized as one er loading parameters are covered at length in the Poliquin of the world’s most successful strength coaches, having International Certification Program Level 1 Theory manual. coached Olympic medalists in 12 different sports, includTo order yours, contact Beverly at (401) 294-2066). ing the U.S. women’s track-and-field team for the 2000 Step 4. Go easy on the cardio. If you want your cortiOlympics. He’s spent years researching European journals sol under control, stay away from excessive cardiovascular (he’s fluent in English, French and German) and speaking work. I’m utterly convinced that if gym rats were to cut with other coaches and scientists in his quest to optimize down on the cardio, they’d be leaner. Humans aren’t aerotraining methods. For more on his books, seminars and bic animals. We’re designed to throw a rock or a spear at the methods, visit www.CharlesPoliquin.net. Also, see his ad prey, not run six miles to get the food. Aerobics works for on page 247. IM only about six weeks. Once the enzymatic response is maximal, you’re wasting your time. It’s a myth that cardio burns Neveux \ Model: Tamer Elshahat

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Nutrition With a Get-Big Mission NUTRITION SCIENCE

Supplement Sabotage Can antioxidants hamper muscle endurance?

One theory of aging, first proposed in 1957, suggests that substances called free radicals, or reactive oxygen species, gradually damage cells, resulting in an acceleration of the aging process.

Free radicals are strongly implicated in the onset of many diseases linked to early mortality, such as cardiovascular disease, cancer and degenerative brain diseases.

You may remember from Chemistry 101 that electrons come in pairs. Free radicals are unpaired electrons and are constantly seeking to combine with electron pairs. When that biochemical

menage à trois does occur, it wreaks havoc on cellular structures—for example, cell membranes—and lead to cell destruction.

Some scientists claim that cells are bombarded by some 10,000 free radicals per minute. Fortunately, we’re not defenseless against cellular terrorism.

The body has a built-in system of antioxidant enzymes—including superoxide dismutase, catalase and glutathione peroxidase—that can neutralize the attacks. The sheer magnitude and relentlessness of free radicals are nevertheless capable of overwhelming the

One study showed a loss of endurance in subjects who got supplemental vitamin C.

Andre and Rune Nielsen

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to Grow body’s defenses. Additionally, many of the body’s defenses diminish with age, which may play a role in diseases that are more prevalent among older people, such as cancer and heart disease.

Dietary antioxidants, mainly from fruits and vegetables, back up the body’s antioxidant defenses. You’re probably familiar with many of them: vitamins C, E, B-complex and A, plus various minerals, as well as plant compounds called bioflavonoids and polyphenols. The latter are especially plentiful in green tea, red wine and dark chocolate.

Oddly enough, free radicals offer a few significant health benefits. For one thing, they’re produced by immune cells as a means of destroying invading toxic organisms, such as bacteria.

They’re required for the production of thyroid hormones. One dietary antioxidant mineral, selenium, is essential for activating the enzymes that help generate thyroid hormones. Because of its antioxidant properties, however, too much selenium doubles back and inhibits thyroid hormone.

A lesser-known benefit of exercise is that it offers antioxidant protection, and some researchers say that the major health benefit of exercise is that it upgrades antioxidants, a process known as hormesis. The term refers to how exposure to small doses of a toxic substance results in compensatory beneficial effects. [Editor’s note: For more information on hormesis, see page 300.]

The increased oxygen intake that exercise generates also creates oxidative stress, which in turn generates free radicals. When that happens, several negative conditions can result. One is excessive muscle damage, which can delay training recovery. That’s the reason athletes are often advised to get a generous amount of dietary antioxidants—and most don’t rely on food but supplement with vitamins C and E and minerals.

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The research is contradictory on whether the dietary antioxidant boost is necessary. Studies show that merely continuing to exercise automatically bolsters the body’s antioxidant system via hormesis. What’s more, while some studies have found that elite athletes generate higher-than-normal free radicals when training, others have found the opposite.

A recent controversial study, which used both animal and human subjects, suggests that adding vitamin C to your supplement regimen may actually hamper endurance gains from training. Fourteen sedentary men underwent eight weeks of endurance training, during which five of the subjects took one gram (1,000 milligrams) of vitamin C daily. Meanwhile, 24 rats went through three- and six-week training routines; half the rats were given a dose of vitamin C species-equivalent to the human dose. The men who didn’t take vitamin C showed a 22 percent increase in their body’s ability to take up and use oxygen during training, while those who supplemented with C showed only a 10.8 percent increase.

Similar results occurred in the rats.

Exercise tests revealed that when forced to run to exhaustion after six weeks of training, the rats not given vitamin C ran almost twice as far as they had

When forced to run to exhaustion, the rats not given vitamin C ran almost twice as far they had before training.

before training, amounting to a 186.7 percent increase in endurance capacity. Those that got vitamin C, however, increased their distance by only 25 percent, or a 26.5 percent increase in endurance. The rats not given vitamin C showed higher counts of mitochondria, the portions of cells where energy is produced as ATP and where fat is oxidized. The amount of mitochondria determines endurance, and aerobics increases endurance by generating the production of additional mitochondria.

What gives with those results? It turns out that the production of free radicals from exercise stimulates the production of new mitochondria. Taking vitamin C short-circuits the process. Taking vitamin C prior to exercise also prevented the exercise-induced stimulation of built-in antioxidant enzymes, such as superoxide dismutase and glutathione peroxidase.

Several previous studies have reported unfavorable effects on endurance development due to dietary antioxidants, such as vitamin E and coenzyme Q10. One study published seven years ago found that taking a combination of vitamin E and alpha lipoic acid reduced muscle contractile activity, which would translate into reduced exercise strength.

Another recent study, however,

Another study showed better aerobic performance with supplemental vitamin C. had very different findings. Thirty-six students supplemented their diets with 400 milligrams a day of vitamin E, 1,000 milligrams of vitamin C or a combination of both nutrients for three weeks. Another group got a placebo.

The subjects underwent various tests that measure aerobic and anaerobic exercise performance. Those who got the antioxidant nutrients performed significantly better on the aerobic tests than the placebo group. The anaerobic tests showed no differences in ether group.

The study concluded, “These test results suggest that daily supplementation with vitamin E (400 units), vitamin C (1,000 milligrams) or vitamin E plus vitamin C for a period of three weeks may significantly improve aerobic power.”

—Jerry Brainum

References Gomez-Cabrera, M.C., et al. (2008).

Oral administration of vitamin C decreases muscle mitochondrial biogenesis and hampers training-induced adaptations in endurance performance.

Am J Clin Nutr. 87:142-149.

Coombes, J.S., et al. (2001). Effects of vitamin E and alpha lipoic acid on skeletal muscle contractile properties. J Appl Physiol. 90:1424-30.

Jourkesh, M., et al. (2007). The effects of vitamins E and C supplementation on bioenergetics index. Res Sports Med. 15:249-56.

www.ironmanmagazine.com \ JULY 2008 53

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to Grow NUTRITION NOTES

Food Facts That can affect your workouts, weight and wellness White tea has the highest content of L-theanine, an amino acid that boosts alertness. White tea contains only about 15 milligrams per cup, while other teas have about 50 milligrams.

H E A LT H F U L E AT I N G

Three Meals vs. Six We’ve all heard that eating six times a day is better for your health than having the normal three square meals, but is there science behind it? Yes, and it goes as far back as 1964. An English researcher named Fabry found that eating one-sixth of your food six times a day rather than one-third three times a day speeds weight loss for the overweight, improves cholesterol numbers and improves glucose tolerance. More recent studies have also demonstrated that eating smaller meals more frequently reduces insulin and cortisol output. Remember, cortisol is the stress hormone that can force your body to burn muscle tissue for energy. Apparently, not eating for a number of hours triggers the starvation mechanism, which causes your body to preserve bodyfat—for famine—and burn more expendable muscle.

Bodybuilders, don’t forget to eat!

—Becky Holman Fabry, P., et al. (1964). The frequency of meals: Its relation to hypercholesterolmia and decreased glucose tolerance. Lancet. 2:614-615.

Pastureraised beef has a 1-to-3 ratio of healthful omega-3 essential fatty acids to less healthful omega-6s.

That’s comparable to most fish. Standard grocery store beef has a ratio of about 1-to-20, not good considering that omega-6s are linked to inflammation. If you’re a beef eater, grass-fed is the most healthful way to go.

Beta-carotene, the antioxidant found in carrots, can boost memory. Only 50 milligrams a day can protect against oxidative stress and brain aging.

Caffeine count: A 12-ounce can of Coca-Cola contains 34 milligrams, while the same amount of Mountain Dew has 55 milligrams.

Creatine is great for older muscles too. In a recent study older adults who took five grams of creatine a day and did two weekly strength-training sessions had 15 percent greater gains in muscle and strength than those who exercised but didn’t take creatine.

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—Becky Holman www.X-tremeLean.com

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER The Best of Bodybuilding in the 20th Century Here in one definitive, information-packed volume, you have the best that IRON MAN has to offer. The articles and photos reprinted in IRON MAN’s Ultimate Bodybuilding Encyclopedia are of enormous and enduring value to beginners and experts alike. A tour de force of bodybuilding information with stunning photos of unrivaled quality, this massive volume covers every aspect of bodybuilding with authority and depth.

Included is complete information on: •Getting started •Bodybuilding physiology •Shoulder training •Chest training •Back training •Arm training •Abdominal training •Leg training •Training for mass •Training for power •Mental aspects of training •Bodybuilding nutrition With IRON MAN’s Ultimate Bodybuilding Encyclopedia, you will learn Arnold Schwarzenegger’s insights on developing shoulder and back muscles, along with many other champions’ routines.

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to Grow BOOK REVIEW

Amino Acids and Proteins for the Athlete izing the value of up-to-date information, Mauro recently completed revising and expanding Amino Acids and Protein for the Athlete. The second edition is nearly twice the size of the first, and the added information is neither fluff nor filler but data of enormous utility to any intelligent bodybuilder.

I say “intelligent”—this book isn’t Protein for Dummies—because the text is easily accessible but doesn’t skimp on technical detail. Those with 10-second attention spans may not get past the third page, but anybody who has an IQ that breaks double digits will find the book highly informative. In fact, nothing in the field comes close to the scale of information this book offers.

All aspects of protein and amino acid metabolism get treatment. In addition to extensive data on all anabolic hormones, you’ll get a picture of how energy metabolism relates to protein and aminos, the facts about protein and amino supplements and a rundown of how individual amino acids function in the body. The second part of the book, subtitled “Naturally Anabolic,” discusses how to achieve maximum progress while avoiding using anabolic drugs. The extremely practical information includes how to use nutrition to manipulate anabolic hormones naturally and how to lose bodyfat without sacrificing muscle.

The final section thoroughly discusses how nutritional supplements work and the science behind them, and the scientific references number in the hundreds.

Amino Acids and Proteins for the Athlete, 2nd ed., is a valuable reference for personal trainers, nutrition advisers, coaches or any athlete who wants to be fully informed about the way protein and amino acids operate in the body. It’s available from CRC Press.

—Jerry Brainum

MINERALS

R E PA I R

Lean Out With Limburger

Joint Rejuvenator

Okay, you don’t have to eat the smelliest cheese on the planet in your effort to lose fat, but you should be getting plenty of calcium.

Researchers at the University of Kansas conducted a study in which half of the subjects got 1,000 milligrams of calcium a day, while the other half got a placebo. Both groups were put on identical exercise programs as well. After nine months the calcium group had lost 14 pounds, about 50 percent more than the noncalcium group. The scientists believe that calcium increases fat metabolism during exercise.

—Becky Holman www.X-tremeLean.com

Are your knees giving you trouble because of all those heavy squats? Vitamin C can help.

Australian researchers observed about 300 middle-aged subjects over a 10year period. Those who were getting the greatest amounts of vitamin C were less likely to have the degenerative bone issues that lead to knee osteoarthritis.

—Becky Holman www.X-tremeLean.com

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Although there’s no shortage of self-styled experts in the fields of bodybuilding and nutrition, I can count the number that I respect on the fingers of one hand. One of them is Mauro Di Pasquale, M.D., who differs from most of the pack by his extensive experience as both medical professional and worldclass athlete. He’s no ivory tower academic who has never set foot in a gym. Unlike the majority of physicians, Mauro is a true expert on all aspects of sports nutrition and has extensive knowledge of even the most esoteric ergogenic aids. For more than 30 years he was licensed to practice in Canada and was an assistant professor at the University of Toronto, where he lectured on nutrition and supplementation. He has also advised the World Wrestling Federation and the defunct World Bodybuilding Federation, started by pro wrestling impresario Vince McMahon, on drug programs.

His athletic credentials are equally impressive. An eighttime Canadian powerlifting champion, two-time Pan American powerlifting champ and two-time North American Powerlifting champ, he won the World Powerlifting Championships in 1976 and won at the World Games in 1981.

Di Pasquale has written for a number of health and bodybuilding publications, including this one. He’s published several books about drug use in sports, as well as publishing three newsletters. In 1997 I received a copy of his book Amino Acids and Proteins for the Athlete, by far the most extensive review I’d ever read on the role of protein and amino acid use in athletics and bodybuilding. While highly technical, the book was refreshingly accurate and free of commercial bias. I referred to it often.

Anyone who follows scientific developments, however, knows that today’s facts are often tomorrow’s mistakes and that new and actionable information constantly emerges. Real-

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How Dieting Can Make You Fat You arrive at the Arnold Classic, the premier fitness and bodybuilding event on planet Earth, and you’re beyond excited to meet your favorite fitness model. As you walk up to her behind a mass of human beings waiting to get her autograph, your once angelic and adolescent smile turns into a smirk akin to what my pet beagle does when he thinks you’ve passed gas. “Holy smokes,” you say to yourself, “her ass is fat.” And it ain’t phat.

How can someone look so hot a month ago and then reappear with a body resembling your bon-bon-eating Aunt Rosie?

Well, it’s called dieting.

Mind you, dieting is an integral part of the physique-contest world. Without a proper diet, you’ll have a greater chance blocking Yao Ming’s dunk than you would looking good onstage. So how can dieting make you fat?

It’s this thing called weight regain after you’ve been calorically restricted—better known as yo-yo dieting. For example, in a study rats were fed to be fatties over 16 weeks. One group was switched to ad libitum feeding of lowfat food for 10 weeks— ad libitum meaning that they could eat whenever they wanted. The remaining rats were switched to an energyrestricted lowfat diet for 10 weeks that reduced bodyweight by 14 percent. Basically, one group went on a diet, and the other didn’t.

Here’s what happened. Fat oxidation, or burning, remained at a high throughout the day in the rats that could eat at will but was suppressed in the ones that had their food restricted.

Whoa, Nellie. That means the rats that were forced to diet

Or where’d that ass come from?

Strict dieting can have rebound—sometimes round—consequences. ended up having a rebound effect in which it was easier for them to regain fat.

So how can you avoid the rebound or at least lessen it?

Protein. Long-term weight-loss maintenance is a major problem. A study looked at whether adding protein to the diet might limit weight regain after a weight loss of 5 to 10 percent in overweight subjects. One hundred thirteen overweight subjects followed a very-low-energy diet for four weeks, then went through a six-month period of weight maintenance, in which they were placed in either a protein or a control group.

The subjects in the protein group received 30 grams of protein a day in addition to their own usual diet, and when the study was completed, they had less weight regain as well as smaller waists. Satiety—feeling satisfied after eating—in the fasted state before breakfast increased significantly more in the protein group than in the control group.

So clearly, dieting isn’t a good thing for your metabolism.

But if you must, make sure you never skimp on protein and always—and I mean always—take in lots of it after a contest.

—Jose Antonio, Ph.D. Editor’s note: You can listen to Dr. Jose Antonio and Carla Sanchez on their radio show Performance Nutrition, Web and podcast at www.performancenutritionshow.com.

Dr. Antonio is the CEO of the International Society of Sports Nutrition—www.TheISSN.org. His other Web sites include www.SupplementCoach.com, www.Javafit.com, www .PerformanceNutritionShow.com, and www.JoseAntonio PhD.com.

References Jackman, M.R., et al. (2008). Weight regain after sustained weight reduction is accompanied by suppressed oxidation of dietary fat and adipocyte hyperplasia. Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol.

LeJune, M.P., et al. (2005). Additional protein intake limits weight regain after weight loss in humans. Br J Nutr. 93:281-9.

McGuire, M.T., et al. (1999). What predicts weight regain in a group of successful weight losers? J Consult Clin Psychol.

67:177-85.

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to Grow PROTEIN

Postworkout Pause

46, got a drink containing either 30 grams of whey protein or a similarly flavored placebo immediately after completing a weight-training workout. The respiratory exchange ratio, a measure of fat use, was measured for two hours after the workout. While fat oxidation was elevated in both groups after the workout, it returned to baseline values faster in the women who got the protein drink.

The authors noted that while the decreased use of fat postworkout wasn’t huge (only 5 percent less), over time it could make a significant difference in bodyfat. They also believe that the bodies of the subjects who got the protein drink may have switched to using whey, a rapidly absorbed protein, as an energy source instead of fat, explaining the drop in fat burning in those women.

The study used women as subjects, but there isn’t any reason the same effect may not also pertain to men. That presents a real dilemma, as numerous studies have shown that the faster you get protein or amino acids into your body after a workout, the better your muscle gains. On the other hand, taking a fast-acting protein with a simple carb source—the usual procedure following training—boosts insulin. That’s great for triggering muscle protein and glycogen synthesis, but when insulin is elevated, fat oxidation ceases.

Some researchers suggest that if you want the extra fat burning, you should delay having a protein-andcarb drink for about 30 minutes after a workout. You still get most of the anabolic effect, as it lasts for about two hours.

For women, though, the choice is clear.

Since it makes no difference whether you get the protein right after or two hours following the workout, it would be prudent for anybody seeking fat loss to wait till the two-hour mark.

—Jerry Brainum Neveux \ Model: Julie Gershad

Research has made clear that getting protein onboard as soon as possible after a weight workout favors increased muscle protein synthesis—for men.

While protein synthesis is depressed during exercise, it turns on immediately after the workout. Taking in essential amino acids right after your workout gives your body the substrates it needs for the purpose.

For women, however, taking in protein either right after or two hours following the workout makes no difference in the degree of muscle protein synthesis.

Fat burning is another story. It also increases right after training, and some of the fat acts as a primary energy source to fuel muscle protein synthesis.

A new study of middle-aged women found that delaying protein intake after a weight-training workout may allow more fat oxidation. Seventeen women, average age

60 JULY 2008 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

Should you delay eating protein after you train?

Benton, M., et al. (2007). Effect of protein ingestion on energy expenditure and substrate utilization after exercise in middle-aged women. Sport Nutr Exer Metab. 17:544-55.

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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.

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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!

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©2009 Home-Gym.com

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Whatever You Need—Wherever You Train ™

Train, Eat,

Grow From the IRON

MAN Training

& Research Center Muscle-Training Program 105

by Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson • Photography by Michael Neveux

A

Neveux \ Model: John Lawson and Begovic_Binais

s we’ve said on many occasions, one tweak can make a big difference in your physique—for example, simply changing the exercise order in your bodypart routines.

That can shuffle fiber recruitment patterns, possibly getting new fibers to fire and emphasizing different muscle-building characteristics.

What the hell are we talking about? Well, take the last two exercises in any 3D Positions-of-Flexion bodypart program. The standard order after the big, midrange-position move, like chins for lats, is the stretch-position exercise, pullovers, followed by the contracted-position exercise, stiff-arm pulldowns—so you end with continuous tension and occlusion. That order makes muscle-building sense on a few different levels, but rules are made to be broken.

Out of Order?

We’ll get to the out-of-order mixup in a moment. Let’s talk about what we’ve said in the past about the POF sequence. The first exercise, the midrange-position move, is for maximum force generation. While the next exercise, the stretch-position move, is primarily for stretch overload, it also generates a lot of

force, so it’s the perfect transition exercise. According to Vladimir Zatsiorsky, Ph.D., and William Kraemer, Ph.D., in their book Science and Practice of Strength Training: “If a muscle shortens immediately after a stretch • force and power output increases, and • energy expenditure decreases.

Thus muscles can produce greater mechanical force and power while using less metabolic energy.”

So we believe that the best order is midrange (max force), stretch (stretch overload and force) and contracted (continuous tension and occlusion). The last exercise, because of its continuous tension, creates a full pump, flushing the muscle with nutrient-rich blood immediately after—just what you need to kick-start the anabolic processes and finish off the muscle. Here’s an example of a standard POF lat routine: Chinups (midrange) 2 x 8-10 Pullovers (stretch) 2 x 10-12 Stiff-arm pulldowns (contracted) 2 x 12-15 There’s new evidence, though,

that switching the order of the last two positions, at least for a few weeks every so often, can do great things for muscle growth. Before we get to why, let’s review our current split for TEG newbies: Week 1 Monday: Chest, lats, triceps, abs Tuesday: Quads, hamstrings, calves, lower back Wednesday: Delts, midback, biceps, forearms Thursday: Off Friday: Chest, deadlifts, triceps, abs Weekend: Off (with cardio)

Week 2 Monday: Delts, midback, biceps, forearms Tuesday: Quads, hamstrings, calves, lower back Wednesday: Chest, lats, triceps, abs Thursday: Off Friday: Delts, deadlifts, biceps, forearms Weekend: Off (with cardio) www.ironmanmagazine.com \ JULY 2008 65

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(You can check out those past editions free at www.XRep.com in the X Files section.)

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© 2005 IRON MAN Magazine

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 In Your Fascia

Week 3 Repeat Week 1 On that split we work legs only once a week; however, we substitute regular deadlifts for the back routine on Friday. That gives us residual leg work at the end of the week as well as a heavy back blast. We follow deads with one or two sets of a direct back exercise—pulldowns if it’s lat day, machine rows if it’s midback day.

Okay, on to our new findings.

Over the years we’ve talked about the fascia, the sheath that encases muscle tissue. Theoretically, it can constrict muscle growth if it’s not stretched. In other words, you need to somehow make it more pliable so the muscles can expand further.

Yes, stretch-position exercises do help make the fascia more pliable. In fact, some trainers put bodybuilders through rigorous and painful stretching routines in an attempt to loosen fascia constriction.

It’s like stretching a balloon before you blow it up—easier to inflate.

Other trainers have bodybuilders do up to seven sets of a finishing exercise, with very little rest, to elicit a bigger pump. Forcing more blood into the muscle can stretch the fascia from the inside.

We’ve often suggested going back to a stretch-position exercise after you’ve trained the three positions of flexion for a muscle, grabbing a fairly heavy poundage and holding the stretch position for 30 seconds to a minute. You’ve got a big pump from ending with a contracted-position exercise, like leg extensions for quads; so why not go back to

IRON MAN Training & Research Center Muscle-Training Program 105 Workout 1: Chest, Lats, Triceps, Abs Smith-machine incline presses (X Reps; DXO) High-low cable flyes (drop; X Reps) Dumbbell bench presses (X Reps) Flyes (X Reps) Superset Wide-grip dips (X Reps) Low cable flyes Superset Low cable flyes Wide-grip dips (DXO style) Wide-grip pulldowns (X Reps; DXO) Undergrip pulldowns Superset Stiff-arm pulldowns (drop) Machine or dumbbell pullovers Lying extensions (X Reps; DXO) Overhead dumbbell extensions or cable pushouts Tri-set Pushdowns Kickbacks Bench dips Giant set Incline kneeups Ab Bench crunches Twisting crunches End-of-bench kneeups

2 x 9-12 1 x 10(6) 1 x 9-12 1 x 9-12

Machine standing calf raises or one-leg calf raises (drop; X Reps) Seated calf raises (X Reps) Hyperextensions or Nautilus lower-back machine (X Reps)

1 x 12(7) 1 x 15-20 1 x 10-15

Workout 3: Delts, Midback, Biceps, Forearms 1 x 9-12 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 9-12 2 x 9-12 1 x 9-12 2 x 10(6) 2 x 9-12 2 x 9-12 1 x 9-12 1 x 10-12 1 x 8-10 1 x 8-10 1 x 12-15 1 x 10-12 1 x 10-15 1 x 9-12

Workout 2: Quads, Hamstrings, Calves, Lower Back Leg extensions (warmup) 1 x 12-15 Squats (second set DXO) 2 x 9-12 Superset Leg extensions (drop; X Reps) 2 x 10(6) Sissy squats 2 x 9-12 Feet-forward Smith-machine squats 1 x 9-12 Stiff-legged deadlifts (DXO) 1 x 7-9 Leg curls (drop; X Reps) 1 x 10(6) Knee-extension leg press calf raises (X Reps) 1 x 12-15 Leg press calf raises (DXO) 1 x 12-15

Smith-machine upright rows (X Reps) Seated lateral raises (X only) One-arm cable laterals or incline one-arm laterals (X Reps) Forward-lean laterals (drop; X Reps) Smith-machine presses (X Reps) Seated dumbbell presses (DXO) Bent-over laterals (drop; X Reps) Machine rows (X Reps; DXO) V-handle cable rows Bent-arm bent-over laterals (drop; X Reps) Dumbbell shrugs (drop; X Reps) Preacher curls Cable curls (DXO) Incline curls Concentration curls or one-arm spider curls (drop) Incline hammer curls (drop) Superset Dumbbell wrist curls (X Reps) Behind-the-back wrist curls Superset Dumbbell reverse wrist curls (X Reps) Forearm Bar reverse wrist curls

2 x 9-12 1 x 9-12 x 9-12 1 x 10(6) 1 x 9-12 1 x 7-9 1 x 10(6) 2 x 9-12 1 x 9-12 1 x 10(6) 1 x 12(7) 1 x 9-12 1 x 9-12 1 x 9-12 1 x 10(7) 1 x 10(7) 1 x 20 1 x 10 1 x 15-20 1 x 8-10

Friday: Workout 1 or 3 Deadlifts (substitute for back exercises)

1 x 9-12

Note: Where X-Reps are designated, usually only one set or phase of a drop set is performed with X Reps or an X-Rep hybrid technique from the e-book Beyond XRep Muscle Building. See the X-Blog at www.X-Rep.com for more workout details.

66 JULY 2008 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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Grow

sissy squats, get down in the low position and hold to stretch the fascia? Well, there may be a more efficient way.

If you reverse the order of the last two POF exercises and superset them, you can get a big pump and extreme fascia stretching in a matter of minutes while still getting the other anabolic triggers from those movements—tension, occlusion and stretch overload. For example, for quads you start with two sets of squats. That’s your midrange exercise. Now comes the fascia-expansion superset—leg extensions (contracted) immediately followed by sissy squats (stretch), rest for two minutes, then another superset.

The occlusion you get from the extensions heightens blood flow immediately after you stop the set.

When you get off the machine and position yourself for sissy squats, your quads should be throbbing as the pump ensues.

With your quads full and pumped, the stretch action of the sissy squats

Model: Jonathan Lawson and steve Mcleod

Train, Eat,

Leg extensions to sissy squats: Another good fasciaexpansion superset.

IRON MAN Training & Research Center Home-Gym Program 105 Workout 1: Chest, Lats, Triceps, Abs Incline presses (X Reps; DXO) 2 x 9-12 Incline flyes (drop) 1 x 10(6) Bench presses (X Reps) 1 x 9-12 Flyes (X Reps) 1 x 9-12 Wide-grip dips or decline presses (X Reps) 1 x 9-12 Decline flyes (drop) 1 x 10(6) Chins 1 x 9-12 Undergrip chins 1 x 9-12 Superset Undergrip rows (drop) 2 x 10(6) Dumbbell pullovers 2 x 9-12 Lying extensions (X Reps; DXO) 2 x 9-12 Overhead dumbbell extensions 1 x 9-12 Kickbacks (drop; X Reps) 1 x 10(6) Giant set Incline kneeups 1 x 15-20 Flat-bench leg raises 1 x 10-12 Ab Bench or full-range crunches 1 x 10-12 End-of-bench kneeups 1 x 9-12

Workout 2: Quads, Hamstrings, Calves, Lower Back Leg extensions (warmup) Squats (second set DXO) Superset Leg extensions (drop; X Reps) Sissy squats Walking lunges Stiff-legged deadlifts (DXO) Leg curls (drop; X Reps) Knee-extension donkey calf raises (X Reps) Donkey calf raises (X Reps; DXO)

1 x 12-15 2 x 9-12 1 x 10(6) 1 x 9-12 1 x 10-15 1 x 7-9 1 x 10(6) 1 x 12-15 2 x 10-15

One-leg calf raises (drop; X Reps) Seated calf raises (X Reps) Hyperextensions (X Reps)

1 x 12(8) 1 x 15-20 1 x 10-15

Workout 3: Delts, Midback, Biceps, Forearms Seated laterals/upright rows (X Reps; DXO) Incline one-arm laterals (X Reps) Forward-lean laterals (drop; X Reps) Barbell or dumbbell presses (X Reps) Bent-over laterals (drop; X Reps) Bent-over rows (X Reps; DXO) One-arm dumbbell rows Bent-arm bent-over laterals (drop; X Reps) Dumbbell shrugs (drop; X Reps) Dumbbell curls (second set DXO) Incline curls Concentration curls or one-arm spider curls (drop) Incline hammer curls Superset Dumbbell wrist curls (X Reps) Behind-the-back wrist curls Superset Dumbbell reverse wrist curls (X Reps) Forearm Bar reverse wrist curls

2 x 9-12 1 x 9-12 1 x 10(6) 2 x 9-12 1 x 10(6) 2 x 9-12 1 x 9-12 1 x 10(6) 1 x 12(8) 2 x 9-12 1 x 9-12 1 x 10(6) 1 x 9-12 1 x 20 1 x 10 1 x 15-20 1 x 8-10

Friday: Workout 1 or 3 Deadlifts (substitute for back exercises)

1 x 9-12

Note: If you don’t have a leg extension machine, do oldstyle hacks, nonlock style. Use partner resistance, towel around the ankles, if you don’t have a leg curl machine.

68 JULY 2008 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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Train, Eat,

Grow

will be even better at pushing out the fascia, making it more pliable.

A second round, with even more blood in your quads, will heighten the fascia-stretching action.

If you want to take it a step further, you can do a drop set on the first exercise. Let’s go back to lats to diagram that more extreme version of fascia expansion: Chinups 2 x 9-12 Superset Stiff-arm pulldowns (drop) 2 x 8(5) Pullovers 2 x 8-10

Editor’s note: For the latest on X Reps, X e-books and the X-Blog training and supplement journals, visit www.X-Rep.com. A few of the mass-training e-books are shown below. IM

Model: Jonathan Lawson and Dorsey_David

At the moment we’re experimenting with the technique on only a few bodyparts, as you’ll see from our program on page 66. So far it’s doing some great things for those muscle groups, and from all indications it looks as if we’ll shortly be adopting it for all of our bodyparts. One thing we’ve learned: With this bodybuilding stuff you never know it all. Keep your eyes and ears open—not to mention your mind—and you’ll

continue to discover new things that will help you pack on more muscle.

One-arm pushdowns supersetted with one-arm overhead extensions.

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Delt Detail and Density Q: I’m curious: What did you do to bring up your weak points? My natural shoulder width detracts from my overall physique, and I think before I’m able to compete, I need to bring up my delts to balance my physique. I’d like them to grow faster than other bodyparts, but as a natural I can’t simply work them more often because I’d probably overtrain them and slow gains rather than speed them up.

What do you suggest for bringing up lagging shoulders?

A: I had the same problem because my shoulders were naturally wide. My delts always sloped down. When I started competing, I didn’t have that cap on the delts that I wanted. To overcome the problem, I really concentrated on building up my side delts.

I usually began my deltoid workout with barbell presses or dumbbell presses because the press is the basic movement for building overall mass in the deltoid, but the fact is, it mostly focuses on the front heads. So after doing the primary exercise for size, I concentrated on building the side heads.

My next exercise was lateral raises, the primary movement for building mass in the side head of the delts. I did at least four sets, starting with a moderate resistance that would enable me to complete 10 to 12 reps. For my next set I increased the weight and did eight reps, and then I finished off with two sets of six reps with a heavy weight.

To make the exercise even harder and really force the

Arnold presses work the side-delt heads as much as the front heads.

Neveux \ Model: Greg Smyers

NATURALLY HUGE NATURALLY HUGE NATURALLY HUGE NATURALLY HUGE NATURALLY HUGE NATURALLY HUGE NATURALLY HUGE NATURALLY HUGE NATURALLY HUGE NATURALLY HUGE NATURALLY HUGE NATURALLY H

74

Naturally Huge

Start

side deltoids to respond, I added a drop set on the two heavy sets. For example, let’s say I used 55-pound dumbbells on the last set for six reps. I immediately went to the 45s and did another six reps and then went to the 35s and did a final six to eight reps. The drop sets caused a tremendous burn in the side delts and really helped pack mass onto the area.

On my alternate delt workout (I have two workouts for each bodypart that I alternate from week to week to prevent the muscles from adapting), I started with Arnold presses instead of regular military presses or dumbbell presses.

Arnold presses work the side delts as much as the front delts, and you can use heavier weights because the movement is more of a press than a lateral raise. Begin with the dumbbells at your chest, as if you just finished doing a two-arm dumbbell curl. From there, press the dumbbells upon aspage you 102) rotate (continued them inward, finishing with them in the same position as standing dumbbell presses—palms facing forward, dumbbells touching overhead.

After four sets of Arnold presses I did

Middle Finish Free download from imbodybuilding.com

Neveux \ Model: Moe El Mousawii

NATURALLY HUGE NATURALLY HUGE NATURALLY HUGE NATURALLY HUGE NATURALLY HUGE NATURALLY HUGE NATURALLY HUGE NATURALLY HUGE NATURALLY HUGE NATURALLY HUGE NATURALLY HUGE NATURALLY H

Naturally Huge

Seated lateral raises are stricter than the standing version. I like to alternate the two. laterals again but seated instead of standing. That made the exercise stricter, as the side delts were already pumped up from the Arnold presses.

After the seated laterals I did three sets of upright rows using a moderately wide hand spacing. That grip makes the side delts work harder than the traps.

You mentioned that you can’t train the delts too often because you are natural. I often trained my delts really heavy one day of the week and then, about three or four days later, I did a light pump workout for them. That consisted of two or three exercises with a moderate weight and higher reps. My delts wouldn’t get sore, but it helped make them grow by pumping them up.

Eventually, I reached a point where my delts had big caps on the lateral heads when I stood relaxed in a bodybuilding contest. It took a lot of hard and concentrated work, but it paid off. By building up my side deltoids, I made one of my worst poses (standing relaxed to the front) one of my best. The added side-delt size, combined with my naturally wide shoulders, helped me stand out in any lineup.

Here are the two deltoid-specialization routines I used to build up my side delts: Workout 1 Seated barbell or dumbbell presses 4 x 6-10 Lateral raises (drop sets on last two sets) 4 x 10, 8, 6, 6 Bent-over lateral raises 3 x 10, 8, 6 Barbell shrugs 4 x 12, 10, 8, 6 Workout 2 Arnold presses Seated lateral raises Upright rows Lying lateral raises Dumbbell shrugs

4 x 10, 8, 8, 6 4 x 10, 8, 8, 6 3 x 10, 8, 8 3 x 10, 8, 8 3 x 10, 8, 8

Q: What are some of the funniest things you’ve done to get into contest shape or gain size in the off-season?

A: Bodybuilding can be a pretty extreme sport, as some

of us will do anything to get our bodies to look the way they need to look to win competitions. I guess I’ve been guilty of taking some extreme measures myself in order to win.

Back in the 1980s it was standard contest prep to dehydrate yourself for three days before the contest. That meant no water at all on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. It was so brutal to not drink any water at all, and, looking back, I don’t even know if it made that much difference.

The muscles need water to appear full, and I remember that it was so hard to get a pump after dehydrating myself for so long. When I won the NPC Illinois Championships in 1986, I had to pump up for more than 30 minutes to get a pump and get my veins to stand out.

The first time I bulked up was in 1984, and I got up to 231 pounds; however, I had to force-feed myself and teach my body to eat more in order to put on the size I needed. I was competing in the men’s open division for the first time, and I knew I needed to get much bigger.

I eventually worked up to eating a seven-egg omelette with cheese and three slices of whole-wheat toast with butter and honey for breakfast—and they were whole eggs.

My protein drinks consisted of two cups of whole milk, one egg, a banana, two scoops of protein powder and ice cream. I had two of those drinks every day.

Eating six meals like that every day, I was able to bulk up from 205 pounds to 231 in six months. At that weight I looked more like a football player than a bodybuilder, but I accomplished my goal of adding size and getting stronger.

My nickname at the gym was “Sumo” when I reached my bulked-up state.

When it was time to start my diet, I didn’t really know what I was doing because I had never been that heavy before. When I dieted for the teenage competitions that I had entered previously, I would only lose about eight to 10 pounds in three to four weeks.

No one in the gym thought I’d be able to get cut after bulking up so much. Their doubts fueled my motivation, and I worked even harder to get ripped. At one point I was doing cardio twice a day, and I brought my calorie intake down to about 800 a day. I was like a walking zombie for the last two weeks of my preparation.

When I stepped onstage, I was down to 188 pounds. I’d lost 43 pounds in only 12 weeks. Of course, I’d lost some

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NATURALLY HUGE NATURALLY HUGE NATURALLY HUGE NATURALLY HUGE NATURALLY HUGE NATURALLY HUGE NATURALLY HUGE NATURALLY HUGE NATURALLY HUGE NATURALLY HUGE NATURALLY HUGE NATURALLY H

Some bodybuilders will do crazy things to get in contest shape—like not drink water for three days prior to a show.

valuable muscle tissue in the process, but I did compete ripped and in good condition.

In 1990 I competed in the AAU Central USA contest and took an undeserved (in my opinion) third place. I weighed 208 pounds for that contest, and I was big and cut but could have been a little more ripped. After the contest was over, I decided to compete in the NPC Illinois Cup two weeks later. With one more week of dieting to go, my bodyweight was down to 204 pounds.

A judge from my gym told me to compete as a light heavyweight. He said I would win my class easily if I could get down to 198 pounds. Since I was presently at 204 pounds, that meant I had to lose six pounds in six days in order to make the class.

I cut my calories way back and was riding a stationary bike every day. By Wednesday, I was so brain dead, I could hardly dial the phone or remember my name. On the Friday before the show, I was 199 1/2 pounds, so I didn’t drink anything that day and went into a sauna the night before.

On Saturday morning, the day of the contest, I weighed exactly 198 pounds. Thankfully, I won my class with a perfect score that night.

When I competed in the first Natural Olympia in 1998, I went to Hungary for the week before the contest, which was held in Greece. I guest-posed in Hungary in the middle of the week and then planned on going to Greece on the weekend to compete at the Natural Olympia.

When I was in Hungary, I was eating chicken and rice in restaurants all week. The restaurant food contained so much sodium that I was holding water by the time I guestposed on Thursday. I had worked so hard to get in shape for the contest, I couldn’t believe that I might blow the

whole thing only a couple of days before the show.

To get rid of the water, I stopped eating in restaurants and started cooking all my own food. I’d packed a small George Foreman grill in my suitcase, so I used it. I went to the store and bought steak, chicken and potatoes. I cooked the meat and put it on ice so it wouldn’t go bad and sliced the potatoes into small sections and cooked them on the grill. For breakfast, I mixed whey protein powder with my oatmeal.

After doing that for several nights, I was starving. The night before the contest, I was so hungry and so thirsty, I couldn’t sleep. I got up in my tiny hotel room and looked for something to eat. The only thing I had in the room was the protein powder. I licked my finger and was eating the protein powder out of the can. I went crazy for about 10 minutes and couldn’t stop eating it. Finally, I got hold of myself and stopped. Then I started freaking out because I thought I’d blown my condition by eating all that protein at once.

My sacrifice for the previous three days paid off though because I was in peak condition the next morning. I competed at a ripped 204 pounds and I easily won the contest, becoming the first winner of the Mr. Natural Olympia.

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 tollfree to (800) 900-UNIV (8648). His new book, Natural Bodybuilding, and new training DVD, “Real Muscle,” are now available from Home Gym Warehouse, www.Home-Gym .com or (800) 447-0008. IM

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by David Goodin

Lisa Aukland Although I’ve been a bodybuilder for more than 26 years, I had never attended an IFBB pro bodybuilding show until the ’07 IRON MAN Pro. I love bodybuilding. It’s been my life for the past 26 years, but I must say that I was very disappointed and underwhelmed with the pros at that show. Yes, all the guys were freakin’ huge beyond belief. But only a few guys were ripped to shreds, and only a very few of the pros appeared to have put any work or imagination (at all) into their posing routines. It was extremely disheartening, especially knowing the amount of work

that the IRON MAN staff puts into producing that quality event. Fast forward to the ’07 Olympia—my second viewing of an IFBB show. On Friday night I attended the men’s prejudging, which was followed by the Fitness Olympia and Ms. Olympia finals. I found the women’s contests so much more impressive than the men’s. I came away from the Olympia with a huge respect for women’s fitness and bodybuilding. I was particularly impressed with Oksana Grishina in the fitness competition and Lisa Aukland in bodybuilding; Lisa placed fourth. About seven weeks later I sat next to Dr. Aukland (she has a Ph.D. in pharmacology) at the NPC Nationals. From the short conversations we had between posing routines, I was intrigued with her and decided it would be a great idea to see what she’s all about.

Name: Lisa Aukland Birthdate: September 16 Hometown: Baltimore, Maryland Marital Status: married to Tom Dellinger Children: None (two doggies) Years training: 21 Years competing in powerlifting: 10—1991 to 2001 Years competing in bodybuilding: 13—1995 to 2008

Roland Balik

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DG: Tell me a little bit about where you grew up, what your childhood was like and a little about your family.

LA: I was a military brat. My father was an officer in the Air Force. That’s probably why I’m so disciplined. My dad was a typical officer—he wanted to be able to bounce a quarter off our beds when we made them, and we had to make them. I grew up on military bases, so it was always a very safe environment—or at least I always felt safe. We moved every couple of years—New York, Georgia, Germany, Mississippi, Louisiana and Virginia are the ones I was old enough to remember.

I had to learn to make friends quickly, a useful skill. We had access to lots of activities on base. We’d catch a ride on the free shuttle and go to the pool, or bowling, or the stables or shopping. We joined teams like football and softball (and bowling).

My dad coached us on our teams. My mom was a stay-at-home mom for most of my younger years. She taught us all the things mothers don’t teach anymore—to sew, crochet, knit, cook, clean and garden. My dad taught us how to use power tools and fix things.

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He taught me how to work on cars.

Not that I could do it now, with the newer engines, but I always tuned up and timed the yellow ’70 Opel GT I had in college.

DG: When we spoke at the Nationals, you said that you didn’t come from an athletic background. I guess you meant not varsity sports. Were you naturally lean and muscular before you started lifting? And what got you started?

LA: I was never overweight, but I wouldn’t call myself lean or really muscular. I was—am—a true mesomorph. I was a bit of a tomboy growing up, always climbing trees and goofing off on the monkey bars. I do remember my dad asking me to flex my biceps for his buddies when I was in fourth grade. He got a big kick out of it, and so did I. DG: Who were/are your biggest influences in bodybuilding and powerlifting?

LA: The person who got me interested in lifting weights was Cory Everson. I saw her in the magazines and loved the way she looked. I knew she lifted weights to look like that, and the rest is history. That’s the real shame in not having more women’s coverage in magazines. We have a real opportunity to change some lives or at least inspire women to do more.

My powerlifting inspiration was my training partner, now husband. We competed together. Having a goal in mind always made the workouts more important and actually more fun.

DG: What are your best lifts?

LA: My best lifts in competition were 275 in the bench, 410 deadlift and 400 squat. I competed only in the drug-tested division, and some of those records still hold in Maryland.

DG: A couple of years ago the IFBB said that it wanted to see 20 percent less muscle in women’s bodybuilding, that female bodybuilders should look more feminine. What did you think of that?

LA: I didn’t think it applied to me.

I never thought I was too big or not feminine enough, so I didn’t give it a second thought—except to complain about how vague the ruling was.

DG: Do you think that changed the way that IFBB contests were actually scored by judges?

LA: Not at all.

DG: You wrote a fantastic article about women’s bodybuilding that’s posted on your Web site, www.LisaAukland.com. What do you see as the things that are

holding back the marketability of women’s bodybuilding?

LA: The lack of magazine coverage holds us back. To develop a more mainstream female-bodybuilding fan base, we need to be in print. There are tons of marketable female bodybuilders. I frequently have women approach me to ask how to improve certain bodyparts. They don’t want to “get big” but do want to appreciate that toned look on themselves—knowing they’re asking the right person by the way I look. We have much to offer.

At least I do. Women need to know they can work out, look great and still have a life. Many I’ve spoken with think we must work out four hours a day, seven days a week to look like this, and that’s not true.

DG: What do you think can be done to improve the exposure and prize money for women?

LA: Three words: public relations person. We need someone promoting us.

DG: How is it that you’ve maintained a very feminine look, even though you are as muscular as you are, while so many of the pro women look extremely masculine?

LA: There may be an obvious answer here. As for my physique, I try to train smart. I don’t look to just lift heavy—at least not anymore—or pack on muscle for the sake of packing on muscle. I deliberately take time to analyze my physique and shape the areas that need shaping. I believe part of looking feminine is having a nice “flow” to the physique, not just packed-on muscle. Bodyparts tied together in a shapely way with no part overpowering others is an appealing look.

DG: Do you think drug testing would help the sport of women’s bodybuilding? Would you like to see it implemented?

LA: I can’t say whether it would help or not, but I would love to see it implemented.

DG: In the past five years or so there’s been an explosion in the popularity of figure competition.

What’s your take on that sport and its effect on women’s bodybuilding?

LA: My take on figure competitions: Boring. That said, it definitely has its place. Figure competitions have motivated many women to get in amazing shape. That can’t be a bad thing.

I think it has no effect on women’s bodybuilding—except to lengthen our competitions.

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you have a doctorate in pharmacology?

LA: Probably shock that I actually have a real job—and brain—then the “ah-ha, that’s why you do so well” statement.

DG: Conversely, what is the reaction of people you work with for the first time when you take off your jacket and they see how lean and muscular you are?

LA: They always think it is pretty cool and have many questions to ask. We could be talking business, but all that is dropped in lieu of endless training and diet questions. Bodybuilders obviously know all the answers—we wear our “work.” I also believe bodybuilding fascinates people, so I’m often the center of attention.

DG: Why do you think bodybuilders are stereotyped as boneheads?

LA: Why are all blondes dumb? I’m not sure how that got started, but it’s certainly not the case. Yes, there are stupid bodybuilders and dumb blondes, but I’m certain not above the national average of stupidity among all people. [Laughs] DG: Tell me about your most satisfying achievements.

LA: I should say my doctorate was my most satisfying achievement, but I was so freaking happy to be done that I probably missed the moment. Seriously, to obtain my doctorate was huge for me and my family. It is a title I wear proudly. I was the first in my family to take my education that far, and I did it with highest honors.

In bodybuilding my proudest moment was, without question, representing the USA in the IFBB World Amateur Championships. That contest is run just like the Olympic Games with opening and closing ceremonies. I was very proud to represent our country—and represent it well, with a silver medal my first year.

DG: I have to ask—have you used any bodybuilding drugs? What’s your take on the whole bodybulding drug issue?

LA: That’s a question I don’t like to address but not for the reason you think. I was told a long time ago by someone in the industry, “Nobody cares what you use or don’t use; they only care about what you look like.” I believe that to be true, and honestly people will believe what they want to believe no matter what you say about drug use. * * * In my estimation, that statement by “someone in the industry” is a sad commentary on our sport today—maybe sports in general on the elite level. But I’ll tell you what: I do care. That’s why I practice and promote drug-free bodybuilding. If fans, officials and sponsors want to see the absolute biggest and freakiest at all cost, our sport will keep going in that direction. Lisa Aukland is a role model, not only for women’s bodybuilding but for all bodybuilding.

She has not succumbed to biggest and freakiest at all costs.

She has maintained graceful lines and proportion and is a terrific ambassador for our sport.

Merv

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How much off-season? Precontest?

LA: For cardio I totally mix it up. I move between stationary bike, treadmill (always on an incline) and elliptical. I vary the speeds and intensity on all of them. I also do track work—sprints, run steps and so on. Off-season I do cardio once a day about five times a week. Precontest cardio depends on how much fat I need to lose. I usually do cardio twice a day for 30 to 45 minutes each session, six to seven days a week.

DG: Please describe your current off-season training program and diet. How does your precontest regimen differ?

LA: My off-season diet varies only by carbs. I still weigh my protein for each meal but not the carbs. I’ll allow myself cheat meals—pizza—but I still get my protein in.

I train hard year-round. The only difference in the offseason is I occasionally train all bodyparts over four days instead of five so I can fit in more nights off. Instead of doing arms on a separate day, I add biceps to back training and triceps to shoulders or chest day. Precontest I train with less rest between sets. I also do more supersets precontest.

DG: What would you say to women who say that they don’t want to get too muscular?

LA: I tell them it is a 24/7 job to build and maintain muscle. It takes time, dedication, consistency, intensity and knowledge to put on muscle. It doesn’t just happen; it is by design, so don’t worry.

DG: It takes tremendous drive to earn a Ph.D., much more than it takes to achieve the level of success that you’ve enjoyed in powerlifting and bodybuilding. Where did/does that drive come from for you?

LA: The drive comes from the desire to improve myself both physically and intellectually. I don’t ever want to be stagnant—that’s wasting time, and frankly it’s boring. I am always busy, and that’s the way I like it.

DG: What is the typical reaction of people who know you as a bodybuilder when they find out that

Editor’s note: You can see Dave Goodin’s new blog at www.IronManMagazine.com. Click on the blog selection in the top menu bar. To contact Dave directly, send e-mail to TXShredder@aol.com. IM

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Critical Mass

by Steve Holman

Arnold’s Cheat Technique

Q: I read that Arnold’s immense biceps were the result of barbell cheat curls. I tried them, but I hurt my back twice. Am I doing something wrong?

A: The point just above the turnaround of a rep is where the target muscle produces the most force and therefore the most fiber activation. It’s the semistretched point. I call it the X spot. If you think about barbell cheat curls, most of the stress on the biceps comes at that precise spot. As you lean back and heave the weight up, your arms start to bend, giving your biceps a severe force jolt right at the X spot, as in the photo of Arnold on this page.

Now, it’s not a very safe exercise—as you’ve found out the hard way—but it does the max-force-overload job.

What would I suggest instead? I like either barbell preacher curls, with end-of-set X Rep partials down near the bottom (you may need partner assistance on those), or cable

curls with X Reps done down near the turnaround at the end of the set. With either exercise you do strict reps and have very little chance of injury, and you get extra semistretched-point overload at the end of the set with X Reps (Arnold was getting it on almost every cheat-curl rep, but mostly toward the end of his set, when the reps were the most difficult).

So was the barbell cheat curl the reason for Arnold’s exceptional biceps development? Somewhat, perhaps, but he also had good genetics for peaked biceps (he had pretty good peaks when he was 15). Also keep in mind that he covered all the muscle-building bases at most of his biceps workouts. In fact, one of his favorite biceps routines was barbell or dumbbell curls, incline curls and concentration curls. Sound familiar? That’s 3D POF: curls for max-force midrange work, incline curls for stretch overload and concentration curls for continuous tension and occlusion.

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Interval cardio may burn more total fat than steady-state work, but it damages muscles. It’s like adding another highintensity lower-body workout to your training mix.

treadmill. If you want to do interval cardio, use what we recommend as part of your leg workout or as a separate leg workout during the week. It will add up to a faster fat-tomuscle transition rather than no-gain overtraining.

Arnold didn’t call it that, but he was using 3D POF—another reason his biceps were the best in the bodybuilding business, even by today’s standards.

Balik \ Model: Arnold Schwarzenegger

Q: I keep reading that interval cardio is better than steady-state aerobic exercise for fat loss.

Should I be doing intervals instead of ending my workouts with 30 minutes of medium-intensity fast walking?

A: Interval cardio, which is going all out for 30 seconds alternated with slower, steady-state work for one minute, has been shown in research studies to burn more fat postexercise than medium-intensity steady-state work. The reason? Muscle damage. Running or pedaling a stationary bike all out for 30 seconds brings in the fast-twitch fibers, just the way a weight workout does, damaging them. The repair process is what boosts the metabolism and fat loss.

It’s been shown that fat is used as an energy source during the muscle-repair process.

In the e-book X-treme Lean Jonathan Lawson and I discuss the example of running on a track for interval cardio—you sprint the straightaways and walk the curves.

As we explain in the Q&A section (pages 87 and 88), interval cardio is very similar to an intense leg workout done with weights. Because of that, if you choose to use it, you shouldn’t use it the day before or after a heavy leg workout.

You can, however, use it as one of your weekly leg workouts or in conjunction with a leg workout. For example, you could do your normal leg workout but reduce the volume and end the session with interval work on a treadmill or stationary bike.

The main point about interval cardio is that it can trigger overtraining if you simply use it in place of your steadystate cardio. It takes more thought to implement it correctly because you’re damaging muscles—essentially adding another high-intensity workout to the mix.

If you have a lot of fat to lose, doing steady-state work at the end of most of your upper-body workouts is a good idea. In other words, the 30 minutes of medium-intensity walking you’re now doing is a good plan. After weight training, all of the sugar is out of your bloodstream, so your body is primed to burn fat almost as soon as you hit the

A: For the uninitiated, DXO is doing an X-Rep partial down low after every full rep (like 1 1/4 reps) with a lighter weight than you’d use on a standard set. Trainees with long legs tend to have trouble squatting because of the forward lean you mention. But even those who don’t have the problem may want to try a variation that can hit the quads very hard—maybe harder than barbell squats—DXO dumbbell squats.

For these you hold a dumbbell in each hand at arm’s length next to your outer thighs. Now squat down till the dumbbells almost touch the floor—you’ll be able to keep your torso erect because there’s no bar across your shoulders and going deep is no problem. When you reach the bottom, come up only about a quarter of the way, squat back down, then drive up to near lockout. At the point right before your knees lock at the top, immediately start another rep.

The searing quad burn will tell you that you’re stimulating growth. You can do your DXO set after regular barbell squats or as a stand-alone quad exercise. If you don’t have dumbbells that are heavy enough, use the biggest ones you’ve got and try triple or quadruple X-Rep Overload— that’s two or three X Reps at the bottom after each full rep. That’s a favorite technique of Mr. Olympia Jay Cutler, who often uses it on big exercises like seated dumbbell presses—he pulses at the bottom for a few partials before driving the dumbbells overhead.

DXO works so well because it overloads the key semistretch point near the bottom of the stroke—you hit it twice as many times as on a standard set—plus, it gives you a slightly more explosive cadence, similar to the way most of the pros train (but don’t bounce!). The big advantage is that you use a little less weight, so the potential for injury is significantly reduced.

Try DXO dumbbell squats. If that’s not feasible, you can also try DXO on hack-machine or Smith-machine squats, both of which will let you keep your torso more upright.

Neveux \ Model: Kiyoshi Moodie

Neveux \ Model: Dan Decker

Q: I’m making unreal gains using your DXO [Double-X Overload] technique—except on squats. I have long legs, and even if I use a lighter weight, when my quads start getting into it, my body pitches forward.

Any suggestions on how to use DXO on squats without losing my groove?

Editor’s note: Steve Holman is the author of many bodybuilding best-sellers and the creator of Positionsof-Flexion muscle training. For information on the POF videos and Size Surge programs, see the ad sections beginning on page 248 and 280, respectively. Also visit www.X-Rep.com for information on X-Rep and 3D POF methods and e-books. IM www.ironmanmagazine.com \ JULY 2008 87

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Spilling the Beans On Coffee Is It Really Good for You?

by Jerry Brainum

L

egend has it that coffee was discovered in 850, when an Ethiopian goatherd named Khaldi lost his goats. When he found them, they were merrily prancing around a shiny, dark-leaved shrub, every so often nibbling some of its red berries. Khaldi tried a few berries himself and within minutes joined the dance. He shared his discovery with a few local monks, who proceeded to toss the berries into a fire, then soak them in hot water.

The resulting brew not only was savory but enabled the monks to stay awake through extended prayer sessions. Within a short time the drink was an international sensation—at least in monasteries.

About 250 years later, Arabs in Yemen learned how to extract a broth from the seeds—a.k.a. beans—inside the berries. Coffee then became an integral part of Muslim religious activities. Coffee fever spread to Turkey in the 1500s, then to Venice and then throughout Europe. Coffeehouses became popular meeting places faster than you can say “Starbucks.”

In the late 1600s coffee was exported to what were then the American colonies, and the American love affair with coffee has continued unabated. More than half the world’s annual coffee production is drunk in America, averaging 16 pounds per person. Americans drink about 400 million cups each day. At any given second we drink 4,848 cups.

In New York alone 2 million cups are consumed every 20 minutes. While 37 percent of us smoke, 80 percent drink coffee, averaging 3 1/3 cups a day.

Coffee contains more than 640 substances, but its main effects are generally attributed to caffeine, a natural stimulant found in 63 species of plants. It’s an alkaloid, meaning that it’s a bitter-tasting, nitrogen-rich substance found in plants and is structurally similar to morphine, nicotine, quinine and strychnine. From a chemical point of view, caffeine is classified as a methylxanthine, similar to purines, which include uric acid and nucleic acids.

Although caffeine is found in other foods, such as tea (1 to 4 percent), kola nuts (3 percent) and cocoa (0.07 to 0.36 percent), coffee and caffeine are synonymous in

most people’s minds. While a standard cup of coffee contains about 100 milligrams of caffeine, analysis of 14 different specialty coffees purchased at coffee shops in the United States revealed that the amount of caffeine in eight ounces of brewed coffee ranged from 58 to 76 milligrams, which is what a single cup of espresso also contains.1 For years research has come to conflicting conclusions about whether caffeine and coffee are a boon to mankind or a menace to long-term health. Let’s take a closer look at the evidence.

Grounds for Concern?

After you drink a cup of coffee, the amount of caffeine in your blood rises in 15 minutes, with peak concentrations occurring after about an hour.2 How fast the body eliminates caffeine depends on the individual—usually between four to 20 hours. Pregnant women and women on the pill excrete caffeine 40 percent more slowly than other people.3 Smokers degrade it more rapidly. People with alcoholic liver disease dispose of it slowly, as do newborns. Babies, in fact, can’t even fully metabolize caffeine until four

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Because caffeine is a stimulant, many studies have investigated its role in cardiovascular disease.

Coffee months after birth.4 Because caffeine is a stimulant, many studies have investigated its role in cardiovascular disease. Drinking coffee initiates a hormonal cascade that, among other things, speeds up the heartbeat.5 Certain chemicals in the body that caffeine stimulates are also known to increase blood pressure, a risk factor for heart disease.6 One recent study featured 22 men engaged in weight training who got either caffeine in a dose of six milligrams per kilogram of bodyweight—about five cups of coffee in a 200-pound man—or a placebo one hour prior to a workout.7 Those who got the caffeine experienced a significant rise in systolic blood pressure (the top number) and a 10-beat-per-minute increase in heart rate.

Adding to the confusion is a new

study showing that a dose of caffeine equal to one to three cups of coffee lowers heart rate during submaximal exercise, such as moderate intensity aerobics, but not during exercise done at maximal intensity.8 The study also found that blood pressure wasn’t affected by caffeine intake during exercise, only during rest.

The first study linking coffee to heart disease was published in 1972.9 It claimed that people who drank one to five and six or more cups of coffee a day increased their chance of having a heart attack by 50 percent and 120 percent, respectively. Other studies have implicated coffee in elevated

blood cholesterol. Finally, since coffee makes the heart beat more rapidly, some scientists said that imbibing coffee may set the stage for a fatal heart rhythm disturbance.

Health Brew-Ha-Ha The majority of studies, however, have not found a definite link between drinking coffee and heart attacks. For example, the Framingham study, which has tracked more than 5,000 people for more than 50 years, found no link between coffee and cardiovascular disease, even in people with high blood pressure.10 A 1990 study that looked at 45,589 men between 40 and 75 years old found no relation between coffee and heart disease.11 Drinking four or more cups of decaf, however,

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The majority of studies, however, have not found a definite link between drinking coffee and having heart attacks.

Caffeine Content Product

Amount of Caffeine

Brewed coffee

6-ounce cup, 100-150 milligrams

Instant coffee

6-ounce cup, 86-99 milligrams

Decaffeinated coffee

6-ounce cup, 2-4 milligrams

Tea

6-ounce cup, 60-75 milligrams

Cocoa

6-ounce cup, 5-10 milligrams

Cola or Dr. Pepper

12-ounce can, 32-65 milligrams

Milk chocolate

1 ounce, 6 milligrams

Diet Coke

12-ounce can, 45.6 milligrams

Cafergot (migraine headaches)

100 milligrams

Fiorinal (tension headaches)

40 milligrams

NoDoz

100 milligrams

Vivarin

200 milligrams

Extra Strength Anacin

32 milligrams

Excedrin

65 milligrams

Midol

32.4 milligrams

increased the chances of heart disease by 60 percent. Another study published last year examined 44,005 men and 84,488 women with 14 and 20 years of follow-up, respectively.12 No significant connection between drinking coffee and heart disease was found.

Many of the studies that claim coffee is dangerous to heart health are flawed. When researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine reviewed 10 studies linking coffee with heart disease, they found two studies showing a link, one that was inconclusive and seven that showed no connection at all. One of the studies indicated a 60 percent increase in heart disease among hospital patients who drank one to five cups of coffee a day, with a 120 percent increase in those drinking six or more cups a day. That study was flawed, though, because it compared coffee-drinking patients who’d had heart attacks with a non-coffee-drinking group

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Coffee who had other diseases.

A highly publicized study of medical students at Johns Hopkins University found that coffee drinkers had a two to three times greater risk of heart disease.13 Trouble was,

coffee average six to 12 milligrams of cafestol and kahweol per cup.17 In contrast, filtered coffee contains 0.2 to 0.6 milligrams per cup. Those substances were nailed as the problem because tea, which also con-

research, Dr. Myers concluded that moderate intake of caffeine “does not increase the frequency or severity of cardiac arrhythmias in normal persons, patients with ischemic heart disease or those with preex-

Preliminary studies of people who already have high blood pressure have found that combining exercise with coffee may provoke a 10 percent rise in blood pressure.

other coronary risk factors, such as a high-fat diet, lack of exercise and excessive stress, were ignored.

The same thing occurred in a study of 14,500 Norwegians, which found higher blood cholesterol and triglycerides among coffee drinkers.

It turned out, however, that the subjects also smoked, ate high-fat diets and didn’t exercise. Other Scandinavian studies were confounded by the method of coffee preparation in those countries: boiling the grounds without using a filter. Substances in coffee oil—cafestol and kahweol— appear to raise blood cholesterol by suppressing the activity of the low-density-lipoprotein receptors that normally help the body eliminate it.14, 15, 16 Coffee filters, however, screen the coffee oils. Boiled coffee, Turkish coffee and French press

tains caffeine, doesn’t raise blood cholesterol.

A study published in 2003, however, showed that filtered coffee can slightly increase serum cholesterol.18 Another one investigated the effectiveness of coffee filters against a spike in cholesterol.19 Drinking four or more cups of coffee a day elevates LDL enough to increase the risk of heart disease by 9 percent.

On the other hand, the coffee also elevates a protective form of highdensity lipoprotein enough to decrease the risk by 7 to 11 percent. So the net effect is zero.

While many suspect that coffee may promote heart rhythm disturbances, Dr. Martin G. Myers, a cardiologist at Sunnybrook Medical Center in Toronto, disagrees. After extensively reviewing the relevant

isting ventricular ectopy.”20 Other studies have found no connection between coffee drinking and stroke.21

Percolating Issues Homocysteine, a metabolite of the amino acid methionine, is considered a potent risk factor for cardiovascular disease when too much of it is in the blood. A 10 percent increase in plasma homocysteine has been linked to a 10 to 15 percent increase in the risk of cardiovascular disease. Various studies show that heavy coffee drinking is linked to elevated blood homocysteine. A study of 16,000 Norwegians showed a dose-dependent relationship between coffee intake and homocysteine levels, with those who

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Coffee drank nine cups a day having 20 percent more blood homocysteine than those who didn’t drink coffee.22 A study of coffee brewed with paper filters showed that drinking 10 to 15 cups of regular-strength coffee for two weeks resulted in a 20 percent rise in 26 subjects.23 The good news is that high levels of homocysteine are neutralized by an increased intake of vitamins B12, B6 and folic acid.

In some cases large doses of caffeine may precipitate a serious heart rhythm disturbance. A 25-year-old woman collapsed shortly after drinking an energy drink containing a natural caffeine source called guarana, derived from a Brazilian herb. The drink contained 10 grams of caffeine per liter, more than 60 times the caffeine content of cola drinks. The caffeine content in her body was equal to what you’d get from drinking 15 to 20 cups of coffee. In addition, she

had a mitral valve prolapse, a heart defect that may have contributed to her death.24 That such cases are rare is underscored by a seven-year study of 128,000 health plan members that found no link between caffeine intake and sudden death.25 People who don’t drink coffee regularly experience slight increases in blood pressure when they do drink it, but the effect is transient.

It doesn’t happen to habitual coffee drinkers.26, 27 Even so, preliminary studies of people who already have high blood pressure have found that combining exercise with coffee may provoke a 10 percent rise in blood pressure. Another study looked at the effects of drinking coffee before exercise in 34 healthy men. Fifteen of them had a 44 percent increase in blood pressure and were described as “caffeine sensitive.”28 An 11-year Dutch study examining the issue of caffeine intake and blood pressure followed 6,000 men and women, average age 40.29

Women who drank up to six cups of coffee each day showed no greater likelihood of developing high blood pressure within 10 years. Yet women who drank either no coffee or three cups or less showed a greater risk of hypertension. Men who didn’t drink any coffee showed a lower risk than men who did.

Coffee may offer protective effects against cardiovascular disease because of its rich antioxidant content. More on that in part 2, as well as information on coffee’s fat-burning properties.

References 1 McCusker, R.R., et al. (2003).

Caffeine content of specialty coffees. J Anal Toxicol. 27:520-22.

2 Powers, S.K., and Dodd, S. (1985). Caffeine and endurance performance. Sports Med. 2:165.

3 Curatolo, P.W., and Robertson, D. (1983). The health consequences of caffeine. Ann Intern Med. 98:641.

The good news is that high levels of homocysteine are neutralized by an increased intake of vitamins B12, B6 and folic acid.

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Coffee 4 Aranda, J.V., et al. (1979).

Maturation of caffeine elimination in infancy. Arch Dis Child. 54:946-49.

5 Stephenson, P.E. (1977).

Physiologic and psychotropic effects of caffeine on man. J Am Diet Assn. 71:240-47.

6 Robertson, D., et al.

(1984). Caffeine and hypertension. Am J Med. 77:54-60.

7 Astorino, T.A., et al. (2007).

Caffeine-induced changes in cardiovascular function during resistance training. Int J Sports Nut Exer Metabol. 17.

8 McClaren, S., et al. (2007).

Low doses of caffeine reduce heart rate during submaximal cycle ergometry. J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 4:11.

9 Boston Collaborative Drug Surveillance Program.

(1972). Coffee drinking and acute myocardial infarction.

Lancet. 2:1278-1281.

10 Kannel, W.B., and Dawber, T.R. (1973). Coffee and coronary disease. New Eng J Med. 289:100-101.

11 Grobbee, D., et al. (1990).

Coffee, caffeine, and cardiovascular disease in men. N Engl J Med. 323: 1026-1032.

12 Lopez-Garcia, E., et al.

(2006). Coffee consumption and coronary heart disease in men and women: A prospective cohort study. Circulation. 113:2045-53.

13 LaCroix, A.Z., et al. (1986). Coffee consumption and the incidence of coronary heart disease. N Engl J Med. 315:977-982.

14 Annette, A.A., et al. (1989). The effect on serum cholesterol levels of coffee brewed by filtering or boiling.

N Engl J Med. 321:1432-37.

15 Zock, P.L., et al. (1990). Effect of a lipid-rich fraction from boiled coffee on serum cholesterol. Lancet.

335:1235-1237.

16 Rustan, A.C., et al. (1997). Effect of coffee lipids (cafestol and kahweol) on regulation of cholesterol metabolism in hepG2 cells. Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol. 17:2140-9.

17 Gross, G.,et al. (1997). Analysis of the content of the diterpenes cafestol and kahweol in coffee brews.

Food Chem Toxicol. 35:547-54.

18 Strandhagen, E., et al. (2003).

Filtered coffee raises serum cho-

In fact, coffee may offer protective effects against cardiovascular disease because of its rich antioxidant content. More on that in Part 2. lesterol: Results from a controlled study. Eur J Clin Nutr. 57:1164-1168.

19 Fried, R.E., et al. (1992). The effect of filtered-coffee consumption on plasma lipid levels. JAMA. 267:811-815.

20 Meyers, M.G. (1991). Caffeine and cardiac arrythmias. Ann Intern Med. 114:147-50.

21 Heyden, S., et al. (1978). Coffee consumption and mortality: Total mortality, stroke mortality, and coronary heart disease mortality.

Arch Intern Med. 138:1472-75.

22 Nygard, O., et al. (1997). Coffee consumption and total plasma homocysteine: The Hordaland homocysteine study. Am J Clin Nutr.

65:136-43.

23 Urgert, R., et al. (2000). Heavy coffee consumption and plasma homocysteine: A randomized controlled trial in healthy volunteers.

Am J Clin Nutr. 72:1107-10.

24 Cannon, M.E., et al. (2001).

Caffeine-induced cardiac arrhyth-

mia: An unrecognized danger of health food products. Med J Austral.

174:520-21.

25 Frost, L., et al. (2005). Caffeine and risk of atrial fibrillation or flutter: The Danish diet, cancer, and health study. Am J Clin Nutr. 81:57882.

26 Salvaggio, A., et al. (1990). Association between habitual coffee consumption and blood pressure levels. J Hypertension. 8(6):585-90.

27 Martin, J., et al. (1988). Mortality patterns among hypertensives by reported level of caffeine consumption. Preventive Med.17:310-320.

28 Uiterwaal, C., et al. (2007). Coffee intake and incidence of hypertension. Am J Clin Nutr. 85:718-23.

29 Natella, F., et al. (2007). Coffee drinking induces incorporation of phenolic acids into LDL and increases the resistance of LDL to ex vivo oxidation in humans. Am J Clin Nutr. 86:604-609. IM

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The the

Pump Passion and

Peter Putnam

Is Rocketing to the Pros

by Ron Harris Photography by Michael Neveux

R

arely does an amateur bodybuilder get more exposure than all but the top pros. When it does happen, it’s usually an indication of extraordinary potential. In the 1980s it was a blond bomber named Matt Mendenhall, a frequent cover man who never quite made good on his promise of superstardom. More recently, the same could be said about Chris Cook. Then along came an amateur sensation named Phil Heath, currently in the pros, who has lived up to most of the expectations people had of him. Now that torch has been passed to Tennessee’s Peter Putnam.

I remember the first photo I saw of him—it was barely the size of a postage stamp. It had been taken during his winning performance at the ’04 NPC Collegiate Nationals, and I was immensely impressed by the sheer amount of thick muscle he had packed on his body, particularly his freaky arms and legs. I met him at the expo during the ’06 Arnold Fitness Weekend and knew I was in the presence of a star on the rise.

I’ve kept in touch with Peter since then. I’ve found him to be sincere, confident yet humble, respectful and possessing a never-say-die attitude in which defeat—for example, when he narrowly missed earning his pro card at the ’07 NPC Nationals—is just a learning experience on the road to victory. The story of his journey thus far in our sport makes it clear that his path from here on out will lead to glory.

How the Base Was Built Before Peter had any awareness of the sport of bodybuilding, he was creating the muscular base of the physique we see today. As a high school football player in his native Georgia he spent his summers in the weight room with the rest of team, working mainly on multijoint lifts like the bench press, squat and military press—with more chest and arm work tossed in for good measure on their own time. Though they didn’t have much guidance, Putnam had a natural instinct for squatting deep and was the best of the entire 97-man squad at doing reps with his bodyweight on the bar. He also found more challenging training methods outdoors.

“I would do things like strap on ankle weights and run sprints up and down hills or bleachers while carrying a football, run backward, things I had read about Walter Payton and Herschel Walker doing.”

A running back with natural talent, Peter was obsessed about maximizing it. “I never wanted to get tackled or pulled down, and building explosive leg power was a big part of that,” he said. Eventually, he decided that at 5’6”, he wasn’t going to have a future in the NFL, so he set off to be a normal college student.

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Putnam Peter Putnam’s Contest Highlights ’98 NPC Eastern Seaboard Championships, Junior Overall

“Bodybuilding is what I was meant to do, and that means I have to do it as best I can, or else I am throwing away this tremendous gift and opportunity I was given.”

’04 NPC Collegiate National Championships, 1st Light Heavyweight and Overall ’05 IFBB North American Championships, 5th Light Heavyweight ’06 NPC USA, 2nd Light Heavyweight ’07 NPC USA, 1st Light Heavyweight ’07 NPC Nationals, 2nd Light Heavyweight —R.H.

A Shadow Passes By It wasn’t until his junior year at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga that Putnam stumbled into bodybuilding. The manager of the gym where he was working out told him that he had excellent genetics

Peter Putnam’s USA Championships Training Program Monday: Back Reverse-grip pulldowns (warmup) One-arm dumbbell rows Smith-machine bent-over rows T-bar rows Seated cable rows Weighted hyperextensions Tuesday: Chest Barbell incline-bench presses Dumbbell flat-bench presses Weighted dips Cable crossovers Thursday: Legs Standing calf raises Seated calf raises Standing leg curls Lying leg curls Seated leg curls Leg extensions Lunges Leg presses Squats

1-2 x 12-15 3-4 x 8-10 3 x 8-12 3 x 8-12 3 x 10-12 3 x 10-12

4 x 8-10 4 x 8-10 4 x 8-12 3 x 12-15

3 x 12-15 3 x 12-15 3 x 10-12 3-4 x 10-12 2 x 10-12 2 x 20 3 x 15-20 3-4 x 12-15 3-4 x 8-10

Friday: Delts Seated lateral raises Seated dumbbell presses Standing lateral raises One-arm cable lateral raises Reverse pec deck flyes Barbell or dumbbell shrugs

2-3 x 8-12 3-4 x 8-10 4 x 8-12 3 x 10-12 3 x 10-12 4 x 8-10

Saturday: Arms* Straight-bar pushdowns (warmup) 3 x 15-20 Decline EZ-curl-bar extensions 3 x 8-12 Overhead EZ-curl-bar extensions or overhead dumbbell extensions 3 x 8-12 Straight-bar pushdowns 3 x 8-12 One-arm reverse-grip pushdowns or rope pushdowns 3 x 12 Standing cable curls (warmup) 3 x 15-20 Straight-bar preacher curls 3 x 8-12 Incline dumbbell curls 3 x 8-12 Alternate dumbbell curls 3 x 8-12 Hammer curls 4 x 8-12 Machine one-arm preacher curls 3 x 15-20 Behind-the-back barbell wrist curls 4 x 15-20 *In his arm routine Peter alternates from week to week between training biceps first and triceps first.

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Putnam

Pump Up the Volume During his first two years of bodybuilding, Peter Putnam made excellent gains training in a brief, high-intensity style, but after that his progress ground to a halt and he was forced to reassess his methods.

“I was afraid to increase the volume because I had been indoctrinated by Yates and Mentzer to fear overtraining, but I had to do something,” he explained. “No matter how hard I was training or how much stronger I was getting, I just wasn’t growing.”

As an experiment he gradually bumped up his training volume every week to see what would happen. To his shock and delight, he got bigger.

“It may be an individual thing, of course, but I was definitely undertraining there for a while, which was just as bad as overtraining,” he said. “I was still in my early 20s, and I had been very athletic all my life, so I was able to tolerate and recover from a lot more volume than I had been using.”

Does he recommend the same course of action for everyone?

“Only you can ever really know exactly how much training is best for you,” he advised. “But the golden rule of bodybuilding is that if you haven’t been making progress for a while, something needs to change. And though most often we are told to reduce our training volume, there are definitely cases where increasing it would be a better choice. I’m proof of that.”

—R.H.

and gave him a magazine to pique his interest. The strategy was successful—the sight of the man who at the time was the five-time Mr. Olympia, Dorian Yates, forever altered the course of Putnam’s life. “He was the most impressively built man I had ever seen,” Peter recalled. “I said to myself, that’s what a man should look like, and that’s what I want to look like.”

It wasn’t merely the muscles that got Putnam’s attention; it was also what they had brought Yates. “I read about how he had contracts, and I saw he was all over the magazines.

I thought maybe I could have that too if I worked hard. I would never be on the cover of Sports Illustrated, but maybe I could get on the cover of a bodybuilding magazine someday.” Less than a decade later, though he’s still an amateur, Peter has already appeared on the cover of two major magazines and has contracts with Met-Rx and Weider/AMI Publishing. His dreams, it seems, were not so crazy.

Days after he saw that photo of Dorian, Peter picked up Yates’ book

Blood and Guts and began training like a bodybuilder for the first time, following to the letter the Mike Mentzer Heavy Duty–inspired workouts of the man they call “the Shadow.” Upping his meals from three to six a day while using Yates’ program, Peter went from 165 to 185 pounds in just three months, leading the older guys at the gym to jealously accuse him—behind his back, of course—of being juiced to the gills.

“The funny thing was, I had no idea what steroids even were back then,” Putnam related, laughing.

Not long after that he began competing. At his second contest the guest poser was none other than Yates, who would shortly announce his retirement. Peter took the opportunity to introduce himself. He told the champ how much he had inspired him and how he hoped to emulate Dorian’s success, only to be met with stone-faced silence. “I felt like crap—I figured he thought I was some dumb kid with delusions of grandeur,” Peter continued. As he was leaving, however, Yates grabbed his arm and congratulated him on his class win—though the finals were still hours away. “I asked him how he knew I won. Dorian smiled and said he’d been to enough contests in his time (continued on page 110)

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Putnam (continued from page 106)

to be able to tell. That was just the coolest thing to hear that from my idol.”

Turning Lemons Into Lemonade From then on Putnam pursued bodybuilding with all his energy, even moving to Atlanta to train under the watchful eye of eight-time Mr. Olympia Lee Haney, who, he said, “once told me that I had the best form on squats he had seen since Tom Platz.”

Peter continued to compete and by 2006 had come within two points of winning his class at the USA Championships. That year he married rising figure star Jessica Paxson, whom he’d met in 2004 when she, too, won the Collegiate Nationals and who won her first professional contest shortly before they married.

Putnam’s near-win made him the favorite going into the ’07 USA, but he didn’t allow himself to take anything for granted. “I never feel like I am owed or guaranteed anything in life, and I would rather earn everything I have,” he said.

As it turned out, he did win the light-heavyweight division at the Las Vegas competition but left town without one of the two pro cards being awarded. Those went to heavyweight and overall winner Ben White and superheavy victor DeShaun Grimez. Others might have become frustrated or bitter, but Putnam saw only opportunity.

“It would have been great to get the pro card, but realistically, that would have taken me off the radar for about a year until I came back again and did my first pro show,” he observed. “Out of sight, out of mind.

But because I was going to do the Nationals, there was more of a story to it, and I got more exposure in the magazines. People think succeeding in bodybuilding is all about titles, but it’s really about building a fan base, and you can’t do that without the magazines.”

Putnam brought an improved package to Dallas for the ’07 Nationals but had to settle for another close second place, this time to Charles Dixon. If you think he’s discouraged or wallowing in self-pity after coming so close once again, you don’t know the man. “My time will come—I have no doubt about

that,” he said. “As long as I keep getting better at every contest, it’s only a matter of time.”

Ignoring the Haters Bodybuilding is a wonderful sport, but there is an element of jealousy that permeates it—a group of so-called fans who do nothing but belittle, mock and insult anyone who’s achieved any degree of success. A miserable lot, they’re known as “haters,” and most of their venom is spewed online via pseudonymous screen names on message boards.

When Putnam appeared on the

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Putnam

Playing Catch-Up

Merv

The reason Peter Putnam’s back development isn’t yet on the same level as the rest of his densely packed bodyparts is that it got a very late start.

“Other guys talk about doing chinups all the time when they were kids, but I never did,” he said. In his football training, chest and leg power were the goals. In fact, Peter didn’t really start working his back properly until he’d been competing in bodybuilding for four years.

“There were no experienced bodybuilders around me, so

I didn’t know any better. Left to my own devices, I focused more on the muscles I could see in the mirror—chest, arms, shoulders and quads—like a lot of guys do.”

It wasn’t until 2001, when he buckled down and hired an experienced trainer, that he began working his back hard and seeing real results. He hit it every four or five days and included several heavy rowing movements to build the lat thickness he was lacking.

“I’ve seen a lot of progress, and I know my back still has a way to go before it’s developed to the point it needs to be, but I guarantee you it will get there.

You need a great back to be a good pro these days, and that’s my goal.”

—R.H. (story continues on page 114)

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Putnam

cover of Flex just weeks before the ’07 USA, they cried that “the fix was in.”

Then, when he did win his class, it allegedly confirmed the conspiracy theory. “Ten out of 11 judges had me in first place,” Peter stated. “If I won because of politics and because I had more exposure, why didn’t I get a pro card?”

As usual, Peter ignored the negativity and focused on more positive aspects of the sport.

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Putnam “I have nothing at all to complain about,” he said. “I already have a lot of awesome fans who are constantly sending me encouragement, I am privileged to have supplement and magazine contracts, and I have been lucky enough to meet so many great people in this industry in just the few short years I’ve been part of it. If anything, I’m incredibly grateful to be doing what I love.”

A Pro Card for Putnam?

At the ’07 Nationals Peter displayed noticeable improvement in his back, which was really the only glaring weak point in an otherwise killer package. As of this writing he had not officially announced his next move, but I have a feeling that he’ll go with the plan he was considering after he took second place in Dallas. “I haven’t had a true off-season for nearly two years,” he revealed. “If I can take most of 2008 to bring up my back more, and I can add quality mass to the point where making the light-heavy limit of 198 is going to be a real struggle, I think my chances of winning my class and a pro card at the Nationals will be excellent.”

If that comes to pass, you can expect to see Putnam, now 31 years old, tearing up the IFBB’s new 202-andunder competitions right away. In the meantime he has the support of his lovely wife, Jessica, his Christian faith and a growing legion of fans to keep him motivated and focused.

“Bodybuilding is what I was meant to do,” he said. “And that means I have to do it as best I can, or else I am throwing away this tremendous gift and opportunity I was given. I would never do that.” IM

Peter Putnam’s Training Split Monday: Back and some biceps Tuesday: Chest and some triceps Wednesday: Off Thursday: Legs Friday: Shoulders Saturday: Arms Sunday: Off

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A Bodybuilder

Is Born Episode 36 Self-Improvement Is Victory

by Ron Harris Photography by Michael Neveux

I

t’s been more than six weeks since the contest Randy and I competed in together—time for the tale of how his competitive debut went down.

When we left off, Randy was down to 184 pounds just two weeks before the show and was headed down Catabolic Road—meaning he was on his way to losing muscle and hitting the stage looking more like a runner than a bodybuilder unless he made immediate changes. On my advice, he cut back a bit on his cardio and upped his protein with the help of whey protein powder—a scoop added to each meal—and increased his liver aminos from five to eight with each meal to provide even more protein. I also prescribed iron and B-vitamins to revitalize him from his depleted state. The B-vitamin complex is a supplement you don’t hear much about, but I’m a believer.

Additionally, I had him add a handful of mixed nuts to all meals that didn’t include carbs to give him extra calories and energy from healthful fats. The results were rather good, if I do say so myself.

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Properly carbed up, Randy managed to get back up to a hair under 190 pounds by the day before the show, then cut his water late that night and weighed in at 184 pounds at check-in. While that may not sound like progress, I can assure you that the 184 pounds he displayed onstage looked much bigger, fuller and tighter than the 184 pounds he’d showed me a couple of weeks before. The kid looked pretty good.

Unfortunately, “pretty good” wasn’t good enough. As there was no novice class, Randy was one of nearly 20 light heavyweights. At 5’11”, he was both the tallest and least heavily muscled of the lot. Bodybuilding is an odd endeavor, as it goes against everything normal people associate with height and weight. In essence, the shorter and heavier you are, the better—although factors like shape, proportion, symmetry and definition are also very important. Technically, at least if you go by the charts that the medical and insurance industries use, nearly all bodybuilders are overweight.

I distinctly remember arguing with a man who was signing me up

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Model: Will Harris

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A Bodybuilder

Is Born

I distinctly remember arguing with a man who was signing me up for life insurance about that and showing him my six-pack at whatever I weighed at the time, around 215. “How can you call this fat, you nimrod?”

for life insurance about that and showing him my six-pack at whatever I weighed at the time, around 215. “How can you call this fat, you nimrod?” With no comeback, he promptly packed up his briefcase and went outside for a smoke and a doughnut. Ironically, he had fewer “risk factors” than I did because he

was tall and thin.

True, we bodybuilders are constantly striving to add muscular bodyweight, and our goal is the complete opposite of the average American. When Joe or Jane Average steps on the scale having gained five pounds, the reaction is usually, “Sonofabitch!” When bodybuilders

see five more pounds, it’s more like, “Yes! That’s what I’m talkin’ about!”

They may even rent out a local VFW hall and hire a DJ to celebrate.

The guys in Randy’s class ranged from about 5’6” to 5’8”, and the guy who eventually won the light heavies and overall was only 5’4”, which was a full seven inches shorter than

The guys in Randy’s class ranged from about 5’6” to 5’8”, and the guy who eventually won the light heavies and overall was only 5’4”, which was a full seven inches shorter than my young protégé.

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A Bodybuilder

Is Born

until a little pizza-alien burst out of his belly.

“Randy, I think you did a great job today,” I began.

“Pfft,” he replied, swallowing yet another bitten-off chunk of crust, sauce, cheese and toppings. That universal sound of disgust is re-

ferred to by my wife’s Cuban grandmother as frijendo huevos, or frying eggs.

“I know you didn’t place as well as you wanted,” I said.

“I didn’t place at all,” he shot back, his mouth full and chomping.

Having been around bodybuild-

Model: Skip La Cour

my young protégé. I knew even before the entire class of 20 had weighed in that Randy wasn’t fated to land in the top five. Once they all took the stage, that was confirmed.

Though I was busy getting ready myself to go on in the next class, the heavyweights, I kept wandering over to the side of the stage to keep track of how it was going. Sadly, that’s where Randy stayed most of the time, languishing in the shadows near the edge of the curtain while the bigger, more experienced competitors got the callouts. He watched in frustration and despair.

I ended up taking second out of 13 heavyweights and was quite pleased. I can’t say I was overjoyed to take what I estimated to be my 10th or 11th runner-up spot since I started competing in 1989, but I was the biggest and best I’d ever been, which was satisfying, considering I was pushing 36 and had been told many times over the years to give up bodybuilding for crocheting or bowling.

Randy wasn’t so happy.

When the top-five names were called out to receive their awards in his class, he hadn’t even bothered to take off his sweats and pump up—he knew he was closer to the bottom five. At the pizza parlor that night I did my best to cheer him up and make him understand that it wasn’t all about what trophy you left the building with—or in his case, whether you even got a trophy. It wasn’t easy: He was upset, and his attention was on inhaling greasy slices of pizza at a frightening rate.

Randy had already put away almost a whole large pepperoni and sausage pizza, and it looked as if he might just keep going 124 JULY 2008 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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“Look, your body is primed to grow right now whether you know it or not. You’re going to take a week off to rest up and eat, and then you’re going to start slamming a lot of protein and moving some seriously heavy weight.”

A Bodybuilder

Is Born ers for many years, I can understand postcontest speak. “That’s not true,” I countered. “Last place is a place.”

Model: Nathan Detracy

We bodybuilders are constantly striving to add muscular bodyweight, and our goal is the complete opposite of the average American.

humored the also-rans at the end out of respect for their having worked hard and shown up and gave them a callout.

“Look here,” I said, turning the little window part toward him and pressing the button to advance the photos.

“Check out the crossstriations on your quads, the splits between your biceps and triceps, that sixpack.

Don’t tell me you were ever that big and cut at the same time, ever in your cottonpicking life.”

“Yeah, so? You got second,” he sulked. “You almost won. I looked like someone who wandered in off the street.”

“That’s not true at all,” I said.

“Look, your body is primed to grow right now, whether you know it or not. You’re going to take a week off to rest up and eat, and then you’re going to start slamming a lot of protein and moving some seriously heavy weight. I’m adding a shake to every meal you have and putting you on a routine of nothing but basic free-weight movements for a few months. I guarantee you’ll pack on at least 10 pounds of muscle.”

That seemed to raise his spirits a

From his scowl and evil glare I could tell he failed to see the humor.

“Look, we both did very well today,” I told him.

He looked at me with incredulity.

“Are you high?” he asked.

“No, and it’s a good thing for you, or else you wouldn’t have had a chance with that pizza. But seriously, we both looked better today than either one of us ever has in our lives, right?”

He shrugged. I sighed and unzipped my digital camera and turned it on to show him some photos my wife Janet had snapped during prejudging, when the judges

little, but not as much as what happened next. A regular-looking guy walked in with a totally stunning local figure competitor who’d just won her class—an item, apparently, based on how closely he squeezed her tight little tanned body to his.

He introduced himself to both of us and then turned his attention to Randy. The guy was starting up a fitness clothing line and wanted Randy to do a photo shoot for their first catalog. As I’ve mentioned before, Randy was blessed with some dashing looks, and his physique is far more marketable than the walking sides of beef that so many of today’s champion bodybuilders resemble. The guy wanted to pay Randy a thousand dollars to do the shoot, appear in the catalogue and perhaps star in a print ad. Plus he could keep all the clothes he modeled.

That all sounded enticing enough, but I think the fact that the figure competitor was going to be the female model was what really sold Randy. In fact, I’m not sure Randy was even listening to much of what the guy was saying, as he was too busy gawking at her. When they left, with the girl finally saying her first and only thing, a high-pitched but adorable, “See ya,” Randy was in a much better mood.

“Kid,” I said, kicking my own trophy, which was resting by my left foot, “there were plenty of other bodybuilders in that show today who placed higher and were bigger and better built than you are, but he asked you to represent his clothing line. I think that’s better than a crappy trophy. For instance, I was sitting right here and he didn’t ask me.”

“Wow, she’s hot, huh?” he sighed, grinning ear to ear.

Luckily, I wasn’t terribly jealous of Randy’s handsome countenance.

God gave me other gifts. For instance...well, I can’t think of anything right now, but that’s not the point. The point is, neither Randy nor I had won the contest, but that didn’t mean we hadn’t both won victories. Bodybuilding is all about selfimprovement—or beating your own previous personal best. And hey, if you can meet some hot women and get some free stuff along the way, even better. IM

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Dan Decker’s Iron Horseshoes A Formula for Building Tricked-Out Triceps Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

—Seneca

by Cory Crow Photography by Michael Neveux

I

t’s ironic that the triceps is shaped like a horseshoe, an international symbol of good luck, considering that bodybuilding has little to do with luck and a lot to do with intense preparation. Whether your goal is to win bodybuilding championships or lose weight, you won’t reach it through the charms of a deceased rabbit or some piece of bent iron; you’ll get there with dedication, persistence and consistency of training (although that may also have something to do with bending iron). One bodybuilder who didn’t rely on luck to build his championship set of horseshoes is Dan Decker.

The last time I interviewed Dan for IRON MAN about his training, he talked about how he built a great pair of biceps [April ’08]. This time we focused on the other half of his arm workout, the part that trains two-thirds of the mass that fills out his shirtsleeves—the triceps. Because of its distinctive shape, the triceps is also known as a horseshoe, and the only way it can be developed totally is by hitting all three of its heads—the lateral, medial and long heads. In order to accomplish that, Dan employs a variety of grips and exercises.

Close-grip bench presses. If curls are the main ingredient in building biceps, then close-grip bench presses are their counterpart for adding triceps mass. Close-grip benches are so integral to Dan’s training that he always does them in his triceps routine. They are the foundry that forges the horseshoes on Dan’s frame.

Because he’s doing work sets, he performs these fairly heavy, going for eight to 10 reps, hitting failure on almost every set. He does three to four sets, depending on the day, how he feels and where he is in his contest prep (at the time of this interview he was about 10 weeks out from NPC Junior Nationals). The key is to perform controlled reps, concentrating on involving the triceps and not putting too much stress on the deltoids. He also makes sure his grip is close enough that the pectorals don’t take over. His recommendation is to strive for a mediumslow rep speed with your grip just barely inside your shoulders. Anything narrower puts undue stress on the shoulder joints.

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Dan Decker’s Triceps Workout Close-grip bench presses 3-4 x 8-10 Decline skull crushers 3-4 x 8-10 Close-grip cable pushdowns 3-4 x 8-10 Seated overhead dumbbell extensions 3-4 x 8-10 Kickbacks 3-4 x 8-10 Close-grip pushups 3-4 x 8-10 Note: Decker’s biceps workout was featured in the April ’08 IRON MAN. He trains his arms once a week and usually works biceps and triceps together, alternating movements for the two bodyparts.

—C.C.

Decline skull crushers.

When Decker finishes his required sets and reps on decline skull crushers, a.k.a. lying extensions, he frequently—with a spotter’s assistance—reverses his grip and reps out on decline close-grip bench presses. He uses that compound superset to help meet his goal of fully exhausting all three heads of the triceps to encourage the most muscle fiber activity possible.

In order to ease the transition between exercises, Dan uses an EZ-curl bar.

Close-grip pushdowns.

There’s no real secret to build-

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Dan Decker

Dan changes the handle attachment on the cable for every set of pushdowns, sometimes opting for a one-arm movement.

ing a great physique—no special workouts that the top NPC amateurs and IFBB pros have that you don’t. What they do have, besides the obvious genetic advantage, are years of experience that have taught them techniques that helps them blow past the plateaus that all lifters experience. Case in point: Dan’s approach to pushdowns. Instead of using one attachment—say, the rope—Dan changes the attachment on the cable for every set, using all of the tools available to help him evenly distribute the work to all three triceps heads. By changing from the rope attachment to the V-handle to the straight-bar attachment, he slightly alters the angle of force that he applies to the muscle, causing different heads to be accentuated on each set. That’s something that you could add to your triceps workout tomorrow that might help you bust through the growth plateau you’ve been saddled with of late. He even does one-arm pushdowns at some workouts.

Seated overhead dumbbell extensions. Grab your spotter and revisit this old exercise if you want to grow some real triceps mass, and don’t be afraid to go heavy. Don’t be afraid to go to failure, Dan says, provided you have a spotter standing by. Dan uses a spotter as not only a guard against going too far back but

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Dan Decker also an aid in setting the dumbbell.

The key is to go as heavy as possible while hitting failure on the last rep of every set. After he performs this lift, he says, “my triceps are pretty much toast.”

Kickbacks. As a finishing move and a final effort at totally trashing his triceps, Dan chooses kickbacks for their unique ability to zero in on the target. “Don’t be afraid to go heavy” he advises. “You can cheat a little bit on this movement, provided your form is good on the downward portion of the rep.” Again, his goal is to go to failure. His rep range is eight to 10, wearing out the muscle on the last rep.

By the time you finish this workout, you’ll likely be worn out. If you still feel that you’ve got a little left in the tank, however, you might add one more movement.

Close-grip pushups. Doing these to failure can be a great way of isolating and exhausting triceps muscles that haven’t been sufficiently gassed. Not only is your own bodyweight probably sufficient, but the pushup is something you can

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Dan Decker

As a finishing move and a final effort at totally trashing his triceps, Dan chooses kickbacks for their unique ability to zero in on the target. do at home or on the road, when no equipment is available.

Dan’s twist on these—which does require equipment—involves the bad guy of bodybuilding training, the exercise ball. “Put your feet up on an exercise ball and do around three sets of 10,” he suggests. “Then on the fourth set do as many pushups as you can until you reach failure.” If that sounds a bit like ultra-high-rep training, it’s because it is.

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Dan Decker Dan uses close-grip pushups or bench dips as a finisher. Close-grip bench presses (below) start his triceps routine with a big bang.

ally like the feel that I get from doing a long set of pushups as a finisher,” he says.

What you can see from this workout is that Dan Decker’s triceps weren’t built with luck. In June, when he steps onstage as a heavyweight at the Junior Nationals, he won’t be relying on a rabbit’s foot or a four-leaf clover to bring him a high placing. Instead, he’ll be leaning back on several years of hard, heavy training that have helped him build triceps that are a match for those of any amateur competing today.

at the end of his otherwise moderate-rep workout is twofold. He likes the burn that he gets from extended

sets, and he believes that the blood volume they move into the muscle is of great benefit for growth. “I re-

Editor’s note: To contact Dan Decker for guest posing, training and sponsorship opportunities, write to BodyByDecker@aol.com. IM

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New Era Training Scott Abel’s Controversial Approach to Muscle and Strength Part 1 One hopes that such skeptics would occasionally apply a little skepticism to their own positions, but history amply demonstrates that science progresses mainly by funerals, not by reason and logic alone.

—Dean Radin, The Conscious Universe

by Ken O’Neill

T

he recorded history of bodybuilding begins in the latter half of the 19th century. Old photos reveal the beginning of the evolution of techniques that have brought about increasingly refined, all-around muscular development. As equipment and training techniques took us from brute-force lifting to sculpting refined muscle, physiques grew in size and proportion. By the early 20th century Eugen Sandow represented the ideal physique—the very same Sandow whose image, memorialized in bronze, goes to the winner of the Mr. Olympia competition.

Back in the early days of physique training, there were no muscle magazines filled with images showing how weights forged mighty physiques. There were clues, however—clues from the statues of ancient Greece and Rome. One of those statues is said to have greatly inspired the quest for an Olympian physique: the Farnese Hercules. A marble copy of an ancient sculpture dating to the early 4th century B.C., it depicts a large man of immense, powerful muscular development.

The muscle-building world of the late 19th century had never seen anyone who was remotely as developed as the Farnese Hercules. While the ancients must have known about such development, their training techniques were apparently lost in the 23 centuries separating them from modernday training pioneers.

How-to books date back to the early days of the iron game. Books were followed by magazines, then mail order courses, and now the Internet has expanded the available information beyond imagination. Review of more than a century of training materials reveals that little has changed in the way we train. At best our training methods are refinements of what the old-timers advocated for building imposing muscles.

What’s been lost in recent times has to do with a simple fact: Up until the ’60s most bodybuilders were also athletes, so their training included much more varied conditioning work than is done today.

I must admit to having become

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Scott Abel postings and a few older articles by him piqued my interest, and it was piqued even more strongly when I got hold of several of his newer writings. Having read thousands of articles in close to 50 years in the iron game, I can tell you that the content of his articles stands out simply because it’s not more of the same. Convinced that he knew exactly what he was talking about, I set about the task of understanding his work, which caused me to learn a lot in a short time—both in the gym and in my life.

Scott Abel is on a mission to bring a new era to bodybuilding. An imposing figure at 5’9” and 240 pounds of lithe, athletic development, the 47-year-old’s appearance alone evinces his knowledge—and the photo gallery of his students testifies that he knows how to assess needs, design programs and get results.

His wisdom only begins there—his workshops, seminars, new book and blog articles display an approach to gaining and maintaining year-round lean muscle that’s beyond the range of standard bodybuilding practices—without the typical bulking up and dieting down.

Abel is not a newcomer to body-

a bit jaded about so-called new training methods, since, on analysis, most of them are merely variations on an old theme. Just as an immense gulf exists between what the Greeks knew about physical development and what the early players in the iron game knew, so there is a gap between the findings of research-based exercise physiology and what the bodybuilding subculture practices today. Those findings often have tremendous practical application for muscle building.

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with newer, result-producing training methods while bodybuilding seems stuck in the backwaters of its rather recent past. I readily admit to having no sense of how restricted that thinking was until I met coach Scott Abel. Nor could I imagine the life-changing effect his method of training would have in helping me gain muscle while growing leaner despite being in my mid-60s!

I first learned of Scott Abel in the fall of 2007. Various Internet

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Scott Abel building, has a worldwide following of devoted clients and yet is not well-known in the American-based bodybuilding press. His quest has been to find the principles that make up the bigger picture for muscular growth—bringing together all the clues and differing methods. Like a detective, he’s worked

By high school I was involved in all sports. I played volleyball, basketball, hockey, football, lacrosse—all of it. I wasn’t necessarily that good at everything, but I tried it all and I picked up most skills quite quickly.

Being able to excel at academics as well without much effort certainly gave me the confidence to go ahead to university [Abel studied at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario]. By grade 12 or so I was also lifting weights quite seriously. Although I trained irregularly, it was definitely getting into my blood. Back then, though, it was often difficult to get motivated to train, since most gyms were an afterthought, maybe placed next to the furnace room, and good equipment was pretty much nonexistent.

KO: How did your university experience shape

“I want to educate people to realize that they don’t have to sell their souls to the devil to reach their physical goals. I want to teach them that training is more rewarding than the finished product.” through the all-but-ignored research, assorted coaching methods and forgotten evidence—fitting the pieces together like a giant puzzle. The result is Abel’s New Era integrative developments of Innervation Training, Hybrid Training and Metabolic Enhancement Training (MET), along with his Cycle Diet.

KO: Tell us something about your background SA: To start with, I was born in August 1961. From a very young age I was encouraged to do two things: play sports and study hard to do well in school. I really enjoyed both.

Like any other Canadian kid, I played hockey. I loved hockey.

you as a young man?

SA: Attending university away from home promoted independence. My academic interests grew, and my performance reflected it. I finished my degree a semester early.

By this time I was also teaching courses for the sociology department as well as exercise and weighttraining classes for the physical education department. My interest in bodybuilding also continued to grow. Although I wasn’t overly good at it, I liked the individual nature of it—rise or fall on your own doing.

It was very different back then. I graduated with top honors and even won a very special scholarship for intellectual proficiency, which I hold dear to this day. It means a great deal to me.

After graduation I set out for a career in social work. After a couple of years I decided to go back to school and pursue a master’s degree, which opened up new avenues for me in my heart and in my mind. At this level of education I was interacting with some pretty smart cookies. You can’t fake intelligence at that level (like you can in bodybuilding). I also very much enjoyed teaching undergraduate courses as a teaching assistant. At the time I was getting more and more into bodybuilding as well, but I was never really part of the bodybuilding world. I was an academic. I didn’t know or interact with many other bodybuilders. I would only see them at contest time.

KO: What was your turning point?

SA: When I went back to social work. I was also getting more and more into bodybuilding training and enjoying it. There weren’t many avenues to pursue, but in 1989 I was the only Canadian selected from applicants from more than 24 countries to be a camp counselor at the Weider Muscle Camp in Los Angeles. It was a really big deal. All the top minds and athletes in the sport would be attending and lecturing. I thought it would be a major learning opportunity for me, and it was—on many different levels.

I went there expecting to be blown away by the knowledge I would gain. In that sense I was disappointed. Back then all most

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Scott Abel experts did was a so-called review of the literature, and being a university graduate, I’d already done that several times over. Soon most of the people, including the pro athletes, were coming to me for advice. I found it strange—very exhilarating as well. It gave me the confidence to help competitors at home when I came back to Canada.

I began to work with athletes, and all I asked from them was to please have the emcee announce that I’d helped them prepare for the show. It wasn’t long before those athletes were winning every show everywhere. My reputation spread, and Abel Bodies was born as my official business. You must remember that at the time there really wasn’t anyone else doing that on a similar scale, especially in Canada.

At one point I entered a number of people in a big show in my hometown of London, Ontario. It was a combined levels 1 and 2 show, and my clients won every single weight class in both levels, guys and girls, and in some classes they even finished first, second and third to each other. From that point on I’ve never had to solicit business. My clients all had a look that stood out from the rest. I was getting calls from all over Canada. I also received lots of press, and then the calls started coming in from all over North America and beyond.

That was a fun but hectic time.

It was also my first exposure to the hardcore bodybuilding world. I wanted to make a difference, and I trained bodybuilders by making them into real athletes—or at least real athletes by my definition of the term. To this day I think that’s what separates me from all the others.

KO: How did fame and new ventures change your life?

SA: In and around the change of the millennium I was awakened spiritually. Until then I had always been curious and somewhat spiritually aware, but this was like a lightening bolt—I was struck with a real sense of spiritual awareness and reality. That’s when the phrase “Seeing is believing” got turned rightside up to “Believing is seeing.” As a believer I was experiencing a whole new world, and I was seeing the world around me in a whole new

way—with gratitude and awe. It’s no coincidence that Annie came into my life at this time. It was kind of a synchronicity with my spiritual awakening. Annie became my “everything,” and again, a new world opened up to me. Everything became easier. Life was and is amazing. I have stayed on that path ever since.

KO: You retired from competition somewhere in that time, as I recall. How has your path opened up since then?

SA: In 2004 I retired from my own physical pursuits. I had done enough. I had been to the top, guest posing with pros and at pro shows as well. It was enough of an accomplishment for me. It was time to move on. I am now at a point where I want to take Abel Bodies to a whole new level. Good high-quality coaching is needed more than ever. With the Internet and marketing geniuses out there, people can call themselves anything and get away with it. I want to put some sanity back into the coaching business—for regular people and athletes alike. I want to educate people to realize that they don’t have to sell their souls to the devil to reach their physical goals. I want to teach them that training is more rewarding than the finished product.

Long ago a study revealed that overachievers make the best coaches. I’ve been an overachiever pretty much my whole life.

That is one quality that also makes me a proven coach. To this day I meet people who are better than me at all kinds of tasks, but once the task is upon me, no one

Abel’s new vision is represented by his New Era integrative developments of Innervation Training, Hybrid Training and Metabolic Enhancement Training (MET), along with his Cycle Diet.

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Scott Abel works harder at achieving it.

No one. That is the unique quality that defines me and that I teach. To sum it up in one word, Scott Abel is all about one thing—intensity. That is the defining element that enables someone to not only reach a goal but surpass it. All other elements of performance personality, such as commitment, diligence, integrity, grit and work ethic, fall under the umbrella of intensity.

KO: Who has been the most influential person in your career?

SA: I’d say Bill Pearl. I met Bill at ’89 Muscle Camp. For some reason, with all the experts there and everyone wanting to make a name, he took me under his wing. I remember him announcing to everyone that I’d make a noise in bodybuilding—that I’d make a big splash—and that he’d not said that of anyone since he’d announced that Chris Dickerson would be the first black to win the Mr. America. In and of itself that didn’t mean anything, but when you realize the kind of person Bill Pearl is—that he’s a man’s man, and that he stands for something, and that he is a man of dignity, honor and character, probably the best man in bodybuilding—it takes on more significance.

KO: If you could offer one piece of advice to those entering the sport, what would it be?

SA: Maintain perspective.

Just like any other athletic pursuit, it’s a viable hobby, it’s a viable vocation, it’s a viable lifestyle, but it’s not life, and it’s certainly not an identity.

Those two things will lead you down the path to self-destruction. If body image becomes self-image, there’s a problem. If you succumb to the pressures of the subculture and become a member of it, there’s a lot of danger in that.

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“It should be a pursuit that enlivens you, that invigorates you, that inspires you, that brings meaning through the activity itself. As corny as it sounds, it’s the journey, not the destination.”

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Scott Abel know there’s a human spirit that separates us from animals. Keep that in mind when pursuing whatever it happens to be, and don’t get caught up in being attached to outcomes. I mean, throwing tape measures around your arm and things like that are meaningless.

KO: Would you offer different advice to female competitors?

SA: Yes and no. I think the mentality isn’t separated by gender so much as it is by a specific personality type. A lot of people are attracted to this industry who have severe self-esteem and self-image problems. You can’t warn them enough because they can’t see. They think once they have the body beautiful, they’ll be respected or loved, adored or comforted or secure or happy or any of those things, and, again, that’s being attached to outcomes.

It produces a whole falsehood because all of a sudden they establish a physique they can’t maintain for four or five days, and the rest of the year they don’t even look comparable to someone you’d say goes to a gym. It’s kind of missing the

whole point. It should be a pursuit that enlivens you, that invigorates you, that inspires you, that brings meaning through the activity itself.

As corny as it sounds, it’s the journey, not the destination.

KO: What other personality issues can be involved?

SA: Well, there are many. There are overachievers like me; there’s the type-A personality who just needs to have something to be obsessive about. That is, they start pursuing competition and get very obsessive about diet and training.

Unfortunately, they don’t understand that with every compulsive pursuit that’s attached to an outcome, there also exists an equal compulsion. So many of them suffer postcontest depression, eating disorders—they don’t like themselves very much, they’re attached to what everyone else thinks of them. What other people think of you has a lot of meaning for people who are into this for reasons of trying to fix themselves or fix other people. It’s unfortunate because it’s a hurricane coming.

“If body image becomes selfimage, there’s a problem. If you succumb to the pressures of the subculture and become a member of it, there’s a lot of danger in that.”

“Figure competition is seeing the whole gamut of metabolic disorders, binge eating disorders, obsessive compulsive disorders, self-esteem issues, and no one is addressing them. While giving women an avenue for competition, it also has a tremendous downside.”

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Scott Abel KO: What is the most disturbcause I coach the mental, physical ing thing you’ve witnessed or and spiritual aspects, whereas most experienced in bodybuilding? people won’t even know where to SA: The creation of a drug subcul- begin. Real coaching is about giving, ture above and beyond the pursuit and I think a lot of people representing themselves as coaches are in it of bodybuilding. That has become for what they get out of it. so legitimized—there are now Web sites you can go to and procure drugs, make your own drugs or find *** out how to take the drugs, none Abel Body Training for a New Era of which are operated by qualified embodies Scott’s quest for the bigindividuals. ger picture of an art and science The drug subculture has gone beyond performance enhancement. of muscle building, tying together all the loose ends and contradicBecause of the escalating use of testosterone, what we’re seeing now are tions into a coherent whole. After reviewing standard bodybuilding bodies with so much testosterone literature, he moved into areas of in them, there’s a need for downers, pain killers, anti-anxiety drugs, antistress drugs. People are taking sleep medication to sleep, ephedrine to work out, caffeine stimulants—basically becom“The bodybuilding-drug ing a chemical factory—and subculture has gone wondering why metabolic damage ensues. And it’s even beyond performance more so for the women. enhancing and become The bodybuilding-drug much more similar to subculture has become much more similar to the recreationthe recreational-drug al-drug subculture; like crack subculture; like crack addicts and heroin addicts, addicts and heroin addicts, they all have their little things they believe in taking—their they all have their little painkillers and/or anti-anxiety things they believe in medication—because of the taking—their painkillers performance enhancers they take. It makes no sense to me. and/or anti-anxiety Figure competition is seeing medication—because the whole gamut of metabolic of the performance disorders, binge-eating disorders, obsessive-compulsive enhancers they take. It disorders, self-esteem issues, makes no sense to me.” and no one is addressing them.

While giving women an avenue in which to compete, it also has a tremendous downside for many who are attracted to bodybuilding due to self-esteem issues to begin with.

KO: So you think it’s important to keep a balance?

SA: One of the reasons I’m a sought-after coach is because most coaches in the industry now just entertain the physical.

But coaching is mental, spiritual and physical. I liken them to three separate pies. Each is composed of several ingredients. I think most clients come to me and stay with me be-

science largely ignored in bodybuilding circles—areas that were loaded with practical applications for developing larger muscles faster while maintaining a lean, muscular appearance year-round. His recent book, The Abel Approach—Program Design and Coaching Strategies for the New Era, stands as a unique contribution to muscle building.

Its 284 pages are full of new, useful information. In Part 2 of this interview we’ll explore his major contributions to training as a starting point, including innervation training, hybrid training and metabolicenhancement training. I promise it will be a real eye-opener. IM

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Presents

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Chin Up, Lats Wide How to Improve Your Chinup Performance and Build a Wider Back

by Charles Poliquin

Photography by Michael Neveux

C

Model: Mike Morris

hinups involve the pectoralis major, latissimus dorsi, teres major and posterior deltoids, as well as the rhomboids, the middle and lower portions of the trapezius and the elbow flexors. A wide variety of sports require strength in those muscles, particularly sports that call for powerful upper-body pulling action, such as judo and wrestling.

A chinup-specialization program will not only build impressive width and thickness in your back but also pack solid inches on your arms by promoting growth in your biceps, brachialis, brachioradialis and pronator teres.

You only have to look at the arm development of Olympic gymnastics gold medalist Andreas Wecker of Germany to be convinced. Athletes like Wecker aren’t known for the volume of training on the Scott bench they do but for the countless reps of pullups and chinups done on the various gymnastics apparatuses.

So many people say, “I’ll just do pulldowns instead of chins.” I say, go ahead, but you won’t get the same results, and you’ll still have the lat spread of a cigarette. The neurophysiological reasons why chinups are superior to pulldowns are beyond the scope of this article, but the classic example of the difference between the two is that a chinup is a closed-chain exercise, meaning that the body moves toward resistance, and a lat pulldown is an open-chain exercise, meaning that the resistance moves toward the body.

Open- and closed-chain exercises require completely different recruitment patterns, although the movements may appear similar. One thing is clear: You can build a great back much faster with chins than you can with pulldowns. Chins are to back development what squats and deadlifts are to lower-body development.

Chinups vs. Pullups Basically, the difference between a chinup and a pullup is the way you hold your hands. Kinesiologically speaking—and as (continued on page 162) www.ironmanmagazine.com \ JULY 2008 159

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Presents (continued from page 159) identified here—pullups are chinups done with a pronated, or palmsdown, grip, and chinups are done

You can build a great back much faster with chins than you can pulldowns.

Model: Derik Farnsworth

Model: Will Harris

Model: Dan Decker

Chins are to back development what squats and deadlifts are to lower-body development.

with either a semisupinated (palms-facing-each-other) or supinated (palms-facing-you) grip. Which is the best grip for chins?

There is no such thing as a best grip for chins. The people I know who have the best upper-back development use myriad grips to recruit as many back muscles as possible. The upper-back development of most gymnasts is a testament to what I’m talking about.

How to Perform Chinups Properly The most basic chinup is

the supinated variety. It gives you the greatest range of movement for the lats and upper arms of all chinups. You start by gripping a chinning bar with your palms facing you, or up, and your hands held at shoulder width or slightly narrower. Your arms should be straight, in a fully extended position, with your torso in line with your upper arms. To begin the ascent, you use your relatively strong upper-back and elbow flexor muscles, as your elbows are drawn down and back.

Continue the ascent—pulling up—until your chin clears the bar.

Make sure that you inhale before you initiate the ascent. During the ascent, do the pulling and the leaning-back actions simultaneously. As

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Medium Grip Presents you begin your descent, also begin exhaling and return your trunk to an upright position. When you complete the descent, your arms should be fully extended and your shoulder blades should be elevated.

To complete the range of motion, you have to stretch your upper arms and scapulae adductors on every repetition. Your legs should stay in line with your torso as much as possible, with no flexion of the hips, as that would lower the quality of the exercise.

You can use wrist straps if you have weak forearms and risk losing your grip or if you find that your forearm muscles are fatiguing before your upper back. I prefer that trainees not use straps. In the real world of sports—say, a judo match—you will need to use your lats without the help of crutches, which is what straps are.

Model: George Farah

Model: Dan Decker

Chinup Progression

Narrow-Pronated Grip

Obviously, performing chinups requires a certain amount of strength. For novice trainees, working through a series of progressions will help build that strength.

Start by hanging from the chinup bar with your knees bent and a spotter supporting your ankles as you pull up. If you need extra assistance during this phase, you can extend your legs against the spotter’s base of support. Once you can perform 12 repetitions in this

style with minimal assistance, you’re ready to move on to the next step.

Get in the same position, but this time the spotter holds only one ankle. When you can perform 12 repetitions with minimal assistance, it’s time to move on to the next degree of difficulty.

Here the position is the same, but the spotter holds your waist. As you get stronger, you’ll require assistance only in certain parts of the range of motion.

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Presents At this point the spotter should offer only enough assistance to help you clear the bar. Once you can do 12 reps like that, you should be ready to perform the full range of movement without any assistance. When you’ve mastered that, you’re ready to use additional loads. You can increase the overload in one of the following ways: • Place a dumbbell between your ankles.

• Wear a power hook attached to a weightlifting belt.

• Wear a chin/dip belt with weights attached to it.

Arch your spine throughout the movement, and as you pull yourself to the bar, lean your head back as far away from the bar as possible.

As gymnasts, wrestlers and judokas have shown, there are many effective variations of this exercise that can boost your back mass and strength.

Narrow-parallel-grip chinups. To provide a greater overload for the shoulder extensors, you’d use a narrow-parallel grip.

Many gyms have chinup stations that feature Vhandles, with the hand grips set six to eight inches apart. Focus on bringing your lower chest to the handles as you pull yourself up. Note that narrowparallel-grip chinups are for more advanced bodybuilders.

Narrow-supinated-grip chinups. For these you use a supinated grip, but you leave only four to six inches between the little fingers, which increases the overload on the elbow flexors. In fact, it becomes an exercise where the load is shared almost equally by the torso and the upper arms—which makes it a great arm exercise.

Medium-parallel-grip chinups. Arthur Jones, of Nautilus fame, was a strong proponent of this chinup variation, which you perform with the handles 22 to 24

Sternum Chinups inches apart—you’ll find that exact grip on all Nautilus multistation machines. Your hands are semisupinated, which means the palms face each other, which is also known as a neutral grip.

A parallel grip gives the best leverage, as both the elbow flexors and the shoulder extensors are in their most effective line of pull.

You’ll find that it puts the least amount of stress on your wrists, elbows and shoulders. It’s the form of chins on which you’re most likely to be able to use additional loads.

Model: Jalali Rehan

Chinup and Pullup Variations

Sternum chinups. In this variation, which was popularized by Vince Gironda, you keep your torso leaning back throughout the movement. The lower portion of your chest should touch the high bar. You can use either a supinated or a pronated grip, with narrow-to-shoulder-width hand spacing, the latter being more appropriate for stronger trainees.

Arch your spine throughout the movement, and as you pull yourself to the bar, lean your head back as far away from the bar as possible.

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Presents

The difference is that at the top of the movement you push yourself away from the bar, and lower under control.

Model: Dan Decker

Toward the end of the movement your hips and legs will be at about a 45 degree angle to the floor. Keep pulling until your collarbones pass the bar and your lower sternum makes contact with the bar. At that point your head will be parallel to the floor.

I consider this the king of compound movements for the upper back because it works more than the lats. It creates a great overload on the scapulae retractors. The beginning of the movement is more like a classical chin, the midrange resembles the effect of a pullover, and the end duplicates the finishing motion of a row. If you’re an advanced trainee and you’re pressed for time, the sternum chinup should be a staple of your back routine.

Narrow-pronated-grip pullups. Use a palms-down grip in which your hands are spaced roughly four to six inches apart.

That increases the overload on the brachialis and brachioradialis because the biceps brachii have a rather ineffective line of pull. For many people it’s easier on the wrists than a supinated grip. Narrow-pronated-grip pullups are another very effective upper-arm builder, particularly if your brachialis muscles are underdeveloped.

Warning: If you are experiencing shoulder discomfort in the hanging position, at the bottom of the range of motion, it is a warning that you may have less-than-optimal shoulder mechanics. You may want to consult a shoulder specialist, who can evaluate and correct your shoulder mechanics.

Mixed-grip chinups 1. With a mixed grip you keep one hand pronated and one hand supinated. For example, on your first set you might supinate your left hand and pronate your right hand. That puts a greater portion of the load on your left arm because the brain will shift more of the load to the more mechanically efficient arm, which is the supinated one. The stronger the trainee, the wider the grip. Make sure you reverse the grip and do equal numbers of sets and reps.

Mixed-grip chinups 2. These are even more advanced than the previous mixed-grip chinup: You hold the support hand on the wrist

Subscapularis Pullups of the working arm. The stronger the athlete, the lower the hand sits on the working arm.

Subscapularis pullups. These would be torturous in a gymnast’s training. In this variation you assume the starting position of the wide-grip pullup and pull yourself until your upper pecs make contact with the chinup bar. The difference is that at the top of the movement you push yourself away from the bar and lower under control. Believe me, your subscapularis muscles will curse you for the next three days, as they will be strongly activated to control the descent.

A Gymnast’s Extended-Set Back Routine This routine is for advanced trainees only; it’s inspired by the workouts that Olympic gymnasts do

to condition their enormous backs.

You must be able to do 12 strict shoulder-width chinups before you can try this routine.

1) Wide-grip pullups as many reps as possible 2) 10-second rest/pause 3) Medium-grip pullups as many reps as possible 4) 10-second rest/pause 5) Medium-grip chinups as many reps as possible 6) 10-second rest/pause 7) Narrow-grip chinups 8) Three minutes’ rest Repeat steps 1 to 8 twice—then cry and curse me.

Editor’s note: Visit Charles Poliquin’s Web site at www.Charles Poliquin.net. IM

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A Supplement Combo That’ll Get You

by Steve Holman

S

o you’re ready to get shredded—now! Well, losing fat takes time, and the more you have the longer it takes.

Certain supplements, though, can speed up the process no matter how much lead you need to shed.

When it comes to getting lean, most people just think that popping the most popular fat burner is enough. Not quite. If you use certain supplements along with your fat burner, you may be able to get blindingly ripped much faster— shredder superchargers, so to speak.

So before your workout, whether weights or cardio, stack your fat burner with the following three supplements for a fierce fat-burning firestorm.

Neveux \ Model: Sagi Kalev

Vasodilator Vasodilators are also known as nitric oxide supplements, the key ingredient being the amino acid arginine. You aren’t really taking NO but precursor compounds that enable your body to produce it. The compounds help open up blood vessels, getting you a bigger, fuller pump in the gym.

You may be thinking, “Looking bigger in the gym is great, but how

JACKED does that help burn more fat?” Simple: by opening up blood vessels.

When blood can flow more freely, you can melt more fat—especially important prior to cardio. According to bodybuilding researcher Jerry Brainum: “Studies show that NO aids fat oxidation, a.k.a. burning, in muscle, heart, liver and fat tissue. It also inhibits the production of fat in fat cells. A substance called AMPK is known to stimulate fat burning. Giving arginine to obese rats doubled the amount of AMPK mRNA in their fat tissue.”

That’s a fat-loss double whammy: NO can inhibit fat from accruing and enhance the fat burning. (Sellman, et al. J Appl Physiol.

100:258-65; 2006.)

The problem with a lot of vasodilators is they contain caffeine.

If you stack them with a fat burner, you may O.D. and get the muscle-burning jitters, which signify nervous system overload and, most likely, muscle-eating cortisol release. Too much caffeine

can constrict blood vessels. So you may want to look for a vasodilator that doesn’t have caffeine in it.

Branched-Chain Amino Acids The essential amino acid L-leucine has proven itself in recent studies to be the primary spark for protein synthesis and muscle anabolism. It’s one of the branchedchain amino acids, and BCAA supplements have it in abundance, but the muscle-building BCAAs do more than help you pack on size faster.

Back to top bodybuilding researcher Jerry Brainum. In his feature “Branching Out for More Muscle” (IRON MAN, June ’08), he explained why BCAAs are so important. Here are some highlights:

• Levels of testosterone, a major anabolic hormone, were higher when male study subjects took BCAA supplements. www.ironmanmagazine.com \ JULY 2008 171

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• Subjects experienced a reduction in cortisol and creatine kinase, an enzyme released during muscle breakdown, when they got BCAAs but not when they didn’t.

• Recent studies also demonstrate that taking essential amino acids, including the BCAAs, kick-starts anabolic effects in muscle if taken prior to exercise because the increased blood flow fostered by training encourages greater amino acid entry into muscle.

• It turns out that BCAAs boost the activity of all three anabolic hormones—GH, testosterone and insulin—which may contribute to the muscle protein–sparing effect of BCAAs. Anabolic effects, fat burning, hormone boosting—now you see why BCAAs are a key to your fast fat-tomuscle transformation. My workout partner and I have recently discovered a high-potency BCAA product that we really like because it has not only the branched-chain aminos—leucine, valine and isoleucine—in generous amounts but also glutamine, a key recovery and immune-boosting amino, and vitamin B6, which helps your body use BCAAs more efficiently and effectively. It’s SAN’s BCAA-PRO caps. Take two to five caps before and after your weight and cardio workouts.

Phosphatidylserine This soy lipid is the last on the list, but it’s a biggie—maybe the most important of all. Why? Because PS has been shown in countless research studies to decrease cortisol output (Fahey and Pearl. Biol Sport. 15:135-144; 1998). Remember, cortisol is a stress hormone that forces your body to shovel muscle into the energy fur-

Neveux \ Model: Greg Smyers

• Studies show a relationship between the burning of fat in muscle and the subsequent oxidation of BCAAs.

nace—a true mass murderer. That means when your cortisol is high, all of the other supplements above become less effective, and some are rendered completely useless. It’s like flushing your money down the toilet. Cortisol also subdues growth hormone and testosterone, so controlling it will make those anabolic compounds more powerful.

What about fat burning? You’ve no doubt seen the TV commercials that show the relationship between high cortisol and belly fat. While it doesn’t quite work the way the ads say it does, high cortisol counts do cause extreme carb cravings, which can build ugly bodyfat stores.

Cortisol also stops the fat-burning process in its tracks. Ironically, that’s a protective mechanism so the body can annihilate expendable muscle while preserving fat for use in famine or starvation conditions (Gee, thanks, Mother Nature).

PS is all natural, and 600 to 800 milligrams can blunt cortisol output by more than 30 percent. Bonus: It’s also been shown to boost mental acuity and focus, so you can generate more intensity. That’s why it’s important to take two to four capsules of Cort-Bloc as the last part of this fat-blasting stack.

Here’s a summary of everything you should take prior to any workout when you’re on a serious fat-tomuscle mission...

• Fat burner • Vasodilator (or nitric oxide precursor—without caffeine if your fat burner contains a lot) • Branched-chain amino acids, like SAN’s BCAA-PRO (2 to 5 capsules—take after you work out as well) • Phosphatidylserine (600 to 800 milligrams—four Cort-Bloc capsules) That should put you on the fast track to getting inside-out shredded before you can say “Let ’er rip!”

Editor’s note: For more on fat burning diets, training and supplements, visit www.X-tremeLean .com. IM

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Heavy Duty

Q&A

The Wisdom of Mike Mentzer

by John Little Breaking With Tradition Q: I’m surprised that in his Ideal Routine Mike Mentzer recommended training once every fourth day with a split routine when other bodybuilders are all training three days on/one day off—or even six days a week. His split routine would have individual upperbody muscles trained only once every 16 days and legs trained once every eight days. How can that be enough exercise?

A: You’re assuming that because a week has seven days, a trainee should work each bodypart as many times as the seven days will accommodate. That ignores biology, which underlies how the body produces tissue-building responses. For that matter, it ignores overlapping exercises that stress the same muscle groups even though you’re targeting a separate muscle group with one of them. Besides, clinical studies, as well as data collected by scores of personal trainers throughout North America, contradict an approach to exercise that overworks the muscles.

It makes me smile to think that you question Mike Mentzer, since he was renowned for being an iconoclast, an individualist who stood alone against an industry of traditionalists. To ask why Mike wasn’t a traditionalist is like asking me why the number 1 isn’t the number 10.

It might surprise you to learn that

Mike’s recommendation of training once every fourth day wasn’t an arbitrary response to the traditionalists but the result of a carefully observed evolution in training and recovery that began back in the late 1970s. Indeed, for those who were near the upper limit of their genetic potential or whose bodies required more recovery time in order to produce the increase in mass that their workouts had stimulated, he recommended training once every six to 10-days. Mike explained in detail his insight into the need for protracted recovery time: “From the inception of the plateloading barbell around the turn of the [last] century, every training routine or method devised—from the most rudimentary to the most sophisticated—was scheduled within the traditional seven-day week. Early physical culturists all adhered to the gospel of the time: You trained every other day, usually Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and took weekends off entirely. As bodybuilding gradually extricated itself from the doctrinaire strictures set up by the weightlifting hierarchy, training regimens progressively evolved into four-days-a-week programs, then five, then six, and for a rare few, twice-a-day, six-days-aweek programs.

“Though it definitely has been making progress, bodybuilding nevertheless finds itself caught in the quagmire of tradition. Bodybuilders

fashion elaborate routines involving state-of-the-art equipment, computerized dietary regimens and the most exotic routines imaginable—always within the framework of the seven-day week.

“I learned several years ago that muscle physiology is not mediated by tradition or custom. It occurred to me one morning that my unusually strong disinclination to begin my workout was the result of deep fatigue. It had nothing to do with laziness or lack of desire. My body still hadn’t fully recovered from the exhaustive effects of the workout I’d performed only the day before, leaving me in an energy deficit. I thought it over and decided to skip the workout. [At the time Mike was using a two-days-on/one-day-off program.’

“Recovery and growth are two distinct physiological processes, both requiring time. Muscular growth must first be stimulated by high-intensity training. Then sufficient time must elapse for not only localized muscle recovery but also generalized, overall recovery of the physical system.

“Recognizing that I hadn’t fully recovered from the preceding workout, I knew that it would be useless to complete the workout scheduled for that morning out of some dogmatic adherence to tradition. As it turned out, a full day off between workouts of my split routine usually (continued on page 178) proved sufwww.ironmanmagazine.com \ JULY 2008 175

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Heavy Duty (continued from page 175) ficient for recovery and growth. On occasion I found it an absolute must to skip two full days between workouts in order to recover to the point where I could train with the ferocity I knew was required for stimulating growth.

“What I did, in essence, was continue a four-days-a-week-split routine spread over eight or nine days. I’d train pecs, delts and triceps on Monday; skip Tuesday; train legs, back and biceps on Wednesday; skip another day or two; then repeat the first workout again. Whether I missed one or two days between workouts depended on my energy and enthusiasm. Monitoring certain internal clues, something at which I’d become very adept, I discovered whether I’d fully recovered.

“During the first three weeks of my new extended four-day split, I monitored my lean mass on the day of the first workout and again precisely 21 days later. [Mike used hydrostatic, or underwater, weighing to monitor his composition. It’s

considered the gold standard of accuracy in bodycomposition readings.] With no change other than putting more time between workout days—I continued my usual brief, intense four-set-perbodypart workout—I gained exactly 10 pounds of muscle over the three-week period while losing four pounds of fat. The technician who performed my body-comp test was so astonished at the result that she called in her superior, who was equally stunned.

“To grow larger

Dorian Yates.

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Balik

Mike had great genetics and a great constitution for bodybuilding exercise, yet he found that he needed additional recovery days to make muscular progress.

When he made a similar suggestion to Dorian Yates, cutting back the volume and frequency of his training, Yates’ physique improved so dramatically that he went on to win several Mr. Olympia titles.

muscles, you must first train hard enough to stimulate growth, then let enough time pass for the recovery process to complete, plus additional time for whatever growth was stimulated to be produced.

If you train again before either of those two distinct physiological processes complete, you will, in effect, be short-circuiting your growth.”

Mike had great genetics and a great constitution for bodybuilding exercise, yet he found that he needed additional recovery days to make muscular progress. When he made a similar suggestion to Dorian Yates, cutting back the volume and frequency of his training, Yates’ physique improved so dramatically that he went on to win several Mr. Olympia titles. When training people who had average, rather than Mr. Olympia–caliber, genetics, Mike quickly learned that one day off between workouts wasn’t enough for their bodies to recover and grow. It stands to reason that, even on steroids, which are powerful agents that hasten the body’s recovery and growth processes, champion bodybuilders found better results by allotting additional time for recovery.

Gradually he added more rest days with his clients until he found that, on average, they produced much better gains—even on a split routine—when they got three full days of rest between workouts. As they grew stronger, he added even more days for recovery.

If your training hasn’t produced the results you’ve been seeking— and you need to be realistic in your expectations—you might want to consider Mike’s insights, first shared with us more than 20 years ago. Reduce the frequency of your training to allow for more complete recovery.

Typically, Mike would advise a client who’d reached an impasse in progress to take a week off, then resume training with an additional day or two off in between workouts.

“Your only accurate index of whether you’re proceeding properly with your training is progress—or the lack of it,” he explained. “Perhaps your enthusiasm is lacking because you’re working out too frequently,

Balik

Heavy Duty

To grow larger muscles, you must first train hard enough to stimulate growth, then let enough time pass for the recovery process to complete, plus additional time for whatever growth was stimulated to be produced. thus preventing sufficient recovery and making growth impossible.”

As you grow stronger, you’ll have to insert more recovery days in order to continue making progress and to fulfill your potential.

Editor’s note: For a complete presentation of Mike Mentzer’s Heavy Duty training system, consult his books Heavy Duty II, High Intensity Training the Mike Mentzer Way and the newest book, The Wisdom of Mike Mentzer, all of which are available from 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 on the opposite page.

Article copyright © 2008, John Little. All rights reserved. Mike Mentzer quotations are provided courtesy of Joanne Sharkey and are used with permission. IM

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Legends of Bodybuilding

Leo Robert

Iron Discipline

by Rod Labbe

W

hen Leo Robert graduated from high school, he left the sporting world behind and got a job. Each morning, as he packed his lunch for another day at a stuffy office, he had no idea that within a few years the world would know his name.

As a youngster, the Montrealborn champion found himself drawn to athletics, with hockey a particular joy. The ice taught him sportsmanship and benefits of hard work and exercise, lessons that would one day define an outstanding sports career.

But not in hockey. Destiny had other plans: Bodybuilding, an endeavor considered useless by just about everybody—a shadow sport, strange in origin and execution, “not done” by God-fearing people. Anyone who weight-trained and then paraded around half-naked had to have his head examined.

Those were the fallacies facing young Leo Robert—and none of them mattered. Introduced to the iron by bodybuilding pioneer Ben Weider, Leo found a way to stay

fit and an escape from the mundane workaday world.

Throughout the 1950s and early ’60s Leo played an alpha role in competitive bodybuilding, a remarkable run few of his contemporaries could match. The public adored him—that rugged, handsome face accentuated by a thick moustache, square jaw and tousled hair.

It was enough to sweep him from obscurity’s clutter-filled office, with its desks, deadlines, 9-to-5s and cutthroat water-cooler politics, right into the lofty realm of legend.

IM: Your bodybuilding career strikes me as surefire movie material. It has drama, pathos, lots of action—even suspense.

The sport wasn’t exactly mainstream back then, and you guys faced daunting odds.

LR: Really, we had no idea how popular bodybuilding would become. The iron game was very much a brotherhood, and other things

motivated us.

Being at the gym meant working toward self-improvement and attaining health through regular exercise.

IM: Before exploring your bodybuilding triumphs, let’s go back to the beginning. Childhood in Canada—a happy time?

LR: I have many fond memories of my youthful years in Montreal. I shared my parents with two brothers and two sisters. We wanted little and fully appreciated God’s blessings.

IM: Your folks were of the old school, I’d suspect.

LR: If by old school you mean they believed in responsibility and earning your way, then yes, that aptly describes my parents. Mom had been raised on a farm and was a superb cook. A devout Catholic, she made sure everyone attended www.ironmanmagazine.com \ JULY 2008 189

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Legends of Bodybuilding church. Dad was an auto mechanic and owned his own garage. He and I had an excellent relationship, and I enjoyed watching him work.

IM: Younger sister Rejane hit the iron too, correct?

LR: Yes, although more in the way of fitness. After we’d all left home and gone our separate ways, Rejane began training and later appeared with me in several muscle magazines. She opened an exercise studio

ence.

LR: Bodybuilding wasn’t anything I’d ever considered. After graduating, I went to work in an office and had real difficulty making the adjustment.

IM: From active athlete to sedentary in one swoop. Quite a contrast.

LR: Too much of one. Ben Weider was dating Rejane at the time, and when I told him about my situation,

the confidence I gained influenced every aspect of my life.

IM: It’s safe to say you embraced bodybuilding.

LR: Wholeheartedly. Ascending to the next level struck me as a logical step, so I decided to explore my potential and strive to one day earn the Mr. Universe title. Instinctively, I knew there’d be no turning back; I’d reach my goal. Little did I realize it would take a decade.

“I studied each of my muscles to ensure that they were developing proportionately.

A proportioned, balanced physique has always been my goal.”

for women—a groundbreaking endeavor, given the times. And she also had a regular column in Iron Man. IM: Did Rejane turn you on to the gym?

LR: Actually, it was the other way around. I lifted weights before Rejane, and as her older brother I had an influence on her. I loved playing sports. Baseball, soccer and swimming were my favorites. I even took up boxing. Hockey, however, topped the list. As a loyal Montrealer, I founded my own hockey club.

IM: Smacking the puck is far away from putting on a pair of skimpy briefs and pounding out poses in front of an audi-

he recommended I start training with weights. I exercised at home until I was ready for my first trip to the gym. Before long, the powerful feeling that a healthy body delivers overwhelmed me.

IM: Hmm. How exactly does somebody go from feeling better to Mr. Universe?

LR: It didn’t happen overnight, but eventually my physique responded to the rigors of lifting.

What originated as a simple desire to get up and move evolved into a competitive career in natural bodybuilding that spanned more than 10 years. I trained religiously and lived a healthful, balanced lifestyle.

Not only did I have more energy, but

IM: Bodybuilding and sport were rarely used synonymously in the ’50s. Stereotypes abounded, and guys with muscles were given short shrift.

LR: That’s sadly true. Those who didn’t lift couldn’t grasp the commitment competitive bodybuilding demanded. Rejane was always a loyal supporter of my dreams. Peers and friends away from the gym rarely spoke negatively, although very few understood what I was after. Not surprisingly, my closest friends were from the gym.

IM: Did you have a favorite routine?

LR: It involved working out with two training (continued on page 194)

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Legends of Bodybuilding (continued from page 190) partners.

For example, we’d start off with dumbbell curls, doing six reps, using a set of 120s, decreasing the dumbbells by 10 pounds and increasing our reps by one, until we reached 15 reps with 50-pounders. For variation we’d start with lighter weights and begin with higher repetitions, decreasing the reps by one as we progressively increased in weight.

IM: You competed when bodybuilding involved hardcore basics and legitimately earned its name, the iron game.

LR: I was constantly seeking new ways to achieve a fuller range of motion and train muscles at different angles. One of my favorites was the moon bench for presses and pullovers, instrumental in developing the rib cage. While operating my gym, I designed pieces of equipment to complement free weights and standard universal machines.

IM: Supplementation, too, stuck to basics.

LR: Bodybuilders of my era focused on a clean diet, incorporating protein powder, carbs, vitamins and minerals. Juice extractors were popular too; I set up a large juice bar in every gym I owned.

IM: As they do today, guys scoured the mags for tips and bodybuilding programs. A few etched-in-stone training principles have withstood time, but new ones are popping up daily.

Your view?

LR: Much of my generation applied the principles of iron discipline, a phrase I now use as a testament to those days. What I can’t quite fathom is the concept of training only one bodypart per week.

IM: So it wasn’t unusual for you to do a complete workout, say, six days a week?

LR: No, it wasn’t. Today that’s considered overkill, but athletes from other disciplines still apply that formula, and it worked for me.

You get out of it what you’re prepared to put into it. There are no shortcuts.

IM: Part of that is a brandnew diet?

LR: I’m very strict with my diet and use a juice extractor for a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. My daily supplements include protein 194 JULY 2008 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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shakes, a multiple vitamin-andmineral supplement and Udo’s Oil Blend. I toss in lots of whole grains, green salads, fruit, egg, yogurt, fish, chicken and occasionally lean meat.

Gotta go for the organics now. Sleep is still a huge factor for me—I must notch seven to eight hours of Zs every night, or else my body won’t recuperate.

IM: Which brings me to bodybuilding in the 21st century— good or bad?

LR: There’s no denying the effects of steroids. They’ve taken an enormous toll on our athletic community—and not only in bodybuilding.

IM: Along with steroids has come an era of mass monsters.

Pleasing lines, once so important in the competitive arena, have been relegated to the back seat.

LR: Ah, but people are getting weary of grotesque physiques that defy proportion. There’s been a slow but progressive shift, as our society becomes more health conscious. I hope the new attitude will influence bodybuilding in a more positive way.

IM: Your own physique represented an aesthetic ideal. It was an unusual look in the ’50s.

Bodybuilders were “blockier” then, as Steve Reeves so succinctly put it.

LR: Steve was an exceptional athlete. He certainly knew a thing or two about balance. My own symmetry was achieved through a painstaking training schedule involving three-hour workouts, six days a week for 10 years. I never laid off between contests or took a vacation from training. I wanted to be in top shape, ready for the next competition or show.

IM: That kind of do-or-die dedication would leave most folks reaching for the Bengay.

LR: You can’t achieve physical superiority without a little suffering.

Unlike men who are naturally gifted with wide shoulders, my frame was considered average in the beginning. I applied the sound principles of bodybuilding to ultimately achieve a classic physique.

IM: Proportion has always been a Robert trademark.

LR: I studied each of my muscles

to ensure that they were developing proportionately. A proportioned, balanced physique has always been my goal.

IM: I don’t think your physique was weak, from any angle.

LR: Thanks. I concentrated on exercises to open my frame, especially my rib cage, lats and other back muscles. Shoulders were another focal point. To gain mass, I trained with heavy weights and increased the poundages on a regular basis.

I worked all four angles of my muscles, varying grips and adjusting the bench. If I noticed a weakness in any specific area, I zeroed in and zapped it.

IM: Your abs are still solid.

You haven’t lost your edge.

LR: The exercise routine I performed for my midsection isn’t something I’d recommend. It involved placing a 140-pound Olympic barbell behind my neck for situps on an abdominal board. I created a holder for my feet, bolted it into the cement and spent endless hours working my midsection, doing situps, side bends, leg raises with iron boots while hanging from a chinup bar, etc. By using weight resistance during all my abdominal exercises, I forced the muscles to respond. I reached a point where I was doing up to 1,000 situps on an abdominal board within 30 minutes.

IM: The end justifies the means, apparently. A terrificlooking midsection is an undeniable sign of fitness.

LR: Believe it or not, one judge at a contest came onstage and pinched my midsection. In those days we were judged on individual bodyparts, and he wanted to see how thin my skin was. Well, he found out, up close and personal.

IM: When you’re a bodybuilder, much of how you’re perceived stems from the way you present yourself.

LR: Personally, I try to remain humble and treat others the way I would like to be treated. During my competitive days I strived to be a worthy ambassador for the sport.

That wasn’t difficult, since I’m naturally a friendly, gregarious person.

IM: Did hailing from Canada help or hinder you, careerwise?

LR: As a Canadian I sometimes

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Legends of Bodybuilding had to try a little harder when competing alongside my American colleagues. I was, nonetheless, warmly received by stateside audiences whenever and wherever I performed.

IM: Any enticing offers from the U.S.?

LR: Several, and I turned them all down, for one reason or another.

That’s a decision I’ve since come to regret. Because I was so involved with my club in Montreal and busily

organizing bodybuilding contests, I missed several advantageous opportunities.

IM: I’ve interviewed Larry Scott and Chris Dickerson, and one of the things they loved best about competitive bodybuilding was the photo session. Same for you?

LR: I did like having my photo taken, but the shoots called for immense concentration and fortitude. You have to flex at just the

Leo Robert’s Competitive Record 1948 IFBB Mr. Eastern North America, 2nd; Most Muscular, 1st IFBB Eastern North America, Most Muscular, 3rd 1949 IFBB Mr. America, 3rd 1950 AAU Mr. Eastern America, 2nd 1951 IFBB Mr. Canada, 1st 1955 NABBA Mr. Universe, Overall NABBA Mr. Universe, Short, 1st

Leo Robert’s Current Workout Since retiring from the competitive side of bodybuilding, I’ve been lifting for maintenance— particularly in recent years. Still, I occasionally modify my workout and am always tweaking things for optimum results. Here’s my daily routine: Bench presses 3 x 10 Incline dumbbell presses 3 x 10 Dumbbell pullovers 3 x 10 Seated presses (front to back) 3 x 10 3-way lateral raises 3 x 10 Pulldowns 3 x 10 Barbell curls 3 x 10 Triceps extensions 3 x 10 Leg presses 3 x 10 Leg extensions 3 x 10 Leg curls 3 x 10 Side bends and crunches to failure I’ve found that this workout keeps me in good shape and helps me maintain a chiseled waist and balanced proportions.

Keep in mind that diet is very important.

—Leo Robert

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right moment, and it all has to appear natural. Before going into the studio, I’d prepare myself physically and mentally.

IM: What magazine gave you your first cover?

LR: That was Sante et Force, a French Canadian periodical published by Ben Weider. It was absolutely wonderful to land a cover.

The first American cover shots were for Joe Weider’s Your Physique and Muscle Power.

IM: You and Russ Warner did awesome stuff together.

LR: Russ was a pro. His photos captured the essence of what makes a notable physique. Russ had talent for effective lighting and achieving the perfect angle.

IM: And Lanza?

LR: Bar none, Tony Lanza was my favorite photographer and a reliable friend. Again, Joe introduced us, and by way of our photo sessions in Montreal we established a splendid working relationship that developed into a lifelong friendship. Tony immortalized bodybuilding’s golden age, and his photographs stand as works of art. He passed away a few years ago. Sure do miss him.

IM: Did a muscle community exist when you were competing?

LR: Most of my close friends were members of my gym. Joe [Weider] traveled from his office in New Jersey to Montreal once a month and would drop by the club for a workout. I also lifted with Clancy Ross, Jack Dellinger and Reg Park.

IM: You and Reg were pretty tight, right?

LR: I became close friends with Reg, bless his soul, and each time I visited New York, we trained together. Reg appeared as a guest poser at one of the shows I put on in Montreal. I later repaid the favor by appearing on the cover of his magazine.

IM: Cover shots, photo spreads, outstanding press— seems like you had all the P.R. bases covered.

LR: Joe promoted me via his magazines, and I did annual photo sessions with Lanza in Montreal, Warner in California and Lon in New York.

Because of Joe and my public appearances, there were cover shots

for magazines from China, England, France and even Egypt. Along with that I did a few local television commercials and shows and had my photograph in Time.

IM: Besides working on your

competitive career, how were you supporting yourself? I know you don’t like desk jobs.

LR: Since I was always at the gym, I decided to open a club in the north end of Montreal. Plus, my name and image were being used to promote protein powders, equipment and other nutritional and gym products.

IM: Even with a club and endorsement deals, it couldn’t have been easy. Your training alone required a significant amount of time.

LR: Since I’d set my sights early on the Mr. Universe title, I expected to make sacrifices. Training shouldn’t be a struggle. I remained confident, single-minded and— most of all—determined.

IM: You viewed it as an avenue to success, despite the challenges?

LR: Exactly. My attention went into preparing for the Universe. I arrived in London one month prior to contest time and guest-posed at three separate engagements in Leeds, Bristol and London, which helped prepare me for the final showdown. Following my win, I traveled the globe, appearing as a guest poser at dozens of contests and engagements.

IM: Who was in that Universe lineup?

LR: Clancy Ross, who represented the United States, and others from France, Germany, England, Belgium, India, China and Italy.

Many great, classic competitors.

IM: Winning the Mr. Universe title clinched it for you, but it’s not the only jewel in your bodybuilding crown.

LR: I won Mr. Montreal, where I took the title for best midsection and most muscular man. Subsequently, I was awarded Mr. Province of Quebec; Mr. Canada; Most Muscular Man at the IFBB Mr. America; Canada’s Most Muscular Man and America’s Most Muscular Man. IM: How was life after the Universe?

LR: Dramatic. I suddenly found myself a sports celebrity, with requests to appear on television, radio and other engagements. Of course, it bolstered my gym business too. You can’t buy that kind of publicity.

IM: To achieve your dream and stand with the best—what a feeling.

LR: Words can’t describe it. There was so much excitement, including photo shoots and interviews, a huge autographing session outside the London Palladium. I left England the next day and boarded a plane for Montreal, where I was honored in a parade.

IM: Films of your posing show off your flawlessly fluid style.

LR: Whether contestant or guest poser, I understood the need to be in control. That level of confidence is essential to an accomplished performance and the feeling that goes with capturing an audience’s full attention. There was no such thing as going “off-season.” My training and diet remained stable. Gaining extreme amounts of weight and www.ironmanmagazine.com \ JULY 2008 199

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then yo-yo dieting can have quite a negative impact on one’s health. I wouldn’t recommend it.

IM: Your diet isn’t really dieting.

LR: It’s more a way of life. Diet plays an enormous role in helping your body respond to intense training. Over the years I’ve acquired a taste for wholesome foods, and my body has responded in ways beyond the imagination.

IM: You set a high physical standard for yourself. Was it ever reached?

LR: No. I’ve yet to reach perfection. Considering all the muscle groups, their development, size, symmetry, proportion and definition, perfection’s a daunting task.

Setting high standards did inspire me to overcome obstacles that stood in my way. As the Mr. Universe contest approached, I was as close to my goal as I felt humanly possible.

IM: After the mid-’60s, established bodybuilding stars were being replaced by a newer kind of competitor.

LR: My personal departure coincided with an experience I had while appearing as a guest poser at a New York contest held in 1967.

There was buzz around the dressing

room about an under-the-counter substance that could potentially increase muscle mass. I tried not to allow those comments to affect me, but I realized the bodybuilding world I’d known so well was fast becoming history.

IM: That’s the last time you guest-posed?

LR: Yes. Competitive bodybuilding took a path I didn’t want to travel. A few weeks later the contest promoter sent me a letter in recognition of my performance. I’ve held on to it, not only as a memento of that evening but also as a reminder of my decision.

IM: What path did you take?

LR: I devoted my time and energies to helping others achieve their fitness goals. That included training aspiring bodybuilders who later became Mr. Canada, both in the junior and regular divisions, and the Most Muscular in America title. In addition, I worked with the Montreal police academy, military and fire departments. All of it was incredibly rewarding, both professionally and personally.

IM: Were you still running your gyms?

LR: No, I sold them and moved to the West Coast. My wife and I opened a health club connected to a

medical clinic and received referrals from practitioners. I continued to work as a fitness consultant, though we sold that club several years ago.

IM: Give us your opinion of the following statement: The general public views bodybuilding as a sport riddled with illegal drug abuse.

LR: It’s tragic and bluntly honest.

I remain ever hopeful that bodybuilding will return to a time when athletes rely on their own physical prowess and human spirit to become champions.

IM: Have you completed any interesting projects recently?

LR: I’ll say. For the past 4 1/2 years we’ve hosted an international natural weightlifting case study to measure the effects of essential fatty acids on weightlifting performance, health and well-being. The essential fatty acids used are a unique combination of carefully chosen, naturally unrefined oils known as Udo’s Oil Blend, formulated by international fats authority and lecturer Dr. Udo Erasmus. Its health benefits are a revelation.

IM: I ask this of every legend: If I were a young, dewy-eyed bodybuilder, would you discourage or encourage me from pursuing competition?

LR: Discourage? No. I would recommend you avoid the awful cycle of extreme dieting, dehydration and overtraining when preparing for a contest. Choose to train all year round and make healthy eating a lifestyle. That goes for everyone, not just bodybuilders. It’s a plan for wholesome living.

IM: How’s RobertUniverse .com doing?

LR: I want to express my gratitude to all our fans and patrons. We launched it early in 2001, and traffic continues to grow.

IM: Obviously, you’re never far from the weights. We should all look so good, at any age.

LR: Consistent training has afforded me untold benefits, not the least of which has been a long and rewarding life. Lifting weights was one of the best choices I could ever have made.

Editor’s note: Leo Robert’s Web site is www.RobertUniverse.com. IM www.ironmanmagazine.com \ JULY 2008 201

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“I’ll

Be

” Back!

Victor Martinez’s Leg Injury Is Only a Minor Obstacle in His Assault on the Olympia Throne

by Rafael Norat

V

ictor Martinez, bodybuilding’s fastest-rising star, had enough momentum going into the ’08 bodybuilding season to steamroller the competition. His first stop would be Columbus, Ohio, on March 1, when he would successfully defend his title at the Arnold Schwarzenegger Classic. Then it was going to be full speed ahead to the Olympia to take what was rightfully his. And this time he wouldn’t leave anything to chance.

Then the unimaginable happened—the only thing that could have stopped Victor other than a bullet. He suffered a serious injury. The news spread like wildfire through the bodybuilding world. Everyone was speculating about what had happened and whether Victor would have to sit out the Arnold, which was just six weeks away.

The first confirmed report was posted the next day. Basically, the people’s champion and socalled uncrowned Mr. Olympia had torn his patella tendon and was going to need surgery. He would have to withdraw from the Arnold Classic and would be concentrating on the Mr. Olympia competition.

The news sent even more shock waves through the bodybuilding community. Despite statements to the contrary, people wondered if he’d have to miss the Olympia as well as the Arnold.

Could it be a career-ending injury?

It was perhaps the most career-threatening injury ever to happen to a Mr. Olympia hopeful.

Everyone had predicted that Victor was a shoo-in

for a repeat victory in Columbus, and everyone but him was already looking past the Arnold to September, when Victor would get his chance to redeem himself after his controversial loss to Jay Cutler at the ’07 Olympia and lay claim to the crown.

Such a blow would set any athlete back not just physically but also mentally. There Victor was, in the prime of his career, the reigning Arnold Classic champion, and a freak accident like this hit him like a freight train. One would expect him to be filled with uncertainty. Shockingly, he’s not.

In fact, he seems more focused and determined than ever to make his mark as one of the best bodybuilders of all time. The package Victor presented at the Olympia certainly would qualify as one of his best ever, but Victor doesn’t want to be a “one-hit wonder,” he said. He’s determined to prove that not only can he get to the very top, but he can stay there as well. Once you read what Victor has to say, you’ll have a better understanding of why he is such a remarkable champion.

RN: Let’s start with your injury. I understand you trained legs heavy without any problems on Sunday and then on Wednesday blew out your tendon doing lunges.

How the hell did that happen?

VM: I guess there was a lot of tissue damage in the area. I was having pain in the area during my leg workouts, but I just pushed through it. Dealing with pain is a part of the game. I guess the tendon was so damaged, it just gave on me. www.ironmanmagazine.com \ JULY 2008 207

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Victor Martinez

“Believe me, I’m only going to come back bigger and better. I’ve overcome many other challenges before, and they’ve all made me stronger.”

RN: What’s the prognosis? Will you be back for the Olympia?

VM: The prognosis is, I’ll be back, and I’ll be bigger and better.

RN: You’ll be ready to even the score at the Olympia?

VM: Right now, that’s the plan, but I’m going to take it one day at a time. I was fortunate to have a great surgeon, and my recovery is coming along fast. I’m going through aggressive rehabilitation and loading up on nutrients to speed the recovery.

RN: You sound optimistic.

What do you think your mindset will be down the road?

VM: My mind-set will be even better. Believe me, I’m only going to come back bigger and better. I’ve overcome many other challenges, and they’ve all made me stronger.

The past few years have been a real turning point for me. I endured many big challenges and a lot of obstacles, but I know where I want to go and what I have to do to get

there.

People have always counted me out, so I’m used to it. They used to say I had potential but would never be able to put it all together to win a pro show. Then, after I won my first pro show, they said I wouldn’t be able to be consistent enough to be a good pro. Even after I won the ’07 Arnold Classic, some critics said I wouldn’t be able to hit my peak again for the Olympia. Yet I even surpassed my Arnold conditioning.

So I thrive on being the underdog.

Plus, my close friends, family and many loyal fans keep me motivated.

The most important thing is to believe in yourself and not set limitations, only expectations. I’m going to turn this setback into a positive and challenge myself to overcome it. Ten years from now, when I look back, I’ll reflect on this as a critical point in my life. Hopefully, it will be a good example for others who encounter difficult situations.

My focus now is to rehab my injury and get back into the gym as quickly as possible. I am in total command of my destiny. I have my training and nutrition down to a science. I’ve already begun to formulate my comeback strategy.

RN: I don’t want to rub salt in a wound, but I heard you were looking incredible for the Arnold with six weeks to go.

VM: My Arnold Classic preparation was going great. I felt better than ever. Last year was a great one for me. Winning the Arnold Classic was tremendous, and even though losing a close and controversial decision at the ’07 Mr. Olympia was disappointing, it wasn’t discouraging. In fact, it made me even more determined to come back better in 2008. I was looking forward to defending my crown at the Arnold.

After the Olympia I never got more than 20 pounds over my competition weight. I knew I would have to be totally dialed in for the Arnold and even be sharper than I was at the Olympia. I didn’t want to leave any doubts in the judges’ minds or have them say I wasn’t as ripped as I’d been for the Olympia. At the time of my injury I was 262 pounds and only about 10 to 12 pounds over my target contest weight of 250. I was ready.

My contest preparation for this year’s Arnold wasn’t much differ-

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Victor Martinez’s Victory Diet Morning DREN, 1 capsule Glutamine-SR, 6 grams (1 scoop) Cardio (45 minutes on stepper or treadmill) “I take DREN before my cardio session for a jolt of energy, and it really gets me into a state of heightened euphoria for my cardio session. The euphoria and thermogenic feelings last for hours, far longer than any other fat burner I’ve tried. The time-released GlutamineSR helps prevent catabolism during my cardio and for 12 straight hours, which is critical. The last thing I want to do is burn muscle.”

Meal 1 SARM-X, 1 tablet T-Bomb II, 3 tablets Probolic-SR, 3 scoops (60 grams of protein) Oatmeal, 1 cup “T-Bomb II and SARM-X are the ultimate test stack for a surge in strength and mass gains. The Probolic contains fast-acting whey protein that immediately starts feeding my muscles and the medium- and slow-absorbing proteins soy and casein that keep supplying aminos to my body. But the real advantage is Probolic-SR’s patented 12-hour-release technology, which ensures my muscles are being fed critical aminos through the day. I have oatmeal as my slow-absorbing carb source.”

Meal 2 Activite, 2 tablets Chicken, 12 ounces Rice, 1 cup “I eat chicken for its high protein and little to no fat to help keep me lean. Rice is the carbohydrate source I use to keep my glycogen stores full. Activite is the perfect multivitamin for bodybuilders. Its patented enzyme blend, Anabolase, helps me better use aminos. It also helps me better use my carbs and helps buffer lactic acid, and it provides me with the vital vitamins, minerals and antioxidants my body needs to function optimally and recover faster.”

Meal 3 Steak, 12 ounces Vegetables, 1 cup “Steak provides me with a different amino acid profile from chicken and fish. I always find it good to get your protein from various sources. Vegetables are great sources of fiber and antioxidants; your parents don’t tell you to eat them for nothing!”

Preworkout Trac-Extreme, 1 scoop A-Bomb, 4 tablets

“Trac-Extreme gives me incredible energy, pumps and creatine to help send my strength and size gains through the roof. With Trac-Extreme I know that every workout is going to be a great one. I take A-Bomb before my workout as well because it’s a great anabolic-and-anticatabolic formula. It contains branched-chain amino acids and essential aminos, as well as other ingredients that ensure I stay in an anabolic state.”

Postworkout Dark Matter, 1 serving “Dark Matter helps give me an instant insulin spike, swelling my muscles with glycogen and rapidly delivering vital amino acids and creatine to immediately start the muscle-building and recovery processes.”

Meal 4: Postworkout (1 hour after) Probolic-SR, 3 scoops SARM-X, 1 tablet T-Bomb II, 3 tablets “I take Sarm-X and T-Bomb II again to give me a testosterone surge throughout the rest of the evening, and Probolic’s fast-, medium- and slow-absorbing proteins ensure that my muscles are being fed until my next meal and beyond.”

Meal 5 Activite, 2 tablets Steak, 12 ounces Vegetables, 1 cup “I eat steak again because it’s my favorite food-protein source. I keep my carbs low for the rest of the day, so I only eat veggies here. I also take Activite again.”

Meal 6 Probolic-SR, 3 scoops Glutamine-SR, 6 grams (1 scoop) “Having Probolic and Glutamine-SR as my last meal ensures that my muscles will never go hungry for amino acids and that I’ll be in a constant anabolic state throughout the night due to the 12-hour time-release technology.”

Before Bed Secretagogue-One, 1 packet Cyclin-GF, 4 capsules “This combo makes you grow while you sleep by maximizing the growth, recovery and hormone release. The Cyclin helps put me into deep anabolic sleep, jacking my test, growth hormone and IGF levels. I’m actually building muscle while I sleep. The Secretagogue helps optimize GH output, which is key for recovery, building muscle and losing bodyfat.

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“I have pretty much figured out my body and the formula of diet, training and supplementation that works.”

ent from what I did last year. I have pretty much figured out my body and the formula of diet, training and supplementation that works.

With each show I learn a little more and refine my program. These slight modifications and the addition of some new MHP products have enabled me to make improvements with each show over the past few years.

For this year’s Arnold I started my precontest prep leaner than I have ever started before, thanks to DREN. I’m not going to let myself get too heavy in the off-season. Starting out leaner makes my preparation easier and lets me coast into my show. I won’t have to do any drastic calorie cutting or hours of cardio. I can dial it in without sacrificing muscle. As contest time approaches, if I need to cut down my calories a little and step up the cardio sessions, I’ll do that.

RN: What about your diet and supplementation?

VM: My diet is pretty basic. I keep the protein pretty high throughout the day over six meals—three food meals and three MHP Probolic-SR protein shakes. I eat most of my

carbs in meal 1 and meal 2. Then postworkout I drink Dark Matter, which gives me the fast-absorbing carb load and influx of aminos and creatine I need after training. As the contest gets closer, I cut back on my carb intake if need be.

As you can see, I rely heavily on MHP supplements. I was not a big supplement user earlier in my career, but that was a mistake. In 2005 I began an extensive supplement regimen, and it has made a big difference. It’s no coincidence that my bodybuilding career has skyrocketed since I began using MHP supplements.

RN: You take in a lot of food and supplements. What if someone didn’t want to take all that?

What would you suggest?

VM: As far as the food goes, I have no choice but to eat that much. It’s what I need to maintain my muscle mass. Of course, depending on how much you weigh and how hard you train, you need to adjust the quantities of those meals. But stick to the basic food selections.

As far as the supplements go, they all have a benefit, especially at the level at which I train and compete.

If I had to narrow it down, I would say Probolic-SR, TRAC ExtremeNO, Dark Matter and T-Bomb II are the essentials. With those you have all your major bases covered: the most advanced protein, the most powerful preworkout formula, the ultimate postworkout formula and by far the best test booster available.

And, of course, all bodybuilders should take a quality multivitamin, and there is none better than MHP’s Activite.

RN: Thanks for sharing your contest prep secrets with us.

Your plan definitely seems to work. I hope you’ll make a full and fast recovery and that we’ll see you back onstage soon.

VM: You will. I still have some goals to achieve, and I plan on achieving them. I really want to thank all of my fans for being so supportive. The e-mails you send add more fuel to my fire. Don’t worry, I’ll be back!

Editor’s note: For more information on Victor’s supplement recommendations, call (888) 783-8844, or visit www.GetMHP.com. IM www.ironmanmagazine.com \ JULY 2008 211

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Mariusz Pudzianowski prepares to hold the pillars of Hercules in his bid for a fourth World’s Strongest Man title.

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Met-Rx

World’s Strongest Man Qualifier The Planet’s Mightiest Beasts Compete for the Big Showdown Report and Photography by Larry Eklund

I

t was a hot September day in Southern California, nothing unusual except that it was hotter than normal—but it wasn’t just the heat. On this day, September 15, 2007, in Anaheim, history was about to be made as 25 of the world’s strongest men prepared for the first day of qualifying events for the Met-Rx World’s Strongest Man finals.

Phil Pfister, the reigning World’s Strongest Man champion, had his work cut out for him. There were 24 other men from across the globe more than willing to take his title away. The contestants were placed into five groups of five: Group 1: Darren Sadler of the United Kingdom; Dominic Filiou of Canada; Elbrus Nigmatullin of Russia; Phil Pfister of the USA; Tarmo Mitt of Estonia Group 2: Don Pope of the USA; Karl Gillingham of the USA; Mark Westaby of the United

Kingdom; Sebastian Wenta of Poland; Stoyan Todorchev of Bulgaria Group 3: Derek Boyer of Australia; Florian Trimpl of Germany; Jarek Dymek of Poland; Kevin Nee of the USA; Mark Felix of the United Kingdom Group 4: Boris Haraldsson of Iceland; Dave Ostlund of the USA; Janne Virtanen of Finland; Jimmy Marku of the United Kingdom; Mariusz Pudzianowski of Poland Group 5: Jason Bergmann of the USA; Magnus Samuelsson of Sweden; Raivis Vidzis of Austria; Richard Skog of Norway; Terry Hollands of the United Kingdom Officiating as the head referee for the events was the incomparable Colin Bryce, and helping with the refereeing and technical advice, along with being in charge of

setting up all events, was two-time WSM winner and international movie star Jouko Ahola. Commentators for the televised events were the legendary Bill Kazmaier (three-time WSM winner) and the newly retired Sven Karlsen (’01 WSM winner). Kazmaier would be the voice of the USA ESPN programs and Karlsen of the European broadcasts.

For four days these contestants competed within their groups, striving to push themselves toward their personal bests in a variety of tasks meant to humble the titans of legend. Once the dust settled, only the top two in each group would qualify for the WSM finals, being held the following weekend. Four days of all-out exertion with only two days of rest before competing in the finals called for some strong backs and strategy. An athlete needed to compete at close to his best in order to qualify but not deplete his body so much that he could not recover in time to win in the finals. www.ironmanmagazine.com \ JULY 2008 215

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World Strong Man

Stoyan Todorchev outpaces Karl Gillingham at the start of the barrel carry.

Day 1 The first day of the qualifiers consisted of a medley of the farmer’s walk and the barrel carry. The contestants had 75 seconds to carry a 265-pound anvil in each hand 10 meters to the barrels and then carry two barrels (one at a time) to the finish line. The barrels in the carry were 220 pounds to be carried for 12 meters and 245 pounds for 10 meters. Both barrels were half filled

Elbrus Nigmatullin of Russia. with water to make them even more cumbersome. Groups 1 and 2 used the anvils, and then the implement was changed over to a single 495pound weight, which groups 3, 4 and 5 carried in a duck walk.

In group 1, Elbrus Nigmatullin, who appeared to be the smallest competitor in the group, placed first. Darren Sadler of England had a hard time with the last barrel, as did the huge Canadian Dominic Filiou. Speed was the problem for both Tarmo Mitt and Phil

Pfister, which landed them in fourth and fifth place, respectively, in the event.

Don Pope and Karl Gillingham started off group 2 in the farmer’s walk and barrel carry medley. Karl seemed a bit off his best, and it cost him in the placings; he came in fifth. Pope earned first with his first showing of the day, while massive Mark Westaby took second, with Sebastian Wenta third and Stoyan Todorchev fourth.

Watching the contestants power through the event, I was impressed by the sportsmanship exhibited by all. As many of the others did, Mark Felix (group 3) won his heat, then turned to fellow competitors Kevin Nee Germany’s Florian Trimpl (left) and England’s Mark Felix (below) prepare at the starting line.

Duck walk (from left): Pudzianowski, Janne Virtanen and Dave Ostlund.

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Magnus Samuelsson hoists the Fingal fingers.

Tarmo Mitt of Estonia battles England’s Darren Sadler.

Sadler pulls the 490-pound finger.

and Jarek Dymek and shouted encouragement to keep them going.

As each crossed the finish line, Felix congratulated him. The competitors in the WSM all want to win.

More important, though, is doing their best, challenging themselves and one another to compete at their highest level. That makes the strongman events fun to compete in and exciting to watch.

The first two athletes up in group 4 were Boris Haraldsson of Iceland and Jimmy Marku of England. When they’d finished, Boris was bleeding from the nose and had just edged past Marku for what would end up being fourth.

The remaining group 4 athletes were the ones everyone was eager to watch, and energy was running high. The athletes not competing in

that group, including those who’d already had their turn, went into the audience to get as good a view as possible of two prior WSM winners, Janne Virtanen and Mariusz Pudzianowski, and the mighty Dave Ostlund of the USA, who’d defeated Mariusz in the Venice Beach Super Series. It was the first event with Mariusz competing, and everyone wanted to see how he was going to do. He wanted to take his title back from Pfister so he could become the third person in history to earn four WSM titles. He did not disappoint. As cameras flashed and the fans yelled encouragement to their favorites, Pudzianowski ran through the course showing everyone present that he was prepared to win.

Britain’s Strongest Man Terry Hollands came to the event weigh-

ing in at about 385 (down from his weight of 410 in the Norway Super Series), hoping that would give him a bit more speed and endurance.

He’d be going up against the powerful Swede Magnus Samuelsson in group 5. Twenty-nine-year-old Jason Bergmann from Wisconsin was to go head to head with the two veterans, plus Raivis Vidzis of Austria and Richard Skog of Norway.

Hollands’ preparation paid off, as he finished first, with Magnus a close second. Newcomer Bergman, who’d brought his own very vocal fan club, consisting of a very proud mother and two brothers, placed fourth in the event.

The second event of the first day was the Fingal fingers—five long poles weighing 444, 490, 550, 605 and 660 pounds. The contestant starts with the lightest first, flipping it over 180 degrees before moving on to the next heavier pole. The athlete who flips the most poles with the best time wins. Sounds easy; keep in mind that it takes three or four average people to pick up and push over what these strongmen must do individually.

In group 1, Pfister made it look easy. Dominic Filiou started strong but had a problem with his hands slipping out from under the second pole. Tarmo Mitt was in the lead during his meet against Sadler until the last pole gave him some pause and Darren was able to catch up and win. Groups 2 and 4 didn’t have to compete in the Fingal fingers.

In group 3 Derek Boyer and Kevin Nee were able to flip only the first two poles. Mark Felix stopped at (continued on page 220) the fourth www.ironmanmagazine.com \ JULY 2008 217

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World Strong Man (continued from page 217) pole, and there was some concern that Jarek Dymek might have injured himself when he lost his footing. He twisted awkwardly on his ankle and had to restart on that particular pole. By all appearances, though, it was a temporary setback because he continued without any further limitations.

Group 5 saw a rematch of Magnus of Sweden and Terry of England. Magnus was a bit behind Terry until the fourth finger, when Magnus came up with a burst of power and went on to win the heat. Jason Bergmann had a good showing, with only the 660-pound fifth pole giving him some trouble.

Day 2 Phil Pfister set the atmosphere for the day’s events during the Hercules hold. This event, based on the closing scene of the Steve Reeves movie “Hercules,” features pillars weighing 353 pounds each. The pillars are hoisted into position by a forklift and held in the ready position by a heavy chain-and-pulley system.

Each champion of might adjusts the handles for his best grip; then the

signal is given, and the pulleys are released, immediately hitting the contestant with a force capable of tearing his arms out of their sockets.

The contestant must hold the leaning pillars, one in each hand, for as long as possible. It’s a game of mind over matter and a game of strategy in that you have to estimate how long you must hold against the pulling forces of the pillars compared to the other contestants.

Pfister, the defending champion and a towering bear of a man, stood between the pillars, his face calm and relaxed. He did not want to hear the time called out. He was concentrating on the hold, a blond statue, immobile, chained between two pillars, and he stayed that way for a good amount of time. Gradually a smile crept across his face, his eyes opened staring out into the

crowd, and he bellowed a challenge to all. Pfister continued to yell to the crowd and challengers until finally he just let go with, “That should be enough.” Then he stepped down from the stage. His time: 58.04 seconds.

Tarmo Mitt garnered a decent 52.9 seconds without any fanfare.

Derek Boyer and Kevin Nee had trouble from the start, both showing the strain after 10 seconds. Nee apparently didn’t get the correct adjustment with his right hand as the pillar started pulling from his grip almost immediately.

Mark Felix stepped up to the

Gillingham (right) loses his grip in the Hercules hold.

Trimpl (below) gives it his all.

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World Strong Man stage and prepared himself for the challenge. The pillars were released, and Mark went into a trance. He held the pillars without apparent strain until he looked up and over at his left hand. His eyes wide in disbelief, his left hand was slowly being pulled open. He was fighting it all the way to the final release, but his hand would not hang on any longer. Much to his, and the other competitors’ surprise, he finished with 57.64 seconds. Very respectable, but not up to Mark’s ability. Mark would later tell me that he must have pinched a nerve in his arm or incurred some similar injury, because he could normally hold that weight with little difficulty.

Mariusz Pudzianowski readied himself for the event by having his coach oil him up while the others in his group took their turns. Mariusz walked to the stage, his massive chest and arms glistening in the sun. He could as easily have been walking to pose in the Mr. Olympia as hold the pillars of Hercules. He held for 46.93 seconds.

After all the groups had taken their torture under the pillars, it would be Florian Trimpl of Germany who endured the longest, his time 60.37 seconds.

The overhead log lift consists of a 275-pound log being lifted and locked out overhead as many times as possible in 70 seconds. Groups 4 and 5 performed that event, with Mariusz winning handily by completing 18 lifts. There was a video replay involving Raivis Vidzis, and the referees judged that Raivis did in fact complete the contested rep, which gave him 12. It was a tough, end-of-day event, with most of the athletes completing 11 to 13 reps.

Day 3 A beautiful and vibrant morning greeted everyone the following day with the Queen Mary as the backdrop for the next portion of the competition: the deadlift. It required each athlete to complete as many repetitions (up to seven) in as short a time as possible. Starting weight was 584 pounds. For each repetition completed, a 30-pound barrel was added to the platform for

Trimpl completes his sixth rep in the barrel deadlift.

Don Pope (right) of the USA powers through the barrel squat. the next rep. The maximum weight was 759 pounds.

Phil Pfister chose to only do two repetitions in order to save his strength for later.

The Polish dynamic duo of Mariusz and Jarek cheered the American Kevin Nee on to seven reps in 29.97 seconds. Jarek himself completed the required seven repetitions, as did Derek Boyer, Jason Bergmann, Raivis Vidzis and Magnus Samuelsson.

Magnus chose to perform barefoot and with no straps. His technique, possibly to save his back but still get the full reps, was to stand up straight between reps before diving down to grab the bar and explode up again. That slowed his time considerably, and he came in at 38.57.

Mark Felix was back in form and not only did the required seven reps but threw in an additional three as the crowd cheered him on. His time was 28.39. That stood as the best time for both groups until the massive Terry Hollands grabbed the bar.

Hollands was like a man possessed.

He hefted the deadlift contraption up and down so fast, Jouko Ahola was having a tough time getting the barrels on it quickly enough for the next rep. Hollands’ time for the seven reps was an astonishing 26.99 seconds.

Performed with the same barrel-

Pudzianowski flexes for the crowd. loading apparatus as the deadlift, the squat lift was the next test of strength and endurance. With the same weight, time limit and maximum reps as they had for the deadlift, the athletes had to execute as many repetitions in the fastest time.

Bill Kazmaier took a special interest in Don Pope’s performance and was very pleased with Pope’s seven reps in 34.9 seconds. Karl Gillingham wasn’t having a good day. He had to restart because the apparatus had gotten out of alignment and prevented the required full movement

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Overhead safe lift: Mark Felix and Kevin Nee.

Determination: Jason Bergman (above) in the barrel lift.

Samuelsson (left) powers up 275 pounds in the log press— for reps.

of the repetition. That obviously disrupted his concentration, and he was able to complete only three reps. Because of his height Sebastian Wenta also had some problems with the equipment. At 6’7” he didn’t feel he was getting the correct adjustment on the bar, and that limited his performance to only four repetitions.

It was Boris Haraldsson’s turn at the squat lift when someone noticed there was no Iceland flag hanging from the poles behind the squat stage. That caused a bit of a delay while the stagehands set about finding the missing flag. Boris, however, was not deterred. He completed the seven reps with a time of 22.87. Dave Ostlund, also 6’7”, and Janne Virtanen did not appear to have trouble with the height adjustment and were able to get six and seven repetitions, respectively. Jimmy Marku beat out Mariusz Pudzianowski’s seven-rep time of 21.38, completing his seven reps in 20.83.

The overhead safe lift pitted two athletes at a time against each other two with a 75-second time limit. The lift consisted of two heavy steel safes attached to adjustable poles with a

bar between the poles for the athletes to hoist over their heads into a locked-out position. The whole apparatus weighs in at approximately 254 pounds. The object is to lift the weight overhead as many times as possible within the time limit.

That weight may seem light compared to the 275-pound log lift, but it’s a much harder event because safes swing as they hang from the bar—competitors have to put the weight down after each rep in order to stop the swing, pick it back up with as little swing as possible and press it overhead while trying to control the motion of the safes. Not an easy task.

Group 1’s Phil Pfister was able to get 16 reps, while Tarmo Mitts completed 18. Jarek Dymek left everybody in group 3 in the dust with 17 reps. The closet were Mark Felix and Kevin Nee, with 12 reps each. Group 2’s Sebastian Wenta was the overall winner in the event with 19 repetitions.

Day 4 The keg toss and Atlas stones were the final two qualifying events,

held at picturesque Huntington Beach just south of the pier.

With the Southern California sun beating down on their broad backs, the athletes heaved 50pound water-filled kegs over a 13-foot wall, aiming to throw 10 kegs within 90 seconds.

Technique, speed and endurance were the necessary skills.

Fatigue from the previous days of exertion and heat was starting to set in on several of the competitors.

Following the keg toss was the crowd favorite: Atlas stones. Five stones—weighing 220, 243, 265, 309 and 353 pounds—were heaved up onto their respective pedestals as quickly as the straining backs of the athletes allowed. As the beautiful Huntington Beach bunnies cheered the competitors on, Boris Haraldsson of Iceland was motivated enough to turn in a fantastic time of 21.81 seconds. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to qualify him for the coming finals.

At the end of four very hot, growling days of straining muscle and Herculean feats, Tarmo Mitts, Sebastian Wenta, Mark Felix, Mariusz Pudzianowski, Phil Pfister, Magnus Samuelsson, Terry Hollands, Kevin Nee, Dave Ostlund and Don Pope qualified for the Met-Rx World’s Strongest Man finals. The 10 extraordinary athletes would have just two days to fuel up and recuperate before once again challenging each other in titanic feats of strength for the title of the ’07 World’s Strongest Man and a purse of more than $42,000. Watch for that report next month. IM www.ironmanmagazine.com \ JULY 2008 223

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Muscle “In” Sites If you find something on the Web that IM readers should know about, send the URL to Eric at bodyfx2@aol.com.

>www.QuincyTaylor.net If you look up the word big in the dictionary, you’re likely to find a definition similar to the following: “above average in size, number, quantity, magnitude or extent.” While that description certainly fits most bodybuilders on the planet (wait, are there bodybuilders on other planets?), there are freaks who walk among us in need of more colorful phrases to express the extent of their mass. Quincy Taylor is one such man, and to call him big is like calling the sun tepid or Jenny Lynn cute. Sorry, such words will not suffice. You see, Quincy is not just big but freakishly humongous or substantially mountainous.

His site lists his height as 6’4” and his off-season weight as 360 pounds. Yes, you read that correctly—he should have his own ZIP code. It’s like two middleweight bodybuilders morphing together into one walking skyscraper. And if you think Q.T. is fat at that weight, you’d be mistaken. There is a photo on his stats page showing him at a mere 335, with six-pack abs and a pretty tight waist, so at 360 I guarantee he is still fairly lean, which sounds utterly ludicrous. For sheer size, Quincy is currently unmatched in the IFBB, in my opinion. What’s even more amazing is that he sports excellent proportions, symmetry and overall aesthetics despite being so large and that he dials in his conditioning with the best of them, displaying striations from head to toe and density galore. Check out his extensive photo gallery, and you’ll see what I mean.

Quincy’s career in pro bodybuilding has certainly been an uphill battle, but he seems to be climbing higher each year. I think he can eventually break through into the coveted Olympia top 10 if he remains passionate about the sport and his training. Q.T. is not just a bodybuilder, however, but an accomplished actor as well, having appeared in commercials, music videos and even feature films.

Click the “acting” link on the home page to see the complete list. In addition, his site contains downloadable wallpapers, videos, a complete contest history and an overview of his training style. It’s a very complete Web site that’s worth a look. My only recommendation is that if you ever see Quincy in person, avoid standing next to him for too long—it’s not good for your ego. I did that at the most recent Arnold Classic and felt like a Miata beside a Mack truck.

Merv

MUSCLE “IN” SITES MUSCLE “IN” SITES MUSCLE “IN” SITES MUSCLE “IN” SITES MUSCLE “IN” SITES MUSCLE “IN” SITES MUSCLE “IN” SITES MUSCLE “IN” SITES MUSCLE “IN” SITES MUSCLE “IN”” SITES MUSCLE “IN” SITES

Eric Broser’s

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Neveux \ Model: Mariza Prince

>www.IronManMagazine.com/media/videos.php Looking for a little entertainment? Try surfing to the address above. It will take you to IRON MAN magazine’s video library, where you’ll find a visual feast that includes some of the most gorgeous women in the fitness industry training and posing in tiny, sexy outfits, contest reports, interviews and more. I just got finished watching some highlights from the ’08 IRON MAN Pro, where Phil Heath dominated the field, but I must admit that I spent a bit more time viewing the videos of beauties Jamie Eason, Marzia Prince, Carmen Garcia and Dina Al-Sabah (hey, it’s good for a testosterone boost!). But, of course, that was for research purposes only (not!).

>Book Review: German Body Comp Program There’s more than one solution to any problem—and when it comes to physique transformation, different solutions will sometimes yield better results for different people. If the traditional method of bodyfat loss (weight training plus a lot of cardio work) hasn’t proved successful for you, give the German Body Comp system a try.

Developed by world-renowned strength and conditioning coach Charles Poliquin and based on research from a top German exercise scientist, the protocol uses specific and unique resistancetraining workouts designed to stimulate maximum natural growth hormone and peak metabolism.

Charles shows you how you can build muscle and lose a significant amount of bodyfat at the same time through weight training and proper diet alone. In fact, one subject working under his guidance gained 11.5 pounds of lean muscle and shaved off 4.32 percent of his bodyfat in just six weeks. That sounds good to me. I give you fair warning, however. Charles’ training methods

aren’t for the weak of heart or mind. If you decide to give GBC training a go, be prepared to work harder than you ever have before. Oh, yeah, and bring a bucket.

Editor’s note: German Body Comp Program

by Charles Poliquin is available from Home Gym Warehouse, (800) 447-0008 or visit www.HomeGym.com.

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Eric Broser’s >Net

in order to stimulate different muscle fibers and growth mechanisms. Using variety in training will bring you more long-term progress.

Results Q&A

The Power/Rep Range/Shock innovator answers your questions on training and nutrition.

Q. I normally train pretty heavy, in the four-toseven-rep range on almost everything. That’s helped me build quite a bit of muscle; however, in eight weeks I’m going to compete in my first bodybuilding show, and I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be going with higher reps to cut up.

What is best at this point?

Neveux \ Model: Daryl Gee

A. It amazes me that the myth of “high reps for cutting and low reps for building” still circulates throughout the bodybuilding community. I guess some stories simply die hard.

My advice is rather simple, although twofold.

Since the goal of any competitor is to retain as much hard-earned muscle as possible while at the same time to lose the majority of his or her bodyfat, it only makes sense to use the methods that work best for the task at hand. If heavy Don’t always go heavy. Using training gives you variety in your training brings the best growth more long-term progress. results, it will also aid you in retaining muscle while dieting. Simply changing over to higher reps (and what that means has to be defined) will not improve your cuts and definition and will more than likely result in muscle loss. To decrease bodyfat you need to carefully and progressively cut calories and increase your aerobic activity.

That said, I do suggest that you begin to incorporate into your training some intensity techniques, such as drop sets and supersets, which will increase lactic acid and natural growth hormone output. GH is a very powerful fat-burning hormone, and the more you have in your bloodstream, the faster you lose bodyfat. In addition, intensity techniques stimulate postworkout calorie burn, which aids in hastened fat loss.

So the take-home message is to keep training heavy but with more intensity, and let your diet and aerobic work take care of the bodyfat (for the most part).

One last point about your workouts: You’ll most likely find that the four-to-seven-rep range will begin to provide “diminishing returns,” as your central nervous system and muscles adapt to it. Don’t be afraid to explore some of the higher-rep ranges on occasion

Q. If you could choose only five supplements to use for the rest of your bodybuilding career, what would they be and why?

A. That’s an interesting question but rather easy for me to answer because for most of the year I use only about five supplements anyway. I add a few specialized supplements when preparing for a competition or an extremely intense stretch of training (such as my FDFS protocol). Here’s my choice for the five supplements that I would use almost 365 days per year: 1) Multivitamin-and-mineral. This is to make sure I’m meeting all of my micronutrient needs, as cooking often compromises the vitamin-and-mineral content of food. Intense training, stress and environmental factors cause a lot of free-radical damage, which is why I seek out products high in antioxidants or add an antioxidant blend to my basic multi.

2) Creatine and beta-alanine. I try to use a supplement that contains both of these highly effective and thoroughly researched performance enhancers, since they work from two distinct physiological angles and are quite synergistic with each other. Creatine increases creatine phosphate inside muscle cells, which hastens ATP resynthesis, bringing greater strength and power. It also helps volumize muscle cells, which creates a more efficient anabolic state.

Beta-alanine combines with histidine to increase muscle carnosine levels, which has been shown to dramatically improve endurance, delay neuromuscular fatigue and raise the anabolic threshold by buffering muscle acidity.

3) L-leucine. More and more research points to the fact that leucine is the most anabolic and anticatabolic of all the amino acids, acting primarily through the mTOR pathway. Leucine greatly increases protein synthesis independent of insulin and has even shown powerful fat-loss properties by stimulating greater production of uncoupling protein 3.

4) L-glutamine. I use anywhere from 15 to 40 grams a day of this amino acid, depending on the time of year. Glutamine helps release growth hormone, increases nitrogen retention, staves off muscle wasting and gives a powerful boost to the immune system.

5) Essential fatty acids. I supplement my diet daily with a properly balanced EFA supplement. EFAs are essential for enhancing overall health, hormone production, fat burning, mood, insulin sensitivity, skin and hair, and myriad other important functions. IM

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LONNIE TEPER’S

N&V Mailbag

Dear L.T.

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Photography by Lonnie Teper and Merv

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Alex Azarian.

Alex Azarian

Much of the mail I get comes from aspiring bodybuilders who have two main questions: What’s the best route to take to get to the pros, and how can I get a contract with a supplement company? I always respond with the title of one of my favorite oldies: “Get a Job.” Well, more specifically, get an education, and then get a job. A good, steady one at that. Don’t drive yourself wacko with contest prep; concentrate on, as the title of one reality show declares, “The Real World.”

Irrational is too mild a word to describe folks who have only the above two goals in mind. How many people will end up on a pro stage? How many will be paid good money to endorse L.T. and PCC’s products? And, assuming someone does advance to the flexDr. Paulette for-pay game, how many will earn more than pocket change?

Perfumo.

For every Jay Cutler, Ronnie Coleman, Dexter Jackson and Victor Martinez making big-time booty, there are countless others who will never come close to high-end status. That doesn’t mean you can’t be a bodybuilder for the love of the game. Bodybuilding is the greatest activity in the world; when pursued as a healthful lifestyle, it brings endless rewards, beginning with improved self-esteem.

Alex Azarian, the ’06 USA Lightweight champion, is a great example of somebody who has all his ducks in a row. He earned his degree in kinesiology from California State University, Northridge, in 1997 and has been an elementary-school adapted P.E. instructor for several years. He’s also a family man, married to Nga L.T. introduces the students to a Azarian, one of the premier photogs in the business, great magazine. and father to adorable Alexis, two.

Azarian is an altruistic sort of guy; in early April he agreed to join me at an open house sponsored by the Kinesiology, Heath and Athletics departments at Pasadena City College (one of two Southern Cal community colleges at which I teach), where we greeted current and potential department majors and talked about all aspects of health and wellness. Of course, several of the apprentices grilled Azarian on how to build big muscles. Hey, why didn’t they ask me how I earned the moniker “Buffdaddy?” Quiet, please.

Thanks to IM Publisher John Balik, Alex and I also passed out free issues of IRON MAN, and the kids got to see photos from the shoot Azarian did with Michael Neveux after last season’s Nationals.

One of the passers-by was Dr. Paulette Perfumo, PCC’s firstyear president, who scooped up an issue and got a kick out of viewing the photo of yours truly with the Governator that was taken at the Reg Park memorial a few months back. Azarian was also impressed with the physique of Dean Beverly Tate, a serious iron pumper in her own right.

Thanks for the help, Alex. You and Eric Bui, who continues to donate his time to speak to my weight-training classes at PCC and East Azarian at PCC.

Alex Azarian

Real-Life Preparation

WELLMATCHED Bodybuilding’s latest couple Page 231

Trey Brewer.

Los Angeles College, are tied for my “Good Guy” award thus far in 2008.

Kevin Hoff

Branden Ray.

Branden and Kristy Hawkins pose down.

Sugar Shawn Ray.

Avidan

Jon Lindsay.

RUMBLINGS What’s shakin’ at Muscle Beach Pages 234 and 235

BABY BOOM Meet the sport’s new generation Page 235

ADD AZARIAN—Alex, who’s being sponsored

by MuscleTech’s Muscle Asylum Project for this year’s Nationals, which are scheduled for Atlanta in November, will be moving up to the welterweight class, where he should have been last year.

Although I can understand apprehension about moving up a division, Azarian, at 5’4”, has already proven that he can hang with the bigger weight classes, having won the welters at the ’06 Los Angeles Championships and finished a strong second in the middleweights at last year’s Excalibur. He’s his best at around 163 to 165.

He’s also gaining quite a rep as a contest guru; Azarian has created his own Web site, www.Prep byAlex.com, which, though in its early stages, is doing quite well. In the past I always got on Alex for, to put it mildly, getting too fat in the off-season. He heeded my advice two years ago.

“I got tired of not looking like a bodybuilder for much of the year,” he says. “Also, being close to my contest weight makes contest prep so much easier. I’m about six weeks out from being in top shape right now.”

Check out his site. I like his approach—commonsense training and nutrition instead of the esoteric regimens so many competitors have resorted to in recent years.

ADD EDUCATION—A couple of other flexing stars with strong academic backgrounds are bodybuilding’s latest couple, Branden Ray and Kristy Hawkins. After chatting via the phone and e-mail for a month, they formally met on New Year’s Eve, when Kristy flew into New York to bring in the new year with last year’s Junior National light-heavyweight champion.

Ray has a degree in journalism from the University of Maryland and currently works for CNN. He plans to be working his way out west in the near future, moving from Washington, D.C., to San Francisco. I think the fact that Kristy, who’s finishing up her doctorate in chemical engineering at Pasadena’s Cal Tech, will probably be heading for the Bay Area to start her professional career has something to do with that. Like everything to do with that, actually.

Branden flies to California every few weeks to see his lady, and I joined them, along with some of Kristy’s classmates from Cal Tech, for dinner in late March. Of course, I made Ray and Hawkins go biceps to biceps at the dinner table. Check out the accompanying picture. Who wins?

Branden isn’t bashful about predicting who will win this year’s USA. I asked him to pose outside the restaurant after the meal, of course, and he obliged, much to the joy of stunned patrons in the parking lot. Not too shabby for the off-season, eh?

ADD BRANDEN—I’ve written in past installments of this column about the possibility of a Branden Ray-Brandon Curry www.ironmanmagazine.com \ JULY 2008 231

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battle in the heavyweight class at the USA in July. On the subject of the possible stars of that competition, which will be held again in Las Vegas, let’s not forget big Trey Brewer, he of the monster wheels, who is one of the favorites in the superheavyweight division.

Speaking of monsters, the Jon Lindsay–produced event is shaping up to be a massive affair, per usual. Nearly 400 competitors turned up for the ’07 edition, and I imagine the show will be around that size again. So, who wins it, all you wanna-be Swamis?

Lisa Nicholson.

More NPC Events ADD LINDSAY CONTESTS—I emceed Jag’s Max Muscle Naturals at Anaheim (California) High School at the end of March and, as always, had a fun time. Congrats to overall winners Rick Salazar (men), Lisa Nicholson (women) and Anna Brown (figure), all deserving champions.

I also want to give a shout out to Nathan “Smelling Like a” Rose, the novice men’s overall winner, and Laura Pine, the masters 35and-over champ.

A big surprise for me at the show was Sugar Shawn Ray’s showing up after the prejudging and offering to buy lunch and pop for a movie! Shawn and I, along with Ray pal Anthony Naticchioni, went to the local Benihana. And before you think Shawn is no longer the Jack Benny of bodybuilding, wait until you hear this one.

When the check came, Ray was as good as his word. Then he told Anthony to pick up his (Shawn’s) bill, “so I can at least break even on this.” The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Shawn’s generosity continued as he purchased the tickets for “21” which, by the way, we both give a thumbs-up to. Look for our new movie review show coming to a local cable station soon.

Photo courtesy of Bob Bonham

ADD MAX MUSCLE—Speaking of cross-country relationships, Bob Bonham, owner of Rutherford, New Jersey’s Strong & Shapely Gym, was in town for two reasons: to have me take him to Phil Spector’s 33-room mansion in Alhambra (where the former recording-industry icon has been hiding out, awaiting a retrial of the case in which he is charged with the murder of actress Lana Clarkson) and to see his woman, Brenda Kelly.

I snapped pics of Bob in front of the Spector abode, and he did likewise for me, but I lost my camera somewhere between taking the pictures and being treated to dinner by Bonham at the Cheesecake Factory, so don’t look for the shots anytime soon.

Bob and Brenda also showed up at the Max Muscle Naturals two days later—hey, what better way to celebrate your 57th birthday, right, Bob? I’m flattered that all you wanted that special evening was to see me behind the podium.

Rick Salazar.

Anna Brown.

Brenda Kelly and Bob Bonham.

Jay Cutler and L.T.

RECORD PLAYER: NATURAL OHIO SETS NEW MARKS—A week after the Max Muscle, I flew to Cleveland to host the Natural Ohio, which was held at Lakewood High School. The annual Dave Liberman and Todd Pember blockbuster, which always attracts great numbers,

Natural Ohio promoters Todd Pember (left) and Dave Liberman (right) honored Rick Bayardi.

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Natural Ohio photography by Mike Lackner

Israel Ocasio.

Sue Knott.

Sue Ball.

Jay flexes in Ohio.

outdid itself this time around, setting an NPC record for Ohio of 158 competitors—not counting crossovers—from 14 different states (the Amateur Arnold, also held in Ohio, is an IFBB competition). The contest also set a new record for folks in the seats, as 1,200 fans watched the finals, following a prejudging crowd of 800.

Jay Cutler was the featured guest poser and and brought down the house with a 15-minute performance. The reigning two-time Mr. Olympia also gave a one-hour seminar after the judging. (By the way, Cutler, my pick, here and now, to three-peat at the Big Dance in September, told me he plans on competing through at least the 2009 season.)

Mike Lackner came in from Tennessee to shoot the contest for IM. Kudos to men’s open winner Israel Ocasio, who held off a strong welterweight class before taking the overall, women’s open and masters bodybuilding winner Sue “I Had a” Ball, and open figure titlist Sue Knott, who led the way in an extremely gifted C division before taking the whole ball of wax at the end of the night.

Congrats are also in order for Kevin Malone, the men’s masters overall winner; Jason Janov, the junior men’s champion; and overall teen men’s winner Justin Compton.

Ball has quite a story. A registered dietician, the 48year-old from Mason, Ohio, has been married to Ron for 30 years and has three children, 26, 23 and 21. The 5’3”, 120-pounder competed for the first time in 2007, racking up plenty of first-place trophies, and is now setting her sights on the ’09 Amateur Arnold.

“People are always asking me why I decided to do this at my age and not when I was younger,” says Ball. “My response is that I am just taking what I love to do to the next level, and it is fun. When I was younger, my children were involved in sports and they were my first priority.”

Also 5’3” and 120 pounds, the 30-year-old Knott resides in Columbus and has competed in eight NPC shows—including an overall victory at the ’06 Big Dust Classic. She’s a neurosurgery education coordinator, working in graduate medical education with fellows (not guys, eggheads), residents and medical students at Ohio State University.

On Friday and Saturday nights after the show a huge crowd packed the tables at Michael Mendoza’s Carrabba’s Italian Grill, where we ate like fools and handed the bill over to Liberman, as usual.

Liberman and Pember, who always donate part of their proceeds to the American Cancer Society, presented a special award to Rick Bayardi, the NPC Ohio and West Virginia state chair, who has made a miraculous comeback after undergoing six-bypass surgery in December. The 53-year-old Bayardi is quite a guy—when I saw him at his regular spot on the judging panel at the Amateur Arnold five weeks earlier, I was shocked.

“When I was lying in the hospital,” Bayardi joked, “I could see Dave and Todd telling me, you better get better so you can work our contest.”

In the Spotlight DOBBINS GETS CLEAN BILL OF HEALTH—Great news from photojournalist deluxe Bill Dobbins, who recently completed five months of chemotherapy for his second bout with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (he was first diagnosed in 1995).

“The type of chemo I had this time is one that has a very high rate of total cure rather than just a long remission, so I’m optimistic,” Dobbins said in April. “I’m feeling almost back to normal and busy growing hair.”

I’m still not almost back to normal and can never grow hair, at least on my head. But that’s another story.

Bill says he’s still taking photos for his Web sites— John Scott.

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BillDobbins.com and BillDobbins.net—and contributing to magazines (check out the August IRON MAN). “But,” he adds, “I am also writing and directing DVDs featuring the same women I photograph. I have 90-minute DVDs planned between now and the Olympia. I will be shooting them in HD, including my still photos in them and even writing some of the music, like I did for the Arina Manta video and some others on YouTube.”

Dobbins mentioned another change in his normal operations—“I have started doing paid photo shoots with models who need pictures but whom I cannot afford to shoot on trade because there is no way I can make money with the pics in magazines or on my Web site. So far the program seems pretty popular. Of course, this does not apply to the competition pros and other ‘stars.’”

Here’s to continued good health, Bill.

Lee We’ve missed you at the shows. For more Priest in details, check out his Web sites.

Dexter Jackson.

2006.

GREAT SCOTT—Who the hell is John Scott? A supplement expert, coach, athlete or cult leader? Those questions are sitting right on Scott’s Web site, so you can go to www.JSNitro.com and view the answers yourself.

I met John when I used to emcee a lot of events in Arizona. He was always tossing free T-shirts into the audience as one of the sponsors, and I used to rag on him that he never saved any for me.

Then Scott started supporting several events in Southern California, and two years ago he came on board as one of the sponsors of my Junior Cal. For this year’s blast, which is set for June 21 (go to www.NPCJuniorCal.com for all the details!), he joins good buddy Pete Ciccone of 619 Muscle as one my co-presenting sponsors.

Scott has several credentials in the area of nutrition, is a former drug-free bodybuilding champion, powerlifting champ (having won drug-free titles in both New Jersey and Arizona) and American jiujitsu winner. He’s a pro muay Thai boxing trainer and an instructor in Brazilian jiujitsu and NHB/MMA. As Ciccone jokes (or perhaps he’s not kidding), “John is so thick, he looks like he could squat a Volkswagen.” I get similar comments about myself; people tell me I look like I can eat a Volkswagen.

Scott has always known the value of nutrition—“I know what an athlete needs because I am one” is his creed. That led to the creation of his product line, which led to his becoming a nutritional consultant to several collegiate athletic teams, police and fire departments, amateur and professional athletes in various sports, as well as a regular guest on a variety of television and radio shows, spreading the gospel of his nutritional theories.

Oh, and he’s a really nice guy to boot. So the next time you see John and his JSNitro team at an event, go up and give him a hello. Just don’t tick him off—remember his impressive martial arts background. This is one case where a nice guy has not finished last.

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Bill Dobbins performed in Hollywood last year.

John Balik

TEPER’S TALES—Dexter Jackson, a longtime Muscular Development–contracted athlete, switched his affiliation to Weider Publications in March. Jackson, my Bodybuilder of the Year to date after his wins at the Arnold Classic and Australia and New Zealand shows, is coming off a thirdplace finish at the ’07 Mr. Olympia and is one of the favorites among those who’ll be trying to knock Jay Cutler off his Mr. O perch.… Lee Priest, who was at the MuscleMag booth at this year’s Arnold Expo, re-signed with MD. Still awaiting word regarding his potential return to the IFBB, Priest rejoins Steve Blechman’s team after a dispute that resulted in his contract not being renewed a couple of years ago.… According to a press release, Jakks Pacific signed an exclusive worldwide master toy license with MGM Consumer Products for “American Gladiators.” Jakks expects to launch

“American Gladiators” tryouts.

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Manion

a line of toys and related products in the spring of 2009 “based on the characters and challenges seen on the show.”… The ’08 IFBB Keystone Classic pro bodybuilding event, set for June 21 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, has been cancelled.… The Bill Grant Bodybuilding and Figure Classic is scheduled for Sunday, July 27, in Allentown, Pennsylvania. It’s part of the Lehigh Sports Festival, a four-day event that draws 10,000-plus athletes in 40 sports, with an attendance of more Tyler and than 100,000.… Gym Management Services, one trophy. of the top franchisees of Gold’s Gym International, announced recently that the company has moved its executive offices from Hollywood, California, into a brand new 6,000-square-foot facility in suburban Northridge. Gym Management Services owns and operates many of the Los Angeles–area Gold’s Gyms, including Hollywood, North Hollywood, downtown L.A., Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley. The new office is located at 19835 Nordhoff Street, Building 1A, in Northridge. Congrats to Angel Banos, CEO of Gym Management Services, on the expansion..…

IRON MAN photog Merv Petralba and his wife, Patricia, welcomed their first child, Trinity Drew Petralba, into this world on April 7 at 12:05 a.m.

Trinity weighed in at six pounds, eight ounces.…

Flex and Madeline Wheeler celebrated the arrival of their third child, Faith Pearl, four days Skip La Cour. earlier.… The NPC California Championships will be held, as always, over Memorial Day weekend at the Veterans Memorial Auditorium in Culver City. For the first time the event is open to all United States residents. The IFBB Cal Pro Figure Championship will again be held in conjunction with the Jon Lindsay–produced event. For more info, go to www.MuscleContest.com.… Joe Wheatley’s Muscle Beach International Classic will take place on May 25 and 26 (also Memorial Day weekend) at the famed outdoor venue. In addition, the “Rumble in Venice,” an amateur boxing event sponsored by Pro Fight Supplements, has been added to the festivities and will take place on Sunday, May 25, following the bodybuilding prejudging. It will include military, collegiate and local high school boxing clubs.… Tyler Manion, son of J.M. and grandson of Jim, sent the rest of the field to the mat at the 11th Annual Cliff Keen Reno World Wrestling Championships, which took place in Reno, Nevada, in April. Tyler bested a two-time winner of the event (and Madeline and a Reno resident to boot) in the Faith Pearl Division 1V/100-pound class to Wheeler. take top honors and run his season record to 52-12. Tyler’s overall trophy weighed 15 pounds.

Hear that, Dave Liberman?…

Five-time Team Universe champion Skip La Cour has hit the Internet airwaves with his own talk radio show. On La Cour’s weekly “Bodybuilding and Training Show,” the topics include the challenges that people face as they strive to create the best bod possible, and he outlines solutions. La Cour is the author of 10 books, has produced seven DVDs and has empowered bodybuilders in 52 countries around the world. Visit his Web site, www.SkipLaCour.com, for more information and join the talk radio show every Saturday morning at www.SkipLaCourRadio.com. IM

Merv

Photo courtesy of Flex Wheeler

Neveux

Neveux

Bill Grant.

Trinity Drew Petralba

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.

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Roland Balik

L O N N I E T E P E R ’S R i si n g St ar s

Candace Houston

James Cook

Age: 35 Weight: 115, contest and off-season Height: 5’2” Residence: Las Vegas, Nevada Contest highlights: ’08 IFBB Amateur Arnold, B class, 1st, and overall; ’07 IFBB North American Championships, masters figure, overall Factoid: The mother of two children, she’s of Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese and European descent.

Contact: www.CandaceHouston .com

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L O N N I E T E P E R ’S R i si n g St ar s Lackner

Jason Janov

Lackner

Age: 21 Weight: 210 contest; 240 offseason Height: 6’1” Residence: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Contest highlights: ’08 Natural Ohio Championships, Junior Men, overall; open heavyweight, 1st Factoid: Jason is a full-time student at California University of Pennsylvania, majoring in criminal justice.

Contact: Jan7601@cup.edu

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Phil

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A Ph o ot lut Sa e!

Heath

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Phil Heath

2008 IRON MAN PRO Champion

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Phil Heath

2008 IRON MAN PRO Champion

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RUTH SILVERMAN’S

About July: • • • •

Female Flexers Fitness Figures International Overflow Pump-Pourri

FEMALE FLEXERS

Photography by Ruth Silverman, Roland Balik and Merv

SOUTH AMERICAN IDOL When Yaxeni Oriquen looks like this, she usually wins. Having snagged her fourth Ms. International title, she leaves only one question: Will she look like this come Olympia time?

MORE IFS If Cathy comes to the New York Pro in May in this condition, she could do even better than her sixth-place landing at the International.

GIFT WRAPPED Brenda brought her best total package in quite a while to the Ms. I, and the panel loved it—to the tune of fifth place.

BUFF BABES Ya think shoulders like these grow on trees?

MASS CYCLE It’s time to tone it down again, ladies. So beat the IFBB pro drums after the Figure International in late February. A letter sent to competitors cited hardness and separation as factors that should be decreased a bit. You have to wonder, though, if the effort is specific to figure or part of a general trend?

The presence of two smallerstyle flexers in Olympia-qualifying top-six slots at the Ms. I—Cathy LeFrancois and Brenda Raganot, at left—suggests that it might be. The IFBB’s Sandy Williamson describes it as kind of a cycle we go through: Every few years it’s time for a reminder; proportions come down a bit, and then they slowly build back up until it’s time for another reminder.

She’s right—it’s just the natural ebb and flow. But sometimes I get the feeling that the reminders are as much for the judges as they are for the athletes.

Far left: Figure competitors like Brenda Smith, Gina Aliotti and Bernadette Galvan toe a very fine line. “Figure is not a smaller version of women’s bodybuilding,” says Williamson. And yet, to look the way they do, they must bodybuild.

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FITNESS FIGURES

NAILED IT This shot of Tracey Greenwood making it look easy is one of my favorites from the Fitness International gallery at IronMan Magazine .com. Don’t you love her little pusspursing smile?

TALK ABOUT YOUR BIG APPLES Heidi Fletcher made her first pro win a humongous one, cannonballing to

a 36--point victory at the New York Pro Fitness on April 12.

The aptly named Heidi (is that a sunny smile or what?) was the runner-up at this show in ’07 and ’08.

B A C K S TA G E TA L E S — I N T E R N AT I O N A L O V E R F L O W 1) As usual, C.J. kept everybody in stitches. Bethany Gainey was still grinning when she hit the stage for her first appearance at the celebrated Columbus, Ohio, event.

C.J. and I had an interesting time at Morton’s after the women’s finals.

Find the story in my Pump & Circumstance blog at IronMan Magazine.com.

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2) Tina Durkin looks quiet, but her appeal packs a wallop. The interview we did after she won the Fitness Nationals last year is one of the most popular videos from that show at the IM Web site.

3) Speaking of quiet competitors, here’s Jen Hendershott in a rare moment of repose. Don’t let her fool you.

Just moments before we were giggling like schoolgirls over the efforts of a certain MusclePhone magnet to cause a rift in competitor-correspondent relations. Na-a, didn’t work.

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4) Best dressed. Tanya Merryman had the most elegant backstage ensemble. I love the scarf.

COMING EVENTS

M O R E B A C K S TA G E TA L E S 1) Winsome, lose some.

Annie Rivieccio may not have been in her best condition at the International, but she sure knows how to pose with appeal. Next up for Annie: the New York Pro Bodybuilding contest.

2) Speaking of looking winsome, meet Jen Gates, undercover bombshell.

3) Has Sonia Adcock gone graphic? The ’07 Figure O third-placer plays a villain in the latest issue of Iron Sirens. More on that next month.

4) Speaking of guns, Nicole Wilkins continues shooting for stardom in fitness and figure. After nabbing an Olympia qualification in fitness by finPISTOLPACKIN’ MAMA Julie Lohre displays some serious guns in her new fitness routine.

Look for her to hold up the competition at the Europa Super Show Pro Fitness this summer.

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SUPERSHOW STATS The dates: August 15 and 16; the place: Dallas Convention Center. For more info: EuropaSuperShow.com.

GREAT X-PECTATIONS When IM columnist Eric Broser announced that he was training Jenny Lynn for her title defense at the ’08 Figure Olympia— and that the Power/ Rep Range/Shock treatment he was giving her would include X-reps—the guys at the IRON MAN Training and Research Center were in X-tacy. Just the thought of all that continuous tension and occlusion she’d be building up had them POF-ing even harder than usual.

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ishing third in New York—just a point behind second-placer Trish Warren—she was headed to the Pittsburgh Pro Figure. If she brings it looking the way she did in New York, she’s bound to do better than her 11th-place pro debut at the Figure I.

Find coverge of the ’08 IFBB Pittsburgh Pro Figure and New York Pro Bodybuilding contests at IronMan Magazine.com.

MYSTERIES OF THE UNIVERSE Comments on Oksana Grishina’s seventh-placed long routine at the New York Pro Fitness suggested that it was more of a “guest-posing routine” than competitive and that she needed more strength moves. Hey, wasn’t that the same routine that was scored third behind only Jen Hendershott and Kim Klein at the International? Talk about things that make you go hmm.

Juliana Malacarne.

Bradford

FACES

MORE FLEXERS, FLIPSTERS AND QUARTER-TURNERS

JUST BECAUSE Speaking of the so-called smaller-muscled standouts of women’s bodybuilding, I’ve been saving this photo of Stephanie Kessler—taken around the time of her heavyweight win at the Jan Tana Pro Classic last summer—for when we could really do it justice on these pages. I can’t see any missing bodyparts there, can you?

Latisha Wilder.

MORE PUZZLERS Speaking of ladies I hope to see doing better, I was thinking that this would be Juliana’s year to break into to the ranks of the real figure contenders.

It didn’t happen at the International, where she ended up in 12th, but, hey, the season is young. And what happened to the love the judges had for Latisha? Even her darling new do couldn’t keep her from dropping to seventh after taking fourth in 2007.

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Debbie Leung.

SHOOTWORTHY “How can I get a photo shoot with Michael Neveux?” is the most frequent question I hear from athletes.

Let’s hope this is step one for Debbie.

PUMP-POURRI—WINTER ’08

Kai Green does a last-minute ab check before the Arnold Classic finals, which is a lot like running through your multiplication tables before a math test.

What was Chastity Sloan reading so intently backstage? I dunno, but clearly it motivated her back to the top of the lineup—a fourth-place finish.

Left: Peckham power. Mo and Scotty proved a very popular attraction at the Arnold Expo.

Though Ms. Brant-Peckham is still keeping her competition plans under wraps, it’s no secret that her F.E.M. camps are going G.A.N.G.B.U.S.T.E.R.S.

Secret handshake? Not long after this seemingly innocent shot was taken, Heidi Fletcher succeeded Tracey Greenwood as the N.Y. Pro Fitness champ.

Right: Favorite thing. Bernadette Galvan’s relationship with her curling iron seems to be deepening. Whenever I see them, they’re always together.

Photography by Ruth Silverman

Timea Majorova, Jerry Fredrick and Kyla McGrath strike a traditional cheesecake pose. Make that one cheesecake and a couple of cupcakes.

Left: Regiane Da Silva preps for a big finish Right: Controversy surrounded Iris Kyle’s tied-forseventh-place finish at the Ms. I, but the three-time Ms. Olympia handled it like the champ she is.

Merv

Two degrees of separation. Who knew that the nice figure competitor I met at the O last year, Farinaz Tavakoli, was Hany Rambod’s favorite knoodling partner.

Speaking of secrets. Dayana Cadeau does some unique X-frame stretches before hitting the

stage. As you can see in the photo above, it’s extremely effective.

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

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2008 Ms. INTERNATIONAL Photography by Roland Balik and Merv

Yaxeni Oriquen, 1st

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2008 FITNESS INTERNATIONAL

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2008 FIGURE INTERNATIONAL

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2008 Ms. International

1) Yaxeni Oriqu 2) Dayana Cad en e 3) Lisa Auklan au d 4) Betty Pariso 5) Brenda Rag anot 6) Cathy LeFrancois 7) Betty Viana 7) Iris Kyle 9) Annie Rivie cc 10) Rosemary io Jennings

2008 Fitness International

1) Kim Klein hott 2) Jen Henders r 3) Julie Palme 4) Julie Lohre 5) Tracey Greenwood Silva 6) Regiane Da s 7) Stacy Simon ey in a 8) Bethany G n e 9) Mindi O’Bri ina sh ri 10) Oksana G

2008 Figure International

1) Gina Aliotti 2) Jennifer Ga tes 3) Amy Fry 4) Chastity Slo 5) Sonia Adcockan 6) Paola Alme ri 7) Latisha Wil co der 8) Natalie Ben son 8) Catherine Anderson 10) Kristal Richardson 258 JULY 2008 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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Bodybuilding Pharmacology BODYBUILDING PHARMACOLOGY BODYBUILDING PHARMACOLOGY BODYBUILDING PHARMACOLOGY BODYBUILDING PHARMACOLOGY BODYBUILDING PHARMACOLOGY BODYBUILDING

by Jerry Brainum

Steroid Side Effects—New Research Much of the medical literature on anabolic steroid use in sports and bodybuilding isn’t relevant. Studies often involved dosages that had no resemblance to what was used by real-world athletes. Conservative study designs were based on medical ethics, in that no one really knew the possible health effects of using amounts that far exceeded what’s commonly prescribed for therapeutic purposes.

That explains the claims that anabolic steroids don’t build muscle. Of course they don’t—when the dose is one tablet a day of Dianabol.

The end of the controversy about the role of anabolic steroids in developing muscular size and strength came with the 1996 publication of a study in the New England Journal of Medicine. It clearly showed that 600 milligrams of weekly testosterone injections boosted muscular gains,

especially when combined with weight training. That, of course, came as no surprise to anyone in the bodybuilding world. It did, however, change the opinions of medical professionals, who were forced to accept the indisputable fact that steroids work when used in significant amounts.

While doctors no longer deny that steroids aid muscular growth, they still warn of significant health risks linked to the use of steroids—especially in light of the extreme amounts commonly used by athletes. While the average man produces about nine milligrams of testosterone daily, many athletes inject themselves with more than 1,000 milligrams a week. Surely there’s a price to pay for such pharmaceutical extravagance—or is there?

Scientists are constrained by medical ethics to limit the doses of steroids that they administer to subjects in their studies. Thus, the latest trend among researchers who investigate the health and performance effects of anabolic steroids is the “observational” study. The researchers don’t supply any drugs but observe subjects who use their own.

The subjects permit the researchers to monitor them via various medical tests. It gives a more accurate view of the impact of athletic doses of anabolic steroids and other drugs.

A recent observational study published by a group of Italian researchers provided an interesting overview of the long-term effects of anabolic steroids because it featured 20 male bodybuilders who’d never previously used them. It

Earlier studies on anabolic steroids used commonly prescribed medical doses, but a new study followed 20 male bodybuilders who used steroids for two years. The results may surprise you.

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lasted two years and involved extensive physical evaluations of the subjects every six months. The bodybuilders provided their own drugs, which included injectable and oral steroids as well as other drugs commonly used in athletic and bodybuilding circles—clenbuterol; Cytodren; Nolvadex; human chorionic gonadotropin, a.k.a. hCG; thyroid; insulin and aromatase-blockers. On the average, 10 drugs were used during a cycle.

At the start of the study the bodybuilders received counseling about possible risks and side effects linked to steroid use. That caused two of the men to immediately withdraw from the experiment. Subsequently, seven other men withdrew for various reasons, some involving adverse mental effects such as aggression and depression, sexual dysfunction, family problems and inability to attend scheduled medical exams.

The subjects all ate a high-protein diet and increased their protein intake after starting the drugs. They also used such nutritional supplements as creatine and amino acids.

Gynecomastia, or male breast development, occurred in five subjects, producing notable pain in two. Only one subject showed “clinical relevance”—presumably he needed surgery to correct the gyno. Measures of estrogen, the usual cause of gyno, increased in the subjects—not surprising, as many anabolic steroids are converted into estrogen—but it was considered clinically insignificant because the measures varied among the subjects.

A common side effect of long-term steroid use is shrinkage of the testicles. Sure enough, 16 of the 20 subjects experienced that. A semen analysis after two years showed a drop in sperm count and fertility but no reduction in sperm motility or shape, both of which can also adversely affect fertility. Two of the bodybuilders showed no sperm production, while another two had counts not consistent with fertility. Many bodybuilders use hCG to prevent those effects, but only eight of the 20 subjects used hCG. The bodybuilders also experienced an increase in insulin sensitivity, along with a drop in plasma glucose and insulin. While some studies have found that anabolic steroids produce insulin resistance, that didn’t prove true here.

The authors think that’s because of the added muscle and decreased bodyfat, a combination proven to boost insulin

Gynecomastia occurred in five subjects, producing notable pain in two. sensitivity. Oral steroids lower high-density lipoprotein, a protective cholesterol carrier in the blood, and in this study there was an average drop of 26 percent in the subjects.

Free T3, or active thyroid hormone, and TSH, which stimulates thyroid hormone release, were both elevated, but thyroid levels remained within normal limits. A surprising finding was a drop in plasma insulinlike growth factor 1. IGF-1 usually rises when testosterone does. The authors speculate that the suppression of gonad function induced by the anabolic steroids may also have suppressed the IGF1. Gonadotropin often drops during steroid use, as in this study. The suppression of luteinizing hormone by higher estrogen levels is thought to be mainly responsible for the loss of testicle size. Interestingly, even the bodybuilders in the study who used HCG and Nolvadex, both of which help prevent estrogen rise and luteinizing hormone suppression, still showed gonadotropin suppression. The good news is that no changes in prostate gland volume or size occurred in any of the bodybuilders.

Liver enzymes, which offer a picture of liver function, are frequently affected by high doses of oral steroids. That points to liver inflammation and possibly liver damage.

Most cases of liver impairment as a result of anabolic steroid use reported in the medical literature involve hospital-

A common side effect of long-term steroid use is shrinkage of the testicles. Sure enough, 16 of the 20 subjects experienced that effect. A semen analysis after two years showed a drop in sperm count and fertility but no reduction in sperm motility or (shape). www.ironmanmagazine.com \ JULY 2008 261

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BODYBUILDING PHARMACOLOGY BODYBUILDING PHARMACOLOGY BODYBUILDING PHARMACOLOGY BODYBUILDING PHARMACOLOGY BODYBUILDING PHARMACOLOGY BODYBUILDING PHARMACOLOGY BODYBUI

Bodybuilding Pharmacology By and large, the adverse effects of anabolic steroids revert to normal when drug use stops. That explains why you rarely hear about bodybuilders and athletes dropping dead from steroids. There are, however, exceptions.

Echocardiogram images of the bodybuilders’ hearts revealed no structural abdormalities.

ized patients on long-term anabolic steroid therapy. Complicating the picture is the fact that some liver enzymes increase in those engaged in the kind of exercise that causes muscle damage, such as typical bodybuilding workouts.

The same enzymes found in the liver also show up in muscle and are released into the blood when muscles are damaged.

At the beginning of the study the bodybuilders had liver enzymes at the higher range of normal, likely because of their training. Most of those values remained steady during the two years of the study, although the liver enzymes in two of the bodybuilders doubled, which was thought to be related to their use of oral steroids. Despite that, their enzymes were still considered in the normal range. Ultrasounds revealed no adverse structural changes in the liver or any evidence of incipient tumors. Most of the bodybuilders had slightly enlarged livers and more liver fat than usual at the start of the study, but that was attributed to long-term high-protein intake and wasn’t considered pathological. The authors suggest that reports of liver toxicity induced by anabolic steroids are probably overestimated.

Testosterone and anabolic steroids increase the production of red blood cells by stimulating EPO, a hormone

made in the kidneys that facilitates red cell production. In this study the bodybuilders had increased hemoglobin—the protein in red blood cells—but the hematocrit, or density of red cells, remained within normal limits. What’s called humoral immunity, or immune factors in the body, represented by B cells, wasn’t affected. Cellular immunity, which among other things protects against viral infections and tumor formation, was decreased by steroids but remained within normal range.

The heart, as a muscle, enlarges with stimulation just as skeletal muscle does, and the left ventricle is its primary pumping chamber. Past studies have indicated adverse changes in the heart, such as an increase in left-ventricular-wall thickness and mass. That particular change, often called “athlete’s heart,” is also a by-product of exercise.

Some research has found that steroids interfere with the diastolic phase, or the filling of the heart with blood, which can dangerously disturb normal heart rhythm. Examinations of heart tissue have revealed microscopic damage and scar-tissue formation. Many such changes, however, depend on length of use and dose, with those using high doses for longer periods being more susceptible to heart damage. In this study echocardiograms of the bodybuilders’ hearts revealed no structural abnormalities.

By and large, the adverse effects of anabolic steroid use revert to normal when drug use stops. That explains why you rarely hear about bodybuilders and athletes dropping dead from steroids. There are, however, exceptions. Genetics may make large doses of steroids particularly dangerous for some people, and it’s difficult to predict precisely who is susceptible. That’s one reason it’s absolutely essential for anyone either using steroids or contemplating it to undergo regular medical evaluation.

Bonetti, A., et al. (2008). Side effects of anabolic androgenic steroid abuse. Int J Sports Med. In press.

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IRON MAN Hardbody

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Danielle dmonds E

2008 NPC IRON MAN Figure Champion

Compiled by Jonathan Lawson Photography by Michael Neveux Hair and makeup Yvonne Ouellette

standing calf raises, 3 x 15; rotating stairs, 15 minutes forward and 15 minutes backward

Height: 5’6” Age: 30 Weight: 128 precontest; 138 off-season Hometown: Westchester, California Current residence: Huntington, California Occupation: Personal trainer, fitness model and mother of two Marital status: Married Workout schedule: Day 1: legs; day 2: chest and arms; day 3: back and shoulders Sample bodypart workout (legs): Stiff-legged deadlifts, 3 x 15; leg presses, 3 x 15; weighted stair stepups, 3 x 15; dumbbell reverse lunges, 3 x 15;

Favorite foods: “My favorite meal of the day is breakfast, which is always oatmeal and egg whites. That stays the same off-season or on-season. And I love a good pizza after a contest.”

Factoid: “I’m proud to say that I’m a rare mix of Italian and Dutch Indonesian. I’m married to Derek, and we have two children, Tristan, five, and Tatum, three. Training in the gym is my therapy.”

Future plans: “To obtain an IFBB pro card and to further my education in general health and nutrition.”

Web site: www.Danielleedmonds.com.

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IRON MAN Hardbody

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IRON MAN Hardbody

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IRON MAN Hardbody

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IRON MAN Hardbody

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IRON MAN Hardbody

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Only the Strong Shall Survive

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Ageless Strength Training

by Bill Starr Photography by Michael Neveux

Model: Yilderam Memmet

L

ast month I noted the many difficulties facing older athletes who are trying their best to retain a certain level of strength fitness: the loss of muscle mass, flexibility, balance and endurance, as well as the decreasing amount of testosterone from age 40 on and the wide assortment of degenerative joint diseases. Then there are all those injuries, big and small, that add up over the years.

The negatives make it harder for people in their 50s, 60s and 70s to achieve the goal of remaining active and fit. Yet it can be done and is being done by countless older athletes.

Those who have spent a large part of their lives participating in sports and some form of weight training understand better than their younger counterparts how their bodies respond to exercise. There is nothing quite like experience in that regard. Older athletes know how to do a wide array of exercises and know how to do them correctly. That’s a huge plus. They also understand their limitations: how much workload they can handle without becoming overtrained, which exercises they need to avoid and which ones provide positive results. That knowledge is invaluable in that it helps older athletes avoid bothersome injuries. While injuries are a part of strength training and bodybuilding, you can reduce them to minor dings by paying close attention to the signals your body is sending to your brain and being wise enough to make the necessary adjustments right away.

There’s no question that it’s much harder for older athletes to hold or gain strength, even improve their

Part 2 physiques, but it can be done if they do it right. An older individual has to be absolutely dedicated to the task at hand. Dedication equals consistency, which is critical to success. When you decide on a training program, you have to follow it religiously, or the results won’t come as expected. Most older athletes are either retired or semiretired and so have control over their daily schedules.

There should be no excuses for missing a workout. Sure, I realize that there are legitimate reasons for skipping a session, but that should happen only a few times a year, not every other week.

Whether you’re young or old, once you embrace the notion that you must be consistent with your training, you’re well on your way to reaching your goal. A missed workout is much more detrimental to an older body, however, than it is to a younger one—and for the same reasons an older body takes longer to recover and is slower to heal. So that’s the first step—to vow never to skip a workout unless it’s a matter of life and death (or an awful lot of money is involved).

Consistent training has to become an essential part of your life. It’s not a seasonal activity but a year-round commitment. So you must put together a fitness regimen that suits your personality. If you don’t enjoy what you’re doing, you aren’t going to stick with it. By the same token, you must set sensible, realistic goals. I discourage older athletes from setting high numbers as a goal on some lift—usually the bench. Even if you reach that kind of goal, overall health and well-being are usually diminished. www.ironmanmagazine.com \ JULY 2008 283

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As I’ve mentioned before, the hardest part of learning how to train as we grow older is to forget the old numbers. Forget what it felt like to be the strongest lifter in the gym or the strongest squatter or deadlifter.

To stay with that mind-set is an invitation to trouble. Sure, it’s fun to recall the days when you tossed around incredible poundages, but that’s history. Don’t attach your ego to how much you once lifted or how many awards you won in the past.

It’s a dead-end street.

When designing your fitness program, you need to think of overall health—feeling and looking good, being able to perform the many necessary physical tasks of everyday life, staying strong enough to remain independent. Being able to take complete responsibility for all facets of your life without assistance is a blessing all older athletes appreciate, but it can happen only if you train diligently. The good news: Each of us has a great deal of control over the situation. We decide what to eat and drink and how to exercise. That’s a fine feeling, in my opinion, and I wouldn’t trade it for a 400-pound bench—maybe 440, but not a measly 400.

Determining when you should stop trying to move heavy weights and shift to a routine that calls for lighter poundages and higher reps is an individual matter. Some feel the need in their mid-to-late 40s, while others are able to lift heavy for another 10 to 15 years. As long as you can deal with heavy and hard sessions, stick with it. I was nearly 60 before I made the transition, and many even older than I am continue to train heavy without suffering any dire consequences.

Besides, as I pointed out last month, you may graduate to a higher-rep routine anyway, one bodypart at a time. The low reps may be working just fine for your lower body and back, but your upper body can no longer handle the stress. So you do high reps for your upper body and stay with low reps for the other two major groups. Eventually you’ll end up working all areas for higher reps. That may happen over the course of several years, but in the meantime you will have learned a great deal about how to incorpo-

Model: John Hansen

Only the Strong Shall Survive

Determining when you should stop trying to move heavy weights and shift to a routine that calls for lighter poundages and higher reps is an individual matter.

rate the changes into your overall program.

Understanding that it’s really necessary to stop abusing your joints with heavy weights and changing to a less stressful workout is one of the most difficult decisions for almost all strength athletes. They totally hate the idea of training with light resistance when they were once capable of some impressive lifts. Their big numbers are inevitably linked to self-esteem, and not being able to do them causes a great many to quit training altogether—a huge mistake that can open the gate to serious health problems. Those who cease all training also stop eating right and taking nutritional supplements.

Rest is adversely affected, and pretty soon they’re ashamed to be seen in a bathing suit.

Those who put their egos in check and embark on a higher-rep philosophy, however, can continue to stay relatively strong and maintain a healthful, vibrant lifestyle—and look

good in a swimsuit.

There’s no reason you can’t use a high-rep routine at any age. Many who try it really enjoy that type of training. They recover more readily and notice that there’s less discomfort during their workouts. In the process, they find that they’re improving their endurance. It’s particularly beneficial to those who take part in an endurance activity like long-distance hiking or skiing. Nearly all bodybuilders I knew used the high-rep concept at some time during a year. They’d do pure strength training for a few months and then in preparation for a contest switch to a high-rep program to trim down and sculpt various muscles. That’s also why it’s easier for bodybuilders to convert to the lighter weights.

They understand the value of the system because they’ve used it previously.

Don’t forget the indomitable Jack LaLanne. He’s always done a highrep routine, and the benefits are

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Model: Mark Perry

obvious. In his 90s, he’s still as active and vibrant Six days a week I walk for 45 minutes and then as a 29-year-old. work out for an hour and 15 minutes. I use two If for no other programs, which I call simply A and B, and alterreason, a high-rep nate them from day to day. I don’t use the heavy, program will give light and medium approach as I did when I trained your weary joints heavy, but I do have one harder workout, following a well-deserved it with one not quite as hard. Every day I do at least rest and give you one exercise for the three major muscle groups: the opportunity shoulder girdle, or upper body, back and hips and to see how it aflegs, adding several other movements for some of fects you in other the smaller groups. The smaller groups that I don’t ways. work at one workout, I pick up the next day.

Basically, when So over the course of a week the major groups all it’s time for you to receive attention six times, and every small muscle make the change, is worked at least three times. That pretty much you’ll know. Low covers all the bases. For the most part I work in a reps using heavy fast circuit, but I set aside some exercises—deadweight is the lifts, for example. Nevertheless, I’ve found that if I ideal formula for wait too long between sets they aren’t as strong and younger athletes don’t feel as smooth. since they force The program is constantly in flux, as I drop the attachments some exercises and slip in new ones. I do that for to be more ina couple of reasons. One, a certain exercise may volved. The lower be bothering a joint or causing a muscle group to reps improve the ache afterward. Two, I want to find out if another integrity of the exercise will be more productive. I’m always experijoints and help menting with new angles, different grips, different make them more combinations, and then I determine what’s best secure. All is well from the feedback I get during the workout and the so long as the next day.

—B.S. testosterone is pumping through your system in great amounts and there are no signs of arthritis. As we age, though, things change, and we have to adapt to those changes. Otherwise, workouts will become not times of joy but times of discouragement.

Even if you have low testosterone, a host of old injuries and one or more joints that can’t handle the stress and pounding of heavy training, you can still control how you look and feel by using a high-rep, lighter-weight routine. That’s because the light weights don’t involve the attachments the way the heavier poundages do, yet they do help strengthen the stability of the joints by flushing blood and nutrients through the muscles into the cartilage. That means you can work exercises diligently because the muscles are responsible for handling the bulk of the work. In fact, the muscles receive much more attention in the high-rep system simply because they’re called upon to work longer than they have to with lower reps.

Which raises the question of how many reps are considered high.

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Only the Strong Shall Survive done with only bodyweight have to move into the 100-plus range to be beneficial. Perhaps you only have a set of 20-pound dumbbells at your disposal and include various types of curls, triceps exercises and front and lateral raises as well as one-arm rows in your weekly program. You’ll need to push the reps higher until you find the range where more reps aren’t helping but creating problems in the form If a certain of joint aches and Even though exercise is pains. you’re handling light causing you weights only, be advised that if you run trouble, the workload up too drop it high too soon, you’ll overtrain a joint or from your muscle that’s part of program or the exercise. Even a tame movement like try it with pushups can overdumbbells. work elbows, wrists or shoulders.

So you must proceed slowly. Be conservative and stay with the same number of reps for several weeks before pushing higher. Most important, pay close attention to the signals coming from your body. In their younger years all who gain any degree of success in competitive weightlifting, bodybuilding and strength training learn how to push through the pain in order to reach that higher level. They can get away with that attitude because three sets of 20 as a guideline when their young, developing bodies are starting someone on that type of supplying all the hormones and program. When the sets get easier, enzymes they need to help them you can add resistance. recover. It’s a mistake, though, A great many older athletes, for older athletes to have a “push however, train at home and have a through the pain” mentality. The limited supply of bars, plates and healing nutrients aren’t in abundumbbells to select from and no dance anymore, and the only thing machines at all. So they have to you’ll achieve by forcing through to run the reps way, way up on certain a higher rep count is a ding. movements, For example, calf raises I need to note that even if you do

Model: Carl Silvani

The answer varies, depending on the equipment you have available.

Should you belong to a gym that has a wide array of machines and free weights, you might want to stay with a specific number of reps on all of your exercises. I generally use

overextend and aggravate a muscle, joint or—more likely—an older injury, the ding won’t be nearly as severe as it would have been if you’d been using heavy weights. Rest, ice and mild movement are usually sufficient to getting the ding cleared up in a matter of days—another good reason to do higher reps.

Older athletes are more attuned to their bodies than younger ones.

They ought to be, as they’ve been working out longer. That’s a big plus. When you get the signal that you need to stop, stop. Don’t push on just because you set out to do X number of reps. Adaptability is a key attribute for the older athlete.

If a certain exercise is causing you trouble, drop it from your program for a week or a month. Then, see if you can do it again without experiencing any pain. You may have to eliminate it completely—which isn’t that bad, as there are lots of exercises to choose from. There’s no reason to stick with an exercise that’s obviously doing more harm than good.

It’s also critical for older athletes to pay attention to how they feel the day after a workout or even two days after, as that’s when the signs of overwork often show up. This morning I found that I had a new ache in my upper midback. Why? I hadn’t done any direct work for that area yesterday. I did, however, throw in extra work two days ago. Having discovered the source of my problem, I was now in a position to make adjustments so it wouldn’t happen again, at least not right away. Possessing a competitive nature, I’m certain to do something stupid again in the not-so-distant future.

I’m not alone. My former Olympic lifting friends all tell me similar stories. We have to learn to temper that drive, using it to make steady improvement within our limitations while at the same time holding the monster back so we don’t do too much. It’s a rather thin line, and what’s even more frustrating, it’s constantly changing. What was working nicely only a few months ago is suddenly detrimental. I’ve decided that it’s nothing personal but simply the way nature works. Some people curse the constant alterations, yet I find them challenging.

Take an exercise away from me, and

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Only the Strong Shall Survive

Model: John Hansen

I’ll dig around until I’ve found another. Quite often the substitute exercise is more productive than the one I left behind.

When the time comes to switch to a high-rep routine, you’re most likely training three days a week. Now you need to train more often. Why? Even though you may be spent after putting in an hour-plus session with lighter weights, it still isn’t as demanding as a lowrep workout. That’s because the intensity is much lower, which means your attachments weren’t as involved in the various exercises, and tendons and ligaments take much longer to recover than muscles. Since the higher-rep sessions help you recover faster and the overall workload is much lower, you need to put in more time with the weights if you really want to improve your strength and physique.

You’ll find that you can handle five or six days rather easily once you get into the flow of things. That affords you the opportunity to build a great deal of variety into your weekly program—a genuine plus as you’ll have time to hit bodyparts that you usually neglect. A few contend that they’d much rather train for a couple of hours three days a week than stretch that out over six days. That doesn’t work. I wish it did, but if you’re putting your full effort into every exercise, after an hour or an hour and 15 minutes you’re not going to derive much benefit from anything else you do.

The older body can’t handle a huge single-day workload but is more than capable of being trained moderately every day. And why not?

Your health and fitness should be your primary concern. What’s more important? If you’re still chasing the almighty dollar, you’ve got serious problems. What would you be doing on those off days? Most likely nothing physical, and that’s what should be happening. Thomas Jefferson wrote, “Give about two hours every day to exercise, for health must not be sacrificed to learning. A strong body makes a strong mind.”

I might add that health shouldn’t be sacrificed for any reason. Now you may be thinking, didn’t Tom say

The older body can’t handle a huge single-day workout but is more than capable of being trained moderately every day. two hours a day? Yes, he did, and in addition to your lifting program you should be doing another hour of some other kind of physical activity—flexibility exercises and some form of aerobics, for example. I’ll talk about that in next month’s installment of this series.

People who start a high-rep program think the workouts are going to be a great deal easier than the ones they used to do using heavy weights. Not true. In order for the routine to be useful, you have to push yourself. The final reps on every set should be demanding, and if you’re not tired when you finish, you need to increase your effort. On any exercise where I use ultrahigh reps, I’m blowing as if I’ve run a fast mile when I finish. That’s good. I want to involve my cardiovascularrespiratory system as much as possible.

You should be just a teeny bit sore the day after a workout—not aching sore but enough that you know the work you did hit the mark. Learn to be adaptive. For example, if you know that when you use a barbell for steep incline presses your bad shoulder is stressed far too much, try using dumbbells. If regular squats hurt, see if you can do lunges or perhaps squat with a wide or narrow stance. Avoid explosive movements. You don’t need them; static lifts will enable you to get strong without irritating your joints.

Most of what I’m saying is no more than common sense. Pay attention to what your body is

telling you, and you’ll be fine. I encourage older athletes to train at home, which gives them a great deal of freedom in scheduling their workouts. You don’t need much in the way of equipment: barbell, plates, dumbbells, situp station and a bench. You don’t even need a squat rack because you’re not going to be using really heavy weights.

Just clean the bar, flip it over your head, and fix it across your back.

Of course, if you have a rack, that’s even better, but it’s not critical to what you’re trying to accomplish.

At home you can work at your own pace and not have to wait for some piece of equipment to become available. You can try some new exercises and not have to be concerned if you make a fool of yourself. And since you have to provide your own motivation, you can be consistent with your training.

Weight work is just a part of the total picture when it comes to training an older body. Aerobic fitness, flexibility and balance are also vital—not forgetting weight control, diet and supplementation. I’ll cover them next time.

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—Strength Training for Football, which is available for $20 plus shipping from Home Gym Warehouse. Call (800) 447-0008, or visit www.Home-Gym .com. IM

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Mind/Body BOMBER BLAST

Knowing What I Know Now

W

hen I’m not frivolously occupied racing my NASCAR entry, traversing a tightrope over the Niagara or performing piano concerts abroad, you’ll find me in the gym attending to the development of my biceps, pectorals and latissimus. We all need a serious physical activity through which we can express ourselves, and what’s more expressive than weightlifting and building muscle? Thank goodness for the silent and still steel, poetically arranged and creatively accessible on the soul-saving gym floor.

Here’s the big bonus: The art of muscle building enables me to pursue my less significant aforementioned hobbies with ease. Having dutifully applied myself to my designated life’s work, I’m guilt-free in my trivial pursuits. Cool!

No cradle, the gym today, nor is it a battleground. A comfy place of recreation is out; I have no interest in conversation or socializing. Nor am I here to hide from the rest of the world—a refuge amid the chase—though I shall welcome the gym’s distance from the crowd this early afternoon. Today is a day of pure appreciation of the honest relationship between metal and man.

The two entities are emphatically different yet combine like seed and soil. The iron is cold and lifeless and dumb, and, though there are people we know who match the same description, humankind is warm and alive and intelligent. Put the two together, and, given the essential criteria, they become one: One pushes, the other pulls; one hoists, the other yields; one acts, the other reacts. Simpatico. Apart, neither is.

Today, knowing what I know now, I choose the best to produce the most—one exercise from each muscle group to take me most directly from the edge to the center of things. I want to savor the qualities of efficient barbell and dumbbell movements, taste the muscle’s action, pump and burn and revel in the finesse of iron-tomuscle engagement.

A workout isn’t something to grab and drag like a rag doll or go through like a turnstile or endure like the passing of a kidney stone. It’s another oncein-a-lifetime experience of being strong, growing, learning and becoming.

Think, focus and don’t

look away, I say. Be here now, I vow.

A succinct summary: Chest, back and shoulders followed by biceps and triceps has always been the most efficacious sequence of exercise for this lifter of barbells and dumbbells.

Legs and midsection join aerobic exercise on another day.

One step further: Chest calls for low-incline dumbbell presses, back demands one-arm dumbbell rows, shoulders require behind-the-neck presses, biceps scream for standing barbell curls, and triceps insist on either overhead or lying triceps extensions.

On the other end, legs, the rascals, will have nothing other than squats; the core and midsection settle for cable tucks (a.k.a. rope tucks); and aerobics mutter incoherently about supersets and walking, jogging and biking. You know what they say about aerobics: “*&^@v%$#*.” I’m teasing; aerobic exercise, like fertilizer in flower beds, is important for health and vitality.

Listing the movements for clarity, we have the following: low-incline dumbbell presses, one-arm dumbbell rows, front presses, standing barbell curls, lying triceps extensions, squats, rope tucks and walking or jogging.

Two sets of each prime movement serve as a reminder, three sets will arouse the muscles, four will pump you up, and five sets will produce maximum development—if you have serious bones in a well-equipped body seeking victory. Typically, I vary the reps from a meaningful warmup set to 12, 10, eight and six.

The prize package, neatly wrapped and presented with a ribbon and bow, isn’t exactly a surprise package. It’s like

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Neveux \ Model: Begovic_Binais

MIND/BODY MIND/BODY MIND/BODY MIND/BODY MIND/BODY MIND/BODY MIND/BODY MIND/BODY MIND/BODY MIND/BODY MIND/BODY MIND/BODY MIND/BODY MIND/BODY MIND/BOD

MIND/BODY

Prevention

Chill to Ill?

C

Neveux \ Model: Steve McLeod

getting a set of tires for Christmas—how personal—just what you always wanted. Somehow, somewhere, someway, you’ve seen and heard it all before.

Remember, these are my choices of the best of the best, a decision that comes from decades of training trial and error, hits and misses, aches and pains, imitating and copying and rejoicing. You can do the same thing with whatever level of experience, progress and understanding you have. Make your own choices and compare.

If I were a young fella, I might consider cleans and presses and deadlifts as raw contributors. I say that because some unbent wise guy out there has no doubt observed their conspicuous absence and is about to shoot blood from his eyeballs. Alas, I’m another day older and deeper in debt.

What’s that you say, sonny? Pass me my bifocals, I can’t hear ya—there, that’s better.

Scoff not, kids. Time goes by as we speak, according to the eternal plan...or somethin’ like that. My best response to consistent temporal encroachment is spluttering and waving my fists in the air—icing, heat, rest, ibuprofen, wraps, massage, release of trigger points and morphine.

The ultimate goal of the execution of these unextraordinary exercises, besides building muscle mass, density and power, is to joyously scrutinize, absorb, penetrate and devour each rep of every amazing set. Let’s call it the satisfaction of maximizing muscle engagement with the purest of barbell and dumbbell movements known to man.

I was intending to shift gears—throw it into overdrive—at this interval and call upon dramatics and vividness of imagination to convey the depth to which one must enter an exercise to extract its riches and apportion them to the body, mind and soul.

For example: Biceps know no better exercise than the standing barbell curl. When we’re talking barbells, it’s best when the bar is an Olympic bar. There’s magic in the long and hulking Oly bar as it goes up and down in its unwieldy fashion.

Me curl bar, me make biceps.

Of course, there’s a way to curl, and there’s a way to Curl.

I prefer to Curl when I curl. Strict concentration curls are nifty in the early stages of development and exercise discovery, but curls with a capital C are much more engaging. Why work the relatively small biceps muscle only when we can recruit a system of related muscles in the ever-loving process? Besides, biceps love companions when they’re hungry and blasting away.

Thus, I perform the exercise with a full range of motion from fully hanging to fully up and toward the shoulders and with a tad of well-timed body thrust. Thrust, not to be confused with cheating, is a fulfilling and gratifying action that enables you to handle a slightly heftier weight to effect a significantly heftier muscle overload. And what principle, besides gravity, is more important than muscle overload?

You see, bombers, it’s not in the exercise; it’s in the delivery and the deliverer.

My B-29 is idling on the runway ready for takeoff. See ya.

—Dave Draper

an going out into the cold make it easier to catch a cold? Not according to the April ’08 issue of Health magazine.

Most doctors say that getting a chill doesn’t reduce immunity unless you’re so cold that hypothermia sets in. People get more colds in the winter because they’re indoors more and exposed to other people’s viruses. Also, they’re not out in the sunshine, and that can lead to depression. Apparently, the blues may make you more susceptible to illness. According to researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, positive people have almost a 15 percent lower risk of catching a cold than sad folks.

—Becky Holman X-tremeLean.com

Lift for Life

Big Arms for Longevity

A

ccording to a new study reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, men who have the most muscle mass in their upper arms are about 35 percent less likely to die from any cause than men with less musclular arms. Perhaps muscular arms are just an indication of a fitter, healthier individual. The bottom line: Keep curling.

—Becky Holman X-tremeLean.com

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

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MIND/BODY BodySpace Physique of the Month

MIND/BODY

Nick Paniagua

Editor’s note: For more BodySpace bodies and info, visit Bodybuilding.com.

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Photography by Ian Sitren \ SecondFocus

N

ick Paniagua’s take on his healthful lifestyle is to “live, eat and breathe this stuff.” Paniagua is one of the most popular BodySpace members on Body Building.com and always in the top six of men’s profiles as “XNickEdgeX.” Nick is an IT analyst in Aliso Viejo, California. Only recently he was a skinny kid who always got picked on—that is, until he discovered iron. Now, after a little more than a year, he’s built some muscle and stays ripped. He’s taking his time packing on 30 more pounds, and he’s doing it by eating right and lifting as a drug-free athlete. No cheating.

He eats protein and moderate carbs and helps out his diet with protein powder and power-building supplements. He hasn’t had any alcohol in four years, though he admits that he does miss pizza.

Nick has another goal too. He’s going for his dream of becoming a professional fitness consultant, working with athletes in many sports, not just bodybuilding. He really likes the forums on BodyBuilding .com, as he’s able to find out almost anything he needs to know.

“I can ask a question,” he says, “and get back all kinds of good information.” He adds that it really makes him happy to be able to help others on BodySpace.com who ask him questions about how to get it done.

Check out Nick on BodySpace: http://bodyspace.bodybuilding .com/XNickEdgeX. Or you can just go to the BodySpace front page.

He’s always there among the top six guys.

—Ian Sitren

MIND/BODY Antiaging

The Creative Lifestyle

D

Farrally

o you want to add quality years to your life? Do daily creative work that’s challenging. Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin suggest that if you engage in creative tasks regularly, you can add about seven years to your life span. Challenging hobbies are a must as you age (photography?), or maybe taking a few college courses every semester or two will revitalize you.

—Becky Holman

Happiness

Attitude Altitude

I

Neveux

s it possible to force yourself to feel happier? Yes it is, according to research out of Wake Forest University in North Carolina. Scientists found that active behavior, like singing and dancing, boosts mood. Even laughing out loud or simply smiling for no reason can send your attitude skyward.

Are you seeing a connection to the popularity of karaoke here?

Singing, some dancing and lots of laughing out loud. Come to think of it, laughing out loud is a great ab exercise too.

—Becky Holman

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MIND/BODY Sustenance

MIND/BODY MIND/BODY

Bottled-Water Whoas

I

can leach chemicals into the water if the bottles get hot (like after they’ve been sitting in a hot car or outdoors in the sun).

as we think. Her points are worth pondering, considering that we drank more than 8 billion gallons of it in 2006. Check out some of the findings from her article: • More than 25 percent of bottled water comes from a public source— that means a municipal supply like the tap in your kitchen.

• In 1999 more than 1,000 bottles of 103 brands of water were tested, and at least one sample of onethird of the brands contained contaminants, including carcinogens, in amounts exceeding industry standards.

• In that same 1999 study, samples of two brands were contaminated with phthalates, a group of chemicals used in cosmetics and in the processing of plastics. Phthalates mimic hormones like estrogen and have been shown to cause birth defects.

• Many of the plastic bottles used

• Environmentalists, listen up: According to Todd Jarvis, Ph.D., associate director of the Institute for Water and Watersheds at Oregon State University, it takes about 72 billion gallons of water a year just to make the empty bottles. Fewer than 20 percent of those bottles ever make it to a second life, according to the Container Recycling Institute. (Most of them are on beaches, on the side of roads or in landfills.)

To top it off, tap water is better regulated and more thoroughly tested than bottled water. The Environmental Protection Agency regulates tap water, while the Food and Drug Administration is supposed to watch bottled water—but the FDA considers bottled water a lower risk than other things it must regulate, so it doesn’t make that big an effort. It leaves most of the testing up to the manufacturers.

—Becky Holman X-tremeLean.com

Neveux \ Model: Michael Semanoff

n “Rethink What You Drink” (Reader’s Digest, February ’08) Janet Majeski Jemmott explains why bottled water may not be as safe

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MIND/BODY Review

MIND/BODY

Russian Kettlebell Challenge

K

ettlebells have become popular training aids in recent years, both for all-kettlebell workouts and as adjuncts to more conventional weight-training equipment. With the handle perched above the ’bell, these liftable cannonballs provide a unique angle of pull for many exercises, such as presses and lateral raises. The Russian Kettlebell Challenge by Pavel Tsatsouline takes kettlebell work much further than just conventional training, however. Check out these blurbs from the press release: • Get really, really nasty—with a commando’s wiry strength, the explosive agility of a tiger and the stamina of a world-class iron man.

• Own the single best conditioning tool for killer sports like kickboxing, wrestling and football.

• Watch in amazement as high-rep

kettlebells let you hack the fat off your meat— without the dishonor of aerobics and dieting.

• Kick your fighting system into warp speed—with high-rep snatches and clean and jerks.

• Develop steel tendons and ligaments— and whiplash power to match.

• Effortlessly absorb ballistic shocks—and laugh as you shrug off the hardest hits your opponent can muster.

• Go ape on your enemies—with gorilla shoulders and tree-swinging traps.

Even if you’re not into kicking people’s asses, be assured that there are lots of great workout tips and exercises here too. It’s an interesting book worth a look. —Steve Holman Editor’s note: The Russian Kettlebell Challenge is available at Home-Gym.com.

www.Home-Gym.com

Best Sellers DVDs/Videos: 1) “Jay Cutler—One Step Closer” 2) “’07 IRON MAN Pro” 3) “Ronnie Coleman: Relentless” 4) “IRON MAN’s Swimsuit Spectacular #9”

Surge by IRON MAN Publishing 3) The Precontest Bible by Larry Pepe 4) The Russian Kettlebell Challenge by Pavel Tsatsouline 3) Ronnie Coleman’s Hardcore

5) “2007 Mr. Olympia” Top E-book: Books: 1) The 7-Minute Rotator Cuff Solution by Joseph Horrigan, D.C., and Jerry Robinson 2) 10-Week Size

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3D Muscle Building—Featuring Positions of Flexion and the 20-Pounds-of-Musclein-10-Weeks Program by Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson (available at 3DMuscleBuilding.com).

MIND/BODY Health and Aging

Alcohol and Sun May Prevent Aging

P

oisons, radiation and sunburn may all help reverse the aging process, it has been claimed. Small doses of “stressors” normally considered dangerous to health can actually boost the body’s self-repair system and, as a side effect, preserve youth, experts believe.

Stressors having that effect might include X-rays, alcohol or mild cases of sunburn. The phenomenon, called hormesis, was once dismissed by most scientists but is now being taken seriously.

In recent years hormesis has been shown to extend life span in yeast, fruit flies, worms and rodents. If the results of such studies also apply to people, it could extend the average human life span to 90, whereas average life spans in the United Kingdom are now around 75 for men and 80 for women.

Stressors seem to kick-start natural repair mechanisms, including the enzymes that patch up damaged DNA. As the repair systems fix damage normally caused by aging, the body is

rejuvenated.

The theory was described in a series of articles in the magazine New Scientist titled, “How to Live to 100...and Enjoy It.” The magazine says that there’s already indirect evidence that hormesis has positive effects on human life span.

Between 1980 and 1988, U.S. researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, tracked 28,000 nuclear-shipyard workers to study the effects of low doses of radiation.

To their surprise, they found the death rate of the workers was 24 percent lower than that of a comparison group of 32,500 shipyard workers who were not exposed to radiation.

Exercise and calorie restriction may both promote longevity, partly through the stress they cause, says New Scientist. In addition, some compounds with supposed anti-aging properties, such as vitamin E and melatonin, seemed to act hormetically in single-celled organisms.

They increased life span when taken in small doses but not large ones.

Adds New Scientist, “The big unanswered question is, At what dose does an otherwise harmful agent become beneficial? Clearly too much radiation or poison is bad for you. However, there may be a safe way to trick your body’s repair mechanisms into overdrive.”

Other tips for achieving a long life span included sociability, happiness, mental exercise and moving to a “longevity hot spot,” where the number of centenarians exceeds one in 10,000.

—Bob Goldman, M.D., Ph.D. www.WorldHealth.net

B.Miller

Editor’s note: For the latest information and research on health and aging, subscribe to the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine e-zine free at WorldHealth.net.

300 JULY 2008 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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Letters

Hot Hardbodies

Neveux

Jamie Eason.

Editor’s note: Well, um, the glutes are muscles, right? We’re pretty sure they were flexing them in those photos.

Goodin Is Good I work for R.A. Escobar, owner and director of Professional Fitness Trainer Association. I just read Dave Goodin’s column in the April ’08 IRON MAN, “To Use, or Not to Use?” He’s my new role model, and I hope that other readers take it to heart. I have worked out for some time and been tempted by steroids. I never took that “opportunity,” though. After reading Goodin’s article about how it takes time to put on muscle drugfree and his struggles to get where he is, I found new motivation to train. Most people want quick answers and results. It was a breath of fresh air to hear Dave’s take on it all and to see that I’m not alone in pursuing this goal.

Thanks for the motivation.

C.J. Woodruff via Internet Dave Goodin.

I want to express how much I appreciate Lonnie Teper’s support and kind words prior to and during the IRON MAN Pro. After the contest I reviewed the prejudging and finals online, and I heard L.T.’s comments. I was pleased and impressed with his introduction.

It brought back memories of the ’99 California Collegiates, and I suddenly realized how far I’d come since the first time Lonnie and I met.

Ray Arde Campbell, CA

Ray Arde.

Looking Good At 50!

When I saw the February ’08 IRON MAN, I cried. Not only did Mike [Neveux] do miracles making this old decrepit lady look pretty fantastic (if I do say so myself), but the article was so full and warm and simply incredible. I can’t thank IRON MAN enough for this wonderful birthday gift. It’s the best birthday present I’ve ever received. My kids are so delighted Cory Everson. to show the magazine to all their teachers and friends, and I will of course have one at all times in my car. In fact, if I get pulled over for speeding again, I’ll have that magazine in the front seat next to me to get me out of the ticket. Again, my greatest appreciation.

Cory Everson via Internet Neveux

I wanted to drop you a line to say that I applaud the superb Hardbody pictorials of Marzia Prince [March ’08] and Jamie Eason [April ’08], especially the shots on pages 289 and 293. It’s nice to see some ladies showing off their glutes.

J.D. LaFayette, LA

Erratum: The women’s track photo in April’s Only the Strong Shall Survive, page 301, was taken by Tony Duffy, Allsport; the athlete nearest the camera should have been identified as Sani Roseby of UCLA. Vol. 67, No. 7: 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 rates—U.S. and its possessions: new 12-issue subscription, $29.97. Canada, Mexico and other foreign subscriptions: 12 issues, $49.97 sent Second Class. Foreign orders must be in U.S. dollars. Send subscriptions to IRON MAN, 1701 Ives Ave., Oxnard, CA 93033. Or call 1-800-570-4766. Copyright © 2008. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced in any manner without written permission from the publisher. Printed in the USA.

304 JULY 2008 \ www.ironmanmagazine.com

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Merv

“Sting” Ray Raves

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